Damned by Logic (6 page)

‘Rigor is spreading, but not yet complete, body temperature is fifty-seven. To answer the question you haven't yet asked, death was between seven and ten hours ago – figures as open to error as ever.'

Detective Chief Superintendent Abbotts arrived at Sudely Woods, having driven down from county HQ. He was known among the lower ranks as ‘What-if'. Opinions of his subordinates were often met by the question: ‘But what if ...?'

He and Glover watched the pathologist examining the body. ‘There's nothing to identify her?' Abbotts asked.

‘No, sir. With no clothing and nothing found to help name her, our hope has to be fingerprints.'

‘You assume she has a record?'

‘Since it seems sex may be ruled out, it's difficult to believe an innocent could suffer such barbaric cruelty.'

‘The drug trade?'

‘Seems the most likely.'

Eileen had made little attempt to converse that morning before Ansell left to go and buy the paper from the local corner shop. On his return, she continued to read a magazine. Silence had become her weapon of attack and defence.

‘Would you like a drink?' he asked.

She might not have heard. He asked again. She shook her head.

As he went through to the larder, he wondered how long it would be before her present resentment dimmed. She still remembered he had laughed at one of the doubtful jokes his best man had made at the wedding party.

He returned, sat. ‘Shall we watch?' He indicated the TV in the corner of the room; any company was better than his present one.

She shrugged her shoulders.

He switched on the rolling news. It was a day for pessimists. Half the world was in turmoil. The news became more local. Politicians were praising and damning the latest government proposal. A crash had closed two westbound lanes on the M25. Talks between union officials and arbitrators in the chemical industry had failed to reach an agreement. The wife of a millionaire footballer had been caught shoplifting. A woman had been found dead in woods in Kent. To plump out the last report, Detective Chief Superintendent Abbotts was interviewed by a TV camera team. His answers to the questions were brief and uncommunicative.

‘We do not yet know who the unfortunate woman was.'

‘She had been mutilated, but I am not prepared to say more than that.'

‘It is impossible at this stage of the investigation to judge whether the attacker was mentally unbalanced.'

‘The motive has not yet been determined.'

‘I am unable to confirm or deny that there is evidence of torture. That is all I can say.'

The next item of news was shown.

‘Poor woman,' Ansell said. ‘Can you imagine her agonized shouts for the cavalry which never arrived?'

Eileen carried on reading as if he wasn't there.

‘They haven't identified her so there may be parents with missing daughters or husbands with missing wives, who'll be in hell until the dead woman is identified. Murder does more than kill its victim; close relations and friends are caught up in the mental pain of death. Yet when the victim can't be named, dozens of people may be affected.' He was rambling now, but desperate to get a reaction out of his mute wife.

She finally spoke. ‘Are you trying to be clever?'

‘I hope not.'

She resumed reading.

The post-mortem began. Individual wounds and bruises on the body were verbally positioned by the pathologist and recorded, measured and photographed.

Lengths of hair, scrapings from under the fingernails, were gathered; samples were taken from the genital area.

Glover, the senior SOCO and forensic scientists were asked if there was anything more they wished to be done. The body was washed where its surfaces had been stained by dirt or blood.

The internal examination began. Glover was not the only man present who, as far as possible, divorced his mind from what was happening. When concluded, the pathologist briefly spoke to Glover. ‘Age around twenty-four or five.' He spoke in short, sharp words, as if rushed; a false impression since when working, he was never in a hurry. ‘Generally healthy despite being a heavy smoker. Sexually active, but no indication of sexual activity immediately before death.

‘I think the best description of what she suffered is death by a thousand cuts. None caused death, all contributed to shock and a loss of blood which proved fatal.'

‘Would you judge it to have been sadism or torture?'

‘If there is a meaningful difference, torture. Whoever used the knife, chose parts of the body where injury would not be expected to cause a quick death.'

‘Was she on drugs?'

