Piece of My Heart (3 page)

How long she had lain elsewhere before she had been moved, or where she had lain, he couldn’t say, only that the post-mortem lividity indicated that she had been on her back for some hours. From an external examination, it didn’t look as if she had been raped–she was still, in fact, wearing her white cotton knickers, and they looked clean–but only a complete post-mortem would reveal details of any sexual activity prior to death. There were no defensive wounds on her hands, which most likely meant that she had been taken by surprise,
and that the first stab had pierced her heart and incapacitated her immediately. There was light bruising on the front left side of her neck, which Dr. O’Neill said could be an indication that someone, the killer probably, had restrained her from behind.

So, Chadwick thought, the killer had made a clumsy attempt to make it look as if the girl had been killed in the bag on the field, and clumsy attempts to mislead often yield clues. Before doing anything else, Chadwick commissioned Enderby to get a team with a police dog together to comb Brimleigh Woods.

The photographer did his stuff and the specialists searched the scene, then bagged everything for scientific analysis. They got some partial footprints, but there was no guarantee that any of these were the killer’s. Even so, they patiently made plaster of Paris casts. There was no weapon in the immediate vicinity, hardly surprising as the victim hadn’t died there, nor was there anything in the sleeping bag or near her body to indicate who she was. A lack of drag marks indicated that she might have been moved there before it rained. The beads she wore were common enough, though Chadwick imagined it might be possible to track down a supplier.

Some poor mother and father would no doubt be wringing their hands with worry about now, the same way he had been wringing his about Yvonne. Had she been at the festival? he wondered. It would be just like her, the kind of music she listened to, her rebellious spirit, the clothes she wore. He remembered the fuss she had made when he and Janet wouldn’t let her go to the Isle of Wight Festival the weekend before. The
Isle of Wight
, for crying out loud. It was three hundred miles away. Anything could happen. What on earth had she been thinking?

For the time being, the best course of action was to check all missing persons reports for someone matching the victim’s
description. Failing any luck there, they would have to get a decent enough photograph of her to put in the papers and show on television, along with a plea for information from anyone in the crowd who might have seen or heard anything. However they did it, they needed to know who she was as soon as possible. Only then could they attempt to fathom who had done this to her, and why.

The darkness deepened the closer Banks and Annie got to Lyndgarth. It looked as if the wind had taken down an electricity cable somewhere and caused a power cut. The silhouettes of branches jerked in the beam of the car’s headlights, while all around was darkness, not even the light of a distant farmhouse to guide them. In Lyndgarth, houses, pubs, church and village green were all in the dark. Annie drove slowly as the road curved out of town, over the narrow stone bridge and around the bend another half a mile or so to Fordham. Even in the surrounding darkness it was easy to see where all the fuss was as they came over the second bridge shortly after half past eight.

The main road veered sharply left at the pub, opposite the church, towards Eastvale, but straight ahead, on a rough track that continued up the hill past the youth hostel and over the wild moorland, a police patrol car blocked the way, along with Winsome’s unmarked Vectra. Annie pulled up behind the cars, and wind whipped at her clothes as she got out of the car. The trouble was in the last cottage on the left. Opposite Moorview Cottage, a narrow lane ran west between the side of the church and a row of cottages until it was swallowed up in the dark countryside.

“Not much of a place, is it?” said Banks.

“Depends on what you want,” said Annie. “It’s quiet enough, I suppose.”

“And there is a pub.” Looking back across the main road, Banks fancied he could see the glow of candlelight through the pub windows and hear the muffed tones of conversation from inside. A little thing like a power cut clearly wasn’t going to deprive the locals of their hand-pumped ale.

The light of a torch dazzled them, and Banks heard Winsome’s voice. “Sir? DI Cabbot? This way. I took the liberty of asking the SOCOs to bring some lighting with them, but for the moment this is all we’ve got.”

They followed the trail the torch lit up through a high wooden gate and a conservatory. The local PC was waiting inside the door, talking to newly promoted Detective Sergeant Kevin Templeton, and the light from his torch improved visibility quite a bit. Even so, they were limited to what they could see within the beams; the rest of the place was shrouded in darkness.

