Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

The doctor who attended the scene pointed to a crescent-shaped imprint behind the Adam's apple of the strangled one, who happened to be David.

He'd been killed by a karate grip to the throat. It's easy enough you just strike out and grab the other fellow's windpipe. He stands there, arms and legs free, but so paralysed with pain he can't do a thing about it. An agonising death follows if you don't release him. David's bulging eyes and lolling tongue were testimony to the effectiveness of the hold.

"That's where his thumbnail dug in," the doctor said, pointing at the scarlet arc. Ever since then my first glimpse of the new moon had resurrected the ghost of David Ho.

"In that case," I declared, 'there's a thumbprint just behind it."

The doctor looked at me as if he were examining the contents of a bedpan. "Skin on skin," he sniffed. "You're wasting your time."

When the SOCO and the photographer arrived I gave strict instructions that nobody else was to enter the room. We'd just started using super glue in fingerprint work. Something in the fumes given off by the glue reacts with the constituents of the dab to leave a white deposit. It's called polymerisation, but I don't think anybody fully understands why it works. The SOCO shook his head but agreed to give it a try. Trouble was, you're supposed to place the object in question, usually a knife or a gun, in a fume cabinet. We were talking about a human head, still attached to the body. I took the biggest plastic bag we had and pulled it over David's head. The SOCO put the glue inside and I sealed the bag as best I could with Sellotape. It wasn't pleasant work. The photographer stood by with his array of fluorescent lights. Images often show up better under ultra violet.

We waited and watched, half expecting the bag to steam up with the products of respiration, but it didn't. Across the room a bluebottle buzzed around the bloody head of Michael Ho.

Periodically SOCO looked inside and renewed the glue. The photographer tried his various lights and took some 'before' pictures. We were breaking every rule in the Health and Safety at Work handbook. We should have been wearing protective goggles, breathing apparatus, and diving suits. I closed my eyes when he used the ultra violet.

It didn't work.

I said: "There's a print behind that mark, and I want it. What can we try next?"

"Ninhydrin?"

"OK. Give him a squirt."

"It'll turn him pink."

"He won't mind."

"What will the pathologist think?"

"Scarlet fever? Give him a squirt."

Ninhydrin comes in an aerosol, and reacts with blood as well as the amino acids and proteins found in fingerprints. The SOCO sprayed some on David's neck. Splatter from the aerosol fell on to his unblinking eyeball. I turned away.

SOCO said it would work better if it was warmer, so we switched on the three-kilowatt electric fire that the room boasted. As the temperature rose, so too did the smell of blood. He was wrong about the colour it turned the body purple.

We were looking for a transitional stage. Hopefully the spray would react with the prints before it reacted with the skin of the deceased.

It seemed a long shot. The photographer took some more 'before' pictures.

"There's something there!" SOCO gasped, offering me his magnifying glass.

I shook my head. "Just get it on film."

We were locked in that obscene room for over two hours, but next morning I had on my desk a picture of a fragment of a fingerprint.

Others didn't believe it, but I was convinced. The skin of the fingers and hands is characterised by the ridges that create prints, but the rest of our skin is relatively smooth. I highlighted the lines with my pencil, producing what I suppose was an artist's impression. In fingerprint jargon it was only part of a whorl, with a fork and a lake nearby, but it was a start.

I drew a quarter-mile-radius circle around the Hos' flat and we listed every small business within it. Everyone, that is, who might be a victim of their protection racket. We checked criminal records and fingerprinted those who had stayed clear of the law. We found plenty of whorls, forks and lakes, but none were in exactly the same relationship as those we were looking for. It would never be enough to make a conviction, but it could point us in the right direction.

I expanded the circle. And again. And again. At two miles it encompassed six sheep farms, ten derelict mills, a Yorkshire Water reservoir and the Fighting Fit Health Club, owned by a certain Donald Purley. He had a criminal record for dealing in drugs, mainly steroids, and the print of his right thumb matched our picture.

We raided his flat and club at seven a.m. one Wednesday morning. A pair of trousers were newly dry-cleaned, but still had blood in the fibres. In a wardrobe was a pair of snazzy shoes with brass tips on the toes and heels. They shone like a choirboy's face, but a stick-on sole was coming away slightly at the toe, and under it we found a hair that had once grown on Michael Ho's head. Later, two people ID'd him as coming down the stairs from the flat at the time of the killings. We had him.

On tape and in court he protested his innocence. Off the record, when I was alone with him, he swaggered and bragged that we'd never make it stick. We did, for fifteen years.

But he should still be in jail. I dialled the number for Bentley prison and asked to be put through to records. I didn't know which prison he was in, but they were computerised. A convict keeps his number throughout his sentence, and it moves around with him.

"Do you know his date of birth, sir?" asked the female warder.

"No, I'm afraid not. He's not a teenager, though." I gave her a rough guess.

"Sorry, sir. We don't have a Donald Purley at all."

"You must have. He was a lifer. Should have about four years still to go. Maybe he died."

"Let me check."

Another phone was ringing in the background as I waited.

"Found him, sir. Donald Purley, DOB seven, nine, fifty-three."

"That sounds like him. Where is he?"

"He was released, sir, nearly three years ago."

"Released! Does it say why?"

"Compassionate grounds. Presumably he was terminally ill."

"Oh. Is there a release address?"

"No. It just says: "Released into the supervision of Heckley Probation Service."

"Right. Thanks. I'll contact them. Could you give me another release address, please?"

"We'll try. What name?"

"Eddie Grant."

He'd moved to Leeds. I wrote the address next to his name on my list and rang Heckley Probation Office.

"Good Morning. Could I speak to Gavin Smith, please?" I asked.

"Mr. Smith is off sick. Would you like to speak to anyone else?"

"Yes, someone who might know about a lifer out on licence."

"I'll put you through to Mrs. Pettit. Who's calling, please?"

"Inspector Priest, Heckley CID."

Mrs. Pettit came straight on. "Yes, Inspector. How can I help you?"

"I need to know the whereabouts of a lifer who was released into your custody. Donald Purley. Can somebody fill me in about him?"

"Don Purley. Can I ask why you need to know?"

Probation officers are very protective towards their clients, but I had a right to know. It was just a matter of being patient. "I'm conducting an enquiry, and his name is in the frame."

"In that case," she said, somewhat haughtily, "I suggest you take him out of the frame. I was his supervising officer. Don Purley died less than a month after he was released."

"Oh. What did he die of?"

"Tuberculosis and pneumonia."

"Right. Thank you."

"Goodbye." Click. Have a nice day, Mrs. Pettit. I replaced the handset.

TB, often called consumption. Once one of mankind's great killers, it has largely been eradicated by improved sanitation and the discovery of antibiotics. As standards of living rose, the incidence of the disease fell away. But now it was with us again, and our prisons were often where it chose to make its comeback. I ruled a line through the top entry on my list. That left two naps and seven also-rans.