by K Pierce
‘Where are the guys that found her?’ Nat looked around, seeing only a handful of Tyvek suits and uniformed officers.
Barry pointed to the barn. ‘One’s in there with Phil and the other one’s in the main house with Ryan for the initial statements. We’ll get them down to the station so that we can go over and confirm their stories. Both lads are young and known to us. Petty stuff though so I don’t think it’s them.’
‘Petty stuff escalates though.’ She shuffled in a crap attempt at keeping warm. ‘Look at Gary Shepherd.’
‘I’d rather not. He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.’
‘Funny.’ She let out a deep breath and grabbed booties and gloves from the back seat. ‘Let’s get this done.’
They crossed the fields in silence, heading for the glow of the white tent pitched in the distance. Nat’s boot slipped on the muddy walkway more than once and she let out a stream of profanities as she attempted to stay upright.
Barry reached out to hold the door of the tent open for her. She ducked inside, staying a respectful distance away from the photographer documenting the scene.
The body was wedged horizontally under the privet hedge. The woman’s legs had been pushed underneath it and she was tilted at an awkward angle. Her features were unrecognizable, dried blood caked around the various holes and lumps that had once been her face. Her curly hair was wet, tangled and matted with blood and dirt, making it difficult to distinguish its colour. She was wearing a low-cut black t shirt underneath a thick olive cardigan and a pair of black leggings hung from one foot. Her bare legs were mottled and bruised, scrapes and scratches marring almost every inch of porcelain skin.
‘Same as your slaughterhouse, I’d say.’ Nat turned at the sound of Janet’s voice. Her white suit was smeared with mud, only her face visible in the hole of her hood. She looked tired. ‘This one hasn’t been here as long though as far as I can tell. A few days maybe, but don’t quote me on that one until after the autopsy.’ She tilted her head as the gentle tap-tapping of rain started on the tent roof. ‘This bloody marvellous weather isn’t exactly helping. I’m not sure what you’ll get in the way of evidence since she’s been out here in the rain.’
‘So, blunt force then?’ Nat said. ‘Anything else?’
‘You mean did he rape her?’ Janet asked. Nat nodded. ‘From the looks of it I’d say yes but like I said, nothing’s gospel until the autopsy. Which,’ she checked her watch, ‘I am going to do today. Give me a couple of hours to get her home and settled and then you can join us.’
They nodded their agreement and left her to it, passing a gurney and a thick body bag on their way back up to the house.
‘A few days for this one, a couple of weeks for the last one, six weeks before that. Sounds like he’s escalating.’ Barry said.
‘We’d better hurry up and catch him then.’
***
Nat would never get used to post mortems. It wasn’t that she was squeamish, just that she couldn’t believe what people were capable of doing to each other. As if that wasn’t rough enough there then followed the whole indignity of the victim being poked, prodded and cut into pieces in the search for the truth of what had happened to them. The world was a cruel place.
The two detectives stood side by side behind a sliding glass window. They watched Janet and her assistant move together, as if they were part of some slow, macabre dance, each playing their part and never getting in each other’s way. The victim was carefully inspected, photographed, stripped and washed. Incisions were confidently made, organs removed and weighed, notes jotted down, and various samples were taken to be sent off for testing.
Nat pulled on her gloves and shook open a couple of extra evidence bags, grinning as Barry’s thick fingers ripped through the blue vinyl and he swore under his breath.
‘I hate these bloody things.’
‘Gloves or post mortems?’ Nat whispered.
‘Both.’
‘I’d be a bit worried if you didn’t hate them.’
‘Gloves or post mortems?’ Barry shot back with a grin. Nat gave him a shoulder nudge before her attention was drawn back to the autopsy.
Items of clothing and various other things were passed through to them; each carefully sealed in an evidence bag, the date and time logged, and a signature added. They worked in silence, listening to what was going on in the sterile room before them and making notes.
