Chapter 3

 The sight of a corpse had never scared Charley; instinctively, she was aware the soul had gone. Perhaps it was the legacy of growing up on a working farm and spending time with her father at the slaughter house, which had certainly prepared her for post-mortems: the dead body a shell, another tool for the investigation.

‘Say goodbye, Charley.’ Jack had made her kiss the dead’s hands at family funerals; he always kissed them goodbye. ‘It’s the last chance you’ll get on earth to physically touch them,’ he said. When he saw Charley’s mother turn her nose up in disgust, he would have an argument ready for the more religious of the two. ‘Mary lovingly held her son’s body in her arms when he was returned to her from the cross.’

Funerals were the only other time Charley wore red lipstick, and when her beloved grandpa had died, she’d kissed his head and left an imprint of her lipstick on his silver hair. Mother said she was brave. Truth was, she was a realist.

It had been two hours since the macabre discovery. Charley stood beside Annie. The pair looked down at the body that had now been lowered to the ground.

‘D’ya know, I don’t think I want to be cremated when I die,’ said Annie, wrinkling her nose. Her eyes found Charley’s. ‘Tell me, who the hell in their right mind would choose to end up as a pile of ashes amongst the scraps of bone the fire doesn’t burn, eh? Nah, tell ’em to let the worms eat me up.’

Charley looked from Annie back to the body and considered the younger woman’s words.

‘But there’ll be blowflies laying their eggs in you before the maggots get their turn.’

Annie pulled a face. ‘Maggots before the worms?’

Charley’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yep, and stage-three maggots travel en masse – they’d have a good old attempt at eating you up before the worms even got a look in.’

Annie’s eyes were wide. ‘Really?’

‘And maggots generate a lot of heat, so they move around quite a lot to keep cool – in between eating you up that is.’

Annie swallowed hard. ‘Why’s that then?’

Charley was momentarily distracted as her eyes sought, beyond the upland solitude of the blanket peat expanse, the warmth of the red-roofed village that had been her home. She became transfixed by the ridge upon ridge of purple heather stretching as far as her eyes could see over moorland which held the deep, secret valleys she’d explored since her childhood. From experience, however, she was more than aware that all that glistened here was not gold and that, in just a heartbeat, this area of outstanding beauty, peace and tranquillity could morph into an unforgiving, wet, wild and dangerous place, even for those who knew it well. She turned to Annie.

‘Well, it’s a double-edged sword for a hungry maggot. If they stay on the edge, they’re more likely to get eaten by a bird, but if they’re in the centre of the decaying body too long, they might get cooked.’ Charley slowly turned towards her colleague as she spoke, to see Annie shaking her head as if dismissing the gruesome image that had just popped in. The younger woman lowered her head slightly. ‘I’ll bear it in mind when I do my final bidding.’

‘In the meantime, he’s gonna need some assistance,’ said Charley, pointing a gloved finger in the direction of the driver of the private ambulance, who was failing dramatically in his attempt to reverse the vehicle onto the moorland.

Annie scowled. ‘He’s got no chance, has he?’

Charley raised her eyebrows and slowly shook her head before tilting it to indicate that Annie should head over there.

Annie’s eyes were wide. ‘What, you want me to go help the grim reaper?’

‘Give the chap a break. That vehicle isn’t capable of driving over this terrain.’ Charley stuck the toecap of her boot into the rutted grass at her feet to illustrate the point.

Mr Grundy, dressed in a dark suit, a tie and a white shirt, got out of the vehicle and slammed the driver’s door shut. He held his head high and proceeded to stagger on the uneven path to the rear of the vehicle. He placed his soft hat upon his head. A shard of sunlight caught the highly polished black paint when he flung the back door open with purpose. As he walked towards them, Annie appeared to become transfixed with the little man. He had a large head and very short legs, which trotted him up onto the grass peaks, through ever-increasing levels of thick mud and over hidden sump holes, as he proceeded slowly over to them. He was holding a black carrier. It bumped against his legs, obviously too heavy for him.

