The Missing Earring

by David Beard

  ‘We ought to try and find the other earring though. Tell Johnny Johnson when we get back.’

  ‘I also noticed she hasn’t any rings at all, apart from the one in her ear that I mentioned, although it looks from the marks, she wore them on a number of her fingers,’ Tiley offered up a more detailed observation. ‘Don’t know what that proves either.’

  ‘No rings, no clothes, no face; the killer is keen to conceal her identity I would say. Just makes things more difficult for us.’ Smalacombe aimlessly kicked an imaginary piece of grass away as he spoke.

  ‘It’s a bloody wonder they didn’t try to erase the tattoos.’

  ‘That observation may well be more profound than you imagine, my son,’ Smalacombe remarked with conviction. ‘I mean, if it was done by someone who had spent a great deal of time premeditating all this and then took the trouble to remove all identification, surely they would have cut the tattoos out as well? By the looks of her face they weren’t exactly squeamish.’

  ‘So, what are you saying?’

  ‘Fuck knows! Something went wrong, perhaps? I don’t know.’

  They walked upstream beyond the bridge and searched for clues. It was an outside chance that something might be there. Despite his professionalism, Smalacombe was drawn to watch the water. At this point the river was little more than a brook. Its bed showed through its spring water, its clarity enhanced by a hue of dark reds that was reflected in the sands between the submerged stones. There was, as always, the fresh smell of peat, which the water had absorbed as it cascaded down from the high moors. He began to reminisce but then jolted himself back to the reality.

  ‘No use going on; I don’t think we’re going to find anything further up.’ They turned and retraced their steps slowly, studying the ground as they went and walked back to the body. Doc was preparing to leave. The mortuary men had arrived and so had Angela Marriott with her secretary.

  ‘Dexter, I wondered if it would be you,’ the pathologist said as she looked up to check the new arrivals.

  ‘It’s your lucky day.’ She gave him a broad smile. Dexter was surprised how much older she looked, but it was a year or more since they had worked together. He wasn’t to know that her reaction to seeing him was identical.

  ‘I just want to see her front before we move her away,’ she said and the body was lifted from the water and placed in the body bag, which was left unzipped. The young woman’s face was unrecognisable; there was no evidence of a nose or lips. It was not even possible to assess where her eye sockets were and there was a gaping irregular hole that was once a mouth, perhaps so desirable it had been kissed a thousand times a day. It was all just a red mess of trashed and swollen flesh, like someone had splashed a pound of liver there in some sort of macabre joke.

  ‘What can you tell us, Angela?’

  ‘Well, it’s difficult in these circumstances, as you know, but it helps me in my investigations to see things first hand. She has suffered a pretty nasty attack.’

  ‘Well, that’s hardly a bloody revelation is it,’ Smalacombe complained.

  ‘No, but I would think, not here, which I suspect is a revelation; to you anyway,’ the pathologist riposted. She was used to Smalacombe’s brusque manner that he often mistook for humour. ‘I’ll know more when I get it back to the lab. You see those pressure marks on the upper chest…’ The pair looked closely, ‘They don’t tie up with the facial injuries, so I’m not committing myself as to the cause of death yet.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking; nobody could survive that assault surely?’

  ‘Fatal injuries without a doubt, but we shall see.’

  Smalacombe gave the disapproving look she knew well. ‘Look, I’m a scientist not a bookmaker. She was hit with something heavy and flat I’d say. Frenzied attack, but again, not here. Some of the damage was done afterwards when she was brought here and dropped. She hit that stone over there,’ she pointed to a granite boulder at the river’s edge, ‘there are fragments of tissue, see? I don’t think the mouth is sufficiently intact to provide an accurate assessment of dental records, but we may be lucky. I suspect we will need DNA.’

  ‘Or tattoos!’

  ‘Oh not my department that, Dexter,’ Angela answered with familiarity.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Smalacombe ruefully. ‘How long has she been dead?’

