Peter Robinson - When the Music's Over

Despite the extensive recording equipment, Gerry busied herself taking notes. Annie suspected she was doing it partly to take her mind off what was happening, distancing herself, becoming a fly on the wall. It seemed to be working, as she showed no obvious reaction to anything Karen or Dr Glendenning said or did.

‘And I’d like to add,’ Dr Glendenning went on, ‘that I also agree about cause of death. We’ve sent blood samples to toxicology, of course, and we’ll be sending stomach contents and anything else we can find once we’ve got her opened up. I imagine we’ll find a nasty mess inside, but it’s my opinion that the blows — kicks, judging by the patterns — were the direct cause of death. The girl was severely beaten. Severely. I’ve not seen such a vicious attack in a long time. The damage to the head alone could have caused death, but it also appears that several of her ribs were broken, and one of them could easily have pierced her heart or lung.’

‘Footwear patterns?’ Annie asked. ‘From the shoes or boots.’

‘A definite possibility,’ Dr Glendenning granted. ‘But don’t hold your breath. Such impressions would be vague and hardly likely to ensure a conviction. Unless there are unique elements, of course.’

‘Hate crime?’ suggested Annie.

‘Someone certainly hated her.’

‘Or hated women,’ said Karen.

‘Whether that was the actual motive,’ Dr Glendenning went on, ‘I can’t honestly say.’

Annie knew that Dr Glendenning wouldn’t be drawn on motive. In her experience, the presence of such a high degree of violence was linked to hate crimes or crimes involving partners. ‘You always hurt the one you love’ was a lot truer than the songwriters could have guessed. Such overkill could also be linked to crimes in which someone had been taught a lesson. Excessive violence served as an example and a warning to others and was common in gang-related crimes. It was unlikely, in Annie’s experience, that the girl had been killed by a passing stranger, unless they were dealing with a violent psychopath, and such creatures were thankfully rare. An artist’s impression of the girl without facial injuries would be appearing in the newspapers and on TV soon. Once they knew who she was, they could start questioning her family, friends and acquaintances, and Annie was willing to bet it wouldn’t take long to find out who had done this. But they had to identify her first.

Dr Glendenning finished examining the girl’s fingernails. ‘She bit them to the quicks,’ he said. ‘Not a trace of anything.’

‘How old would you say she was?’ Annie asked.

‘Fifteen or sixteen,’ Karen answered. ‘We can perform some more scientific checks later — testing the carbon levels in her eyes, for example — but going by height, shape, skin, bone structure and general appearance, I’d be surprised if she were older than sixteen.’

‘And Karen is very good with ages,’ said Dr Glendenning. ‘If I believed in it, I’d say she has a sixth sense for such things.’ Dr Glendenning went on to examine the surface of the skin, where the girl, it was now clear to see, had several tattoos, including a butterfly on the top of her left breast and a heart above her shaved pubic area. She also had a birthmark on the inside of her right thigh. Gerry made sketches and noted the locations, as they would help in identification. He lifted up her left hand to show them the white criss-cross marks on her wrist.

‘Scars,’ he said. ‘Self-harm, by the looks of it. Perhaps a suicide attempt. More likely a cry for help. She’d never succeed doing it that way. You need to cut along the vein, not across it.’

‘Thanks for that advice,’ said Annie. ‘I’ll remember it. Any idea how old?’

‘The slash marks?’ Dr Glendenning studied them more closely. ‘Hard to say. Not recent, though.’

When Dr Glendenning turned the body over to examine the back, they discovered that she also had a tattoo shaped like a whale’s tail, the kind one often saw on girls wearing low-rise jeans and midriff-baring tops. Her back was covered in dark bruises and Annie imagined she could even see where ribs had been broken. Without the dirt and dried mud, the parts that weren’t bruised looked so pale.

‘No needle marks as far I can see,’ said Dr Glendenning. ‘And I think we would be able to see them now if she had them.’

Gerry wobbled a bit when Dr Glendenning and Karen began their examination of the girl’s private parts, but she managed to hold on. Finally Dr Glendenning put down his speculum and moved away. ‘There’s evidence of serious sexual abuse,’ he said. ‘Both vaginal and anal. Also of recent sexual activity. It appears the abuser didn’t wear a condom. Karen’s taking swabs, and we’ll get them analysed for traces of DNA as soon as possible. The poor girl wasn’t in the water for very long, it seems, which is fortunate for us.’

‘We think she was still conscious then,’ Annie said. ‘She managed to drag herself out as soon as she landed and stagger some distance.’

When they had finished with their examinations of the exterior and private parts, Karen placed the body block, a rubber brick, the kind Annie remembered diving for at the bottom of the pool for her life-saving bronze medal, under the girl’s back, to raise the front of her body for internal examination, and Dr Glendenning picked up his scalpel to begin the Y incision.

Annie glanced at Gerry, who had turned a bit pale, but was still holding her own. When the front of the body was open, exposing the glistening inner organs, the smell got worse, despite the Vicks, and Dr Glendenning and Karen exchanged serious expressions before going on. Even at a cursory glance, Annie could tell that things were not right inside. Not right at all.

When Banks and Winsome arrived at the gates of Xanadu, Danny Caxton’s palatial spread on a promontory between Whitby and Redcar, it was the early afternoon of another beautiful summer’s day. Banks had spent most of the morning setting up the mechanics of the investigation, trying to make sure he overlooked nothing. He had also arranged for checks into Caxton’s connection with any hospitals, care homes, schools and charities — anywhere he might have been likely to find vulnerable victims and people with a vested interest in keeping things quiet. The TV companies he had worked with also had to be fully investigated, including everyone who had worked with him on Do Your Own Thing! and as many of the young performers and invited audience members as possible. It wasn’t exactly Top of the Pops but Banks imagined it would have provided plenty of opportunities for indulgence on Caxton’s part. Preliminary checks had shown that he had always stayed at the same hotel in London when he was down there for recording. It was an out-of-the-way place, not especially convenient for the TV studios, and not exactly up to the level of luxury one might have expected for a man as wealthy as Caxton. These were all keys to finding more complainants: places, networks, groups, routes, access.

When witnesses or accusers were found, their testimony had to be validated. Dates, times, places and so on all had to be checked, photographic records uncovered if they existed. At the time, Caxton had been ‘untouchable’ and that feeling could have made him careless, led him to make mistakes. Priorities for Banks after Caxton and his ex-wife were finding the ‘witness’ and trying to discover what had happened to the original investigation, or lack of one. When he got going on all that, he knew, leads would start popping up all over the place, many of them red herrings, all needing to be thoroughly checked out. He could only interview the major players with Winsome; he would have to leave the rest to the team he had been allotted.