‘DI Townsend was present?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Basil said. ‘Although he left before the fire team cut her out.’ Lockyer wasn’t sure that meshed with what Townsend had said either.
‘She has three tattoos that I’ve been able to identify,’ Nigel said. ‘There may be more, but . . .’ He gestured to Pippa’s charred remains. ‘Anyway, we’ve got one on her outside left ankle. It’s an infinity sign. A cross on her left shoulder blade . . .’
‘The father’s a vicar,’ Lockyer said.
‘That doesn’t always follow, detective,’ Basil said. ‘Do you have children?’
‘Yes, a daughter,’ he said with a slow nod. He had texted Megan the second he found out Pippa was Aaron’s sister. He knew where she would be, and he was right. When he managed to get her on the phone she told him she had driven Aaron and his parents down to Somerset. Worse than that, she was now staying with them in the family home. It was too close for Lockyer’s comfort. It was all too close. As Jane had pointed out in the car this morning, if Megan and Aaron were married, Pippa would have been Megan’s sister-in-law. He shook his head. Did Jane think these titbits were helpful? Didn’t she get it? He didn’t want his daughter anywhere near any of this mess. He looked down at Pippa’s blackened body and sighed. But yet again Megan was in the thick of it, dismissing his concerns like he was the one with the problem.
‘Does your daughter want to be a police officer?’
‘I doubt it,’ Lockyer said with a snort. ‘She hates my job.’
Basil held up his hands. ‘As is often the way, detective. Children rarely follow the paths we have chosen. Anyway, what’s the third tattoo, Nigel?’
‘It’s a silhouette of an eagle or some other bird of prey,’ Nigel said, pointing. ‘It’s on her torso just under her left breast.’ Lockyer craned his neck to see the tattoo of the bird. It was in flight, its head directed away from Pippa’s body. He bent forward to get a closer look. The ink was buried deep in Pippa’s soot-covered skin. ‘That’s it. No other identifying marks.’
‘Right,’ Basil said, resting his hand on the tray of instruments. ‘Then let’s get started on the internal examination, shall we?’
Lockyer checked his phone. He had a text. It was from Megan:
Hi Dad, how’s it going? Fancy a coffee over the weekend? You say where. Happy to come to you. I spoke to Jane – hear you’re staying with her folks ;-) Aaron told me you guys are coming Monday for a chat with the family. I’ll make myself scarce. Don’t want you worrying. Spoke to uni. My tutor’s forwarding my coursework by email so no probs with end of term. Love you xx p.s. don’t be angry with me. Aaron needs me.
Lockyer rolled his eyes and groaned. He took issue with several things, speaking to Jane being one. Since when were they buddies? Missing uni was another. And the final nail in the coffin – Aaron needed her. He shook his head.
‘Are you with us, detective?’ Basil asked.
‘Sorry,’ he said, pocketing his phone.
‘If you need to make a call, please feel free to leave the room,’ Basil said, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead.
‘No, no,’ Lockyer said. ‘I apologize. It was a message from my daughter. I wouldn’t normally check it during . . . this.’ He gestured around him. ‘But . . .’
‘But you’re her father and you can’t help yourself?’ Basil said, smiling.
Lockyer blew out a frustrated breath. ‘That’s about the size of it, yes,’ he said. ‘You got kids?’
‘Seven,’ Basil said.
‘Christ, seven?’ Lockyer’s mouth fell open. ‘How did you . . . ? How do you . . . ? I only have the one and I’m lost.’
‘You get better at it as you go along,’ Basil said, turning back to the mortuary table, unclipping the folded-back skin and muscle that was exposing Pippa’s chest cavity. ‘By number four my wife and I had discovered the secret.’
‘I’m all ears,’ Lockyer said, folding his arms.
‘Control is an illusion,’ Basil said. ‘Your children are their own person from the day they arrive in the world, detective. They are pre-programmed to go their own way. To deny them that, to hold them back, to bend them to your will is to deny them life. Parents mistake responsibility for control. Those early years when they rely on you for everything makes the parent believe they are in charge, but it isn’t true. We are merely caretakers. After that, all you can do is watch and worry.’
