The quiet was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek.
Rachel grabbed my arm, making the torch beam jerk crazily. Caught in the light, a seagull glared haughtily from inside a makeshift wooden cage.
‘Jesus …’ Rachel let go of me but stayed close.
I shone the torch around the bizarre scene in the room. Now the source of the noises I’d heard was explained. It was a kitchen, or at least had been. The encrusted sink was almost buried under filthy dishes and empty food cans, and the walls were stacked high with cages. Glowing eyes stared back at us from ancient bird and hamster cages, rabbit hutches and even an old fish tank. Most were occupied by seabirds, but there were small animals as well: rodents, rabbits, a hedgehog and even a young badger, all of them injured, some with splinted wings or legs. Inside the grimy oven, which was missing its door, a young fox watched us from behind a screen of chicken wire.
‘How can he have lived like this?’ Rachel asked in a hushed voice. ‘Wouldn’t somebody have known?’
Apparently not. Leaving Edgar’s menagerie to the shadows, we went back into the hallway. I shone the torch along its length, wondering if I should check the bedrooms upstairs next. I didn’t relish the prospect.
‘Wait, shine the torch back,’ Rachel said, pointing. ‘There, on the floor.’
Picked out like a theatrical prop in the beam of light, an object was lying by a half-open door.
A woman’s shoe.
It lay on its side, the ankle strap broken and the white leather mud-stained. I could hear Rachel breathing beside me, fast and tense. I shone the torch back on the doorway, trying to see through the gap into the room.
‘Stacey?’
There was no answer. Rachel stayed close behind me as I went down the hall. I thought about telling her to stay where she was, but I knew she wouldn’t take any notice. I put my hand on the door.
‘Stacey?’ I said again, gently pushing it open.
There were more cages in here, though not so many, and most of these were empty. A grubby tapestry hung on one wall, embroidered with the first verse of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. A large chesterfield stood with its back to the doorway, stuffing sprouting like fungus from the cracked leather.
A bare foot hung over the end. In the torchlight its toenails looked black, but I knew from seeing them in daylight they were varnished bright red.
‘Stay here,’ I told Rachel.
She didn’t argue, but I wasn’t trying to spare her. I knew from the unnatural stillness of the foot what I was going to find, and the fewer people who disturbed this place now the better.
I didn’t want to go inside myself, but I had to make sure. I took a few more careful paces into the room, until I could see what was on the sofa.
In the light of the torch, Coker’s daughter lay splayed and unmoving on the cushions. Her blond hair framed a face that was unnaturally swollen and dark. The open eyes bulged as though in surprise, the sclera shot through with broken blood vessels.
I shone the torch away, sickened. As the darkness hid her again, I took a few steadying breaths, shaken by what I’d seen. I’d known when I’d gone into the house that there was a good chance she’d be dead. I’d been prepared for that.
What I hadn’t been prepared for was that Stacey Coker was naked from the waist down.
22
BLUE LIGHTS STROBED the darkness, casting a sapphire hue on the underside of the trees that crowded around the old house. Police cars and trucks lined the lane leading to it, squeezed into the undergrowth at each side to leave clear access. Floodlights had been set up in the garden, if it could be called that, casting moving shadows of the white-clad CSIs against the dilapidated walls.
I sat sideways in the open door of a police car, my feet resting on the wet ground outside. The rain had stopped, but the damp freshness of the air was polluted by exhaust fumes from the cars and generator. The white Land Rover had gone and so had Rachel, led away to give her statement as more police arrived. I didn’t know if Edgar was still here or not. The last I’d seen of him was when he’d been taken from the Land Rover and put into a patrol car. His eyes were scared and uncomprehending as he stared at the bright lights and chaos transforming his home. As he shuffled past me there was a soft pattering sound, and I saw a growing wet patch spreading on his crotch. Even knowing what he’d done, I felt a stirring of pity.
Until I remembered the teenager’s body sprawled on his sofa.