  ‘Hard to say, because of the water, and I don’t know how long it was after her death when she was dumped here, but I would guess, only a guess at this stage mind, sometime last night; that’s all I can say.’ Smalacombe looked at his watch. It was a quarter to ten. ‘Can you give me a latest?’

  ‘Difficult! Death in the early evening probably and dumped here at midnight or thereabouts, I would think. Don’t quote me on that.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t need a forensic scientist to work that out either. Was she sexually assaulted?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, it’s reasonable to assume something like that, isn’t it? After all she is naked.’

  ‘There’s something wrong down there, but I don’t think she has been sexually assaulted. I’m not going to speculate at this stage, you must wait until tomorrow.’

  Again, Angela was not offended by this second critical remark. She knew Smalacombe very well and understood how impatient he would be to get some facts under his belt. ‘You know as well as I do that it’s not my job to make unfounded propositions. I can probably let you know more after she’s been on the table. PM, tomorrow at nine, OK?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Johnny, who found her?’ Smalacombe turned his attention to Inspector Johnson and other matters.

  ‘The old lady on the bridge. She was walking her dog this morning at about six thirty. It was she who rang in. She’s called Mrs. Cooper.’

  Smalacombe remembered seeing her when he walked up there a short time before and he assumed it was her dog peeing all over the place. ‘She’s not old Johnny; at least she isn’t when you’re my age,’ he rebuked him. Smalacombe turned to Tiley, ‘Sergeant, I’m going up to see the lady on the bridge. I want to get our team sorted. I particularly want DC Sheldon because he’s quality when it comes to collation.’

  ‘Anyone else, sir?’ asked Tiley as he was still not wholly familiar with all of his colleagues or what special training they could offer.

  ‘DC Crabtree. He’s an excellent support for forensics but I know they are both on other things at the moment,’ Smalacombe added.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Don’t take no for an answer. Oh, and make sure Helen Mirren knows what we’re doing. I want an incident room set up down here; there’s a parish hall just over the back, so you’ll need to get on to the phone company for some lines. I want door to doors, and statements, especially from the lady on the bridge.’

  ‘We can use the mobiles.’

  ‘I doubt it. Reception is iffy.’

  Smalacombe walked back to the bridge accompanied by Johnson.

  ‘You keep illustrious company,’ Johnson commented. ‘Helen Mirren?’

  Smalacombe realised he had made a faux pas. It was his nickname for his superior but only between him and his closest work colleagues. ‘Not for public consumption that, Johnny, OK?’ Smalacombe walked on in silence for a while and then added, ‘Super Sheila Milner, she’s all right. Good at her job.’

  They walked a little further in silence and then Smalacombe spoke up again. ‘Bit of a turn up this, Johnny, not exactly the seat of the Mafia out here is it?’

  ‘No, bit of poaching. Somebody is popping off the deer. That’s about it really.’

  ‘I thought deer were Exmoor wildlife. There were none down here when I was a kid.’

  ‘That’s right, but in the last few decades they have begun to colonise the area again. Not many reds though; mostly roe and some fallow. Mind you, if this bugger keeps knocking them off they’ll all disappear again.’

  ‘Any idea who it is?’

  ‘Yea! I’d lay odds too
, but it’s catching the sod. It’s hard to police things like that out here.’

  Inspector Johnson pulled down on his tunic to make sure it was properly adjusted when talking to the public. They approached the lady, introduced themselves, and asked her to explain what had happened.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, I always take Billy for a walk, that’s my border collie here, first thing, rain or shine.’ They looked across to the dog that was now peeing against the granite pillar that was strategically placed to keep the traffic away from the bridge’s construction. ‘I’ve always been a bit of an early bird you know.’ The dog returned and she stroked his head. Billy, contented with the attention, sat patiently at her side and waited for more. ‘It’s a beautiful place to walk…’

  ‘You’re very lucky to live here, madam. I didn’t catch your name,’ Smalacombe interrupted her having already forgotten whether Johnson had given him the information or not.

