“I think that’s something we should discuss when you get to the station.”
“…don’t you drive that Aston Martin I’ve seen around the village?”
Zack had to laugh at the question from the young constable, though he quickly stopped when he remembered they were at the scene of a murder. “You mean, how can I afford such an expensive car on a detective inspector’s salary, especially when I’m not one anymore.”
Melissa flushed, but didn’t deny that that was the question she really wanted to ask. Before she could get an answer, however, Mitchell interrupted.
“You’re a detective inspector?” He was surprised, not just because Zack Wild looked too young to have reached inspector’s rank, but also because, like Melissa, he couldn’t work out how he could own a car that had to be worth more than many of the houses in the village.
“I was, now I’m an author,” Zack said.
6
Barefoot, his soiled trainers in a carrier bag found in the boot of Mitchell’s car, Zack followed the two police officers up the stairs and into the police station.
He felt eyes on him, and looking around he found himself an object of interest for those villagers who were out and about. Based on the suspicion and anger in the looks, he could only conclude that news of his discovery had already made it around the village, and that he was being fitted for the role of murderer in the eyes of the villagers. He supposed he couldn’t blame them, a village wasn’t like a town or city, where it was rare for a person to know more than two or three of their neighbours; in Oakhurst, everyone was likely to be related to, or at least know, everyone else. The only person for whom that wasn’t true was him, which meant if anyone was going to be suspected of a brutal crime, it was him.
The anger and suspicion of his fellow residents disappeared from Zack’s mind the moment he entered the police station. His feet were knocked out from under him by an elderly woman who was energetically mopping the reception area.
“Sorry,” she apologised unconvincingly.
“That’s alright,” Zack dismissed the apology, while thinking that perhaps he had been wrong, and angry looks were not all he could expect. He got quickly to his feet, and bent to retrieve the carrier bag holding his trainers.
“Are you alright, Mr Wild?” Melissa asked, coming back to help him, though he was already back on his feet by the time she reached him.
“It’s through here, Mr Wild,” Mitchell said before the author could answer his colleague’s question. He made no effort to conceal his dislike of the friendly air that seemed to be developing between Melissa and Zack Wild.
“Thank you, sergeant,” Zack said, ignoring the obvious lack of concern over his tumble. “I’m fine,” he said to Melissa. “It’s nothing paying more attention to my surroundings won’t help.”
With an unpleasant wet feeling on his feet, Zack followed Sergeant Mitchell through to the station’s sole interview room, which didn’t look big enough for the four people it was supposed to accommodate.
“We’ll begin the interview just as soon as I’ve taken care of a few things, Mr Wild,” Mitchell said before disappearing from the doorway without giving his interviewee a chance to say anything.
“Can I get you a drink?” Melissa asked. Unlike Mitchell, she hadn’t taken an instant dislike to Zack Wild – if anything, she had taken an instant liking to him, in part, mostly, because he was attractive.
Zack nodded. “Thanks, my water bottle’s just about out.”
“Tea, coffee?”
“Tea, white, no sugar.”
“Be right back.”
“How bad is it?” Inspector Stevens asked the moment Mitchell entered his office.
Mitchell didn’t answer straightaway, he waited until he had taken a seat across from his superior. “Bad,” he said finally. “You remember how bad James Goode looked after his tractor rolled on him?”
Stevens nodded, it wasn’t something he was likely to forget; it had surprised everyone at the scene that the farmer had survived the accident, let alone that he made an almost complete recovery.
“Worse than that. She looked like a victim from one of those horror movies you see on TV late at night. Whoever killed her, he must have really hated her, or been really angry with her, because he beat the hell out of her. I mean he just beat the hell out of her. She had cuts and bruises just about everywhere I could see: arms, legs, body, face. God knows how many of her bones must have been broken.” Mitchell had to take a moment to try and force away the memory of what he had seen. “I’m no expert, and Kelly’s out of his depth with this, but it looks as though she was kicked and punched repeatedly; her face…it’s just unrecognisable. It’s so badly damaged it’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a girl or a boy. If she wasn’t naked I think it would have taken me a while to figure it out.
“That’s not even the worst of it…I told you something was carved into her stomach.”
Stevens nodded.
“Well I was able to make it out before I left – whoever killed her, he carved ‘Tease’ into her.” He shook his head at the memory of what he had seen.
Stevens could only stare at his subordinate. “She’s naked?” he asked finally, focusing on something he found less troubling. He was inexperienced in investigations, of any kind, but especially murder investigations, just like Mitchell, but he did think that the nakedness of the girl they believed to be Georgina Ryder was more important than the fact that she had been beaten so badly.
“Yes,” Mitchell said with a slow nod of his head that made plain he was thinking along the same lines as his superior. “Near as dammit anyway. She had on the remains of a dress – it looked like it had been all but torn from her – same for her bra, and we found her underpants a short distance away. If you ask me, it looked as though they were ripped off her and simply thrown aside.”
