‘It’s over here.’ Karl walked ahead of us, my car disappearing behind trees as we trekked deeper into the forest. ‘I talked to the forensic team after I called. They were packing up, but I caught them before they left.’
‘That’s great,’ I said. It was much easier to get them to look at something while they were still in situ. ‘Thank you.’
‘How did you find the dog?’ Juliet asked.
Even in knee-high boots, she easily kept pace with Karl. The light was fading, so we used the torches on our phones to find our way. Karl walked confidently through the gloom.
‘I was out with Monty and Delilah,’ he said. ‘Monty started whining at something off the path, so I went over to have a look. Someone tried to bury it.’
Karl seemed unbothered by discovering two bodies in the forest where he walked every day. That could be indicative of guilt, or a chronic lack of it.
‘Did you move anything?’ Juliet asked.
‘Yeah.’ Karl stuck his hands in his coat pockets. ‘I couldn’t tell what it was until I moved some of the stuff. Could have been a dead badger, we’ve had those before.’
‘It’s fine,’ I reassured him.
Juliet raised her eyebrows at me. It wasn’t ideal, since we would have trouble telling if any of Karl’s DNA on the dog was from uncovering it or killing it, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘Just tell the forensic team exactly what you moved and they’ll take that into account,’ Juliet said.
‘I already have.’ Karl trudged on. ‘But like I told them, if it’s DNA you’re worried about, mine would have been all over the dog anyway. So would Mr Dunlow’s, Leo’s too.’
Juliet turned to me again, her eyebrows even higher. I wasn’t sure what she was communicating. Karl seemed incredibly upfront. He might have been cagey before, but I chalked that up to unwillingness to talk about his past. I didn’t think he’d told us the issues with DNA because he was protesting his innocence. He had much simpler ways of ensuring he wouldn’t be considered a killer. Namely, not calling in either body and letting them rot out here.
Juliet slowed, drawing back from Karl. ‘David is working this case.’
I grimaced. ‘I’ll take the lead here as well?’
‘Yes, please.’
David Rees was remarkably good at his job. He was also an arsehole. A stickler for the rules, he’d never gotten on with Juliet. Things had only deteriorated between them after he asked her out and she’d rejected him. None too kindly, if witnesses were to be believed.
A forensic tent had already been placed over the dog’s body, along with flood lights. A generator whirred between trees. Juliet’s jaw tightened before she stepped inside the tent. I nodded at Karl then followed her, letting the fabric fall shut behind me.
‘David?’ I plastered a smile on my face.
He straightened up. ‘Stern. Martin. You were quick.’
The use of our surnames jarred. Angela hadn’t banned them when she became superintendent but had made her distaste clear. We weren’t part of some old boys’ club anymore, and should cast off the throwbacks we’d carried from when the force was. David got away with it because the forensics team worked on a strange, slightly separate plane.
His ginger hair was tucked into a white body suit; the only part of him visible the circle of his face. His angular nose was sprinkled with freckles. He was about Juliet’s height, so towered over me. A fact he might have taken more pleasure in if he noticed anyone other than Juliet whenever she was nearby.
A mound of twigs and leaves lay at his feet. Some of the covering had been cleared, presumably by Karl. Whiteish fur poked through brown leaves, discoloured and matted.
I pulled my notebook out of my pocket. ‘What can you tell us?’
‘Dead dog, probably the one involved in the attack.’ Whenever David looked away from the mound, his blue eyes weren’t on me. ‘Can’t tell you much until we bag up the debris but looks like it’s been dead for a couple of days. May have been killed the same night as the girl.’
‘How did it die?’ I leant forward to peer at the exposed parts of the animal.
‘You can see here.’ David crouched to point one gloved finger at an area of cleared leaves. ‘The fur is stuck together. We think that’s a gunshot wound.’
Brown leaves were caked around the furry body. I couldn’t tell what was going on underneath, but I trusted David’s expertise.
‘You okay to work on this tonight?’ I slipped my notebook into my pocket.
‘Sure.’ David stood, staring at Juliet. ‘Not like we have anyone waiting at home, right?’
Juliet’s face stilled, and she led the way out of the tent. I followed, not bothering to say goodbye. It wasn’t like David would have paid attention anyway.
About a year ago, a rumour had circulated that Juliet’s husband had left her. So David decided she was fair game. He couldn’t comprehend that she might not want anything to do with him, whether or not she was single. He definitely didn’t believe that she and her husband were still together, but her husband had moved their daughters out of the city and into a rambling farmhouse near Eastleigh. Juliet visited them at the weekends, when she could.
This happened before I moved here. Maddy filled me in on the personal histories of our colleagues. We didn’t think of it as gossip, more essential sharing of information. I was especially grateful when it came to Juliet. It wasn’t like she would volunteer any information about her personal life.
‘Odious man,’ Juliet said, once we were far enough away from the tent.
‘You okay?’ I checked.
Karl lurked at the edge of the glow cast by the flood lights. He braced his shoulder against a tree while he talked to Leo and another man so strikingly similar in appearance that there was no question of who he was.
‘It’s fine,’ Juliet said. ‘Let’s see what Leo has to say for himself.’
I accepted her dismissal. Juliet was more than capable of shaking off an unpleasant encounter and getting on with her job. We’d been presented with an ideal opportunity to speak to Leo without his father present. She wouldn’t want to miss that, even if David’s jibe about her lonely homelife stung.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said when we reached the group.