‘She was raped.’ Janet said eventually. ‘There’s a lot of trauma. It looks as though she was dead before the rape occurred. Again, no fluids so possible use of a condom. Unfortunately, she was still alive for most of the beating. Lots of defensive wounds to the hands and forearms, looks like this one was a fighter.’ Nat looked at Barry but said nothing. Janet continued, ‘Six broken ribs, left wrist is shattered, lots of bruising around and inside the torso, and the face…’ she gestured vaguely with a bloodstained glove, momentarily at a loss for words, ‘the poor girl suffered.’
‘So, a rage killing.’ Nat speculated. ‘Crime of passion? Think she knew him?’
Janet pulled off her gloves and apron and threw them in the clinical waste bin. She looked back at Nat with a sad smile. ‘That bit, my love, is your job.’
9.
After the autopsy Barry and Nat split up to interview the farm assistants who found the body. Nat was lucky enough to find herself sitting across the table from the quieter and more sensible of the two. Steven Dalton was just shy of six feet but was so skinny that Nat was convinced he’d disappear if he turned sideways. His blonde hair was a little too long over his ears and looked like it needed a good wash. Tufts of fluff sat proudly on his top lip and Nat wondered just how long it’d taken him to grow them. Although his driving licence claimed he was twenty-three he had a cherubic look about him and she could’ve sworn he wasn’t any older than fourteen. Ryan started the tape, stating who was in the room, the date and the time of the interview.
‘So, Steven, walk me through your morning.’ She folded her hands on the table and tried to catch his eye. His gaze remained firmly on the table.
‘Do I need a brief? Am I under arrest?’ He asked quietly.
‘Should you be?’
‘No. We found her, but we didn’t touch her. Danny almost lost his breakfast all over me.’
She leaned on her forearms and this time her eyes briefly found his. ‘So, tell me what happened.’
‘We got to work at four, as always. Milked the cows before Mrs Timmins gave us breakfast. Then old man Timmins asked us to walk the hedge line of the far fields.’
‘Can you tell me why he asked you to do that?’
Steven scratched his chin and gave her a wary look. She raised her eyebrows to encourage him. ‘He wants to move the cows for a few days. Didn’t tell us why but those fields have been empty since summer. If there’s gaps in the hedges, then the cows’ll get out. We had to check and if we found any spaces or breaks in the fences then we had to mend them.’
‘What kind of tools do you use to mend the fences?’
His eyes darted between them. ‘All kinds.’
‘Can you tell me what you had with you on this particular occasion?’
He shifted in his seat. ‘We had some chicken wire, pliers, wire cutters, nails, a staple gun and…erm…’ He looked back and forth between the two of them.
‘And what, Steven?’ Nat coaxed.
‘Hammers.’ He muttered.
‘Sorry, a little louder for the tape please.’ Ryan said.
‘Hammers.’ He said again. ‘A mallet for any posts that need knockin’ in and a claw hammer for the nails.’ Beads of sweat broke out across his forehead and Nat could see the cogs working in his head as he tried to think of a way to not make them look guilty of bashing someone’s face in.
‘Where are those tools now?’ Nat asked as Ryan scribbled something on the pad in front of him.
‘In the barn.’ He said enthusiastically. ‘That’s where we keep ‘em. Timmins
checks every day to make sure that we don’t nick stuff.’
She nodded. ‘Ok, so you walked the line and...?’
‘We gets to the furthest field. You can only get into it through the gate in the field between that one and the house, unless there’s a hole in the hedge somewhere. We was walking and Danny says, “What’s that?”’ He swallowed hard. ‘I seen her legs and we got closer and I seen her face. Or what was left of it.’ He looked at Nat, eyes watery, then tipped his head to the side and threw up all over the floor.
Nat ignored the mess and carried on. ‘Have you been out of the area lately, Steven?’ He shook his head. ‘How about the Lake District? Have you ever been there?’ He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and reached out a trembling hand for the cup of water on the table in front of him, slopping it over the rim. After he’d composed himself he looked at her for a long time. The tension in the air was palpable and the thick stench of vomit sat heavily around them. She wasn’t sure he was going to answer.
