Mud, Muck and Dead Things

by Mud, Muck

  ‘Tell them you’d stopped to explore the place out of curiosity. You’re looking out for land for development.’

  The fact that he had had just such a thought for a moment or two while at the farm made Lucas angrier. Was he that easy to read? A person who’s easy to read is also easy to manipulate. His earlier suspicion resurfaced.

  ‘I’ve been having a bit of a think, too.’ He glowered at the other. ‘I’m beginning to wonder just why you chose that farm for our meeting!’

  ‘I knew of it!’ His companion was defensive now. ‘It’s pretty well deserted. The owner doesn’t live there. He stops by occasionally but only rarely and it would have been really bad luck if you’d run into him. But if you had, I’d trusted you to think up some story quickly. You could have told him you were looking out for building land, the same as you could tell the police, if you go to them now.’

  ‘I am not going to the police!’ roared Lucas. In a quieter, but more chilling voice he added, ‘And you know why. We’re neither of us going to the cops, are we? Just get out of my life, right? And I’ll stay out of yours. But if I find out who set me up—’

  The polishing cloth slid from the wing mirror to the ground with a rustle, interrupting him, and he concluded the sentence with, ‘Anyone who set me up will be sorry.’

  As he spoke, he automatically stooped to retrieve the cloth. That was a mistake he’d never have made when younger.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Hello, Inspector, come to hear the gory details? I’ve just finished my report. Got it here, somewhere…’ Tom Palmer hunted among the papers on his desk. ‘Cripes, I remember now, I gave it to my secretary. But I can remember it all, if you’ve got any questions?’

  He stopped shuffling the papers and looked up at Jess, black eyebrows raised.

  This was a morgue and her business here this Tuesday morning was death and destruction but Jess found herself returning his cheerful smile. Then she forced herself to assume professional seriousness.

  ‘I have already spoken to Phil Morton. He tells me you’re satisfied with manual strangulation.’

  ‘Take a pew!’ Palmer indicated she should take the chair opposite and seated himself again. ‘Oh, yes, quite satisfied. There is the characteristic fracture of the hyoid bone. There are bruises on the throat consistent with the pressure of fingers, but not of nails. So our strangler had short fingernails.’ He held up his own hands, the backs of them sprinkled with fine dark hairs, and made gripping movements with them.

  ‘A man, then, you think?’

  ‘Some women have quite large hands and keep their fingernails short,’ Palmer said reproachfully. ‘I knew a girl once, well, doesn’t matter. But she had hands like a navvy.’

  Jess found herself hiding her own hands. They weren’t large but she did keep her fingernails short. ‘Spare me the details of your love life,’ she begged. ‘However odd it may be.’

  He chuckled. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t require that much strength or time to kill someone by throttling them. That’s what you tell kids, isn’t it? Never put your hands round a friend’s throat in play. If you grip your victim round the neck –’ (more demonstration with his own hands) – ‘he or she will lose consciousness quite quickly. Pressure on the carotid artery, you see. Blood doesn’t reach the brain. Also the victim can’t breathe.’ Palmer rolled his head and gasped realistically. ‘He or she will pass out and the murderer can finish the job at leisure.’ He put his hands down on the desk.

  ‘Thanks for the demo,’ said Jess.

  ‘You’re welcome. So, yes, a woman could do it, especially a fit woman. Of course, there would be an initial struggle. Our corpse has a badly bitten lower lip and I would say that occurred during the brief fight back. She bit her own lip. But if the murderer surprised his victim or if she had no reason to think she should fear him, her reaction would be slow. If it is a “him”, then perhaps a certain amount of rough and tumble was usual in their, er, physical contact.’

  The pathologist cleared his throat and showed a momentary unexpected confusion.

  ‘Sexual activity?’ asked Jess immediately.

  ‘No sign of recent activity.’ Palmer was brisk again. ‘She wasn’t a virgin but then a modern girl…’ Palmer avoided her eye. ‘She was young. I’d say eighteen or nineteen, twenty at the most.’

  ‘And how long had she been dead? And was she moved?’

