‘Trisha’s checked with the golf club, ma’am. Dominick Morton’s booked in with a foursome teeing off at nine.’
On Saturday mornings, Dominick Morton, the businessman brother, played golf at a club in Nailsea. Anna knew only one sure way of finding out which man was the perpetrator, and if they were careful enough, they could do it without either of them knowing.
Anna nodded. ‘And how did you manage it without arousing too much suspicion?’
‘Trisha?’ Khosa looked towards the analyst, who coloured immediately.
‘Said I’d found a personalised golf club cover and asked if a D. Morton was playing there this weekend so I could bring it in. They were very accommodating.’
Anna smiled and nodded. Trisha was a gem.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Woakes said.
‘We’re going for lunch,’ Khosa said. ‘Morton usually has a sandwich and a pint after a round. We’ll watch when he goes out for a cigarette. Justin will follow him out for a vape.’
‘Do you vape?’ Anna asked Holder.
‘No, ma’am. But my cousin does and he’s got me some nicotine-free juice.’
‘So then?’
‘With a bit of luck, we’ll get the stub Morton has smoked and—’
‘Do you want me there?’ Woakes cut in.
‘No, it’ll be fine, sarge,’ Holder said.
‘Happy to come along,’ Woakes persisted.
Anna shook her head. ‘No need to baby them, Dave. Besides, I can only swing overtime for two. And I trust them.’
Woakes nodded. He looked a little disappointed.
Keen, this one.
‘Thanks, Ryia,’ Anna said. ‘Dave, you’re up. Tell us about Rosie Dawson.’
Trisha said, ‘You’ll be glad to know we finally got the files late yesterday afternoon and I emailed a summary over to Sergeant Woakes. I’ve got copies here.’ She handed out some folders.
Woakes stood. He’d taken off his jacket and his shirt was open at the collar, his ID badge hanging on a navy lanyard. In his hand was a blue plastic folder. From this he took several photographs and began pinning them up on the board under Rosie’s happy face.
‘June 6 2008. Ten-year-old Rosie and her grandmother, Grace Dawson, were walking home from school through a park in Clevedon, not more than seven miles from where we sit. It was about four thirty, the park wasn’t busy. On the way home, they took the woods path behind Highdale Avenue.’
Woakes put up a large schematic. ‘This is at the rear of houses but is not overlooked. Someone came up on Grace’s blind side and struck her from behind. The blow was severe enough to knock her out. She fell and suffered a facial fracture from contact with the ground. She was dragged behind bushes and we assume Rosie was abducted at that point. No one saw anything there but witnesses described a man in army fatigues leaving the park with a very large rucksack, exiting on Highdale Avenue near the church a short time later.’ He pointed to the label ‘Christchurch’. ‘From there, we have no further sightings.’
Anna, one ear open to Woakes’ voice, sat thumbing through her copy of the file, already thickening from the addition of her own notes. What Woakes hadn’t said was that Rosie’s grandmother always picked her up from school, and because it was summer, she preferred to walk if the weather was good. Rosie liked seeing the squirrels and sometimes went to the play area in the park. Small details that were probably irrelevant. Except that small details were sometimes the most important in cases like these. They were the threads which would pull the patchwork together.
Woakes pinned another image up on the board. Bones, small and white, arranged at the bottom of a black plastic bag, the skull on top. All that was left of Rosie Dawson.
‘Fourteen months later, some walkers found a plastic bag containing human remains beside a path near Charterhouse in the Mendips, twenty miles from where she was abducted. Dental DNA testing threw up a match for Rosie Dawson. The bones were bleached, with strong traces of hypochlorite. Forensics said they were also boiled. So, there’s the abduction site and the discovery of remains site. But no crime scene otherwise. The remains yielded sod all forensic information other than traces of Rosie’s DNA, handsaw marks on the vertebrae and knife marks around the long joints where the head was removed and the long bones separated. Probably for ease of disposal.’
Khosa looked troubled. ‘I don’t want to ask but I presume this was all done post-mortem?’
Woakes nodded. ‘They were specific about that. No ancillary cut marks around the vertebrae like you might get with movement if the victim was struggling and alive. Knife marks on the long bones suggest that the flesh was cut through to the bone before the saw was used to sever the joints.’
‘It’s butchery,’ Holder said.
Woakes nodded.
‘But nothing that tells us how she was killed?’
Woakes shook his head.
Anna said, ‘OK. He kills Rosie, dismembers her, boils the remains to strip the flesh, then uses the bleach, the hypochlorite, to destroy any DNA traces he’d left rather than to try and hide who Rosie was. Her DNA would still be in her marrow and inside the teeth. He must have known that. It suggests that he was not expecting anyone to find them, but if they were found, he’d not leave any evidence. So, he’s careful and very methodical.’
Holder said, ‘So we don’t know when she died?’
Woakes shook his head again. ‘We don’t know how or when. The bag was black plastic, like you’d find lining a million bins. Sold in two of the big four supermarkets across the country. No fingerprints. As for when, you know the stats on child abductions. Usually, if the victims are killed immediately they’re found within a five-mile radius. If the killing isn’t immediate, then they’re usually kept alive for twenty-four hours maximum. The child becomes a liability. They’re too difficult to keep under control.’
‘So, because she was found twenty miles from the location of the abduction we can assume she was kept alive somewhere for longer. That’s irregular…’ Holder exhaled loudly.
‘Exactly. That’s the kicker. The other thing that stands out is the fact that Rosie had Down’s syndrome,’ Woakes added.
Anna broke her silence. ‘So, do we think Rosie was targeted because of it, or is it irrelevant? Must be something the investigating team looked at? Other Down’s syndrome victims. But it’s worth looking again.’ She turned to Trisha and said, ‘We’ll need to run that through HOLMES,’ before standing and walking towards the whiteboard to stand with arms folded. ‘And the fact that the bones were left near a well-walked path is particularly odd.’
Trisha nodded. They’d use indexers to input data into the Home Office Large and Major Enquiry System, but Trisha’s role as an actions coordinator meant that she would have a handle on what everyone was doing, gather up their reports and ensure they were indexed.
‘It could suggest the killer wanted them found,’ Khosa said
Anna nodded. ‘Or that they were discarded in a panic. And why this particular path? I think it’s worth a visit. But Justin’s right, it means he must have kept Rosie somewhere. Maybe when she was alive, but certainly for her disposal. If he was boiling body parts, he’d need something big enough to use for that too.’
Trisha had gone very pale.
‘He must have had somewhere safe, somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed to hide her, to do that sort of thing with the body,’ Holder said.