Shallow Waters (Detective Hannah Robbins crime series Book 1) Read online

  The mood in the room was solemn as Jack progressed through the PM.

  There was more than an indication of sexual abuse. She also had welts around her wrists and ankles consistent with ropes having been tied around them. There was bruising around her neck. It wasn’t the twine of a rope though; it was wide and flat, with an intermittent pattern along the centre. Circles maybe. As well as these, she was covered in black, purple and yellowing bruises. Some in the process of healing. This child had suffered over a prolonged period of time.

  Jack completed the PM, looked at me and snapped off his gloves. “My preliminary report will read homicide by asphyxiation.” He wiped his brow with the back of his right hand, though there were no obvious signs of sweat gathering. “Her windpipe was crushed by what looks to be some kind of belt. She was bound by rope around her ankles and wrists and she has adhesive around her mouth, indicating some kind of tape was used.” His gloves went in an evidence bag. He sealed it and signed the label. “I’ll send all swabs and the toxicology samples off today and let you know as soon as I get any results, but you know they can’t be rushed.” Jack put the pack down on the side and looked me square on, his age lines pinched. “I do hope you get this animal, Hannah.”

  “I won’t stop until I do.”

  He nodded. A silent understanding.

  After thanking him for his time, I told him I’d speak with him later, and went to change.

  Sally had left the minute she could. It’s hard to take, seeing such inhuman things first hand.

  As I relieved myself of mask, footwear and gown, my phone rang.

  “Han, it’s me. I want to talk to you about the murdered girl.”

  6

  Entering that mortuary, on that day, in those circumstances, Sally figured they amounted to one of the worst days of her life so far. It was inhumane what had happened to the child and it made her whole body ache. It took absolutely everything she had to keep it together in there. Today wasn’t going to be the day she fell apart. She wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of believing she wasn’t fully up to it.

  She had stood there. Staunch. Breathing as little as possible. Staring at places that didn’t involve the girl: Jack’s patterned socks under his scrubs, the huge plastic slabs for doors at the opposite end of the room, and her own feet on as many occasions as she could get away with. As well as the post-mortem there were the stark images on the light-boxes, like glowing announcements of violence. The ones visible on the child’s skin not enough alone, they had to be photographed, high definition, X-rayed and analysed. The incisions were made, the girl’s organs removed, weighed and measured. The slow decisive breakdown of what once used to be a child, but was now a medical evidence gathering exercise seemed to go on around her in slow motion. Her stomach pitched, watching a girl so small be taken down to the basics of what a human being was. Flesh and bones.

  As it rolled heavily again, she clenched her teeth. Her mind wandered to Tom. Tom would hate this. To know she was here. She wouldn’t tell him. She had to keep the difficulties down to a minimum if she was to be able to cope with the web of lies she was slowly weaving.

  7

  “Ethan, you can’t call me at work like this.”

  “I’m sorry, Hannah, I thought you might have some time free by now. I waited a while before calling. How are you?”

  I wasn’t sure he wanted to know how I was, that he wanted to hear about the pounding head induced by red wine and lack of sleep, or that he wanted to hear I was hurt that he had, yet again, sneaked away in the night. “How do you think?”

  “I think you must be knackered. Want me to bring a bottle round later, we can talk, wind down?”

  His answer to any emotional problem and my downfall every time. I sighed into the handset “What do you want?” Tiredness now made it difficult to mask how I felt. A pause.

  “I heard it was a tough case, so called to see how you were?”

  “I’m tired, Ethan.”

  “I can imagine. Have you found out who she is? Who her parents are?”

  “Seriously? You’re asking me about my case?” I couldn’t do this with him. Not now. Not standing, half out of my PM gown, with the stench of death crawling all over me. I needed to shower and clear my head. “I’ll talk to you later.” I ended the call. I could do with someone to talk to tonight, some comfort, but not like this, not when I didn’t know who I was getting: Ethan the bloke I was sleeping with or Ethan Gale, the Nottingham Today reporter.

  I stripped off the rest of my clothes, stepped into the shower and allowed the water to rush over me. But the brutality was more than an acrid smell. It hit far deeper than the surface clothing. I couldn’t just throw it into a contaminated bin. Clothing couldn’t protect from the fear, horror and harm inflicted on this girl as its truth touched me inside, crept around my heart and squeezed. Knowledge of torture so vile, it ate away at my very being. I turned my face upwards and closed my eyes as the water came.

  8

  Walking back into the incident room a heaviness settled over me. Sally brought up the rear. There was the beginnings of an awkward silence between us, or at least from Sally, and I didn’t understand it, but time was pushed and I would have to address it when I had the chance. As of yet, there was no problem with her work to give me cause for concern.

  “Give me something I can work with, Ross,” I said to Ross Leavy, the newest member of the team. He was young, both in age and service and he was always eager to please. After five years’ service he had gone from uniform, to CID and now here at Divisional Headquarters, Central Police Station, Major Crimes Unit. A testament to his work ethic. He pulled himself up in his chair as he started to tell me what he had.

  “We’re running through the Missing Persons database, checking for female teenagers between the ages of thirteen and nineteen years.”

  “And?”

  “We have more than I expected to be honest. Too many for divisional cops to deal with seriously when they’re gone for the eleventh time and it looks as though they’re taking the piss.”

  “But they’re not taking the piss are they? That girl I’ve seen is definitely not taking the piss,” my voice rose. “She’s so far from taking the piss, she’s laid on the slab.” Ross looked down at his desk. I had reacted on an emotional level. I took an intake of breath and tried again. “Let me have the list of the current ones, Ross, and I’ll see what we’ve got.”

  He nodded. “Ma’am.”

  I left him printing out sheet after sheet of paper with the awful statistics of our current missing children and walked to the kettle perched on top of a fridge in the corner of the office. The statistics were bad. Front line cops were overstretched and the regular kids flew far below their radars. Children’s services were pushed. We were in a constant battle with them about actions, responsibilities and who took the lead on preventing further missing episodes. Kids whom it was felt would return of their own volition were given minimal time by the cops. The attitude was that the low risk, street-wise kids, were too much trouble and time, when radios were a constant chatter in a response cop’s ear with control room operators waiting to send them out to the next job. The officer doing the required return home visit would be satisfied with the fact they had seen the child home and safe, and wouldn’t always push for information on where they had been, who they had been with and what they had done, especially if the child was surly and uncooperative. Their supervising officers often did limited checks, enough to tick the boxes of the computerised COMPACT system software, set up in response to some government report into a kid who didn’t return and ended up on a slab like ours.

  The kettle boiled and broke my thoughts. “Who’s for tea, coffee?” I shouted across the rumblings of work. Several shouts of “Me!” went up and I shook my head. They had probably sat there waiting for me to get back and make the drinks. A senior officer making drinks is unheard of, but tea is a weakness and I’m always refilling my cup.

  With drinks made, I sat
at my desk with the missing person reports Ross had printed out.

  Sixteen children missing. In our division alone. And these were the kids who had matched the wide age criteria. I knew if the child wasn’t in this pile, we would have to look wider than the city centre. The reports were dismal to read. Each one was pretty basic on its own. Child’s name, address, age, and date, time and circumstances last seen. Whether they had prepared by taking anything with them and also how many times they had previously been missing. I reached out for my drink as I let my eyes scan the information, but quickly focused on my cup as fingers hit scalding tea. It jettisoned across my desk and left a line of drops in its wake across the documents. “Fuck.” I looked around my office, but had nothing to hand, so I pulled on the drawer of the printer in the corner of my office. I yanked out a few sheets of blank paper, but they failed to mop up the tea and simply moved the watery mess around further. I could do without this. There was so much here, so much to get my head around.

  I binned the paper, sat back down and continued to read. It absorbed me. All I had wanted to do was check to see if our girl was in here, but the mess of the children’s lives had caught my attention. I sat and read them all, and then cross checked other police systems to see what else was known about them and other people in their lives. It was heavy going. A pattern emerged for some of our regular missing kids. Alcohol issues, boyfriends over twenty-five for kids as young as thirteen years. Some kids returned home with money or clothes with no explanation, as well as jewellery and mobile phones. Secrets and lies.

