legends · 6 min read ·
Composite
A police sketch artist finds that each corrected detail brings a witness's missing relative closer to the page.
**Ashford Police — Facial Composite Session, Case 26/1187**
**Sketch artist:** Connor Hale (Forensic Imaging) · **Witness:** Maja Orlova · **Session:** 1 of 3
*Witness describes a man seen in the stairwell of Chester Mansions on the evening of 19 October. Witness reports the man was carrying a bag and was humming.*
· · ·
Connor had drawn composites for eleven years. He liked the work. A witness gave you a few sentences, and you gave them a face, and the face became something that could be shown on a notice board and recognised by a stranger on a bus. He knew the rules: start with the shape of the head, then the eyes, then the mouth, and let the witness correct you at every stage.
Maja Orlova was a careful witness. She was in her forties, a nurse on nights, and she described the man in short, precise sentences.
"Tall. Thin. Long face. Eyes set deep. Hair grey at the sides, brown on top. He had a scar on his left cheek, from the ear to the jaw. It was old and white."
Connor drew the head. He drew the scar. Maja nodded.
"That's him."
· · ·
**Session 1 — Sketch version 1**
*Witness approved: head shape, eye placement, hair.*
*Witness corrected: scar. Not on left cheek. On right.*
*Witness corrected: mouth. Too narrow. He smiles a lot, she said, but it's not a warm smile.*
· · ·
Connor redrew the scar on the right cheek. He widened the mouth a little. Maja leaned in and looked at the paper for a long time.
"Something's off," she said.
"Which part?"
"The eyes. They're looking the wrong way."
Connor checked the sketch. The eyes were looking straight out of the page, as they should. "Where are they looking?"
"Past me," Maja said. "At the door. He was looking at the door of the flat the whole time he was on the stairs. He didn't look at me once."
· · ·
**Session 1 — Sketch version 2**
*Witness corrected: eyes. Now looking past the viewer to a point over the witness's left shoulder.*
*Witness states she did not see the man's eyes clearly. Witness states she was looking at his hands. He was holding a woman's shoe.*
· · ·
Connor had the next version of the sketch on the easel when the witness came back from the tea break. He had drawn the hands. He had drawn the shoe. The shoe was small and brown, with a buckle.
Maja stopped in the doorway.
"That's wrong," she said.
"It's what you described."
"I didn't describe the shoe. I didn't see the shoe. I saw the hands. They were holding something in front of its chest." She came closer to the easel and put one finger on the paper, very lightly, on the place where the shoe's buckle was. "This is the buckle from my sister's shoe."
Connor's mouth went dry. "Where is your sister now?"
"She's at her flat," Maja said. "Or she's on the landing, asleep. I can't remember. I've been on nights for a month."
· · ·
**Session 2 — Witness interview (recorded)**
**CONNOR:** Maja, you said earlier that the man was humming. Can you describe the tune?
**MAJA:** It's a hymn. The one my father used to hum over the washing-up. He always got the second verse wrong.
**CONNOR:** Did the man sing it to you?
**MAJA:** No. He hummed it to the woman. She was in his arms. She wasn't my sister. I don't have a sister. Do I?
**CONNOR:** Maja, can you tell me where you were on the evening of the nineteenth?
**MAJA:** I was on the stairs. I was going up to my flat on the fourth floor. I stopped on the landing because I heard someone humming. It was coming from below. It was coming up toward me.
**CONNOR:** And then?
**MAJA:** He passed me on the stairs. He didn't look at me. He had the woman in his arms, and she was asleep, and he was carrying her down, very slowly, one step at a time. And I stood on the landing and watched him go, and I didn't say anything, because I didn't know her.
**CONNOR:** Did you know the woman?
**MAJA:** [Pause.] I think I did. I think she was mine. I think I've been looking for her since.
· · ·
**Session 3 — Final sketch**
*Witness approved: all features.*
*Witness requested: the composite be sent to the coroner's office, not the public notice board.*
*Witness asked the artist to add one further feature: the figure's face is turned away from the viewer, toward the stairs.*
· · ·
Connor did the final drawing. He didn't want to. He drew the man in profile, climbing a flight of stairs, with a woman's head resting on his shoulder and a brown shoe hanging from her foot. The man's face was turned toward the stairs above him, and the face was the same as the first sketch, the one Maja had approved on day one, but turned away, so the viewer could see only the scar on the cheek, which was on the right side, and the grey at the temples.
Maja looked at it and nodded.
"That's him," she said. "That's how he goes up."
· · ·
**Coroner's notice (Ashford, 2 November)**
A composite sketch from case 26/1187 has been received. The composite depicts a male adult carrying a woman up a stairwell. The woman is not identified. The adult is not identified. Ashford Police have no record of a missing person matching the description given.
The witness, Maja Orlova, was found on the fourth-floor landing of Chester Mansions on the morning of 1 November. She was sitting with her back against the wall, looking at the top of the stairs. A brown shoe was on the step beside her, with the buckle undone.
Witness states she is listening for the man to come down.
· · ·
**Connor Hale, personal note (filed with the sketch, 3 November)**
I'm putting this in the file because the coroner didn't want it, and nobody else would have read it.
The final composite is still on my desk. The man's face is turned away, climbing. I've looked at it every day. But each morning, the stairs in the drawing are a little higher, and the woman on his shoulder is a little heavier, and the shoe is a little more worn.
This morning I found the shoe had a second buckle, very small, and beside it, in the margin of the paper, a fine pencil line, drawn by someone who had never been taught to sketch. It was a woman on a landing, with her arms out, reaching for the step above her.
I've taken the drawing to the coroner. I've asked for the file to be closed.
I still hear the hymn when I'm working late. It's coming up the stairs toward me, one step at a time, and the voice humming it sounds like someone I used to know, and who I'm sure has been carrying something she loves, for a long time, up a very high stair.