I hadn’t given Rachel any details when I’d left the living room, but she’d seen enough from my face. It was a relief to go out into the fresh air and leave the squalor of the house behind, although the image of what I’d seen still burned in my mind. I would have happily left Edgar locked inside the Land Rover until the police arrived, except that there was still the small matter of calling them first. The mobile reception was as fitful as ever, and I’d no idea how far we’d have to go to find a signal. In the end we were forced to get back in the car and drive until I could make the call.
It was a tense journey. Rachel drove while I kept a watch on the gangling figure in the back as I waited for a signal for my phone. He sat placidly enough, but after what I’d seen it felt as if we were sharing the car with an unpredictable animal. One that was all the more dangerous because it seemed so harmless.
We didn’t have to go far before the signal bars flickered into life. Rachel and I both got out of the car while I phoned Lundy, not wanting to talk in front of Edgar. Late as it was, the DI answered. He sounded tired, and heaved a sigh as I told him what had happened, though without going into details.
‘Ah, Christ. How bad is it?’
I glanced at where Rachel was leaning against the Land Rover. She looked small and lost, staring at the ground as the wind ruffled her hair. ‘Very.’
Lundy told me to go back and stay outside the house until they got there. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to slip my arm around Rachel while we waited. She leaned against me wordlessly, and we stood like that until the first police car arrived. Lundy came half an hour later, by which time the house had been secured behind a flimsy barrier of flapping police tape. He stopped for a few words, asking if Rachel and I were all right. Then he went to talk to the CSIs and the rest of the crime scene team before disappearing into the house.
Rachel and I were separated shortly afterwards. No one suggested I leave as well, though there was no real reason for me to be there. Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t anything a forensic anthropologist could help with. Frears got to the house soon after Lundy. The pathologist’s smooth face looked puffy and pale above the blue coveralls, as though he’d not long been awake. He favoured me with a tight smile as he walked past, snapping on a pair of gloves.
‘Been keeping busy again, Hunter?’
I watched him disappear into the house as well. It was another twenty minutes before Lundy appeared in the doorway, his bulky shape recognizable even before he pulled down his hood and removed his mask. He stopped to speak with the crime scene manager, and I got to my feet by the police car as he came over.
‘You were right. Looks like she was strangled,’ he said without preamble. His face was red and flushed, with deep lines where the mask had dug in.
I’d expected as much from the dead girl’s congested features and bloodshot eyes. ‘How long has she been dead?’
‘Frears thinks between nine and twelve hours.’
That meant she’d been killed some time that afternoon. While I’d been getting jittery about dinner with Rachel, Edgar had been choking the life out of Coker’s daughter.
Lundy unzipped his coveralls and fished inside a pocket for a tissue. He blew his nose noisily before continuing.
‘There are other injuries as well. She got bruising on her head by her right temple, and there’s more on her torso. Probably from the crash rather than here.’
I nodded: she’d have been thrown about as the car had rolled, and the injury to her head was in keeping with her striking it ag
ainst the door of the car.
‘Does Frears think she was assaulted?’
The big shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘There’s no visible trauma to indicate it, but he won’t know for sure until the post-mortem. For her and her family’s sake I hope not, but you’ve got to assume the intent was there or she’d still be fully clothed.’ Lundy sighed again and shook his head. ‘Tell me again what happened.’
I went through the encounter with Edgar, including his agitated state and what he’d said when Rachel tried to question him. He listened without comment until I’d finished.
‘If Stacey Coker came out of the bend and found Holloway in front of her it’d explain why she went off the road. And if he saw the car headlights in the water he must have been nearby. They wouldn’t have stayed on long.’
‘Holloway?’
‘That’s his name. Edgar Holloway.’ Lundy looked at the floodlit house. ‘This is going to open up a whole new can of worms.’
‘Because of his daughter, you mean?’
His eyebrows climbed. ‘How’d you hear about that?’
I explained how Rachel had told me about the disappearance of Edgar’s young daughter. The DI rubbed his jawline with the back of a hand.
