Page 5 of Watching You
Beneath the leaves, furrows in the damp earth provided a pathway into dense bushes beneath a heavily canopied tree. A photographer on a stepladder was capturing the image of the drag marks that resembled the tracks of a sleigh in snow.
‘There’s a pair of walking boots deep in the undergrowth, wedged under a branch, partially buried. I’m assuming that an animal dragged the corpse out into the open, but only when it was so rotten that the ankle joints gave way. The feet stayed where they were in the boots and the remainder is in front of you. We’re missing an arm, and it’s possible we just haven’t found that in the vicinity yet, or potentially a predator took that back to its lair.’
‘Filling up the freezer for a late-night snack,’ Lively chimed in.
‘Christ, would you stop it, man? I’m sorry about him,’ Salter muttered.
‘No apology necessary. DS Lively and I have worked together before,’ Carlisle said. ‘It’s a good job he’s such an impressive detective.’
‘All right you two, point taken,’ Lively groaned. ‘Did your lot find any other clothing?’
‘No jacket, and the rest of it was lightweight cotton. Looks to me like shorts and a T-shirt, largely rotted but we’ve checked everything we found for identification. We’ve no phone, wallet or keys as yet,’ Carlisle said.
‘Is the skull in good enough condition that we’ve got a shot at facial reconstruction?’ Lively asked.
‘Give me a second and I should be able to answer that. We’re about to lift the remains.’
Carlisle disappeared to where a specialist stretcher and body cover were being positioned to take the remains to a van and from there to the city mortuary. Lively turned around on the step, getting his bearings within the wider geography.
‘This place has been closed for months. It’s a fair bet he was killed late summer, early autumn. Strange place for a robbery, don’t you think?’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned.
‘I agree,’ Salter said. ‘It’s not a robbery, or if it was then they weren’t after anything as simple as money or a phone. Normally I’d be wondering if this was drugs related, but hiking isn’t a known pastime of our local drug lords. What are you thinking?’
‘Feels like an argument,’ Lively said. ‘Two mates, husband and wife, business partners. Maybe a money dispute. Hey, doc!’ he called out to Carlisle. ‘You said the feet were partially buried. How deep?’
‘Just a few inches,’ Carlisle replied.
‘Impromptu then,’ Lively said. ‘Not a professional job. If it was a hit they’d have brought a spade and tidied up. No self-respecting Scottish assassin is this sloppy.’
‘Nice,’ Salter commented. ‘Look, they’re moving him. Let’s follow.’
Out in the open, a tent had been erected to give some shelter and allow for dry storage of the necessary equipment. The stretcher was moved inside and Carlisle gave them both gloves and face masks before they got close.
As bodies went, it wasn’t the worst type to have discovered. Lively knew from bitter experience that a newer corpse was by far the more upsetting. Once the liquefaction process was done, everything began to dry out. After that, the resemblance to a person faded remarkably quickly.
Whoever the dead man was, he was unrecognisable now. There would be no identification by family members or friends. There was enough left to get reliable DNA and possibly dental records, but naming the victim was still not a certainty.
The bones were folded and mangled, with leathered flaps of skin and brown sinew connecting them. The skull, though, was intact, in spite of the crack in it.
‘Do you think the head was buried more carefully than the rest of him?’ Salter asked.
‘No, the skull’s in better shape than the other bones because our native wild animals don’t have sufficiently wide jaws to get their mouths around it and bite down. Every other part has been subjected to predator or carrion-feeder approaches.’
‘All right,’ Lively said. ‘Give us a call when you’re done with the postmortem. We’ll get started looking at missing persons. Cause of death was the blow to the head, right?’
‘I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion,’ Carlisle said, stripping off his gloves and pulling the body cover back over the victim. ‘There’s every chance the blow didn’t kill him immediately.’
‘Fuck it,’ Lively murmured.
‘So you think he might have been buried while he was still alive?’ Salter asked quietly.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Carlisle said. ‘With so little lung tissue left it’ll probably be impossible for me to reach a definitive conclusion.’
‘You think he was hit on the side of his head, dragged to an improvised, shallow grave, covered in earth and leaves, then left to suffocate or choke to death while unable to move,’ Lively said. ‘Probably didn’t expect that when he was eating his cornflakes, did he, poor bastard?’
Chapter 5
10 May
