Page 11 of Watching You
‘It’s likely not a wife, partner or close relative of the deceased or they’d be having to answer questions about the disappearance to friends and family.’ Baarda walked to the backpack he’d set next to a tree, took out a bottle of water, twisted the cap and handed it to her.
‘You know, Baarda, I’m never going to want to get into an intimate relationship when you’re already this thoughtful. What more could I ask for in a man than someone who’s willing to haul me into a shallow grave then take such good care of me afterwards?’
‘When you put it like that, I realise just how close our relationship is to being emotionally abusive,’ he said. ‘Did you get what you needed from this whole, horrific exercise?’
‘Not enough,’ she said. ‘Still more questions than answers. But I know one thing. Someone wanted our victim dead. They needed to be done with him. There was nothing left to chance, from the blow to the head, to hiding the body and leaving him sucking in dirt. And when death is the aim, not robbery, not lashing out, not a passionate argument, it’s usually because the attacker knew the victim in some way. So now we just have tofigure out who the victim was. That’s the only way this’ll start to make sense.’
‘Good. Can we go to the hotel now? I’d really like to shower before heading for the police station.’
‘Sorry, no time.’ Connie marched ahead of him. ‘We have a date with a corpse.’
Chapter 11
26 May
Nate Carlisle studied Connie’s reaction as he drew back the cover from Divya Singh’s body.
‘You don’t have to worry about me, Dr Carlisle. Can I call you Nate? I’ve seen my fair share of corpses.’
‘Please do. And I don’t doubt it – your reputation precedes you – but the bodies here are my responsibility. Until I can be sure a visitor’s not going to faint or vomit on a body, I’m careful.’
‘Oh boy, you’ve had people vomit on a corpse?’ Connie pulled a face fit for a playground. ‘I would not want to clean that up. This carnage has to come a close second, though, right? Her body looks like it’s been concertinaed.’ She took hold of Mrs Singh’s hand and stroked it with her thumb.
Her arms and legs were crooked in places no limb should ever be. The skin, in addition to the normal mottling that came with the after-effects of a lack of blood flow, was a battle-zone of bruising, cuts, caving and pressure. The flattened top of her skull had caused her face to compress. The result was the distortionof a fairground mirror, her features too wide and too close. If Divya Singh’s life had begun as a blank piece of paper on which to write her story, now she was a crumpled ball of scrap, tossed carelessly away. She was the essence of a broken woman, and whoever had killed her was a living, breathing, hate-consumed monster.
Connie cautioned herself to knock off the hyperbole before she compromised her investigative edge.
‘That was no way to end a life. Do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘Well, the vehicle struck her at—’
Connie gave a short, low laugh. ‘Sorry, I should have seen that coming. Not the vehicle, though I get the confusion. I was talking to my friend here.’ She patted Divya Singh’s hand.
Carlisle stared at her. ‘Er, okay, did you want some privacy?’
‘Depends how open-minded you are. I try to establish a close relationship with my clients, and I don’t have time to persuade you about my methods or expertise. So, you in or out? No pressure.’
Carlisle studied the woman who was holding the hand of a corpse as if she was visiting a beloved aunt in hospital and comforting her. Connie was somewhere in her early thirties, hair pulled into a ponytail that looked to be more about efficiency than style. She was around five foot six and carrying not an ounce of spare weight, and it looked to him as if that was probably to do with living a life where she didn’t stand still for a single moment. There was no make-up on her face, and granted she’d had to go and wash the second she’d arrived at City Mortuary having attended the Jupiter Artland murder scene, but he didn’t think she was someone who bothered much with artifice. Dr Connie Woolwine was as much a force of nature as gravity, but with added attitude.
‘I’ll stay,’ Carlisle said.
‘Good. Because Mrs Singh seems lonely.’
‘She was married with a son and grandchildren,’ Carlisle said, walking across to stand the other side of the body, the closer to watch Connie’s inspection.
‘She might have been part of a family and living a comfortable existence, but her nails are ragged and slightly bitten and the skin on her hands is rough. The damage to her skull is appalling but even so I can see she hasn’t had a haircut in forever. The hyperpigmentation on her face would have been easy to treat with high street products. There’s no self-care happening, yet I checked out her postcode in your file and she’s living in a middle-class area of the city. It’s as if she didn’t matter to herself. No one was buying her hand cream or treating her to a spa day. There was no loving younger generation keeping an eye on the softer parts of her life. She was just existing. That usually indicates an element of loneliness, don’t you think?’
‘I met with her husband and her son. They were devastated. I had no reason to think Mrs Singh wasn’t loved.’
‘Ah, you see, that’s the thing. People loving you isn’t the same thing as actively being loved. Ask any woman who looks after a house, kids, runs errands, holds down a part-time job, fights to make Christmas perfect, organises birthday parties, then everyone forgets when it’s Mother’s Day and she’s supposed to smile and not make a fuss. Loving someone can be passive or active. The gulf between the two is light years.’ She smoothed Divya’s hair and tried to make it more shapely around her distorted skull.
‘I get it. Tell me how that helps,’ Carlisle said softly, curious rather than challenging her.
‘I don’t believe in random victim selection, Nate. Humanbeings having free choice is something of a fallacy. Every single thing we’ve seen and experienced in our life pre-determines the choices we make later on. The brain is the ultimate blueprint for artificial intelligence. Learning is layered and mostly subconscious. I could ask if you want to meet me for a drink later. Your options are yes, no or rain check. You might think you need a few minutes to consider, but your brain has already selected its preferred pathway whether you know it or not. Mrs Singh’s killer chose her. Whether it was a daughter-in-law who didn’t like the way she was being treated or a group of empathy-free teenagers who wanted to know how it would feel to take a life, there was a selection process. It’s the same thing with the Jupiter Artland victim. So the better the connection I have to a victim, the closer I get to the people who hurt them.’
Carlisle crossed his arms.
‘I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I do that. And no, I’m not asking you on a date over the body of a woman who didn’t live the life I’d have wanted for her. The more emotional the decision, the more we strive to find the answer. It makes us explore our decision-making process more closely. If I’d asked if you preferred brown, granary or rye bread your neural response would have been much less sharp.’