An older, slicker version of Leo smiled at us in a way that probably worked wonders on a lot of the women he encountered. If Terence had the same sight issues as his brother, then he wore contacts rather than allow glasses to partially obscure his face or deep brown eyes. His hair was styled into sculpted waves, the same auburn-brown as his brother’s. Leo hovered beside him, his head down.
Karl pushed away from the tree. ‘You got everything you need? I can walk you to your car.’
‘Terence Dunlow.’ He walked around the groundskeeper and extended his hand. His grip was firm, his palm smooth. ‘Karl tells me you’re the detectives on this case?’
Karl glowered behind the older brother. I nodded, tucking my hand in my pocket and wiping it on the inner lining. Terence’s hand wasn’t slimy, but I couldn’t help the uncomfortable sensation his touch provoked. It was the same with all men of his ilk; it bothered me that not a single callous had formed on his hands. He’d likely never done an honest day’s work in his life.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Gabe Martin. This is Detective Inspector Juliet Stern.’
‘Dreadful this happened here.’ Terence looked past us to the hastily erected tent. ‘Must have been a terrible shock for you, Karl, finding both bodies.’
The statement was cloaked in concern, but Terence’s eyes were hard. The groundskeeper didn’t bother to wipe the dislike from his face but jerked his head once in affirmation.
‘I’ll let you get on.’ One more fake smile aimed at us, and Terence turned to walk away. Like a tarnished mirror image, Leo moved with him.
‘Leo?’ I called out, before they could go too far.
He lifted his head for the first time. His glasses were wide, shiny points of reflected light.
‘Can I check? Are you sure you didn’t know Melanie Pirt?’
Leo blanched. Before he could answer, his brother’s hand clapped onto his shoulder. Terence wasn’t smiling anymore.
Leo swallowed, looking at the ground again. ‘No. I didn’t know her.’
‘Only her boyfriend, Jordan Haines, seems to think someone here knew her,’ I pushed. ‘He thinks someone was obsessed with her.’
In the corner of my eye, Karl shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. I hoped Juliet was keeping a close watch over him and could tell me whether that movement was prompted by impatience or interest.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Leo said. ‘I didn’t know her.’
‘Is that all?’ Terence didn’t wait for a reply before steering Leo towards the house. I assumed. It was impossible to tell what direction they were headed in the dark, crowded by countless trees.
I turned to Karl. ‘Do you mind showing us to our car?’
I only had a second to wonder if he looked wary before he loped along the path.
‘Good work,’ Juliet murmured as we followed. ‘That’s what pushing looks like.’ She tipped her head at Karl, just visible in the darkness outside of our torch beams. ‘You alright to do that to him too?’
‘Yeah.’
Pressing into Leo hadn’t been too bad, but the difference between him and Karl was vast. I believed Leo was hiding something and I wanted to irk his entitled older brother, whereas Karl was protecting himself. It would be a lot more uncomfortable poking into the parts of his life he didn’t want to speak about. An unspoken code existed between survivors of horrific things; we didn’t go delving into each other’s business without invitation.
But Karl wasn’t someone I’d met at a pub or support group. He was a suspect in a murder case. That overrode any squeamishness about prodding around in his past.
‘Is that everything?’ Karl asked once our car came into view, parked alongside his cottage. Loud yips and barks sounded from the barn. ‘I’ve not fed the dogs yet, so I need to head off.’
‘Just one thing.’ I kept my expression neutral, scrunching the silky fabric inside my pocket between my fingers. ‘Why didn’t you tell us about your parents?’
It was like I’d blasphemed in front of a nun. Karl’s head jerked back, his expression clouding. ‘Who told you about that?’
‘It’s all on record,’ Juliet jumped in when I waited a beat too long to answer. ‘Why didn’t you tell us about them?’
‘Because it has nothing to do with this.’ Karl’s hand shook so violently as he pulled his phone out of his coat pocket that it was a miracle he didn’t drop it. ‘Look, I’ve helped you out, but now I have to get on with my job.’
He turned and strode away, his face lit by his phone. I walked over to the car, my stomach clenching with guilt.
Juliet climbed into the passenger seat. ‘That went well.’
I turned the key in the ignition and pulled on my seatbelt to avoid looking right at her.
‘Leo is a lying cretin, I think we can agree.’ Juliet’s face was lit in the same way as Karl’s. ‘But Karl is a mystery. Was he pissed we’d uncovered the secret about his parents, or is he hiding something else and he doesn’t want us finding more ammunition against him?’
She didn’t seem bothered by my silence as we drove out of the estate and onto a narrow country lane. I drove slowly, wary of wild creatures leaping in the way.
Juliet didn’t have the same experiences as me, so there was no way she could correctly interpret Karl’s reaction when we’d slung his past at him like muck.
He hadn’t been pissed. He’d been afraid. Suddenly confronted with something he tried so hard to remove himself from, probably even rarely thought of. We’d returned him to the moment his dad swung the golf club and his world dissolved into screaming pain.
Juliet couldn’t see any of that, because she hadn’t lived through something traumatic and life altering. But I could. I would bet anything that if someone who lived on the Dunlow Estate had hounded Melanie and led her to her death then it was one of the owners, not Karl.