‘Danny went last month. He comes from up there. He goes all the time.’
‘Have you ever been with him?’ Nat said.
‘What’s this got to do with the girl in the hedge?’
‘Can you answer the question for me, Steven?’
His eyes shone with panic. ‘I didn’t kill nobody.’
‘Have you ever been up to the Lake District, Steven?’ She asked again.
Dark eyes narrowed as he regarded her over the table top. Then he whispered, ‘I want a lawyer.’
***
The smell of kebab made Nat’s mouth water. It had been over an hour since Steven had asked for his solicitor and ten minutes since they’d actually managed to get hold of him. Since he was away for the weekend, they weren’t expecting him to show his face until the following morning, meaning they’d get nothing else from Steven until then. Frustration had forced Nat out to the car park for some fresh air, and on her return, she could see that someone had ordered dinner.
She pulled open the door and was met by three sets of eyes attempting to gauge her mood. She gave them a tired smile and grabbed the greasy package with her name on it from the box on the desk. Chicken kebab, her favourite. Her stomach rumbled loudly in agreement and she realised that she hadn’t eaten all day.
‘So, he cried for his mummy?’ Phil said around a mouthful of lamb. ‘Think he did it?’
She shrugged. ‘What did his mate say?’
Phil twisted his face into a half frown, half sneer. ‘I didn’t do nothing.’ He mimicked. ‘Then the usual ‘no comment’ for an hour. Both of them are shady. They might be in it together, or one is covering for the other.’
‘Maybe. Steven grassed him up for going up to the Lakes last month, but he won’t say if he went with him or not. That’s really all Danny said?’
‘Pretty much.’ Phil chipped in. ‘Told us he came from up north, we’re checking to see when he last went, if that tallies with Steven’s account, and if someone can give him an alibi. What did we get from the autopsy?’
Barry pulled a manila folder across the table and flicked it open. ‘Preliminary came through when you went for the food.’ He loosened the tie around his neck and popped the top button of his shirt. ‘Same MO as the slaughterhouse girl. Raped, before and after. Face was destroyed but this time we didn’t find a weapon.’
‘So, he did that,’ Ryan gestured to the whiteboard and the scene picture of the girl they’d found in the hedge. ‘with his bare hands?’
Barry shook his head and swallowed the large bite of kebab he’d just taken. ‘No, Janet thinks that he did beat her with his fists but the death blow, and a lot of the damage afterwards, was done with a blunt and heavy object. We just didn’t find it.’
Nat screwed up her rubbish and tossed it back into the box. ‘He’s gotten wise and taken it with him.’
‘Looks like it. We did get a little lucky this time though. This victim has a tattoo. It’s a small one at the nape of her neck, easy to miss because of all that hair but hopefully someone will recognize it.’ He tossed a blown-up photo across the table. Janet had carefully shaved a small portion of hair to reveal a rainbow coloured, four leaf clover.
‘Distinctive.’ Nat said.
‘And already out to the papers and the news channels along with a rough description of the lady herself.’ He passed out the autopsy paperwork.
‘He’s going to be pissed when he realises that we might have a way to identify her.’ Ryan said. ‘What if he goes underground?’
‘Then we dig until we find him.’
10.
‘Still nothing?’ Fiona asked sympathetically when she caught Emily gazing longingly at her phone for the hundredth time.
Emily shook her head ‘I think I pushed too hard with wanting to meet up, especially after I wasn’t about to help her when she needed it.’
Fiona snorted. ‘Firstly, she wanted to meet with you first, totally her suggestion. And secondly, if she’s still miffed about you not coming to her rescue then she’s not worth it. I mean, seriously, who expects somebody that they’ve just met – online, no less – to come out in the middle of the night to rescue them. I know you say you,’ she made air quotes with her fingers, ‘have a connection but come on, that’s ridiculous! And the wanting to see her thing? What’s the point in hanging around when you might hate each other when you do actually meet? If you ask me, you did the right thing by pushing. At least now you know it wasn’t meant to be and -’ The chime of Emily’s phone interrupted her rant and they both turned to stare at it on the desk. ‘Answering it might be an idea.’
