Beside a Narrow Stream (3 page)

‘Misadventure?’ she asked, but didn’t really think so. Already it had the feel of something much more nasty.

‘Doubt it,’ Partridge said at once, confirming it, and once more turned the head carefully, this time to the left. ‘See here, on the temple?’

Hillary saw. ‘He’s been bashed over the head,’ she said flatly. ‘Enough to knock him out?’

Partridge nodded. ‘Or at the very least, seriously stun him. But not kill him, I think. I still think we’re looking at death by drowning.’

Hillary swallowed hard, and rose to her feet, her knees aching a bit with cramp. It was possible the victim might have fallen and hit his head. But if so, how did he end up drowning in the stream? And did he manage to crawl away from the water and slump on to dry land before expiring? It hardly seemed likely. She stamped her feet to get rid of the persistent cramp and looked around. ‘So, someone met him here, hit him on the head, dragged him to the stream and held him down till he drowned?’

She glanced towards the stream and sighed heavily. Where the mud might have been kept moist by the water, and thus provide them with a set of the killer’s footprints, there was only a plethora of half-moon cuts, courtesy of cow-hoofs.

‘Frank, call out SOCO,’ she said absently, and saw one of the two officers nearby whisper something to his colleague. Probably DC Tylforth, saying ‘I told you so’.

‘Things aren’t all doom and gloom, we’ve managed to preserve some good stuff,’ Partridge said, nodding towards a middle-aged woman, who’d been taking photographs. ‘My assistant, Claudia Wright.’

Surprised, Hillary moved across to shake hands. ‘Ma’am,’ Claudia Wright said, glancing away shyly. She was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a plain white shirt. She was thin, with hardly any breasts, and had short, brown hair, which was probably why, from a distance, Hillary had mistaken her for a man. She seemed almost painfully shy for this job, and Hillary wondered what had led to her working for someone as
flamboyant
as Steven Partridge.

‘We bagged and tagged this,’ Partridge said, nodding towards a plastic evidence bag beside the body. Hillary frowned, walking across to it and peering down. Inside she could clearly see a large, flat, pale stone that had a tinge of
rust-coloured
stain on one side, and what looked like a few strands of human hair attached to it.

‘Shouldn’t you have left that for SOCO?’ Hillary asked sharply and Partridge held up a hand in a ‘peace’ gesture.

‘Claudia’s fully qualified and licensed,’ the medico said soothingly. ‘She was with me in the lab when I got the call out. I asked her to come. She’s used to field work.’

Hillary nodded, appeased. ‘Murder weapon?’ she nodded down at the evidence bag and Steven smiled.

‘I shouldn’t wonder. But until we get a DNA link to our vic, we can’t say for sure. What I can tell you is that the stone was also used to anchor something down on the vic’s chest. Claudia?’ he looked up, and the older woman nodded and, from her briefcase this time, produced another evidence bag. This time flat. Inside, was a single piece of paper. Red, and cut out in the shape of a heart.

Hillary blinked and stared down at it, a cold, icy feeling gripping the back of her neck.

This was nasty.

Very nasty.

Usually, people were murdered in a fit of rage; a father attacking the man who’d raped his daughter or run down his wife in a car. Drunks fighting after a night in the pub. Man-and-wife spats with a kitchen knife over who burnt the roast.

Less often, murders were committed with a bit more malice aforethought, and careful contemplation.

But never before had she investigated a murder where the killer had deliberately left a sign behind. Something taunting and triumphant. Or a signature.

Serial killers liked to leave signatures behind.

‘Oh shit,’ she said softly.

Instantly, she felt Gemma Fordham beside her, using her few extra inches of height to look over her shoulder. Gemma, too, drew in a breath sharply, instantly leaping to the same
conclusions
.

‘Bloody hell, guv, I don’t like the look of that,’ she said softly.

