The door of the car parked in front opened and a young man in his late twenties got out. Tall and athletic with gelled blond hair that shook off the rain like a duck’s back, he stuck out a hand, his friendly smile concealing the reason they were both here.
‘DC Craig Newlyn, ma’am. Totnes. I think you’ll find the whole thing a little confusing.’
‘Morning, Constable. Who discovered the body?’
‘Found by a local farmer,’ Newlyn said. ‘He spotted the tracks in his field, figured they belonged to poachers or vandals, went down to investigate and bingo. Name of Gordon Isaacs. He owns the land around here. His farm is along the road a bit, up on the left.’
‘What time?’ asked Savage.
‘Last night. Only he didn’t alert us until this morning, said he had work to do.’
‘What? Well that’s not a good start.’ Savage glanced back up the lane where the tower of St Michael’s poked up through the mist. ‘We will need to get statements from everybody in the village ASAP. TIE and all that.’ TIE meant Trace, Interview and Eliminate. Unlike when an incident occurred back in the city, the task didn’t appear too arduous out here.
‘We have got a couple of extra bods coming from Totnes, should be arriving soon.’
‘Good stuff.’
‘Ma’am, are you the SIO on this one?’
‘No, that will be Detective Superintendent Hardin. I am here for a first look. We’ve got a lot on our plates back in Plymouth.’
‘So I’ve been reading,’ Newlyn said.
‘Hardin is on his knees and praying this one can be cleared up without any fuss.’
‘I don’t think so, ma’am. Not from what I have seen.’
Savage shook her head. If possible she wanted to get to the scene, have a quick scout around and return to operation Leash. She didn’t want to consider the alternative right now.
She let Newlyn get back in his car out of the rain and walked up the lane to where a white van straddled the tarmac, parked slap bang in the middle of the road as if acting as a windbreak. Behind the vehicle the crime scene manager was a guy she recognised but couldn’t place and he clung to a large umbrella in the gusting wind. The rain slashed down as determined as ever and neither the van nor the brolly were doing much of a job protecting a white-suited CSI kneeling on the verge in a gateway. The officer had placed a tape measure on the ground alongside some tyre impressions and footprints and was in the process of taking a couple of photographs. Next to the gate a section of fence had been removed to allow access without having to go through the original entrance. A line of blue and white tape snaked across the ground and led down the side of a grassy field marking out a path along which they could walk without disturbing potential evidence.
‘John Layton,’ the man held out his free hand as Savage approached. Layton was mid-thirties. Dark hair poked from beneath the brim of a Tilley hat and framed an angular face with an Aquiline nose. The hat dripped water onto a tan coloured Columbo-style rain coat. He pulled the scene log from a coat pocket for Savage to sign. ‘Hardin said he was sending you.’
‘He knows I enjoy a nice summer jaunt in the country,’ Savage said, indicating the autumn storm howling overhead. ‘What have you got there?’ She gestured at the mass of mud at Layton’s feet.
‘Tyre prints and footprints. The whole thing is a bit of a mess because we have got the farmer’s as well but we might get something. Lifted a couple of good fingerprints off the gate too.’
‘Can I go down?’ Savage nodded towards the tape running down the field.
‘Sure. One of my guys and a couple of photographers are at the scene already.’
‘Pathologist?’
‘Stuck on the A38 somewhere.’
‘If it’s Nesbit he won’t be happy.’
‘It is Nesbit, and no he didn’t sound too pleased when he called to tell me he was late.’ Layton paused and looked down at Savage’s feet. ‘The field is a complete bog. Got some wellies in the back of the van if you’d like?’
Savage said she would and Layton dug out a pair of yellow boots as well as the obligatory white coverall. Her feet slid around inside the over-sized boots, but as she walked down the side of the field she was grateful for them. The cattle had made much of the pasture a quagmire and the saturated ground oozed underfoot.
She followed the blue and white tape down to where it was tied to a small aluminium step ladder the CSIs had put up to span the fence. A few metres farther on fence posts and netting lay in a flattened tangle and Savage noticed tyre tracks leading from the pasture into an earthy field where green shoots of wheat or some other crop poked up through the soil. The tyre marks crossed the neat tramlines of tractor tracks and curved left down towards a small patch of woodland at the bottom of the valley.
Savage climbed over the ladder into the next field and followed the tape again. As she neared the trees the clouds seemed to crowd overhead, darkening the sky even more. A stile led into the copse and to its right some more fencing had been removed. She walked through the opening into a little grove with towering old oak trees and slender young ash.
A sudden flash of harsh white light from a camera lit up a white crime scene tent and through the open end Savage could see a pale body lying like a sleeping nymph from a fairy tale. Two people stood next to the body on plastic stepping plates, one taking the pictures, the other with a small video camera. She recognised the photographer as Rod Oliver. His silver hair and craggy, weathered face showed he was getting on in years, but he knew his job. A year or so ago he had gone independent and filled in his spare time doing wedding shoots. Two more disparate sets of clients were hard to imagine. At the far edge of the clearing another figure in white combed the scrub with a long metal probe, teasing the long grass and nettles apart. Savage didn’t go any closer but she could see the corpse belonged to a young woman, late teens or early twenties. White skin, no clothing, hands by her sides, legs apart. She didn’t appear dead, just as if she was resting for a while. Her angelic face stared skyward towards heaven, but although the nakedness hit Savage like an electric shock, there was nothing else of note.
She looked around at the woodland. On a summer’s day with a picnic and a family and laughter and smiles this would be an idyllic place. Today an autumn chill seeped from the ground and the wind whistled through the trees. The scrub and brambles appeared to be creeping into the clearing, trying to cover everything, to wipe out all traces of humanity and reinstate the wilderness.
Oliver noticed her and walked back along the row of stepping plates. He told her what he knew.
‘At first sight no obvious cause of death, although there is a strange cut mark on the belly. I would hazard a guess drugs are involved. Also, clever young Matt spotted a couple of indentations in the moss between her legs.’
Oliver introduced the pale-faced guy with the video camera as his assistant. Savage didn’t think Matt looked young or clever, but when you went independent you would have to keep a tight rein on costs, she thought.
‘There’s a substance on the pubis and stomach resembling semen,’ Oliver continued. ‘I’d say somebody knelt and ejaculated over her. Although it’s not my job to speculate, of course. Doc Nesbit will be able to confirm the drugs angle.’ He nodded back towards the edge of the copse where a figure in a full white coverall plodded their way.