Emily stuck her tongue out and swiped the screen.
Hi Beautiful, sorry I haven’t been around. There was a death in the family and I’ve been a little preoccupied x
‘Shit.’ At Fiona’s questioning look Emily read the message out loud. ‘Now I feel a bit of a cow for sulking over not hearing from her for two days.’
‘You weren’t to know. Just tell her you’re sorry to hear about it and does she need to talk. Ladies love to know that you care, it might make her less reluctant to meet.’
‘Thanks Oprah.’
Fiona elegantly flipped her middle finger before sauntering back into her office and closing the door with a gentle click.
Emily pulled a face at it and turned back to her phone.
***
Emily couldn’t stop grinning. She knew that she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it. Annie was unlike anyone she’d met before and she really felt a connection between them.
‘Let me guess, you’re grinning about the new bolts of that lush velvet we’re getting in next week?’ Fiona was sitting among several swathes of floral fabric as she tried to decide on a colour scheme and theme for a client. ‘I was that excited about it too. Can’t wait.’
Emily stuck her tongue out. ‘No.’
‘Really?’ Fiona raised an eyebrow. ‘What else could it possibly be?’ Her sarcasm was not lost on Emily.
‘Nothing.’
‘Is that why your hands have been hovering over your keyboard for the last ten minutes and you haven’t even noticed that there’s a fairly big moth sat on your top?’
Emily shot up out of her chair and batted at her clothes. It took her a minute to realise that Fiona was messing with her. ‘You’re such a child.’
‘Mm hmm.’ Fiona put down the folder she’d been flicking through. ‘Look, Em, I’m glad you’ve found someone that you can talk to, someone that makes you smile, but maybe Kat was right, and you should slow it down a little bit?’
‘You make it sound like I’m planning to move in, marry her and knock her up.’
‘No, I just don’t want you to put all your eggs in this girl’s basket, so to speak.’
Emily sat back down and scooted her chair back to her computer. ‘I know what I’m doing. She’s so nice, and it’s not like I haven’t spoken to her and seen her picture.’ She hesitated. ‘She’s asked me to meet her on Friday.’
Fiona
looked up. ‘Where?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s public.’
‘OK, but where?’ She said again.
‘I’m not telling you because you’ll rock up with Kat and totally embarrass me. It’s not local but it is public, and therefore very safe. I’ll be fine.’
‘Maybe it’s not you I’m worried about. I’ve seen you after a Malibu or two, Miss Grabby Hands.’
‘God, you make me sound like some kind of sex pest! That was one time, and she was my girlfriend!’
Fiona narrowed her eyes. ‘Still, I don’t want to have to come and bail you out for lewd behaviour in a public place.’
‘It’s just a drink!’
‘You know what they say…’
‘About drinking?’
Fiona’s face was solemn. ‘Over-excited sippers let anyone in their knickers.’
Emily let out a belly laugh. ‘Nobody has said that. Ever.’
‘Well they should. That’s how Kat got me to marry her.’ She winked.
11.
Nat heard an excited voice in the corridor behind her. She was trawling through cold cases with a similar MO to their own and had so far come up empty. Her neck was aching, and her eyes felt like they were full of sand. She’d spent the previous day working through their witness statements and trying to establish an alibi for both Steven and Danny. So far neither was willing to admit to where they were and had clammed up as soon as they’d asked for their solicitors. With no evidence to go on Barry had released them, with strict instructions not to leave town.
There was a commotion in the corridor and Nat could make out Phil’s excited voice before he burst through the door with a flushed and equally hyperactive Ryan trailing behind him.
‘We’ve only bloody got her!’ He shouted.