‘Sorry,’ Lockyer said, frowning. ‘What’s the secret again?’
Basil laughed. ‘Learning to enjoy your life in spite of all the worry.’ When he smiled the lines around his eyes multiplied and deepened. This guy had been around the proverbial block many, many more times than Lockyer had, or ever would. ‘Be grateful for the times they do listen,’ he said, ‘and have faith that they will do the right thing when they don’t.’
‘Not easy for a man in my profession,’ Lockyer said.
Basil shrugged. ‘That’s life, I’m afraid. And talking of life . . .’ He had opened up the bottom half of Pippa’s body, revealing her lower bowel and reproductive organs. The organs on the right-hand side appeared dry, split open in places, no doubt due to the heat of the fire. ‘See here,’ he said, pointing to the other side.
‘What am I looking at?’ Lockyer asked, peering at the mess of tissue, fat and muscle.
‘This here,’ Basil said, hooking his finger beneath a pale section of tissue. ‘This is part of the victim’s fallopian tube. This here is scarring. She had a tubal pregnancy at some stage.’
‘And that is?’ Lockyer asked. His knowledge of anatomy was limited at best.
‘It’s where a fertilized egg implants outside the womb; in this case it implanted in the fallopian tube. Otherwise known as ectopic pregnancy.’ Basil motioned for Nigel to take over. ‘Try and remove as much as you can intact, Nigel,’ he said. ‘It’ll be difficult with the damage, but do your best.’ Nigel stepped forward and picked up a scalpel.
‘Would she have been hospitalized?’ Lockyer asked. From the file he recalled the parents saying there was no boyfriend on the scene. ‘Can you tell me when it happened?’
‘Not necessarily, no,’ Basil said. ‘Some ectopic pregnancies resolve on their own. The foetus dies and is reabsorbed back into the woman’s body all but for the scarring you see here.’
‘And when?’
‘I can’t say, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘I’m having trouble here,’ Nigel said. ‘I can’t get the left-hand side out intact. It’s like dealing with two different bodies.’
‘Hang on,’ Basil said, ‘let me have a look.’
Lockyer watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust as Basil moved the blackened tissue, cutting every so often with his scalpel, his incisions quick and precise. Within a few minutes he had removed Pippa’s uterus, fallopian tubes and what Lockyer assumed were her ovaries. The two sides couldn’t have been more different. On the left side the tissue was pink, surrounded by sinew and yellowish fat. On the right everything was blackened and shrivelled. There was no resemblance between the two sides. ‘The damage is unreal,’ he said to no one in particular.
‘Yes,’ Basil said with a sigh. ‘I’m afraid the kind of heat she would have been exposed to simply devastates the body, the tissues.’ He used his wrist to push his glasses back up his nose where they had slipped down. ‘Her parents can be thankful she didn’t suffer for long, though I doubt that will be much comfort right now.’
Lockyer nodded. ‘Sure. She was killed pretty much on impact, right?’
‘That would have been the kindest thing,’ Basil said, ‘but no. I’m afraid there’s evidence she was at least conscious when the fire took hold.’
‘What evidence?’ Lockyer asked.
Basil frowned, but stood back and picked up Pippa’s left arm. ‘You can see here,’ he said, ‘that the tissue has been all but removed from her palm and fingers where she tried to open the door.’
Lockyer felt his stomach drop. ‘I�
��m sorry, can you explain that to me? I was under the impression she died from the head injury coupled with smoke inhalation from the engine fire. I assumed that would be pretty immediate.’ He could taste bile in his mouth as the smell of Pippa’s burnt flesh hit the back of his throat.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Basil said. ‘Remnants of skin and fat were found on the driver’s-side door, where we’re supposing the victim tried to free herself.’ He turned his body to the right, reaching both arms across himself as he mimed trying to open a door with his hands positioned side by side. ‘This would have been after the fire had made its way into the main body of the vehicle. Her skin would have bonded to the door leather, hence the damage you see here,’ he said, gesturing to what remained of Pippa’s hand. ‘DI Townsend and I discussed all of this at the scene. It was the reason I asked for her body to be removed with the seat to prevent further damage.’
