Michael Fowler - Cold Death

He took a step back away from the large TV screen and pressed the remote. A section of the interior of the huge shopping mall flickered onto the forty-eight inch screen.

“Okay this is where we first pick up Samia.” He pointed to the television using the remote and homed in on a young, pretty, dark haired Asian woman strolling through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s store and out through the entranceway, which gives access to the mall. The murder squad detectives were quickly glued to the pictures playing out over the TV. They witnessed Samia weave her way through a throng of seated people centred round an open plan coffee lounge and then take up a place at an empty table. “You’ll see at the bottom right is the time and date of the footage; the fourteenth of March — a good six months ago. I’ll fast forward it a bit.” He flicked a button on the hand-held and then used the remote to point out another woman joining Samia at the table. “That’s Nahida Perveen. I’ll not go any further but I can tell you they have coffee and are obviously in conversation for about twenty five minutes and then Samia leaves and makes her way back into Marks and Sparks before heading off onto the train.” Barry clicked the remote again. “Okay this is the second piece of footage. We jump forward to the twenty-eighth of July.”

Again images played out of Samia walking through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s and out towards the coffee lounge by its entranceway. On this occasion Nahida was already at a table and Samia joined her. Barry speeded up the footage showing Samia handing over a red knapsack and then froze the picture. He turned to Hunter. “I think this is the same knapsack in which you found Samia’s clothing and passport, is it not?”

Hunter nodded.

“Okay there’s not much conversation on this occasion,” Barry increased the speed of the footage for a few seconds then hit the play button. “They’re only together for approximately ten minutes and as you can see they split up and leave.” Barry froze the DVD once again, pulled his eyes away from the screen and scanned the room. He had the attention of every detective. “Now this next bit is very interesting,” he continued, clicking the remote back into play mode.

All eyes in the room watched Samia travel the escalator to the first floor of Marks and Spencer’s, stride through the aisles and leave through the exit doors. At one stage it looked as though she was heading for the ramp to the train station, but then changed direction towards the car park and she also appeared to be continuously glancing behind her.

“At this stage, like you, I was wondering why she was looking around as much as she was so I pulled up footage from other cameras and I found this.” He clicked the remote again, changing the image. The shots were back inside Marks and Spencer.

The picture zoomed in and a grainy image of an Asian male, mid to late twenties, dressed in white t-shirt and jeans, came into focus. He was dodging from one rack of clothing to another clearly acting suspiciously.

“As I pan the shot out you can now see that this guy is following Samia and I’m guessing because of her reaction she has sussed this. Okay I’ll play it out a bit more.”

The picture juddered for a split-second and then the drama was back on. Samia was picking up her pace slipping between parked cars. In the background, visible but out of focus, the Asian man took something out of his pocket and put it to his ear.

“He’s on his mobile.”

The team watched Samia taking a final look in the direction of the Asian man before dashing into one of the glass-encased stairwells, which gave access to the ground floor car park.

“And finally this,” exclaimed Barry. The image changed again to a low-lit underground car park. The view was wider and longer, taking in a considerable amount of the car park, but the action being played out was clearly unmistakeable. Samia sprinted out of the stairwell like a chased rabbit, looking back over her shoulder. From out of nowhere, in fact a blur at first to the right of the screen, another Asian man, taller and much stockier than the first, steamed into her as if she was on a rugby field, bowling her over onto the concrete floor. He was on top of her in a split-second, straddling her prostrate body, one hand covering her mouth to prevent her crying out and the other in a clenched fist pummelling her upper torso. Seconds later the man who had been initially following her emerged from the stairwell at considerable pace, slipped on a wet patch at the bottom of the stairs, caught himself, re-balanced, and joined in the attack. It was all over in thirty seconds. Samia’s body quickly slumped under the onslaught. The stocky man pushed himself off her and then sprinted away out of camera view, whilst the first Asian man stood over her looking around, but there was no one else in sight. Less than a minute later a white van entered the picture and pulled directly across Samia blocking the cameras view. Barry gazed over the room. He could see that all eyes were fixed; the detectives seemed unable to pull themselves away from the scenes unfolding before them. He turned back to the screen in time to see the two Asian men bundling Samia’s limp figure towards the rear of the van. As if she was a rag doll they slung her into the back. The doors were slammed shut, both men jumped into the front of the van and then it was tearing away.

“All that took less than three minutes,” Barry told them. “The last footage I have is this.” He ran the picture. It was a short snippet of the white van heading towards the exit of the ground floor car park, at the point before it entered the major road system around the Meadowhall Centre. Barry freeze-framed the close-up image, which was obviously below the security camera. Clearly visible were the faces of the two Asian men who had attacked and abducted Samia.

The eyes of the murder squad darted between the e-fit images on the incident board and the TV screen — there was no doubting that the facial features were an exact likeness. Just as important was the index number on the front number plate of the van — it was the same registration as that on the VR 12 vehicle document which had been recovered from the Hassans.

DAY TWENTY EIGHT: 20th September.

Barnwell:

Clicking the remote ‘stop’ button Hunter stood transfixed beside the large TV monitor at the front of the incident room; it had not yet been removed from the department. It had been the third time he had watched the attack and abduction of Samia.

He shook his head as the later, violent images played out again inside his head. He couldn’t help but cringe as he thought about the sheer brutality, which had been meted out to her. Samia was such a slight young woman. She’d not resisted or put up a fight and yet those two men had beaten her mercilessly and tossed her into the back of the van like she had been a sack of rubbish. He also reflected upon what Grace had told him from her attendance at Samia’s post mortem; of the catalogue of injuries inflicted upon her and the violation she had suffered prior to her death.

What he’d like to do to those two bastards.

As he shook himself out of his reverie he found himself trying to squeeze the very life out of the plastic TV remote. He found himself flushing as he glanced around, hoping no one had noticed as he set it back down on the trolley.

Hunter made his way back to his desk, dropped down onto his chair and began to immerse himself in the paperwork which had accumulated over the past couple of days; the majority of it was written off ‘actions’ or reports as a result of his team’s footwork and foraging. As he pored over their content he recounted what they had learned to date.