‘How’s it going with the press, sir?’ she asked.
‘All the information we want out there is out. As discussed we have left out the bit about the superglue. I just hope someone comes forward with something. I got an update from Annie just before heading here. Corporate Communications can confirm that a few calls have come in and they’re being looked into. If anything comes of those calls, uniform will report straight to us and we can get onto it.’ He paused. ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about the other night. Maybe we could do something together soon.’
She placed her finger to her lips. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled as she spoke over him. There was a look on his face, like he was faraway.
‘No one can hear,’ he whispered as he pointed at the board.
The chatter turned to a quiet hum, then silence.
‘Right, gather round.’ Gina leaned over the desk and smiled at Bernard. ‘I know you need to get off as soon as you can and I appreciate you coming given your workload is so huge. Can you please go first?’
Bernard nodded and opened the brown paper file that lay flat on the desk in front of him. ‘As you know, the post-mortem happened earlier today. DC Wyre was present throughout and we spoke after. I’ll start with the stab wound to the chest. Her heart was pierced and the wound is six inches deep. The blade used was not serrated and the thickness of the knife was four millimetres. That would mean we’d expect a lot of blood at the scene where she was killed. From the nail samples, we found some skin cells and there were enough to obtain DNA. It didn’t belong to the victim so I’m surmising that she fought with her attacker at one point.’
Wyre nodded, confirming that fact. ‘No matches have been found to those we have on the database.’
Gina picked her dry lip. ‘So we are looking for someone without a record.’
Bernard continued. ‘The cause of death was the stab wound to her heart. She did not drown. There was no presence of diatoms from the lake in her body and the state of her lungs wasn’t consistent with drowning.’ He flicked to another page and held up a line drawing of a body sitting with elevated feet in a chair with shading of the buttocks, thighs and calves. ‘I mentioned this when I saw the body at the lake. Lividity – this shows the position she would have been in at the time of death. It looks like she was sitting in a chair with her feet elevated.’ He grabbed a pen and drew black lines across the neck, wrists and ankles on the picture. ‘Ligature wounds show that she was restrained in these places. Then there were the marks on the sides of her mouth. She’d been gagged too at some point.’
‘And talk us through the superglue residue on her lips.’ Gina turned to look at the boards.
‘Our tests are conclusive. The superglue residue that was left is layered on top of the wounds on her mouth suggesting that she was first gagged, then the gag was removed and then her lips were superglued together. There’s something else.’
The room went silent.
‘A minute strand of green fibre found in her nose, just the tiniest strand.’
Jacob dropped his pen on the table. ‘Any sign of sexual assault?’
‘There was no evidence of sexual assault or rape.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ll move on to the scene at the lake. After going over it again, we found what looks like a drag mark on the verge at the back of the car park and traces of blood, but the drag mark completely vanishes, suggesting that the perpetrator lifted the body up. We have loads of footprints and partial footprints, all over-trodden by others including dogs and birds. With the thaw, we couldn’t take a clear mould of any. Same with tyre tracks leading in and out. So many people had been there and parked after, the evidence has literally been trampled on but we will keep going through it. No weapon was found at the scene after an extensive search by us in the immediate surroundings and uniform over the wider area.’ He paused again as he tried to read his messy writing. ‘I estimate that the body had been in the water from the time of midnight to three in the morning of Monday the twenty-fifth of January but this is just an estimate based on water temperature during the early hours.’ He checked his watch.
Gina knew time was clocking on and she wanted Bernard back on the case without delay. ‘Can you tell us what forensics found at Amber Slater’s flat on Bulmore Drive and the car park?’
He stroked his neat beard and clenched his teeth momentarily. ‘The pills that you bagged were definitely MDMA. There were also a lot of prints to work through but nothing that matched to the database. No sign of blood. She wasn’t killed there. As for the flat itself, it was secure. The windows were locked and the door lock hadn’t been tampered with and that goes for the main door to the block too. Due to staff shortages, we’re going to have to go back to do a deeper search so I’ll keep you updated. The victim’s father is happy for us to go back. It definitely wasn’t the scene of the crime. As for the car park, apart from the bit of pink material that was found out there we didn’t find anything else that was directly linked to Amber Slater. There’s evidence bags full of litter and cigarette butts, which we’re still working through. It’s going to be a mammoth task. All bins in the vicinity were checked for the murder weapon but again, no knives or blades were found. I will have to keep you updated on that. There are eighteen bags of rubbish to sift through. In fact, I’m heading back in a minute to help Keith, Jennifer and the team. It’s going to be a long night. I can’t yet confirm how the covers for the two street lamps were smashed but it could have been a rock or a brick, something had been thrown at them until they shattered. They are the old-fashioned type with the large bulbs which are in keeping with the older part of Cleevesford.’
Gina took a step back and glanced at Amber’s photo on the board, the one of her alive and looking well. Then she glanced at her waxy body on the shore of the lake and shivered. ‘Thanks, Bernard. Anything else that will help us right now?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that I can think of but I will email you my full report when I’ve finished it. Obviously what I’ve just said is only a brief summary. We’re not finished processing everything from the known scenes but as I find out anything, I will let you know in real time and then after, you’ll have my detailed report.’ The man rubbed his eyes and yawned.
‘Thank you. I won’t keep you any longer.’
He smiled and packed his notes back into the file and stood. ‘Back to work it is and thanks for the food.’ He gave a little wave as he left with a tuna sub under his arm.
Gina underlined the word CCTV on the board. ‘Have we found anything useful on the CCTV we’ve obtained or from the door-to-doors?’
Wyre rubbed her hands together to warm them. ‘I’ve been collating all that information, guv. We already know that Amber didn’t make it to the Fish and Anchor and she didn’t get on the bus. Uniform conducted the door-to-doors in the area and it appears that no one saw anything or anyone who was out of place. She lives in a large converted house that is set back behind trees, which would have worked to the killer’s advantage. We have managed to gather a bit of private CCTV from some of the houses on the main road but the images are poor. We’re working on it at the moment. I’ll keep you updated.’
‘Good work. If we can get any registration numbers – any one of those cars could have had Amber in them.’
‘I have seen a bit, guv. That might be wishful thinking.’
Gina ticked CCTV off her list. ‘Persons of interest.’ She turned to the board and pointed to the list of names. ‘Top of the list, we have the Collinses, that’s Clayton Collins and Mrs Collins. Jacob, will you please follow up on her statement and head over to Tesco for the CCTV footage. It’s only a small thing but I want to confirm how true her statement is. She claims to have been at the main Cleevesford Tesco at ten in the morning on Saturday and that she and her husband were together all weekend. I want to know if she was there and if he was with her. Get the car park footage too. Whoever did this to Amber would have needed a lot of time over the weekend. They took her on Friday, she turned up dead on the Monday morning. What did they do with her all weekend? We know she was restrained and held against her will.’
Jacob leaned back. ‘I’ll do that before heading home.’
Gina glanced up at the list again. ‘Other people I want you to keep in your minds at the moment – Otis Norton, the man who found the body. Again, what was he doing at the lake? He also claimed to have seen someone suspicious hanging around. Any follow ups on that?’
O’Connor lifted his head up, his round chin red at the bottom like he’d shaved too closely that morning. ‘I looked into Mr Norton. No record at all. I can confirm that he does have a sick wife at home who he cares for.’
