by LJ Ross
Calling her ‘sweetheart’ had been enough to make her blood simmer. Insinuating that she was some naïve teenager had been enough to turn it up to boiling point.
He had effectively dismissed her. Thanked her for her offer, blah blah, but the message had been for her to run along. It hadn’t helped that Megan had been there to witness the entire conversation, no doubt triumphing at her expense once again.
Anna had maintained what she liked to think was a quiet dignity, right until she had walked outside the pub, where she had sworn like a sailor and had very nearly kicked the plastic Santa, whose laughter had hit a little close to home. Now, she’d had time to cool off and come to the conclusion that DCI Ryan needed to hear some home truths. Well, she was just the person to let him have them.
Rich brown eyes glittered with barely suppressed temper as she rapped sharply on the oak door with its knocker in the shape of a leaping fox. She had raised her fist to bang louder when the door swung open.
There was another definite tug as she took in six feet two inches of irritated male framing the doorway but she ordered herself to ignore it.
“Yes?” His voice was clipped, cold and forbidding. A lesser person would have quaked.
“I’ve got some things to say to you,” she began.
“Save it,” he said in bored tones, “I don’t have time for temper tantrums.” He started to close the door in her face but she thrust one small foot in the corner.
Ryan’s eyebrows rose at the action and he cocked his head, reconsidering. It looked like still waters could run deep with this one.
“Look…” he started with more bite than finesse.
“You look,” she cut across him and jabbed a finger at his broad chest, encountering a surprising wall of muscle. She swallowed the distraction and carried on. “I didn’t ask to be involved in this - I was perfectly happy where I was. Your superior contacted me personally to request my help and after some consideration I agreed.”
“Well, now, don’t do us any favours,” he drawled, eyes narrowing pointedly at the finger which still prodded his solar plexus.
Anna clamped her teeth together and snatched her hand away. Her voice was rigidly formal when she spoke again.
“I am a leading authority on the Neolithic and Mesolithic periods, with specialist knowledge of religious practices during those eras, incorporating their modern denominations. In case you hadn’t realised,” Anna’s voice dripped with condescension, “Lindisfarne was mostly built during that time frame.”
Ryan opened his mouth but she cut across him again.
“Part of that specialism includes knowledge of sacrificial practices, burial rites of those early religions as well as their more modern counterparts which people still practise today. Aside from that, I grew up on this island. I’ve read everything there is to read about it, Chief Inspector.” That was no exaggeration; she had spent years studying the island and its history. Her voice calmed slightly and she added, “I don’t need to do anybody any favours.”
Ryan had to admit she was a fine sight when her temper was up, with those big doe-eyes flashing daggers at him. Now, the fight seemed to have simply drained out of her and her eyes were flat again. It was a pity. He dragged his wayward thoughts back to business, irritated again with his lapse in concentration.
“Doctor Taylor,” he began.
“Oh, so now you believe that I’m a real doctor?” she said silkily, arms crossed over her chest.
Ryan folded his lips and sent up a prayer to a God he didn’t believe in, to deliver him from angry women.
“Doctor Taylor,” he repeated, his voice saccharine, “the department is grateful, I’m grateful to you, for agreeing to assist us in our investigation. The fact is, we don’t know that the circumstances of the incident warrant such specialist knowledge at this time.”
“Well,” Anna pursed her lips, deflated. That seemed fair enough, she supposed. “I…”
Her voice trailed off and Ryan watched her colour drain slightly. He followed the line of her vision. In his hand, he clutched a swatch of photographs, freshly developed by the CSI’s who had commandeered the resources of the only photographic studio on the island. The picture he held was a candid shot of Lucy as she had been laid out; lifeless, grey, her humanity taken from her.
He turned the image swiftly to the wall and watched Anna’s eyes lift again. He had expected shock, which he saw, but he hadn’t expected the quiet acceptance or the compassion swimming so near the surface. This woman was a constant surprise.
“I’m sorry that you had to see that,” he said quietly.
Anna shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m not sorry. I’ll leave you to your investigation, Mr Ryan, but here’s where you can find me if you change your mind.” She scribbled the address on the underside of a used envelope, thrust it in his hand and turned away without a backward glance.
From the image she had just seen, Anna was almost certain that he would need to know why anybody would arrange a body in so precise a formation, why anybody but a madman would mark the girl’s body in such a particular red pattern.
She could give him those answers.
* * *
When her slight form had disappeared around the corner towards the village, Ryan moved from his stiff position in the doorway and stopped to consider why a young woman with all the appearance of fragility wouldn’t balk at the sight of brutality in its extreme. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he would be seeking her out before long and an even more uncomfortable feeling that he might enjoy it.
When he walked back into the makeshift Incident Room, he cast his gaze over the people who occupied it. He had appointed Lowerson, an eager young detective constable, as the reader-receiver for the MIR. He had the unenviable task of looking over every bit of intelligence as it filtered through, giving it a log number before it was assessed for urgency and relevance. He’d spent the past three hours sitting at Ryan’s kitchen table entering information onto the computer, reading documents then passing them on to one of the uniforms for cross-checking.
