by Carla Kovach
‘Ah, guv.’ DC Paula Wyre headed towards the sink and ran the tap. Her jet-black hair fell down her back and her fringe had almost grown out. It wasn’t like Wyre to let herself become even remotely unkempt.
‘Are you okay?’ Gina leaned against the sink waiting for a reply.
Wyre began fiddling with her cuff. ‘Me and George, we’re over.’
‘I am so sorry. The wedding?’ Stupid thing to say and Gina instantly regretted it. She glanced down at Wyre’s ring finger. The shiny rock that had recently adorned it was no longer there.
‘It’s as over as it’s going to be and…’ She shrugged. ‘I had no idea, not an inkling that anything was wrong in our relationship. He wasn’t keen on my hours but I told him from the start, I’m a police detective. People don’t just commit serious crimes between nine and five. Anyway, shit happens but another day waits for no one. I’ve just got to get on with things. Maybe I’ll get myself back out there, back in the saddle as they say.’
‘Look, if you need to take a short break to—’
She shook her head. ‘No. What I need is a distraction. It is what it is. At least the tenancy on the flat was in my name so I sent him packing yesterday. He is gone.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, I just want to get on with things so less talk about me and George.’
‘A distraction would be most welcome. It’s been a bit quiet lately, not that I’m complaining.’
‘Not as quiet as you might think.’
‘Do tell.’ Gina finished pulling her hair into the elastic band and checked out her appearance. It wasn’t good but to hell with it. At the moment, she didn’t really care. It was January, it was gloomy and it was freezing cold. On top of it all, the boiler at the station was on the blink and they were relying on fan heaters in every room to keep hypothermia away. She almost revealed her smile, the one that might reveal that last night she was with her DCI, Chris Briggs. That night shouldn’t have happened but history had repeated itself. She enjoyed his warmth and the fact that he always managed to press her right buttons, but no one would know. She didn’t want to be moved from Cleevesford Police and neither did he.
‘A woman called Lauren Sandiford is coming in to report her missing neighbour as she hasn’t come back to her apartment all weekend. They’re both students and live at the large converted house on Bulmore Drive.’
‘I know the one. There’s been a lot of trouble there in the past but I don’t recall any incidents there over this past couple of years. Do we know anything more? Is it just a case of uniform following this one up?’ Gina straightened her back, undid her heavy woollen overcoat to expose her grey suit jacket.
‘As you say, we’ve been a bit quiet but uniform have been run off their feet with volume crime lately so I thought we could take the pressure off them for a change.’
‘Sounds good. I hope that our missing woman is just staying with friends.’
Wyre leaned against the sink. ‘Lauren Sandiford did say that she and Amber Slater had become close friends and that she’s not answering her phone. It may be something, it may be nothing. Let’s hope it’s nothing and Amber turns up.’ Wyre reached into her pocket again and pulled a proper hair bobble out. ‘I got this for you, guv. It pains me to see your hair being ripped to shreds when you remove those elastic bands.’
Gina snorted out a little laugh, prompting Wyre to follow suit. ‘Thank you.’ She wrenched the elastic from her hair, pulling out a few more strands, and replaced it with the lovely padded bobble. ‘Better.’
Wyre nodded.
‘I think we’ll interview this woman together when she gets here?’
‘Great.’ Ever the professional, Wyre had left whatever heartache she may be suffering in the toilet block.
Gina hoped that their missing woman was just having a wild weekend with some guy she’d met. After all, she hadn’t been gone long. A little cold shiver prickled on her neck. Hope was pointless. What she needed to do was find the woman, then she could relax.
3
Lauren Sandiford nervously sipped on the tea that Wyre had made. Her face was blank, giving nothing away, but her fingers nervously traced the grain on the wooden table. Gina had chosen the room she considered their best, although none of them were particularly inviting, such was the result of the cuts to their budget. The fan heater whirred away, making a clanking noise every now and again. The smell of burning dust filled the room.
