Juliet ducked under the blue-and-white tape, her heels sinking into the soft ground. She would never admit to wearing inappropriate footwear, but I couldn’t see how she remained upright. Probably sheer force of will. My boots twisted with each step over the damp ground.
Mist hung in the air, defusing the long rays of sunlight filtering through the trees. Under different circumstances, this would be a peaceful place. A private sanctuary for the residents of the ancestral estate. Birds chirped above a forest floor blanketed with orange leaves.
I shoved my hands deep into my coat pockets as I followed Juliet along a well-trampled path. Cold burrowed into my bones. I tried not to shiver. I didn’t want to piss off the officers who had already been here for a while.
‘Damn freezing.’ Juliet had no such qualms. The collar of her light blue coat was turned up, her blonde hair tucked neatly into a scarf.
I jogged a couple of paces to catch up with her, carving my own path. The ground was less slippery away from the many footprints of others who had walked this way before us. Running parallel, a tight line of striped tape marked off another route through the trees. That one would be much more pristine.
‘You take the lead on this case,’ Juliet said, just out of earshot of a couple of uniformed officers.
‘Alright. I will.’
This marked a change. Juliet hadn’t wielded her seniority over me in the few months since my arrival, but I’d deferred to her in all the cases we’d worked together so far. I’d been waiting for her to give this push, determined to prove I could be more than a helpful sidekick.
I ran my tongue around my teeth and plastered a bland smile on my face as we walked up to the uniformed officers. ‘Good morning.’
‘Morning, ma’am,’ said the older of the two. He stood with his broad chest puffed, his hand gripping the radio on his hip. The slender officer beside him couldn’t keep a pinched wince off her face. Most likely, her skin was usually a gentle brown. Shock had turned it sickly gold.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Gabe Martin. This is Detective Inspector Juliet Stern.’
‘You’re Gabe?’ The male officer’s eyes widened, darting between the two of us. ‘And you’re DI Stern?’
Juliet and I had elicited similar reactions before. I couldn’t be sure why. Two female detectives? But everyone in the force was used to working with women by now, and this officer’s partner was female. It could have been the shortening of my name, but I wasn’t going to use my full name to avoid a bit of gender confusion during introductions.
More likely, Juliet’s reputation preceded her. It was one thing to bitch about the detective who made extra work for everyone during a case, and quite another to face her in the flesh. I’d heard the rumours before I moved here. Juliet didn’t look like the demon they made her out to be. She was always well-groomed, her straight, shoulder-length hair perfect, her clothes and nails matching. Her face settled naturally into a smile. Only a trusted few, and I counted myself among them, got to see that there wasn’t some horrible beast waiting underneath the calm veneer to confirm all the whispers.
Juliet smiled, her eyes crinkling at the edges, but her voice was brisk. ‘We certainly are. Could you show us to the body?’
The younger officer flinched, her hand flying to her mouth. She must be new. More experienced officers learnt to school their expressions to indifference even when faced with the worst things a human being could do to another.
‘It’s a mess, this one,’ the older officer said.
He patted his partner’s narrow shoulder and turned on his heel. The grey hair receding from his forehead twinkled with droplets of water as he led us over to another taped-off section of forest.
‘Can you tell us what’s been established so far?’ I asked.
‘We’ve marked the victim’s flight path.’ He pointed over at the long stretch cordoned off to our right. ‘The ground was churned up, but we’ve had the groundskeeper helping. Guy knows his stuff.’
A tall man stood talking with another couple of uniformed officers. His light brown hair rose in a tangled mane around his head. He wore a knitted jumper under a long green coat, both patched and worn. All colour was leached from his face in the early morning light.
‘Apart from that, we’ve got the body and where the shooter might have been standing.’
‘Are forensics on their way?’ Juliet asked.
‘They’ve been delayed, won’t be here for a few hours. Something else has cropped up.’
‘Right.’ Juliet pursed her lips. ‘Can you keep a scene guard up until they arrive, and manage the log?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The uniformed officer looked faintly offended that she thought he might do anything else.
