Corpse Road Page 6

  Harry wrote down Gary’s number. ‘So, do you want to tell me what you found when you arrived? What you saw?’

  Harry noticed Adam shuffle a little on his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the memories his questioning had stirred.

  ‘It was quiet,’ Adam said, his voice dropping a notch, as though talking about death automatically required the kind of volume generally reserved for funerals. ‘I mean, it’s always quiet up here, up on the moors, but it seemed quieter, though I’m probably reading too much into that.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve experienced the same, when you walk into a crime scene and the horror of it just seems to have sucked out the usual atmosphere of a place, turned it sombre or something, like the volume on the world has been turned down.’

  ‘Yes, it was like that,’ Adam nodded. ‘It was the tent I saw first. Nice one, too, actually. Decent bit of kit. Some folk go out with stuff that I wouldn’t even use in a back garden on a sunny day. But this one wasn’t bad at all. Looked new, too, I reckon.’

  ‘And was there anything odd about what you saw?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Was there anything you noticed around the tent, any sign of disturbance? Anything that didn’t look right, was out of place? Something that shouldn’t be there that was?’

  ‘Just the blood,’ Adam said. ‘And I only saw that when I got close. At first, I just thought it was damp, like there’d been a quick shower up here and it was still drying out. Weather can change like that, you know? I’ve been in my garden and seen rain lashing down at the other end of it while I’m sitting just a few metres away in the dry.’

  ‘What did you do when you realised it was blood?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Not much,’ Adam said. ‘I’d already called it in with the team, so I knew Matt was on his way, so police involvement was sorted.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I stayed pretty well clear of the site while I looked for whoever had been signalling with the torch,’ Adam said. ‘I didn’t want to disturb anything. I saw that the tent was empty and I called out to see if there was anyone around, if they were injured nearby or something. Then I saw the body.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else?’

  ‘What like?’

  ‘Anything at all,’ Harry said. ‘Anything out of the ordinary or strange or not quite right.’

  ‘Just the body and the blood,’ Adam said. ‘It was pretty hard to see anything beyond that, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Well, if you think of anything, let us know, right?’

  ‘No worries,’ Adam said. ‘Just let me know if I can be of any more help.’

  ‘I’ll just need to talk to your brother for now,’ Harry said, ‘but if I do need to have another chat, I’ll let you know.’

  And with that, Harry let Adam return to the rest of the rescue team, before wandering over to the cordon tape to wait as patiently as he could for some kind of update from the pathologist and the rest of the SOC team.

  Chapter Nine

  Morning crept over the horizon, burning with the red-orange glow of a stoked furnace. The dew-wet grass at Harry’s feet glistened and shone in the new-born light, the faintest of mists hanging low in the valley, like the wayward remnants of clouds caught in fields and trapped between houses. The air was cool and rich with the sweet earthy notes of peat and bracken and Harry breathed it in deep, filling his lungs with it as though necking a draft of the finest ale. The still, almost watercolour artwork of the view before him seemed all the starker because of what lay all but a few metres away from where he stood, his legs stiff, his back aching, his feet numb. He wondered how many other dark tales the valley of Swaledale held beneath its heavenly bed of grass and wall, river and tree, how haunted the beauty of the place truly was by a past no one now remembered.

  ‘Here,’ Matt said, coming up alongside Harry with another mug of hot, sweet tea. ‘Get this down you.’

  ‘Where exactly are you getting all of this from?’ Harry asked, taking the drink and a sip. ‘Is that rescue vehicle little more than one massive tea urn?’

  ‘Everyone brings a hot drink,’ Matt explained. ‘Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, we’ve got it all. Does wonders for folk if they’ve been out and things have got a bit sketchy for them.’

  Harry knew very well from his days in the Paras just how important a good hot drink was. It was something some of the US lads he’d fought alongside had always said about British soldiers, how even in the middle of hell, they’d stop to get a brew on.

