Chapter 15
Ezra plopped himself down in the chair next to Henley’s desk and turned around so that he had his back to the whiteboard.
Henley looked up from her computer screen on which she’d been updating the CRIS – the crime reporting information system that was used by every police force in the country to record every development in an investigation. ‘What are you doing up here?’ she asked. ‘You never want to be in this room.’
‘True, but I’m making a run to the bakery, and you weren’t picking up your phone. Do you want anything?’ Ezra asked.
‘No, I’m good.’
‘If you’re sure, but on your head be it when I walk in with cinnamon rolls,’ Ezra said dramatically as he jumped up from the chair.
‘I’m sure I’ll survive, but before you go, I wanted to ask you about—’ Henley lowered her voice as she scanned the room. Ramouter was with Pellacia in his office, Eastwood had her headphones on and Stanford had walked out of the office five minutes ago with his phone pinned to his ear.
‘Are you asking about?’ Ezra whispered.
Henley nodded.
‘Ok, cool. Yeah, there is stuff. Do you want to come to my room later?’
Henley shook her head, ignoring the voice in her head telling her that keeping Stanford and Eastwood in the dark was wrong. ‘Can you come to my house? Tonight. Is that ok?’
‘Cool as a cucumber,’ Ezra said. He left the room passing Stanford as he walked back in.
‘Everything all right?’ Henley asked, noticing the look on Stanford’s face.
Stanford stopped at Henley’s desk but didn’t sit down. ‘That was Gene. We’ve been matched with a kid. Our social worker wants us to meet him this weekend.’
‘Isn’t this a good thing?’ Henley replied warmly. ‘This is what you and Gene have wanted for God knows how long.’
‘That’s the thing. Each time we’ve gotten close it’s all fallen through. It’s a bit hard for me to get my hopes up.’
‘But you should get your hopes up. Meeting your potential child for the first time is a big step. I doubt that the social worker would be arranging for you to meet if this wasn’t going to be a thing.’
‘Hmm,’ Stanford replied noncommittally.
‘What do you know about them? The child I mean?’
‘He’s eighteen months old. White. The poor kid has been in care since he was nine months old. His mum has drug issues and was using when she was pregnant with him, so he’s got developmental delay, and the father isn’t in the picture.’
‘Poor kid,’ Henley said, pushing her chair back and standing up. ‘But he’s going to have a good life with you and Gene. The best. So be positive. It’s ok to make plans.’
‘Yeah, I’ll do my best.’ Stanford gave a smile and Henley pulled him into a hug.
‘I promise you; it will be fine. I have a good feeling,’ Henley told him. Pellacia’s office door opened and Ramouter strode out with an unmissable grin on his face.
‘Boy wonder looks like he must have got a good review from the big man,’ Stanford commented.
‘So, he should, he’s doing well,’ Henley said proudly.
‘Look at you. You’re beaming like he’s your own kid.’
‘He’ll be a DS before you know it. He’ll probably end up taking your spot.’
‘Let’s not get too carried away. He’s boy wonder, not Superman.’
Henley laughed. ‘You’re so easy to wind up.’
‘Right, back to work. I need to keep my mind off things. What’s going on with the new murder case?’
‘I’ll update everyone once Pellacia’s done,’ Henley answered. ‘But I wish that it wasn’t her, Fox-Carnell, not that I wish death on anyone, but for it to be her …’
‘It comes with a whole host of problems, doesn’t it? It means that we can’t deal with this investigation in the dark so to speak.’
‘No, all eyes are going to be on us.’
Pellacia took his usual position, standing in front of the window, with a wide view of the whiteboard and his team. He nodded at Henley to start.
‘This is where we’re at.’ Henley pressed a button on the presentation pointer and three images of Sian Fox-Carnell appeared on the screen.
The first was her custody picture that had been taken when she was first arrested in 2014 showing her with dark blonde hair, the second was a screenshot taken from her recent appearance on Good Morning Britain and the third was a photograph of the woman hanging over the river.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Eastwood. ‘How the hell did anyone manage to get her up there?’
‘No bloody idea,’ Henley answered. ‘But I can confirm that the woman hanging from the pier is Sian Fox-Carnell. Anthony emailed me with the DNA match about an hour ago. Her stepfather, Keith Fox, should already be at the mortuary with his brother-in-law to view the body.’
‘How were the family?’ Pellacia asked.
‘We’ve only spoken to the parents so far. Her biological father has been out of the picture since Fox-Carnell was three years old. Her mother Linda is angry, very angry. She blames us, the police, for both her daughter’s disappearance and her death.’
Stanford snorted disapprovingly.
‘The stepfather, Keith Fox, although upset was a bit more amenable to our presence and he made some interesting points.’ Henley continued, pressing the remote again, bringing up a timeline.
‘Fox-Carnell was released on Monday afternoon at 12.03 p.m. with stringent bail conditions which included residence at her parents’ address and an electronically monitored curfew.
The initial bail application was made in chambers.
No press or members of the public. The dad swears blind that no one knew that Fox-Carnell was bailed to their address. ’
‘Not even her ex-husband?’ Eastwood asked.
‘No. They didn’t tell him, and they didn’t tell their other kids either.
They have a son who lives in Putney and a daughter in Ashford, Kent.
I’m going to need you, Eastie and Stanford, to talk to the ex-husband and the siblings.
