Concorde-shaped hooter of a nose and an untidy, threadbare thatch of wiry hair. It would have not needed much more than a large cigar for him to have gone to a fancy dress party as a passable Groucho Marx. But Grace doubted Theobald was the kind of man ever to have contemplated attending something as frivolous as a fancy dress party. All he knew about the man’s private life was that he was married to a lecturer in microbiology, and that his main relaxation was solo dinghy sailing.
‘So, right, Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he said, his eyes fixing first on the remains inside the flapping sheets of the bin liner, then on the ground around. ‘Can you bring me up to speed?’
‘Yes, Dr Theobald.’ It was always formal with the pathologist for the first half-hour or so. ‘So far we have this dismembered torso of what looks like a young woman with multiple stab wounds.’ Grace looked at Barley as if for confirmation and the DI took over.
‘East Downs police were alerted by an emergency call made earlier this morning by a woman walking her dog. The dog found a human hand, which we have left in situ.’ The DI pointed. ‘I cordoned off thearea, and a search by police dogs discovered these remains here, which I have left untouched, other than to further open up the bin liner.’
‘No head?’
‘Not yet,’ the DI said.
The pathologist knelt, set down his bag and, carefully folding back the bin liner, studied the remains in silence for some moments.
‘We need a fingerprint and DNA test right away to see if we can get an ident,’ Grace said. He stared downhill across the field to the streets of houses. And beyond them, a mile or so distant, he could see the grey water of the English Channel, barely distinguishable from the grey of the sky.
Addressing the DI, Grace continued, ‘We should also start a house-to-house enquiry in the area, ask for reports of anything suspicious in the past couple of days. See if there are any missing persons in the area – if not broaden that out to the whole of Brighton and then Sussex. Are there any CCTV cameras, Bill?’
‘Only in some of the local shops and some other businesses.’
‘Make sure they’re told to keep all tapes for the past seven days.’
‘Right away.’
Nodding down, Grace said, ‘Any idea how these remains might have got here? Any tyre marks?’
‘We have a trail of footprints. Heavy-duty boots of some kind, from the patterns. They look sunk in deep; I think she must have been carried,’ Bill Barley said, pointing along a narrow band of soil and rape between two strips of police tape stretching into the distance.
Theobald had his bag open now, and was carefully examining the bloody hand lying there.
Who is she? Grace wanted to know. Why was she killed? How did she get here? Anger boiled in him.
Anger and something else.
It was the awful knowledge, the one he refused ever to face, that this young woman’s fate could have been his own wife’s fate also. Nine years ago Sandy had disappeared off the face of the earth, and not a trace of her had appeared since. She could have been murdered and dumped somewhere. Killed and savagely butchered. If you wanted to get rid of a body and make sure it would never, ever be found it was easy – there were dozens of ways to do it.
And that was what bothered him now. Someone had gone to the trouble of butchering this girl and removing her head. But if they had really wanted to make it hard to identify her, they would have taken her hands as well. So why hadn’t they?
Why had they dumped her remains here in the middle of this field, where she was bound to be discovered quickly? Instead of putting her even in a shallow grave?
Could it be, he wondered, because whoever had done this had wanted her to be discovered?
9
Kellie, dressed in a purple jogging suit, squatted on the floor of the living room, keyboard on her lap, leaning against the sofa, munching her way through a tube of salt-and-vinegar
‘So, right, Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he said, his eyes fixing first on the remains inside the flapping sheets of the bin liner, then on the ground around. ‘Can you bring me up to speed?’
‘Yes, Dr Theobald.’ It was always formal with the pathologist for the first half-hour or so. ‘So far we have this dismembered torso of what looks like a young woman with multiple stab wounds.’ Grace looked at Barley as if for confirmation and the DI took over.
‘East Downs police were alerted by an emergency call made earlier this morning by a woman walking her dog. The dog found a human hand, which we have left in situ.’ The DI pointed. ‘I cordoned off thearea, and a search by police dogs discovered these remains here, which I have left untouched, other than to further open up the bin liner.’
‘No head?’
‘Not yet,’ the DI said.
The pathologist knelt, set down his bag and, carefully folding back the bin liner, studied the remains in silence for some moments.
‘We need a fingerprint and DNA test right away to see if we can get an ident,’ Grace said. He stared downhill across the field to the streets of houses. And beyond them, a mile or so distant, he could see the grey water of the English Channel, barely distinguishable from the grey of the sky.
Addressing the DI, Grace continued, ‘We should also start a house-to-house enquiry in the area, ask for reports of anything suspicious in the past couple of days. See if there are any missing persons in the area – if not broaden that out to the whole of Brighton and then Sussex. Are there any CCTV cameras, Bill?’
‘Only in some of the local shops and some other businesses.’
‘Make sure they’re told to keep all tapes for the past seven days.’
‘Right away.’
Nodding down, Grace said, ‘Any idea how these remains might have got here? Any tyre marks?’
‘We have a trail of footprints. Heavy-duty boots of some kind, from the patterns. They look sunk in deep; I think she must have been carried,’ Bill Barley said, pointing along a narrow band of soil and rape between two strips of police tape stretching into the distance.
Theobald had his bag open now, and was carefully examining the bloody hand lying there.
Who is she? Grace wanted to know. Why was she killed? How did she get here? Anger boiled in him.
Anger and something else.
It was the awful knowledge, the one he refused ever to face, that this young woman’s fate could have been his own wife’s fate also. Nine years ago Sandy had disappeared off the face of the earth, and not a trace of her had appeared since. She could have been murdered and dumped somewhere. Killed and savagely butchered. If you wanted to get rid of a body and make sure it would never, ever be found it was easy – there were dozens of ways to do it.
And that was what bothered him now. Someone had gone to the trouble of butchering this girl and removing her head. But if they had really wanted to make it hard to identify her, they would have taken her hands as well. So why hadn’t they?
Why had they dumped her remains here in the middle of this field, where she was bound to be discovered quickly? Instead of putting her even in a shallow grave?
Could it be, he wondered, because whoever had done this had wanted her to be discovered?
9
Kellie, dressed in a purple jogging suit, squatted on the floor of the living room, keyboard on her lap, leaning against the sofa, munching her way through a tube of salt-and-vinegar
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