‘Morning, m’dears. So, dental records are back, ID confirmed, no surprises there.’ She holds up a file. ‘Hell of a surprise from the post-mortem, though.’ I look at Parnell, who gives a small ‘told you so’ nod. ‘Got the results late last night.’
‘Holly Kemp was shot in the head,’ interrupts Blake, his flat, officious tone neutralising the sudden lightning–bolt energy. ‘No bullet or casings were retrieved from the skull or the scene, so she was either shot elsewhere and dumped in the Caxton field, or over the course of six years, a wild animal, maybe a fox, a squirrel, a rat, made off with them.’ I aim a childish grin at Parnell, amused by the image. ‘What we have is a close-range, small-calibre gunshot wound just above her left ear, about a quarter of an inch and . . .’
‘And what doesn’t need saying . . .’ Steele breaks Blake’s stride, ‘is that this is obviously very different to Christopher Masters’ other victims. Her hyoid bone wasn’t fractured either, which doesn’t rule out strangulation, but it was present in the others.’
‘Why bother strangling when you’ve got a gun?’ Flowers is sensitive to the last.
‘But a bullet to the head is clinical, impersonal,’ I say, trying to get my head around the news.
‘Not Masters’ style at all,’ adds Parnell.
Blake ignores us, bringing things back on script. ‘So adding this to the markedly different burial site, we’re presented with something of a situation. A rather shit situ-ation, if I’m frank.’ Suppressed smiles all round. ‘And this is why I’ve formally asked Chief Inspector Steele to look into Holly Kemp’s case again. We need to be seen to be considering all options.’
‘To be seen’ tells you everything you need to know about Blake. About his love of PR. His pathological obsession with the all-important ‘optics’.
‘Um, just to say, she wasn’t actually buried, sir.’ Yes, I’m being facetious but I’m also being factual. ‘She was hidden. Well hidden.’
‘Which suggests her killer didn’t have the time or strength to dig a hole and bury her,’ says Parnell.
Her killer. Not Masters. With one piece of news, no longer a given.
At least, not for Parnell, anyway. Swaines lands a fist on Masters’ photo. ‘Well, there you go. This guy looks like he’d have trouble digging a sandcastle, never mind a grave.’
DC Craig Cooke, a little defensive, probably on account of not exactly being Mr Muscle himself, warns, ‘Don’t be fooled, mate. He was a tradesman, a grafter, he renovated houses. That means being on your feet all day, carting stuff in and out of the place. He might not have been Arnie, but I bet he was fit.’
Renée Akwa agrees. ‘Fit enough to overpower three women and dump them in Dulwich Woods.’
‘Yeah, three naked women. Holly wasn’t naked.’ I look over at Steele, reminding her that I said this yesterday.
Blake presses on, not comfortable with the ad-libbing, the back-and-forth. ‘OK, so let me be clear about something. Very clear. We are not suggesting that Christopher Masters wasn’t responsible for Holly Kemp’s death. There was a solid witness ID, remember? Someone who put Holly with Masters immediately before she vanished. However, with the story due to break, we have to make sure we’re covering all bases.’
‘Covering our arses,’ murmurs Flowers.
Steele’s eyes flash, and if she heard it, Blake heard it. Not that Flowers will care particularly. Solid copper that he is, he doesn’t have much ambition beyond a pat on the head and a token annual payrise.
Blake’s reaching the crescendo of his speech. ‘Chief Inspector Steele will be making a statement to the media very shortly, simply stating that we’re reviewing all evidence in light of finding Holly’s remains. We’re holding off on releasing the cause of death for as long as we can, though, citing investigative purposes.’ He shifts from foot to foot. ‘Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you all that with current staffing levels, we can do without chasing our tails on this one. We’re implementing a full review because we have to, but the best result all round will be to prove a link to Christopher Masters so that we can put this to bed for good. Get closure for Holly’s family.’
‘Foster families,’ I correct.
Blake obviously hasn’t read her Social Services file, but I have. Seven a.m. this morning, with my picnic plate on my lap, I’d buried myself in ‘The Ballad of Holly Kemp’, the story of a girl with no luck and no roots. Dad dead from a motorcycle accident before she turned ten. Mum dead twelve months later from an overdose/broken heart. A brief mention of an aunt who had neither the space nor the inclination to take her in.
‘Sir . . .’ Steele looks anxious, nodding to the clock on the back wall, ‘not that we’re trying to get rid of you, but didn’t you say you were due at The Yard at 10 a.m.?’
That clock has been fast since I joined MIT4. It does the trick, though. He leaves.
Steele waits until she hears the lift closing, then, ‘Oh, shoot me. He’s been here for nearly two hours and he was getting on my tits after one. Anyway, it’ll give him extra time to sculpt his chest hair, or whatever it is that impresses them so much over there.’
Flowers’ voice is peak-gruff. ‘So now he’s gone, can we just say it?’
Steele beams. ‘Say what, Pete, my little beacon of positivity?’
‘The ice queen, Dyer. Her lot did a shoddy job. Took this witness as gospel and lumped Holly in with the others.’
I’m not quite sure what Dyer did to deserve the ‘ice queen’ mantle, other than bleach her hair white-blonde and be less peppy than Steele.
‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ I say, calm and even – Flowers doesn’t need an excuse to accuse me of being whiny. ‘Six years later, she can still rattle off facts, dates, even bloody CCTV timings. That case meant a lot.’
Parnell nods. ‘I’m with Cat. Maybe Holly got kicked into the long grass eventually, but it happens. Things slide when there’s no family pushing for answers, year in, year out. Doesn’t mean she ran a shoddy investigation.’
I look to Steele, expecting agreement, but in its place, there’s discomfort. Apprehension, even. She takes a seat at DC Emily Beck’s vacant desk, saying nothing at first. Picking up perfumes and spraying them, straightening papers, biding time. Putting off the inevitable, although I haven’t a clue what the inevitable is.
‘Look, there’s a few things you all need to be aware of. Things King of the Gloss-Job, Blake, neglected to mention. And this goes no further than these four walls, I mean it.’ A communal nod, every ear pricked. ‘OK, so the different dump site, the different method of killing, they’re both new anomalies. But there’s always been anomalies in Holly Kemp’s case. Her DNA was never found at 6 Valentine Street for a start.’
I’d read this but hadn’t broken too much of a sweat. ‘Every contact leaves a trace’ is great for putting the wind up suspects, but it’s not infallible. It’s much harder to leave DNA than the cop shows would have you believe.
‘Also, no pay-as-you-go number was found in Holly’s phone records.’