Treading carefully across the stone flags, Banks and Annie followed the lights to the edge of the living room. They weren’t wearing protective clothing, so they had to keep their distance until the experts had finished. There, sprawled on the floor near the fireplace, lay the body of a man. He was lying on his face, so Banks couldn’t tell how old he was, but his clothing, jeans and a dark green sweatshirt, suggested he was youngish. And Winsome was right; there was no doubt about this one. He could see even from a few feet away that the back of his head was a bloody mess, and a long trail of dark, coagulating blood gleamed in the torchlight, ending in a puddle that was soaking into the rug. Winsome moved her torch beam around and Banks could see a poker lying on the floor not far from the victim, and a pair of glasses with one lens broken.

“Do you notice any signs of a struggle?” Banks asked.

“No,” said Annie.

The beam picked out a packet of Dunhill and a cheap disposable lighter on the table beside the armchair, towards which the victim’s head was pointing. “Say he was going for his cigarettes,” Banks said.

“And someone took him by surprise?”

“Yes. But someone he had no reason to think would kill him.” Banks pointed to the rack by the fireplace. “The poker would most likely have been there on the hearth with the other implements.”

“Blood-spatter analysis should give us a better idea of how it happened,” Annie said.

Banks nodded and turned to Winsome. “First thing we do is seal off this room completely,” he said. “It’s out of bounds to anyone who doesn’t need to be in it.”

“Right, sir,” said Winsome.

“And organize a house to house as soon as possible. Ask for reinforcements, if necessary.”

“Sir.”

“Do we know who he is?”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Winsome said. “PC Travers here lives down the road and tells me he doesn’t know him. Apparently it’s a holiday cottage.”

“Then presumably there’s an owner somewhere.”

“She’s in here, sir.” It was the PC who spoke, and he pointed his torch into the dining room, where a woman sat in the dark on a hard-backed chair staring into space. “I didn’t know what else to do with her, sir,” he went on. “I mean, I couldn’t let her go until she’d spoken with you, and she needed to sit down. She was feeling a bit faint.”

“You did the right thing,” said Banks.

“Anyway, it’s Mrs. Tanner. She’s the owner.”

“No, I’m not,” said Mrs. Tanner. “I just look after it for them. They live in London.”

“Okay,” said Banks, sitting down opposite her. “We’ll get those details later.”

PC Travers shone his torch along the table between them, so that neither was dazzled and each could at least see the other. From what Banks could tell, she was a stout woman in her early fifties with short greying hair and a double chin.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Tanner?” he asked.

She put a hand to her breast. “I’m better now, thank you. It was just a shock. In the dark and all…It’s not that I’ve never seen a dead body before. Just family, like, you know, but this…” She took a sip from the steaming mug in front of her. It looked as if Travers had had the good sense to make some tea, which meant there must be a gas cooker.

“Are you up to answering a few questions?” Banks asked her.

“I don’t know that I can tell you anything.”

“Leave that to me to decide. How did you come to find the body?”

“He was just lying there, like he is now. I didn’t touch anything.”

“Good. But what I meant was: why did you come here?”

“It was the power cut. I live just down the road, see, the other side of the pub, and I wanted to show him where the emergency candles were. There’s a big torch, too.”

“What time was this?”

“Just before eight o’clock.”

“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

“No.”

“See anyone?”

“Not a soul.”

“No cars?”

“No.”

“Was the door open?”

“No. It was shut.”

“So what did you do?”

“First, I knocked.”

“And then?”

“Well, there was no answer, see, and it was all dark inside.”

“Didn’t you think he might be out?”

“His car’s still there. Who’d go out walking on a night like this?”

“What about the pub?”

“I looked in, but he wasn’t there, and nobody had seen him, so I came back here. I’ve got the keys. I thought maybe he’d had an accident or something, fallen down the stairs in the dark, and all because I’d forgotten to show him where the candles and the torch were.”

“Where are they?” Banks asked.

“In a box on the shelf under the stairs.” She shook her head slowly. “Sorry. As soon as I saw him just…lying there…it went out of my head completely, why I’d come.”

