by Carla Kovach
Twenty-Six
As soon as she heard her mother slamming the front door behind her, Clare got back into bed and put the television on. The detective had called by the night before to keep them updated and she’d also called later to tell them that a television and radio appeal would be on the local news this morning. Several times she’d re-run the news report. Everyone would now be worried for poor little attention-seeking Susan. Mary and Howard had claimed that they couldn’t just sit around dwelling on the news all day and had vowed to carry on as normal for the children. Her fussing mother had taken Rory and Harrison to their respective nurseries – that way they could all pace the floor without the children seeing.
She rewound the clip without the volume, enjoying the silence. With no Harrison to break the peace and her mother no doubt heading back to Susan’s house to replace her blue box, she had the house to herself for a while. Even Howard had taken himself out of his office to pick up some computer spares for a client. Susan’s perfect face stared back at her as she paused the appeal. Perfect heart shape, no double chin, even skin tone showing off her light fake tan. She wondered if society would be so sympathetic if it was she who had gone missing. Frumpy, bedraggled Clare. The one with the loud child, the woman who always dressed like she’d thrown her clothes on as she walked out the door; one of life’s multiple failures. Clare – can’t keep a job, can’t keep a home and can’t control her child. Overweight, spot-marked Clare. All she knew is that people were judgmental, she’d heard them making fat jokes behind her back and saying what a brat Harrison was. She’d heard it all and she’d despised their ignorance.
She stared at the vape her mother had bought her to wean her off tobacco. It wasn’t a match for her beloved cigarettes. She lit up and lay back.
Don’t smoke in my house. It smells. Go outside, to the back of the garden or beyond. Keep walking until you reach the river and hopefully you’ll fall in and never come back she said in her head, in her mother’s voice.
No, mother dear, this time she wasn’t going out in the cold to smoke. Her son wasn’t at home, no one else was. Who could she harm? Only herself. She sucked deeply on the nicotine stick and held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds before puffing it out in little o’s. Her troubles leaving her behind.
She stared at Susan’s photo and sucked on the cigarette.
As soon as Susan turned thirteen, she had ruled the house. She was in charge, her mood dictating everyone else’s. Every time she ran away, she’d receive a hero’s return, which Susan had always lapped up. Susan had played it smoothly by shutting herself in her room because that commanded even more attention – clever. Mary would make excuses for her, knock on the door with little trays of biscuits to cheer her up, saying that the loss of their father had affected Susan in a bad way. Mary didn’t care about Clare though. She’d pined for her father more than either of them.
Clare’s life changed as much as her mother’s when her father had died. Since then, she was put in charge of looking after Susan and had borne the brunt of all her moods. The sister who would never speak to her, who slammed doors in her face, who swore so venomously and pushed her away. She hadn’t appreciated the sacrifices Clare had made. At eighteen, Clare wanted to go out with her friends but her mother’s constant night shifts never allowed it.
Her mother would always return in the morning and press Clare to tell her everything. How was Susan? How did she seem? Did she seem odd/off? Did you check on her? Did you speak to her? Did you hear her call anyone? What did you cook for her? Mary never once asked about Clare and how she was coping – which she wasn’t. She thought about the friends who’d eventually stopped asking her to go out with them. She thought about the job she couldn’t cope with because of her responsibilities at home. She thought about the dates she’d missed out on, the dowdy clothes she wore because her mum had no money and the mess her hair was in. It was alright for Susan. When she wanted a little adventure she just ran away. Susan always seemed to have nice clothes but she’d never tell Clare how she got them, which led Clare to accuse her of shoplifting. That’s when Clare had started to follow her precious little sister…
She flicked through the apps on her phone. Several notifications on Facebook, a couple on Twitter, another email from the company that were handling her bankruptcy. She had no idea how her mother would react when she found out she’d have house guests for several years rather than a few more weeks or months. Susan had been angry that Clare had moved back in with them, especially when her mother had been too tired to babysit as much. Clare knew Harrison was draining the lifeblood out of them all.
