Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(10)

‘This one—’ Bishop tapped his finger on the print to Davidson’s left, ‘was found at Blackdown Barn. And this one?’ He looked up at Davidson. ‘Found next to the body of four-year-old Sophie Carmichael thirteen years ago.’

Carter was struggling with the name for a few seconds before the realization crossed his face and he turned to Trevor. ‘Sophie Carmichael? As in Inspector Callum Carmichael?’

Trevor nodded. Harding said nothing. She was watching Davidson’s reaction as he bent over the prints and his hands gripped the edge of the desk. Carter looked around at the others. His eyes rested on Harding. She was still watching Davidson. He could see that she needed no reminding about the case. But then, he knew she had been there. She’d been the pathologist then. Davidson looked up after what seemed ages. He had composed himself a little.

‘Do you have a name for me, Trevor?’

‘No, sir. But there is no doubt.’

‘There was someone in the frame for it at the time, wasn’t there, sir?’ Carter looked at Trevor and then Davidson. There seemed to be an awkward silence. Davidson didn’t answer; he looked deep in thought. The room had become charged, poised. Trevor answered.

‘Maria Newton. She was the mother of the other woman murdered in the cottage along with Carmichael’s wife Louise. Her name was Chrissie Newton. She was there with her baby son Adam who survived the attack. Maria Newton died before we could take her prints, two weeks after her daughter was murdered.’

‘Shall we allocate officers from the team to reopen the case, sir?’ Carter asked. Davidson still didn’t answer. He continued studying each photo in turn as if hoping to find a discrepancy in the match; but he couldn’t. He glanced Harding’s way. She stared back at Davidson but gave nothing away. She knew, more than anyone else in the room, what this news meant to him: not a great opportunity to clear up a cold case, especially one that he had failed to crack first time round. It meant his failings would be under scrutiny again.

‘No. Not at this present time. Not until we have something more to go on. We don’t have a name. We only have a match. We can’t spread our resources too thin. We don’t have the money to chase up a cold case at the moment. We are stretched to the limit already.’

‘Sir?’ Carter waited. Bishop wasn’t hurrying to put the prints away. Everyone was waiting. ‘This is a hell of an opportunity, sir.’

‘Maybe . . . maybe.’

‘Sir?’ Carter looked confused. Harding and Bishop said nothing.

‘I will not be rushed into a decision. I need time to consider the implications of this. Before I am ready to reopen the Carmichael case I want to know what we are letting ourselves in for.’ He looked around the room. No one was moving, everyone waiting for him to say more. He sat back in his chair. ‘You forget I was the SIO then too. We took on the case because we felt we owed it to a fellow MET officer to handle the case within the MET. I thought I was taking on a fellow officer’s case and we would come out of it getting justice for him, but we didn’t. We came out of it with two women and a child brutally murdered and seemingly the only person who could have done it was him. We came out of that case with more questions than we went in with.’

Davidson stared down at the prints on his desk.

Bishop spoke; ‘It was difficult. Louise and Sophie weren’t meant to be there that evening. Carmichael was supposed to pick them up but he didn’t show. He was the first on the scene the next morning. He said he arrived at about eleven. On that Saturday evening someone went to Rose Cottage and they brutally murdered everyone in the house except for the baby, who they left sedated, perhaps they had plans for him and ran out of time.’ He shook his head. ‘This wasn’t a quick process. These women were butchered, tortured over many hours. Louise was raped.’

‘Yes,’ Davidson agreed as he looked down at the prints on his desk. ‘And the only DNA apart from a handprint, this handprint—’ he pointed to the partial palm, finger and thumb print on his right, ‘was Carmichael’s. That was everywhere in abundance. He was covered in his daughter’s blood. He said he moved her. But why would a trained police officer do such a thing?’

‘Different when it’s your family, I suppose,’ said Carter.

Davidson shook his head, a worried man. ‘The more we looked into it the worse it looked for Carmichael. Things began to be uncovered about him. It turned out he was going through a bad time. He’d been behaving strangely, out of character, before it happened. He was diagnosed with massive mood swings. He was ex-military. He had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.’ Davidson sighed. ‘Carmichael was our chief suspect for the murders at Rose Cottage. But we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. He was in no state to tell us what happened. So, we protected our own that day. We closed ranks. It left questions but no answers.’

‘Could he have done it?’ Carter asked.

‘Easily.’ Davidson nodded his head slowly. ‘Would have been very easy for a man trained like he was. He was in the Special Boat Service. He’d been held captive at one time.’

‘Did he ever show signs of cracking beforehand’ sir?’

Davidson looked across to Harding for an answer.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But we know a lot more about Post-Traumatic Stress now than we did then. It could have come out at any time.’