‘What? What’s up,’ Frank Ross demanded, crowding closer, never liking to be out in the cold when something tasty was
happening. ‘A red paper heart? Big sodding deal,’ he snorted, turning away.

Keith Barrington, the only one not to crowd around her, frowned thoughtfully.

Steven Partridge got to his feet and peeled off the rubber gloves he was wearing. He shot her a sympathetic look. ‘Well, once SOCO have done their thing, you can move the body. I’ve done all I need to here.’

‘Time of death?’ Hillary asked, before he could get away.

Steven pursed his lips and glanced around. ‘The
temperature
last night was pretty mild. Rigour’s only just passed. Rectal temperature was about as I’d expect if he’d died
sometime
between, say, seven o’clock and midnight last night. Mind you, that might be off either way if the body spent any time in the water, which is several degrees colder than the ambient air temperature. But I don’t think he did. The skin’s not puckered enough – no washer-woman’s hands on his face or exposed skin. I think the killer pulled his body on to dry land once the deed was done and simply left him there.’

He turned to look down at the good-looking young corpse at his feet. He shook his head. Somebody was going to have a very bad day today. He was somebody’s son, maybe husband, or even father. A handsome lad like him was bound to leave a distraught lover of some sort behind.

‘Thanks, doc.’

‘If the stone on his chest didn’t go in the water, and I don’t think it did, we might get some skin traces from it,’ Partridge continued. ‘Which’ll give you some DNA to work with, if you come up with a suspect. A rough surface like stone is almost certain to have rubbed off some epithelia.’

‘Any ID on the vic?’ Hillary asked, but Partridge shook his head. ‘I only did a very brief check of his pockets. Nothing obvious – no driver’s licence or even wallet. Last evening was lovely – a fine sunset. He probably just came out for a walk, didn’t think to bring anything with him. Also no car keys or
front door keys. There
was
a piece of paper in his shirt front pocket, but it got wet when he was pushed head first into the drink. I didn’t dare extract it before it can be dried out
properly
. You’ll have to wait to see what it says.’

Hillary sighed. ‘Right. So the first thing we need to do is find out who he is.’ She turned to her team. ‘Well, you know the drill. House to house, start with the cottages nearest, find out if anybody saw anything last night. Claudia,’ she turned to the medico’s assistant, who bobbed her head in
acknowledgement
, but didn’t make eye contact. ‘Can you take a couple of instamatic shots of the head please? None of the gore, perhaps side-featured. Something my officers can use to show people and help us get an ID?’

The forensic expert nodded, and reached into her shoulder bag for a different camera.

‘Everyone take a photo of our vic. He’s almost certainly local. Constable,’ she called across to one of the uniforms, who obediently trotted over. ‘I take it there’s been no car parked nearby overnight?’

‘No, ma’am. First thing we checked.’

She nodded. ‘Right, so he almost certainly walked here from Deddington. It’s a big village, and no doubt full of newcomers, but somebody’ll know him. A lad that good-looking won’t have gone unnoticed.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I’ll have a quick word with the two lads who found him. They still here?’

‘No, ma’am, we took ’em back to their homes.’

‘Bit upset were they?’

The constable, a short, lean man in his early thirties, smiled briefly. ‘More excited, I’d say, ma’am.’

Hillary smiled and nodded. ‘Well, better that than trauma, I suppose. You’ve got their addresses?’ She waited until he’d copied them from out from his notebook and took the sheet of paper he proffered. ‘OK, well get to it then, everyone.’

Gemma, Frank and Barrington peeled off to start house-
to-house
. ‘You’d better wait here for SOCO and the coroner’s van,’ she said to the uniform. ‘The body can go as soon as it gets here.’ She glanced across at Steven Partridge. ‘If you need a lift back, the van’s your best bet.’

The doctor grimaced. ‘I’ll be glad when the MG’s back on the road.’

It was Gemma Fordham who hit the jackpot first. The tenth house she tried belonged to an old lady who twittered and
fluttered
, but avidly looked at the picture of the dead body, and identified him at once.