  Eventually I noticed the time on the computer monitor. Three hours had passed. I looked at the paper mountain on my desk, with lists and mind maps where I’d attempted to make some sense of what I’d read. Alone, in isolation, these kids looked to be unruly and insolent, railing against the rules of adults. Adults they only saw as being there to make their lives miserable, when the reality was the parents were beyond the end of their tethers, asking for help, but being stonewalled because their kids ticked the too difficult box. I needed to move forward.

  I picked up the printouts I had accumulated and carried them through the major incident room, down the dreary grey carpet-tiled corridor to the office of Evie Small. Not only was Evie a brilliant researcher, she was my closest friend. She always had an ear, was energetic to the extreme and made me smile, even when I thought it was no longer possible. Today though, I needed her skills; she had the ability to search multiple databases and absorb huge amounts of information, which she would then use to produce some brilliant research packages and statistics to work with. She was the darling of our working world. As I walked through her dirty blue door, I could see she was engrossed in what she was doing, leaning over her keyboard, her hair a mass of spirals, hung around her head. She heard me enter, peered up from what she was working on, turned her head and looked over the top of her bright angular glasses, smiling a greeting at me.

  “I heard you had a tough one, Hannah, how goes it?”

  I dropped onto the chair next to her and sighed. “Shit, Evie. We’ve got little to go on and we’re waiting on a lot of results from the CSU. We don’t have an identification. DNA was taken at the PM but, again, it’s something we have to wait on and it won’t automatically give us an answer if she’s not a misper or her DNA hasn’t been taken. We even have to consider she may not have been reported yet.” I ran my hands through my hair as I spoke. “The possibles feel limitless. I’ve read through some of our misper reports.” I waved the mass of paper at her. “The lives of these kids are incredible, the way they survive, but I think I became a little sucked in and got disorganised when reading through them. Can you have a look and see if any of them could be our victim or if there are any potentials? There’s a description of her in there somewhere that will help you. I’m not sure what I’ve managed to do with it, but it’s in there. If you could find potential matches I’d be grateful.” I looked her in the eyes. “Please?”

  “Grey’s got me pulling figures on the recent spate of aggravated robberies we’ve had in the city centre, but I can shove them to the side for this. Let me see what you’ve got.” She held out her perfectly manicured hand, her nails were in a dark purple today, and I gave her the stack of work I had created.

  “Thank you. I owe you. You know that don’t you?”

  “You bet you do. Next time we’re out, it’s mojitos all the way for me courtesy of a very grateful Hannah.” She grinned. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her.

  “Thanks, Evie.”

  “No worries, sweetie, I’ll let you know what I get. Oh and next time you come in; fetch coffee, not just handfuls of the rainforest!”

  As I left Evie’s office I nearly collided with Sally who was walking with her head down and pushing the palms of her hands down her jeans as though drying them off.

  “I’m sorry.” She lifted one hand up to her chest as she jumped. Her face looked drawn. Pale. Worried. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. She was distracted. I needed to talk with her, so this was as good a time as any. If I talked while we walked, at least I wouldn’t make any concerns obvious to the rest of the team or make her feel singled out in front of them. Being such a close team, it was difficult to keep doubts private or below the office gossip radar. Every cross word, personal call or bad mood is seen, heard and remarked on. Even well intentioned concerns voiced could make a work day hard. I understood that.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as we dropped into step beside each other.

  “Yes, ma’am. Why, is something wrong with my work?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve noticed you seem a little off today.” We stopped and faced each other. The office door not far away. “Not quite yourself.”

  She dropped her eyes to the floor and crossed her arms over her chest. There was something she didn’t want to tell me. If it was something the force needed to be aware of, to protect itself and Sally, then I needed to know what it was. I also wanted to know if I could help.

  “Sally?”

  She seemed to consider her response before she opened her mouth to speak. I could hear the chatter of the office beyond the door.