Annie rolled her eyes at Charley. ‘Does he always walk like he’s got a broom handle stuck up his arse?’ Her facial expression became one of dislike as she took in the loud grumbling and groaning of the man trying to negotiate his way, clad in unsuitable footwear and shin-deep in the heather, over an unidentifiable path studded with rocks only too keen to trip him up.

Charley could see the dents appear at the sides of her mouth as Annie attempted to suppress a smile. ‘Just make sure he takes the feet,’ Charley whispered in Annie’s ear, pointing towards the dead body.

Her warning was met with a puzzled expression.

‘Sweet Jesus, please tell me it’s not messy,’ Mr Grundy said, followed by a huff and a puff. He stooped down to pick up the shoe from which his foot had become separated in the peat bog at the entrance to the inner scene. He raised the back of his hand to his round, red face, his forehead streaming with perspiration.

A loud shout alerted them to the arrival of two Operational Support vans, which now joined the static convoy and the private ambulance.

‘Saved by the cavalry!’ declared Annie, with a nod towards the suited and booted officers that quickly disembarked.

‘Indeed!’ Charley watched as, within minutes, the body was lifted from the scene, with the due care, attention and respect that a deceased person deserved.

Those accustomed to carrying people over rough terrain, whether dead or alive, trod the moorland with the minimum of effort, such was their fitness, ability and level of training. Mr Grundy tottered on in their wake, somewhat relieved and extremely grateful for their assistance. Arriving at the open door of the private ambulance, the transporters of the dead carefully slid the bagged body on its stretcher into one of the four airtight compartments.

‘Feet first,’ said Mr Grundy. ‘The dead must always travel feet first.’

‘Why feet first? whispered Annie to Charley.

‘It’s more practical. Dead bodies are liable to leak fluid out of the nose and the mouth. Believe me, if you’ve not experienced it yet, it’s not very nice. Keeping the head higher than the torso prevents it.’

Annie pulled a face. ‘So, if we’re carrying a body down steps, it’s always feet first?’

‘Most definitely.’

Annie looked puzzled. ‘So why has nobody ever told me that before?’

A moment later, Charley knew from Annie’s change of expression that the proverbial penny had dropped.

Neal laughed. ‘Because, they’d be quite happy for you to take the shit…’

‘Ah…’ Annie said, rather slowly, her eyes lifting skywards. Charley knew she didn’t need to explain that her more experienced colleagues would have found the situation highly comical.

‘Thanks for that. I’ll bear it in mind when I’m asked to help move a corpse.’

Wilkie Connor and Ricky-Lee joined them.

‘What you got to smile about?’ asked Ricky-Lee.

‘That I’m not in her shoes,’ said Annie, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the private ambulance, its doors still ajar.

Since the ambulance was mainly used for transporting corpses, its interior was plain, with steel ribbing forming the shell. The container shell itself had a rusty primer coat of paint.

‘Who’s going with the body?’ asked Annie, with about as much enthusiasm as she would have if she had been asked to suck eggs – she detested eggs.

‘Well, we’ll need someone to go with it for continuity purposes,’ said Charley.

Annie blanched, appearing to hold her breath, expectant. There was a pause.

‘But not you,’ Charley concluded. ‘I need you with me.’

Annie exhaled, her relief obvious. ‘Of course you do,’ she said, throwing a smile in Ricky-Lee’s direction.

‘Is that a yellow streak I see down your back, cowardy custard?’ Ricky-Lee chided. ‘Wilkie and I’ll go, ma’am,’ he said, raising his voice for all to hear. ‘I’ve an appointment in town at twelve.’

‘Is that with a sunbed or your face-lifter?’ Annie snapped.

Ricky-Lee flicked her a middle finger.

Raising her hand to subdue them, but enjoying their banter, Charley turned her back on the fractious pair. Disrespectful at a crime scene? Charley knew that if you didn’t ‘remove’ yourself from the macabre job in hand, you’d never cope.

The search team, that had gathered in groups discussing the job in whispers, silently awaited her instruction, eager to begin. With pointed finger and raised voice, Charley began to speak.

‘Ladies and gents, the immediate area where the body was is the inner scene, the outer being the graveyard extending into the two fields beyond. Use the natural boundary of the wall and hedgerow as the perimeter.’

