Before that though, he had to summarise an account of his investigation and that was currently proving difficult because of the sheer lack of information. The sections detailing who she was or where she lived were still blank. Everyone who had attended the scene and viewed the corpse, himself included, had initially thought that the body was that of a young teenage girl, but the autopsy had revealed that the petite form was that of a woman aged between late teens and early twenties. And the fact that she had grey-blue eyes, shoulder length light brown hair, a good set of teeth and the initials ‘J.J,’ together with a pink butterfly, tattooed upon the lower part of her neck, between her shoulder blades was the sum total of everything they had in terms of identification. There was nothing on the body, or in the cellar where she had been found, which revealed who she was. The Scenes of Crime Officer had done his best to fingerprint the cadaver at the mortuary but it had been the ends of the fingers which rats had nibbled first, making the process extremely difficult. Except for the recent tattoos, all he had to go on to establish her identity, were three items. He looked at the clear plastic exhibit bags at the top of his pending tray. First there was the torn photograph. He’d found that, together with the Christmas card, in the rear pocket of her jeans. The half-picture featured the head and shoulders of a man who looked to be in his early thirties, clean shaven, with thinning dark hair. He thought the face seemed familiar. The Christmas card appeared to be an old one, folded and heavily creased. Inside, it had been simply signed ‘Mr X.’
Hunter wondered if Mr X was the guy in the photo.
Then he’d found the worn brass key in one of her front pockets, which he guessed gave access to her home, though looking at the state of the key, and given the circumstances of her discovery, he thought that address was more than likely a sub-let room in a run-down rented house.
He had done a lot of leg-work these past two days and realised zilch for his efforts. He’d reacquainted himself with ex-colleagues and a number of local junkies from his drug squad days, but they hadn’t been able to help with either finding her home or giving her a name. And he had uniform trying to track down any dossers who used the derelict pub, but they had so far come up with nothing. He’d decided that if he hadn’t got anywhere by the end of the day, he was going to speak to his contact at The Barnwell Chronicle and ask her to run a piece as a last-ditch attempt to identify the body.
The thwacking sound and the sudden appearance of a newspaper landing on top of his paperwork made Hunter jump. He looked up to see his colleague DC Grace Marshall, her slim frame dressed in a light grey trouser suit striding past. He had been so absorbed in the drafting of his narrative that he neither heard nor saw his working partner breeze into the office.
Barry Newstead followed in her wake, looking rumpled as ever. He had his jacket slung over his shoulder, allowing Hunter the view of a white shirt straining over his ample belly. The tail of one side had escaped from the waistband of his trousers and it was open at the collar, from where the two ends of a striped tie dangled at an odd angle from its untidy knot.
As he switched his gaze from one to the other, Hunter couldn’t help but smile to himself. They were so far apart when it came to dress and style, and yet complemented each other with their ebullient character and respective work ethic.
“You’re a bit of a dark horse, Detective Sergeant Kerr!” Barry arrowed a finger towards the newspaper on Hunter’s desk, and shot him a wink as he sucked in his stomach, squeezed himself around his desk and lowered himself onto his chair.
Hunter snatched up the copy of the local weekly Barnwell Chronicle, which had already been opened to one of the inside pages. There, in full colour, he was pictured proudly holding before him one of his recent paintings. Below it was the headline ‘A Brush with the Law’. He could feel himself colouring up. A month ago, his journalist contact at the local paper had interviewed him about his recent success within the art world. Two of his seascape oil paintings had been selected for The Mall Galleries ‘Royal Society of Marine Artists’ exhibition. It had been the most defining moment of his artistic career to date and had brought him an invite to showcase his work with a leading London gallery.
Barry said, “Detective Sergeant Hunter Kerr uses the long arm of the law for more than just collaring criminals.”
Hunter caught Barry’s smug grin but chose to ignore the gibe. Instead he silently read the opening paragraph of the article.
“Fancy a cuppa?” Grace said, as she edged towards the set of filing cabinets at the far wall, where the office kettle and array of mugs sat. She picked up the kettle, checked there was enough water in it and flicked its switch. Looking back over her shoulder, she offered, “Take no notice of him, he’s jealous. I’m very proud of you Hunter. At least someone else has a bit of class in this office.”
Hunter lifted up his gaze and caught Grace pulling her highlighted corkscrew curls away from her flawless tawny skin, exposing her high cheekbones. He noted that the summer freckles, peppering her cheeks and spanning the bridge of her nose, were now starting to fade.
Barry’s grin widened and he shot out his tongue towards her. “Give over with your brown-nosing wench and get that coffee made.”
“Yo’s saying that because I is black, or because I is woman, Mr Newstead?” Grace returned, mimicking her father’s Jamaican patois and fixing Barry an exaggerated piercing look.
Barry returned a single middle finger salute. “Swivel on that Detective Constable Marshall.”
It was her turn to smile. Then she returned to making the drinks, pouring steaming hot water into three mugs.
Hunter shook the tabloid straight and quickly scanned the couple of paragraphs which made up the remainder of the article. His initial embarrassment had subsided; now he beamed inside. He folded the paper and set it aside. He would read it and digest it again tonight when he got home and had more time.
Grace settled a steaming mug down in front of Hunter. “Oh and there’s a full-page spread on page five in there about the ‘Lady in the Lake’ murder. They’ve covered the case really well.”
“I bet you’re really pleased with that result, aren’t you?” said Hunter, who caught the glint in Grace’s eyes as she slumped down into the swivel chair at her desk opposite. He was referring to the guilty verdict given to the brutal murderers of a 23 year old Asian girl whose bloated and battered body had been discovered at the bottom of Barnwell Lake three months ago.
When the job had been called in, Grace had been ‘acting’ DS while he had been away on a long weekend break with his family and she had taken control of her first murder investigation.
He remembered how admirably she had coped during his absence, both with the investigation and with being in charge of the team, especially given her own personal problems at the time. There had been many times since then when he had lain awake at night, re-running the case in his head, wondering how he would have coped had one of his children been abducted by a known serial-killer. He knew she was still seeing the Force Counsellor, and still suffering the occasional panic attack. And yet outwardly, like now, she continued to display such remarkable resolve and resilience.
She would have made a good actress.
“Chuffed to bits. The judge gave me a commendation as well.”
“And rightly so, you deserve it. I hope the gaffer’s said something to you?”
“He has actually. Told me a couple of days ago that he’d put me forward for a Chief Superintendent’s commendation.”