Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (305 page)

“Then what are they doing out here?” Green asked. “Following cryptic clues from a will and tracking down an old ruby mine.”

“That, of course, is something we will ask them, once we get them safe and sound.” Elliott pointed toward the edge of the plateau. “Jethro thinks they were here the night the storm hit. That means from now on, the trail will be easier to follow. Wet ground means more prints.”

Cradling his coffee, Green headed over to take in the view from the far side of their camp. It was a glorious morning. A brisk breeze tugged at his hair and sunlight bathed his face. Once again he felt hope. A massive ridge rose up on one side, and down below on the other lay the creek bed. Deep, boulder-strewn troughs had been carved out of the mountainsides, as if a giant had raked his fingers through the land. Not a giant, Elliott had explained earlier, but glaciers scouring the mountains millions of years ago.

Overhead the sky was a blue he’d never seen in the city. Three large black birds floated in lazy, wide-winged circles above the valley, their plumes burnished almost purple in the sun. The legendary ravens, he wondered, or just some country cousins of the scavenging city crow? As he stood at the edge of the ledge looking out across the valley, a spot of colour at the base opposite caught his eye. Bright red against the greys and browns of rock. Hints of blue too. Quickly he took out his binoculars and focused them on the hillside. It was a steep, almost vertical drop from the ridge above. The sheer rock face glistened with moisture in the morning sun. He moved his binoculars toward the base, searching for the spot of colour. He caught a flash of red. He moved his glasses, twirled the lens, and gradually the shape came into focus. Half red, half blue, a small figure at the base of the cliff.

A human form.

Chapter Eighteen

 “W
hat colour is your daughter’s hair?” Elliott asked.

Green struggled to remember, but fear obliterated all thought. Blue? Orange? She’d gone through a Goth black-as-death phase and a blue Mohawk. But now? He shook his head in defeat. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her in awhile.”

They were all clustered at the edge of the plateau. When Green first spotted the body he’d tried desperately to find a way across to it, but a steep ravine separated him from the narrow ledge on the other side where the body lay. The descent was too treacherous. His shouts had brought the others running, and they had descended as close as they dared. Elliott had trained his powerful binoculars on the crumpled form.

“It’s not moving,” he said. “I can’t tell much else.”

Green took the binoculars. He was sure he’d be able to identify Hannah. What father wouldn’t recognize his own daughter? However, once he focused on the shape, he couldn’t distinguish a thing. The body was splayed face down, the neck twisted and the face turned away. Hannah was petite but the victim’s clothing was bulky, making it impossible to estimate size.

Several crows flapped around the body, squabbling as they tried to peck. Nausea swept over him, the sausage and eggs roiling inside. His hands shook as he moved the binoculars over the steep terrain, looking for a path. He sensed Sullivan behind him before the man put his hand on his shoulder.

“Any chance they’re still alive?”

Lowering the binoculars, Green pointed to the crows. “Looks like quite a crowd is gathering.”

Sullivan fell silent. It was answer enough to his question. Jethro stepped away from the group and shaded his eyes from the sun as he peered at the ledge.

“I wonder what they were doing down there?”

“I don’t care how or why they got there,” Green replied. Impotent anger billowed through him. “Our first priority is to get down there. We need to see what the hell happened to him.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m assuming it’s a him. Odds are three to one.”

Elliott was already heading back toward the campsite. He turned. “Our first priority is to report this. This changes the whole game.” Shading his eyes, he studied the peaks all around them. “Helicopter is the only way in here, but it will be tricky. Especially if the wind picks up any more.”

“How long till they get here?”

“No idea. Let me try to call.”

Green left the edge of the plateau and followed Elliott to the middle of the clearing, where he located a signal. Green listened without interruption as Elliott spoke to Nihls. After reporting the body and their GPS location, he argued about the urgency. “We don’t know,” he said. Followed by, “We don’t know that either, Sergeant.” Finally he held out the phone to Green. “He wants to talk to you.”

Before Green had even raised the phone to his ear, Nihls started in. “Can you confirm this individual is dead, Inspector?”

“We haven’t examined him, but it seems likely.”

