The road finished in a small car park adjacent to a number of brightly coloured beach boxes dotted along the foreshore. Charlotte pulled up alongside the angled divisional van. Its strobe lights weren’t operating, which was a good thing – the lights drew people in like junkies to an injecting room, and that was the last thing they needed right now.
After shifting her vehicle into park, she reached into the glove box, eased out a pair of bright-blue latex gloves and snapped them on. These days it seemed like she spent more time with the stupid things on than not. Stepping out of the car, she wrapped her thick black overcoat around her body, and wedged a red folder under her arm. The cold of the dawn was still in the air, a crispness punctuated by the lingering saltiness that came with being by the sea. In any other circumstances, it would’ve been a beautiful, if a little fresh, morning.
As she strode across the car park towards the sound of the sea, the ground beneath her feet altered from harsh bitumen to soft grass before she found herself struggling slightly through sand. The beach was no friend to her black low-cut boots. Even so, she still managed to leave Wally behind – not for the first time, and surely not for the last.
She’d passed three or four beach boxes when she was startled by a uniformed officer emerging from between the next two. Blue-and-white chequered crime scene tape in hand, he began cordoning off the scene to anyone who might happen to wander through. He nodded at Charlotte as she passed; a sign of respect but also, Charlotte suspected, of resignation at what she was about to see.
‘Morning,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just down a little further. Tom’s waiting for you.’
She left him wrapping the tape haphazardly around the pole of a nearby rubbish bin, again and again and again, like a nurse covering up a snake bite. Stress did funny things to people.
Glancing back at the car park, Charlotte caught a glimpse of a familiar figure, notebook already poised. Dressed in a red skirt and white blouse, her dark hair cut in a sharp bob that framed her face, Katelyn McBride was the local crime reporter. Charlotte had always found Katelyn a bit quirky but, like all good reporters, she seemed to stumble across what was happening and where as if by crystal ball. Katelyn had a unique style when it came to gathering information: she watched rather than asked, observed often without even questioning, yet somehow her articles would appear the following day chock-full of all the pertinent facts – just like magic.
It drove Charlotte crazy and, as she nodded respectfully to Katelyn from a distance, she couldn’t help but curse under her breath.
By the time Charlotte arrived at the area where the body had been found, the sun was poking through the high, thin clouds; a preview of what the rest of the day entailed. Heat caressed the back of her neck and she knew they were in for another hot one. They would have to deal with this scene quickly before the rising temperature – not to mention the local stickybeaks – took a toll.
Walking past more vibrantly painted beach boxes, she noticed two police members – presumably working the other divisional van – a bit further down, comforting two joggers and an elderly couple, who were sitting on a low bluestone wall that ran along the back of the beach.
‘Witnesses?’ Charlotte said, nodding to Tom as he appeared from between the boxes, sand clinging to the forearms of his dark jacket.
‘Yep.’ He glanced at the people perched on the wall like birds on a wire. ‘They’re a bit shaken up, but they’ll be okay.’
Charlotte jotted her time of arrival down in her notebook. Despite the cool morning, sweat was already beginning to pool in dark patches inside her latex gloves. ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ Feeling suddenly too warm, she fumbled at the buttons on her coat and looked sideways at Tom. ‘You really need that jacket on? You’re making me hot just looking at you.’
‘Steady on, I’d say decent looking at a stretch.’ He grinned slyly as he led the way between the beach boxes to a spot about three quarters of the way along the side wall. Charlotte could see a part-image either side of him as they approached, but it wasn’t until he stepped to one side that she was able to take in the full scene.
The top of a head – messy blonde locks visible – protruded through one end of the black plastic tarpaulin. Lying at a very unnatural angle, two legs extended from the other end, bare feet exposed and already turning blue. Charlotte noticed the toenails: well manicured and meticulously painted bright orange. This was a woman who took care of her appearance. Every detail, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant, was important right now.
‘Take it off,’ Charlotte said in answer to the inquisitive look from Tom, who stood holding one corner of the tarp, waiting to peel it back. In one swift motion, like a magician pulling a tablecloth right out from under a full dining setting, Tom whipped the tarp back with a familiar crinkle.
They stood in silence, just the two of them, sharing that horrid first moment when death reared its ugly head. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the small breakers, fizzing out on the shoreline before sucking backwards, building and repeating. A seagull squawked overhead.
‘Fuck it,’ Charlotte whispered. It was all she had feared and then some. No matter how many times she did this, she never got over the first sight of a dead body. She took a deep breath.
While her first response to these types of jobs was often robotic, pre-programmed, once she got to the scene, the emotion inevitably kicked in. Seeing what some people could do to another human being was enough to rip your heart out. Every victim was someone’s daughter or son – another family devastated. Even crooks had parents, siblings, often children. The ripple effect was huge and unavoidable.
