‘I bet you can’t picture me in my school shorts and cap either.’
‘I’d rather not, thanks.’
Cooper gestured at the hotel. ‘Is this where you’re staying?’
‘Oh. Yes. Come on in.’
‘So what brought this on suddenly, Diane? Has your Birmingham visit turned into a trip down Memory Lane?’
‘Sort of. I just keep noticing that other people seem to remember far more than I do. Their memories are clear, right down to the smallest details. I don’t know how they do that. For me, anything that happened more than ten years ago is just a blur. I’ve always taken the view that your memory can only hold a certain amount of information, so it gradually ditches all the old stuff that you don’t need any more.’
‘But there must be some things you remember.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Fry hesitated. ‘Yes, of course there are. A few things.’
‘No happy childhood memories? Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask…’
‘Considering the sort of childhood that I had? No. Well, I suppose you have happy memories of long summer holidays playing in the garden with your pet dog.’
‘Playing on the farm among the cows. But, otherwise, yes.’
When they were seated in the hotel lounge, Cooper looked around to see who was within earshot, reminding Fry too closely of Andy Kewley, whose body now lay in the mortuary.
‘Anyway, I’ve got some news,’ he said. ‘An old friend came up trumps and passed on some information.’
‘Yes?’
But Cooper jumped as someone walked up to their table. Fry looked up and saw Angie.
‘Well, look who it is,’ said Angie. ‘What a surprise.’
Diane couldn’t bear the smile on her sister’s face when she saw Cooper. Angie pulled up another chair and joined them at the table. She looked as though she might start questioning Cooper, or making some joke that only she would find funny. She had to prevent that.
‘Ben was just telling me that he had some information.’
‘Right.’
Cooper looked at her with one eyebrow raised, and she nodded. Angie had to be allowed in.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, apparently, the cold case team put all the evidence samples from your assault through the lab again for fresh DNA tests.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And, as a result, it seems they got a new hit — a familial DNA match.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Angie.
‘They widened the search criteria on the national database. Although they didn’t find a direct match to the person who left the scene of crime sample, they identified a family member.’
‘Wait a minute. That means a close relative who was already on the database.’
‘Yes. Probably someone who’d been arrested at some time. A CJ sample taken from a buccal swab. They didn’t even necessarily have to be charged, let alone convicted. They would still be on the database.’
‘It could be an innocent person, then.’
‘Well, maybe.’
Fry knew the DNA database had its own internal algorithms for identifying immediate relatives on the basis of similar profiles. A one-off speculative search approach was used for conducting familial searches, which could throw up parents, siblings, or offspring. This type of search could be used to pursue two lines of enquiry — the identity of an individual who could be a sibling of the offender, or the identity of the offender’s parent or child.
Some time in the not too distant future, she expected that a DNA profile of someone arrested could be statistically linked to more and more relatives like uncles, aunts, cousins, many of whom would not have been arrested.
‘So who was traced by the familial match?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper.
‘Was it Shepherd, or Barnes?’
‘It doesn’t seem to have been either of them.’
‘What? It must have been one or the other. A familial match means either Shepherd or Barnes has a father or brother on the database — that’s what happened, surely?’
‘It seems not, Diane.’
‘But theirs was the only DNA recovered from the scene. Unless…’
Cooper nodded. ‘Yes. The new series of tests produced a third DNA profile. Techniques have improved a lot over the last few years. Analysis is much more sensitive now.’
‘A third person at the scene,’ said Fry. ‘A third person.’
Her mind re-ran that confused memory — a figure crouching over her, with a different feel and smell. There was no other way she could disentangle that one recollection from the rest, because it was caught up in the overwhelming flood of sensations — the pain and shock, and fear, the vicious sharpness of the gravel, the bite of the barbed-wire fence, the suffocating darkness.
She had always known there were other figures in the background. She had seen their shadows in the streetlights, heard their voices in the dark. But a third taking part in the attack? Well, there could have been. A third member of the gang, drawn into the assault, urged on by the others. A third person leaving his DNA.
‘A familial match could still mean they linked the third person to Shepherd or Barnes.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘It could have been that. Those are all the details I’ve got so far on the DNA evidence. I’m sorry it isn’t more, Diane.’
‘No, that’s great. You’ve done really well, Ben.’
Angie looked sideways at Cooper before turning to her sister. ‘Did you leave that file in your room, Di? Is it safe?’
‘I left a “Do not disturb” sign on the door.’
‘By the way, I have these, too,’ said Cooper.
He produced the PNC print-outs for Marcus Shepherd and Darren Barnes, with all their details — addresses, dates of birth, ethnicity codes, criminal records. There was also a photograph of Tanya Spiers, obtained from the police computer system. She was the witness who claimed to have known both the suspects, and heard them boasting at a club.
‘Why was she on the PNC?’ asked Fry.
‘She was arrested at some time for soliciting, and outraging public decency,’ he said. ‘Actually, I feel sorry for her.’
‘Why?’
‘She looks as if she’s gone through a lot of tragedy in her life. It’s her eyes — they’re very sad.’
Angie laughed. ‘No, Ben. It’s too much crack and vodka that makes your eyes look this way.’
Cooper lowered his head, as if embarrassed by Angie’s laughter.
‘So what’s next?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ agreed Angie. ‘That’s a good question. What’s next?’
Diane gazed out of the hotel windows at the fountains splashing in the square, and the office workers moving backwards and forwards in front of 3 Brindleyplace.
‘Andy Kewley was killed because he knew something, and was about to give it away,’ she said. ‘And, if Andy was right, there’s one person central to all this. His name is William Leeson.’
22
It had begun to rain by the time they got to Digbeth. Warm, summer rain — but heavy enough to make pedestrians run for cover.
The entrance to the sprawling Custard Factory arts complex was hidden away opposite the Peugeot dealer on the Bull Ring Trading Estate. An ancient half-timbered pub stood by the traffic lights on the corner of Heath Mill