Anyway, Fox-Carnell returns home on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday morning a short campaign of harassment begins. ’
Henley pressed the remote again. The images Keith showed her appeared on the screen. ‘These photographs were taken by Sian’s stepfather on Wednesday morning. He also said that shit was pushed through the letterbox the day before, on Tuesday.’
‘Did he report it to the police?’ Pellacia asked.
‘No, he didn’t, but he told his wife. I don’t think that it’s too far-fetched to believe that the harassment was aimed at Fox-Carnell, which begs the question, how did anyone know that she was there? The only people who knew her bail address were the court staff, lawyers and us. Who knew?’
‘I’m thinking that the mum must have talked,’ said Ramouter. ‘She was anxious for Fox-Carnell to see her kids, but her ex-husband was having none of it, maybe she let it slip to him that Fox-Carnell was home.’
‘Or he worked it out for himself.’ Eastwood scribbled a note down.
‘But if the people who murdered Fox-Carnell are responsible for the harassment, why bother coming back on Wednesday morning to throw paint at the house, if they already had her? It’s possible that the harassment and the murder aren’t related at all. ’
‘Eastie’s got a point,’ said Stanford.
‘She does, and that brings us to the next question: who was following Fox-Carnell?’ said Henley.
‘Fox-Carnell’s tag’s last location before it went dark was my street early Tuesday evening.
Her body was found just before 7 a.m. this morning and her tracker went back online at 8.
43 a.m.. We’ve got sixty hours where Fox-Carnell could have been anywhere or with anyone.
She wouldn’t want to risk losing her freedom after all these years so it’s safe to assume that she was on her way home when she left my street.
Someone took her between Brockley and Colindale. ’
‘How was she getting about?’ Stanford asked.
‘Her dad said she was using public transport and that her mum had given Fox-Carnell her debit card. I’m assuming she was using that to pay for her fares. She also had an old phone her mum gave her with a pay-as-you go sim card.’
‘Even if her tracker went dark her phone wouldn’t have done,’ said Ezra who had entered the room with his shopping.
‘Unless she had an absolutely brick of a non-smartphone, her location services would have been on. I mean how would she find her way to your house if she didn’t have a map?
Anyway, the point is that I can tell you where she went and who she may have spoken to before the phone company even starts to process your application for cell site data. ’
‘Ezra, you’re right,’ said Henley. ‘I’ve been in touch with MIB and they’re still waiting on the phone company, but they were able to confirm that her phone’s last location was on Archway Road in Highgate.’
‘If that’s her last location, she either switched off her phone or her battery died,’ said Ezra. ‘But she could also have switched off her location services but that would be a bit pointless because her phone would still connect to a cell site tower.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to join the Met officially?’ asked Pellacia.
‘Absolutely not,’ Ezra replied.
‘Ezra, I’ll email you Fox-Carnell’s phone number,’ said Henley. ‘In regard to the mum’s credit card, I’ve given Linda Fox until the end of the day to send me a copy of pending transactions.’
‘But in case she’s not compliant – and she probably won’t be,’ said Ramouter, ‘I’ve already submitted a request to her bank for confirmation of all transactions from Monday.’
‘What about MIB?’ asked Pellacia. ‘Surely they’ve done a lot more than make a phone call and traipse up here to have a pissing match with us.’
Henley shook her head. ‘They’ve given us what they’ve got, which is not a lot, but, that’s not all.
We need to get a statement or call a press conference as soon as possible.
There are images of Fox-Carnell’s body circulating all over social media.
We had drones at the crime scene and people filming from their balconies.
We need to be the ones putting out Sian Fox-Carnell’s name and not some random who managed to work out that one plus one does in fact equal two. ’
‘I’ll contact the press office as soon as we’re done here,’ said Pellacia. ‘Where are we on forensics?’ he asked as Ramouter’s phone rang on his desk. Ramouter mouthed sorry as he turned his back to pick up his phone, speaking in hushed whispers.
‘At the moment, nowhere. It’s early days,’ answered Henley. ‘Anthony said that he’s going to fast track the results because of who we’re dealing with and in terms of the post—’
‘Henley,’ Ramouter shouted out, his face serious. ‘It’s Dr Linh Choi. It’s about Fox-Carnell. Pick up line three.’
Henley turned to the nearest desk and picked up the phone. ‘Linh, it’s me,’ she said.
Linh, the senior pathologist at Greenwich mortuary, let out a laugh. ‘You know, sometimes it would be nice to have a simple, he died in his sleep case but with the SCU never.’
‘What’s going on?’ Henley asked cautiously.
‘I’ve got Sian Fox-Carnell on my table. The dad and uncle viewed her and left about forty minutes ago. Bear in mind this is the first time that I’ve seen the body because I sent Theresa down to confirm death.’
Henley remained quiet as she listened to Linh take a deep inhale.
‘She was scalped,’ Linh said.
Henley shook her head to make sense of what she’d just heard. Ramouter frowned at her, in question. ‘She was what?’ she asked.
‘Scalped. From skin to skull. 324mm across and 584mm down. I can see the knife marks on the bone.’
‘Right. Right.’ Henley pulled out a chair and sat down, suddenly weary by the savagery of the violence that Fox-Carnell had been subjected to. ‘How soon can you complete the post-mortem?’
‘As soon as I’m done with you, I’m opening her up.’