As they emerged on to the open moorland, Annie paused and looked back. ‘Sure you’re up to this, Zoe?’
She knew there was no way Zoe would say anything other than yes. But she felt she ought at least to ask. Annie had seen the expression on Zoe’s face as they’d pulled in off the road, sensed the tension in her body language. She’d worked with the other woman long enough to know this wasn’t straightforward squeamishness.
Zoe was looking around her as if seeing the landscape for the first time. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit preoccupied, that’s all. Nothing important.’
The rain had set in overnight and was still falling heavily, whipped by a strong wind from the west. Both women were clad in heavy waterproof jackets, but Annie could already feel the rain seeping into her clothing. ‘Bloody miserable one. Difficult to believe you can see for miles on a clear day.’
Today, much of the landscape was lost in a haze of mist and rain. Annie could see how the land dropped away across the bleak moorland before them, but she could only imagine the resulting vista of fields and moors and the further dark hills beyond. Chatsworth House would be somewhere to their west, the land around them largely part of the Devonshire estate.
‘To be honest, even on a clear day the place gives me the creeps,’ Zoe said.
Annie had never thought of Zoe as the imaginative type. That was one of her strengths, certainly compared to Annie herself. She was pragmatic, down to earth, pretty much unfazed by anything life might throw at her, up to and including the discovery of a severely mutilated body.
It was true that, on a day like today, this was a desolate place – just miles of empty, rain-soaked, windswept grassland, potentially concealing God knew what kind of secrets. Then there were the cairns and stone workings that dotted their immediate surroundings. Annie supposed it wouldn’t take much imagination to sense some kind of energy being channelled through this place.
The crime-scene tents were barely visible through the driving rain and thickening mist. ‘You reckon Tim’ll have a cup of coffee waiting for us?’
‘From what I’ve seen of Tim,’ Zoe said, ‘he keeps his coffee flask jealously guarded. I sometimes wonder if it’s just coffee he puts in there.’
‘Tim could have any number of secrets. We’d never know.’
They trudged across the wet grassland towards the tents. Crime scene investigation seemed to grow more thorough and complex with each case, and an incident like this would have had the works thrown at it. They’d been here for the best part of thirty-six hours and weren’t likely to be finished yet. As Annie proceeded past the police cordon, a uniformed officer who’d been sheltering in the lee of the tent jumped up as if to demonstrate he hadn’t been dozing on the job. He slowed as he recognised the visitors.
‘Afternoon, Robbie,’ Annie said. ‘Couldn’t you have arranged a bit better weather for us?’ She knew PC Robbie Normanton a little from previous jobs, and remembered him as young, bright and enthusiastic. The sort of copper who was likely to progress, assuming that was what he wanted.
‘I put in a request for sunshine, but you know how it is,’ Normanton said. ‘You looking for Tim? He’s inside in the dry.’
‘Of course he is. That’s why you need to make sergeant, Robbie. Then you could be inside in the dry too.’
‘One day.’
Tim Sturgeon had obviously heard their voices, and his face appeared through the tent flap. ‘Afternoon, ladies. Come to join the fun?’
‘As long as you’re having fun, Tim. That’s what matters. Are we safe to come inside?’
‘Feel free. The body’s gone and they’re done with all the forensic stuff. I’m still kitted up but only because I get a kick out of wearing a white suit.’
They followed him into the tent. As Tim had said, the body had been removed and the only sign of its former presence was a dark area of blood staining on the undergrowth. A couple of white-suited CSIs were performing some aspect of their arcane procedures at the far end of the tent, but the main work had obviously now been completed. The senior CSI, a man called Danny Eccles, walked over to join them.
Annie knew Danny well. In her experience, CSIs tended to fall into two main types. Some were gloomy and lugubrious, their manner suggesting that their minds were haunted by too many dark experiences and thoughts. Others, like Danny, were cheerful and apparently light-hearted. Annie had no idea which was the saner reaction to the job, but she knew which type was easier to work with. ‘How’s it going?’
‘We’re more or less done. Just taking a few more photos now the body’s out of the way.’
‘You still think we’re talking about something ritualistic?’
Danny looked uncomfortable, as if he’d been challenged about an unfashionable opinion. ‘That’s just the way it looks. I was trying to describe it…’
‘It’s our job to work out the why and the how,’ Annie said. ‘I want you to tell me the what.’
‘The throat was cut. I mean, sliced open from ear to ear—’ He stopped and looked at Zoe. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be too graphic.’
Zoe looked more troubled than Annie had ever seen her. ‘You sure you’re okay, Zoe? Must have been a shock. It’s different when you know what you’re being called out to. For us just to stumble across it like that—’
‘I’m fine,’ Zoe said.
Annie knew better than to push it further. She was already regretting having asked the question in public. Danny’s intentions had been good, but Annie knew better than most that the last thing a female officer needs is anyone suggesting they might not be up to the job. ‘Go on, Danny.’
