As they approached the bridge, uniforms were directing the traffic back down the road. White-and-blue crime-scene tape dangled without a flutter. The air hung in a stagnant state of humidity. She thought she smelled the pungent zing of a storm in the air. Hopefully SOCOs could get the scene examined before the deluge began.
They dipped their heads under the tape. At the top of the bridge Lottie surveyed the activity below. Beside the old lock gates, officers were erecting a tent against a building.
‘Maybe it’s a drowning. Or a suicide?’ She couldn’t see a body.
‘I know as much as you do.’
She reached Kirby first. ‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s an old pump house over there. The contractors use it for storage. Two of the workers were fixing a lock and one of them noticed the body.’
Behind Kirby, Lynch was taking notes from a tall man who had his back to Lottie. There was a familiarity about his stance, the way he held his head at an angle. Those broad, hardworking shoulders under his hi-vis vest.
She didn’t need to see his face to know who had found their third body that week.
* * *
As if the gods, or indeed the devil himself, had ordained it, angry clouds blotted out the sun and sharp drops of rain spilled from the sky. No one had a jacket or an umbrella.
We’re all going to get drenched, and worse still, evidence will be washed away, Lottie thought. She stood transfixed as Lynch grilled Andri Petrovci. This was no coincidence. He had been present at the discovery of their two previous murder victims. And here he was again at the scene of another suspicious death. His colleague had his head sunk into his chest, hands deep in his pockets.
Lottie needed time to gather her momentum to tackle Petrovci. Joining Boyd and Kirby at the entrance to the hastily erected tent, she asked, ‘What’s the story?’
Kirby said, ‘Deceased female. Found inside the old pump house. From what we can gather from Jack Dermody, Petrovci’s boss over there, she was lying behind an old excavator. They hauled her outside, thinking she could be revived. But one look at her in daylight, Dermody said, and he knew she was beyond CPR.’
‘Did Petrovci touch her?’
‘The two of them carried her outside the door. Said the light wasn’t working inside.’
‘Contaminating the body again.’ Lottie shook her head. She moved towards Petrovci but Boyd held her back by the arm, his fingers sliding down her wet skin.
‘Let Lynch deal with the two of them for now,’ he said. ‘She’s more than capable.’
‘And I’m not?’ She swung around, rainwater flying from her hair.
‘I’m not saying that and you know it.’ He lifted up the tent flap. ‘We need to see the body.’
Lottie relented, and they pulled on gloves and overshoes. Before entering, she looked around the scene, spying Cathal Moroney remonstrating with uniformed officers guarding the site. ‘That’s all I need,’ she muttered, making her way into the interior of the tent.
* * *
The body lay at an awkward angle, facing skywards, beside the red-brick wall of the old pump building.
‘Recognise her?’ Boyd asked.
Lottie stared. ‘It’s not Maeve,’ she said.
‘It’s not Mimoza either.’
She inched closer, careful not to disturb anything that might incur the wrath of Jim McGlynn and his crime-scene team, though she supposed it was too late now that Petrovci and company had had their hands all over the victim.
‘Why wasn’t she buried like the others?’ she murmured.
The girl’s eyes were closed and her body looked like a discarded rag doll. ‘Wish I could turn her over to see if she was shot in the back like the others. Look at those marks on her face and neck.’
‘Bite marks?’
‘Looks like it. The first victim had similar marks, though not as violent-looking. Jane got no DNA from the swabs.’ Lottie crouched down for a closer look. ‘Boyd, I think she could be the girl who was with Mimoza the morning she called to my house.’
‘Really? But you didn’t get a close look at her, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t. I’m just saying she could be the same girl.’
Boyd said, ‘We don’t know the cause of death yet. Maybe she fell into the canal and then dragged herself into the pump house?’
‘Such a beautiful girl. And if she’s like the others, there’ll be no one to claim her damaged body.’
Boyd shook his head and ducked out of the tent. Lottie followed, and while Boyd waited for Jim McGlynn, she decided it was time to talk to Petrovci, the common denominator between all the victims.
As she reached him, he turned to face her. The scar on his face appeared more pronounced, deeper and darker in the rain. But his eyes were the same. Filled with pain and hurt.
‘Mr Petrovci. We meet again.’ She folded her arms.
‘I tell detective.’ He pointed to Lynch, who was desperately trying to shield her notebook from disintegrating. Rain dripped from Petrovci’s ears and nose. His T-shirt and singlet clung to his chest. Hands deep in sopping-wet jeans pockets. Black work boots covered in mud.
‘Tell me,’ Lottie insisted.
He sighed but kept his lips tightly shut.
Lynch swung round to Lottie. ‘Mr Dermody informed me they drove here to fix the lock and discovered the body. Together.’
‘When were you at this location before today?’ Lottie directed her question to Dermody.
The man was a shivering wreck. ‘A few days ago. A week maybe. I’m not sure.’
‘Was it secured?’
‘No. Lock was busted. We got a call to come and fix it this morning. Decided to pick up some tools at the same time. She’s dead, isn’t she? The girl.’
Lottie nodded.
Lynch closed her sopping notebook. ‘That’s the general gist of what he told me.’
‘This call you got. Who was it from?’ Lottie asked Dermody.
‘Some geezer from head office, I presume. I didn’t know the number but he seemed to know what he was talking about.’ He stopped, his mouth hanging open. ‘You don’t think…’
‘At the moment, Mr Dermody, I don’t know what to think. And you?’ Lottie enquired of Petrovci. ‘What have you to say?’
Andri Petrovci pulled his hands out of his pockets and raised them to the skies. ‘It evil,’ he cried. ‘So evil. Why I have to see all these bodies?’
‘Do you know who this girl is?’ Lottie asked him briskly.
Petrovci shook his head.
Lottie sniffed. ‘She was lying there waiting for you to come along and find her, was she?’
‘I not know. She just there. Like she… asleep.’ His shoulders slumped. He looked small and beaten.
‘I don’t understand how you have found three bodies in the space of a week,’ Lottie said. ‘It makes no sense. Unless…’
‘What?’ he implored.
‘Unless you killed them.’
The wail from his lips took her by surprise and she stepped back as if his scream had physically propelled her. Words flowed from him. Unintelligible words. A language she had no knowledge of. Rain continued to fall in torrents. The ground at their feet swelled with turbid waters. The skies cracked with a flash of lightning and the air splintered with the explosion of thunder. It was not long past midday, but suddenly it was dark.
Petrovci screamed. ‘Ju lutem!’