Michael Fowler - Cold Death

Before leaving work he’d asked Mike Sampson and Tony Bullars, the other two members of his team, to make a start on the vehicle owner checks. The information he and Grace had got from Kerri-Ann Bairstow had given the enquiry fresh impetus. Not only had she provided them with a partial index number of a Volkswagon Golf, but through further unrelenting questioning by Grace, they had eventually gleaned that the white van was a Renault Kango make and Kerri-Ann felt confident it was a 53 plate — registered in 2003. They had certainly been glad that the sex worker had developed a system of storing descriptions of people and vehicles to memory as her stock-in-trade method for her own personal safety.

It was a real boost and the investigative machinery had been cranked up as a result. The HOLMES team had submitted the Golf’s partial registration number to The Vehicle Licensing Centre at Swansea for a search. At the same time they had extracted the names of all the local owners of Renault vans and tracking them down was the fresh focus of the MIT teams.

Barry Newstead had been given new CCTV work — to scrutinise town centre footage, especially around the bus station, and also identify and flag up any white vans seen around the country park, including searching through stills obtained from speed site cameras.

The enquiry was slowly, but surely, beginning to pick up pace.

* * * * *

Hunter had arranged to meet the Chronicle reporter, Zita Davies, in a coffee shop which was tucked away inside a ladies high-end fashion shop on the High Street. When Zita had confirmed the location the previous afternoon he’d had to double-check the address back with her, such had been his surprise upon hearing the name of the venue. He had passed the shop so many times over the years, in fact he knew that it was one of Grace’s frequent shopping haunts, and yet he had never realised a cafe existed there. He was even more surprised at what greeted him, as he ambled past the racks of ladies clothes to make his way to the back of the shop. The retail part opened up to a bright and airy Bistro style cafe, furnished in a contemporary style, and he noted that original artwork adorned the soft cream walls — though the contemporary painting style was not to his taste.

Zita was waiting for him. She had taken a small round table tucked into a corner of the room. She was wearing a white cotton shirt tucked into a pair of jeans and her shoulder length flaxen coloured hair was tied back accentuating her high cheekbones.

He pulled back a chair, slipped off his jacket, hung it over the back and seated himself opposite.

“I’ve ordered a pot of tea for us. It is tea you drink isn’t it?” She flashed him a welcoming smile. “I’ve already told them that I’m just waiting for someone and to serve it when you come in. Is that okay? I know you said on the phone you could only spare an hour.”

“Yeah thanks Zita, that’s fine.” He told her about going up to Wetherby and his reason for going.

“Oh wow that’s cool. You will let me have an early look at the results won’t you?”

“I’ll be getting some photo’s done of it so I’ll get one of those across to you as soon as they land on my desk.”

“I appreciate that. Anyway how are things with you?”

He was just about to speak when he became conscious of a shadow falling across the table. He checked to his left and saw a young girl dressed in black sidling towards them. It was the waitress. She was carrying a tray of cups and the pot of tea Zita had ordered. He watched as she set it down in the centre of their table and he acknowledged her with a smile before she spun away.

He picked up one of the cups and locked on to Zita’s hazel eyes. A hint of peacock blue mascara lined them; it was the only make-up she wore.

“When you say, how are things with you? I’m guessing you don’t really mean in my personal life. You really want to know how the investigation is going don’t you?”

She held up her hands in a show of surrender. “There’s no flies on you Hunter Kerr. I guess that’s why you’re a detective.” She flashed another bright smile. “Are there any new leads?”

“We have one lead Zita but it’s in the very early stages. In fact the team are following it up this morning. If it comes to anything you know I’ll give you a call.”

Hunter watched as she took her eyes from him and drifted them to the teapot. She lifted the lid, glanced inside and then picked up a spoon and began stirring the contents.

“Will it lead to the killer?”

“I honestly don’t know. We only came across the information two days ago and as I say the team are out there following it up.”

“Is there nothing you can give me for our next edition?”

Hunter pursed his lips. “Do you know Zita we still don’t know who the victim is. We don’t even know where or when she was killed. All we know is that whoever killed her wrapped her up in a rug and dumped her in the lake. We’re obviously going through the routine stuff to try and identify her, but locally there’s no report of anyone roughly matching her description as missing, so we don’t even know if she’s a local woman or not.”

“Nothing to identify her then?”

Hunter shook his head. “Nothing. I’m hoping that the facial reconstruction will help do that. And as I’ve said, once I get some photo’s done you are first on my list to get a copy.”

She replaced the lid on the teapot and poured some tea into Hunter’s cup. “Well I might be able to help you out in return.” She poured herself a cup.

“You mean identify her?”

“Maybe. When I got the info regarding the murder, especially that the victim was maybe Asian, I made a few phone calls to some of my contacts. One of those contacts is a woman who runs an Asian women’s refuge across in Sheffield. I’ve done a few stories in the past about domestic violence and this lady provided me a couple of horror stories which affected Asian women. Anyway she told me that recently a couple of young girls had approached the refuge for support and one in particular had made arrangements to stay there but had then failed to turn up and had not contacted her since. She told me she had tried the girl’s mobile several times but it was always switched off.”

Zita raised her cup to her mouth and Hunter fixed her gaze.

“It may be nothing Hunter but it’s obviously concerned the woman who runs the refuge enough to mention it to me.”

“And it’s certainly enough for me to raise an enquiry and check it out. Can you give me her details?”

“Can I hold back on them a couple of days Hunter? I haven’t told the woman I was going to have this conversation and I don’t want to betray her trust. I’ll need to get back to her and arrange something for you. I’m sure she’ll be alright because she does deal a lot with the police, but just to make sure, if you know what I mean.”

“No problem Zita. It’s good of you to tell me. And anyway if it comes up trumps you can splash it across the headlines how the Chronicle helped with the murder enquiry.”

She fixed him another smile.

As he finished his tea Hunter back-tracked on the information which had already been widely fed to the media and deflected a number of her probing questions regarding the latest lead.

“You can’t blame me for trying,” she said on more than one occasion as he shook his head at her.

Thirty five minutes later Hunter was following her out of the fashion-shop-cum-cafe and waving her off in her car, she promising that she would get back to him with the details of the name and contact number of the woman who ran the Asian refuge, and he promising he would get photo’s of the facial reconstruction to her as soon as they were developed.