“That’s all right.”

Banks sent PC Travers to find the candles. He came back a few moments later. “There were matches in the kitchen by the cooker, sir,” he said, and proceeded to set candles in saucers and place them on the dining table.

“That’s better,” said Banks. He turned back to Mrs. Tanner. “Do you know who your guest was? His name?”

“Nick.”

“That’s all?”

“When he came by when he arrived last Saturday and introduced himself, he just said his name was Nick.”

“He didn’t give you a cheque with his full name on it?”

“He paid cash.”

“Is that normal?”

“Some people prefer it that way.”

“How long was he staying?”

“He paid for two weeks.”

Two weeks in the Yorkshire Dales in late October seemed like an odd holiday choice to Banks, but there was no accounting for taste. Maybe this Nick was a keen rambler. “How did he find the place?”

“The owners have a website, but don’t ask me owt about that. I only see to the cleaning and general maintenance.”

“I understand,” said Banks. “Any idea where Nick came from?”

“No. He didn’t have any sort of foreign accent, but he wasn’t from around here. Down south, I’d say.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

“I only ever saw him the once,” Mrs. Tanner said. “He seemed like a nice enough lad.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“Not old. Mid-thirties, maybe. I’m not very good at ages.”

Car headlights shone through the window and soon the small house was filled with SOCOs. Peter Darby, the photographer, and Dr. Glendenning, the Home office pathologist, arrived at about the same time, Glendenning complaining that Banks thought he had nothing better to do than hang around dead bodies on a Friday evening. Banks asked PC Travers to take Mrs. Tanner home and stay with her. Her husband was out at a darts match in Eastvale, she said, but he would soon be back, and she assured Banks she would be fine on her own. The SOCOs quickly set up lights in the living room, and while Peter Darby photographed the cottage with his Pentax and digital
camcorder, Banks watched Dr. Glendenning examine the body, turning it slightly to examine the eyes.

“Anything you can tell us, doc?” Banks asked after a few minutes.

Dr. Glendenning got to his feet and sighed theatrically. “I’ve told you about that before, Banks. Don’t call me doc. It’s disrespectful.”

“Sorry,” said Banks. He peered at the corpse. “Anyway, he spoiled my Friday evening, too, so anything you can tell me would help.”

“Well, for a start, he’s dead. You can write that down in your little notebook.”

“I suspected as much,” said Banks.

“And don’t be so bloody sarcastic. You realize I was supposed to be at the Lord Mayor’s banquet by now drinking Country Manor and munching vol-au-vents?”

“Sounds bad for your health,” Banks said. “You’re better off here.”

Glendenning favoured him with a sly smile. “Maybe you’re right at that, laddie.” He smoothed down his silvery hair. “Anyway, it was almost certainly the blow to the back of the head that killed him. I’ll know better when I get him on the table, of course, but that’ll have to do for now.”

“Time of death?”

“Not more than two or three hours. Rigor hasn’t started yet.”

Banks looked at his watch. Five past nine. Mrs. Tanner had probably been there about an hour or so, which narrowed it down even more, between six and eight, say. She couldn’t have missed the killer by long, which made her a very lucky woman. “Any chance he got drunk, fell and hit his head?” Banks knew it was unlikely, but he had to ask. You didn’t go off wasting
valuable police time and resources on a domestic accident.

“Almost certainly not,” said Glendenning, glancing over at the poker. “For a start, if it had happened that way, he would most likely be lying on his back, and secondly, judging by the shape of the wound and the blood and hair on that poker over there, I’d say your murder weapon’s pretty obvious this time. Maybe you’ll find a nice clean set of fingerprints and be home by bedtime.”

“Some hope,” said Banks, seeing yet another weekend slip away. Why couldn’t murderers commit their crimes on Mondays? It wasn’t only the prospect of working all weekend that made Friday murders such a pain in the arse, but that people tended to make themselves scarce. offices closed, workers visited relatives, everything slowed down. And the first forty hours were crucial in any investigation. “Anyway,” he said, “the poker was close to hand, which probably means that whoever did it didn’t come prepared to kill. Or wanted to make it look that way.”