Believe No One (3 page)

‘I remember that case,' Detective Dunlap said. ‘I never thought the pimp was a good suspect.'

The FBI behaviourist stirred, spoke like a man coming out of a dream. ‘I would agree. Pimps are more inclined to use cruelty and fear as a means of control; it's far more likely that Elleesha was murdered by a client.' Dr Detmeyer was on assignment from the BAU's Unit 4 – the unit responsible for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Programme, ViCAP, so he would know.

‘Chief Simms, what's your take?' Dunlap asked.

‘I'll go with the consensus,' Simms said. But—' The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

‘Go ahead,' Dunlap said. The American team seemed curiously non-hierarchical to her British sensibilities, but Dunlap often assumed the role of the designated spokesperson.

‘You know how it is – the place tells a story, gives you the context.' Simms heard herself paraphrasing Nick Fennimore, and she told herself to stop – she didn't need Fennimore in her head just now. ‘Okay, Elleesha doesn't fit half the criteria, but that building might be pulled down before anyone gets another chance to revisit it. Even if no new evidence comes out of it, at the very least we'd have an opportunity to compare crime-scene procedures.'

‘So you guys can show us how to “do it right”?' Detective Ellis raked air quotes with his first and middle fingers, the clean white linen of his shirt cracking like a sail in a crisp wind.

‘Hey, come on, now, Ellis.' This was Detective Valance – young, boyish and blue-eyed. He wore his fair hair cropped tight to his head, Simms suspected, to make him look tougher, but it only emphasized the softness of his features.

‘It's okay,' Simms said. ‘Now is as good a time as any to set the record straight.' She looked around the table, making eye contact with everyone present. ‘UK police forces have lost over seven thousand front-line officers and twelve thousand back-office staff in cutbacks. We need to learn how to work more efficiently – and you guys work a higher volume of murders than we do. We're here to share expertise, and pick up a few tips on the way.'

Ellis looked a little abashed, but made no apology.

‘So, how about it,' Dunlap said, his voice warm, and rich, and reasonable. ‘Fresh eyes?'

Valance nodded, enthusiastic. Roper said, ‘I'm in.' Detmeyer watched them all.

‘What have we got to lose,' Simms said. ‘A few hours?'

‘You could lose a lot more than
time,
heading into East St Louis,' Ellis grumbled.

Soft laughter around the table elicited a scowl – Ellis did not play the room for laughs. ‘I'm serious.' He jerked his chin to Dunlap. ‘Dunlap,
you
know.'

‘Yes,' Dunlap said, ‘I do.' He thought about it for a few seconds. ‘And I say it's worth a shot.'

The stairwell smelled of mould and burning plastic.

‘Meth,' Dunlap said.

Methamphetamine had been the curse of inner-city and rural communities alike over the last twenty years. According to the RAND stats, meth addiction was costing the United States up to $50 billion a year.

Looking up the centre of the stairwell, his hand on his pistol, Dunlap added, ‘They probably scooted when they got word Five-O was paying a visit, but let's be careful.'

They cleared each floor as they came to it, and when they reached the third landing where Elleesha had lived, Detective Ellis stood guard on the door while the rest of them went inside.

There was no light or power, and the boards on the windows put the apartment in gloom, but the CSIs set up three battery-powered LED spots in under a minute.

‘Wallpaper's been stripped,' Simms said, comparing the scene photos with the dove-grey washed walls.

‘They detailed the apartment after the CSIs had finished in here,' Dunlap said. ‘Stripped the walls and repainted, glossed the doors.'

‘The crime-scene report said the attack began on the bed,' Simms said.

‘Bed was under the window.' This was Paul Roper, the St Louis CSI. He was tall and wiry, a spare man who seemed to hum with nervous energy. ‘She bled out in the corner, between the bed and the window.'

‘Defensive wounds to her arms suggest she fought,' Simms said. ‘Maybe she rolled off the bed to get away from him.'

Roper moved to the wall, a blow-up of a crime scene photograph in hand. ‘There was a lot of arterial spray and cast-off,' he said.

Simms looked at the picture. Arcs of arterial spray on the wall, window and sill; scattered amongst them a few drops that didn't seem to belong – cast-off from the knife as the killer drew his arm back to strike again.