Charlotte knelt down, the subtle but unmistakable waft of death – a combination of decomposition and fear – channelled into an odour that she knew would linger in her nostrils for days. Heavy, thick air weighed down on her, as if it too were grieving the loss of life. The body was clearly cold, the telltale greyness seeping into the skin around the woman’s lips and eyes – bright blue – which stared vacantly out from her face. She was lying on her right side, not in an indentation in the sand, but as if she’d been tossed on top of it, discarded, one arm disappearing beneath the weatherboard panels of the beach box. Lividity had already begun to appear, darkening what was visible of the edge of her body pressed into the sand from top to toe, like silt settling on a pristine riverbed. A single fly, which had been buzzing around her open mouth, landed on her bottom lip and momentarily inspected it, before resuming its flight, indifferent. The woman’s chest remained still, not even the slightest movement to imply an intake of air to her lungs, as if her body had been filled to the brim with wet cement. That detail alone sent a shiver down Charlotte’s spine. It was expected that when someone died their body ceased to function, but to visually absorb the reality of their chest no longer expanding and contracting was the ultimate sign that the spirit had left, never to return. The body was simply packaging that had been cast aside; a vessel that had served its purpose.
There were no signs of a struggle on the ground around them, the small and constant undulations in the sand unspoiled right up to where the body lay. The woman was still fully clothed, the fluorescent splashes of colour on her gym gear stark in the morning light. Her head rested on her right arm roughly, indicating it had fallen there rather than been carefully posed. Her hair, almost the same hue as the sand, cascaded over her shoulders and down to her breasts. A bright-green and black sleeveless exercise top enveloped her body like cling wrap, exposing her midriff, stomach muscles taut. She had been in excellent physical condition.
‘What a waste,’ Tom said softly, shaking his head in disgust.
Charlotte leant forward and examined the woman’s face for bruising. A reddened graze on her left temple suggested some form of blunt-force trauma, perhaps indicative of the manner in which she had been overpowered initially – or perhaps not. The intricate links of the crime all lay before her, but until there was a complete forensic examination, Charlotte could only g
uess. Educated guesses, of course, but guesses none the less.
Looking at the woman’s legs, she noticed the odd angle at which they were splayed. One of them at least could be fractured, if not both – another thought that sickened Charlotte to the core. Was this a sexual crime? If not, it would be the exception rather than the rule. Lifting the top leg up slightly, she saw a thick pool of blood forming, congealing in the sand around the victim’s lower torso. It looked as if she had suffered a deep wound somewhere, possibly to her back.
Charlotte swallowed the rising in her throat and got to her feet. ‘Find anything of value?’ She stepped around the body to scour the scene from behind.
‘Not yet.’ Tom shrugged. ‘We’ve had a brief look around, but we haven’t had a chance to look extensively.’ He inclined his head towards the small group of people still huddled on the wall. ‘We had to get them the hell out of here first, and since then I’ve just been trying to get her covered up, and waiting for you guys. Hey, are you okay? You look a bit green around the gills.’
Charlotte felt the earth tilt on its axis, her head swimming, a clamminess erupting on her skin. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied a little too quickly. She knelt down next to the body again to steady herself. She could handle this. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. You mentioned something about an ID when I spoke to you on the phone – where’d you find the handbag?’
‘We didn’t.’ Tom watched her as he leant nonchalantly against one of the weatherboard beach boxes – bright yellow and blue. ‘The old couple sitting over there found the bag resting on the bluestone wall, its contents intact. That’s what made them look around; they thought it was a bit odd, had a bit of a squiz, and then came across this. Poor buggers.’
As Tom spoke, Charlotte squinted under the other beach box. From where she knelt, she could see beneath the wooden base board. She took hold of the woman’s right wrist and slid it out from where it had been lying in the cool shadows. As the hand emerged into the daylight, Charlotte gasped.
Between the woman’s long, slender fingers, curled inward towards her palm, a rectangular piece of folded paper had been lodged. Laying the hand back on the sand, Charlotte grabbed her mobile phone out of her coat pocket. She took a snap of the paper in situ before gingerly removing it.
She glanced up at Tom, knowing this could be a pivotal moment in the investigation. Their eyes met; a brief nod shared.
Charlotte unfolded the white paper, latex-covered fingers slipping slightly. Outspread, it formed a larger rectangle. A colourful sketch of a handful of pink flowers was printed at one end; at the other, words that Charlotte immediately recognised as a piece of scripture.
Revelation 2:10: Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
In the bottom right corner, something had been scrawled in black pen.
#1
And, just like that, the first clue had arrived.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, organisations, events or locales is coincidental.
First published in 2021 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
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