Lee Weeks - Dead of Winter

Harding sat back down. Davidson elevated his voice a notch and fixed his eyes on each member of the team in turn.

‘Our lines of enquiry will follow these paths: get the deeds and trace the owner. Find out who Chichester is. We estimate that he has been out of the house for two weeks. Not a lot was happening in those two weeks. The snow brought the whole of the UK to a standstill. Where did he go? Get out into the village of Totteridge and ask questions about who lived in the house. Post a manned mobile unit at the end of the lane where it meets the main road and talk to passersby. We need to find out if there was a phone line in and see what that throws up. Trace the utility bills, council tax, TV licence, everything. The postman, the local canvassing politician. Anyone that might have visited this property. Someone must have knocked on the door for some reason. Right now we have a lot of groundwork to do. Missing Persons. Is there a record of a pregnant woman attending the local hospital? Does she have another child somewhere? If we find out who the victims were then we can find out why they were killed and by whom . We will be bringing cadaver dogs and thermal-imaging equipment in.’ Davidson wrapped things up. ‘Carter, can I have you in my office please?’

Trevor Bishop checked his watch again; he knew he was late for the meeting but he was still working on the prints he’d found. He loaded the last print from the master bedroom at Blackdown Barn onto his PC for scanning and cross-matching. It was a thumb, forefinger and partial palm print that he’d lifted from the bottom of the windowpane. Someone had tried to open the sash window. It had been newly painted at the time and must have been hard to shift. Someone had tried really hard. It was a great print to find. It was the best one of the night.

He sat back in his chair and took off his glasses; they sprang off his face and clattered on the desktop: unbreakable, the optician said. He couldn’t help giving them a little test every day. He could leave the computer to do its job now. One print collided with another and separated. The program scrolled through its data. Ninety ridges, bifurcations and relative locations: ninety points of similarity and the match would be made. Of course the skill would come in evaluating any calluses, dirt, cracks or scars, but first he had to let the computer do its work. He checked his watch again: bugger . He hated being late. He sat back and looked at his screensaver of Stonehenge. Somewhere inside, a zillion cross-matches were being verified: the database was being checked in cyberland and it would take as long as it would take.

Five more minutes and Trevor was about to leave it and go. He hovered the mouse over Stonehenge, ready to click the ‘shut down’ button, and then he saw it. . the computer told him there was a positive result.

He drew his chair back to the monitor and watched the match take place. On the left of the screen was the print from Blackdown Barn; on the right was the one matching, its fingers splayed, the forefinger and palm the clearest. The one on the right printed in blood. He shook his head as he sat back in his chair and rocked to and fro. In front of him the match confirmed. He remembered it well. Had it really been thirteen years ago?

Rose Cottage: Lydd Road, Camber Sands 17 May 1998.

The first officer on the scene had walked into a house of blood and butchery: one woman in the lounge, her naked body split open from her chest downwards; in the kitchen another woman. . the same. Upstairs, a little girl’s arterial blood dripped from the ceiling in the bedroom, her throat cut. The first officer at the scene was Callum Carmichael. The woman in the kitchen was his wife Louise; the little girl upstairs was his daughter Sophie.

Carter followed Harding into Davidson’s office. Harding sat in a chair by the window, beneath the framed portrait of Davidson meeting a retired Prime Minister. Davidson turned to see Bishop walking in behind them.

‘Trevor? You didn’t make the meeting?’

‘Sorry, got delayed. But it was worth it.’ He closed the door behind him. Davidson sat down behind his desk. Bishop put two A4 printouts on Davidson’s desk next to one another. ‘Let me show you. I ran a check on a print I found last night in Blackdown Barn. See the points highlighted in yellow? It’s a perfect match to one from a cold case.’

Davidson smiled. ‘Great result, Trevor. What was the cold case?’

‘This one-’ Bishop tapped his finger on the print to Davidson’s left, ‘was found at Blackdown Barn. And this one?’ He looked up at Davidson. ‘Found next to the body of four-year-old Sophie Carmichael thirteen years ago.’

Carter was struggling with the name for a few seconds before the realization crossed his face and he turned to Trevor. ‘Sophie Carmichael? As in Inspector Callum Carmichael?’

Trevor nodded. Harding said nothing. She was watching Davidson’s reaction as he bent over the prints and his hands gripped the edge of the desk. Carter looked around at the others. His eyes rested on Harding. She was still watching Davidson. He could see that she needed no reminding about the case. But then, he knew she had been there. She’d been the pathologist then. Davidson looked up after what seemed ages. He had composed himself a little.

‘Do you have a name for me, Trevor?’

‘No, sir. But there is no doubt.’

‘There was someone in the frame for it at the time, wasn’t there, sir?’ Carter looked at Trevor and then Davidson. There seemed to be an awkward silence. Davidson didn’t answer; he looked deep in thought. The room had become charged, poised. Trevor answered.

‘Maria Newton. She was the mother of the other woman murdered in the cottage along with Carmichael’s wife Louise. Her name was Chrissie Newton. She was there with her baby son Adam who survived the attack. Maria Newton died before we could take her prints, two weeks after her daughter was murdered.’

‘Shall we allocate officers from the team to reopen the case, sir?’ Carter asked. Davidson still didn’t answer. He continued studying each photo in turn as if hoping to find a discrepancy in the match; but he couldn’t. He glanced Harding’s way. She stared back at Davidson but gave nothing away. She knew, more than anyone else in the room, what this news meant to him: not a great opportunity to clear up a cold case, especially one that he had failed to crack first time round. It meant his failings would be under scrutiny again.

‘No. Not at this present time. Not until we have something more to go on. We don’t have a name. We only have a match. We can’t spread our resources too thin. We don’t have the money to chase up a cold case at the moment. We are stretched to the limit already.’

‘Sir?’ Carter waited. Bishop wasn’t hurrying to put the prints away. Everyone was waiting. ‘This is a hell of an opportunity, sir.’

‘Maybe. . maybe.’

‘Sir?’ Carter looked confused. Harding and Bishop said nothing.

‘I will not be rushed into a decision. I need time to consider the implications of this. Before I am ready to reopen the Carmichael case I want to know what we are letting ourselves in for.’ He looked around the room. No one was moving, everyone waiting for him to say more. He sat back in his chair. ‘You forget I was the SIO then too. We took on the case because we felt we owed it to a fellow MET officer to handle the case within the MET. I thought I was taking on a fellow officer’s case and we would come out of it getting justice for him, but we didn’t. We came out of it with two women and a child brutally murdered and seemingly the only person who could have done it was him. We came out of that case with more questions than we went in with.’