‘Ouch,’ she yelled. The cigarette had half-burned and a string of ash singed a hole in the quilt cover. No doubt she’d never hear the end of it when her mother eventually saw it. Rolling over, she stubbed the cigarette out and gazed back at her phone. Facebook, Twitter or email? Which one would she click on first?
Facebook. Scrolling down the invites to pages she’d never heard of or wasn’t interested in and the group alerts, she soon realised there was nothing of interest. Jobs, she’d check out what was going locally. If she didn’t, Mary wouldn’t let it go. Although not many jobs she was qualified to do would help her out of the financial hole she was stuck in. Her mother was determined Clare would be back on her feet soon but redundancy had hit her hard. The bank loan had been covered by the credit cards and the repayments on those had eventually been covered by the payday loans. That’s when she’d finally lost the debt battle. Plus, she’d never get the same money again for the supervisory role she’d worked up to at the plastics factory.
Life was too short. Catching up on local gossip would be a good way of procrastinating. ‘What’s Up Cleevesford?’, her favourite group. Surely gossip about her little sister would be rife on there by now. She jolted up, devouring every comment. Post after post, all saying the same thing.
Her phone went, it was Ryan. ‘Have you heard about the body?’
‘What body? I’m just on Facebook now.’
‘Turn the news on.’
She grappled under the quilt, feeling around until her fingers brushed the cold plastic. She turned the volume up and her heart sank as she read the headline.
Twenty-Seven
Gina shivered as she pulled up next to the forensics van. An ambulance was parked a little further down, next to one of the police cars. She dreaded leaving the sanctuary of her lovely warm car only to be confronted by one of the coldest days of the year so far, and a body. She almost hated herself a little for being glad it wasn’t summer. Nothing turned her stomach more than the stench of hot decaying flesh covered in maggots.
Jacob slammed the car door and wearily stretched before striding towards the riverbank. Gina followed him down the little path until they reached a walkway that narrowed to a frozen mud and crisp leaf path, neither of them speaking a single word. The river gently flowed, giving a sense of peace to the location, a serene feel that would soon be ruined. In the distance she spotted PC Kapoor getting the outer cordon tape tangled as she struggled to wrap it around a few trees. Fingers trying to work through the barrier of thick woollen gloves. Several members of the public moved back on her command and three excited Alsatians being held back by their owner began to bark. That sense of tranquillity had now gone, only to be replaced by a frantic hustle bustle.
A member of the press spotted her: her ongoing enemy, Lyndsey Saunders of the Warwickshire Herald. Obviously not content with the press release that Briggs had just issued, she was out to fish for more. It wasn’t going to be her lucky day. Gina watched the woman’s shoulders drop as she spotted Gina approaching. Gina had no love for the journalist. Since the time she’d tried to report on her personal life following a previous case, Gina gave her nil-from-mouth whenever they met, scared she’d be unable to control the insults if she started.
‘DI Harte. How lovely to see you here, shame about the circumstances. Can you tell us more about the body? Have you identified who it is?’ She
was a trier, Gina would give her that.
Gina made a zip motion with her finger and thumb and smiled.
‘This is ridiculous. You have to speak to me at some point. The public has a right to know if there’s a murderer on the loose, and you know it. Is it the woman who is missing? Susan Wheeler.’ An uncertainty filled the journalist’s expression. She was saying everything Gina expected her to, but she lacked conviction, knowing that she was going to struggle to get a story from Gina.
Gina shrugged her shoulders and nudged Lyndsey aside as she pushed past. She wasn’t wasting another minute on her.
‘Ah, DI Harte, glad you got here so soon.’ Bernard, the Crime Scene Manager, unzipped his forensics suit slightly, allowing his long grey beard to slip out for a moment. Last time they’d met up, he had an air of Hagrid about him but he’d trimmed the unruly face-bush back, giving him a more tailored look. For such a cold day, he looked a little flustered. She glanced behind him. The tent had partially been erected in the densely wooded area. They’d obviously all been working hard to no avail with there being barely any room to put a tent up. Several thick stumped oaks that weren’t about to surrender their position at all were causing the team some trouble as they started to clear a small area around the body. One of the SOCOs cut a few branches back, another tried to shield the body from public view by standing in front of it. Gina wondered why the public were so morbidly obsessed with crime scenes.
