‘Damn it, Bob,’ she said, picking up the file. She already knew that this man’s story had wormed its way under her skin. Tracy Frost may not have known that she was pressing Kim’s activate buttons, but they had been pressed all the same.
Her interest wasn’t purely due to the mystery of his missing hands; it was because nobody fought for the average guy. Unsolved cases were periodically reassessed, but Bob was unlikely to be the cream that rose to the top. He was low profile and nobody was chasing for a result, so other cases would always take priority. He would remain the property of the coroner with a tag of ‘unidentified male’.
Not if I can help it, big guy, Kim thought.
The précis report she’d picked up from Brierley Hill offered her an overview of the basics but no detail of the investigation, posing even more questions in her mind. How much effort had gone into trying to find out who this man had been? Was he a father? A grandfather? Had he known his killer was coming?
Her mind was fragmenting into so many lines of enquiry that the sound of her phone startled her.
Instantly she bristled. If this was Tracy bloody Frost again, she’d arrest her for harassment.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
‘In-Inspector, is that… that you?’
The trembling male voice ruled out Frost.
‘It is,’ she answered, frowning.
‘Professor Wright from W-Westerley.’
She sat forwards, her mind cleared of everything except the voice on the other end of the line.
‘Professor…?’
‘There’s a… another one, Inspector.’
Kim was already on her feet and reaching for her jacket.
‘Professor, don’t let anyone touch—’
‘Please hurry, Detective Inspector. This poor woman is still alive.’
Twenty-One
As Kim waited for the gate to move aside, Bryant’s Astra pulled up behind her. The gate began to move, and she drove through once the gap was a foot and a half wide.
She was off the bike and heading into the office as Bryant parked the car.
Darren, the night security guard, sat at the small round table. His hands were trembling around a mug of something.
The colour of his skin had not yet returned to its natural state.
‘Did you touch her?’ Kim asked urgently.
He shook his head.
‘Then how did you know she was still…’
‘She moaned,’ he said brokenly. ‘Oh God, the sound…’
He shook his head and stared back into the mug.
‘Is the professor with her now?’
He nodded without looking at her.
Kim looked at Bryant. ‘Stay with him and get the gate open for the ambulance,’ she instructed.
He nodded.
She headed out of the door and took her torch from her pocket.
The light from the Portakabin aided her only to the end of the car park. The moon offered her the promise of a direction of travel, but she was stepping into a sheet of darkness with only a general idea of where she was going.
Kim walked into the blackness and each stride confused her senses more. She took a few steps and was no longer sure she was moving in the right direction.
Bryant would question Darren, find out about his patrols. Kim guessed they’d be more accurate this time around. He’d almost lost his job. After his recent discovery, Kim suspected he might be wishing he had.
‘Professor,’ she called into the darkness.
Suddenly a shaft of light lifted from the ground and illuminated the single figure beside the oak tree.
Thank goodness, she’d already been starting to head away.
She sprinted to his location, feeling the long grass whip her ankles as she ran.
She detoured slightly to the left, remembering Jack and Vera in the sunken graves not far away.
As she reached his side the professor shone the torch down but not before she’d seen his ashen face.
Kim dropped to the ground, her knees sinking into the dirt thanks to a brief shower that had occurred around sunset.
A soft moan sounded but Kim could see the colour red seeping along the grass.
Kim knew she needed to assess the scene for evidence, but the priority was the woman who was still alive. She gently touched her bare arm.
‘It’s okay, we’re here with you and the ambulance is coming.’
She had made a second call to Ambo Control to clarify the exact location. It was difficult for them to find a place that was trying to hide.
There was no further moan or acknowledgement that the figure had heard her.
She looked up to the professor. ‘Can you get down here and place your hand where mine is so she knows there’s someone here?’
He knelt beside her and touched her hand, replacing it.
Torches shone from the Portakabin that was now illuminated by the lights from a squad car and the ambulance but, God help her, she needed to look for clues.
‘Shine your torch there,’ she said, pointing to the woman’s head.
The hair was brown, short and matted with blood and dirt. She couldn’t see the face, and she dared not touch it in case she caused further injury. She followed the light beam down the body to the breastbone. Flecks of brown, like freckles, mottled the area below her chin.
Shit, her mouth, Kim realised as she leaned down and inspected the woman’s lips. Specks of brown were present. Damn it – her mouth was full of dirt!
Kim realised she had no choice. She took hold of the woman’s chin and slowly pulled down her lower jaw. What should have been a gaping hole was packed with dirt. Kim used her index finger to gently prod and then sweep the dirt from her mouth. She knew she had to be careful not to dislodge the packed mass too quickly, for fear of sending the soil down her throat to her airway. After the first sweep Kim leaned down and placed her cheek as close to the woman’s mouth as she could without touching.
She could hear the rasp of some air making it in and out. She wanted to just dive in and scrape it all out in one go, but she made another sweep and removed another small portion.
‘I’m just trying to make it easier for you to breathe,’ Kim said calmly. The woman still had her nose but the effort of using her nostrils only was causing her chest to rise and fall quickly.
Another gentle sweep and Kim had removed as much dirt as she dared.
‘Paramedics are here,’ the professor said. The relief in his voice was evident.
The irony that she had more freedom with the dead was not lost on Kim. Not nice but true all the same. Although a dead body couldn’t offer a description, she reasoned.
From what she could see, Kim was guessing that their killer had begun his ritual of filling the mouth and beating the face to a pulp, but there was a slight difference. The blows to this victim had landed on the side of her head rather than in the middle of her face, indicating this woman had been able to move her head around more to avoid the blows.
The additional body weight of the woman before her could have meant that the same level of drug in her system hadn’t had quite such potent or debilitating effects as it would have had on the slight frame of Jemima Lowe.
That there was also less dirt in the mouth told Kim he’d been rushing. It was possible he had seen Darren’s torchlight in the distance but had still been compelled to finish the ritual. The specks of soil on the woman’s chest confirmed to Kim that he had filled her mouth with the dirt around them. Had he done it earlier they would not still have been present after she’d been dragged up the hill. Even under duress, the ritual was important to him. But he must have given up completely once Darren had come closer.
‘It’s okay,’ Kim soothed the woman as she assessed. ‘The medics are here and they’re going to take care of you.’
As the torch moved down her body Kim saw she was wearing a floral halter-neck dress made of cotton and the smell of soap drifted up from the bare skin. The dress was not raised above the knee and Kim could see no sign of trauma.
Except for the back of her head being caved in.
The torches and voices were coming closer. The torchlight rested on the woman’s bare feet.
‘Shine it around,’ Kim instructed the professor.
He plunged her body into darkness as he raised the torch to light the area.