Page 14 of Dying Breath
Amanda shook her head. ‘Well, nothing that stands out. There’s loads of rubbish around because it’s a backstreet and they don’t get cleaned very often. This one is going to take hours to process. You know how it is; we can’t afford to leave anything in case it turns out it’s got DNA or a fingerprint on it that will lead us straight to our killer. It’s a good job I have my new recruit to help out. Toby Owen, meet Detective Inspector Lucy Harwin. She’ll be the senior investigating officer – or, to you and me, the SIO.’
Lucy smiled at Toby, who didn’t make eye contact with her and just nodded. He ducked under the tape to allow Lucy through. Unsure whether it was because he was new, shy or just bloody ignorant, she tried her best not to let him see he’d annoyed her. Lucy entered the scene, following Amanda to the body.
‘Before you ask, I don’t know anything about him, except he’s supposed to be some kind of whizz kid. He’s a bit strange – then again, I suppose we all are or we wouldn’t do this job for a living.’
‘I’ll take your word for it, Amanda. Let’s hope he is a whizz kid because there’re enough weirdoes already working in this force.’
Amanda chuckled. ‘You got that right – maybe he finds women in authority intimidating.’
A hush came over the pair as they approached the body. Lucy was horrified to see the partially naked woman in her early twenties lying on the ground amongst piles of rubbish. There were discarded wrappers and empty cans scattered all around her. Her trousers were pulled down around her ankles and there was a pair of black tights or stockings wound tightly around her neck.
‘Dear God. How awful to be left out in the open, exposed like that for the world to see. That’s just plain evil.’
‘Maximum impact, shock, horror; I think this killer is a bit of an exhibitionist. I’ll tell you what makes this scene even more odd – there’s a sanitary towel tucked under her left arm and I can’t see her shoes anywhere.’
Lucy looked at Amanda. ‘No shoes.’ Her mind was working overtime.
Amanda shook her head. ‘You can clearly smell alcohol on her, though, so she might have taken them off and carried them or dropped them somewhere. I can’t count how many times I’ve kicked off my shoes after a couple of glasses of wine.’
Mattie, who had joined them, nodded. ‘Not to mention he’s either full of himself or foolish; it’s such an open place, anyone could have caught him at it.’
‘I don’t think this is his first kill – it’s too bold and similar to Melanie Benson.’
Mattie looked at Lucy, who was staring at the body with her arms folded and her head tilted to one side. ‘No, I really don’t, it doesn’t look…’
‘Sloppy?’
Lucy turned to face Catherine Maxwell, who had managed to walk up unnoticed from behind them, startling her. She was the finest Home Office forensic pathologist that Lucy had ever worked with.
‘Morning, Catherine. No, it doesn’t look sloppy at all.’
‘From here I completely agree, although my view may change upon closer inspection. Shall we?’
They walked closer in single file, their paper suits rustling in unison, along the metal footplates until they reached the body. Lucy stared down at the pretty girl, whose long, dark hair was fanned out around her shoulders, and felt her heart ache. The victim’s glassy eyes were wide open, staring into the distance. Her mouth was open too, her tongue protruding from it. She must have gasped, trying to suck air into her burning lungs, as the ligature around her neck had restricted her windpipe. Lucy tried to block her last murder case from her mind. Back then, a woman had also been strangled. Her killer was dead, though: Lizzy Clements had thrown herself off the roof of the asylum hospital to her death. But strangulation was where the similarity ended; this was a young, pretty woman left semi-naked and dead at the back of a busy high street. Why would someone want to do this?
Catherine put her heavy metal case down and crouched to look at the body. Her gloved hand lifted an eyelid.
‘She has petechial haemorrhages in the lining of the eyes and eyelids, indicating death by asphyxiation.’ She indicated the ligature around the woman’s neck and Lucy nodded. Then she pointed to the sanitary towel. ‘What’s with the calling card? That’s a bit strange, even for around here.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I have no idea what the sanitary towel represents.’
Catherine continued her analysis. ‘This is the primary crime scene – she died here.’
Lucy knew how Catherine had determined this without being told – the lividity, caused by the blood pooling after death, was a deep purple colour on the victim’s back, and appeared to be quite advanced. This meant that she hadn’t been moved after her murder; Lucy knew that lividity would generally begin thirty minutes after death, and would normally take eight to ten hours to become fixed. Even if the killer had moved the body after this amount of time, the lividity wouldn’t change its position.
‘The body is cool to the touch, rigor mortis has set in and the lividity is almost set,’ said Catherine.
‘How long has she been here?’ Lucy asked.
‘You know I hate it when you want specifics before I’ve done my full examination.’
‘I know that you do, but it’s just a rough estimate, Catherine. Please.’
‘Taking into account the conditions, I’ll assume the victim has been dead somewhere in the region of six to eight hours. But you know the rules, Lucy.’
‘Yes, I do. Don’t quote you. Thank you.’
Catherine raised her right hand. ‘Pass me the UV light from the first compartment, please.’