Ryan remembered the days when he’d been the reader-receiver and could sympathise. It was a rite of passage they all went through.
Phillips and one of the uniforms had made a good dent in the house-to-house calls, collecting witness statements from island residents. Nothing had popped up, except for one old woman who claimed to have been woken in the early hours by the sound of a boat engine. They would look into the harbour records to see if any boats had been logged during the early hours but from what Ryan had seen, almost every resident owned a boat and used it whenever they pleased without taking the trouble to inform the Coastguard or Harbour-Master, who happened to be one and the same.
Lindisfarne was a law unto itself.
Ryan moved to the front of the room and picked up his marker pen, scrawling a name at the top of the wall which read ‘Operation Lindisfarne.’ CID Command had named the investigation without an eye for originality before handing down their decree.
“Alright, settle down,” he said, not bothering to raise his voice. Chairs scraped, voices died. Ryan watched them take in the details on the wall, note the smiling picture of the victim compared with how she had been found that morning.
“You all know each other,” he said. He’d seen them go through the motions of hand-shaking and they had probably had a chance to talk over old times while he had been held up by an irate lady historian. He found himself wanting to smile at the memory, so he frowned instead to compensate.
“Let’s get down to it. Victim is Lucy Jane Mathieson, aged twenty-one, arts student. You’re all aware of the circumstances in which she was found.”
There was murmured agreement.
“House-to-house interviews have been completed,” he said, thinking that one of the few advantages of living on a small island was the reduced pool of people to interview. “Many of these were conducted early this morning, before the usual wave of tourists arrived. I thank those officers f
or their quick, focused work.”
He nodded to the uniforms.
“DC Lowerson has been assessing the witness statements for relevance. In the interim, Lucy’s parents have told us that she left last night to go to the pub with two of her friends just after six. The barmaid at the Jolly Anchor, Megan Taylor, has confirmed that they arrived around six-thirty and were there until just before closing at eleven forty-five.”
“The friends – Ellie Holmes and Rachel Finnigan – confirm those times, sir.” Lowerson piped up and received a nod of thanks.
“Initial indications suggest time of death would have been between midnight and one in the morning,” Ryan tapped the timeline. “That means she was killed shortly after leaving her friends, within the space of an hour, two at most. As yet, we have no witnesses, except to say that she never returned home. No clothing has been located. The CSI team spent most of their morning up at the Priory and plan to conduct a routine search and sweep of the victim’s home, where she lived with her parents on Church Lane, after this briefing. That includes taking fingerprints and swabs from her parents for the purposes of elimination. The Mathiesons have given their consent.”
He closed a fist around the CSI’s preliminary forensic report of their findings at the Priory and held it against his chest possessively.
“As for the crime scene, why don’t you give us an executive summary, Tom?” He eyed the Senior CSI, a man with twenty-five years’ experience behind him, and hitched a hip on the windowsill in the absence of a spare chair. Everything about Tom Faulkner could be described as average, from his height, to the mousy brown of his hair. Everything except his mind, which was a sharply-honed tool.
Tom cleared his throat. Quiet, scientific men don’t much like public speaking even in the close quarters of a kitchen-diner.
“I’ve just spoken to the pathologist, who has confirmed Doctor Walker’s initial findings. Lucy had been deceased approximately five hours, no more than six, at the time of examination. Post mortem examination may narrow that down even further. We won’t hear the results of that for another day, I would imagine.”
“Does that estimate account for cold weather conditions?” Ryan cut through the spiel.
Tom nodded energetically. “Yes, the body would have been preserved to some degree overnight with weather conditions averaging at minus five Celsius. The estimate accounts for that.”
“So, that puts her death somewhere between midnight and one in the morning, like we thought,” Phillips grunted, chewing rhythmically on his last stick of gum.
Tom nodded, “Right.”
“Cause of death?” Ryan needed it confirmed.
“It looks like straightforward asphyxiation by manual strangulation, sir, but we’ll need to wait for the tox report to come back before that’s final. A large gash on the victim’s right temple indicates a blow to the head with sufficient force perhaps to stun or concuss but not to cause lasting injury and certainly not enough to kill. Blood clotting around the gash indicates that the blow was sustained ante-mortem.”
“The bruising?”
“The pathologist’s initial observations would suggest we are seeking a perpetrator with a hand span of approximately eight inches from thumb to index finger, judging from the pattern of bruising around the victim’s neck. Couldn’t get him to commit to anything more precise than that, not until he’s had time to go over her properly.”
“Likely to be male, then.”
“Statistically that’s the most likely probability,” Faulkner agreed.
Ryan nodded, one quick jerk as he thought of Lucy Mathieson’s pale neck.
“Carry on, Tom.”
“Unfortunately, following a thorough sweep of the body including initial swabs, we have been unable to isolate any suspect DNA evidence aside from the victim’s own blood, hair and so forth. The pathologist is reviewing Lucy’s blood work and I have requested a rush on it, sir.”
Faulkner’s words hung in the air for one thick moment and Ryan’s brows drew together ominously.
“No other bodily fluids, skin, hair, nails? Not a fucking thing?”