Lockyer shook his head. Either he was going mad, or Townsend had said Pippa had died before the fire took hold. ‘I’m surprised DI Townsend didn’t mention it.’
‘So am I,’ Lockyer said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
11th December – Friday
Jane wound her scarf around her neck several times as she climbed out of her car. She should have brought gloves; the temperature had dropped on the way up here. As if to prove it, there was a fine dusting of snow covering the car park and the grassy banks surrounding it. In contrast the woodland floor appeared dry, a thick blanket of pine needles protected from the elements by the evergreens towering above her.
She shivered, slammed her door, locked it and headed for the path. She spotted a map of the area, but before she could get to it she slipped. She managed to right herself at the last second before looking down at her feet to identify what had made her stumble. There was a clear impression of her heel and subsequent slip in the wet mud that was lurking beneath the snow. She looked back at her car. She had parked on an incline, her front wheels nestled in the edge of a grass bank. Was she going to be able to get out of there? ‘Great,’ she said to herself, looking up at the sky. The clouds were low and threatening above the trees, the light fading. It would be dark within the hour. She had better tell the ranger guy she was meeting that they would have to be quick.
The offices for the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty were tucked away beside the main entrance to Fyne Court, the sprawling National Trust property where Pippa had been working. Jane had already been up to the main house when she missed the turning to the AONB offices. She and DC Pimbley were booked in to see the catering manager, Derek Cooper, tomorrow morning. As she crunched along the shale path, she wondered how they would get up here if it snowed overnight. She had spent the majority of her journey over from Express Park on the A39, but once off that it was all single-track lanes. When she came across another car she had to stop, waiting for the obligatory standoff while each driver decided who was going to give way – or who had the talent to reverse. Lucky for her, everyone she met was in a 4x4. They just drove up onto the bank or into a hedge to let her pass. She would raise a hand in thanks and get a beaming smile and cheerful nod in return. They were a courteous bunch.
At one point she was sure she was going round in circles as she drove around, over, up and down the hills, never finding the actual hill Fyne Court was on. Her circuitous journey hadn’t been helped by her out-of-date satnav. In the end she had stopped by a disused telephone box and asked a woman out walking two golden retrievers. Jane had listened to the detailed instructions; left, then left, then right, then left, then another two lefts and she would be there. She had made it to her destination, although the number of lefts and rights bore no resemblance to the ones described.
She reached out and steadied herself against a massive pine tree, its trunk well over six feet around. The evergreens provided the only colour in the canopy above her. Their deciduous cousins reached out bare branches like fingers, clinging on for safety until their leaves returned. There had been places on the drive over where the trees and brambles were so intertwined above her that no light penetrated. More than once she had driven into shade so dark she put her foot down, longing to come out the other side. She wasn’t skittish by nature, but her mother had been telling Peter all about the Quantock legends over breakfast – the ghost dog being one of them. Jane had only been half listening, but something must have stuck in her mind. The sound of a breaking twig made her turn too fast.
‘Detective Bennett?’
Jane lost her footing and went down. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, lifting her hands up, snow, mud and water now dripping off them. Her arse was very wet and very cold. A large hand entered her field of vision.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you.’ She pulled on the proffered hand and managed to get to her feet, aided by another strong hand at her waist. She planted her feet and looked up, then up again. Where she would have expected to find his head she found she was still looking at his chest. ‘I’m Barney,’ he said.
‘Wow,’ she said, as her heels were sucked into the mud with a squelching sound. His hand was warm, dry and – like the man attached to it – huge. She had always been petite, so feeling small wasn’t new to her, but she had never, not since she was a child, felt this small. Her hand disappeared in his – it was like a dinner plate. He reminded her of the Jaws character in the James Bond movies, except he had, she could see, beautiful teeth and an open, smiling face. Now that she thought about it, he was more like the BFG from the Roald Dahl story.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m tall.’