‘No obvious signs, but you'll have to wait for the laboratory to confirm or deny.'

‘Maybe she nicked a load of cash and the dealer caught up with her ... Is there any contact evidence?'

‘Not so much as a stray hair.'

‘Then we have no clothes, birth marks, deformities, contact traces or jewellery. A professional dumped her in the woods, leaving only her prints. I wouldn't bet they'll take us anywhere or he'd have hacked the fingers off.'

As if on cue, one of the SOCOs walked to where they stood and showed Glover several forms on each one of which was a finger or thumb print, taken with the customary difficulty from the dead body.

Late Monday morning, his colleague Betterley slapped a folder down on Ansell's desk. ‘Message from on high. More zing. Emphasis on luxurious cabins, gourmet feasts, exotic destinations, the opportunity – tinged with sex – to make new friends. And much less on the benefit and pleasure of learning about the lives of peoples in foreign lands ... Doesn't do to make a prospective passenger think he might learn something.' He left.

Salter, who worked at the other desk in the room, spoke sardonically. ‘You must have made the mistake of painting things as they are, not as the punters must be made to believe they will be.' He gave Ansell a sympathetic raise of the eyebrows and promptly went back to whatever facts he was exaggerating for his own press release on a newly opened businessman's hotel in some generic, dull city.

Ansell took a deep breath and turned back to his own copy. He spent another fruitless forty minutes trying to produce a zingier picture of life on a cruise ship, but remembered too much other detail as he did so, detail not normally relevant to the prospective customers of the Rex Cruising Company.
A barque is named for her sails, not her size. Square rigged for'd ...
Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?

The phone interrupted now bitter memories. ‘David?'

His brain, still with the past, traitorously identified Melanie's voice. ‘It's you!'

‘Why's that surprising?' A suspicious tinge to the voice.

Eileen. ‘Oh, sorry, I've been waiting for a call from a client and I thought you were she.' He tried to explain his way out of his sudden outburst, certain that the disappointment in his voice was all too evident.

‘I should have expected you to recognize my voice after all these years. I need you to go to the homeware outlet on the outskirts of town and pick up the material I've been waiting to have delivered for weeks. As you may remember, I need it to replace those cushions in our front room.'

‘Will do.'

‘And we've hardly any butter. You almost finished it and forgot to put it down on the list.'

‘One pack?'

‘Yes. And this time take the trouble to make certain it's salted.'

‘I'll examine the packaging very carefully.'

She rang off.

His colleague Salter said, ‘Are you expecting a client's phone call or was that domestic cotton wool?'

‘Why ask?'

‘I was born inquisitive.'

‘In spades. It's lunch time. A half at the local?' Ansell suggested, the bitter disappointment still evident in his tone.

‘For you, laced with wormwood?'

G
lover, seated at his desk, belched. He should not have encouraged the civilian worker in the canteen to place a few more chips on his plate. He looked down at the notes he had written regarding the murdered woman – known facts, conjectured possibilities. The sheet of paper should have accommodated many more words.

The switchboard called him to say the chief superintendent wanted to speak to him; as always, ‘detective' had been left out, but he accepted from whom the call would be.

‘Any news from DABS or Forensics?' Abbotts asked.

‘Nothing on the fingerprints yet, sir.'

‘Anything to report?

‘Very little, I'm afraid.' Glover did not try to cover the negative aspect of his answer by adding he and his team were following up every possible lead. Abbotts always accepted that those under his command were working at full pitch; had he thought otherwise, one or more persons would have left his team. ‘Part of the trouble is that until we have identification, we're working half blind. Initial evidence from people living around the woods indicates nothing unusual was noted on Saturday night – no parked cars in the woods, no one on the road. One elderly woman said she heard screams, but a neighbour says she's three parts away.

‘There's been a second search on a broad sweep around where the body was. The only physical find was a pair of woman's pants stuffed down a rabbit hole which had obviously been there quite a time. The keeper says his pheasants are often disturbed by youngsters enjoying themselves and making the most of being out at night.

