by Cari Hunter
“And she supported his version of events?”
“Almost verbatim.”
Fraser stirred a second sugar into his coffee. “Then that’s a problem, Meg. I could arrange to have a word with her, but unless she changes her tune, the Crown Prosecution Service will never go for it.”
“I thought as much.” The admission left Meg deflated, as if she hadn’t accepted defeat until that moment. “I don’t even know why it’s bugging me. It’s not like we don’t see it all the time.”
“Maybe it’s a bit close to home right now.”
She had already considered that, and she easily conceded the point. “Aye, maybe. Would you try speaking to her anyway, just in case? She’s on the Burns Unit, which has set visiting hours, so it’d be easy for you to avoid the husband.”
Fraser checked the planner on his phone. “I’ll call in tomorrow afternoon. Did you get his name?”
“Cezar.” She gave him a scrap of paper with the details she’d gleaned from the computer. “That’s everything I have.”
“Thanks. It’ll be enough to run him through the Police National Computer to check for any priors.” Fraser folded the paper and capped his pen. “You look like you’ve had a long day.”
“It’s been a bit of a battle.” Meg could barely sit up straight, and a yawn had just caught her unawares. “I really appreciate your help.”
“My pleasure. It’s just that I don’t think I’m going to get very far. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m done, though.”
“Great.” She took out more than enough cash to cover the bill and passed Fraser her barely touched plate.
“As a doctor, shouldn’t you be advocating a healthy diet?” he asked, taking up his cutlery again.
“Absolutely.” She handed him the HP sauce. “But I won’t tell if you don’t.”
*
As much as Meg appreciated clean sheets and the hot-water bottle placed in readiness on her side of the bed, it was the sight of Sanne, fast asleep with a book resting on her nose, that finally made her forget about her shift. Kneeling on the bed, she leaned over to kiss Sanne’s forehead and lift the book clear.
“I’m reading that,” Sanne murmured. She sounded quite indignant for someone with drool on her chin.
“Yep, that’s why it’s stuck to you.” Meg turned the lamp off and huddled under the quilt. Sanne didn’t believe in going to bed with the central heating on, and her cottage could drop from tolerable to freezing in a heartbeat.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d come.” Still half asleep, Sanne threw one arm and one leg over Meg and rested her head on Meg’s chest. She guided Meg’s hand beneath her T-shirt. “Bloody hell, your fingers are like ice pops.”
“It’s nippy out there.” Meg rocked her head back onto the pillow as Sanne’s far warmer hand cupped her breast.
“Apparently so,” Sanne said, and then chortled drunkenly at her own joke.
“I thought you were tired.”
“I am.” The answer was laden with regret. “And I have a briefing at stupid o’clock.”
“New case?”
“Yeah. A bad one, up at Greave Stones.”
Meg nestled her cheek against the top of Sanne’s head, breathing in the familiar scent of own-brand shampoo. “Shh. Tell me tomorrow. Go back to sleep.”
She heard Sanne snuffle in agreement, her breathing becoming deeper and slower. Then Sanne’s eyes opened a crack.
“There’s bread out for your lunch if you need it.”
“Sanne…”
“And Ron gave me some eggs, so don’t have jam butties again.”
“Sanne!” Meg flicked her ear. “Sleep!”
Sanne nodded in apparent accord. Two minutes later, she was snoring.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eleanor couldn’t count the number of post mortems she’d attended. In her junior detective years, she’d volunteered for the duty, not to curry favour with her seniors but because she’d found the process fascinating and because incontrovertible science had been far easier to deal with than duplicitous suspects and idiotic witnesses. Although the people part of her job had long since become second nature, she’d had no qualms about encouraging her daughter to study for a degree in forensic science.
Today’s pathologist—known to everyone simply as Bedford—lifted the stomach clear and cut through it. Keen to learn the contents, Eleanor drew closer to the table. Her mask clung to her face with every inhalation, doing little to temper the smell of gut gases or the blood that was pooling around the small corpse.