‘But this one looks off,' the CSI said. He circled a single drop on the photograph with the tip of his right pinkie finger.

‘Off, how?' Ellis demanded from the doorway. It was hot in there; his shirt had lost its starched freshness and clung damply to him; he looked out of sorts with himself and the world at large.

‘You've got a lot of blood spatter radiating out from where she lay.' Roper indicated some teardrop-shaped blood drops on the image. ‘As the perp pulled the knife out and back, droplets would move in the direction of his hand.' He passed the photograph around while he mimed the movement of the blood spatter from the knife to the wall. ‘Some droplets look like they got flicked back, some up, which is what you'd expect.' He plucked the image from Valance's fingers. ‘But this looks like it impacted from the vertical.' He indicated a single drop that looked like an inverted exclamation point.

‘So, it went up, then fell, hitting the wall on the downward trajectory,' Dunlap suggested.

The CSI looked doubtful. ‘This is more of a blob than a streak, which means low velocity.' He darted forward to lay a photograph of the bed where it would have been at the crime scene. ‘The foot of the bed was about … here,' he said, sketching a line with the blade of his hand and taking a step back. ‘Elleesha's body was in the corner at the bedhead.'

The photographs showed the densest concentration of arcs and blood spatter under the window and in the corner, as Elleesha pushed and kicked and squirmed backwards, trying to escape the blade. The blood drop Roper was interested in had been on the wall a couple of feet away from the foot of the bed.

‘This drop of blood is at least
nine feet
away from where the main assault occurred. Why?'

‘Because plunging a knife through flesh and muscle thirty times is tiring work.' These were the first words the FBI behaviourist had said since they walked inside the building.

They turned to look at him.

FBI Special Agent Dr Detmeyer rarely spoke, yet Simms got the impression he was in constant dialogue with himself. He was a slim man in his early fifties, medium height, with an intense gaze and quick, precise movements. He paced to the corner in three steps and hunched over, mimed a few strikes. ‘Elleesha stops struggling as she bleeds out, he stands back to take a breath, maybe he staggers a little.'

‘Or his foot gets caught in the bedclothes,' Valance said, his young face eager.

The FBI psychologist regarded him calmly and he flushed, apologizing.

‘No need,' Dr Detmeyer said. ‘It's a good suggestion. So, he staggers – or stumbles – holding the knife point down, and tries to recover his balance.' He jerked both hands in a typical startle reaction to an anticipated backward tumble. ‘A drop of blood rolls to the tip of the blade and falls, making contact with the wall on the vertical at low velocity. A blitz attack, the victim fighting back as Elleesha did, the blood gets everywhere,' the psychologist went on. ‘Blood is slippery stuff – you'll often see cuts on an attacker's hand where it slipped down the knife onto the blade.'

Simms felt a tingle of excitement. ‘So, we could be looking at the offender's blood.'

‘A
picture
of it,' Ellis said over his shoulder. ‘This area wasn't sampled. Wallpaper's gone. There's nothing left
to
sample.'

Simms stared at the photograph under the arc lights. A thin, brownish-red trickle of blood tracked down the wall from the drop singled out by the CSI. She crouched, photograph in hand, comparing the position of the window, estimating the length of the bed, trying to approximate where the blood had traced down the wallpaper.

There was a hint of shadow at the crucial point along the skirting. ‘Could we get a light in here?' she said.

One of the LED arc lights was repositioned. They all saw it: a tiny gap between the wall and the skirting board. One by one they straightened up, crowding around the image of the drop of blood, looking from the image to the wall, each doing their own mental calculations.

Simms moved in and pressed her cheek flat against the wall. Someone handed her a flashlight and she shone it down into the crack. ‘I think I see a brownish stain,' she said. ‘Could be blood.'

‘Only one way to find out,' CSI Roper said, grinning, as he headed for the door. ‘I'll go fetch the power saw from the SUV.'

It is estimated that forty-two per cent of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce.

O
FFICE FOR
N
ATIONAL
S
TATISTICS
, 2012

St Louis, Missouri

The publicist was smiling. She took each copy of
Crapshoots and Bad Stats
and turned it efficiently to the title page, using the dust-jacket flap as a page marker, ready for Fennimore to sign.