“Was she…?” Stevens couldn’t bring himself to finish the question, and it was several long moments before Mitchell could bring himself to answer it.
“That’s something the pathologist is going to have to answer when the post-mortem is done,” Mitchell said finally. “But if you’re asking my opinion.” He hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I think she was raped. I think he beat her unconscious, ripped her clothes off, and then – then he did what he wanted with her.”
There was silence for several long moments, during which time Stevens pulled a bottle of whiskey from behind the files in the bottom drawer of his desk. Two glasses joined the bottle on the desk, both of which he filled half full. He said nothing until they had both finished what he liked to call a good stiffener. When he had drained his glass, and the fire in his throat had subsided, he asked, “How was she killed? Was it the beating?”
“I don’t have anywhere near the experience to answer that,” Mitchell admitted, his voice a little hoarse after the strong liquor. “I’m inclined to think it was the beating, and Kelly’s of the same opinion – he couldn’t see any obvious signs of anything else that might have led to her death, though he did admit that a post-mortem might pick up any number of things he couldn’t see. Mr Wild, however…”
“That’s our newest resident, the gentleman who found our murdered girl, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. He claims he’s a former detective inspector.” Mitchell was pleased to see his own disbelief mirrored in his superior’s face.
“Isn’t he only about thirty?”
“Mid-thirties I think; all I know for sure is, he’s a damned sight younger than you or me. Anyway, he claims he’s a retired detective inspector, he also claims that marks around the girl’s throat mean she was strangled.”
“Beaten, raped, and strangled. My God!” Stevens couldn’t help gasping. “How did we ever reach the point where something like this could happen in our village?”
“I’ve no idea.” Mitchell was as much at a loss as his superior. “You read about this kind of thing in the papers, but I never thought we’d have to deal with it here.
”
There was another period of silence as the two long-serving police officers tried to come to terms with things.
“What are the chances Mr Wild is responsible for the murder?” Stevens asked.
“I won’t know that until I’ve spoken to him. He’s in the interview room, waiting to give his statement. He didn’t seem all that bothered by having discovered a body, but I suppose if he is a former detective inspector, he must be used to that kind of thing. Any chance you can find out if he really is an ex-DI?”
Stevens nodded. “It’s likely to take me a while, unless you know what force he’s supposed to have worked for.”
“Not yet, but I’ll ask him.”
“Good. While I’m checking that out, I’ll see what else I can find out about him. If it’s not Mr Wild, who could have killed Georgina, if that is who’s been found?”
“I have no idea,” Mitchell admitted. “Either it’s someone from outside the village, which seems unlikely given how far we are from anywhere, or it’s someone we know, and I can’t think of a single person in the village who could have done what I saw. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it possible for someone to do that kind of damage to another person.” He shook his head at the image that crept, unbidden, into his mind. “You should be glad you weren’t there, it was enough to turn your stomach; it was all I could do not to throw up – Melissa wasn’t so lucky, she threw up all over Mr Wild’s feet.”
“Okay, so you’re going to interview Mr Wild, while I see what I can find out about him, Mike is out at the body, keeping an eye on it, and I’ve got forensics on their way. I take it you’re going to see the Ryders after you’ve spoken to Mr Wild.”
Mitchell nodded. “I’d rather not, not until I’m more certain the body is Georgina, but we both know how rumour and gossip goes around the village. It’s probably too late, but I’d rather they hear about this morning’s discovery from me, at least that way they’ll get the facts, what few we have, rather than whatever Jean Frost has overheard and embellished.”
“Are you still set against them making an identification?”
“I’ll do my best to talk them out of it. Verity will never be able to handle a trip to the morgue, she’s been a wreck since Georgina went missing; I don’t think John’ll handle it any better, especially given the mess she’s in, and I don’t see any point in putting him through the ordeal when he’s unlikely to be able to make an identification.”
“I’ll leave that up to you. Do you need anything, other than what I’ve already organised?”
“Yes, I’m going to need a search party to comb the woods around where Georgina was found; as many officers from town as you can get.”
Stevens frowned. “Officers from town? Surely we can get enough volunteers from the village, why do we need officers from town?”
“Two reasons,” Mitchell said, having had the time to think about what he needed. “Firstly, the villagers won’t have a clue what they’d be looking for, they’re likely to stop the search for every little thing that looks out of place, which means it’ll take forever for the search to get anywhere. We can’t afford to waste that kind of time. Secondly, if the murderer is someone from the village, not Wild, I’d rather not give him a chance to destroy any evidence he might have left behind.”
Reluctantly, Stevens accepted the logic of that. “That brings me to the next thing, the chief inspector, I called him this morning to get the forensics team and he offered me a detective to handle the case, but said we can handle it ourselves if we wish, it’s my decision, for the time being. What do you think?”
