The CSI appears at the entrance to the tent. She tugs back the hood of her white protective suit and wisps of dark hair dislodge themselves from her hair clip. Just like Danielle’s would on a windy walk, before everything changed.
Scanning the quay, she spots him and gives him the thumbs-up. He waves back. ‘They’re ready for us.’ He calls over to Trisha who is leaning against the wall of a takeaway, forking chips into her mouth, trying to chomp away the memory of Bill, no doubt.
She rolls her eyes. Interrupting mealtimes always makes her irritable and she hesitates, trying to decide whether or not she can save the chips for later, before reluctantly dumping them in the bin.
The crowd murmurs at their arrival, parting to make way for them, sensing they’re finally going to get to see something interesting. He can’t blame them. There’s something beguiling about the dead. Some of them. He swings the police tape over their heads. The PCSO nods his approval. No one questions the paramedics.
Climbing into the back of the ambulance parked behind the police cordon, he unclips the trolley and guides it off the vehicle and towards Trisha. Between them they lower it onto the ground and wheel it towards the white tent and the waiting CSI.
‘Hi, I don’t think we’ve met before, have we? I was on Major Investigations until recently. Most of our jobs were in the south of the county. I’m back on division so I guess we’ll be seeing a bit more each other. I’m Ally Dymond, by the way, the CSI.’ She looks down at her gloved hands, streaked with dirt. ‘Probably best if we don’t shake hands.’
‘Hi, Ally, I’m Trisha Wilkins and this is Simon Pascoe.’
‘Nice to meet you both. I just wanted to apologize for keeping you waiting so long,’ the CSI says, but she doesn’t mean it. She couldn’t care less that she’s kept them hanging around for hours.
‘No problem,’ says Trisha.
‘Great, well, we’re ready for you now,’ the CSI says.
Hoisting the trolley over the railings which surround the statue, they park it just inside the tent’s entrance, away from prying eyes, and follow the CSI inside.
‘She’s just round here.’
The CSI guides them around the base of the statue. In his peripheral vision, he’s aware of a pale, ribbon-like form on the ground, but he doesn’t dare look down for fear of how the sight might affect him.
The only other person present is the other CSI who is hovering on the steps below the statue like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He looks about fourteen, wet behind the ears and totally out of his depth.
The CSI turns to them. ‘There’s not much room in here so Jake and I will get out of your way while you move the body. If you can keep to the metal plates that would make our lives a lot easier.’
Trisha smiles.
‘Of course. No problem.’
The CSIs leave and it’s just the two of them.
‘Poor kid,’ mutters Trisha, heaving a sigh. ‘Come on, Si, let’s get this done.’
He nods and finally glances down.
There she is, draped across the stone steps, exactly where he left her.
* * *
Jake worries me. At first, he’s quite chatty and our conversation flows, but after I task him to photograph Janie’s body it trickles to nothing.
That’s fine. He needs to concentrate. He gets one chance to photograph the body in situ and he can’t afford to mess it up. He checks and rechecks the camera screen ensuring he’s photographed her from every conceivable angle, but, by the time the paramedics remove Janie’s corpse, he’s slipped into one of those silences that long-in-the-tooth CSIs like me know to avoid.
We return to the CSI van with armfuls of brown exhibit bags and I search for something neutral to say, anything to drag him back from whatever dark hole he’s fallen down.
‘So, did you go to uni?’
‘Yeah. I did Photography. What about you? Did you go?’
‘For a while.’ No need to mention an unexpected pregnancy and subsequent arrival of Megan cut short a Materials Science degree at Oxford. ‘So why come here? It’s not exactly a crime hotspot. It could be years before we have another murder.’
‘I couldn’t be anywhere else. I love surfing. If I’m not at work, I’m down at Morte Sands.’
‘My favourite beach. Terrible signal, too, so there’s no chance you’ll be interrupted riding the waves.’ Jake forces a smile. ‘Seriously, it’s good to have interests outside your job. It’ll keep you sane.’
‘So, what are your interests?’
The question throws me. When Megan was young, I used to take her up to Exmoor where we’d photograph whatever wildlife crossed our path. The ponies mostly. Now, unless there’s a purchase at the end of it, she won’t walk further than a few hundred yards.
‘My teenage daughter, I guess.’
‘Sounds like a full-time job. My sister, Beth, is nineteen. She still runs rings around Mum and Dad.’
He smiles at the thought of his younger sister, but it’s a smile tainted with something else – fear. Crime scenes resonate most when we identify with the victim in some way. I’m guessing Beth is small and blonde. Like Janie.