  ‘Oh, of course, I’m Mrs Cooper. I’m a widow, Chief Inspector. My husband died some years ago in sad circumstances and …’ Smalacombe had switched off by now. He didn’t want to know all of that. He tried to address the things he had just seen whilst hoping to hear something in the background from Mrs Cooper that would be of greater significance. He made another mental note of everyone he could see congregated on the bridge and its surroundings. He had plenty of time to think before he heard her say, ‘... and then Billy ran ahead and started barking and then I followed him and found her. It was about half six, I would think, or it might have been…’

  ‘Did you know the victim, Mrs Cooper? Did you recognise her?’ Smalacombe interrupted again as he began to feel agitated with her verbosity.

  ‘Goodness me no Chief Inspector; I could only see her back and in any case I’m not in the habit of seeing my friends with no clothes on. So, I wouldn’t have recognised her anyway. Now it is possible, if she was dressed and if, of course, I did know her, which I don’t, you understand, then I might well have…’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs. Cooper,’ interrupted Smalacombe for the third time and barely able to conceal his impatience by now. ‘An officer will take a full statement from you and I don’t think you’ll find that difficult somehow,’ he added with a note of sarcasm. ‘We are setting up an incident room in the parish hall and as soon as it is ready we will call you in.’

  ‘Certainly, I’m only too pleased to help.’

  ‘How did you contact the emergency services?’

  ‘Well, there’s no reliable signal out here for mobiles so I rushed home and rang from there.’

  ‘How old are you, Mrs. Cooper?’ he asked out of the blue.

  ‘I’m fifty four, Chief Inspector,’ she replied with some surprise.

  ‘See, Inspector, I told you so,’ he said and walked away. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs. Cooper,’ he called out over his shoulder.

  ‘What a rude man! Dear me, Billy, they’re all so brusque these days,’ she said to the dog that was still waiting impatiently to move on.

  CHAPTER 2

  Monday afternoon June 26th

  By the time the two detectives drove away from the scene, the body had been removed and the onlookers had all dispersed. Two uniformed constables remained on the perimeter guarding the whole area to keep the public out and SOCO were still combing the scene, missing nothing but finding nothing.

  Dexter Smalacombe’s mind had already turned to things of a more personal nature. His stomach was the most accurate of clocks and he was relieved to note that his anticipation of a frenetic day without the time to eat was not going to materialise. He also knew that sergeants of Clive Tiley’s age would never pass up the opportunity of a bit of pub grub. He recalled wistfully, when he was in his twenties and thirties, his appetite was compared to a plague of locusts and he could empty a fridge in twenty minutes.

  ‘There’s a pub close by, Clive, we’ll stop for a bite and see if we can pick up on some local gossip,’ he suggested as he drove steadily along the isolated road, changing down to third gear as he approached another incline.

  ‘Pub? There’s nothing here,’ Tiley moaned, quite deliberately in order to get a reaction.

  ‘What do you mean; there’s everything here. Just look around you, you won’t see anything like this in St. Pauls.’

  ‘That’s what I mean; no houses. Where’s the trade?’ he continued to goad.

  ‘You want to get out more often, lad. The pub will have a few regulars, but it’s mainly tourists. This isn’t just another local you know.’

  As they drove over the crest, the dark grey strip of road wound ahead of them, undulating with the contours of the terrain and the scroll of its dotted white line followed every deviation. Sheep sheltered in the shade under the banks of heather at its side and their bodies heaved as they panted, no doubt desperate to be shorn. The road surface shimmered in the midday heat and its shape broke up where the road dipped out of sight only to reappear a little further on. Ponies grazed on both sides and one calmly strolled across in front of them without a care in the world, as if it had knowledge that Smalacombe had learned his lesson a few hours earlier. Up ahead, just under the horizon was one solitary building. ‘See that house up there?’

  ‘On its own?’

  ‘Yea! That’s the pub.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘It was built for the tinners in the nineteenth century. It was right next to the furnaces in the old days. You will see the remains when we get there.’

  Tiley sighed; bloody terrific, he thought and let it pass.

  ‘Look down on your right and you’ll see the scars of the old mine workings.’ Smalacombe waved his arm in front of his colleague.