“Not much in here.” Bedford prised the bisected stomach apart as he spoke. “Small amount of water, no solids. Consistent with her malnourished state. She’s underweight for her estimated age, and her teeth, hair, and skin are in poor condition. We took bloods last night, and the early results showed multiple vitamin deficiencies, low calcium, anaemia, and the presence of infection.”
“Is the tox back yet?” Eleanor asked.
He set the stomach on the scales. “The basic screen was clear for all the usual suspects—opiates, common sedatives, alcohol. The remainder are still being processed.”
“He would hardly have needed to use them, would he?”
The question was rhetorical, and Bedford ventured no response. For an adult male perp, this child would have been easy prey, and the lack of ligature marks had already been noted during the rape kit.
“Do you ever get tired of it?” he asked quietly.
Eleanor raised her head in surprise. She had worked with him on numerous cases and couldn’t ever recall a discussion beyond the body on the table. She waited as he stopped the tape recorder and peeled off his gloves.
“Yes,” she said. It was six a.m., and she’d just watched the dissection of a child whom no one seemed to be missing. “Yes, I do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what I know about people.”
“I never tell my husband anything,” Bedford said. “He works for a local charity, so we just talk about jumble sales and fun runs and kids who lose their legs but raise thousands of pounds.”
Eleanor appreciated the need to separate work and home life. It was one of many reasons she was glad not to have married into the job. “Doug’s a mechanic,” she said. “I could probably recondition the engine on an MG if I was pushed. He’s usually asleep in front of Sky Sports by the time I get home, but he’ll always have cooked my tea for me.”
“Sounds like a good bloke.”
“He is,” she said with genuine fondness. She watched Bedford replace his gloves and restart the tape.
“Removing the spleen,” he said.
*
Steam billowed from the shower when Sanne opened the bathroom door. Concealed behind the clouded screen, Meg continued to sing whatever tune she’d decided to massacre that morning.
“Oi! Are you paying my water bill?” Sanne shouted above the rumble of the boiler and the rowdy chorus.
A hand wiped at the glass, and Meg peered through the gap. “Wasn’t planning to, no!” she yelled back. “And this relationship is far too young and fickle for us to be getting a joint account.”
“Balls to that, sunshine!” Sanne said, squirting toothpaste onto her brush. “You have even less money than me.”
Despite Meg’s higher salary, once the cost of her mortgage, her mum’s care home fees, her student loans and household expenditure disappeared from her wage, she had as little disposable income as Sanne, but long, scalding showers were something she refused to skimp on, which might explain why she rarely had the funds to buy new clothes.
“Are you on an early again?” Crouched on the toilet seat, Sanne began brushing her teeth. “I can never remember your shift pattern.”
“That’s because I don’t really have one.” Meg caught the towel Sanne threw to her. “Ta. Donovan keeps buggering me about. I suspect it’s how he gets his jollies. Long day yesterday, early today, night tomorrow. At least, that’s what I think I’m on. I usually just turn up and see whether I’m expected.”
Sanne got up and spat into the sink. She leaned back as Meg came to stand behind her. Meg had dropped the towel, and her hot skin dampened Sanne’s shirt.
“You need a diary,” Sanne said, trying to focus on the discussion at hand.
“I’d only lose it, and then someone would know all my secrets.”
“‘Dear diary…’” Sanne looked in the mirror, watching Meg kiss the soft skin beneath her ear. “‘Today I made Sanne late for work again.’”
“You’re never late.” Meg nipped at Sanne’s earlobe, her fingers busy with the shirt buttons. “You’re far too principled.”
“Unlike you.”
“Well, yeah.” She dropped out of view, and seconds later, the play of her tongue across Sanne’s midriff made Sanne’s knees wobble.
“Shit.” Grabbing the sink with one hand, Sanne used her other to halt Meg’s progress. “Not on your nelly. You know what happened last time.”
“What, when you lost your balance and slipped onto your arse?”
“Yes, well remembered.” She tugged Meg up and steered her into the bedroom. At some point, Sanne’s trousers had been unfastened, so she let them drop and stepped out of them en route.
