Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 9

On the sixth day after the discovery of the remains, Ross sat alone at his desk in his small but functional office at police headquarters. The painstaking task of removing the remains from the abandoned dock had taken almost two days to achieve, and the inspector now awaited the results of the post-mortem on the unfortunate soul whose last resting place had gone unmarked and unrecognized for God knows how many years. After six years as a Detective Inspector, Ross had to admit to himself that this could turn out to be his most baffling case to date. As a rule, most murders tended to follow a similar pattern. Either through love, jealousy, hatred or for financial reasons, one individual would one day snap and instigate the death of another. In the majority of cases, the body would be found sooner rather than later, and certainly not years later, as in the current case. Of course, identifying the victim helped, and again was usually achieved fairly quickly even when no identification was present on the body. Only in rare cases did it take a length of time for the police with all their modern resources to identify a murder victim. This time, however, things were very different. In the case of the skeletal remains which even now, Dr. Nugent and his assistant, Lees were carrying out an autopsy of sorts on, there was no hope of fingerprint identification and the few items of trace evidence found in the vicinity after the removal of the body had provided little if any hints that would put a name to the victim, and without a name for the deceased, any hope of finding the killer would prove minimal.

Ross picked up the report that lay on his desk, a single sheet of paper that contained the list of items recovered from the mud and silt that had accumulated around the decomposing body over the years. The remains of one boot, obviously a man"s had survived in enough detail to be estimated at a size ten. Nugent, of course, had been correct in his assumption the remains were those of a man. Perhaps the other boot had degraded and been washed away with the tidal flow from the dock while it was still operational, Ross hypothesized. Next, a few coins, totalling six shillings and tenpence in pre-decimilisation currency, that had probably been in the deceased"s pockets had been found, cleaned and from the date of the most recently minted coin discovered it was possible to assume with some degree of certainty that the murder had taken place no later than nineteen sixty six.

“Bloody hell,” Ross spoke aloud, “that"s over thirty years ago. How the hell am I supposed to find this poor sod"s killer if I can"t even find out who he was?”

“Talking to yourself, now, are we, sir?” came the voice of Izzie Drake from the doorway. Ross had been so engrossed in his personal thoughts he hadn"t heard her knock gently before entering his office.

“Well, there wasn"t anyone else here to listen, was there, Sergeant?” he replied, quickly regaining his composure after initially appearing surprised at Drake"s sudden appearance.

“I"m here now, though, sir. You managed to come up with anything new from looking at that list?”

Ross quickly scanned the short list of items once again, for probably the tenth time since the forensic team had compiled it, and sighed before replying. The actual items found were currently in the evidence locker down in the basement of the headquarters building, and the two detectives had spent a few hours trying to glean something, anything, from staring at the assortment on the day they"d been brought in, under Izzie"s supervision after she"d led the team in a painstaking search of the dock.

“I"m no miracle worker, that"s for sure, Izzie. I mean, what have we got? A bit of an old boot, a few coins, a few pieces of cloth that may or may not have been part of the victim"s clothing, a metal comb, a few drinks cans, various makes of beer and soft drinks apparently identifiable, a few glass bottles, whole and in pieces and that strange piece of plastic one of your searchers picked up. Any or all of this stuff could just as easily have been thrown into the water by someone not connected to the murder. We just don"t know, and I can"t see how we"re ever going to know, if you want the truth.”

“I know sir. It seems like an impossible and pretty thankless task if you ask me. Doesn"t the chief superintendent realize we"re on a hiding to nothing with this one?”

“He probably does, Izzie, but he puts a bit of pressure on D.C.I Porteous to get a result and he puts the pressure on me and we just have to do our best.”

Izzie Drake walked across to the window of Ross"s office, and appeared to stare into space for a few seconds. Ross recognized this as one of Izzie"s regular ways of gathering her thoughts and waited patiently for her to speak. She turned back from the window, and as Ross looked at her expectantly, she voiced her thoughts.

“Look, sir, I know this a wild thought, but what about the guys in the cold case squad? Our skeleton might just refer back to one of their cases.”

Merseyside Police did in fact have one of the best cold case units in the North of England, as the inspector knew only too well, and Ross deliberated for a few seconds before replying to his sergeant.

“Under normal circumstances I"d probably agree with you, but, and it"s a big but, I know for a fact that the Cold Case Squad have to work under very specific terms of reference. The most important prerequisite for them to become involved in a case is that, quite simply, there has to be a case for them to become involved in. In other words, it has to be a case that already exists on the unsolved books, and sadly for us, in this case, as we have no identity for our victim, we have nothing to cross reference it against, to see if they have our victim listed in any past crime statistics.”

involved“Damn it,” said Drake. “I really thought I might be on to something there.”

Ross smiled.

“You still might be, Izzie. If we can find out who our victim is, and he"s listed in an unsolved case file somewhere then Cold Case might be interested in taking the case over, if the boss agrees.”

“And why wouldn"t he, sir?”

“Simple, Izzie. Because if he thinks there"s any mileage for positive publicity to be gained from his own murder squad solving an old case, he"s unlikely to want to hand it to the wrinkly squad.”

Drake sighed.

“Internal politics at work again, eh, sir?”

“"Fraid so, Izzie.”

Before they could continue their discussion, the phone on Ross"s desk rang. Drake moved to leave the office, but he held up a hand to tell her to stay where she was. The call might be important to their case, and indeed, after a minute of what Drake took to be serious listening by her boss, he spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Okay, thanks, Doc. Sergeant Drake and I will be with you shortly.”

Izzie looked intently at Ross as he hung up on Doctor Nugent.

“Results of the autopsy, or should I say examination of the bones, I assume, sir?”

Ross nodded his head and spoke as he quickly tidied the papers on his desk into a neat pile and then placed them in the top left drawer of his desk, locking it with a key which hung on the key ring that also contained his car keys.

“Such as it was, yes. Our dour but brilliant pathologist says he"s come up with one or two things, but he"d rather explain to us in person rather then over the phone. Of course, that"s his usual stance, always wanting to over-dramatise any little bit of trivia he might have discovered, and present it like he"s bloody Sherlock Holmes or something, so let"s not get too excited until we see and hear what he has to say.”

“Understood, sir, but, from what you just said, I"m assuming he"s found something of interest?”

“According to the good doctor, yes he has. So, let"s get on over to the mortuary, and see what he has for us.”

“Right, sir. Should we tell D.C.I. Porteous we"re going over there?”

“No point, Izzie, not unless or until we have something to report to him. If he needs me he can always reach me through my mobile, and I"d rather talk to him with something positive to report rather than just give him my travel itinerary for the morning. Just tell D.C. McLennan where we"re going just in case the boss does ask where we are while we"re gone. Go on, and give D.C. Ferris a heads-up too. He might need to get in touch if he comes up with anything.”

Drake returned to the squad room where she quickly brought the two Detective Constables up to date. McLennan was busy going through missing persons files going back for a number of years, though how he hoped to cross reference a name with an as yet unidentified skeleton was anybody"s guess, and the older and more experienced D.C. was studying the photographs taken by the crime scene techs, of all the various items of detritus and rubbish, or potential evidence, however you looked at it, discovered around the victim"s remains.

Ten minutes later, she was behind the wheel of the Mondeo pool car assigned to Ross, as they made the short drive to the city mortuary. Hopefully, they would find something of interest in the results of Doctor Nugent"s examination of the mystery skeleton.