  Tiley’s eyes followed the deep gouges in the landscape, now covered in Erica that softened the ragged edges left by past industrialists after five hundred years of exploitation. Nature had taken it back and covered the wounds with its scar tissue of heather and ling. Its predators, the foxes and the hawks, once again the unhindered and absolute rulers of this isolated domain, preyed on the food chain, and kept the populations in balance for the benefit of their progeny. To the uninitiated the workings were no more than the natural undulations of the original landscape, the result of the volcanic upheaval of millions of years ago.

  As they drove into the small car park, Tiley asked, ‘If it was built for tinners, then why is it called The Dog and Rabbit?’

  ‘Because there were warreners here as well. I don’t know, perhaps the rabbit catchers were more thirsty than the tinners. They would certainly have had more money to spend.’ Smalacombe removed the key and opened the car door.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Tiley disagreed and unclipped his seat belt. When they stepped out of the car a stiff moorland breeze cooled them. What remained of Smalacombe’s hair blew in all directions; Tiley brushed his forelock back to no avail. The wind reinforced his view that he had no wish to inspect the pile of rubble by the car park, which he assumed was the remains to which Smalacombe had referred. It was imperative he distracted his boss before it was too late. ‘Blimey, I’m hungry. Is it always this windy up here?’

  ‘This isn’t windy, this is a quiet summer’s day,’ Smalacombe answered as he strolled to the bar door and opened it to let his colleague in. Contrary to his normal practice he let Tiley through and followed on. It was an act of the rarest good manners; indeed Smalacombe considered it as he closed the door behind him and concluded it was unique. Not even Freda was given such preferences. It puzzled them both; Smalacombe worried he was going soft whilst Tiley wondered how often he would be afforded such a privilege and what would be the payback? Would he have to buy the round?

  There was an austerity about the inn, in keeping with its age and its modest proportions. It also helped to create an authentic atmosphere of a Victorian workingmen’s pub. There were no plastic beams in here or a log fire powered by gas. This wasn’t a theme pub tarted up by some imaginative architect; this was the real thing. The flagstone floor remained uncovered and constant
use over a century and a half had carved out a relief channel from the door to the bar. It also provided an ambient coolness, welcome on a flaming June day. Alternatively, the low beams overhead, snaking across an uneven ceiling, meant there was little wasted space when heating became the priority in winter. On the walls were a few ancient prints of hunting scenes and one incongruous picture of a Pickwickian character carrying an enormous spherical Christmas pudding to the family table surrounded by his cherubic offspring and a rotund wife. To the detectives’ right was a large open hearth, and a fire burned lazily upon a pyramid of ashes. Smoke wandered aimlessly up the chimney leaving behind an agreeable fragrance of burning peat.

  There was one customer, a man approaching the divide from middle to old age, sitting quietly on a high stool in the corner by the bar. He was gaunt and untidy and wore Wellington boots and an oily peaked cap that couldn’t hide the straggle of grey hair that had not seen a barber for a decade. His faded blue overalls were covered in patches of oil and sawdust. Smalacombe concluded that the stubble he wore was not designer chic but the result of a casual concern for his appearance and hygiene. Grubby, calloused hands raised a pint of cider to his lips, as he watched the two strangers enter.

  ‘Fire in June?’ Clive Tiley queried as he leant on the dark oak bar and looked through to the taproom.

  ‘Never goes out,’ answered the barman with a London accent as he emerged from the back with a cloth in his hand. Smalacombe’s many years as a detective meant that nothing escaped his notice. Without realising it, he had already made a mental note of the customer and now he had assessed the barman as a hail-fellow-well-met sort of a guy, slightly overweight, dark wavy hair and in his early forties. The barman wiped the shelf at the side of the till. ‘It hasn’t gone out for a hundred and fifty years.’

  ‘Went out las’ Thursday,’ moaned the customer.

  ‘Oh, come on Eli, you mustn’t tell the tourists that. This is my livelihood,’ the barman jumped in, pretending to be offended.