‘Must be what? Twenty-odd years ago now. The Rowan Holloway case was one of the first cases I worked on when I moved here. Caused quite a stir locally. Nine years old, went out one morning in the school holidays and didn’t come back. We never did find out what happened to her, although …’
‘Although …?’
He smiled, wearily. ‘I was about to say although her father was suspected at one point. He was home by himself the day Rowan disappeared, so inevitably he came under scrutiny. I’ll need to dig out the file, but from what I can recall the investigating officers marked him down as an oddball. Reclusive even then, didn’t like mixing with people. His wife worked in a shop in Cruckhaven, and I think he was a naturalist of some kind. Wrote text books for schools, or something like that. Thought nothing of letting their daughter wander off by herself in the Backwaters, so they got a lot of flak when she went missing.’
‘Was Edgar ever charged?’
‘No, there was never any proof, and her teachers thought the girl seemed happy enough at home. He had some sort of breakdown afterwards, as far as I can remember, and the investigation sort of fizzled out after that.’
‘Did his daughter have blond hair?’
‘Now you mention it, she did. But it seems a stretch to think he mistook Stacey Coker for his daughter just because they’d both got hair “like sunshine”, or whatever. Rowan was only nine when she disappeared. She’d be in her thirties now.’
‘I’m not sure Edgar would be capable of rationalizing it like that. And it was dark, so perhaps at first all he saw was the blond hair. That might have been enough for him to pull her out of the creek and bring her back here.’
Lundy dug in his pocket again and produced a packet of antacids. ‘Maybe, but that’s one for the psychiatrists. And if Stacey Coker reminded him of his daughter, it makes what happened in there even worse, wouldn’t you say?’
That unpalatable thought hung between us for a few moments. ‘You said earlier about opening a can of worms,’ I said. ‘You didn’t just mean because of Rowan Holloway, did you?’
‘No.’ He crunched down on a couple of antacids. ‘People are going to be asking now why Holloway was allowed to fall off the radar like he has. Social services are going to have some explaining to do, because he obviously shouldn’t have been left on his own out here. And after this we can’t ignore the possibility that he might be responsible for more than his daughter’s disappearance. This is going to stand the Emma Derby investigation on its head.’
Jesus. I rubbed my eyes, too tired to think straight. ‘You seriously think he could have something to do with that?’
‘God knows. But we’ll need to search every inch of this place. Inside and out.’ He shook his head, considering the shells and pieces of driftwood dotted like markers throughout the overgrown garden. ‘I don’t look forward to that. We’re not going to know if there’s any human remains under there without digging up the whole lot. It was bad enough with the dog’s grave at Villiers’ house, and this place is like a bloody pet cemetery.’
I hadn’t thought about that, but he was right. Aside from the tangle of shrubs and briars that would have to be cleared, the rotting animal carcasses buried here would confuse a cadaver dog.
But the mention of Emma Derby had reminded me of something else. ‘Has Rachel said anything about the motorbike?’
‘Not to me, but I haven’t seen her since she went to give her statement. What motorbike?’
I’d rather Lundy had heard about it from her, but he needed to know. I told him about the photograph of the gleaming Harley-Davidson on the sand dune, and how Emma Derby’s old boyfriend might have made a reappearance.
‘Let me get this straight, she’s only just noticed the sea fort now?’ he said, frowning.
‘She recognized the bike but thought it must be an old picture. And the fort’s hard to make out. It’s only because you can see it in some of the other beach shots that you can tell what it is.’
I heard myself sounding defensive. Lundy sighed. ‘And she’s no idea when it might have been taken?’
I shook my head, but he wasn’t expecting me to answer. He passed his hand across his face.
‘Wonderful. So what else did she say about this …’
‘Mark Chapel. Only that her sister knew him in London and he used to produce music videos. And he owned a Harley like the one in the photograph.’
‘Like it or the same one?’
‘I don’t know, but I didn’t want to ask too much. She knows we’ve found another body, and I didn’t want her making the connection.’
Lundy looked baffled. ‘Connection? You’ve lost me.’
