Lee Weeks: Dead of Winter

Ebony looked across at Carter. It occurred to Ebony that Jeanie didn’t know that Cabrina had gone back to live with her parents. Carter looked her way and winked. She smiled back. He went back to focusing on the paperwork on his desk. Ebony’s eyes settled on the wall behind him where there was one of several white boards around the walls of the ETO. The one behind Carter was divided into columns with the name of the investigation, the team, the date it commenced. Unsolved and current murder enquiries stayed on the board. Blackdown Barn was already up there. At the very top of the list was a case nobody in MIT17 had been allowed to forget. It was the Carmichael case; the time when a policeman’s family was murdered.

The ETO was filling up with officers all coming in for the initial meeting about Blackdown Barn. Ebony leant forward to see the corridor outside. Doctor Harding was easy to recognize — short, thin and blonde. Unmistakeable, the way she stood with her legs apart, stretching the limits of her size six pencil skirt. Harding had the reputation for being a ball-buster. She was a difficult one to fathom. There was something about her that Ebony liked, her toughness maybe, her enthusiasm for her work. She worked hard and played hard. But she was known to be ruthless in her professional and private life. She collected other people’s husbands like pairs of shoes. Someone else was there. By the way Harding was looking up as she talked, Ebony guessed it was Superintendent Davidson, the six foot four head of their department.

The door opened and Harding came in. She went to the far side of the room and sat down ready to be called on as one of the experts. She crossed her slim legs, the top one twitching as she stared straight ahead, apparently lost in her own thoughts.

Carter got to his feet and walked over to Ebony’s desk.

‘You ready to address the meeting, Ebb?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘Only joking. I wouldn’t be that mean, would I, Jeanie?’

Jeanie nodded and mouthed, ‘Oh yes.’ She was listening to the woman on the other end of the phone explain why she couldn’t help. ‘Thanks for nothing.’ She put the phone down. ‘Just ignore him.’ She made a face at Carter and shook her head, pretending to be cross.

Carter grinned. ‘She loves me really.’

He turned to watch Davidson close the door behind him and stand waiting for the last rumble of conversation to evaporate. Carter went back to his desk. Davidson’s voice boomed over the heads of the officers.

‘Last night, at a house near Totteridge a gardener uncovered a grave that contained a woman and her infant child. DC Ebony Willis and Sergeant Dan Carter were the first detectives at the scene. Sergeant?’ He handed over to Carter. Carter had remained standing. He pinned a map up on the notice board behind him.

‘They were buried under a patio at a house in Totteridge, about eight miles northwest of here. For those of you who don’t know the area, it’s a picturesque village with farmland around it. This house is down a country lane off the main A5109 road which runs east to west. As its name would suggest, Blackdown Barn is an old barn conversion. So far we know little about who was supposed to be living there. The house appears to be empty, recently vacated. It looks likely they left two weeks ago. We know there is someone named Mr Chichester from letters in the mailbox. We’ll find out all we can today when we get hold of the deeds to the house and trace the owner. We started house-to-house in the area this morning, hoping to catch people before they headed off to work. So far most people have told us that this is a rented property and that the owner lives in the Channel Islands.’

Carter clicked on the ‘play’ button on his laptop and a virtual tour of Blackdown Barn came on screen.

‘The house itself has five bedrooms upstairs and a further one in the basement. We’ll know more when we get hold of the owner of the house and find out what furniture is his. This house could potentially house many more, but if we’re just going by the number of beds, must be five people at least.’

The master bedroom came onto the screen and Carter paused the video. ‘Whoever was living there didn’t leave in a hurry. They cleaned up thoroughly before they left. Most fixtures and fittings are still there and the beds have been taken away for DNA analysis. This room, the master bedroom overlooking the front of the house, is the exception. This room is different to the others. It has no carpet or curtains, the bed’s gone but there’s evidence of a single one having been in there.’ The video continued through the house and down into the cellar. He paused it when it came to the small room off the wine cellar.

‘There was an extra bedroom down here.’ He allowed the film to run on before pausing it again with the view of the interior of the room. ‘There’s a camp bed down there which we don’t think would take the weight of the pregnant woman but we’ll wait for the DNA results. It’s certainly not a place someone would choose to sleep. It’s cold and damp. Under the bed we found a scrap of red material that we believe to be a piece of an Arsenal football shirt, attached to the springs.’

The video switched to an outside view.

‘There is evidence of a large van having been sat on the driveway and it was there for some time. We’re having a mould taken of the imprint. Maybe they used that to transport things from the house. As we follow the film around to the back of the property we find the gravesite.’

Carter passed over to Harding: ‘Doctor Harding certified the remains and carried out post-mortems on the two victims.’

Harding stood and opened her notes. She took over the video control from Carter.

‘If you want to open the email I sent you you’ll get the photos from the burial site and the autopsy.’

Ebony was already looking at the dismembered remains on her screen. She flipped back to the burial site and the woman’s body in the grave.

‘A woman, Caucasian. Until we can identify her I’ve given her the name Silvia. Silvia was approximately five foot four, in her mid-twenties. She was buried a metre and a half below the surface of the patio. Buried face up. The manner in which she was laid out was not a haphazard act: she was placed rather than thrown. The body has been dismembered at the major joints using a power tool, probably a small hand-held circular saw. The edges are uniform; bone splintering is minimal. It’s a neat job. Very tidy. Initial soil analysis surrounding the body shows that this was probably done in situ . Small fragments of bone were found in the surrounding soil. We will have an accurate date for burial after larvae tests are carried out but I estimate she’s been in the ground five months. She was buried in summer. We found traces of bramble pollen.’

Harding moved to the next image in which the body had been washed and laid out on the mortuary slab.

‘Strong athletic build: well nourished. No previous fractures. She has a large contusion over the left eye which looks like it maybe have also been a friction burn. I have sent the skin from the area away for analysis.’ A photo of the torso came on screen. ‘Silvia has been extensively mutilated internally. She was opened up down the centre of the torso from sternum to pubic bone. Decomposition of the torso prevents us from recovering her organs or stomach contents.’

A slideshow of the autopsy shots came on screen.

‘Apart from the facial injury she doesn’t appear to have any other obvious wounds, was well fed and would have most probably been able to carry her baby to full term. She was killed shortly after giving birth by Caesarean section.’ Harding paused the slide-show at the photo of the baby. ‘Her baby is female, approximately thirty-six weeks. I have named her Fi. She was delivered but her airways were not cleared. Fi never took a breath. In all other ways the baby appeared to be perfectly healthy although a few weeks early. Fi wasn’t Silvia’s first child.’