Hunter jockeyed the unmarked car between the ruts of a thin winding path for another few hundred yards, until he spotted a caravan of parked and marked Task Force vans and Scenes of Crime vehicles lining the narrow track. There, he stopped.
Quickly suiting themselves into protective coveralls, the three detectives left the car, and tramped the small distance, over damp and springy ground, to where a white tent had already been erected. Uniformed officers were putting the finishing touches to the setting up of a sterile perimeter using blue and white crime scene tape.
The team had worked fast, thought Hunter, as he ducked beneath the plastic tape and headed towards the forensic tent. Outside of it, two white-suited members of the Forensic Team were sifting loose soil onto a small pile.
Inside, three forensic specialists were on their knees, using hand trowels to scrape away lumps of soil. Duncan Wroe, clipboard in hand, was supervising things.
They had already removed a good couple of inches of topsoil.
Duncan levelled his gaze at the SIO. “You’ve already been updated ma’am?”
She nodded, “The task force Inspector rang the office half-an-hour ago. He said that they think they’ve found a body.”
“It’s certainly looking like that, unless someone’s buried their pet here.”
Another hour later, soil scraping resulted in a six-inch dip in the earth. The loose dirt had been emptied into plastic containers and carried outside to be sifted for evidence — a slow but necessary job.
Hunter was just checking the time on his watch — his stomach was telling him it was long past lunch-time, when he heard a rustling from the ground.
He glanced down, just as a member of the digging team pushed themselves back from the hole.
A young woman’s voice announced excitedly, “I’ve found something!”
* * * * *
It took the forensic team another two hours to fully unearth the remains of a body, wrapped inside semi-transparent extra strong plastic sheeting, the type used by builders.
It took another half-an-hour of careful handling before they loaded it into the private ambulance so that it could be safely transported to The Medico Legal Centre for a post-mortem.
* * * * *
Professor Lizzie McCormack had been called out to carry out the examination of the human remains, and by 3.30pm, she and her technician, together with Hunter, Detective Superintendent Leggate and SOCO supervisor Duncan Wroe, had all assembled inside the autopsy room at the Centre.
The pathologist sliced open the heavy duty plastic sheeting which contained the cadaver. As she worked, she talked; the in-built microphones picking up everything she said, relaying her words back to state-of-the-art digital voice recording machine.
Duncan Wroe was filming everything using his digital camera.
As he watched and listened, Hunter tensed. He had waited for this moment for so long. He hoped it was Lucy’s body.
Carefully, Lizzie peeled back the first membrane of semi-transparent sheeting. There was another layer beneath, and she cut through this and repeated the process. Slowly, the covering was pulled away and the body was revealed. Its flesh was gone and only a dirty brown skeleton remained. A stained and dirty, blue satin, knee-length nightdress covered the torso.
“Definitely female,” announced the Professor, in her soft Scottish burr. “And I think this goes a good way to help identify her.” She reached down and hooked a finger around a thin metal chain, which encircled the corpse’s neck, raising it slightly. It was a silver necklace with interlinked lettering. There was no mistaking what the lettering spelled — ‘Lucy.’
“Bingo,” said Dawn Leggate through gritted teeth.
Lizzie McCormack smiled. She rested the necklace back onto the bones and then moved a hand down towards the pelvic area, lifted her head and peered over the top of her spectacles. “And this definitely proves it!” She pointed into the pelvic area and drew a circle in the air. “This young lady was with child. Not full term, but there’s enough bone and cartilage to determine it was over the twenty-four weeks’ stage.” She pursed her lips. “And I can see straight away the cause of this young lady’s death.” She moved her hand away from the pelvis, up towards the skeleton’s skull and pointed to the right temple.
Duncan Wroe leaned in with his camera.
Hunter stepped to one side to get better sight of what the Professor was pointing to. He got a good view over Duncan’s dipped shoulder. An irregular-shaped hole, the size of a two pence piece, had been smashed into the head.
“Fracture of the skull,” Lizzie continued, “And looking at the area of damage, and its position, that would have caused death within a few seconds, or at least would have rendered her immediately unconscious and she would have died within a very short period of time. A lot of force has caused that injury and the object would have had a sharp edge.”
“Like a knife, for instance?” Hunter said.
“Ooh no. Something far more substantial than that. A hammer is the more likely object.”
Hunter was just about to ask another question when the light-bulb went off inside his head. He hadn’t spotted its significance at first.
He said, “Got him!”
His eyes met those of the Detective Superintendent’.
“When Peter Blake-Hall made his original statement, the day he reported Lucy missing, he described her as going out wearing a yellow smock dress and a fawn cardigan. And the witness Lisa Aldridge, states in her statement that she saw Lucy being dragged into her husband’s car and the yellow dress stood out in her description of Lucy. If that’s the case, how do we account for this body here wearing a nightdress? The only way that could have happened is if she went home and got changed into it.”
Detective Superintendent Leggate nodded in agreement, “And that would fit in with why we found blood at the farmhouse and Jessica’s recollections from her nightmares. Peter dragged her into his car that night and brought her back home.”
“She got changed out of her clothes and into her nightie.”
Hunter and his SIO put their thoughts into words.
“And they had an argument over her meeting with Daniel Weaver. Remember, he had asked her to run away with him?”
They finished the last sentence together, “And that’s when he struck her and killed her!”
* * * * *
Turning away from the bar, clutching the round of drinks he had just bought, Hunter felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Are we friends?”
He met Detective Superintendent Dawn Leggate’s questioning look. “We were never enemies.”
She removed her hand. “No, but we didn’t get off to a good start did we? You’re in my team now and I just want to know that things between us are good for the future?”
“Things are good, boss.”
She smiled. “Good. I feel like a drink now.” She pointed to the three drinks he was holding. “I see you’ve got yours already.”
He laughed. “Not all for me boss. One’s for Barry Newstead and the other’s for Grace.”
“And I’ll stand the next round when those have gone. Everyone’s earned this. That was a good result, Hunter. Finding Lucy’s body was the icing on the cake.”
“Yes. And it’s especially good for Mr and Mrs Hall, and for Jessica. They can finally have closure after all this time.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a shout of “Mike’s here,” from Grace.
Hunter looked towards the door. Mike Sampson was being helped through by Tony Bullars. He stepped in gingerly, his right arm clamped to his side, shielding the area where he had been stabbed. Mike raised his free hand in a gesture of thanks and then headed off towards his team mates, Grace and Barry, who were in the process of dragging seats around a table. Tony followed behind like his minder.