“Christ.” Meg gulped as Sanne—now clad only in a gaping shirt, bra, and knickers—turned to face her. “That’s a good look on you.”
“I don’t think I’d get away with it at the office.”
“Their loss.” Meg clambered onto the bed, lay flat on her back, and beckoned Sanne closer. “Lose the kecks before you get up here. Leave the rest on.”
Unable to argue with that kind of instruction, Sanne did as she was told, allowing Meg to guide her into place and gripping the headboard at the first touch of Meg’s tongue.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered. Her head fell forward, thudding into the wall.
“No, he definitely had more principles than me,” Meg murmured. “Now be a love and don’t break my nose.”
Sanne nodded convulsively. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Meg kissed the inside of Sanne’s thigh, nudging it wider before pushing up deeply inside her. Sanne’s mouth fell open, her chest heaving as she tried not to hyperventilate. Meg swapped her tongue for two fingers and sent Sanne’s head into the plaster again. Sanne groaned as Meg established a hard, smooth rhythm, her tongue joining her fingers, until Sanne didn’t have a clue what was where, only that she wasn’t going to last for long. Somewhere in the garden, Git Face crowed as if to protest the debauchery, and Sanne came with enough force to rattle the headboard.
“Aw, fuck.” She could barely hold herself in position, and she felt Meg steadying her. Still shuddering, she peeked down. “Fuck. Did I break anything?”
“Possibly a land-speed record, but other than that, no.”
“Oh. Good.” She shook her head, waiting for coherence to return. She shuffled backward and sagged into Meg’s arms like a sack of spuds.
“We shouldn’t do this in the morning.” Meg stroked Sanne’s sweaty hair away from her forehead. “The rest of my day is doomed to pale in comparison.”
Sanne tipped Meg’s chin. “Morning is perfect for this,” she said. “Now, where do you want me?”
*
The thump of Sanne’s bag on the desk brought Nelson’s head up from his paperwork.
“Traffic bad?” he asked, watching her rummage through files and knock things over.
“No, it was fine.” She found the right folder but not the memory stick that went with it. Her chest felt tight and panicky. She wasn’t late, but she had a pre-presentation routine she liked to keep to, and running in with her shirt all to cock and her bullet points missing wasn’t part of it. “Where’s the stuff from last night?”
“Here.” He waved the stick at her. “Did you oversleep?”
“No.”
That wasn’t quite a fib. She’d gone back to sleep, true, but she hadn’t overslept in the strictest sense. When she dared to look at Nelson, he was laughing softly.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she said. “Okay, well, yes, it probably is—”
“San…”
She put a hand to her burning cheek. “What?”
“Take your joy where you can find it, that’s what my granny always used to say.” He passed her the memory stick. “And I don’t think we’re going to get much joy in here today.”
“No, I doubt we are.”
The mood in the EDSOP office was unusually sober, with heads down and conversation muted. In the corner, Fred’s kick to the photocopier was a half-hearted effort at best.
“The boss got in from the PM about twenty minutes ago, with Litton right behind her,” Nelson said. “She’s not been seen since, but we’re assuming the briefing’s going ahead.”
Sanne nodded, her attention fixed on her computer screen. With the right file opened and apparently intact, she breathed easier. “Shall I give the location overview while you focus on the evidence?” she asked, aware that his sense of direction was next to nonexistent.
“Yeah, highlight that section for me so I can go through it.”
They worked quietly until Litton departed, with an underling scurrying behind him, and Eleanor went into the briefing room. An EDSOP-only briefing meant no need to rush for seats, but the team was gathered around the tables, pens readied above notepads, with plenty of time to spare.
No one reacted overtly when Eleanor dimmed the lights and filled the overhead screen with photographs of the girl’s body, but the air in the room seemed to still. Out on the moors, most of the corpse had been obscured by shadows and rocks, enabling Sanne to view it with a degree of equanimity. By contrast, the stark lighting of the morgue accentuated every detail in the photos. Blood had pooled on the right side of the girl’s face, giving it the look of a Halloween mask, unmarred on one half and grotesque on the other. Exposed for the examination, her body appeared even more fragile, her skinny limbs and prominent ribs and hips emphasizing how underweight she was.
