A member of the press spotted her: her ongoing enemy, Lyndsey Saunders of theWarwickshire Herald. Obviously not content with the press release that Briggs had just issued, she was out to fish for more. It wasn’t going to be her lucky day. Gina watched the woman’s shoulders drop as she spotted Gina approaching. Gina had no love for the journalist. Since the time she’d tried to report on her personal life following a previous case, Gina gave her nil-from-mouth whenever they met, scared she’d be unable to control the insults if she started.
‘DI Harte. How lovely to see you here, shame about the circumstances. Can you tell us more about the body? Have you identified who it is?’ She was a trier, Gina would give her that.
Gina made a zip motion with her finger and thumb and smiled.
‘This is ridiculous. You have to speak to me at some point. The public has a right to know if there’s a murderer on the loose, and you know it. Is it the woman who is missing? Susan Wheeler.’ An uncertainty filled the journalist’s expression. She was saying everything Gina expected her to, but she lacked conviction, knowing that she was going to struggle to get a story from Gina.
Gina shrugged her shoulders and nudged Lyndsey aside as she pushed past. She wasn’t wasting another minute on her.
‘Ah, DI Harte, glad you got here so soon.’ Bernard, the Crime Scene Manager, unzipped his forensics suit slightly, allowing his long grey beard to slip out for a moment. Last time they’d met up, he had an air of Hagrid about him but he’d trimmed the unruly face-bush back, giving him a more tailored look. For such a cold day, he looked a little flustered. She glanced behind him. The tent had partially been erected in the densely wooded area. They’d obviously all been working hard to no avail with there being barely any room to put a tent up. Several thick stumped oaks that weren’t about to surrender their position at all were causing the team some trouble as they started to clear a small area around the body. One of the SOCOs cut a few branches back, another tried to shield the body from public view by standing in front of it. Gina wondered why the public were so morbidly obsessed with crime scenes.
Her heart began to hum as she thought of Mary. She’d soon be dealing with a devastated family and all before lunch.
‘He hasn’t been here too long.’ Bernard kicked a branch.
‘Did you say he?’
He nodded. It wasn’t Susan. Gina exhaled as she took a couple of forensics suits from Bernard and began slipping one over her clothes, shivering as she removed her coat. Little clouds filled the air with each breath. It wasn’t a day to be out for long. They’d all be as stiff as corpses themselves if things didn’t get a move on. She watched as Jacob almost lost his balance while trying to force his leg through a gap in the branches. The twig he’d grabbed for support snapped away with ease, almost sending him rolling onto his bottom.
Gina suppressed a snigger as she passed Jacob a forensics suit. It wouldn’t help, being seen at a crime scene laughing. ‘Well saved. Lyndsey had her camera pointed at you then. You could have made the headlines. We know how she’d twist it into an article discussing police incompetence at crime scenes. She’d probably write something about us operating in the same way as the Chuckle Brothers or Laurel and Hardy.’ Gina gave him a friendly nudge as she followed the path he’d trodden.
He regained his balance and continued on. ‘You don’t like her at all, do you?’
‘No. She’s tested my goodwill far too many times. You can only give people so many chances and eventually they become a write-off. That’s what she is to me, a write-off. How’s your tooth today?’
‘Achy.’ He winced as he clenched his teeth together.
‘I told you those sweets were no good.’ They cracked and crunched on the undergrowth, trying not to slip as Gina lifted the inner cordon. Jennifer, the Crime Scene Assistant, was photographing everything around them. She reminded Gina of a large marshmallow in her suit, which looked at least five sizes too big for her. ‘Morning, guv,’ she called out as the camera clicked.
Gina nodded and continued walking along the stepping plates, making her way over to Keith, her trusty forensics expert. He rose from a bending position and let out a tiny moan. ‘I wish my painkillers would hurry up and kick in. That’s what you get when surprise calls come in on your day off.’ As he continued wittering on about his permanent bad back, his long thin comb-over flopped forward, escaping from the hood of his crime scene overalls. She gestured to his hair. He swiftly pushed the strands back under his hood. ‘Thank you.’ He continued to mooch in his bag.
‘What have we got?’ Gina stepped forward until her whole body was completely inside the badly erected tent, narrowly missing being jabbed in the eye with a pole. Immediately, she was faced with the naked bottom half of a male body and a slight glimpse of a checked shirt that hung just above his waist.
Jacob moved aside so that Bernard could wedge himself in. They were so crammed she could smell coffee on his breath. He bent down so as not to bang his head on the top and knock the whole contraption over, then he pointed down to the man.
‘We have only just started working the scene and, as you can tell, it’s freezing so we need to hurry. I’ll make this quick and then I’ll forward anything of any relevance to you as I find it. I really need to work on getting his body to the morgue as soon as possible so let’s get started. We have a male, in his thirties. From our preliminary measurements, he’s around five foot six and looks to be very overweight. I would estimate that he’s around the seventeen stone mark.’
The pale skin had a bluish tinge. ‘How do you think he got the bruises and scratches?’ Gina cocked her head to one side.
‘A lot would have occurred while he was being dragged here. As you can see the bruises are reddish in colour. You can just about see a bluish tinge to them. These scratches could very well have been caused by all the bushes and shrubs. Bruises, twelve to twenty-four hours old at a guess, given colouration and the weather conditions. He’s definitely taken a beating.’
Her gaze stopped at the man’s feet. ‘And those marks?’
‘He’s been bound. You can’t see properly as all the shrubbery is covering his top half but his wrists have the same markings.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘The ligature marks around his neck suggest that he was strangled. Again I know you can’t see that properly given all the shrubbery but we have managed to pull it back to take a couple of photos. We didn’t want to disturb any evidence.’
‘It looks like whoever placed him here had to make a bit of an effort. They’d obviously tried to hide him and possibly ran out of steam before giving up.’
Bernard nodded. ‘It was wet last night but it soon frosted over when the rain stopped. I think the rain may have destroyed some of the evidence but I live in hope, optimistic as always. The body is well preserved. Jennifer has the photos. It would be good for you to have a look.’
She nodded and went to leave. ‘Thanks, Bernard. Time of death?’
He rubbed his chin over his suit. His bony fingers pressing into the point. ‘I’ve taken everything I can into consideration, from the way he looks to the overnight temperature. Given his condition, I’d say he has been dead approximately twelve hours. Obviously a post-mortem will provide a more accurate answer to your question.’
‘Other considerations?’
