good people of Waterloo.
‘A word in private?’ Laurie said eventually.
Ellen nodded, first arranging for a female constable to take Alysha to the canteen. Alysha went submissively, still vague, inattentive and unaware of the situation she was in. Laurie Jarrett watched her receding back with an expression of grief and tenderness. He caught Ellen’s glance as they re-entered her office. ‘Some slight brain damage at birth.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? Was it your fault?’
Ellen gazed at the man. Again she had an impression of powerful feelings barely kept in check, and again she felt compulsion and repulsion. He was an attractive man, finely put together. ‘I have a daughter,’ she said.
‘Yeah, but is she a victim?’
Ellen found herself telling Jarrett that Larrayne had been abducted several years earlier. Challis would have told her that you never shared personal heartaches and vulnerabilities with the bad guys, so why was she doing it? To impress Jarrett? Get closer to him? Get him on side?
He listened attentively. ‘Fair enough,’ was all he said at the end, and she sensed that he wouldn’t use the information against her.
‘Laurie, Alysha was abused by Neville Clode. Clode was attacked in his home on Saturday night. Did you attack him, or order it done?’
‘No. Poor guy. Remind me to send him some flowers.’
‘You can’t take the law into your own hands,’ Ellen said, hearing the foolishness of the words in this context.
‘Then what are reasonable people expected to do when the law fails them?’ asked Jarrett mildly.
Ellen blinked. Jarrett went on: ‘You think I’m stupid, uneducated?’
‘No, I don’t think that.’
He smiled at her tiredly. ‘The law did not protect my daughter eighteen months ago.’
‘I agree. We should have done more at the time. But-’
‘As far as the police are concerned, the Jarretts are scum. Kellock and van Alphen as good as told me that Alysha was a liar, a manipulator. You saw her. Did she strike you that way?’
‘No.’
‘She kept going back to Clode because he gave her money, cigarettes, clothing, CDs.’
‘Did you try to stop her?’
‘Yes. As far as I knew she’d stopped seeing him. When you phoned asking me to bring her in, I questioned her. She told me she’d started seeing him again.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘No. She can be stubborn that way. I assumed she wanted the presents he gave her.’
‘Laurie, you’ll have to monitor her. Meanwhile I want you to stay away from Clode.’
‘Wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole.’
Ellen cocked her head. ‘Why didn’t you do anything about him eighteen months ago?’
‘I was in prison. Armed robbery.’
‘You could have ordered it done.’
Jarrett merely watched her, but she could see his mind working, as though he wondered what his family had been up to back then. His head was shapely. The light caught the fine blades of his cheeks. He smirked, destroying the effect. ‘Laurie Jarrett calling Sergeant Destry…Are you receiving me, over?’
Ellen scowled. She pushed down with her palms as if to rise from her desk. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll-’
‘What about Kellock and van Alphen?’
‘What about them?’
‘Dinosaurs, aren’t they? Time they were pensioned off?’
‘Are you making a threat against them, Laurie?’
‘I don’t know. Am I?’
His face belied the words and tone, for he looked sad and empty. His gaze went to the bullet graze on her neck, and his fingers to his own neck. ‘You were lucky,’ he said softly.
She touched the scar. ‘Thank you.’
When he was gone, she began working on a warrant to arrest Clode and search his house. By themselves, Alysha’s allegations would be difficult to substantiate, the word of a simple-minded child, further undermined by the lack of admissible evidence, the reputation of the Jarretts and the recommendations of that earlier investigation. But taken together with the discovery of Clode’s DNA at De Soto Lane, the scene of Katie Blasko’s abuse…
Her elation was short-lived. Before taking the paperwork a step further, she called Riggs at the ForenZics lab.
‘Actually, I was going to call you,’ he said.
‘About?’
Riggs was apologetic. ‘That DNA match.’
Her skin crept. ‘What about it?’
‘It turns out we already have the guy’s blood sample here in the lab.’
‘So? You said he was in the system.’
‘Yes, but as a victim. He’s not in Crimtrac. Another sample of his blood had been sent to us before the one found with the girl, what’s her name, Katie Blasko.’
‘You have a victim sample for Clode?’
‘An aggravated burglary.’
Ellen closed her eyes, opened them again. Scobie Sutton must have taken samples at Clode’s house and forwarded them to the lab. Why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t she anticipated that? She had to keep on an even keel. ‘Okay, so you have that sample. But you also have his DNA from the Katie Blasko scene, right? That’s how we know he was there-he’d been a victim in an unrelated incident. I don’t see the problem. He either abducted Katie Blasko and held her for several days while he raped and photographed her, or someone else abducted her and he was invited to join in. Katie told me that a small dog had been present. It attacked one or more of the men who were abusing her. That might account for the blood.’
Riggs was silent. ‘It’s our procedures,’ he offered finally.
Ellen went cold. She understood at once. ‘You’re saying the evidence is contaminated.’
‘I can’t…we don’t…what I mean is…’
‘Spit it out,’ she snarled.
‘We had several blood samples come in from several jurisdictions and agencies over a short period of time,’ said Riggs in a whining rush. ‘We’re overworked and understaffed.’ He paused, coughed. ‘Unfortunately victim blood samples were somehow stored with suspect and offender blood samples. If this comes to court, we’re not in a position to say for certain which Clode sample is which, or even that there are two separate samples.’ He coughed again. ‘Procedures weren’t followed.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Riggs. ‘If it helps, I don’t think there was a mixup in this particular instance, and there’s the presence of mucus in the sample, possibly from a nosebleed, but we’ve had a few stuffups in the past couple of years, and a good lawyer will cast doubt on our procedures in this case. We can’t lie on the witness stand.’
Ellen’s head pounded. A few stuffups? Now this stuffup. ‘I have nothing but contempt for you,’ she said.
‘There’s no need to be like that.’
Wanting to lash out further, Ellen tracked van Alphen and Kellock down to the sergeants’ lounge.
‘If not for you two clowns, we could have arrested Neville Clode eighteen months ago and Katie Blasko’s abuse need never have happened.’
She was rigid in the doorway. Kellock turned his massive head to her slowly, then back to his newspaper, which was spread open on a coffee table. He flicked slowly through the pages, stopping at the crossword. He