‘I’m sure you’re handling things until they get here.’ I pulled my notepad out of my pocket. ‘Can you tell me what you’ve ascertained so far?’
The officer stopped in front of the next round of tape, turning his back on it. His knuckles were white around his radio, like a toddler clutching compulsively at a security blanket.
‘Looks like the girl was chased by an animal through the forest. A big dog, probably. We have both sets of prints.’ He paused, considerate of my hand racing across the paper. ‘I can’t tell you much about the victim. She’s Black, in her teens maybe. Couldn’t get at any ID without disturbing the body. From the look of her clothes, she’s not a runaway or living rough.’
‘Thank you.’ I ignored Juliet’s foot twitching on the spongy ground. ‘Anything else?’
‘There’s no sign of the animal but there’s lots of tracks and evidence.’ He ran a hand through his hair. A drop of displaced water trickled down the side of his face and trembled on his stubbled chin. ‘Like I said, it’s a mess. You’ll see for yourself.’
He held up the tape and gestured us through. I tucked away my notepad as I dipped underneath, my stomach clenching. Confronting a dead body was never a pleasant task, but one described so consistently as out of the ordinary was bound to be its own special brand of grim. The officer let the tape snap into place behind us and strode over to his partner.
‘Was that necessary?’ Juliet picked her way across sprawling ivy and clumps of withering flowers.
This had been a point of contention since we’d worked our first case together. ‘You know I like to hear from officers on the scene.’
‘And what exactly did you learn that you couldn’t have figured out yourself?’
‘Nothing this time, but one day.’
Juliet grinned, slipping her slender fingers into a pair of crumpled plastic gloves. ‘One day, they’ll amaze us both.’
‘Exactly.’ I breathed into my gloves before tugging them on.
We’d reached the inner cordon. Inside, a body lay crumpled at the base of an oak tree. Juliet held the tape high, all signs of levity wiped from her face.
‘Talk me through it. What do you see?’
I set my muddied boots on unmarred patches of moss, swallowing the tightness in my throat. ‘There’s a lot of disturbance on the ground. Confused footprints, animal and human.’ I looked up at the tree, rather than at the body. This wasn’t standard protocol, but I needed a moment. I pointed through the branches. ‘Looks like there’s blood further up. Maybe she climbed the tree before she was shot.’
I glanced over my shoulder. Juliet stood beside the tape, her hands burrowed inside her coat and her grey eyes fixed on me. Her face was expressionless, so I hadn’t gotten anything wrong yet.
‘There’s blood spatter on the trunk up there.’ The bark was stained inky red, impossible to miss in such large quantities. ‘Looks like she fell from the tree and hit branches on the way down.’ I lowered my arm, following her progress. The wood was splintered and broken.
‘She climbed the tree because she was pursued?’ Juliet asked.
‘Presumably. Forensics will help us get a clearer picture.’
I pressed my lips together and took a few short steps over to the body. It lay awkwardly on its side. I had to stand a metre away to avoid the surrounding blood and broken branches. Even approaching from behind, I could tell the uniformed officer hadn’t lied; it was a mess.
‘Looks like she was shot three times in the back. All went straight through, if the damage to her clothes and amount of blood is any indication. If we’re lucky, the bullets might be lodged in the tree.’ I breathed through my mouth. ‘Black, female. I’d say late teens, early twenties, from her clothes.’
One of her arms was slung over her back, clearly dislocated. The fabric of her coat was slashed and torn, run through with blood and crushed leaves. I walked over to her other side.
‘Her face has been mauled by an animal.’ I crouched down and made myself look. The skin was torn, flesh pulled from the bone in wet chunks. Her black hair tangled behind her bloodied ears. ‘It looks like there are teeth marks around the worst areas. Most likely a dog. What other animal could do this around here?’
Juliet had mentioned wild horses as we drove over. This was the first time I’d visited the far edge of our patch that stretched into the north-east of the New Forest. I’d looked over at her, expecting the wry smile that accompanied her dry wit, but her face was set as she flicked through emails on her phone. I still wasn’t sure huge animals were allowed to roam free in this rustic place, but at least we hadn’t encountered any yet.