Her heart began to hum as she thought of Mary. She’d soon be dealing with a devastated family and all before lunch.
‘He hasn’t been here too long.’ Bernard kicked a branch.
‘Did you say he?’
He nodded. It wasn’t Susan. Gina exhaled as she took a couple of forensics suits from Bernard and began slipping one over her clothes, shivering as she removed her coat. Little clouds filled the air with each breath. It wasn’t a day to be out for long. They’d all be as stiff as corpses themselves if things didn’t get a move on. She watched as Jacob almost lost his balance while trying to force his leg through a gap in the branches. The twig he’d grabbed for support snapped away with ease, almost sending him rolling onto his bottom.
Gina suppressed a snigger as she passed Jacob a forensics suit. It wouldn’t help, being seen at a crime scene laughing. ‘Well saved. Lyndsey had her camera pointed at you then. You could have made the headlines. We know how she’d twist it into an article discussing police incompetence at crime scenes. She’d probably write something about us operating in the same way as the Chuckle Brothers or Laurel and Hardy.’ Gina gave him a friendly nudge as she followed the path he’d trodden.
He regained his balance and continued on. ‘You don’t like her at all, do you?’
‘No. She’s tested my goodwill far too many times. You can only give people so many chances and eventually they become a write-off. That’s what she is to me, a write-off. How’s your tooth today?’
‘Achy.’ He winced as he clenched his teeth together.
‘I told you those sweets were no good.’ They cracked and crunched on the undergrowth, trying not to slip as Gina lifted the inner cordon. Jennifer, the Crime Scene Assistant, was photographing everything around them. She reminded Gina of a large marshmallow in her suit, which looked at least five sizes too big for her. ‘Morning, guv,’ she called out as the camera clicked.
Gina nodded and continued walking along the stepping plates, making her way over to Keith, her trusty forensics expert. He rose from a bending position and let out a tiny moan. ‘I wish my painkillers would hurry up and kick in. That’s what you get when surprise calls come in on your day off.’ As he continued wittering on about his permanent bad back, his long thin comb-over flopped forward, escaping from the hood of his crime scene overalls. She gestured to his hair. He swiftly pushed the strands back under his hood. ‘Thank you.’ He continued to mooch in his bag.
‘What have we got?’ Gina stepped forward until her whole body was completely inside the badly erected tent, narrowly missing being jabbed in the eye with a pole. Immediately, she was faced with the naked bottom half of a male body and a slight glimpse of a checked shirt that hung just above his waist.
Jacob moved aside so that Bernard could wedge himself in. They were so crammed she could smell coffee on his breath. He bent down so as not to bang his head on the top and knock the whole contraption over, then he pointed down to the man.
‘We have only just started working the scene and, as you can tell, it’s freezing so we need to hurry. I’ll make this quick and then I’ll forward anything of any relevance to you as I find it. I really need to work on getting his body to the morgue as soon as possible so let’s get started. We have a male, in his thirties. From our preliminary measurements, he’s around five foot six and looks to be very overweight. I would estimate that he’s around the seventeen stone mark.’
The pale skin had a bluish tinge. ‘How do you think he got the bruises and scratches?’ Gina cocked her head to one side.
‘A lot would have occurred while he was being dragged here. As you can see the bruises are reddish in colour. You can just about see a bluish tinge to them. These scratches could very well have been caused by all the bushes and shrubs. Bruises, twelve to twenty-four hours old at a guess, given colouration and the weather conditions. He’s definitely taken a beating.’
Her gaze stopped at the man’s feet. ‘And those marks?’
