There was no evidence of her footwear.
She could hear words now passing between Bryant and the paramedics and the grass being trodden underfoot. She quickly leaned back down to the woman as another soft moan sounded.
Kim gently reached for her hand and rubbed her thumb across the nail. As with Jemima, it was coarse to the touch. Both women had chosen to strip their nails right before going out. It was a coincidence that didn’t sit comfortably in her mind.
‘Step aside, please,’ said the first paramedic as he knelt at the victim’s head. ‘Name?’ he said, looking to her. Kim shook her head. The dress had no pockets and there was no handbag.
‘Unknown,’ Kim answered. ‘There’s dirt in the mouth and she’s probably been drugged.’
The head injury they could see for themselves.
‘All right, love,’ he said to the victim as he reached into his bag. The second paramedic took the place of the professor.
Kim took a few steps back and drew level with Bryant.
The work of the paramedics was far more important than hers. For now.
‘Darren’s in a bit of a state,’ Bryant said. ‘But his log is in order. He swears on his daughter’s life he did a patrol at eleven and the next at twelve. He happened on to the victim at around twelve fifteen.’
Kim nodded and turned her attention back to the medics.
The first medic took a dressing from the bag while the second raised the woman’s head slightly.
‘Worst of the bleeding is over but we’ll dress it anyway, Jeff,’ he said.
Another soft moan sounded from the victim.
‘It’s all right, love, you’re okay now,’ said Jeff without taking his eyes from the bandage being looped around her head. Once the task was complete, the first medic spoke again.
‘Okay, Jeff, place the stretcher.’
Kim took one step forwards. ‘How is she?’
Jeff shrugged. ‘Need to get her in. She’s breathing, so best to get her to hospital quickly for the head injury.’
The two paramedics managed her carefully onto the stretcher and lifted her on three.
The professor offered to carry the rest of the equipment and headed off across the field behind them.
By Bryant’s torchlight she could see three crime-scene techs heading in their direction.
‘What do you reckon he used?’ Bryant asked.
Kim took the torch from him and shone it around the area just away from where the woman had been found. No weapon had been found at the crime scene of Jemima and she suspected this time would be no different.
‘Well, Darren might be feeling shitty right now, but he needs to know he saved this woman’s life.’
Kim was in no doubt that Darren’s torchlight as he had patrolled the grounds had scared the killer off before he’d had a chance to complete the task. Because of Darren, their second victim still had a pulse and still had a face.
‘It’s not just about the death,’ she said. ‘It’s all about what he’s doing with them first.’
‘Jemima showed no evidence of sexual assault,’ Bryant reminded her.
The techies arrived and took control of the scene.
Kim moved and stood beside her colleague with a slight shake of the head. There was one thing that had been puzzling her since finding Jemima and was even more disturbing to her now.
‘Bryant, why the hell is he leaving them here?’
Twenty-Two
Kim took a swig of coffee before resting her behind on the edge of the spare desk.
The mug had appeared on her desk on her last birthday, a day she never celebrated.
Originally the caption above the picture had read ‘World’s Best Driver’, but some bright spark had inserted the word ‘Slave’ into the sentence with permanent ink. And not one of her team was brave enough to own up to it. But she had her suspicions.
‘Okay, you all know about our second victim, who remains both unidentified and alive. The priority with victim two right now is keeping her alive and we will speak with her as soon as we can. So right now we continue the focus on Jemima. Bryant, have you got the toxicology report?’
‘Circulated, guv.’
Everyone nodded.
‘So what do we think?’ she asked.
‘Obviously drugged,’ Dawson offered.
The level of Rohypnol in the bloodstream had been enough to subdue a medium-sized horse. The drug was used as a hypnotic, sedative and skeletal muscle relaxant. It was often referred to as the ‘date-rape drug’ due to its high potency and ability to cause amnesia.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘There was no sexual assault.’
‘To make her easier to handle?’ Dawson asked.
‘Oi, Dawson, I had my hand up for that one,’ Bryant moaned.
Dawson smirked. ‘You snooze you—’
‘Both get a kick up the arse if you don’t stop it.’
Kim continued speaking, after her look had the desired effect. ‘So does the fact he needed her pliant mean anything, Stace?’
‘He knew exactly where he was going to dump her?’
‘Bingo,’ Kim said.
‘I had that one too,’ Bryant mumbled.
Kim ignored him. ‘That’s what I think. There are much easier places to dump a body. To get there he had to drive narrow lanes across two fields and then haul her up a hill. Why?’
No one answered. They knew when her questions were rhetorical.
‘Stace, I want you to find out everything you can about the land around Westerley. I want to understand the significance of the dump site and I want to know more about Catherine.’
Stacey nodded.
‘Also, the last document of Keats’s email is a photo of the hairpins. Do some digging and find out just how common those things are.’
‘Will do, boss,’ she said, making a note.
Kim used her phone to flick along to the second report sent by Keats. ‘Next – stomach contents. A mixture of sausage, beans, pastry and custard.’
‘Easy to get?’ Stacey offered.
‘And?’ Kim pushed.
‘Easy to cook?’ Dawson said.
‘And?’ she said, a little more forcefully.
‘He gave her dessert,’ Bryant answered.
And there it was. The man who had abducted, beaten and killed Jemima had also given her dessert.
‘A little bit weird,’ Dawson observed.
Kim reiterated. ‘So our kidnapper subdued her, snatched her, kept her, undressed her, fed her and then smashed her face in.’
‘Like I said – weirdo,’ Dawson said.
‘One weirdo or two?’ Bryant said, as though asking about sugar lumps.
Kim thought for a moment. ‘I still think just one,’ she offered. ‘Jemima was chosen for a reason. She is not some random victim discovered by chance, which means it has to be someone she’s been in contact with at some stage.
‘Kev, I want you on that. I want you to go to her old address and see if anyone remembers the incident before she left for Dubai. We don’t know if it’s linked to her murder as it was so long ago but Sara said that Jemima felt she knew the person concerned. We need to follow it up.’
Her mobile phone rang. She frowned when she saw the name of the pathologist at the top of the screen.
‘Keats?’ she said. He rarely contacted her by choice.
‘Inspector, we’ve had the results back from the soil that was forced into Jemima Lowe’s mouth.’
‘Go on.’
‘It definitely matches the soil at site,’ he said.
She had worked that much out for herself. ‘And?’
‘There are traces of blood. Well, more than traces to be accurate.’
Kim pictured the killer forcing dirt against the soft gum line. He could easily have caused a small injury. ‘The inside of her mouth could have been—’
‘Too much blood for that, Inspector,’ he said, cutting her off.
Kim stood. ‘Are you saying it could be from our killer?’
‘Not unless he cut off a digit during the course of the crime…’
Kim stopped listening as her heart began to hammer in her chest. She knew what he was going to say.
The blood in Jemima’s mouth was not her own. The blood had not come from the killer – which could only mean one thing.
Someone else had been killed in that spot.
Twenty-Three
‘Sir, we need to get a team out to Westerley.’