murder site. Everything he needed to know was there, somewhere; it was simply a question of knowing where to look. The problem was, it all took time and time was the one thing he did not have.
Lucas handed him the murder bag and the pair of them made their way towards the makeshift tent. Cooper had a pretty good idea what he would find there. He looked at the body as dispassionately as possible, but, as always, a wave of ineffable sadness lapped over him. No matter how many times you came upon it, death was always what it was: pointless and unedifying . All through the war, bodies found beneath piles of rubble with their legs blown off; once a sleeved arm found in a street shelter. He’d seen a prostitute strangled with her own stocking on a seedy divan (sex murderers had feeble imaginations) and a respectable mother of three children dumped in a filthy alley following an abortion gone wrong. He might have supposed that it would all be different now that the world was at peace, but the people of Holloway were still dying stupid, unnecessary deaths: they were still committing suicide; they were still being run over; they were still burning in fires, and they were still being stabbed, battered and strangled.
He enumerated the tell-tale signs, every one of them a cliché. Blouse open; breast exposed; skirt pulled up over the thigh; legs spread apart, left one at a right angle to the other where it had fallen away; tongue distended, emerging from the corner of the mouth; tell-tale specks of blood discolouring the eyes, which were wide open. This one had a cut on her chin just as the pathologist had said. And her drawers were lying on the grass next to her.
“That’s odd,” he said. The drawers of sex murder victims were usually found torn to ribbons and wrapped around one or other ankle. “And look at the blouse: unbuttoned, not ripped apart.”
“According to the neighbours,” Lucas said, “this yard is regularly used as some sort of a lovers’ lane.” He sniffed. “People behave these days like they were in the back row of the pictures. Everyone knows what went on in the blackout.”
Cooper knelt on the ground beside the body.
“She’s lying on her mackintosh,” he noted.
“Protecting her clothes while they did the business.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He was thinking that taking the time to spread out a mackintosh on the ground was hardly compatible with violent assault.
He took out a magnifying glass from the murder bag and bent over the woman’s body, running the glass slowly back and forth across the dark bruising on her neck. When he’d seen enough he stood up and composed a detailed mental picture of the prostrate figure at his feet. Then he lit his pipe and took a few ponderous draughts.
“I want a complete set of photographs showing the location of the body,” he said, “and the position of the paths and roads around the site. There’s a fair bit of undergrowth which we shall need to search.”
“Are we looking for anything in particular, sir?” asked Lucas, wiping a line of sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand.
“I don’t suppose we shall know until we find it, Detective Inspector. Have someone make a scale drawing of the scene.”
It was occurring to him that she didn’t look like a tart. She was – had been - a good-looking woman of about forty, and tarts of forty did not in general look all that good. He noted the peroxided and carefully waved hair, the lacquered nails, the smart well-fitted skirt and jacket, the neatly laundered blouse, the undarned nylons, the high-heeled shoes. This was a woman who had evidently taken good care of herself.
Somebody somewhere will be missing her, he thought.
He looked back towards the piece of corrugated iron marking the entrance to the murder scene and tried to visualise her coming in there with her murderer. He walked towards the entrance and, stopping halfway, crouched down to inspect the ground. It was hard and dry. There
Lucas handed him the murder bag and the pair of them made their way towards the makeshift tent. Cooper had a pretty good idea what he would find there. He looked at the body as dispassionately as possible, but, as always, a wave of ineffable sadness lapped over him. No matter how many times you came upon it, death was always what it was: pointless and unedifying . All through the war, bodies found beneath piles of rubble with their legs blown off; once a sleeved arm found in a street shelter. He’d seen a prostitute strangled with her own stocking on a seedy divan (sex murderers had feeble imaginations) and a respectable mother of three children dumped in a filthy alley following an abortion gone wrong. He might have supposed that it would all be different now that the world was at peace, but the people of Holloway were still dying stupid, unnecessary deaths: they were still committing suicide; they were still being run over; they were still burning in fires, and they were still being stabbed, battered and strangled.
He enumerated the tell-tale signs, every one of them a cliché. Blouse open; breast exposed; skirt pulled up over the thigh; legs spread apart, left one at a right angle to the other where it had fallen away; tongue distended, emerging from the corner of the mouth; tell-tale specks of blood discolouring the eyes, which were wide open. This one had a cut on her chin just as the pathologist had said. And her drawers were lying on the grass next to her.
“That’s odd,” he said. The drawers of sex murder victims were usually found torn to ribbons and wrapped around one or other ankle. “And look at the blouse: unbuttoned, not ripped apart.”
“According to the neighbours,” Lucas said, “this yard is regularly used as some sort of a lovers’ lane.” He sniffed. “People behave these days like they were in the back row of the pictures. Everyone knows what went on in the blackout.”
Cooper knelt on the ground beside the body.
“She’s lying on her mackintosh,” he noted.
“Protecting her clothes while they did the business.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He was thinking that taking the time to spread out a mackintosh on the ground was hardly compatible with violent assault.
He took out a magnifying glass from the murder bag and bent over the woman’s body, running the glass slowly back and forth across the dark bruising on her neck. When he’d seen enough he stood up and composed a detailed mental picture of the prostrate figure at his feet. Then he lit his pipe and took a few ponderous draughts.
“I want a complete set of photographs showing the location of the body,” he said, “and the position of the paths and roads around the site. There’s a fair bit of undergrowth which we shall need to search.”
“Are we looking for anything in particular, sir?” asked Lucas, wiping a line of sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand.
“I don’t suppose we shall know until we find it, Detective Inspector. Have someone make a scale drawing of the scene.”
It was occurring to him that she didn’t look like a tart. She was – had been - a good-looking woman of about forty, and tarts of forty did not in general look all that good. He noted the peroxided and carefully waved hair, the lacquered nails, the smart well-fitted skirt and jacket, the neatly laundered blouse, the undarned nylons, the high-heeled shoes. This was a woman who had evidently taken good care of herself.
Somebody somewhere will be missing her, he thought.
He looked back towards the piece of corrugated iron marking the entrance to the murder scene and tried to visualise her coming in there with her murderer. He walked towards the entrance and, stopping halfway, crouched down to inspect the ground. It was hard and dry. There
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