Page 39 of Gone in the Night
‘We’re good, just keen to get to the bottom of what is going on.’
Declan stood up. ‘I’ll go see what Susie is up to. I’ll meet you in my primary office in ten minutes, give you a chance to get gowned up. Are the CSIs on their way?’
‘I think so, they weren’t at Jack’s scene very long.’
Declan left them waiting in his office for Wendy and Joe to arrive.
Morgan walked into the mortuary and did a double-take. If she closed her eyes she’d think she was at a spa as the gentle musicplayed in the background. Declan and Susie were ready to get going. Sharon Montgomery was still inside of the body bag she’d been sealed into yesterday. Wendy and Joe were whispering to themselves in the corner, and she had no doubt it would be about Jack. Declan clapped his hands together once, so loud the noise echoed around the tiled room as if someone had let a firework off. The bang made her start and she stared at him.
‘Sorry, have I got your attention? I know this is a difficult day for you all and you all have a lot going on but are we okay to get started?’
Everyone nodded, taking their positions. When Sharon was laid out on the steel table and her clothes had been photographed and bagged up for evidence, it was hard to look at the wounds on her body, even harder to look at her partially decomposed face – there were even more wounds than Morgan had noticed.
Declan announced, ‘Well, he was certainly an angry little man, thirty-three stab wounds. There was no need for that because there is very little blood, which tells me one of those wounds near to her heart killed her almost immediately. Her heart wasn’t pumping when the majority of those were made, or there would have been a lot more.’
He pointed to Sharon’s back which was dark purplish-red where all the blood had pooled, and pressed his gloved thumb into an area of the flesh. It caused a white circle that rapidly disappeared when he removed it. ‘Liver mortis is fixed. She died in that position. She was lying down in the tent when she was attacked.’
He picked up her left hand to study it, then her right. ‘There are no defence wounds. He took her completely by surprise, and I would say the first blow to her chest was fatal because if she had woken up to someone attacking her with a knife, she wouldhave instinctively lifted her hands to protect herself and there are no wounds on them.’
Morgan felt a familiar bubbling sensation begin in her chest. She was furious that whoever had done this had not only killed Sharon immediately, but then carried on stabbing her. ‘Overkill.’ She said it out loud.
‘This is someone who knew her maybe?’ Ben whispered. ‘Why would you be so angry with someone you didn’t know? Why continue to stab her? I mean, if the first blow killed her why carry on when they could just get the hell out of there?’
Declan was measuring the wounds one by one. ‘Or it is someone who is either very angry or very sick? Maybe they were enjoying themselves too much to stop.’
Morgan clenched her fingers then released them. She thought of Sharon’s father, and Eddy – did either of them have the rage to do this? She doubted it. ‘If that’s the case, then we have a much bigger problem than we thought. If the bastard who did this did it for pleasure, he isn’t going to stop. He’s going to be chasing his next high. We need to issue a warning to women who may be considering going on solo camping trips in the Lake District.’
Ben stared at her. ‘Bloody hell, that will cause huge problems, and it will cause a bit of a media frenzy. We need to clear it with the boss before we consider putting out a press release.’
Morgan didn’t argue with Ben. She knew he was right. She was often impulsive and he would rather be cautious, but she knew this wasn’t something she could decide. It was out of her hands for the time being.
‘What if Jack did kill Sharon in a fit of jealous rage, then kill himself?’ asked Ben to the room.
‘Then hopefully we will find some lovely DNA to prove that and link him to the crime scene. Given the amount of blood atthe scene, it’s very likely we’ll find traces on the killer’s clothes or body. I can check Jack.’ Declan was talking directly to Ben.
Morgan heard Jack’s voice telling them last night that he’d been in Sharon’s car, her house, been with Sharon in her bed – his DNA was going to be all over her, but that didn’t make him a killer. Would her blood be on him?
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sammy had been told to go check the campsite and move the woman on who’d only paid for two nights and was still there last night, four nights in total. That meant he had to ask her to move or get her to pay for the last two nights. Man, he hated this kind of stuff. When he’d taken the job as groundsman, he hadn’t realised it entailed booting people off their pitches when they overstayed. Thankfully it didn’t happen often, but a couple of times was too many for him. He wasn’t the confrontational type and never had been. If the job description had said part-time bouncer, he’d have run a mile and not applied.
As he parked next to her Suzuki jeep, he silently begged her to come out of the tent to see who was there. There was no sign of life. A couple camping on a pitch at the opposite end were walking past with their hiking boots, backpacks, and with Ordnance Survey maps around their necks.
He smiled at them. ‘Morning.’
They nodded and both replied, ‘Morning,’ in London accents.
He paused, looking up at the tent, there was a funny smell, but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. ‘Hey, have you seen the woman whose car this is?’
They shook their heads and carried on walking. He watched them, thinking how rude they were, snotty southerners who only cared about themselves. Sammy let out a big sigh and shouted, ‘Hello, are you in there?’
He was greeted by complete silence. He waited a minute in case she was asleep, but there was no sound of shuffling around, so he thought maybe she wasn’t inside. She may have taken ill and left the tent,what and walked herself home, you idiot?He ignored the voice inside his mind. She may have called an ambulance, it was a possibility, or there could have been some kind of emergency. His shoulders dropped. What if she’d got lost walking and was stranded somewhere?
‘I’m coming in, sorry if you’re inside and I give you a heart attack. Hopefully you’re not in there though, but my boss will kill me if I don’t check on you.’
He stood on the ladder and unzipped the tent, pulling the flap wide open. He didn’t quite know what he was looking at but the smell was enough to make his mouth fill with water as he felt his gut wrench.
He realised that the woman was dead. She had to be, people who were living and breathing did not smell this way. There was a sheet covering her, but he could clearly see something sticking out of her chest through it. He reached out to poke her in the arm and it was then that he let out a scream; she was stiff and cold. He fell backwards, forgetting he was on the ladder, and landed with a heavy thump against the side of his car. He didn’t realise he was still screaming until the couple who hadn’t got very far came running back to see what was wrong with him. He knew he should phone the police, he knew he should do something, but right now he could only keep screaming.