  ‘Any reason you lot are still hanging around?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Most have headed back,’ Matt said. ‘A few have stayed on, just to see if there’s any help needed. It’s the weekend, so being up here is no chore really, not with a view like that, right?’

  Matt swept a hand out across the valley below them.

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty lovely, all in all,’ Harry agreed.

  ‘If these hills could talk,’ Matt muttered.

  ‘Well, that would make our job a lot easier, wouldn’t it?’ Harry replied.

  ‘Anything from that lot yet?’ Matt asked, with a nod at the SOC team.

  Harry said, ‘Can’t be long now. They’ve been at it a good while.’ He checked his watch. ‘Bloody hell, it’s nearly six!’

  ‘Time flies when you’re having fun, right?’ Matt said.

  Harry yawned. ‘We’ve a busy day ahead. There’s going to be a hell of a lot to do, that’s for sure.’ He pulled his phone out and brought up the number for Adam’s brother, Gary. ‘You mind giving him a call, just to let him know we’ll need to speak to him at some point today?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s a bit early.’

  ‘I just want to know what he actually saw, which I’m sure is sod all, but something might crop up.’

  Matt said, ‘I’ll give him a call now, leave a message, then call again at eight if he’s not returned it.’

  ‘Good plan,’ Harry said, as a movement caught his attention and he turned to see Doctor Rebecca Sowerby strolling towards him. The paper suit and face mask gave her the air of an apocalyptic messenger, as though she was returning from some bleak land blasted by a plague.

  As Matt headed back to the rescue team, Harry reached out and lifted the cordon tape for her and she walked through with a short nod of thanks.

  ‘So, how are you doing?’ Harry asked.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Rebecca snapped back.

  ‘Just asking,’ Harry replied, stepping back just a little. ‘I mean, it’s a pretty rough crime scene as things go.’

  Rebecca pulled her facemask up to snap back onto her head. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘Bloody awful, frankly.’

  Silence slipped its cunning way between them then as Harry tried to work out the best way to continue the conversation. After what he’d been told by Margaret Shaw, Rebecca’s mum, he was looking to avoid any and all confrontation with the pathologist. He simply wanted to know what they’d found. Obviously, there would be more to come, following the autopsy, but right now he needed something to go on so that he could set the team to finding whoever was responsible.

  ‘I’ve got a few things you can take away with you now,’ Rebecca said. ‘You don’t want to be hoofing it over to the property store in Richmond every time you need to look at something, so just use the temporary one in Hawes.’

  ‘Will do,’ Harry replied, wondering who would be best to be put in charge of it.

  ‘Right, so her name’s Kirsty Emily Jackson,’ Rebecca said, her voice buckled with the weariness she was clearly feeling, not just from a night of no sleep, but one disturbed by the unthinkable horror they were all dealing with. ‘She’s thirty-seven. Lives over near Darlington in Stapleton on Tees. I don’t need to do an autopsy to tell you that she was killed just a few hours ago. That much is clear just by looking at the site.’

  This information from the pathologist had Harry immediately conf
used. ‘Kirsty? That’s her name? You sure?’

  Harry hadn’t meant it to come across as a questioning of the pathologist’s skills and ability, but it was clear from the expression on her face that this was exactly how it had been heard.

  ‘No, I made it up!’ Rebecca said. ‘In fact, I’ve spent the last couple of hours looking over a dead woman and her belongings chuckling to myself about how funny it would be to tell you a completely made-up name!’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Well, of course, it’s her bloody name!’ Rebecca said. ‘She had a purse with her. So, you know, driving licence, credit cards, a few photos, that kind of thing. And, though perhaps this will also come as a massive surprise to you, I can bloody actually read! And—oh look!—here it is! The purse!’

  Rebecca revealed an evidence bag containing the purse in question and handed it over to Harry. It was larger than he expected and seemed to have been stitched together from very expensive carpet. Perhaps that was the fashion now, he thought.