  “I’m sorry. There are a few things at home.” She raised her face as she spoke, her eyes glistened. Swallowing hard and blinking, she dropped her head back down.

  We all had personal lives outside work. We had to try and leave them at the door and focus on the task at hand when we come into work. “Is there anything you need from us? From me?”

  “No. Work will do me good. It will keep me occupied. I thought it was.”

  She thought she had kept her issues hidden, she meant. “Are you okay to carry on today or do you need some time?”

  “I’m good.”

  There was more troubling her than she wanted to let on. I would keep an eye on her.

  9

  After the team had identified all the child sex offenders with hands-on convictions living in a half-mile radius of the dump site we had split into teams of two and headed out. Ross and I were just off Mansfield Road. The outside of the address looked sad, uncared for. The curtains were drawn, the garden unkempt. A green wheelie-bin was dumped in front of the gate. I couldn’t tell whether it was to protect the resident of the address from visitors or the rest of the street from him. I elbowed my way past it, not wanting to use my hands on the rubbish filled container. Ross wrinkled up his nose as he followed. I rapped on the top section of the door, the cold glass harsh against my bare knuckles.

  “Think he’s in, boss?” Ross asked.

  “We’ll soon see,” I answered in response to a stupid question. Wishing that I had brought a pair of gloves to the office, I rubbed my hands together.

  “Who is it?” A shout from behind the door.

  “Police, Mr Adams. Open the door please,” I shouted back. I knew he wouldn’t want us on his doorstep for long, drawing attention from his neighbours. He’d asked the question though, so I was more than happy to answer hi
m.

  A key turned in the lock and a chain was dragged across its bracket before the door opened. Mr Adams stood in front of us in distressed and grubby grey jogging bottoms and a similar coloured T-shirt, frayed around the sleeves and hemline. Dark stains spread out from the neck and armpits. I made a conscious effort not to turn my nose away in disgust as the odour of stale beer and cigarettes wafted from him.

  He narrowed his eyes. “What do you want? I don’t have a visit organised with you.”

  I stepped forward, forcing him to take a step back into the hallway. “We need to ask you some routine questions, Mr Adams. I’m sure you want to help us with our inquiries and get us on our way as quickly as possible.”

  He looked from me to the six-foot frame of Ross and back again. “You’d better be quick or I’m going to put in a complaint of harassment.” He backed further away from the doorway. A move I took as an invitation in, so I stepped over the rather dirty threshold. Nick Adams stopped moving once we were inside and the door to his neighbours’ view was closed. “What do you want?” I got the feeling he didn’t want us further into his home and I didn’t have valid grounds at this point to push him for entry. I opted for politeness, and with great restraint I asked the questions we needed answering. As I spoke the left side of Adams top lip quivered. His mouth parted and the quivering lip turned upwards in a sneer, wet pink flesh lifting outwards. Cigarette odour leaked through his now open mouth from the depth of his body. I watched as he lifted his hand to his mouth, ran his tongue across a finger, waited a beat then placed it under his nose and breathed in. Ross stepped forward, his shoulders back, bringing his height into full effect. The sneer lingered.

  “Mr Adams?”

  Nick Adams’ explanation of where he was the previous night held. It might not have been comfortable, but he was in the pub with people he could loosely call friends. People I would call fellow sex offenders. Certain public houses were known haunts for them. Places they felt safe. The restrictions on registered sex offenders may be in place to protect children but they didn’t prevent them fraternising with fellow offenders. Offenders who built their lives around trying to fit in, to appear invisible. People knowing what they had done always made their lives difficult. Fit in or stay hidden were their only real options. This stuck in my throat like a piece of barbed wire. Sex offenders gathering, exchanging notes and suggestions, and leering at any unsuspecting young girls who didn’t realise the place they had entered was such a hell hole. I didn’t subscribe to the suggestion they could be rehabilitated. A bit like boxing going underground if the sport was stopped for health reasons, only more necessary for those taking part. They could no more stop their sexual interest in children than I could stop breathing. Maybe some managed to curb their actions, but I wasn’t sold on that either.