by LJ Ross
“Gents,” came the easy reply. “What’s the craic here, then?”
“Take a look for yourself,” Ryan said, stepping aside and gesturing towards an opening in the large forensics tent which had been erected to preserve the site. Phillips dipped his head inside.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” he muttered, as his stomach did a slow flip. He watched the CSIs begin the slow, painstaking process of excavating the body of a woman. Their overalls crackled as they brushed away the layers of soil to reveal a contorted face, its expression fixed into a shocked grimace.
But it was the eyes that had the most impact. They were open and staring, clouded over with the milky-white film that death brings and no less penetrating because of it.
“It’s always the lasses,” Phillips managed, his throat working again.
Ryan said nothing and continued his silent observation of the CSIs, who checked the fine grains of soil for evidence, storing samples and taking swabs as they went.
“Who called it in?”
“A man called Keith Wilson rang it in about an hour ago,” Ryan glanced back towards the entrance and the small collection of police vehicles with their neon yellow and blue banners. “He’s employed by Newcastle City Council as a grave digger. As far as I can tell, Wilson arrived for work at eight and headed up here to dig a grave for a funeral due to take place tomorrow. He found this waiting for him instead.”
Phillips nodded sombrely.
“Interesting they chose this particular spot, alongside everybody else in the row.”
“Yes, it is. I don’t think I’ve come across a killer who actually buried his victim in a cemetery. Have you?”
“Nope,” Phillips said roundly. “I’ve only seen the ones dumped in rivers, in woods, in bin bags and all that. This feels like a treat.”
Ryan smiled grimly.
“I take it the Council have no record of a burial?” Phillips asked.
“None whatsoever. Apparently, there have been instances where people have snuck into the cemetery to bury their dead grandmother, but it’s very rare.”
Phillips pursed his lips and watched as the CSIs brushed away the soil around the woman’s face to reveal long strands of red hair, caked with mud. The sight of it sent an uncomfortable prickle racing up his spine as he thought of his partner, Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie, whose long red hair had lain across his chest earlier that morning.
He cleared his throat.
“She doesn’t look like anybody’s grandmother.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes until the woman was fully revealed to them and it was as if a shroud had been lifted. She seemed to rise from the earth, her jaw wide open and gaping. Ryan thought briefly of The Lady of Shalott and then watched in dismay as a long earthworm made its journey from the inner crevices of her throat and began to crawl along the side of her neck.
“Faulkner?” he said sharply. “Thoughts?”
The man in question snapped another picture and then sat back on his haunches, slipping slightly on the plastic underfoot before righting himself again. He adjusted his glasses and looked down at the body with sad, puppyish brown eyes.
“Far too soon to say what happened to her and, in any case, I’m no pathologist. But if I were a betting man, I’d say she was strangled. Look here,” he gestured a gloved hand towards a thick, purple-black line around the woman’s neck, then stood up with a rustle.
Ryan absorbed the information, noting the fine cobweb of broken blood vessels beside the eyes.
“What’s that?”
The other men turned to follow the direction of his gaze and watched one of the junior CSIs brush off a stiff piece of card, grubby and curling at the edges, before transferring it into a transparent evidence bag.
Ryan held out a gloved hand to examine the stained note. It read:
Et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
“What does it mean?” Faulkner queried.
“It’s Latin,” Phillips explained. “It’s what the priest says when he’s giving absolution: ‘I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.”
Phillips looked up and caught the surprise on Ryan’s face.
“My ma and da were Catholic,” he added. “I went to Mass every Sunday when I was a nipper.”
“But not now?”
“No, not now.”
Ryan did not enquire further. He had never ascribed to any organised religion, so he wouldn’t pontificate on the many and varied reasons why people followed or relinquished their faith.
“I doubt she wrote this note herself,” was all he said, handing it back to Faulkner to be logged.
Phillips glanced at the note and grunted.
“He used a permanent marker.”
Apparently, they had a practical killer on their hands.
“Whoever did this chose to bring her here, to this exact spot, rather than somewhere she was less likely to be found. It’s a shallow grave and he left a note.”
“You think whoever it is wanted her to be found?” Phillips asked.
“Maybe. On the other hand, he could be sloppy.” He took a sweeping glance around the area, then remarked, “Either way, it was risky. Opening hours are between nine and four forty-five on weekends and bank holidays. I’ll venture to say that our perp came outside of those hours, under cover of darkness, in which case he needed an access point. This is a built-up area and there are no signs of forced entry at the main gates, so let’s look at how he let himself in. Get the PCs to canvas the vicinity. Surely somebody saw something.”
Phillips nodded his agreement.
“I’ll ask about CCTV,” he added.
Ryan half-turned, preparing to leave Faulkner to his task and then paused mid-step as another scene began to unfold. The CSIs worked quickly to uncover the woman’s body and a sickly feeling began to roll in his stomach. The woman’s arms rested above her head in a coarse rendition of a ballerina’s pirouette, the skin a stark grey-white against the muddy ground. The material of her blouse had been torn at the arms and had been smoothed out in a fan around them. Her legs, still clad in navy blue trousers, were drawn together neatly with the toes of her plain black shoes pointing forward.