Sanne noted her observations down, printing them in a careful hand until she could focus on the photographs without fear of losing her breakfast. In the next chair, Nelson was employing a similar tactic, though his complexion, usually a healthy dark glow, had noticeably paled.
“Everyone should be familiar with the circumstances surrounding the discovery of this body yesterday,” Eleanor said, forgoing opening pleasantries. “Bedford has estimated her age at between twelve and fifteen years. Her size and the ambient temperature have played hell with pinpointing the time of death, but taking into account the recent overnight frosts and the unreliability of rigor in a child, he’s given us a window of twenty-four to thirty-six hours, around February the twenty-first and twenty-second, which at least narrows things down somewhat. Lividity was fixed to the right of the body, confirming that it wasn’t moved post mortem.” Abandoning her traditional briefing spot—front and slightly off-centre—she perched on a desk closer to her team. She switched to a photograph of the child’s lower legs and tattered feet. “Other than a small laceration on her right wrist, these were her only external injuries, most likely a result of running across the moors, but the rape kit was positive, and she’d suffered significant internal injuries, not all of them recent.” She paused to let that sink in.
Mike Hallet cleared his throat. “What was the cause of death?”
“Primarily hypothermia, but Bedford has also recorded hypovolaemia, anaemia, and possible sepsis as contributory factors.”
“So some arsewipe of a defence lawyer will be able to bargain this down to rape and manslaughter?” Fred asked.
“Yes, in all likelihood, but we’ll worry about that later. For now, we have an unidentified minor with nothing found during the PM to change that.” Eleanor brought up an image of a purple tunic and a plaited woollen bracelet. “These were the only items she was wearing, and beyond saying that she’s Pakistani or Bengali, we can’t be more specific about her ethnicity, so we’ll focus t
he house-to-house within those communities.”
She moved on to detail the area of moorland and Old Road that would be covered by fingertip searches, and then handed over to Sanne and Nelson, whose summation of the previous night’s findings passed smoothly and—possibly due to Carlyle’s absence—without interruption.
“I’ve spoken to Greater Manchester’s Traffic sector this morning,” Nelson said. “Bearing in mind that this vehicle could have come from the motorway, they’ve agreed to examine any relevant camera footage once we have an idea of make and model.”
“Greater Manchester Police are also in full cooperation regarding the wider enquiry,” Eleanor added. “They’ll be carrying out their own door-to-doors and getting the vic’s photograph into the relevant areas. Her body may have been found in our patch, but that doesn’t mean she’s local to us.”
Casting about the room, Sanne saw numerous eyes roll at the prospect of a multi-force investigation, and there was a general shuffling of bums and paperwork. While she didn’t lack ambition, at times she was happy her role was junior, and this was certainly one of them. Trying to organise and delegate across two police forces would add an extra layer of aggravation to an already complex case.
“Initial thoughts?” Eleanor looked round at her team.
“Honour killing?” George said, glancing at the screen and scratching the whiskers on his chin. “She seems young for that, though.”
“She is,” Eleanor said. “Most, though not all, violence around so-called honour is committed against women in their late teens or early twenties.”
“Opportunistic abduction and rape?” Jay suggested.
Sanne raised a hand. Briefings always made her feel like she was back in the classroom, but at least she spoke up without waiting for a teacher’s permission. “A white perp trawling Asian neighbourhoods for a victim would probably have been noticed by someone. I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been called in.”
“Definitely something to check,” Eleanor said, adding it to the bottom of her notes. “Given local tensions, it would be remiss not to consider a white-on-Asian revenge motive, which means that the usual idiots—English Defence, 212, the Infidels, et cetera—will need speaking to. But if we’re looking at a stranger abduction, then why hasn’t anyone reported our vic missing?”