  Harry took the purse and decided the best course of action was to nod and stay very, very quiet as Rebecca worked to calm herself back down with a few slow, deep breaths.

  ‘Moving on,’ she said, ‘there doesn’t seem to be a phone, which is strange.’

  ‘Apparently, it’s not,’ Harry said, remembering what Matt had told him and sharing the information with Rebecca. Then he decided to try asking about the name again, but more sensitively this time. ‘About her name . . .’

  ‘You look confused.’

  ‘I am,’ Harry said.

  ‘The name cut into her forehead and painted on the tent then, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘That. Stacy. I just assumed that was what she was called.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ Rebecca said. ‘Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘Could be a nickname?’ Harry suggested. ‘You said there were photos?’

  ‘Yes, here, have a look.’

  Rebecca handed an evidence bag to Harry. He glanced at the contents. Three photos: one of Kirsty with a couple of friends; one of an older couple, perhaps her parents, Harry thought, and a photo of Kirsty, looking somewhat younger, on her wedding day, cheek-to-cheek with her new husband.

  ‘We also found the burned remains of some other photos,’ Rebecca said, handing over another bag. ‘In a metal pan inside her tent, next to the empty wine bottle. These are a little bit more interesting I think, though perhaps the word is incriminating.’

  Harry stared at the remains then glanced back to the photos from Kirsty’s purse. He remembered spotting the metal pan earlier.

  ‘Looks like the same bloke, right?’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Very much so,’ Harry agreed. ‘Which makes me think two things immediately. One, that perhaps Kirsty was saying goodbye to a marriage. I mean, why else would she burn the photos of the man she’s just got married to in that other picture? And two—’

  ‘That her husband wasn’t too happy about it, followed her out here, killed her, carved Stacy into her skull for some reason, and has done a runner?’ Rebecca said, snatching Harry’s thoughts from his head.

  ‘Love and hate—two sides of the same coin.’

  ‘And very bloody easy to flip,’ added Rebecca, then handed Harry a set of keys. ‘She drove, by the way. One of those is definitely a car key, the clue being that the fob says Porsche. The others could be house keys.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Harry asked, dropping the keys into a pocket, glancing back over at the crime scene, hoping that what had happened to Kirsty was nothing more than the work of a very, very angry husband and nothing more, nothing worse. That there could be worse, well, that was something Harry knew for sure.

  ‘Only that she works for an accountancy firm, which would explain the expensive ride. There’s a pass in her purse for the office the company works from. And a gym membership card, too, and a few receipts. Usual purse stuff.’

  Harry shuffled through the evidence bags, at the same time sifting through his thoughts. In his hands now he had pretty much everything he needed to really get going on investigating a prime suspect, that being the husband, whoever he was. But something still bothered him, because it just didn’t fit. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘I just don’t get why the name cut into her isn’t actually hers,’ Harry muttered, as much of himself as the pathologist. ‘And it being a nickname just doesn’t seem right, does it?’

  ‘That’s for you to figure out,’ Rebecca said. ‘Some couples play games, if you know what I mean. Roleplay. Could be that.’

  Harry pondered that thought for all of two seconds.

  ‘Everything else you’re pretty much aware of, I should think,’ Rebecca said. ‘The stab wound to the neck, signs of a scuffle around the body, though it doesn’t look like she actually fought back.’

  ‘Really?’ Harry said, thinking most people would fight back if someone attacked them.

  ‘Probably didn’t have much of a chance,’ Rebecca said. ‘An injury like that, if it came at her by surprise, she’d have been dead pretty soon after. There are no defensive wounds on her hands or arms, nothing like that at all. Whoever did this stuck her with the knife before she even realised what was happening.’

  ‘What about the . . .’ Harry then gestured to his forehead, signifying the name carved into the victim’s skin.

  ‘Probably done with the same weapon that killed her. A very sharp knife is my best guess. The lines aren’t hacked, just carved, nice and clean.’