No, he realised, looking at the scene again and thinking of the note. Not a ballerina.
Whoever did this had given her wings.
CHAPTER 2
In the neighbouring county of Northumberland, Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie and Detective Constable Jack Lowerson stood outside a small pebble-dashed bungalow which nestled in a cul-de-sac on the edge of the picturesque town of Rothbury. It was a stately, upmarket corner of the county, a few miles to the north of Newcastle and accessible via a pleasant drive along the A1. Riders astride glossy-coated thoroughbreds clippety-clopped along streets lined with attractive stone buildings redolent of the Victorian era, which soaked up the sun and blended nicely with the freshly harvested fields.
Several pairs of inquisitive eyes followed their progress from the windows of neighbouring bungalows, shaded behind a swathe of lacy blinds and chintz. MacKenzie reflected that local busybodies were both a blessing and a curse in her line of work. If she had a pound for every well-meaning neighbour who had given a falsely embellished report to ‘help’ an investigation, she would be a rich woman indeed.
They exchanged a brief word with the police constable on the door and then headed inside the house to see what awaited them. A quick glance around the interior betrayed a love of cleanliness and order bordering on the obsessive. Books and CDs were arranged in alphabetical order, cushions were plumped and free of creases, and the oven held not a speck of grease.
All was pristine except the lady of the house, whose decaying body littered the floor of her immaculate living room. MacKenzie came to a standstill just inside the doorway, careful not to go any further and risk contaminating the scene.
“What do we know about her?” Lowerson
said, training his eyes towards the ceiling to allow his system time to recover.
MacKenzie gave him credit for maintaining control over his stomach. You got used to it, after a while.
“Barbara Hewitt, aged sixty-five. No obvious signs of aggression that I can see but the body’s well into decomposition, so it’s hard to tell.”
“Who reported it?”
“The cleaning lady,” MacKenzie replied, while her eyes tracked over the details of the room. “She has a key to the house and let herself in as usual this morning. Apparently, Barbara promised to pay extra if she came to work on the bank holiday.”
“Really?” Lowerson was surprised. “I thought she lived alone. How much mess can one person make?”
MacKenzie looked meaningfully at Barbara’s corpse.
Lowerson found the courage to look down at the mass on the floor and felt his stomach revolt at the sight. The woman’s bloated body had obviously been lying there for some time. It held an unnatural blue-green tinge and the skin was blistered, providing a fertile ground for the swarms of pre-pupae maggots which festered in the crevices and the flies which circled the stagnant air. Blood and fluid pooled around the body in an island, seeping into the carpet and beginning to crust as it dried. The stench of putrid death was palpable.
“Yeah, it’s not pretty,” MacKenzie said, breathing hard through her teeth. “Control Room thought this was a case for CID. It’s a nasty sight but I can’t see anything particularly unusual. Am I missing something?”
Lowerson frowned and cocked his head to one side, but was careful to remain standing in the doorway.
“I agree with you. I can’t see anything out of the ordinary, nothing that would usually alert us to a suspicious death, at any rate.” He gestured a hand towards Barbara’s remains, curled in a foetal position on the carpet. “This lady might have had a heart attack and keeled over, for all we know. I’m surprised she wasn’t found earlier.”
MacKenzie shrugged.
“Faulkner is sending over a couple of CSIs but most of his staff are working the crime scene over on the West Road.”
Lowerson raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“Ryan and Phillips caught one earlier this morning,” she explained. “The body of a woman found in a shallow grave at the West Road Cemetery.”
Lowerson pulled a face.
“Two bodies on the holiday weekend? No rest for the wicked, is there?”
They retreated back outside the house into the watery spring sunshine. The smell of death followed them, clinging to their clothes and invading their nostrils.
“Nice enough place,” Lowerson commented, though it was too quiet for his taste.
MacKenzie nodded as she cast a sharp eye over the arcadian scene.
“You’re thinking something’s off?”
MacKenzie smiled again.
“I’m just naturally suspicious.”
“Want to have a word with the cleaning lady?”
“Let’s do that.”
* * *
They found Carole Dudley sitting inside a squad car being comforted by a police constable. Her rounded face was puffy with tears and she clutched a sodden tissue in her fingers. MacKenzie opened the door and smiled a greeting.
“Mrs Dudley? My name is Detective Inspector MacKenzie and this is my colleague, Detective Constable Lowerson, from Northumbria CID. If you don’t mind, we need to ask you a few questions. Would you like to take a walk and get a breath of fresh air?”
Lowerson held out a gallant hand to help her from the car.
“A-alright then.”
“I understand you must have had a terrible shock this morning.”
“It was awful. Just awful. The smell—”
MacKenzie steered her away from the trauma and back to the facts.
“Why don’t you tell us how long you’ve been working for Barbara?”
“Um, well, I started working for Miss Hewitt and her mother about ten years ago. They liked me to use their last names, they didn’t like to be too familiar,” she explained.