  ‘I would say my original guess of thirty hours that I made at the scene is probably correct, or as correct as we can say. One can never be exact about these things, despite what telly detectives and paperback whodunits tell us. So many factors come into it. In this case, the body lay in that cold shed, open to the night air and raindrops swept in by the wind. But her clothing wasn’t soaked, only damp,’ added Palmer suddenly. ‘When did it rain?’

  ‘It started to rain on Friday, the day she was found,’ Jess replied. ‘Before that, although we’ve had a lot of rain recently, I don’t think it had rained for forty-eight hours. I remember thinking it was a welcome break.’

  ‘Hum, well, you’re the detective! As to whether she was moved, well, I’d say she was, but quite soon, within the five hours after he killed her. She was then deposited in that cowshed and, after that, she wasn’t moved again until we took her away. So, for my money, she was killed elsewhere and after taking a few hours to think what he could do with the body, he decided to put it in the cowshed.’

  ‘So he knew about the farm and that it was more or less abandoned,’ Jess said thoughtfully. ‘It also means he had to have kept the body somewhere between killing her and moving her.’

  ‘Boot of his car?’ suggested Tom. ‘He’d have needed a vehicle to move her. And he might not have known about the farm. He could have driven round for four or five, maybe six, hours with the body in the boot, wondering what the hell he’s going to do with it. Then, suddenly, he passes the farm. It looks deserted. He gets out of the car, takes a closer look and decides it’s excellent for his purpose.’

  ‘But what was his purpose?’ Jess pursued, after a pause to consider this plausible scenario. ‘He left her very near the entrance to that barn. Anyone taking a casual look would have seen her. OK, he threw her coat and some sacking over the body but it was still obvious something was there, probably something that was hidden because it wasn’t meant to be there. Short of painting a line of arrows leading to it, he couldn’t have made it more obvious.’

  Tom scratched his mop of black curls and pulled a face. ‘You work out his motive, Sherlock. I don’t know what his purpose was. I’m the sawbones. Post-mortem hypostasis is consistent with her having lain in that position for most of the time after her death. Lividity is fairly well fixed; leading me to think she was moved early on. You know what I’m talking about, of course?’ Up went the black eyebrows again.

  ‘Yes, Doctor, on death the blood stops circulating and settles at the lowest point to form pink or red patches. After a short while they become fixed. They ought to be underneath the body. If they’re on top she’s been moved.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, of course you know! As a general principle, yes. We don’t attach so much importance to livor mortis now as they did years ago. But basically what you say is right and still holds true. The fact that she lay in such a cold place may account for the deep red colour of the patches. She’d had a meal not long before she died, by the way.’

  ‘Do we know what she ate?’

  ‘Probably fried food. The fat register of the stomach contents is high. Beef, potato and some other vegetable. If I had to guess, I’d say steak and chips. Perhaps garnished with salad. The sort of meal you get in pubs.’ Palmer grinned again. ‘And there are hundreds of pubs in Gloucestershire which serve it.’

  He was right, unfortunately. ‘She was found at five o’clock,’ Jess mused aloud. ‘Deduct thirty hours or so and you get a time around lunch the previous day. Perhaps she had a date and he took her out to lunch in a local pub. We’ll have to ask around. It’s a good start. Thanks, Tom.’


  ‘It’s a guess!’ said Palmer quickly, alarmed. ‘I could be wrong.’

  ‘We have to start somewhere,’ Jess told him. ‘What about her personal possessions? Anything to identify her?’

  Palmer gestured towards the neatly wrapped items laid out on a shelf nearby. ‘Sorry, don’t think you’re going to get much joy there.’ He went across. Jess followed him.

  The girl’s clothes were laid out in individual plastic bags. There were no loose items. Struck, as she had been when she’d viewed the body, Jess ran down a list in her mind: no jewellery, wristwatch, notebook or diary, mobile phone, purse. Nothing, not even a lipstick. She frowned.

  ‘Odd,’ she muttered. ‘Are you sure this is all?’

  Beside her, Tom stared down at the pathetic collection and nodded.

  ‘I thought it a bit strange, too. There’s no money. Everyone carries money, don’t they? Even if they have a credit card on them, and especially if they don’t.’

