‘I’ll take a quick look while we wait for the pathologist,’ said Tailby to Hitchens.
He pulled on plastic gloves and approached to within a few feet of the body. He would not touch it or anything around it, would not risk disturbing any of the possible forensic evidence waiting for the SOCOs. Inglefield looked at Fry curiously as she pocketed her radio. She had been listening keenly to their conversation even while she made the call.
‘New, are you?’ asked Inglefield. ‘Sorry about the maggots.’
‘New to the area,’ said Fry. ‘I’ve seen maggots on a dead body before. People don’t realize how quickly flies will get into the bodily orifices and lay their eggs, do they, Doctor?’
‘In weather like this the little beggars will be there within minutes of death. The eggs can hatch in another eight hours or so. How long has the girl been missing?’
‘Nearly two days,’ said Fry.
‘There you are then. Plenty of time. But don’t take my word …’
‘It’s a question for the pathologist, yes.’
‘Mrs Van Doon will no doubt give your chaps the chapter and verse. A forensic entomologist will be able to tell you what larval stage they’re going through and all that. That can fix the time of death pretty well.’
There was the sound of engines beyond the trees, and the helicopter appeared again, flying low, guiding a small convoy along the forest track that had been found.
‘I’d better go and direct them,’ said Fry.
‘Somebody was luckier than me,’ said the doctor. ‘My car’s back up the hill there somewhere. Ah well, no doubt the exercise will do me good. It’s what I tell my patients, anyway.’
Fry shepherded the Home Office pathologist and the Scenes of Crime team down the hillside. The SOCOs, a man and a woman, were sweating in their white suits and overshoes as they lugged their cases with them to the taped-off area and pulled their hoods over their heads until they looked like aliens. Tailby was backing away, leaving the way clear for the photographer to set up his lights against the lengthening shadows that were now falling across the scene. The exact position of the body had to be recorded with stills camera and video before the pathologist could get close enough to examine her maggots. Fry turned away. She knew that the next stage would involve the pathologist taking the girl’s rectal temperature.
She was in time to catch DI Hitchens taking a call on his cellphone.
‘Hitchens here. Yes?’
He listened for a minute, his face slipping from a frown into anger and frustration.
‘Get everyone on to it that you can. Yes, yes, I know. But this is a priority. We’re going to look complete idiots. Pull people in from wherever you need to.’
Hitchens looked round to see where Tailby was, and saw him walking back up the slope towards them.
‘Bastard!’ said Hitchens as he pushed the phone into his pocket.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Fry.
‘A team went to pick up Lee Sherratt, and he’s done a runner.’
Fry winced. It was bad luck to lose your prime suspect just when you were hoping that everything would click together easily, that the initial witness statements would tie your man into the scene and the results of forensic tests would sew the case up tight. It was bad luck she didn’t want to be drawn into, she thought, as they watched the DCI approach, peeling off his plastic gloves.
‘We need to get that time of death ascertained as close as we can,’ said Tailby. ‘Then we need the enquiry teams allocated to doing the house-to-house again, Paul.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We need to locate a weapon. Organize the search teams to get started as soon as Scenes are happy.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What was the call? Have they picked up the youth yet? Sherratt?’
Hitchens hesitated for the first time.
‘No, sir.’
‘And why not?’
‘They can’t find him. He hasn’t been at home since yesterday afternoon.’
‘I do hope you’re joking.’
Hitchens shook his head. ‘No, sir.’
Tailby scowled, his bushy eyebrows jutting down over cold grey eyes. ‘I don’t believe this. We interview the lad on Sunday when it’s a missing person enquiry, and as soon as a body turns up we’ve lost him.’
‘We had no reason –’
‘Well, we’ve got reason enough now. Reason enough down there, don’t you think?’ said Tailby angrily, gesturing at the spot where Laura Vernon lay.
‘We’ve got patrols trying all possible locations now. But so many men were taken up by the search down here –’
‘They’d damn well better turn the lad up soon. I want to wrap this one up quickly, Paul. Otherwise, people will be connecting it to the Edson case and we’ll have all the hysteria about a serial killer on the loose. We don’t want that – do we, Paul?’
Hitchens turned and looked appealingly at Fry. She kept her face impassive. If people chose to have bad luck, she wasn’t about to offer to share it with them.
‘Right,’ said Tailby. ‘What’s next? Let’s see – what’s his name? The finder?’
‘Dickinson,’ said Hitchens. ‘Harry Dickinson.’
Harry was in the kitchen. He had finally taken off his jacket, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to show white, sinewy arms. At his wrists there was a clear line like a tidemark between the pale skin untouched by sun and his brown, weathered hands, sprinkled with liver spots and something dark and more ingrained. Harry was at the sink using a small blue plastic-handled mop to scrub out the teacups and polish the spoons. His face was as serious as if he were performing brain surgery.
‘He always does the washing-up,’ said Gwen when the detectives came to the door. ‘He says I don’t do it properly.’
‘We’d just like a few words, Mrs Dickinson,’ said Tailby. ‘Further to our enquiries.’
Harry seemed to become aware of them slowly. He put down the mop and dried his hands carefully on a towel, rolled his sleeves down over his arms and reached behind the door to put his jacket back on. Then he walked unhurriedly past them, without a word, into the dim front room of the cottage, where there was a glimpse of the road through a gap in white net curtains.
Hitchens and Tailby followed him and found him sitting upright on a hard-backed chair. He was facing them like a judge examining the suspects entering the dock. The detectives found two more chairs pushed close to a mahogany dining table and set them opposite the old man. Diane Fry slipped quietly into the room and leaned against the wall near the door with her notebook, while Hitchens and Tailby introduced themselves, showing their warrant cards.
‘Harry Dickinson?’ said Hitchens. The old man nodded. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Tailby, Harry. I’m Detective Inspector Hitchens. From Edendale.’
‘Where’s the lad?’ asked Harry.
‘Who?’
‘The one who was here before. Sergeant Cooper’s lad.’
Tailby looked at Hitchens, raising an eyebrow.
‘Ben Cooper is only a detective constable, Harry. This is a murder enquiry now. You understand that? Detective Chief Inspector Tailby here is the senior investigating officer who will be in charge