“That’s a bit stuffy, isn’t it?” Lowerson commented, from his position on her other side.
Carole clamped her lips together and adopted the reserved expression of one who would not speak ill of the dead.
“What were your usual hours?”
“Every Friday, eight-thirty till one,” she said. “Miss Hewitt liked to stick to a schedule, come rain or shine.”
“I see. How did you find the house?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, was it messy, dirty? Did you find anything out of place recently?”
Carole screwed up her homely face in concentration, then let it fall again.
“Not that I can think of,” she said apologetically. “She just liked things how she liked them. A place for everything, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand. Do you happen to know who we should contact, in terms of next of kin?”
Carole’s lip quivered again.
“She didn’t have anybody, as far as I know. Her mother died last year and her father died back in the nineties. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“I understand she wasn’t married—how about children?”
“None that I know of.”
“Alright. Was there anybody special in her life?”
“You mean like a feller?”
“Yes, or a good friend.”
“No, nobody. Although—”
MacKenzie waited.
“She always went out on Fridays, while I did the cleaning. I never knew where she went,” Carole confided. “It’s not as if she had any friends or family. I don’t think she had anybody. But she always had her hair done on Friday mornings then went off in the car for a few hours, all dolled up.”
“She never told you?”
“No, we didn’t have that kind of relationship,” Carole said, stiffly. “She was a very private person.”
MacKenzie nodded.
“When was the last time you saw Miss Hewitt alive?”
“Last Friday morning, same as usual. She let me into the house at eight-thirty, then headed out in time for her hair appointment at nine.”
MacKenzie made a mental note.
“Did she seem troubled or unwell?”
Carole sniffed and blew her nose again.
“She, well, the thing is…” she looked uncomfortable and MacKenzie gave her an encouraging smile. “The thing is, she wasn’t a sociable person. She didn’t go in for small talk. She left a note with a list of the jobs she wanted doing, then left me to it.”
“Did she ever complain of ill health?”
“No, she seemed as fit as a fiddle. I never heard her talk about any ailments; oh, a bit of stiffness in the joints from time to time but that’s to be expected at her age.”
“I see. How about when you found her this morning: did you notice anything out of place or anything unusual?”
“I didn’t really notice anything except…except the body.” Carole swallowed. “I suppose the curtains were drawn, which I thought was a bit odd because she’s an early riser and, like I say, she’s normally at the door to meet me. When there was no answer, I thought she must have left a bit earlier than usual for her hair appointment.”
“Had she done that before?”
“No,” Carole said decisively. “She always liked to be there to let me in. I have a key but I’ve never known her not to be at home to open the door.”
“Would anybody else have had access to your key?”
The woman drew herself up to her full height, cheeks flaming.
“Certainly not! The key is right here, in my bag,” she retrieved a jumbled key ring and pointed to a brass Yale key with a red sticker on the edge. “I colour code them, so I’m the only one who knows the address they belong to. I keep them in a locked box at home.”
“Alright,” MacKenzie drew on a pair of nitrile gloves and deposited the key inside an evidence bag which she kept in
her pocket. Then she steered them back towards the squad car, walking at an even pace which had the desired effect of calming the woman’s taut nerves. “One final question, for now, Carole. Did you see anybody else hanging around, anybody who seemed out of place, today or even last Friday?”
“No, nobody.”
* * *
It took another hour for the CSIs to arrive and longer still until Barbara’s body could be transferred to the mortuary. MacKenzie and Lowerson spent a tedious couple of hours canvassing the area, knocking on doors to speak with Barbara’s neighbours to record their preliminary statements. It was early afternoon when they emerged from the final house on the street, their ears ringing with local scandal and their stomachs sloshing with an excess of instant coffee and custard cream biscuits.
“I need an aspirin,” MacKenzie muttered darkly.
“I need a pint,” Lowerson shot back.
She grinned.
“There are no cameras here on the street and nobody remembers seeing Barbara anytime after last Friday night. Mr Owen at Number 12 thinks he remembers hearing her car turning back into her driveway sometime around five-thirty because he heard the engine. Apparently, it needs servicing,” MacKenzie looked across at the little electric blue Citroen C1 sitting on the driveway in front of Barbara’s bungalow. “We’ll take a wander along the main high street and speak to the local businesses. Carole says that Barbara was in the habit of doing certain things on certain days. We’ll check she didn’t go to the supermarket as usual last Saturday morning—it might help us to narrow down a timescale when we speak to the pathologist.”
Lowerson resigned himself to a long afternoon and made a mental note to cancel his date for the evening.
“It seems to tie in with what we thought,” he said. “Barbara has lived in Rothbury for over twenty years but she kept herself to herself and didn’t bother much with her neighbours.”
MacKenzie nodded.
“She may not have been popular but I can’t imagine somebody offing her just because she wasn’t the chatty type.”
“Seems like it’s probably death by natural causes?”
It was on the tip of MacKenzie’s tongue to agree with him but some instinct held her back.