‘I feel stupid for being here.’ The young woman threw her mini backpack to the floor but kept her khaki duffle coat completely zipped up to her round double chin. Her mousy hair fell from the sides of her fur-lined hood. After grabbing a tissue from the box on the table, she wiped her red nose and blew.
‘You shouldn’t feel stupid. It’s good that you’re concerned about your neighbour.’ Gina leaned forward as Wyre flicked over to a fresh page in her notebook. ‘Can you tell me a little about her?’
‘We’re friends. Really close actually. She left to go on a date on Friday night and I haven’t seen her since. It’s just weird that’s all, and she’s not answering her phone. I’ve tried calling loads of times.’
Gina checked the details she noted down. Lauren was twenty. She was studying the Early Years foundation degree at Worcester University and she worked part-time at the chip shop in Cleevesford. ‘Okay, we’ll start with her name.’ They’d been told when Lauren originally made the call but Gina needed to clarify that they’d taken it down correctly.
‘Amber Slater.’ She cleared her throat and had another sip of tea.
‘How old is Amber?’
‘Same as me, twenty.’
‘And what does she do?’
Lauren dragged the chair along the carpet tiles and placed her gloved fingers on the table. ‘She’s a student and she works behind the bar at the Angel Arms. She’s studying accounting and finance, year two.’
Even with the heater on full, Gina shivered and she knew everyone else in the room would be as cold. ‘Do you have a photo of her?’
Lauren pulled her phone from the outer pocket on her rucksack and prodded at it with her gloves on. After realising it wasn’t going to respond, she pulled them off and started again. ‘This is her Facebook profile picture.’ She held the phone out across the table.
‘May I?’
The woman nodded and handed Gina the phone. ‘Of course.’
Gina clicked on the photo and pinched it to make it larger. The smiling young woman on the screen exuded confidence in her orange jumper. Her wavy hair shone with health, giving her a model-like appearance. Her eyebrows were definitely painted over to give them a flattering arch and her tight jawline and her heart-shaped face was finished with a pointy chin. ‘Could you please email that photo to me once we’ve finished.’
Lauren nodded and unzipped her coat a little. ‘Yes, no worries.’
‘You last saw her on Friday night, when she left you to meet someone for a date? Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me what time that was?’
‘Erm… I think it was around seven. She was getting the bus to meet this man at a restaurant outside Cleevesford. It’s called the Fish and Anchor. She was meant to be on the twenty past seven bus.’ She paused as if thinking. ‘It pulls up at the stop a little further down Bulmore Drive.’
‘We can certainly contact the restaurant and the bus company to check her whereabouts that night. Are there any reasons she may not be answering her phone or could she have just stayed with someone over the weekend?’
Lauren paused and went to speak but then stopped as if trying to carefully compose her next sentence. ‘Maybe. She could have stayed with her date but she would have called me by now? I know she would.’
‘Did she usually call you if she was going to be staying away for a couple of days?’
‘She’s never stayed away like this, except when she’s been home to her dad’s house. But still, she’s always called me or sent a message of some description.’
‘So wou
ld you say this was out of character for Amber?’
‘Yes. Something’s happened. I know it has.’
‘Can you tell me what she was wearing?’
‘A bright pink jumpsuit and leopard print heels. She has a gold nose ring too. I can’t remember which coat she had on now.’ Lauren scrunched her brow in thought.
There was a tap at the door. Gina stood. ‘Excuse me.’
She opened it gently and DC Harry O’Connor stood in the corridor, his bald head shining under the strip light. ‘Can I have a word, guv?’
She allowed the door to gently close as she let go. ‘Of course.’
‘A walker has found a body at the lake.’
Gina swallowed, knowing that it could well be Amber Slater. The woman who was younger than her own daughter, Hannah… Her heart rate began to speed up. They had to get over to the lake, now.
4
Gina passed the play park and headed towards the outer cordon that PC Smith was finishing off by tying it to a tree. ‘Morning.’ Wyre gave him a smile.
