An hour later, I was sitting on a swivel office chair with a blanket around my shoulders, sipping lukewarm tea out of a chipped Jolly Jungle Crazy Golf mug, while Detective Lyons stared angrily at me. Police officers and forensic teams swarmed across the golf course, stretching yellow tape over the crocodile and photographing everything.
“Tell me again,” Detective Lyons said slowly, “why you decided to come here?”
“I was trying to help,” I said quietly.
“I told you to sit tight while we handled this.”
“You call this handling it?” I hissed, pointing to the body bag being hauled onto the green.
Several officers turned to look at us.
“Gwen, listen—” Lyons started.
I held my hand up to stop him. The last thing I needed was a lecture. I closed my eyes and all I could see was Josh’s hand, covered in splashes of deep-red blood. The only dead body I had seen before was my dad’s, lying still in a hospital bed, and that wasn’t very frightening. Just horribly, heart-achingly sad. But Josh’s stiff, crooked fingers looked like those of a bloody, broken doll.
“Whoever did this obviously wanted the body to be found, Gwen,” Lyons said, more softly this time.
It occurred to me that Lyons was probably quite used to murder. He must think about them all day—well at least from nine till five, anyway. I actually had no idea what hours a junior homicide cop worked.
“They wanted me to find it?” I asked, my voice beginning to wobble.
Lyons shook his head. “Anyone could have found it. Now, focus, this is important,” he said. “Did you see anyone else on the course when you came in, anything suspicious?”
“Just the guy in the booth,” I said. “No one else.”
“Okay. We’re talking to everyone who works here and checking the CCTV,” Lyons said. “Someone must have seen something.”
I nodded and sipped my tea. Lyons knelt down next to me.
“It doesn’t exactly look great that you were at the scene,” he said in a low voice so the other officers couldn’t hear.
“What do you mean? I was at work all morning, the body was in the fucking crocodile, how could I…” I tailed off.
I could feel tears welling up behind my eyes. With everything that had happened, it was only just dawning on me that these circumstances might make me look a teeny bit, well, guilty.
“We’re still ascertaining exactly when and where he was killed,” Lyons said, still quietly.
“The blood was still pouring out of him!” I cried.
The officers looked round at us again.
“It’s possible the body was hidden somewhere previously, and the killer placed it on the course at some point last night,” Lyons said.
“Oh, right, so you’re saying I dragged a dead, bleeding body onto a crazy golf course in the middle of the night, then turned up this morning so I could be here to find it? Is that what you reckon, Detective? I think maybe you need to ask for a refund on that training program.”
“Gwen, slow down, what I am trying to explain is—”
“Don’t bother,” I said, standing up. “I need to go home.”
I was shaking, and on the verge of crying, but I didn’t want him to see it. I needed to get away from this horrible place and home to Sarah.
“Sit down, this isn’t over,” Lyons said. “This is a major investigation. We have a team in Lewes working round the clock on this now. The Met wants to get involved. We need to know where you are at all times.”
“Why, so you can make sure I don’t murder anyone else?” I snapped.
Now all the other officers were really staring at us.
“It’s okay,” Lyons said gently, pronouncing each word carefully. “No one is accusing you of anything. We just need to make sure you’re okay.”
“Fine, I’ll be at home, I think you know where that is, don’t you?” I said, and defiantly downed the rest of my tea.
“I’m sorry, Gwen, I really am,” he said. “But we’re going to need you to come to the station and go through a few things.”
I looked at him, trying to work out if this was just excellent police aftercare, or this was some sort of low-key stealth arrest.
“Do I have to?”
“I think it would be best if you did,” said a voice from behind him.
I looked up to see the pug-faced DCI Forrester looming above Lyons, and my heart sank.