‘Like I say, the throat was cut. Then there were a series of incisions to the torso. It had been sliced with a sharp blade. Two vertical, two horizontal and four diagonal. Then a further cut around them. Like a target, I suppose.’
‘A target? So maybe not necessarily ritualistic, but perhaps some kind of message.’ She paused. ‘Which do you reckon was done first? The incisions or the throat?’
‘The doc will tell you for sure,’ Danny said. ‘But my guess would be that the incisions were first. There’d been a lot of bleeding from the wounds. I think the throat was cut afterwards.’
There was silence for a moment, disturbed only by the incessant drumming rain on the tent. ‘So the victim would have still been alive while the incisions were being made,’ Zoe said.
‘I’d have said so,’ Danny responded. ‘Like I say, I’m sure the doc will be able to give you a more authoritative view.’
For all his reticence, Annie had little doubt Danny would be correct. He was more helpful than some CSIs, who were reluctant to volunteer anything beyond a factual description of the evidence. Danny was prepared to offer you his best guess, even if heavily loaded with caveats. But his best guess was usually pretty accurate. ‘Do we think the victim would have been conscious at that point?’
‘Again, the doc can give you the medical view. But from the way the undergrowth was trampled, I’d say there were signs of a struggle. As if the killer or killers had been holding down the victim. There are also marks on the wrists and ankles that look as if they’ve been made by some kind of restraints. It’s likely he was conscious at least at the start of it.’
‘Christ,’ Zoe whispered. It sounded almost like the start of a prayer.
‘So we’re effectively talking torture.’ Annie voiced what they were all thinking.
‘Looks like it,’ Danny agreed.
‘Followed by a pretty savage throat-slitting.’ Annie felt as if she was saying the words just to hear them out loud. So the ideas wouldn’t be sitting, unspoken, in all their heads. ‘Any clues as to the victim’s identity?’
‘He was naked, as you know, so he didn’t have any convenient ID stashed about his person. But he’s got a few interesting tattoos.’
‘Interesting?’
‘There are rather a lot of them, for a start. He was clearly no stranger to the needle.’
‘Wonder how much that helped him when someone started carving into his chest,’ Annie said. She understood that Zoe had a couple of discreetly positioned tattoos, but for her own part she’d never seen the attraction. She had enough scope for regret in her life, without adding ill-advised body decorations to the pile.
‘Most of them were fairly conventional stuff,’ Danny went on. ‘But a couple rang alarm bells.’
‘Go on.’
‘A swastika was the most obvious. On his right arm.’
‘Of course on his right arm.’
‘Then the number eighty-eight on his left arm.’
‘Eight eight. Heil Hitler. Anything else?’
‘A couple of runic things I’m guessing have dodgy connotations.’
Annie nodded. In a way, the only surprise was that the tattoos included anything as blatant as a swastika. There was a whole range of coded phrases, numbers and symbols that carried meaning for those who understood their significance. She guessed part of the attraction, for those who chose to display them, was hiding your beliefs in plain sight. It no doubt fed their sense of conspiracy and victimhood.
‘One of our far-right pals, then,’ she said. ‘Of some variety, anyway.’ In practice, that might mean anything from a seriously nasty piece of work to some sad case looking for scapegoats to blame for his own failings. Or just some halfwit who thought these symbols were an appropriate fashion accessory. ‘Should help us identify him, anyway. He might be on the system, with a bit of luck.’ She turned to Tim. ‘Assume you’ve checked the surrounding area?’
She asked the question partly in the hope of getting a rise out of the always impassive Tim. His only reaction was to raise his left eyebrow. ‘I think we might have done, don’t you? Nothing in the immediate vicinity. No sign of a murder weapon. No sign of any further ID. No sign of his clothes.’
‘We’ll have to decide whether it’s worth expanding the search area. But I’m guessing we’re not likely to find much.’
‘Raises the question of how they got him up here,’ Zoe said.
‘Any idea how long he’d been here?’ Annie asked Danny Eccles. ‘Just roughly, I mean.’
‘Three or four days, at least, I’d say.’
‘They could have brought him up at night. Don’t suppose you’re likely to be disturbed up here. This is sufficiently far from the paths that the body might not have been spotted for some time.’
‘We’ve got statements from the guys who stumbled across it,’ Tim said. ‘They’d wandered over here to have a look at some of the cairns. But most people stick to the footpaths.’
‘On the other hand,’ Zoe said, ‘no effort was made to conceal the body. Somebody would have found it sooner or later. Which suggests whoever did this didn’t care too much about it being found.’
‘Okay,’ Annie said, ‘let’s leave these two to finish up. Thanks for the update, Danny. And you’ve done your usual grand job, Tim.’
‘I live to serve,’ Tim said.
‘You live for Friday nights,’ Annie corrected him. ‘Come on, Zo. Let’s brave the rain again and get things moving back at the ranch.’