‘There's a small patch of ground between the road and the brambles which for some reason doesn't drain well and there were four footprints of which we took casts – difference in sizes suggests male and female. That's about it, sir.'

‘Have you been on to DABS and told them to stir themselves?'

‘They know it's priority.'

‘Not what I asked.'

‘I've found it causes resentment to pressure them, sir, and that means delays rather than acceleration.'

‘I'll have a word with Inspector Lamb.'

The resentment would be carefully concealed, Glover thought.

‘I'll be with you as soon as possible.'

Ansell drove into the garage. He picked up from the passenger seat the box of truffles he had bought in the hypermarket just outside Frithton. Eileen's favourite sweet. A dog trainer had told him that a bitch, like a woman, responded to bribery.

Eileen was not at home. On the kitchen table was a note, abrupt in form, short of information. ‘Babs. Oven.'

He opened the oven door. Fricassée of chicken, for want of a better name. He poured himself a full glass of red wine, went into the sitting room, switched on the television. There were several minutes of an interview with an MP to which he did not bother to listen. He ignored the weather forecast. His glass was empty, so he left to pour himself a second drink. When he returned, a senior policeman in uniform was asking viewers to help identify the victim of a brutal crime whose body had been found in woods near Frithton. She was in her middle twenties, had wavy, blonde hair, dark brown eyes, regular teeth, was five foot nine in height, slim. Would anyone whose daughter, wife, or friend was missing or had not been in contact when she could have been expected to be, had been in that area and not heard from since Saturday, please inform the police at the number now displayed on the screen.

He drank, tried not to wonder where and with whom Melanie was.

Glover was about to leave his room when the external phone rang. He lifted the receiver, identified himself.

‘Heathley, sir. We have a definite identification of the deceased from Sudely Woods. Melanie Anne Caine.'

‘Why is she on record?'

‘Can't answer that right off.'

‘Fax me notes on her case if they haven't been thrown away.'

‘Yes, sir.' A sigh.

A resentful acknowledgement of his order, Glover acknow-ledged, and if nothing had been thrown away, a justifiable resentment due to the amount of paperwork probably stuffed inside a folder. However, in Glover's experience, when a year ago he had requested information to be told that it was no longer available, a lot more work would be involved in the long run if there wasn't a nice fat wad of paperwork now for them to go through.

Some time later, a constable entered, handed him many pages of printed information. He read them. About eighteen months ago, Major Belamy, ex-marines, had been attacked by Melanie Caine and suffered slight injury to his right eye, facial scratches, and a blow to his crutch which had resulted in his being in hospital for a few days. He had reported the incident to the police. The day before the preliminary hearing, he had retracted his evidence. It was noted, without extra comment by the investigating officer, that Belamy's wife had unexpectedly returned from a holiday with friends in Italy on the day of the attack.

Glover used the internal phone to call Frick to his room. Frick sat when told to do so. ‘I've received a fax which answers one question, sets up another half dozen.' He passed the paperwork across.

Frick read slowly. An efficient sergeant, was Glover's judgement; that was, provided one ignored his all-too-often expressed opinion of admitting women into the police force.

‘Find out if she's moved since she gave the address. If she hasn't, SOCO can search the flat. If she was on the game, there'll be a list of clients.'

Glover had given his orders. He was now back to reading something on his computer screen and Frick accepted he'd been discharged.

Back in his room, Frick picked up a pencil and fiddled with it, turning it round between thumb and forefinger. If Melanie Caine had been on the game, there was the probable motive for her violent murder. He used the internal phone to speak to someone in the CID general room, was annoyed to learn that the only occupant was Detective Constable Belinda Draper. There was a small place for women in the police force, according to Frick, and none in the CID. The work could be emotionally scarring and they lacked the mental ability to face such distress.