“How likely?”

“The crows are circling.”

“Do you regard the death as suspicious?”

“We need to get at the body before we can determine that, Sergeant. How soon can you get a recovery team up here?”

“Tomorrow, first thing.”

“Tomorrow!” Green nearly choked on his outrage. “The crows will be done by then.”

“I’ll expedite it as much as I can, but the wind is too strong today for that kind of operation. Besides we just sent the army helicopter back to Winnipeg and it will need turn-around time.”

Argument proved futile in budging the sergeant’s timeline. Elliott smiled sympathetically when Green signed off and handed the phone back to him. “Nihls is one of those managers whose default position is ‘no,’” Green muttered. “We’ve got a whole day to twiddle our thumbs, so let’s get started. Let’s find a way down to that body.”

They had to clear up the breakfast, bury the fire, and secure the food before Elliott gave the approval to leave the camp. Green fought back overwhelming worry by concentrating on the mundane. With Jethro in the lead, they retraced their route back down the stream and followed it up over steep bluffs and boulders. At times they splashed through water. Green was completely disoriented by the time they came to a small gap in the bank where a smaller stream tumbled in. The merest trickle over slippery rocks. Jethro turned to clamber up it.

They slogged through dense forest, swarmed by mosquitoes and ankle deep in muck. Gritting his teeth, Green prayed Jethro knew where he was going. After an apparent eternity, they emerged onto an open stretch of gravel bordering a steep slope. Green recognized the view and caught the dreaded smell of rotting flesh.

“The body’s up there!” he shouted, pointing to a pile of boulders up the slope on the right. Leaving the others, he scrambled up over the debris, slipping and tearing his hands as he fought for purchase. The stench grew stronger. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and pressed on. Finally the crumpled red-and-blue figure came into view. He covered the last few yards in a blur of panic, scattering the crows in his path, and flung himself down beside the body.

It took a moment for the horror of the sight to strike. He reeled backward and vomited onto the rocks. He’d seen animal destruction before. He’d seen the crows at the body. He should have been prepared.

The figure before him was beyond recognition. The eyes were plucked out, the face and hands were gnawed off, and flies buzzed around. Maggots seethed in the exposed flesh.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Sullivan muttered as he knelt at his side. Green said nothing. He concentrated on trying to see the little things. The remains of an ear, unpierced. Strands of short, wavy black hair still clinging to the swollen head. He breathed. Once. Twice.

“It don’t think it’s her,” he said through chattering teeth.

“No.”

Jethro and Elliott loomed over them briefly before reeling away, pressing their hands over their noses. Both men struggled with their breathing before Elliott managed to speak.

“Can you tell who it is?”

In this rocky, treacherous, mosquito-ridden corner of hell, Green summoned his professional self. Taking shallow breaths, he looked back at the body and made calculations. “It’s a male, dark, wavy hair, about five-eight. With the bloating it’s difficult to estimate weight, but I’d say he’s slight and small-boned.” He scanned the body slowly, then forced himself to run his hands over it. It was flaccid in his grip, moving like limp pasta. He pressed and probed. Without a word, Sullivan took out his camera and began to video the scene — first from a distance before coming in for close-ups. Green dictated a running commentary.

“One leg and both ankles appear broken. It’s difficult to tell what else is broken, but the skull —” Steeling himself, Green probed the underside. Broken bits of bone pricked his fingers. “— appears shattered above the orbital on the left side. A sharp, penetrating injury from —” He scanned the ground for a likely sharp rock but saw none. The ground was loose rock, covered with rusty dried blood that glistened amber in the sun. There had been a lot of blood. “At a guess, I’d say the blow to the head knocked him out, and bleeding did the rest.”

Sullivan stepped forward for close-up stills of the body and the surrounding rocks. “We should cut his clothes off,” he said.

Green grimaced. He knew Sullivan was right, but the thought of bloated flesh teeming with maggots and already turning glossy green felt beyond his steel control.

Jethro pulled out his sharp hunting knife. He was beginning to recover some colour as he knelt down, prepared to slice open the jacket. Grateful for the chance to escape, Green went to join Elliott, who was slumped against a boulder thirty yards away.