  ‘He – I’m still saying “he” for convenience,’ Jess began. ‘I have taken note of what you said about the murderer possibly being female. So, he checked over the body and removed any personal items. He’s a cool character, isn’t he? He wasn’t panicking. Most people, if they’d realised they’d inadvertently strangled someone, would panic. But I don’t buy your theory that he drove round for five hours in ever-decreasing circles looking for somewhere to dump his victim. It’s too long. Two hours? Three? Yes, possibly. Five? No. He drove her somewhere else where he waited, with her body still in the boot, until he felt safe to go to the farm. Of course, I’m assuming for the time being that the motive wasn’t simply robbery. A mugger would have left her where she fell and run.’

  ‘That’s not something for me to decide,’ said Palmer, suddenly cautious. ‘Manslaughter or murder? That’s up to you and the Crown Prosecution Service.’

  ‘All right, I know! I’m the detective!’

  A scenario was unrolling rapidly in her brain.

  He took her out to lunch. She was happy, trusting… Somehow he persuaded her to go with him to some lonely spot where he killed her. There must be a dozen such places within range of the farm. He waited until evening, removed all identifying items, put her in the cowshed, threw her own coat over her and, because that wasn’t big enough, a handy sack as well… and scarpered. This isn’t manslaughter. We’re looking for a murderer.

  But is he the man in the silver Mercedes? Did the murderer start to worry after he left her? Did he decide to go back and check again? Was he surprised no one had found her? Could he just not keep away?

  ‘Her clothes all look new to me,’ said Palmer, poking his finger into the nearest plastic sack. ‘But I’m no expert on ladies’ clothing.’

  ‘They look new to me, too,’ Jess agreed.

  So, had she recently come into extra money? Had the man who bought lunch also bought the new clothes? Had she got a new job and better wages? Was she a student who had got herself a part-time job to pay for new things?

  Jess picked up the package containing the pink jacket.

  ‘This is the most distinctive item and, I’d say, the most expensive. We’ll go public with that one. Get a picture of it in the press and, with luck, on the telly.’ She stood for a moment with the plastic package in her hands, frowning.

  ‘I’d still like to know why he left her so near the entrance to that barn. It’s as if he wanted her found. There are a dozen better hiding places at Cricket Farm.’

  ‘Have you ever tried to move a dead body?’ asked Tom. ‘Let me tell you it’s bloody heavy. “Dead weight” isn’t a term used in jest. He may have staggered as far as the entrance of the barn and decided, sod this, and just dropped her there. To strangle doesn’t take strength so much as persistence and pressure. He may not have been physically very strong.’

  ‘Or “he” may have been “she”,’ said Jess.

  * * *

  The news of the ‘Body in the Cowshed’ was out. Late that afternoon Carter and Jess held a hastily assembled press conference and appealed for help in identifying the victim. They passed out photographs of the pink jacket.

  * * *

  She was a small stocky girl with a mop of tawny blond hair and smoky grey eyes. Phil Morton fancied he could almost see the smoke rising from them. He wished they looked at him in a more friendly fashion. It was Wednesday morning.

  ‘Miss Svo-bo-dova…’ His voice tailed off.

  She leaned towards him, her manner even more aggressive. ‘Svobodová!’ she corrected.

  ‘I was never very good at foreign languages,’ confessed Morton.

  She looked as if she believed him.

  He tried again. ‘Svobod-ova…’ He held up his hand. ‘You’ll just have to put up with the way I pronounce it, all right? Or can I just call you Milada? That’s a bit easier for me.’

  ‘You can call me whatever you like,’ she said. ‘But do not pull a face.’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ denied Morton, feeling that he was getting the wrong end of this interview.

  ‘You were. You cannot see yourself. I can see you. You have a name, Sergeant?’

  ‘Morton,’ he told her.

  ‘Tsk!’ She waved it away irritably. ‘You have a first name? You were baptised?’ She frowned and stared at him in manifest doubt.

  ‘Yes, I was!’ snapped Morton, ‘I was christened Philip, after my dad.’

  ‘Good, well then, I can say “Philip Morton” and not pull a face. So you can do the same for me.’

