bleeding away.
At the same time as they were filming him weeping
about his colleague’s death, the papers were alerted to
Vickers’s brief criminal past and began scrambling around for more info. The phones of Scotland Yard’s press bureau rang hot with reporters wondering whether Trevor Vickers was a suspect, would he be brought in for questioning, would he be charged? One public-spirited reporter called in to tell them that a neighbour insinuated the relationship between Vickers and his mother wasn’t normal, without quite saying why. ‘They’re making him out to be Norman
Bates,’ Foster said to Heather.
He was in the incident room when Heather called.
‘The results of the DNA test on the hair found on Katie
Drake’s clothing are in,’ she said.
‘Do they match with Trevor Vickers?’
‘No. How much do you know about DNA profiling
from hair specimens?’
‘That it’s not straightforward. That’s about it.’
‘I’ve been speaking to the lab. All they had was a hair
shaft and a dead follicle. This hair fell out — it wasn’t pulled out. If they’d had a fresh follicle then they might have been able to obtain a full DNA profile, but in this case they’ve no chance.’
‘So it’s no use?’
‘No. Not exactly. They weren’t able to provide a match
against the database. All they’ve been able to do is extract some mitochondrial DNA.’
Foster was no expert in either forensic science or genetics.
But he did know that mitochondrial DNA was passed
down by the mother and there was no database to check it against; it was useless unless there was a sample it might be compared to.
‘They extracted it in case it became relevant in the hunt for Naomi. And they’re going to see if they can get a sample of Vickers’s hair to see if it matches. But there’s one fact which interested me.’
‘Go on.’
‘The DNA sample matches the victim’s.’
What do you mean?’
‘The victim and the person whose hair we found on her
clothing share the same mitochondrial DNA.’
‘It’s the daughter’s?’
‘No, that’s what I thought, too. They’re certain it’s not the daughter’s. It’s a short hair, congruent with that of a male, and it’s black. The mother and daughter had brown and blonde hair. They’re going to carry out some more analysis on it but we’re certain this sample belonged to a male.’
‘So it’s a relative?’ he replied. As far as they knew, she had no male relatives.
‘How much do you know about mtDNA haplotypes?’
‘About as much as I know about Belgian rock music’
Well, mitochondrial DNA barely changes over time — the pattern can last for thousands of years.’
‘I’m still lost in the land of ignorance here, Heather.’
‘OK, what I’m trying to say is that we know that the
victim and whoever left this hair share a common maternal ancestor. Unfortunately, the problem is that we don’t know when they shared her. It could be one generation ago. Or it could be a hundred generations ago.’
‘So this ancestor could be their mum or it could be
Cro-Magnon woman?’
‘Exactly. There are some mfDNA haplotypes that many
people share. But there are less-common haplotypes, too.
This is one of them, but it’s still shared by around one per cent of the population.’
‘Then narrowing it down to one person, or even a small
group of people, will be impossible.’
‘Virtually. Harris and his cronies think that it’s no use
unless we find a perfect match for it. Ideally, for them and for us all, obviously — that would have been Trevor Vickers. They’re going to get a strand of his hair and compare it to this, but as far as they’re concerned the DNA sample is useless because it tells them nothing.’
Foster could sympathize. The clock was ticking, a girl was missing; it would be easy to dismiss it because it appeared to offer no solutions. Concentrate instead on the present, the leads you already have, sketchy though they may be.
At the same time as they were filming him weeping
about his colleague’s death, the papers were alerted to
Vickers’s brief criminal past and began scrambling around for more info. The phones of Scotland Yard’s press bureau rang hot with reporters wondering whether Trevor Vickers was a suspect, would he be brought in for questioning, would he be charged? One public-spirited reporter called in to tell them that a neighbour insinuated the relationship between Vickers and his mother wasn’t normal, without quite saying why. ‘They’re making him out to be Norman
Bates,’ Foster said to Heather.
He was in the incident room when Heather called.
‘The results of the DNA test on the hair found on Katie
Drake’s clothing are in,’ she said.
‘Do they match with Trevor Vickers?’
‘No. How much do you know about DNA profiling
from hair specimens?’
‘That it’s not straightforward. That’s about it.’
‘I’ve been speaking to the lab. All they had was a hair
shaft and a dead follicle. This hair fell out — it wasn’t pulled out. If they’d had a fresh follicle then they might have been able to obtain a full DNA profile, but in this case they’ve no chance.’
‘So it’s no use?’
‘No. Not exactly. They weren’t able to provide a match
against the database. All they’ve been able to do is extract some mitochondrial DNA.’
Foster was no expert in either forensic science or genetics.
But he did know that mitochondrial DNA was passed
down by the mother and there was no database to check it against; it was useless unless there was a sample it might be compared to.
‘They extracted it in case it became relevant in the hunt for Naomi. And they’re going to see if they can get a sample of Vickers’s hair to see if it matches. But there’s one fact which interested me.’
‘Go on.’
‘The DNA sample matches the victim’s.’
What do you mean?’
‘The victim and the person whose hair we found on her
clothing share the same mitochondrial DNA.’
‘It’s the daughter’s?’
‘No, that’s what I thought, too. They’re certain it’s not the daughter’s. It’s a short hair, congruent with that of a male, and it’s black. The mother and daughter had brown and blonde hair. They’re going to carry out some more analysis on it but we’re certain this sample belonged to a male.’
‘So it’s a relative?’ he replied. As far as they knew, she had no male relatives.
‘How much do you know about mtDNA haplotypes?’
‘About as much as I know about Belgian rock music’
Well, mitochondrial DNA barely changes over time — the pattern can last for thousands of years.’
‘I’m still lost in the land of ignorance here, Heather.’
‘OK, what I’m trying to say is that we know that the
victim and whoever left this hair share a common maternal ancestor. Unfortunately, the problem is that we don’t know when they shared her. It could be one generation ago. Or it could be a hundred generations ago.’
‘So this ancestor could be their mum or it could be
Cro-Magnon woman?’
‘Exactly. There are some mfDNA haplotypes that many
people share. But there are less-common haplotypes, too.
This is one of them, but it’s still shared by around one per cent of the population.’
‘Then narrowing it down to one person, or even a small
group of people, will be impossible.’
‘Virtually. Harris and his cronies think that it’s no use
unless we find a perfect match for it. Ideally, for them and for us all, obviously — that would have been Trevor Vickers. They’re going to get a strand of his hair and compare it to this, but as far as they’re concerned the DNA sample is useless because it tells them nothing.’
Foster could sympathize. The clock was ticking, a girl was missing; it would be easy to dismiss it because it appeared to offer no solutions. Concentrate instead on the present, the leads you already have, sketchy though they may be.
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