‘He’s been bound. You can’t see properly as all the shrubbery is covering his top half but his wrists have the same markings.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘The ligature marks around his neck suggest that he was strangled. Again I know you can’t see that properly given all the shrubbery but we have managed to pull it back to take a couple of photos. We didn’t want to disturb any evidence.’
‘It looks like whoever placed him here had to make a bit of an effort. They’d obviously tried to hide him and possibly ran out of steam before giving up.’
Bernard nodded. ‘It was wet last night but it soon frosted over when the rain stopped. I think the rain may have destroyed some of the evidence but I live in hope, optimistic as always. The body is well preserved. Jennifer has the photos. It would be good for you to have a look.’
She nodded and went to leave. ‘Thanks, Bernard. Time of death?’
He rubbed his chin over his suit. His bony fingers pressing into the point. ‘I’ve taken everything I can into consideration, from the way he looks to the overnight temperature. Given his condition, I’d say he has been dead approximately twelve hours. Obviously a post-mortem will provide a more accurate answer to your question.’
‘Other considerations?’
‘This is a busy dog walking area and it also leads to the industrial estate if you keep going.’
‘Yes, not the easiest route to tread. A fair few people cycle and walk down here.’
Bernard rolled his eyes. ‘We even found one woman dumping a load of bacon fat out for the birds. Lots of people have trodden this area already this morning, contaminating it further – a forensics nightmare. There’s a dirt track that runs alongside this river as you can see through the bushes. I’d say that the masses have trodden the path but not many people would have left the path to end up here.’
Gina could just about see a couple of cars parked in the distance. She knew it wasn’t an official route, there was even a sign up stating that there was no parking, but without it being enforced people often drove off the main country road, parking there anyway.
‘Not good. We’ll get signs put up alongside the river and on the dirt track, mentioning that there’s been an incident and requesting that any witnesses come forward. We’ll station someone here for a couple of days too.’ Gina made a mental note to pass that responsibility onto Kapoor before she left.
‘You never know. Someone might just have seen something that may help you.’
‘One more thing. Have you found any identification?’
Bernard shook his head. ‘Not
a jot. Not yet, anyway.’
Gina nodded, glad to be leaving the death tent. Jacob and Jennifer were smiling at one another and looked to be exchanging small talk. ‘Ah, Jennifer. Can I see the photos that you managed to take of the victim?’
Jacob stepped back and cleared his throat and turned away, trying to hide his blushing cheeks.
‘Of course.’ With her blue-gloved hands, she began turning a dial on the back of a camera, flicking through what seemed like hundreds of photos, until Gina noticed a flesh colour filling the screen. She stopped, brow furrowing as she studied it closer. Clicking the little magnifying glass button, she zoomed in on their victim’s face. Gina shook her head, trying to work out how their missing witness had now turned up as a body.
Twenty-Eight
Gina stood aside and mulled over what she was seeing. No wonder Dale Blair hadn’t returned home. One of the last people to see Susan Wheeler before she disappeared was Dale and now he was dead.
‘Guv, guv!’ Kapoor ran up to her, trailing a length of crime scene tape from one of the many pockets built in to her uniform. ‘I have the witness keeping warm in my car. His wife came for the children a few minutes ago but he wants to go home. He’s asking if someone can hurry up and speak to him.’
Gina nodded. ‘Back up by the bridge?’ She began removing the forensics suit and boot covers, passing them to Kapoor.
‘Yes, guv.’
‘I’ll be there in a moment,’ Jacob called over. He continued exchanging glances with Jennifer as she showed him the crime scene photos.
‘Has he been seen by anyone?’ Gina asked.
‘He said he was fine and refused to see the paramedics. He seems okay, to be fair, a little shocked but nothing more than that.’ Gina remembered seeing the ambulance when they pulled up.
She removed her last blue glove with a flick of the wrist, passing it to Kapoor. ‘So sorry to dump all this on you but I can’t speak to him in a forensics suit and Bernard is in the middle of taking samples and arranging transportation for the body. It’s going to be a long, cold day.’