The sergeant in charge of the POLSA team, Sergeant Richard Kay, was reassuring as he watched his officers go about their work. ‘If there’s evidence to find, we’ll find it for you, ma’am.’ His fluorescent coat ballooned behind him. The wind strength was such that most of the ongoing noise was stifled. He looked skywards at the low gathering of the clouds as CSI Naomi Clarke joined them. ‘Some clouds look like fluffy cotton balls, some warn us of approaching storms and others bring rain. I think we need to proceed as a matter of urgency,’ she said.

‘Remind me to get the pathologist to take nasal swabs for traces of pollen.’ Charley wrinkled her nose and spoke to no one in particular.

Naomi frowned. ‘Pollen’s unlikely at this time of year.’

Charley cocked her head at the CSI. ‘What is likely, is that we won’t be leaving anything to chance, will we?’ Charley’s eyes glinted like steel.

‘No. No, of course we won’t,’ Naomi replied.

Charley lifted her face skyward. Eyes closed, she felt a spot of rain on her cheek, then another.

‘Give me a fucking break, will you?’ she pleaded with the Hobgoblin.

The blanket of dingy white clouds rapidly thickened to the gloomiest shade of grey, peaking here and there in ominous, black thunderclouds. They drifted menacingly from the west, rapidly turning the moorland dark and dismal. The team worked frantically, hoping to secure what evidence they could.

It became hard to see where the distant hills ended and the sky began, except where an orange glow betrayed a house or two in the valley below. Then the rain came, softly at first, pattering gently onto the land. There was so much to do at the scene and so little time to protect the gifts of evidence they had been given by both the victim and the perpetrator.

‘Shit!’ Charley bellowed as, involuntarily, she ducked at the clap of thunder which made all in her sight line cower towards the ground. ‘What did I do to upset you, Hobgoblin?’

As if to mock her, the sky lit up with a zig-zag flash. There was a  precarious half-walk, half-run back to the vehicle, before the rain turned to hard, rippling sheets.

Charley and Annie sat side by side in her car, both soaked through, but Annie definitely the wetter of the two. She shivered.

‘Are there any aerial photos of the area on the database, Annie?’ Charley queried, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the rain on the roof.

Water, trickling from her hair, running down her face and dripping from the end of her nose didn’t deter Annie from her focus as she plucked her mobile phone from her pocket.

‘If not, I want the helicopter up to get us some, as soon as this damn weather allows,’ Charley said, looking upwards through the driver’s seat window. She shivered, suddenly chilled. She had forgotten how easily the cold could seep into her bones and sap her energy. The younger woman now appeared totally unaffected by the cold, the noise of the rain on the roof or the lightning that hit the ground directly in front of them, so intent was she on the job in hand.

While Annie spoke to Force Control, Charley sat looking out into the bleakness, listening to Annie’s cajoling and gentle persuasion. It was more than apparent that the things she was requesting would be sent directly. Charley considered the situation and began to feel that, actually, luck was on her side. Neal’s three-hundred-and-sixty degree filming of the scene, along with digital stills, had been secured – invaluable to her and the investigation. These would be used to brief not only the team members yet to be drafted on to the enquiry, but also the Home Office pathologist.

‘Done!’ Annie’s mobile phone was raised shoulder high in triumph. Her face was glowing. ‘What d’you want me to get on with next?’

Charley smiled. ‘I’ll liaise with the Coroner’s Office; hopefully the post-mortem will be done today. Next, we need to get the incident room established.’

The rain finally ceased and Charley wound down her window. Mist had engulfed the inside of the windscreen. A myriad of thoughts raced through her head as she recalled each police procedure she must adhere to. She rhythmically ticked off every stage one by one with a tap of a finger on her steering wheel while she waited. And waited. Her impatience showed when she took her handbrake off long before the windscreen was clear. Automatically she clicked onto full beam. Looking in her rear-view mirror, she saw nothing but a dark moorland abyss. She put her foot on the accelerator and had travelled only a few metres forward when a dark figure suddenly appeared in front of the bonnet. Charley shouted and immediately slammed her foot on the brakes.

‘What the fuck?’ Annie squealed.