“Sir,” Tom could sympathise with the frustration. He had felt it himself as he’d gone over that poor girl’s body with a fine tooth comb. “We were able to find various indications of herbal and man-made residue, which are currently being analysed and which I will venture to say are likely to come back as soap produce and some sort of body oil.”
Ryan paused to digest that information.
“No defensive wounds? Hell, anything else at all?”
“He was extremely thorough, sir. The victim’s nails had been cleaned and there was a trace sample of the disinfectant he used.”
“Good. I want the name of it, when you have it. You never know,” he said.
“Any sexual assault?”
Faulkner paused. “There were bruises on her upper arms to indicate she had been restrained, and a small tear to her lip, but otherwise no other evidence to suggest sexual intent, sir. Once again, pathologist to confirm, but swabs indicate that her mouth had also been cleaned with disinfectant. That’s going to prove problematic for the pathologist in isolating any foreign DNA she may have taken on when sustaining the cut to her lip.”
Ryan nodded for him to continue, his heart sinking by the minute.
“We found some other residue in the head gash, comprising of silicon dioxide quartz particles…”
“Silla-what?” Phillips pulled a face from the back of the room.
“Sand,” Ryan supplied shortly. “You can give us the layman’s translation, Tom.”
“Sorry,” Faulkner laughed nervously. “Force of habit.”
“Sand? That’s not exactly a light bulb moment, considering that this whole island is surrounded by sand. The stuff could have been in her hair already,” Phillips complained.
“The chemical compounds differ on each part of the island,” Tom argued. “There was a sizeable sample found crusted with blood, which would suggest it was present at the time of injury. Give us enough time and if the sample is big enough we can cross-check against local geography to try to narrow the field.”
“It all adds up,” Ryan said quietly, “but it’s speculative at this point.” He got up to pace a few steps and then turned back.
“What time did it rain last night?”
“Locals reported rain around midnight,” Phillips supplied. “Got a few witnesses from the pub saying that they had to run home to avoid the downpour after closing time.”
“Heavy rain would likely have washed that sort of residue off the skin?”
“Even a light rain would have diluted it,” Tom agreed. “If her body had been left out during the rainfall last night, there wouldn’t be much to find on her.”
“What about the underside of her body?”
“Same, sir. Nothing other than this residue.”
It didn’t take much for Ryan to follow the trail of bread crumbs.
“So, after the rain stopped, he washed her, oiled her skin?” His voice was remote. “Couldn’t have done all that up at the Priory, he would have risked exposure. Where did he put her while it was raining? We need to find the kill site.”
Tom agreed. “No residue was found on the ground, on or near the site where she was found, nor any residue around the body other than some small level of transference from skin to stone. That would be consistent with the assumption that the girl was cleaned elsewhere.”
“You’ll be sweeping the Mathiesons’ car,” Ryan said to Faulkner.
“We’ll go over it,” Faulkner nodded. “Same time as we go over the house, this afternoon.”
“No statements from anyone to say they heard a car at that time of night,” Lowerson added. “Residents tend not to use their cars on the island, only if they’re making a trip to the mainland. Everything is so close by, here.”
“OK.” Ryan added that information to his mental file.
“What about floor markings?” Phillips’ birdlike eyes
were keen.
Tom swivelled to face him. “Some deep treads around the site where the victim was found and intermittent similar treads leading through the Priory. Took us most of the morning to try to trace his route,” Tom addressed Ryan again. “He took the long route, skirted around the outside walls of the Priory. Still, the weather was on our side for that. Rain makes the ground dewy, pretty good for holding footprints.”
“What are we looking at, then?”
“Likely male, again. Larger boot size, a nine or ten. Unfortunately, he stuck to the grass rather than giving us a nice, juicy print in the mud, so we don’t have any casts for the sole. I can’t give you any brands of boot to look for,” Faulkner shrugged apologetically.
“OK, thanks Tom, that’s good, fast work. Our man took the long route, couldn’t risk being seen,” Ryan said. He glanced across at the map of Lindisfarne he had tacked on the wall and thought back to the buildings nearest to the Priory.
“Phillips, I want to know about any and all structures large enough to accommodate this son of a bitch, close enough to the Priory for him to transport a body without alerting the village. He needs enough space to clean her up. He might have needed access to water, so check on plumbing.” He looked at his watch. “If there’s no time after this briefing, start that tomorrow.”
“On it,” Phillips said and popped his gum.
“No other distinctive prints?” Ryan turned back to Faulkner.
“None other than the worn treads from what looks to be visitors from the previous day, sir.”
Ryan thought of the high-heeled boots Lucy Mathieson had worn. She hadn’t walked up to the Priory herself, it seemed.
“Even taking the circuitous route, he ran a hell of a risk dragging her up there. Surely would have been better to dump her body somewhere closer?”
“Who knows what these nut jobs think about?” Phillips chimed in.
Ryan ignored the comment. “What was his access point?”
“Similar markings indicate he climbed the fence further around from the visitor’s gate,” Faulkner continued, “then hiked up the steep side of the grass, took a direct route. If he was carrying her, it would have been back-breaking work.”