  ‘So she was killed first, then?’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘There’s no way she was alive when it was done. She’d have to be unconscious or seriously restrained, and even then, the cuts are just too clean. If she shook her head at all, even if it was being held, then the wounds would show that, and they don’t.’

  Harry mulled this over. They had a name now, so that was good, but they also had a place of work, keys to a car, and potentially a house, the address of which was on Kirsty’s driving licence. And they had evidence of something going very wrong in a relationship courtesy of the burned photos. ‘Any sign of where the attacker came from?’ Harry asked. ‘It’s a pretty weird place for something like this to happen.’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Rebecca said. ‘There are too many footprints around the area to tell, what with it being a popular route for walkers.’

  ‘But why attack here?’ Harry asked, almost as though the question was directed at the moors which lay silent around them. ‘That’s the bit I can’t get my head around.’

  ‘Well, she was definitely here alone,’ Rebecca said. ‘The tent is for solo camping. No way could you fit two people in it. All of her kit is for one person. No additional food. No footprints from another tent either. It was her, out here on her own, and then someone came in and, well, you know the rest.’

  ‘Looks pretty new, as well,’ Harry said, remembering what Adam had said.

  ‘Every bit of it does,’ Rebecca agreed. ‘It’s like she went out and bought the lot in one go then headed up here with no experience in the slightest. Why do that?’

  ‘If her marriage has gone tits up, then perhaps she just decided to escape,’ Harry suggested. ‘Spur of the moment thing, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, one other thing,’ Rebecca said. ‘We found these as well.’ She then revealed an evidence bag at the bottom of which sat a collection of tiny white balls each about five millimetres in diameter.

  Harry stared at the bag. ‘What are they, then?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Rebecca said. ‘Quite a few were found in the tent, a small number just outside. Any ideas?’

  ‘None,’ Harry said with a shake of his head. ‘That it?’

  ‘We think the blood on the tent is the victim’s,’ Rebecca said, ‘but I’ll confirm that later. Other than that, what we know for sure right now is that a woman called Kirsty drove here from up near Darlington, for an unknown reason, to end up dead on the moors.’

  Harry could see now that the scene of
crime team was bagging up everything from the site, the tent now being broken down. It would all be heading back to the lab for tests in the faint hope that somewhere there was a fingerprint or a hair, just something that would give them a strong lead to whoever was responsible.

  ‘Right then,’ Harry said, deciding that there was now little else to be said, ‘I expect I’ll be hearing from you later today then, right?’

  Harry saw the pathologist’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Expect?’ said Rebecca. ‘You’ll hear from me when I’m done and no sooner.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Harry said, but it was too late, his words bouncing harmlessly off the retreating back of the pathologist.

  With little left to do, and no expectation on his part to be getting any further information from the scene of crime team until later in the day, Harry figured now was as good a time as any to head off. The path back down into Gunnerside was clear to see from where he was and seeing it in the early morning light would probably do him a lot of good.

  Harry strolled over to Matt and told him that he was going to take a walk back down to Gunnerside and to pick him up from there. Then, after a quick word with the remaining members of the rescue team, and a repeated thank you to them and to Adam, he headed off back down the gill.

  As he wandering away from the scene, the sound of the beck dancing ahead of him and beckoning him on, a call pulled him up sharp.

  ‘Excuse me!’ the voice said. ‘Sir?’

  Harry turned around to see one of the rescue team chasing down towards him, a woman with ice white hair in a ponytail and an energy in her step which he found almost terrifying.

  ‘Yes?’ Harry said. ‘Something up?’

  The woman held out her hand. ‘I found this,’ she said. ‘Don’t know if it’s important or not, but thought I’d get it to you anyway. You never know, right?’

  Harry glanced down to see another white plastic ball in her palm, the same as the ones found by Rebecca and the rest of the SOC team.

  ‘What is it?’ the woman asked, staring at the ball then back up at Harry.