Ben watched him until he disappeared from sight.
Wendy asked, ‘Where’s the boss?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Annual leave. He said he would cancel, and I told him not to, we’d manage, but how come no other DI has turned up to take the lead?’
Wendy looked around to make sure they were alone. ‘You’ll be glad they haven’t arrived yet.’
‘Why, who is it? I missed the radio chatter.’
‘Not sure I should tell you when you have no emotional support on hand to wipe your tears.’
He groaned. ‘Not Sherlock?’
She shook her head. ‘Who is worse than Sherlock?’
Ben didn’t think there was anyone worse than Sherlock. ‘No idea.’
‘Seriously, Ben, you can’t think of anyone you’d rather poke yourself in the eye with a stick than have to work with?’
‘No.’
‘Bigfoot.’
‘I thought he was retiring?’
‘He is, in four weeks, he’s on one last roll. Probably wants to go out in style. Thinks he’s going to breeze in, take over, piss everyone off and then leave with his golden handshake.’
The sound of heavy footsteps approaching through the trees silenced the pair of them. When Detective Inspector John Wilde came into view it was easy to see why he was nicknamed Bigfoot. He was almost seven foot tall and had the biggest hands and feet that Ben had ever seen on a guy; his salt-and-pepper hair made him look a lot older than he actually was.
‘What a nightmare this place is to find. I’ve been along every back road from here to Hawkshead looking for this crime scene.’
‘Boss,’ both Wendy and Ben said at the same time. Wendy carried on with what she was doing, leaving Ben to update him.
‘How are you, Ben, long time no see, which is not a bad thing, I suppose.’
‘Busy, too busy to be honest, but you know how it is.’
He nodded. ‘Did you know I’m supposed to retire in four weeks. Not sure whose idea of a joke this is, sending me to work this case, but I’m not happy about it. I wanted to wind down not come in and take over a high-profile serial murder investigation, because that’s what it is, isn’t it? I mean you don’t do anything by halves in your spot, do you? Control said this is the third woman from the same family. Somebody has a big grudge to bear if they’re killing their family off. Any persons of interests, jealous brother, cousin, uncle?’
‘The entire family is dead.’
‘What, all of them? Impossible, get someone on that genealogy website, can’t remember the name; there must be someone left we can talk to or pin this on.’
Ben thought it was actually a good idea, if only they had the staff to do it.
As if reading his mind, John said, ‘What’s Stan up to? He’s good with computers, get him to look into it.’
‘He’s on enquiries with Cain.’
‘Well, tell the pair of them to split up; he can crack on with that. I’ve worked with Stan a couple of times in the past, and I bet he can come up with something. He’s a bit of a computer whizz. Always thought he’d have gone up to headquarters to work a cushy job in the high-tech unit. He’s not exactly feet on the ground material for a hands-on detective, but I can’t always be right I suppose.’
‘I’ll do that, boss; I’d be grateful if he could. We were going more along the lines of it being a stalker, as two of the women were very active on social media with quite large followings.’
‘Who is looking at that angle then?’
‘Morgan is at the station now doing a deep dive into their accounts.’
John was nodding. ‘Good, that’s good. What are we doing here then? Do we need to be hanging around or can we move the body to the mortuary? I mean, looks as if it’s been here way too long anyway, there’s nothing much left of it.’