Mitchell’s first instinct, which he almost went with, was to accept the offer. He held back, though, to give himself time to think. Finally, he said, “A part of me wants to say ‘get the detective’, let him handle this, he’ll know what he’s doing. Another part of me thinks it’s a bad idea. The village is going to have a hard enough time dealing with what’s happened, without having a stranger come in and poke and pry about – they’d have no idea about anyone, and will only jump to all kinds of wrong conclusions.”
“I have to admit, that is a concern that occurred to me,” Stevens said. “I’ll tell the chief inspector that we’ll handle things ourselves for now. I think he’ll be glad, I got the impression he was wondering where he’d be able to find a detective for us. If things change, though, he’ll have to find us someone. Talking of things changing, what do you intend doing about Lucy Goulding?”
“I hadn’t planned on doing anything. You know as well as I do that Lucy is almost certainly not missing, she’ll turn up soon enough, having been at a party or something, just like she usually is, and Theresa will have made a fuss about nothing.”
“You’re probably right, but under the circumstances I don’t think we can afford to ignore the possibility that she really is missing.”
Mitchell found Zack Wild and Melissa deep in conversation when he entered the interview room. He wasn’t happy with how friendly Melissa seemed to be with the man he was about to question, he said nothing, however, since he didn’t want to antagonise his witness and possible suspect.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Wild,” he apologised. “I see Constable Turner got you a drink, is there anything else you need before we get started with this interview?”
“Thank you, no,” Zack said. “She makes a strong coffee, I’m going to be bouncing off the walls as it is, without having anything else. I’d rather just get on with the interview, I’m sure we all have stuff to get on with.”
“Fair enough, perhaps you can start by telling me how you came to find the body,” Mitchell said.
“Sure. I was out for a run, saw something on the opposite bank, called it in, then waited for you guys to arrive,” Zack said succinctly.
Mitchell stared at the man on the other side of the table for several long moments, not quite able to believe that that was all he seemed to want to say. “Can you expand on that for me?” he asked. “For instance, why were you out for a run? Is it something you do regularly, or a one-off?”
“Regularly,” Zack answered. “I go running most mornings, it’s a good way to keep myself in shape.”
“Do you run the same route every morning?”
Zack shrugged. “More or less. I try to do about five miles every day, keeping to the same route helps me know how far I’ve gone, and gives me some idea of whether I’m keeping to a regular pace.”
“Five miles?” Melissa blurted. “You must be really fit if you do five miles a day.” The moment the words escaped her she found herself blushing, she sounded like a schoolgirl with a crush.
A smile played about the corners of Zack’s mouth. “I guess fit is a matter of perspective,” he said. “The older I get, the more exercise I have to do just to keep my weight stable. Working used to keep me pretty fit, but now I’m stuck at a computer all day, I’ve got to work that much harder not to go to flab.”
“If you run the same route every day,” Mitchell said, far from pleased with the way the interview was going. “How is it you didn’t see the body until this morning? I’m not an expert, but it looked to me as if the body – he found it easier to think of the body as simply that, rather than as a former person – had been there for a couple of days at least. Surely you should have seen it before now.”
“I said more or less,” Zack pointed out. “Usually I follow the road through the village and out towards town; it’s nice, straightforward, and it’s easy for me to know how far I’ve gone. The downside, though, is it’s boring,” he said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Since the weather was so good this morning, compared to what it’s been this past week, I thought I’d take a different route on my run; I do that every now and then. A change is as good as a rest, as they say. I only got as far as the pub before I decided not to bother with my usual route; I turned off the road so I could head along the riverbank, and found the body after about a mile and a half, well, you saw where she was.”
Mitchell nodded. “If you left the road at the pub, how is it you saw the body?” he asked. “It was right at the edge of the trees, not easy to see from the East bank, especially with the grass about a foot tall, as it is there.”
“I couldn’t see it clearly,” Zack admitted. “I caught a glimpse of something in the grass, that was all; unfortunately, I’ve had enough experience of dead bodies to be pretty sure of what I was seeing, even if I couldn’t see it clearly. I didn’t want to call you guys, and lady,” he said with a nod towards Melissa Turner, “out there until I was positive, though, so I waded across to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. I wish they had been. I thought I left all that sort of thing behind when I left the force.”
“Have you seen many bodies?” Melissa asked, curiosity getting the better of her desire not to annoy her superior.
“Too many,” Zack said. “Of course, one is too many, as I’m sure you’ll agree..”
Melissa nodded.” I hope you’re wrong about the body you found just being the first,” she said. “Because I don’t think I could ever get used to what I saw this morning.”
“You never really get used to it,” Zack told her. “At least most people don’t. You sort of become inured to it, so you can keep going and do your job. It’s when you become used to it, if you ever do, that you have to start thinking about whether it’s time for you to stop and find something else to do.”
“Is that why you stopped being a detective?” Melissa asked, realising too late that it might sound rude.
“If you don’t mind,” Mitchell said irritably. “What did you do after you were sure you had found a body?” he asked of Zack Wild.
“I called the police station to report it, then I went up to the bend in the river to wait for you guys to get there.”
Written In Blood Page 4