Jake glances back at the tent.
‘Photographing that girl freaked me out a bit. When I first saw her, for a minute, I thought it was—’
‘But it isn’t Beth,’ I cut him off for his own good. ‘It’ll never be Beth. If nothing else she’s got her great big ugly brother to look out for her.’
My efforts to lighten Jake’s mood fall flat, but at least it switches his focus.
‘Who could do that to another human being?’
‘The list is longer than you’d think, but I wouldn’t dwell on it. You’ll send yourself mad. Or worse, it’ll affect how you do your job.’
He smiles at my lame joke.
‘Yeah, you’re right, but doesn’t it make you angry?’
‘Which part?’
‘That the boyfriend’ll get a cosy prison cell, Sky TV, drugs delivered by drone, and all paid for by us.’
‘Assuming it’s him.’
Jake loads his bags into the back of the van.
‘We should do what the Americans do and give him a lethal injection.’
A popular sentiment in cop circles, but not one I share even though I’ve spent my life elbow deep in other people’s depravity. Maybe I’ve just seen enough death to know that more death never fixes anything.
I’m about to steer the conversation towards the safe territory of last night’s television when we’re interrupted by voices loud enough to outdo the gulls in concert overhead. At the police cordon, a woman is gesticulating wildly in front of an unmoved Cobb.
‘Why won’t you let me through? I’ve a right to know what’s going on.’
Her cheeks are stained with dark rivers of mascara applied that morning when she thought her daughter was still alive. This is Sue Warren, I realize, Janie’s mother. I’ve seen her before at the hospital the first time Janie was beaten up by her boyfriend.
‘Just tell me, is it her?’ She pleads with Cobb, but her anguish makes no impression on him. He really is a prize prick.
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of the case.’
Jesus, the man is never at liberty to do anything.
‘Someone told me it was my Janie. She’s not answering her phone. I just want to know. Is it Janie?’
Her daughter’s name is swallowed up by sobs that shake her body.
Cobb looks down at her, like she’s just vomited on his shoes.
‘You need to call the station and speak to Detective Inspector Bob Holt.’
Sue looks up, eyes flashing with fury.
‘I just want to know if it’s her.’
She tries to dodge Cobb, but he’s too quick for her. His long arms wrap themselves around her torso.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
‘Get off me. You’ve no right to stop me. She’s my daughter.’
But Cobb has her clamped in his arms. I know what’s coming next. He has no power to arrest her so he’ll call for back-up, tell the cavalry he’s been assaulted and she’ll be bundled into the back of a cop car and whisked into custody. He has form for it. Sure enough, holding Sue Warren with one arm, Cobb reaches for his radio.
‘Shit, take these.’ I thrust the brown exhibit bags at Jake and race over to the cordon.
Throwing the crime scene tape over my head, I grab Cobb’s arm.
‘For Christ’s sake, let her go, Cobb.’
Had it just been the three of us, I’ve no doubt Cobb would have swotted me aside like a wasp, but even an idiot like Cobb knows a crowd of witnesses when he sees one. He releases Sue Warren, which both confuses and calms her.
‘Come with me, Sue.’
Taking her by the elbow, I steer her behind the CSI van, out of sight from the crowd.
‘My name’s Ally. I’m not a police officer. I’m the crime scene investigator.’
Sue’s sobs subside to chest-filling breaths.
‘It’s her, isn’t it? It’s my Janie.’
There’s no way to sugar-coat this.
‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
‘Where is she? I need to see her.’ She pleads with Jake and interprets his helpless stare as refusal. ‘You can’t stop me. I’m her mother. I have a right.’
I slip my arm around her shoulder.
‘Sue, she’s gone. They’ve taken her to the mortuary.’
‘But she needs me.’
‘I know, and you’ll be able to see her. I’ll arrange for an officer to take you. We’ll take good care of her, I promise.’
She looks at me and recognition seeps into her eyes.
‘You photographed Janie when that bastard beat her up, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘You warned her about him. She told me when I picked her up from the hospital that you’d begged her to leave him, that he wouldn’t stop, and now he’s gone and killed her.’
Her words spark a fresh flow of tears.
‘My baby gone, gone.’
She crumples into my arms. Her body heaves and shudders, her grief invading her like a virus, condemning her to terminally mourn the loss of her daughter. I hug her tightly.
‘It’s OK, Sue. I have you.’
Jake frowns at me as if to say, what the hell do you think you’re doing, this isn’t in the job description, but I ignore him. He’s right, of course. Our domain is the dead, not the living. But, in that moment, I’m no longer a CSI, I’m a mother.