“It was the smell that gave it away, see. I knew that there was something dead in there as soon as I got near. And I figured that if it had been a deer or something else, Peanut wouldn’t have been acting up like he did, he’d have been straight in there sniffing around. Far as I can tell, he never went within ten feet of the body.
“Anyway, it was pretty dark in there, but I’ve got one of those little wind-up torches on my key ring and as soon as I shone it on the body I could see she was dead.” The man’s voice cracked slightly. “Poor thing. I took a couple of paces closer, figuring I should at least take her pulse, but I didn’t. You don’t smell like that if you’re still alive. Then I remembered all of those crime dramas that Marie watches and I figured I best leave well alone.”
At the mention of her name, his wife slipped a comforting arm around his waist.
“Ben here has a mobile phone and so I got him to phone 999 and then we waited for you lot to arrive.” The other man, taller and still sporting a full head of dark hair, waved an old, brick-like phone in the air as if to prove his friend’s point.
After asking them a few more questions and making sure that the CSM had taken everything he needed, Warren thanked them again and sent them back down the path with the paramedics.
Now it was just him and the police constable. If anything, the bright lights made the woods seem more oppressive, blotting out what little natural moonlight could make it through the clouds, enveloping the two men in a white bubble, surrounded by inky blackness. There could be absolutely anyone or anything standing outside that little cocoon and neither man would know…
Jesus, Warren, get a grip. You’re in bloody Hertfordshire, five miles from Middlesbury, not two hundred miles up the Amazon River. There aren’t jaguars waiting in the trees or crocodiles lurking under the river; we’ve probably scared off every rabbit or fox for miles around.
Nevertheless, he was relieved when he saw the flash of white light coming from the woods and, a few seconds later, the slightly comical shape of Tony Sutton waddling towards him.
“Stop smirking, guv, you look just as bloody silly.”
Warren, glad that his smile of relief had been mistaken for mirth, responded in kind. “What have we got, Detective Inspector Tinky Winky?”
A snort of laughter was quickly suppressed by the presence of the uniformed constable, then the brief moment of levity was gone, neither man feeling it appropriate now. Sutton’s face turned sombre.
“I think you’d better come and see for yourself, Chief. It’s not a nice one.”
Sutton led Jones deeper into the woods, between two strands of police marker tape. About thirty metres in, a large white crime scene tent loomed into view. Another bank of lights illuminated the scene. Opening the flap on the tent, Warren recognised the shape of Crime Scene Manager, Andy Harrison, bent over.
“That you, DCI Jones?” he asked, without turning around.
“Yes, it’s me, Andy. Good to see you again.”
Warren had worked with Harrison at a couple of scenes since joining Middlesbury CID in the summer. The short, portly man was located at the Serious Crime headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, but lived in Middlesbury. For that reason, he usually managed to get himself assigned to any major crimes in the Middlesbury area. Warren was pleased to see him; the man was a safe, competent pair of hands.
Looking over the man’s shoulder, Warren felt a wave of sadness. As Tony had told him over the phone on the way in, the body belonged to a young woman. It was important not to draw too many conclusions at such an early stage — as his former mentor in the West Midlands Police had been so fond of saying, ‘When you Assume, it makes an Ass out of U and Me’. Nevertheless a few things were immediately apparent.
First, the body had almost certainly been there more than twenty-four hours. Even at this time of the year, a body started to decay rapidly when left to the mercy of the elements. The smell in the small tent was pretty rancid — thank goodness it wasn’t summer, Warren thought. No wonder Peanut had homed in on her so quickly.
The young woman was dressed in a smart black knee-length skirt that had been raised up above her waist. A pair of white panties were pulled down to just above her knees along with her thick black stockings, exposing her pubic region. First order of the day when she was finally moved to the pathologist’s lab would be a full rape kit. Hopefully, whoever had done this to her had left traces of his semen or other DNA sources behind.
The victim had been wearing a red woollen coat, now open to expose a smart white blouse. The blouse had been partially unbuttoned, showing a sensible bra, pulled to one side, exposing her left breast. Wrapped tightly around her neck was a charcoal knitted scarf.
Without wanting to prejudice any future conclusions too much, Warren was already thinking: work clothes, possibly an office worker or similar. He noted her shoes, shiny black with substantial heels, and decided that she probably had a fairly sedentary job. He knew that his wife, Susan, a science teacher who spent most of her day on her feet, always wore flats or modest heels.
“My preliminary observation is a white Caucasian female between the ages of twenty-five and thirty of average build. Possibly raped. Judging by the smell, she’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours, probably more. The body and clothes are wet, suggesting it has rained since she was left here, which gives us a time frame of some time prior to yesterday morning. The scarf is certainly tied in a manner consistent with a ligature, although I can’t determine cause of death here. That’s up to the pathologist.”
“What about the scene?”
“Not much yet. I suspect that the killer carried her here down the same path that the walkers and we have used; that and the rain have probably obliterated any footprints from there, but there looks to be a couple of boot prints around the body.” Harrison motioned towards the small squares of white plastic pinned to the ground around the victim’s head, protecting the imprints until casts could be made.
“The bloke that found her claims not to have approached the body, so hopefully they can be linked to the killer.”
“You said ‘carried’. Was she killed elsewhere and dumped here?”
Harrison shrugged, his suit rustling. “That I can’t tell you yet, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t walk here.” He pointed at the woman’s shoes. “Look, almost spotless. Her heels in particular would be caked in mud if she had walked here under her own steam.”
Warren eyed the young woman again. She was of average build, he judged, certainly no heavyweight, but even if she was dead or otherwise incapacitated it would have taken a fairly strong man or more than one person to have carried her down the path.
“Anything else?”
Harrison shook his head. “Nothing but speculation at the moment. I wouldn’t want to put any wrong ideas in your head at this stage. We’ll secure the site and get a full team up here in the morning. I’ll email you a clear headshot for ID purposes; her face is probably OK to show to relatives — I’ll leave that up to your judgement.”
Warren glanced at the young woman’s face again. She looked almost serene, with no visible cuts and bruises. Mercifully it didn’t look as if anything had taken a nibble of her face whilst she’d lain waiting to be discovered. Only the waxy pallor suggested she was anything other than asleep. Warren decided to run the photo by Family Liaison; they might even add a little pink in Photoshop to soften the blow.
With nothing more to be done, Sutton and Jones trudged back to the clearing, before continuing back to their cars. Neither man said anything, each lost in his own thoughts.
It was the beginning of December and somewhere a family would never look forward to the festive season in the same way again.