‘Between the motorbike in the photograph and the biker jacket and boots the body from the creek was wearing.’
Comprehension spread across his face. ‘Christ, I’m getting slow. OK, I’ll need to take a look at the photo myself. And we’ll see what else we can find out about this Mark Chapel character. Might come to nothing, but we need to rule him out, if nothing else.’
He looked past me and straightened, making a visible effort to throw off his fatigue.
‘Here’s the chief.’
I turned and saw Clarke making her way between the parked police vehicles. Her pale trench coat was unbuttoned and flapped around her as she marched towards us. She looked tired and dishevelled, but mainly annoyed as she stopped in front of me.
‘Frears is still in the house, ma’am,’ Lundy said, resorting to formality.
She gave him the barest nod, but it was clear I was the main focus of her attention. The frizzy ginger hair threatened to escape from the plain black band that held it back as she glared at me, tight-mouthed.
‘Just so I’m clear, Dr Hunter, can you explain to me why you went in the house without calling us first?’
‘I knew there might be an injured girl who needed help.’
‘And you thought you were the best person to give it? Rather than, oh, say, the emergency services?’
‘The emergency services weren’t here. I was.’
‘So because of that you decided to contaminate a crime scene.’
My own patience was wearing thin. I was tired as well, and I’d spent the past hour replaying what I’d done, wondering if I could have prevented any of this from happening.
‘I didn’t know it was a crime scene when I went in. I was careful where I walked, I didn’t touch anything, and I came out as soon as I realized. So yes, I’m very sorry. But not as sorry as I’d be if I’d let someone die while I stood out here twiddling my thumbs.’
I realized I’d raised my voice. Lundy fidgeted uncomfortably as Clarke stared, the pale-lashed eyes cold under the ginger hair. Here it comes, I thought.
There was a noise from the house. A stretcher
was being carried out, the black body bag on it dully reflecting the flashing blue lights as it was taken to the black mortuary van. Clarke watched it for a moment, then sighed.
‘I need to speak to Frears.’
Lundy gave me a look that could have been either warning or reproach before he went with her. As they disappeared towards the floodlit house there was the sound of the black van’s door being slammed. I looked around to see a medic closing the other door as well, shutting the interior and its cargo from view.
I was driven back to the boathouse, but it was still after three before I got to bed. Even then I couldn’t sleep. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could still smell the unwashed animal odour of Edgar Holloway. And whenever I closed my eyes I could see Stacey Coker’s swollen face, the terrible stillness of the blood-red eyes. I lay awake through first the boisterous barking of the seals, then the gulls’ dawn clamour. The sky was already lightening by the time I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.
When my alarm woke me it seemed as though I hadn’t slept at all. After a long shower and a rushed breakfast I felt a little more human. Rachel didn’t pick up when I tried calling her, but she’d had a late night as well. I’d no idea what time she would have got back, and she’d have an unenviable morning breaking the news to Jamie.
Leaving a message to say I hoped she was OK, I drove to the mortuary. No one had told me not to, so until I heard otherwise I was going to carry on with my job. There was no sign of Frears, but he’d either worked through the night on Stacey Coker’s post-mortem, or would be preparing to carry it out that morning.
I didn’t envy him.
It meant I could work without interruption on my own, which suited me. Lan offered to help, but I assured her I could manage. Changing into scrubs and a rubber apron, I went into the cool and ordered quiet of the examination room and shut the door behind me with something like relief.
The overnight simmering had finished the process months of submersion in the creek had started. What soft tissue there had been left had now fallen from the joints and bones of the body from the barbed wire. I systematically removed them from the foul stew the detergent solution had become, then rinsed them off and set them aside to dry. It gave me the chance to examine the sternal rib ends, auricular surface and pubic symphysis, all bones that would help reveal how old this individual had been when he died. While I worked, I tried not to speculate too much about Emma Derby’s motorbike-owning former boyfriend. This could still be someone else, and the biker jacket and boots might be a coincidence after all.