Dan Waddell: Blood Atonement

Foster stopped at a small chest of drawers. The top drawer was filled with underwear. He closed it quickly.

Clothes were crammed hugger-mugger in the second and third drawers. He was about to close the third when his eyes caught sight of the corner of a thick black exercise book beneath a T-shirt. He pulled it out carefully with the thumb and forefinger of his gloved hand -- the scene was still being processed -- and immediately felt his heart beat a little faster. He opened the front page. It was her diary for the second half of that year, from late July onwards, all written in legible clear-blue pen. He pulled the chair out from beneath her desk and sat down.

The late summer entries were filled with the usual mundanities and worries of a teenage girl's mind. Feuds with friends, thoughts about boys, fears about her appearance; there was little to suggest that Naomi Buckingham's preoccupations were any different from other girls of her age. Various phrases, acronyms and abbreviations puzzled him but he was able to keep up with the main gist. He skipped a month or so and started reading the entries for the weeks preceding the murder of her mother and her own disappearance. One extract, exactly two weeks before the murder, caught his eye.

Mum continues to be T. Pissed every time I come back. Gets embarrassing espec when got back from night out with T and L and they saw her. OMG, She was so gone, could hardly speak, sluring plus everything. This morning no mention before I went school but she looked like shit. When I got back she said she was going to order pizza and making lotsa fuss, like she knew she totally O.o. order. Still didn't stop her putting away best part of a bottle afterwards though. . .

Two days later and her mother was the subject of another entry.

Really worried by Mum. She seems so unhappy. Last night I swore I heard cryingafter she'd gone to bed. Was going to go in and ask what wrong. Didn't. This morning I asked if everything was Ok and she gave me a big smile and "yeh". Why shouldn't it be? but it must have registered, Cos when I got back from L's and a couple of glasses red had loosened her up she said "Don't worry about me love" Then said she was fine really. But, that life was a bit tough, no work, feeling a bit sorry for herself, but she'd come out of it. We put a date in for lunch on Saturday at Tate Modern, which'll be nice, because she never seems to go out. Used to have lots of friends but she never sees them now. I worry about her even though she says not to because sometimes she looks V sad.

A week on, 4 days before the murder and there seemed to have been an improvement.

Mum defo seems better, glad to say. Not seem her drink all week. Not even seen any boose in the house, which is a first. And how about this? I offered to make her coffee and she says "No, I'm off it" wanted peppermint tea instead!!! OMG!!! This from Mrs Caffeine, has someone beemed down replacement Mum from planet Zog? Seems brighter and smilier though, a bit distant. Can't have met a man, Cos she not been out in years. Maybe the chance of some work? I hope so. Prefer this clean living body is a temple Mum to pissed, sluring can't get out of bed version.

The last entry, the night before her disappearance, looked forward to her birthday - Foster could not prevent himself smiling at the words 'OMGl 14! Feel so old!' - and the skating trip to celebrate it. Nothing else.

He closed the diary, rendered doleful by reading the words of a vivacious teenage girl, her whole life before her, who now probably lay dead in a ditch, the mother she appeared to care for so much murdered.

'Life sucks,' he muttered to himself.

'Tell me something I don't know.'

He looked up. Heather. She'd sneaked in unnoticed.

She was staring at the exercise book.

'The missing girl's diary,' he explained.

'Anything of interest?'

He shrugged. 'Don't know. Seems like Katie Drake was a bit of a lush, but at some time in the last few weeks of her life had a Damascene conversion and went teetotal.'

'Think it's relevant?'

'Could be, I suppose. In her diary, Naomi speculates it might be work-related. Have we spoken to her agent?'

Andy Drinkwater's done it, yeah. Said apart from one voice-over she hasn't had any work for the best part of a year, and none pending.'

'So much for that theory'

A bloke?'

'Naomi's diary appears to rule that out, too. Said she hadn't been out in years. I'm assuming she's employing teenage hyperbole.'

It was Heather's turn to shrug. 'It could be that she simply decided to clean up her act.'

'You may be right. Have they tracked down the next of kin?'

'She was adopted. Unofficially, probably by family or friends, Barnes thinks.'

Barnes? he thought. She'd always referred to him as Nigel. He'd been aware that the pair of them had something going on, not that he cared. There had been enough things for him to worry about -- like walking without agony -- without worrying whether the two of them were going to swap body fluids. They clearly hadn't. Or not for long, at least. Foster had heard she'd shacked up with an old flame, a copper from Murder South. Might explain why she seemed a bit different since he'd returned to work.

More passive, less feisty.

'How was he?' he asked

'OK.' A smile played on her lips. 'He's doing the pilot for some TV show. About digging up the dead.'

'Who's interested in watching that?' he sneered.

'You really don't watch TV much these days, do you, sir?' Heather said.

He shrugged and turned back to the window. The street below was closed, silent and empty. They had knocked on almost every door within a mile radius. So far, they had one lead, a white van seen entering the street around four o'clock the previous afternoon by two independent witnesses, who both watched it pull up somewhere near the Drake house. Neither had seen it go and so far they had no other witnesses who saw it leave. A team was spooling through hours of CCTV coverage to see if there was any sight of it. But the clock was ticking and each second that passed reduced the chance of Naomi Buckingham being found alive.

The smell in the morgue had not changed, Foster thought, as he and Heather made their way to the post mortem suite that evening. The stench of death always won through the masking scent of deodorizer and disinfectant.

He'd not missed this place: the tiled floor that echoed every footstep; the sterile, gleaming stainless-steel equipment; the unnerving quiet; and the cold that eventually seeped into your soul. But it was here he hoped the hunt for Katie Drake's killer and her daughter's abductor might begin in earnest.

Inside, a technician was preparing to stitch Katie Drake's corpse back together. Edward Carlisle signalled for him to hold on as he took the two detectives through what he'd discovered.

'The cause of death was asphyxiation,' the pathologist told them.

'She was strangled first?' Foster replied, unable to hide his surprise.

Carlisle nodded gravely. 'Without doubt,' he said. He gestured towards the woman's neck. 'In situ, the wound and blood from it hid a light ligature mark on her neck, but you can clearly see it above the cut.'

Foster leaned in and noticed a faint red weal above the gaping wound across the neck.

'The hyoid bone is broken and there is severe damage to the thyroid and cricoid cartilage. The assailant was very strong, almost certainly a man.'

At the very least that ruled out any notion that Naomi Buckingham had been physically responsible for her mother's murder, Foster thought.

'The ligature wound, as I mentioned earlier, is not too severe, so I would guess it was made of soft material, perhaps a towel or scarf

Foster guessed the killer might have removed the evidence, but made a note to tell forensics to examine every item of clothing and material in the house.