“Jesus. You guys do this all the time?”

Green shook his head. “Sometimes they’re bad. Worse. But this…. With the animals having at him too.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“I have photos and descriptions of them all. Scott is over six feet, Pete’s blond. Daniel is the only one with dark curly hair. Of course, we have to wait for the autopsy to confirm it.”

“Dental?”

Green nodded. “And DNA.”

“Can you tell how long he’s been dead?”

“Again, we’ll need to wait for the autopsy. The pathologist will need temperature records for the last week here, because that affects decomposition. We’ll collect maggots and other bugs.” He paused. “I’ll ask Nihls to send along some evidence sample kits. Never thought to pack any of those.” His eyes narrowed as he forced himself through his mental checklist. “Based on the degree of decomposition and bloating, I’d say close to a week.”

Elliott’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That long? How did he get here? What was he doing here?”

Green studied the landscape. It was a narrow gully, with no easy way in or out. He looked up at the steep slope of loose rock and debris above them. Farther up it became a sheer cliff. Higher still, a ragged mountain ridge. “From his broken ankles and legs, I’d say he fell. Possibly from way up there.”

Elliott looked up and blanched. “Holy shit. A hiker’s worst nightmare. This rock is very unstable. One slip and the scree slides out from under you and down you go. Not usually over a cliff, though. Poor bugger.”

“We need to get up there and see what happened.” Green frowned. “This makes no sense. Why was he by himself? Where were the rest of them? Where
are
the rest of them?”

“And more importantly,” Sullivan broke in, coming back to join them, “why didn’t they sound the alarm? If he fell, why didn’t they try to rescue him, or at least signal for help? Stand on the top of the mountain, light a bonfire, anything!”

Green felt his professional control waver. Fear bubbled up again. He didn’t dare articulate the answer that came to him.

“We need to get up there. ASAP. We need to see if they’re still there. To see if anything else happened.”

The body looked forlorn, like a used handkerchief crumpled and tossed aside. It went against all Green’s instincts and training to leave it there, but they could not afford to split up and they needed to find out what had happened on the ridge above.

The day had grown cooler as charcoal clouds shrouded the sun. When they climbed above the trees onto the open slope the wind picked up, sharp with the chill of glaciers. Digging his heavier jacket out of his backpack, Green reluctantly conceded that Sergeant Nihls was right. To bring a helicopter into these narrow gullies in this wind would be deadly, and even if the pilot succeeded, dropping a line down to extract the body would be deadlier still.

It was early afternoon by the time they crested the top of the mountain. As the vista opened up before him, Green held his breath in fear that they’d find a scene of carnage, with bodies torn limb from limb. But there were no ravens circling, no stink of rot on the wind, so he allowed himself a faint hope. Maybe they’d be there, bustling around brightly coloured tents and chatting over maps.

But the ridge was empty; nothing but grass, rock, and lichen. Beyond, white-capped mountains stretched in folds and peaks to the horizon. While Elliott studied his compass, Jethro strode across the rock-strewn grass to the edge, where the ridge seemed to fall away into nothingness. Green followed, inching toward the edge. His hands clammy and his heart in his throat, he peered cautiously over.

Not the vertical cliff he’d been expecting, but a steep gravel slope. With nowhere to grab a toehold, however, just as lethal. Below the slope, an abyss. The base of the mountain where Daniel’s body lay could not be seen.

Jethro walked along the edge, his feet sinking into the loose gravel at times and sending it cascading down the slope in silver streams. Green forced himself to follow but at a safer distance from the edge. He could stare a killer in the eye, face the most deranged and volatile witness, but heights reduced him to jelly.

Abruptly Jethro came to a halt and peered at the ground ahead of him. He pointed. The ground was churned up and rounded indents were visible in the gravel leading to the edge. A thin, straight trough was carved down the slope to the abyss. Jethro looked out over the valley, his brow furrowed.

“This is where he went over,” he said. “That long mark is his body sliding down. At the top, see all these footprints? Maybe a struggle. Or an attempt to scramble back to safety.”