Troy had bright red hair. On his cheeks and chin were the first signs of ginger stubble. A faint moustache was making its appearance above his lip. His bright eyes — a penetrating blue — suggested that he had great powers of observation.
Lexi’s hair was cut short, revealing an attractive face with a steely expression of determination. She wore no make-up on her bronzed skin. Her striking hair colour — somewhere between blonde and silver — made her look older than her sixteen years. Like any outer, her fingertips were smooth and did not leave prints on anything she touched.
‘Is this your first case?’ she asked Troy.
‘Is it that obvious?’
A faint smile was her reply.
Troy gazed at her and said, ‘What happened to your last partner?’
‘We didn’t get on.’
‘Oh. What’s wrong with you?’ He grinned to show that he was joking.
‘Nothing. It was her. To be honest, I didn’t think she was … clever enough.’
‘All outers say they’re north of majors when it comes to cleverness.’
‘That’s because we are. No doubt about it. It’s been measured scientifically. But this particular major held me back.’
Troy admitted, ‘I’m not clever either. Not really.’
‘What are you, then? You must have something special to become a detective.’
‘My reports always said I was perceptive. I didn’t know what it meant at first. I had to look it up.’
Lexi nodded. ‘That’ll do. I can work with perceptive. Me, I was always called methodical.’
‘Sounds boring.’
‘I like following procedures,’ she replied. ‘It gets results.’
‘Do you always get results?’
‘With the right partner, yes.’
Emerging from the last line of trees and ducking under the police tape, they stopped beside the road and removed their slip-ons. Troy turned towards Lexi and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll hold you back.’
She looked him up and down. ‘We’ll see.’
There were two uniformed officers on duty, guarding the crime scene. ‘We’ve finished for now,’ Lexi told them. ‘There are teams on their way, though. More tests and searches, and a body to take to the pathologist. Maybe more digging as well. We don’t have to be here while they do it but you’re stuck, I’m afraid.’
‘Hope you’ve got toothbrushes and a change of clothes,’ Troy added. ‘We’ll be back if anything else turns up.’
Every detective carried a life-logger. Lexi and Troy each had one of the small mobile devices and it stored every aspect of their working lives. It recorded everything they did, everywhere they went, and everything they saw, heard and said. It provided the evidence in any later trial and ensured that the investigation had been conducted correctly. Lexi’s and Troy’s life-loggers had already sent their requirements to the coming teams.
The two teenage detectives had come separately to the crime scene, but they were leaving together. Lexi secured her precious holdall in the boot of the police car and then they both got in. Talking to the onboard computer, Lexi said, ‘Shepford Crime Central.’ As the car accelerated, they knew that they were about to spend a lot of time in each other’s company. If they worked well together, they would form a partnership and tackle many more cases.
SCENE 2
Analysing the fluid leaking from the corpse first, Lexi was looking at the peaks and troughs on the chromatogram. ‘I don’t need to wait for the DNA result,’ she announced. ‘This is the normal profile of decay products from an outer.’ She tapped out a few instructions on the keypad and added, ‘The computer says it’s a ninety-seven per cent match.’
On the other side of the large glass panel, forensic scientists were working on several different cases in a totally clean environment. One of them was measuring the maggots that Lexi had plucked from the body. Two were staring at paint flakes and fibres through microscopes. Others were preparing samples for various chemical analysers. Some were comparing fingerprints or examining handwriting. Each of them was dressed in an all-over white lab coat. Troy and Lexi were sitting in the attached computer room.
‘A bit depressing really,’ Troy said.
‘What is?’
‘One day, we all decompose to smelly goo and seep into the ground.’
‘That’s nature for you,’ Lexi said cheerfully. ‘It’s beautiful. But don’t you believe there’s a mysterious spirit that leaves the body before rot sets in? The essence of major’s gone before nature starts to recycle the body.’
Troy nodded. ‘There’s got to be more than feeding flies and bacteria.’
‘Has there?’ Lexi said with a twisted smile. ‘I don’t know why. There’s life and there’s death. I’ve never seen anything in-between. No sign of life after death. And no body scanner’s ever found a soul — or whatever you want to call it.’
Troy took a swig of blueberry juice and said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to settle this right now.’
‘You’re scared of losing the argument.’
‘I’ve just got other things on my mind,’ Troy replied. ‘Like a murder.’ Knowing that Lexi’s life-logger would have many images of the victim, he asked, ‘Have you uploaded a picture of him?’
She nodded. ‘I had to clean up the ones of his face for ID purposes. The computer still doesn’t recognize him. And he doesn’t match anyone on the missing persons’ list either. We’re going to have to work harder to find out who he is.’
Lexi’s drink was different. It was mulled wine and Troy could smell the warm alcoholic vapour. Outers drank beer, wine and cider from an early age because alcohol nourished them like any other food. Unlike majors, their bodies lacked the metabolic pathway that caused intoxication, so alcohol didn’t damage their organs and they never got drunk.
‘Maybe his DNA will be in the database,’ Troy said before hesitating and adding, ‘Or is that too easy as well?’
‘We’ll find out tomorrow.’
Troy typed a few commands on the keypad until the screen showed him a satellite image of the area where the body had been found. He cocked his head on one side and murmured, ‘Why here?’
Lexi shrugged. ‘Because it’s remote? Not many people go there.’
‘Our bad guy knows all about it, though.’
‘Maybe he collects logs as well.’
‘So he’d have a wood-burning stove.’
‘Or he’s into wood-carving,’ Lexi replied with a smirk.
‘My point exactly,’ said Troy. ‘Place always tells a story. In this case, we just don’t know what it is yet.’ Examining the map again, he said, ‘Could be a lot of deer roaming around, so maybe he’s into hunting. Maybe he — or she — goes sailing on the reservoir. Maybe he’s a tree surgeon. I don’t know, but there’ll be a connection for sure.’
‘We’ll probably pin it down after forensics have solved the case.’
Troy frowned and turned back to the monitor. He zoomed out to get an overall view of the area. ‘I’ll run a check on every building within ten kilometres.’
Lexi peered at the map. ‘Won’t take long. Probably a few farms, a yachting club and the waterworks. That’s the lot, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe one of the farmers is a mad, tree-felling, wood-carving murderer.’
Lexi laughed. ‘No chance. Anyone like that would use an axe or a chainsaw. Ours is nowhere near as messy.’
All murder detectives laughed a lot. Troy knew why. It was the way they protected themselves from the awful things they saw. They had to cleanse themselves of the violence committed by both human races and they did it with dark humour. If they didn’t laugh, they’d probably cry.
‘What are those maggots telling you?’