‘Morning, both.’ Smith’s bulky fluorescent police coat made his frame look twice its size. ‘Hey, get back, please. There’s been an incident. You can’t get through.’ He held his hand up, pointing to another path that the jogger could use. His other hand gripped the scene log.
The sweaty jogger held his arm up and ran back the way he came.
‘Where’s the person who found the body?’ Gina glanced around but she couldn’t see anyone speaking to the PCs.
‘He’s on the other side of the path with PC Kapoor. He came from the other side of the lake.’ He began writing Gina and Wyre’s names on the log, the words looking skewered as he kept his gloves on. ‘Right, I have you on the list so enter.’
‘Thank you.’ Gina lifted the cordon up, allowing Wyre to duck underneath first.
A couple of mothers parked their pushchairs behind Gina. She ignored them and followed Wyre under the cordon. In the distance, she spotted Bernard Small, the crime scene manager, along with his team of assistants who had all donned their white forensics suits. His name certainly didn’t match his appearance. He was the tallest person she’d ever come across, his wiry frame always hunched above her when they spoke. His once long grey beard had now been neatly trimmed since he’d started dating again. A PCSO darted past them, chasing an errant dog as its owner waited behind the cordon while trying to gently call the terrier’s name.
‘Time to suit up.’ Wyre took a suit from one of the CSIs and passed Gina one.
The CSI shifted her facemask slightly. ‘They’re just finishing taking the photos and video, if you could give it a couple of minutes that would be great.’
Gina tried to glance over her shoulder. ‘Do you have a description as yet?’
‘I haven’t seen the victim. I just know it’s a woman. We’ll have all the stepping plates down in a minute. It shouldn’t be long.’
Cameras clicked away and another clean CSI walked around with a video camera. Two PCs had started walking up and down the path that led to where the body was, looking for the tiniest of clues beyond the cordon. People were beginning to gather. From the corner of her eye, Gina spotted Kapoor standing under a leafless tree with a man who looked to be about fifty. That had to be their witness. Even more people began to crowd. A sea of bobble hats, raincoats and damp mops of hair added to the crowd. Gina glanced across, wondering if one of them was the murderer coming back to check out their handiwork. Maybe it was the woman who was peering over, wearing a yellow mac; or the man with the maroon bobble hat covered in white knitted snowflakes who was standing behind her. The man in his sixties with the yappy terrier. The two young men in track bottoms and sweatshirts. All of them, going about their business along with twenty or so other people. As more faces joined the crowd, it became impossible to take them all in.
Wyre crept up behind her. ‘Guv, Bernard is calling us over.’
‘Good. We need to get that body moved with some dignity while this lot are around.’ She zipped her crime scene suit right up and pulled the hood over her head, finishing up with boot covers and gloves. Several people had their phones out and were filming and taking photos. Kapoor spotted them, then left their witness for a moment to move the crowd on. ‘What’s Up Cleevesford is going to be the busiest Facebook page around any minute now with all the theories and photo uploads. People annoy me at times.’
‘Too true, guv.’
Gina almost slid down the slimy bank that led to the lake. Only a few days ago, this same patch of earth would have been rock solid with ice, now that it had thawed it was nothing more than a mudslide. ‘Morning, Bernard. Can I see the body?’
‘Yes, come with me. Step on the plates when you reach the bank. They’re a bit slippy so be careful. We’ve managed to screen the body off for now while we continue to work around it, but we keep spotting people from the other side of the lake with their cameras and phones out. It’s making everything take that bit longer.’
‘Wyre, will you ask Smith to send someone over to the other side of the lake and move everyone on? Take their details first.’ A list of everyone at the scene would no doubt be useful later.
‘Yes, guv.’ She nodded and hurried back towards the cordon.
Several ducks quacked and swam over, thinking that everyone was there to feed them. Gina took a few careful steps and finally reached the screen. A bitter breeze caught her face, almost taking her breath away. The thaw wasn’t set to last.
Bernard clanked on the plates as he followed, his awkwardly large feet looking like they were spilling over the plates.