‘Let’s assume it’s a dog for now.’ Juliet approached on the other side of the body. ‘How long do you think she’s been here?’
I stood up. ‘Not long. Can’t have been dead for more than a few hours, but forensics will be able to give us a more accurate time of death.’
Small creatures had not yet made their homes in the broken flesh. I looked away from the victim’s face. Blood was so thick over her chest that it would have been impossible to tell the colour of her top if one shoulder of her coat wasn’t thrown back, revealing the baby-pink fabric. She’d landed badly, held on her side by the strange angle of her arms and splayed legs.
Juliet pointed at where the victim’s hip jutted from the ground. The bulge under her jeans was too square to be displaced bone.
‘Looks like there’s something in her pocket.’ Juliet glanced over her shoulder, but we were hidden by the thick trunks of trees. ‘Forensics are being too slow. We need to know who she is now.’
‘Juliet!’ I hissed, as she bent and edged her gloved fingers into the tight fabric.
‘Your lead has been temporarily rescinded.’ She worked her hand around to the right angle, careful not to move the body. ‘If anyone’s going to get bollocked for this, it’s me.’
I crossed my arms as she slid out a purple purse. Anyone else would be disciplined for such flagrant disrespect of an active crime scene. Juliet might be too, but it didn’t affect her. She carried on working either way, and her track record made anyone think twice before taking serious action against her.
She retrieved evidence bags from her coat pocket. Before she dropped the purse into one, she unzipped it and pulled out a card.
‘This is Melanie Pirt. Seventeen years old.’
I looked down at the body as Juliet sealed the evidence bags and wrote on the outsides. Melanie Pirt. How did she end up here?
With each step away from the body, the muscles in my shoulders unwound. We walked over to the two uniformed officers we’d spoken to before, whose hands were clasped around steaming cups. Their mouths dropped open when Juliet held out the evidence bags.
‘Give these to the forensic team when they get here. I extracted them from the victim, Melanie Pirt’s, pocket.’
‘You touched the body?’ The grey-haired officer gripped the bags, pressing Melanie’s provisional driver’s licence into the clear plastic.
‘We generally do that to figure out who they are,’ Juliet said.
I winced but covered it up with a cough. That wasn’t strictly true. No other detective would dare touch a body before forensics had gone over it.
‘Do you want us to inform the family, ma’am?’ the female officer asked, recovering quicker than her partner.
‘Actually, we’d like to do that later.’ It was always helpful to note their reactions. I nodded over her shoulder at another cordoned-off area. ‘We’re going to take a look at where the shooter was standing now.’
The younger officer fell into step beside me, leaving her colleague behind. No doubt he was creating excuses for when the forensics team arrived. Juliet would, quite fairly this time, get the blame.
‘What can you tell me about this area?’ I asked.
‘There’s shell casings and footprints, one of them very clear. Doesn’t look like the killer went over to the body. Far as we can see, they shot from a distance and left. We’ve taped off as far as we could track the footprints into the forest. They didn’t head towards the manor or any other outbuildings.’
I pulled out my notepad and the uniformed officer waited while my pencil scratched across the paper. Juliet peered at the cordoned-off area, then walked over to the groundskeeper.
‘Sorry, ma’am. That was rude, before.’ She smoothed a non-existent strand of escaped hair back into her neat, black bun. ‘I’m PC Alice To, and that’s PC James Knowles.’
‘Not a problem.’
I crouched to look at the boot print inside the cordoned-off area. It was a perfect indentation. Big, probably belonging to a man. We’d know more once the forensic team made a cast. I couldn’t see the shell casings, but I trusted they were there.
I straightened and made a note about the boot print. Behind Alice, Juliet tapped at her phone and the groundskeeper loped away along the well-used path.
‘You’ve done good work here today, Alice.’ I wrote down her and her partner’s names. ‘Is there anything else that might help with our investigation?’
‘No.’ Alice bit her lip. ‘She must have been so scared.’
My stomach lurched. I shoved my notepad into my pocket to hide the tremor in my hands.
‘It gets easier,’ I said.
It was a kind lie.