  ‘What can we do for you, Milada?’ Morton asked wearily. ‘You said you wanted to talk to someone about the recent discovery of a body.’

  She threw herself back in her chair. Her belligerent expression faded and looked mournfully at him. She had full, well-formed lips, noted Morton, but now they turned down and he wished, for some reason he couldn’t quite articulate, they would turn up, smile at him. He wished the smile could be reflected in the grey eyes.

  ‘It’s my friend,’ she said. ‘I’m certain.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘She’s missing. I can’t find her. I have to do her shift as well as my own.’

  Morton picked up his pen and retrieved his notepad. ‘Where do you both work and what is your friend’s name?’ A note of apprehension entered his voice.

  ‘Eva Zelená,’ she said. Morton breathed a sigh of relief. ‘We both work at the Foot to the Ground. It is a pub and a restaurant. I know it’s a strange name but…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s in the countryside and a very lonely place but lots of people come.’

  ‘I think I know the place,’ said Morton. ‘Or I know where it is, at least. I hear it has very good food but a bit pricey. How long have you both worked there?’

  ‘She was working there before me. When I came she had been there, oh,’ she frowned again briefly, ‘I think about two months. I also have been there two, nearly three months, so she’s been there five months.’

  ‘And do you both live there? Or where do you live?’

  ‘Oh, yes, we share a room in the attic.’ She pointed upwards. ‘But it is a big room. It runs almost the whole length of the building and there is a little shower room up there for us. It’s really quite nice.’

  ‘And when did you last see Miss Zelená?’

  ‘On Thursday morning, last week, before breakfast. It’s her day off, Thursday, so she got up very early and told me she would go to Cheltenham. I asked her how she would get there. The Foot to the Ground is what you call “miles from anywhere” and there is no bus!’ She looked indignant.

  Looking indignant, Morton thought, seemed to come naturally to her. Nevertheless he felt he had to apologise for the inadequacy of rural bus services. ‘Like that everywhere now, I’m afraid.’

  ‘She told me she had a lift. Someone she knew, who lived not far away, was going to Cheltenham. She would walk down to the corner at nine o’clock and this person would pick her up. The Foot to the Ground is in a very narrow road but it joins a bigger road, which go
es to Cheltenham. There is a –’ She held up the forefinger of her left hand and put the forefinger of her right hand across the tip of it.

  ‘A T-junction,’ supplied Morton. ‘Yes, there is. I know the spot. Yes, I have been to the Foot to the Ground. Not recently. I haven’t seen you there.’ And he hadn’t recognised the dead girl in the barn. But he hadn’t been to the Foot to the Ground for at least six months. Neither of these two girls would have been working there then. Pity he hadn’t been more recently. He might have met Milada when she wasn’t so stroppy.

  ‘This person,’ Milada was saying, ‘would also bring her back in the evening to the bottom of the road. But she didn’t come back and Mr Westcott is very angry. He says she has buggered off. But I know she has not buggered off!’

  ‘Mr Westcott?’

  ‘He owns the pub. I told him, she most definitely has not buggered off because she would tell me, if she wanted to leave. Anyway, she left all her clothes and—’ Milada rummaged in her shoulder bag and produced a small book with a flourish. ‘She has left her passport! She would not go without passport!’

  ‘Ah, now!’ said Morton, taking it. ‘That is interesting. Czech Republic. That’s where you come from, too?’

  She nodded.

  He opened the little passport and studied the photograph. It could be the dead girl, but it had been taken in happier times and the dead face he remembered had been distorted and discoloured.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep this. I’ll give you a receipt for it and if your friend turns up, you can give her the receipt and she can come in and claim it back, all right?’

  ‘Keep passport!’ she said impatiently. ‘She can’t use it now! She’s dead so she won’t come back!’

  ‘Going off for a few days without warning is one thing,’ argued Morton. ‘Being dead is another. Does she have a boyfriend?’

  Milada pursed her lips and made a side-to-side motion of her head. ‘Perhaps. I think so, yes. But I don’t know his name or who he is. She didn’t say. But several times, when she had time off, she went to the corner, to this T-junction, and this person picked her up.’