‘Anything I need to know?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Well. I’ve barely had a chance to look at the body let alone examine it, but there’s no mistaking the stab wound to the victim’s chest. The post-mortem will hopefully reveal the type and length of blade and if this was the cause of her death. We’ll know if she drowned by the presence of diatoms in her body; a sample of the lake water will be taken. Again, we need to do the post-mortem to confirm this. She’s a young woman, maybe even a teenager. I’d place her age at between sixteen and twenty-two. There’s no evidence of blood or body tissue found on the banks as yet but, again, we’re still looking and testing. She would have bled a lot from this assault. I’d expect to find something on the banks if it happened here.’
‘Any signs so far of a weapon nearby?’
‘Nothing as yet but the search goes on.’
Gina glanced back. In the still of night, a car could have pulled up at the cut behind her and brought the body down to the lake, or did the girl walk here and become the victim of a vicious attack that led to her death? She also knew there was CCTV at the main car park, which she’d already asked for in her call before leaving the station. It would be a miracle if their killer had used this car park though as the cameras were so visible. The public had been campaigning for more security in this area but, as usual, cuts meant it wasn’t possible.
‘Any idea how long the body has been in the lake?’
Bernard shook his head. ‘She would have been well preserved by the cold water and both yesterday and today have been cold. One thing that does stand out is the post-mortem lividity. She is facing downwards on the bank. You will see that post-mortem lividity has occurred in her buttocks and the back of her thighs and calves. Not long after death, blood pools where there is contact pressure. It appears that the victim may have been sitting with her legs elevated at the time of her death or very soon after. Bear in mind that her heart would also have been pumping blood out of her chest, unless the killer left the knife in place for a while, possibly plugging the wound a little. As you can see, there are so many factors to consider which is why we have to do the post-mortem ASAP.’
‘ASAP, I like those words.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘Ligature marks on her ankles, wrists and neck. She’s been tied up, possibly to the chair that she died in. There are also mar
ks at the corners of her mouth and cheeks. She’d been gagged. One other thing, the skin on her lips has been torn. I’d need to examine her further but I’d say her lips were glued.’
Gina shuddered. All those injuries and it was the thought of the skin ripping from the young woman’s lips that turned her stomach. Why would her murderer glue her lips together?
She closed her eyes as she tried to recall what Amber looked like in the photo that Lauren Sandiford had shown her and she hoped that the woman in the lake wouldn’t be her. She crept around the screen, wobbling a little on the last plate and stared down at the heap of a body that lay on the muddy shore. She could see what Bernard meant about the purplish shade on the woman’s buttocks, visible where her nightshirt had ridden up. Dumped in a lake after being stabbed in the chest. An assault that was so final that Gina shuddered and looked away. ‘Any sign of sexual assault?’
‘None that I can see but that doesn’t mean anything at the moment.’
Glancing across the lake, Gina could see an officer moving the photographers on. She wondered if any of them were from the press. She turned her head back to the young woman and bent over slightly so that she could see the side of her face better. Her long black plaits mingled with the muck and her pointed chin was covered in a gunky film. Her nose ring glinted in the light and her lips had patches of missing flesh on them. ‘That’s our missing woman.’ She grimaced as she took in the waxy appearance of the woman’s skin. ‘Can you tell me how long she’s been here?’ Gina looked away.
‘The cold water makes this difficult. Given her temperature and the condition she’s in, I’d say at least eight hours but that wouldn’t be accurate.’
Wyre clanked on the stepping plates as she came up behind them. ‘Is it her, guv?’ Wyre sniffed.
Gina nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. Thanks, Bernard.’ She headed back up the bank, ushering Wyre to go ahead as she spoke. ‘She was last seen about seven in the evening last Friday and she entered this lake at least eight hours ago. That would be two in the morning on Monday. The killer would have had all day Saturday and all day Sunday to do this. We need to refine this timeline a little more. I hope the post-mortem will be able to do that for us.’