Page 4 of Watching You
‘Do you have a pen?’ she asked. Lively handed her one and she wrote a number on a serviette. ‘Here, I’m guessing you’ll need to speak with me again to take a statement. That’d be our second date, of course, so I’ll be expecting flowers for that.’
‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that,’ Lively mumbled. ‘Police budgets don’t tend to stretch that far.’
‘That’s a shame,’ she grinned briefly and Lively instinctively sucked in his gut and tried to sit straighter. ‘Well, don’t be a stranger. Not under these circumstances again, though, preferably.’
Lively was still trying to figure out a response when she got to her feet and walked away.
Chapter 4
5 May
Jupiter Artland was an idyll. Its architectural landscaping, with grand swirling features and stretches of water, offered a haven both for city dwellers and tourists sick of the sight of plastic and tartan trophies. The acres of parkland closed from October to well into spring, giving the land time to breathe through the rain and frosts, untrampled by human feet.
In the hours that Lively had been at the hospital, the parkland had been transformed. Vast areas had been cordoned off, tents constructed, equipment had been laboriously brought in on foot to minimally disturb the evidence and avoid damaging the grounds. Outdoor body recovery took time. It wasn’t just the corpse that needed moving and preserving but quantities of earth around it, and a huge area would be minutely combed for a weapon, clothing and anything else that might have been discarded as the killer fled the scene. Lively was pleased he’d been on hospital duty indoors.
He took his time traversing the pathways to the leafy bowers that were home to the Weeping Girls. They stood, the five ofthem, hair cascading over their faces, against trees or free-standing, in the throes of emotions so strong you could hear them crying and screeching in spite of their cold stone hearts. He stared at the girls in horror. They were somehow so much more affecting than the human remains to whose decay they had presumably borne witness as the winter had given birth to spring.
Christie Salter stood watching Dr Nate Carlisle, Edinburgh’s new pathologist, as he worked. Lively had to admit that Carlisle was a striking figure in the midst of the crime scene investigation crew who were preserving the evidence and immortalising the gruesome discovery into Scottish crime history.
‘So do you fancy him too, then?’ Lively whispered from behind her.
Salter’s hand flew to her chest. ‘God in heaven, sarge, a man’s been brutally murdered here. This isn’t the place to be taking people by surprise. And for the record, I’m happily loved-up.’
‘Ach, you can still look, girl. You’re married, not dead.’
‘Distasteful in the circumstances,’ Salter murmured.
‘Oh come on, this is what we do. Have you never thought that without people getting knocked off in unfortunate circumstances, we’d be out of a bloody job?’ Lively mused.
‘I can’t believe you just reframed murder as our employment currency.’
‘Just telling it like it is. Admit it, you missed me, Salter.’ He gave her a nudge with his elbow.
Nate Carlisle – well over six feet tall, lithe and sinewy, and sporting a hairless skull that looked better on a black man than it ever would on a Caucasian – took a few steps back from the body and glanced across at them, motioning for them to join him. ‘Stay on the steps please,’ he instructed.
They approached slowly and carefully. The spectre of adefence barrister making hay with a misplaced foot or a dropped mobile phone was always lurking.
‘Just how dead is this one then, doc?’ Lively asked.
Nate Carlisle sighed and raised his eyebrows at Lively, which made Salter smile. It was refreshing that Carlisle wasn’t amused by Lively, given the boys’ club nature of so many aspects of policing.
‘I’m DS Christie Salter,’ she introduced herself. ‘What can you tell us?’
‘The remains were discovered by an employee preparing to reopen the site to the public. It’s a male, I’d say around five feet ten inches tall. I’m sure you’re both experienced enough to know that a body in this state of decomposition has been outside for several months. It’ll be difficult to be precise without reference to some factual information that tells us when he went missing. I’ll be calling in a forensic entomologist to help as there’s a lot of insect life infesting the remains. Given that we’re largely down to skeletal parts, death occurred a minimum of four months ago.’
‘Can you rule out natural causes or suicide?’ Salter asked.
‘Lean over, mind your balance and try not to breathe in,’ Carlisle said.
As one, Salter and Lively filled their lungs and bent for the best view they could get. Carlisle used a gloved finger to pull back a clump of hair from the blackening skull and directed their gazes to a crack along the bone.
‘A fracture?’ Lively asked.
Carlisle nodded. ‘Temporal bone, and the fracture is clear enough that the impact would have caused an acute intracerebral haemorrhage followed shortly by unconsciousness. He couldn’t have done it to himself.’
‘Could he have fallen and hit his head on a rock or a tree trunk?’ Salter asked.
‘He could, and the mechanics of that sort of death would have resembled a skiing accident. He might even have been rendered comatose by the blow, possibly with a brain bleed that would have stopped all meaningful neurological functioning,’ Carlisle said. ‘But that wouldn’t explain what happened next.’ He motioned behind them to a technician who was moving individual leaves with metal pincers and infinite patience.
