Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(48)

“What about George Tomassini?” asked Kate.

“There’s no criminal record for George,” said Alan, sipping his coffee. “And you say that these young men are now on the missing persons database?”

“David and Gabe are. I think Joanna Duncan was looking into their disappearances, and had perhaps discovered foul play when she went missing. That’s the theory we’re working on,” said Kate. Alan nodded.

“What else do you need?” he asked, seeing Kate was poised to ask a question.

“It’s very broad. I’m thinking the bodies of these guys might have been found. They had no dependents, so they may have gone unidentified.”

“Did you know, on average, around one hundred and fifty unidentified bodies are found every year in the UK?”

“That’s less than I thought. The missing person statistics each year are off the chart.”

Alan nodded. “Yes. Some of the bodies found are complete, and sometimes it’s just parts. Did you know it tends to be dog walkers, joggers, or mushroom foragers who find them?”

“Mushroom foragers? Is that a thing?”

“Of course, especially here in the countryside, outside big cities. You don’t find many people doing it in Mayfair or Knightsbridge. The majority of bodies, or body parts, are found in autumn or late winter, when the foliage has died back.”

Alan had been scratching Quincy’s fluffy belly the whole time he was talking, and the little dog was now snoring.

“Would you be able to do a search for me, from 1998 to 2002, for unidentified remains?” asked Kate. “That would cover the time period when David and Gabe went missing.”

“Over that time period could mean over six hundred bodies and remains,” said Alan. “I do have an awful lot of work trying to keep up with current deaths and postmortems.”

“I know, but what if I could give you very specific criteria within that time frame? The search area would just be the southwest of England. Males, between eighteen and twenty-five. Over six foot tall, with dark hair, who might have been sexually assaulted. Who might have had a criminal record for soliciting or drugs. And good looking. Maybe not that last one. You can’t put ‘good looking’ into a database. It’s subjective . . .”

Kate could see that Alan was sitting up in his chair. He got up, went over to the window, and stared out over the garden. He looked troubled.

“I did a postmortem on a young man last Thursday,” he said. “Body found dumped in the remains of a recently fallen tree on Dartmoor. He’d only been dead for thirty-six hours. The police identified him from fingerprints . . .” He looked back at Kate. “He matches the description that you’ve just given me. Matches down to a T, apart from the hair color, which is blond. He had a prior arrest for soliciting.”

“How did he die?” asked Kate, her heart thumping in her chest.

“Repeated strangulation. The petechial hemorrhages, which look like a red rash, show that he was strangled and then revived several times. There was Rohypnol found in his blood, along with alcohol, and evidence he’d been bound and sexually assaulted. There was no DNA evidence found on the body.”

“What have the police said?” asked Kate.

“Nothing to the media, and as far as I know, they don’t have any witnesses or suspects,” said Alan.



Kate had a call from Tristan when she left Alan’s house.

“I managed to find Ashley Harris, Joanna’s editor at the West Country News,” he said.

“Please tell me he’s still alive.”

Tristan laughed.

“Yes. The reason we couldn’t find him is because he got married and he took his wife’s name.”

“How modern of him.”

“I know. His change of name was listed on Companies House. His wife is Juliet Maplethorpe, so he’s now Ashley Maplethorpe. They run a company called Frontiers People Ltd.”

“What kind of company?”

“They have contracts to run back-to-work schemes for the UK government. They posted a profit of seventy million quid last year.”

“So, more lucrative than working for a regional newspaper.”

“Yes. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but he quit as editor of the West Country News two weeks after Joanna went missing,” said Tristan. “I found an old article online from the West Country News, dated January 2001, when they announced him as their new editor. He was thirty when he became editor, and he’d been an ambitious journalist. Starting as an apprentice at sixteen, working his way up. He was the youngest person made editor on a regional newspaper—then he gives it all up after Joanna goes missing. What’s interesting is that I messaged him this morning, when I found this out, and he’s agreed to meet us on Tuesday.”

“Good work, Tris.”

“That’s not all,” he said, sounding excited on the phone. “I had a look at Frontiers People’s website, and Ashley’s bio and photo are on there. I thought I’d seen his face recently. He’s in that photo taken at the opening of Jesper’s. He’s standing next to Noah Huntley with his wife, Juliet, and what looks like Noah Huntley’s wife. And when I looked on the Companies House registry, Ashley was also one of the original investors in Jesper’s hotel, along with Noah Huntley, Max Jesper and his partner, Nick Lacey, and three other local businessmen.”