‘One would hoping they are clean,’ she said, shortly.
She was beginning to hope that none of these students took the forensic route.
It was time to spell it out a bit, she thought as she began to dig.
‘Normally you would examine the topsoil area. There is no crime here so I shall dig as I explain.’
Timothy stepped forward and began to dig alongside her.
A few people stepped forward at the promise of activity.
‘At ancient sites, relevant layers are generally completely buried. At forensic scenes the existing surface is a relevant layer too.
‘The burial feature opens directly onto the present ground. This meaning that the ground you walking on simply to get to the scene is part of the site and your presence may alter or destroying evidence.’
She paused for any questions. When none came she continued with the lesson plan. ‘Forensic evidence is more subtle. A forensic archaeologist must be sensitive to the presence of such evidence as cut roots, dry leaves, dead vegetation, tool marks, shoe prints, even fingerprints.’
The pile of turf began to grow just outside the white paint border.
‘Artefacts at forensic sites are often perishable and rarely encountered at normal archaeological sites: paper, cloth, tobacco, insect evidence, hair, fingernails, other soft tissues.’
Doctor A looked around at the bored faces as the hole gaped at a foot deep.
She passed the shovel to a brunette to her right and indicated to the man beside her to take the second shovel from Timothy.
‘Dig, please,’ she instructed, and waited until they were throwing down the shovels to dig before speaking again.
‘There is also the possibility of encountering biohazardous or dangerous materials…’ She hesitated. ‘Like a loaded gun.’
The woman student hesitated. Suddenly that word had attracted everyone’s attention.
She nodded towards her audience. ‘Yes, it has happened.’
She walked behind the diggers and motioned for them to pass the shovels along. It was time to warm these kids up.
She laced her fingers behind her back as she continued to walk and talk.
‘Any evidence found must be entered into the proper legal chain of custody. Pass the shovels, please. And all must be accounted for and protected until officially…’
Her words trailed away as she glanced down into the pit.
‘Stop,’ she cried at the top of her voice.
Every single person jumped back, startled.
‘Step away,’ she said, not taking her eyes from the hole.
She moved around to the long edge of the feature and knelt down.
She peered closer and held out her right hand. Like every good assistant, Timothy knew exactly what to do.
A soft brush was placed into her palm.
‘Getting out of my light, people,’ she shouted, without removing her gaze from the object that had caught her attention.
She brushed gently, her heart beating loudly in her chest.
Gasps sounded around her as the smooth, round shape began to emerge. It appeared these students knew something after all.
Doctor A paused to turn and speak to her colleague.
‘Timothy, get everyone away from this area. And then get me the coroner and Detective Inspector Stone.’
THREE
Stacey Wood struggled hard to process the scene around her. There was something obscene about the volume of blood that appeared to have reached every hard surface of the tiny box room at the back of the small house. But that wasn’t the only problem. She’d seen blood before. The real issue was the memory that had been pushed to the back of her mind.
Her gaze met Dawson’s over the space that was littered with trainers, football boots, car magazines and tee shirts.
A normal boy’s bedroom ? except for the body of the teenage boy that was slumped against the wall, and the bloodstain on the carpet. The metallic smell of blood fought against the aroma of sweaty clothes.
His head had dropped backwards, his open eyes appearing to stare at the blood spatter on the ceiling as though either stargazing or looking in awe at what he’d done. A white scar that ran beneath his left eye was the only interruption to the smooth, youthful skin. One sleeve of his hoody was rolled up to his elbow, displaying the fatal wound. His grey skinny jeans were covered with drying bloodstains.
The kitchen knife had fallen just inches from his right hand.
Stacey tried to keep her breathing even and unaffected as her gaze rested on the knife. She didn’t want Dawson thinking she couldn’t hack being out in the field. And he could smell her weakness a mile off. But that knife was tugging her mind towards somewhere she did not want to go. Not here and not now.
She mentally shook herself and concentrated her thoughts. The mother had found her son and hysterically called for paramedics. A call had been funnelled through to the station, and subsequently a call for the pathologist to attend at the same time. Stacey guessed the boy had been dead for a couple of hours.
The key reason for their attendance was to establish that it was not a murder staged to look like a suicide. A swift agreement between the detective and the pathologist would aid a speedy process in allowing the family to make funeral arrangements.
‘He meant it,’ Keats, the resident pathologist offered. ‘Eventually.’
Stacey knew that. Despite the false attempt scratches running across the wrist, the tear in the skin ran down the arm. The vein had been sliced.
Stacey couldn’t stop her mind wandering beyond the sight before her to the knowledge that the moments prior to death had been painful, emotional, laboured. Bad enough that this youth had felt there was no other alternative than to end his own life, but the hesitation cuts echoed his suffering.
Stacey had no clue what had been torturing this young man but she did know that many teenage problems were not as insurmountable as the person thought they were. Perhaps if he’d been able to share his problems, he would not have felt this was his only course of action. She shuddered and swallowed the rising sickness away.
Keats would continue to process the scene but from her view there was nothing to indicate anyone had been involved in the death of Justin Reynolds. The small room would have shown some signs of a struggle if that had been the case, but the only conflict had been in the young man’s head.
‘You happy to call it, Sergeant?’ Keats asked quietly, glancing at Dawson.
He nodded. ‘I’m satisfied this young—’
Stacey didn’t hear the rest of his words as she stepped out of a room that she could not leave quickly enough.
FOUR
Kim took a sharp left off the A456, a dual carriageway that separated the West Midlands force with that of West Mercia.
She followed the satnav’s instructions when it told her to turn left onto a dirt track behind a garden centre.