Belinda Pye’s name, with the Spring Gardens Road address and Bella Kilbury’s details as next of kin, were marked on the reverse of the number in small, neat lettering.
This altered everything.
Diamond took out his phone and called the CID office. John Leaman was the senior man on duty. In a crisp exchange Diamond said what they’d found and asked for assistance: a search team of at least ten, crime scene tape, rakes, sieves, evidence bags and a sniffer dog because there was a chance of more of Belinda’s clothes being found.
“Where exactly are you, guv?” Leaman asked.
“Didn’t I just say?”
“Combe Down, but where on Combe Down?”
He’d never been good at giving directions. He called to Halliwell for help.
“I don’t know which field you ended up in,” Leaman was saying.
“Hang on.”
Paloma was using her phone to get a GPS reading.
He read out the coordinates. “And send any of the team who are there.” He pocketed his phone and told Paloma she’d better show them where Hartley had found the shirt.
“Do you want to tell your boss?”
“Not now. This is my call.”
Diamond went silent. Seeing the name in what was surely Belinda’s own handwriting and handling the shirt that she’d worn didn’t just confirm his gut fear that something had gone badly wrong. It brought him closer to the shy young woman so much in his thoughts.
“Should you be holding the shirt?” Paloma asked. “Don’t the forensic people do tests to see if they can find traces of the attacker?”
“Bit late to get fussed over that. They’ll find traces of us both. And Hartley.”
“I had to wrestle it from him twice over,” she said.
“Where did he find it?”
“Hidden under the hedge at the bottom of the field. It was screwed up into a small bundle, but he dragged it out and I saw what it was.”
Behind them, the drone show was over. Georgina was deep in discussion with Naomi and Noah about the immense potential of UAV-assisted policing. After all the hype, she would be mortified that a dog had found the piece of vital evidence. That revelation could wait.
With Hartley tugging at the leash, Diamond, Halliwell and Paloma started across the field towards the hedge.
His mouth pinched tight, Diamond gripped the rolled-up shirt in his fist and prepared himself mentally for what else they might find along the hedgerow. In his mind was an image of violent death.
Paloma tried to strike an optimistic note. “She may still be alive.”
Halliwell said, “You think so?”
“If she was trying to escape an attack, she would have come this way, heading for the village.”
“Without her shirt?”
“I don’t know what else she was wearing. It was a colder day than this when the race was held. I still put on several layers when I go for a run.”
“Why would she take it off, then?”
“You’re confusing me with all these questions.”
“Where would she be if she didn’t go home?”
“She’d knock on the door of the nearest house, I should think.”
“She won’t still be there three days later.”
“She’d call someone she knows and ask them to collect her.”
Halliwell’s voice showed he wasn’t convinced by any of this. “So you think she’s with a friend? Bella — the one whose name we have — doesn’t know where she is.”
“I’m trying to imagine what I would do.” She looked to Diamond for support and got none. He wasn’t listening. Emotionally he was back with the young woman he’d seen on Sunday running beside Pinto, transparently unhappy with the attention he was giving her and unable to do anything about it. Her fate was already decided and she didn’t know. Diamond had seen the tragedy coming and couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Paloma was trying to be more positive, but only Halliwell was hearing her words. “It could be a mistake to assume that she’s dead just because of the shirt. I couldn’t see any signs she was attacked. I know it’s red, but surely blood would show up in some way?”
“A darker stain.” Halliwell was nodding. At least they could agree on something.
“And if there was a struggle, you’d expect the shirt to get torn. The fabric looked intact before Hartley got his teeth into it.”
“It’s almost in pieces now.”
“That’s my fault, trying to tug it away from him. God knows what your forensics lot will think when they examine it.”
“They’ll be told about the dog,” Halliwell said.
“Anyhow,” Paloma said, “in her situation, I’d run for it, try and get help.”
They were almost at the lowest point of the field and Diamond was still deep in his private hell, cursing himself — but for what? His impotence in the face of evil? The wind across the vast down was stiffer and a huge mass of purple cloud had blotted out the sun. In the valley to the south a few streetlights pinpointed villages like Southstoke and Midford that had been reduced to dark smears in the grey terrain. Somerset, his county, with its cheerful name, had the capacity to be as bleak as any place on earth in conditions like this.
Sensing the negativity in his thoughts, Paloma turned to him. “No one who saw Pinto running beside her could have done anything to prevent it.”
Diamond looked straight through her.
She didn’t give up. “Even someone who knew the man’s record. He’d served his time in prison and he was free to do as he wanted. The parole board must have made a judgement that he wasn’t dangerous.”
Halliwell took up the theme. “If anyone is responsible, they are.”
“That’s putting it strongly,” Paloma said.
“It’s the truth.”
“They get advice from experts, but the decision is always going to be subjective. You can never be certain how another human being will behave.”
The whole of the brown hedgerow was in their view, stretching across two hundred yards or more, an unusual sight in this area where drystone walls bordered most of the fields. Mainly a tangle of hawthorn and bramble with young trees sprouting higher in places, the thicket was starting to come into leaf.
Diamond snapped out of his brooding. Decisions needed to be made. “Where exactly was the shirt?”
Paloma pointed. “See where that gate is in the far corner? About thirty yards to the left.”
“You said it was hidden. What did you mean by that?”
“Hartley dug it out from under a lot of leaves. I don’t think it was visible.”
“We must look for more clothing. Keith, start at the far corner and work your way along. I’ll check the part where the shirt was.”
“How about me?” Paloma asked.
“Keep the pooch at a safe distance.”
“He’s the one who found the shirt.”
“We’ll get a trained sniffer dog.”
“Do you mind? That’s a real snub to Hartley.”
“He’ll have to live with it. If more of her things are scattered along there, I’d rather they weren’t chewed to bits — or worse.”
“Or worse? What’s worse?”
He looked away, in no mood for levity.
“Oh, I get you, spoilsport.” Paloma smiled, trying her best. “All right. Come on, Hartley. You can spray all the rest of the field as your territory.”
Diamond was already marching off to the place where the shirt had been found. He’d not go too close for fear of corrupting a crime scene, but he wanted to see if more items of clothing were scattered nearby. He’d rather know now than have them brought to his attention by the search team.
He saw at once that this job wouldn’t be measured in minutes. A hedge acts as a windbreak and collects all manner of lightweight material, mainly its own leaves, but also anything blown across the land: scraps of sheep wool, feathers and paper and plastic evidence of the human users of the field. The leaf mould provides a habitat for shrews, voles, mice and hedgehogs as well as millions of insects and invertebrates. The person who had stowed the shirt away had apparently rolled it up and tucked it into this ecosystem. If other items were to be found, the entire length of the hedge and the adjacent one needed to be raked.