As the final cluster of fans made their way to the door, she said, ‘You have a really interesting demographic, Professor. It's unusual to have young males of … uh … an academic turn of mind, attending the same event as, well as—' She lifted her chin towards the blushing group of young women who turned to wave him goodbye.

‘You mean you wouldn't expect a popular-science text to interest geeks
and
fan-girls,' he said.

She straightened with a frown of disapproval, and he realized he'd offended her, which puzzled him. He didn't think ‘geek' was offensive – after all,
he
was a geek. And fan-girls? A lot of regular book eventers would write their name on a slip of paper to be sure the author got their name right when they personalized their signed copies, but only a fan-girl would add her phone number to the slip. And Fennimore had half a dozen of those tucked in his jacket pocket.

He knew he wasn't good at the niceties of social diplomacy he couldn't think of anything to say that would improve the situation, so he said nothing, and she busied herself stacking and counting the remaining books.

The bookseller, pleased with the sales he'd made already, sidled over to ask if he would mind signing the rest for stock, and thankfully the publicist's smile returned.

He scanned the bookshop in the fading hope that he might see Kate Simms, a sardonic look on her face, leaning against one of the bookshelves. He had emailed to say he was in St Louis and asked would she like to meet. She hadn't replied. Since the previous case closed, she had been avoiding his phone calls, was slow in answering his emails and was very businesslike in her responses. He'd tried texting her, but without success. Finally, he'd contacted the head of the St Louis Major Case Squad and asked him to pass on a message. Kate replied to his earlier email with a vague apology – she'd been incredibly busy; hopefully they would find time for coffee before he went home. A coffee. Hopefully, no less. Well, at least she hadn't come right out and told him to sod off and leave her alone. So he'd sent her a ticket for the book signing.

Fennimore was due to speak at the International Homicide Investigators' Association annual symposium in St Louis in a couple of weeks, and his American publisher asked if he might squeeze in a few signings and public lectures. The university's summer vacation was under way, and he was owed time; it made sense to travel to the States early, do the tour at a more leisurely pace. The university's IT department hadn't been able to trace the anonymous email. He'd posted a message on Suzie's Facebook page, asking anon67912 to contact him, but heard nothing. The picture might yield something, but he would need Kate Simms's help, so he'd arranged for Josh Brown, a postgraduate student, to deliver his summer-school classes and swapped the bitter cold of the Granite City for the soft humidity of St Louis, Missouri. He'd even wangled an invitation to deliver a couple of lectures to St Louis PD. But his best efforts had come to nothing; Kate was avoiding him.

In the taxi heading back to his hotel, he got a text. Kate: ‘Sorry – couldn't get away. I hope it went well.'

He dialled her number straight away, and – minor miracle – she actually picked up.

‘You're forgiven,' he said. ‘If you have dinner with me.'

‘I can't.'

‘Of course you can.' It was so good to hear the sound of her voice – even telling him no, it lifted his spirits, her warm tones washing over him, giving him a jolt of energy. ‘Come on, Kate – my treat – Dominic's on the Hill. Best Italian food in St Louis. Let me know where you are; I'll pick you up.'

She didn't speak, and he thought he had her, but then she said, ‘Nick, you know that wouldn't be a good idea.'

‘What? It's a meal – everybody's got to eat.'

‘You're not listening.'

‘Is this Kieran?' Her jealous prick of a husband. ‘Because—'

‘No,' she interrupted. ‘Don't bring Kieran into it. This is me –
I
am saying no.'

For a moment he was stunned; when he found his voice, he said, ‘Kate, I need your help.'

A pause, then: ‘Suzie?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I think … Yes.'

The silence that followed said that she was still hurting from the disastrous consequences the last time he'd asked her for help: when his wife's body turned up, six months after she and Suzie disappeared, Simms, then a detective sergeant, had given him access to information and even evidence that he should never have been near. Between them, they had burned through thousands of pounds worth of Crime Faculty resources without sanction and had potentially compromised the investigation. Kate was kicked off the Faculty, and her career had stalled for four years as a result, but she had always said she didn't regret her actions. And with a ruthless, shameless, single-minded focus on what he needed from her, he hoped that she was sincere in what she said.