‘No, no . . . I mean, well, yes.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I tend to have that effect on folks first time they meet me.’
She looked him up and down. ‘What are you, six five?’ She was used to being dwarfed by Lockyer, but this was ridiculous.
‘Six seven,’ Barney said, running his hand over his chin, which was covered in an impressive beard the colour of dark chocolate. He was wearing walking boots, dark green combat trousers, a matching collared T-shirt and a fleece, again the same colour, that said ‘AONB Ranger’ underneath a silhouette of a bird of prey. She had seen the same image on signposts on her drive over.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Jane Bennett,’ she said, extending her hand. He looked down at it and back at her before she remembered the mud. ‘Sorry.’
‘This way,’ he said. ‘You can get cleaned up before we head over to the crash site.’
‘Thank you.’
She followed behind him, taking care to step where he stepped. ‘When did it snow?’ she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke. ‘This morning,’ he said, ‘but it’ll be off and on all day, I reckon.’
‘We’re forecast more later, I heard.’
‘Normal forecasts don’t really hold true up here,’ he said. ‘We’ve got our own microclimate. More so the higher you go. It can be ten degrees colder up here than down in Taunton.’
‘I was just thinking it must be a nightmare to get up there when it really snows.’
‘My 4x4 will get me most places,’ he said. ‘Although some winters I’ve had to park down at the bottom of Buncombe Hill and walk up.’
‘I’d be calling in sick,’ she said.
They approached a stone building and he walked to the right, into an open courtyard. ‘Here we are,’ he said, rounding the corner. ‘This is the main site office. The admin and management lot work out of here.’
‘And the rangers?’
‘There’s three of us,’ he said, punching in a code before opening the door and gesturing for her to go first. ‘The other two are part-time.’
‘Are they here?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They’re on radio, but I haven’t heard from them for a bit.’ He gestured to a small radio attached to his belt.
Jane looked around. The office was like any other. She could have been in a Portakabin instead of a converted barn. There were eight desks as far as she could tell, t
wo sets of four facing each other, with the traditional felt-covered partitions. Each was littered with notes, maps and bits of paper pinned to every last bit of available space. Over by the door there was a fridge and a tiny kitchen area comprising sink, kettle and toaster. She gestured towards the sink. ‘May I?’ He nodded.
She rinsed her hands, drying them on a tea towel hanging on a broom handle. There was a large map of the area above the fridge. She peered at the roads and place names, trying to get her bearings.
‘We’re here,’ Barney said, coming up behind her. He was able to reach out and point to where they were on the map without so much as brushing her shoulder with his arm.
‘And the crash site?’
‘Here,’ he said, pointing to an area of green off to the right.
‘And the road?’ All she could see were pale lines, no names.
‘Here.’
‘What’s the road called?’
‘It doesn’t have an official name,’ Barney said, ‘but people call it the Common Road ’cos it runs right through the Common.’
‘Makes sense,’ she said.
‘Do you want a cuppa before we head out?’ he asked, walking towards the kettle.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. He looked disappointed. Who could blame him? It was freezing. ‘It’ll be dark soon and my car isn’t the best on mud . . . let alone snow,’ she said by way of an explanation.
‘OK. Let’s get going.’ He grabbed a coat off the back of one of the chairs and handed it to her. ‘Think you might need this.’ She hesitated, but decided now wasn’t the time to be fussy. The odour as she pushed her arms into the sleeves settled inside her nostrils. It was a combination of horse manure and something else she couldn’t place. ‘Won’t take us more than ten, fifteen minutes to get there.’ He pushed open the door, picked up what looked like a horse blanket and ushered her out before him. ‘Turn left,’ he said. ‘Keep going. My truck’s round there.’
The Night Stalker (Detective Jane Bennett and Mike Lockyer series Book 4) Page 9
