'Do we take that as a positive identification?' Gregson said as the man was helped from the room by two uniformed men.
Barclay was unamused by the DI's quip.
He merely pulled the plastic sheet back over the dead girl's face and motioned for two of his assistants to replace the body in its cold locker.
'Wait,' Gregson said. He took hold of the cover and pulled it down again, studying the cuts, bruises and patchwork of contusions that had disfigured the girl.
'Shouldn't you be taking care of Mr Wilson?' said Barclay.
'Finn's up there. He'll deal with it. Besides, I'm a policeman, not a fucking social worker,' Gregson said flatly, his eyes never leaving the body. Finally he pulled the sheet back and motioned for Barclay's assistants to continue. They lifted the body and slid it back into the locker, where it would be kept for the next two days until funeral arrangements had been made. Those final forty-eight hours would also give Barclay the opportunity to check the corpse once more for anything he may have missed, such as fibres, prints or anything else that might give a clue to the identity of her murderer. After that the body would be handed over to an undertaker and New Scotland Yard's responsibility would be discharged.
Paula Wilson's clothes had been put into a plastic bag, each item removed from the sealed forensic bags, along with what little jewellery she'd been wearing at the time of her death. These would be returned to her family.
Gregson stood beside one of the slabs, glancing down at the puddle of vomit left by Clive Wilson. The acrid smell permeated the air.
'You'd better get that cleaned up,' he said to the pathologist, who regarded him irritably, as if the thought hadn't occured to him.
'Have you finished in here now?' Barclay wanted to know.
'No. I want to see the two bodies. The killers,' the DI told him.
'Why, for Christ's sake?'
'Humour me, will you?'
Barclay crossed to one of the lockers and slid it open. Encased in a rubber bag like some kind of monstrous pupal life-form, the body appeared. Barclay undid the zip far enough to reveal the blackened remains of the features. Gregson stared at the charred corpse then glanced at Barclay and nodded, indicating that he wanted to look at the second corpse. The pathologist repeated the procedure so that both incinerated bodies were in view.
'Still no progress with identifying them?' the DI asked.
'Not with the first one; he was burned as badly as anything I've ever seen,' Barclay confessed. 'The second one, though…' He allowed the sentence to hang in the chill air. 'I found part of a thumb print on the inside of Paula Franklin's left thigh.'
'Why the hell didn't you say something earlier?'
'Because I wasn't sure.' He sighed. 'I'm still not one hundred per cent sure but I thought that ninety-five was better than nothing. I sent the print down to photographic, they're going to work it up.'
The pathologist stood looking at his companion, watching how intently he gazed at the scorched remains of the two dead men.
'What is it about them, Frank?' he said, finally. 'Why, the fascination?'
'Because they're mysteries to me, and I don't like mysteries or unanswered questions. But there's something else, too. I've got something nagging away at the back of my mind. Something to do with these two men. They both used MO's I've seen before.'
'That's not so unusual, is it? Copy-cat killings are nothing new,' Barclay said.
Gregson didn't shift his gaze.
'Does Finn know your theory?' the pathologist asked. Gregson shook his head.
'It's best he doesn't.'
'Why?'
'Because if he knew what I was thinking, he'd probably suggest I was locked up.'
FORTY
'… Police stated that there were anywhere between five hundred and a thousand protesters but that the march was peaceful…'
Jim Scott sat in his office, feet propped up on the desk, his eyes fixed on the TV screen. It flickered every now and then but not enough to bother him or to break his concentration. The black and white images were of a large group of people moving through central London, most of them carrying placards that the cameras managed to pick out.
STOP OVERCROWDING PRISONS NOT ZOOS
Scott looked on impassively.
'… The march was led by the Right Honorable Bernard Clinton, MP for Buxton, whose constituency houses Whitely Prison…'
There was a close-up of a man in his late forties, dressed in a grey jacket and a large overcoat. The fur of the hood matched the white of his own hair. The man was chatting to people on either side of him and looking at the cameras every now and then. Reporters stepped in front of him, thrusting microphones forward.
'What do you hope this march will achieve, Mr Clinton?' asked one.
'Prisons in this country have been overcrowded for too long,' the MP replied. 'Whitely is probably the worst example. It just so happens that it is in my power to do something about it, or at least to make the Government aware of the problem.'
'What is your main complaint with the system as it is at present?' another reporter asked.
'In Whitely, as in many other gaols, remand prisoners are kept in the same sections of the prison, in some cases in the same cells, as convicted men, occasionally even murderers. This is intolerable.'
Scott sipped his drink and continued gazing at the screen.
'… The movement for prison reform has gained momentum in the last three months, ever since the murder of a remand prisoner in Whitely by a convicted killer. Mr Clinton took up the case after relatives of the dead man approached him…'
There was a shot of the Trafalgar Square and Scott could see the protesters milling around the fountains. Clinton stood at the top of the steps and was addressing them but the camera panned across to the reporter standing in the foreground who was addressing his remarks direct to camera.
'… Officials from the Home Office are expected to visit Whitely Prison and a number of other maximum security gaols throughout the country in the next few weeks, to see at close hand how bad overcrowding has become. Mr Clinton himself will lead a delegation to Whitely before the end of the week and a motion to discuss the possible reform of the penal system has been tabled in the Commons.'
The reporter signed off and the pictures of the rally were replaced by the newsreader in the studio. Scott listened for a moment to a story about yet another famine in Africa, to someone appealing for people to send money for food, and then switched off.
Send them money for food, next thing they'll be wanting money for clothes, he chuckled to himself. He pulled the phone towards him and jabbed the digits of Carol's number.
It rang.
And rang.
He glanced at his watch, sure that she wouldn't have left yet. He allowed the phone to ring another five times then tried his own flat, wondering if she might have stayed there until it was time to come in.
There was no answer there either.
He tried her flat once more, and still all he heard was the insistent ringing tone. He pressed down on the cradle and replaced the receiver.
She should be at work soon, anyway.
Ask her where she was.
He decided against that. He just hoped she was all right. Perhaps she'd slipped out for something. Or to see someone.