Dead To Me - [6]

‘They covered her up,’ Gill said. Wondering about that, whether it was a question of a perverted sense of respect or plain fear. It’s an instinctive response to hide a body, hide and run. There hadn’t been a duvet on the bed. Did the killer stop to fetch it? Wasting precious moments? No cover on the duvet. Gill could see patches of blood where it had soaked into the fabric along the top edge; there were older stains too, and the polycotton material was bobbled with use. Didn’t look as though the thing had ever been washed. She could see the pieces of foil under the coffee table, the small plastic tube, the lighter. Knew laundry wasn’t high on the priority list for a druggie.

When Ranjeet arrived he began by making an assessment of the scene as he found it. And agreed with Phil Sweet and Gill that the duvet should be tape-lifted for any potential forensic evidence before it was removed. Once that had been done and everybody was satisfied that they had thoroughly documented the scene as it was found, it was time to lift the bedding. A CSI took each end, aiming to remove the article as carefully as possible and cause minimum disruption. A CSI provided a large evidence sack for the duvet, sealed it and allocated a reference number.

Gill got her first good look at their victim. She wore an open, kimono-type housecoat, which was rucked up beneath her. A bloody incision marked her left breast close to her sternum and ribbons of blood had flowed from there down her side on to the floor. Blood on her right hand too, which lay on her belly. Nails bitten down. The housecoat was a floral design: white background with blowsy vivid pink-and-green flowers on. No knickers. She didn’t have much pubic hair. Not shaved, Gill thought, just immature – a teenager. Her hair was two-tone, partly covering the left side of her face, a bad bleach job growing out. Her mouth and nose were peppered with pimples. A row of silver-coloured earrings edged each of her ears; they made Gill think of the clasps they put on paint tins to keep the lids on. Her left arm was twisted at a peculiar angle, the hand forced under the forearm and pressed up against the strut at the base of the coffee table. Gill thought she’d probably hit the table as she’d fallen.

Ranjeet made notes in his smart phone and the CSIs got busy with the cameras.

‘Penetrating wound between the ribs,’ Ranjeet said, ‘massive blood loss. I suggest we tape-lift the body and swab in situ, then undress the body; rest post-mortem. We can move the table now.’

Gill stepped away, went to the window, looking out at the back, a tiny yard walled by broad, horizontal planks for fencing. Perfect climbing territory for a house burglar, but this girl had nothing worth taking. Unless somebody came to steal drugs. The telly in the corner by the window wasn’t a flat screen but an old monster, impossible to move without transport.

As they moved the table, the victim’s left arm slumped, gravity pulling it down, unfolding. ‘No sign of rigor,’ Gill said. If the body was still pliable and there were no obvious signs of decomposition, it meant the time of death was recent. Rigor came on a few hours after death and lasted for between one and three days, depending on the external conditions.

Ranjeet continued his examination. ‘Wound to the left arm,’ he pointed out, ‘probably defensive.’

Gill squatted down, careful not to get her feet in the puddle of blood congealing around the girl’s torso. The cut was a couple of inches below her wrist, along the edge of the bone. ‘The weapon?’ Gill asked.

‘No sign,’ said one of the CSI guys. Gill looked at the cut and at the tattoo that braceleted the girl’s wrist in gothic script. ‘Who’s Sean?’ she said.

‘Boyfriend,’ Phil supplied.

Ranjeet took the body temperature. He nodded at the result. ‘Thirty-five point nine, still warm.’ A CSI began the process of placing and removing tape on the girl’s body and then taking swabs from the mouth, nose and vagina.

Gill and Phil discussed what further actions should be taken to retrieve crime-scene evidence, among them recovering the remaining bed linen from the bedroom.

‘Undress her now.’ A large plastic sheet was placed to the side of the dead girl and then the body was lifted as carefully as possible and laid on it. The CSIs removed the housecoat, the back of it drenched in blood, and put it in an evidence bag.

‘We’ll be ready to lift her soon,’ Ranjeet said. The stretcher and the body bag were prepared. Any further examination of the body would be done at the mortuary as part of the post-mortem; they wouldn’t turn her over here and risk destroying evidence.

So, Lisa Finn, thought Gill as she prepared to leave, what the hell happened to you?

4

THERE WAS ALWAYS that buzz when they picked up a job. A spurt of something in the gut, a kick-start to the heart. ‘You’re a ghoul, Janet,’ Ade had said to her one time.

‘I’m a detective,’ Janet said, ‘this is what I do, this is what I’m good at. We find the bastards, we get them sent down.’

The DCI had asked Janet to do the death message and to take Rachel with her. The worst thing about delivering the bad news was the sheer unpredictability of the reaction you got. One woman laughed, another threw up. Some people simply refused to believe you, arguing the toss, insisting that so-and-so was fine, they had seen them last night, they’d spoken to them on the phone. You had to sit them down and spell it out in big fat letters: D.E.A.D. Repeat it until they stopped blethering on: