A straight man, potentially with a family.
Had a one-eyed dog—Tony.
Worked in a meatpacking warehouse.
Her phone vibrates with more email notifications and she quickly checks her inbox. She finds a handful of messages from HR, asking her to schedule a meeting to review her return to work. She’ll deal with those later, she tells herself, as she spots a response from the civilian team.She opens it immediately, but the email simply confirms that an application for a court order compelling the Glasgow bank to disclose the details of the account holder has been submitted. Sam will be notified when the information comes back, but she might have to hang on for a few days.
Sam rolls back her chair with an angry kick. “Well, let’s just hope our killer hangs on too,” she mumbles.
Glancing at the clock, she swears as she sees she’s five minutes late for the team’s Wednesday-morning briefing. As she marches toward the briefing room, she feels defeated and a little off-kilter following the latest chapter. Denver’s words about rescuing a dog unnerve her. It’s a coincidence, she tells herself. Denver wrote his book months, if not years ago; she found a dog this week. Lots of people come to own dogs under unusual circumstances. It’s just an author’s trick, taking a widely shared human experience and leaving his reader feeling like he can see into her life.
Sam’s nose wrinkles when she sidles into the briefing room, breathless and clammy. Too many bodies, not enough ventilation. The Charlotte Mathers homicide investigation is large, with multiple inquiry teams. Coffee steam mixes with sweat and cheap aftershave. Tina Edris is at the front, already talking and gesturing to whiteboards on wheels, as well as a digital presentation on the main screen. Harry nods and smiles as Sam enters, then discreetly checks his watch. Sam feels her cheeks burning as she shuffles to the closest empty seat which is, of course, on the opposite side of the room. She spots Taylor sitting next to Chloe Spears and he lifts his hand in a small wave.
“We’ve nothing to go on beyond the footprints and fibers,” Tina is saying as Sam sits down, “and there’s not a lot we can do with those. The lab has confirmed the assailant was wearing a black waterproof jacket and denim jeans from Marks and Spencer, along with a pair of size-twelve walking boots. We also have a long, yellow synthetic fiber, consistent with a costume hairpiece, so the perpetrator may have worn a disguise. Obviously, we’ll thoroughly examine all of it, but he’s bought mainstream items without distinguishing features, so it’s a needle-in-a-haystack situation.”
“What about the carving on the tree?” Sam asks. “Any idea what tools were used, if there are glove fibers, etc.?”
“Er… yes,” Tina wavers, as if surprised at the precision of the question, and Sam feels a grim satisfaction at the opportunity to remind her SIO that she’s a damn good detective, too. “The lab brought in an expert who’s confirmed that it would have taken at least thirty minutes, and there’s a list in your briefing pack of the tools most likely used. The carving was fresh, no more than a day old, and given that no one knew Charlotte would be in that park that night, we have to assume that our perp was on site for at least an hour and carved it on the night in question. Someone must have seen something in that time. Detective Constable Spears, where are we with witnesses?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Chloe stands and someone hums… “Baby One More Time” under their breath, attracting a scowl from Edris, who looks to Harry for intervention. Harry stares fixedly out of the window and a second baritone joins in. Tina stares after Harry, her jaw twitching. Chloe attempts to ignore the humming and begin her report on witnesses but—
“Shut the fuck up!” Sam snaps, the words shooting out loud and hot. The humming ceases instantly. Everyone stares at Sam, who is just as shocked by her outburst as they are. Still, she keeps her face calm, straightens in her chair and thrusts her chin forward in defiance. “As you were saying, Chloe.” Sam and Taylor give the young DC an encouraging nod. Chloe begins her report—there’s perspiration on her brow, but a hint of a smile on her lips.
“We spoke at length to Jessica, her brother Jamil Patel and their parents, Allan and Ira Patel. Charlotte was in a good mood and ordered a Deliveroo dinner for herself and Jessica. Jessica says that Charlotte seemed worried when her father, Nigel Mathers, didn’t arrive at 8 p.m. to collect her as normal. Nigel had only failed to show up twice before and Jessica says that it rattled Charlotte soshe set off walking at 9:03 p.m. exactly. Jessica Patel has a thing for numbers, so I’m pretty certain she’s accurate on that.”
“Why didn’t one of Jessica’s parents drive Charlotte home?” Sam asks. Chloe nods as if expecting the question.
“Allan and Ira Patel left their home at 7:34 p.m. to go out to dinner with friends. We’ve taken statements from all the guests, who confirm they were there all night. Jessica’s brother, Jamil, who’s eighteen, remained in the home. He corroborated Jessica Patel’s statement, saying that he heard the front door close when Charlotte left, at around nine.”
“What about the Deliveroo driver?” Harry asks.
“Far away by the time Charlotte left,” Spears confirms.
“What about the door-to-door?” Edris asks, and again, Chloe nods.
“Nothing meaningful, although plenty of people saw Charlotte,” she says. “DC Chen has camera footage of her, too. Every witness confirms that Charlotte looked like any other schoolgirl walking along the path. We’ve added full statements into HOLMES.” Spears rubs her eyes and Sam guesses that she isn’t getting much sleep.
“Any witnesses from inside the park itself?” Edris asks.
“Lots of statements taken but, again, nothing out of the ordinary. No one saw Charlotte with anyone, and no one saw someone carving a tree.”
“I’m hoping that Nigel Mathers will agree to doing a press appeal,” Tina says. “The case is all over the newspapers but we’re not getting anything useful from the public right now. Someone must have seen something. Also, try to focus on who, other than Jamil and Jessica, would have known that Charlotte would be walking home that night; unless it was a stranger attack, which I believe unlikely, someone must have.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Spears nods, and sits back down.
“Detective Constable Chen…” Edris turns to face the team’stechnical expert. “I’m assuming that Charlotte’s phone and laptop are priorities for your team?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chen says. “Not just Charlotte’s. My team has Jack and Nigel Mathers’ phones, too. I can confirm that Nigel’s phone never disconnected from his home Wi-Fi that night. He called Charlotte’s number repeatedly from about four a.m., then the Patels and 999. As for Jack’s phone, that was connected to the Wi-Fi at the Pig and Butcher, a pub in Brenham. Jack got an Uber home, pinging several masts en route, and the phone then connected to the Mathers’ home router. The phone evidence fits with both men’s statements.”
“And Charlotte’s online activity that night?”
“So far, everything the teams are bringing in stands up on the digital front.”
“What about the pregnancy test?” Harry says. “Surely that’s a crucial piece of—”
Sam’s mind is instantly reeling.What pregnancy test?How had she missed such an important detail? She flips through the case file. Sure enough, a pregnancy test is listed among Charlotte’s possessions.If only I’d looked at the crime scene photos, Sam thinks furiously. What else might she have missed?And I was dumb enough to think I was ready to be SIO and run this investigation.
“Sir,” Chen says, “I’ve scoured Charlotte’s online shopping accounts and her bank account. She spent sixty quid on Nando’s the night she died and beyond that it’s just the odd study item or clothes. Nothing that raises any flags and certainly no pregnancy test. No messages to or from a potential boyfriend either.”