‘That’s that Wayne Sutton that is,’ she said judiciously, nodding her permed blue head sagely. ‘Lives in one of them cottages other side of lights, near church. Bit of a lad, they do say.’

Gemma nodded and smiled. ‘Is that right? In what way?’ she asked chattily, settling down on the sofa, all ears. Thus gratified, the old lady promptly spilled her guts.

Hillary was talking to Marjorie Gould when her mobile rang. She answered it, surprised to hear her new DS’s voice. She hadn’t remembered giving her the number yet. Still, for someone as super-efficient as Fordham, acquiring it probably hadn’t represented much of a challenge.

Biting back the urge to snarl, Hillary smiled an apology at Marjorie Gould, and turned slightly on her chair, dropping her voice an octave. ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

‘Guv, the victim’s name is Wayne Sutton. He lives near the church,’ she gave the address, and carried on smoothly, ‘but his parents live on the other side of the village, near one of the farms.’ She rattled this off as well.

Hillary jotted it down in her book. ‘OK, got that. Well done and carry on,’ she said briefly, and hung up. She supposed she could have given her extra instructions but why bother?
Gemma Fordham obviously didn’t need them. The woman would probably have the case solved by teatime and they could all go home.

She turned back to Jaime’s mother and smiled again. ‘Sorry about that. You were saying that you had a coffee morning planned…?’

She listened as Marjorie Gould explained her reasons for turfing out her son that morning, whilst the boy himself sat listening, wide-eyed and enjoying himself. When it came to his turn, he related everything that had happened that morning with childish relish, and Hillary thought, probably also with extreme accuracy. He was, she’d noticed, an intelligent lad and, like most children, had a gift for observation.

When she left the house a few minutes later, she didn’t feel the need to interview Tris Winters, sure that his version would tally exactly with his friend’s.

Instead, she stood on the pavement, underneath a
pink-flowering
ribes bush, alive with buzzing insects, and dialled Keith Barrington’s number. It was answered quickly, and in the background she could hear a man’s voice asking him if he wanted a cup of tea.

‘Huh, no thanks, Mr Phillpot. Hello, DC Barrington.’

‘Keith. The victim’s name is Wayne Sutton. I want you to start a time line on him as soon as you can, tracing his
movements
from yesterday morning onwards. Get over to his cottage and start interviewing neighbours.’ She quickly rattled off the address for him.

‘Guv.’

She hung up and took a long, deep breath. Well, there was no putting it off. She needed to get over to the Suttons. Since their son was renting his own accommodation, they probably didn’t even know he’d been missing all night. Let alone that anything was seriously wrong.

Breaking the worst possible news to anxious relatives who knew that something was up was bad, but at least they’d had
the chance to prepare themselves psychologically for tragedy. Bearing bad news that came like a bolt from the blue was much worse.

Grimly Hillary got into her car and drove to the other end of the village, feeling like the messenger of doom.

H
illary parked in front of a small, two-up, two-down cottage opposite a large and smelly farmyard, and wondered if Mr Sutton senior actually worked on the farm, or was simply renting what was, or had once obviously been, a cowman’s or farmhand’s tied cottage. The white-painted front gate opened on to a no-nonsense concrete path that led straight to a front door, painted a deep cream with a brass knocker.

Hillary walked slowly up the path and rapped the brass ring, noticing the granny’s bonnets and peonies growing in profusion in the tiny front garden. Blue forget-me-nots frothed over the concrete path, and in one corner a flowering japonica ran rampant. The door was opened by a middle-aged,
well-padded
woman with long blonde hair fast going grey. ‘Yes, luv, can I ’elp you?’

‘Mrs Sutton?’ Hillary asked, showing her ID card. ‘DI Greene, Thames Valley police.’

‘Aye, I’m Claire Sutton. What’s up? My Davey can’t have done anything wrong. He’s home with the summer flu,’ she said, half-smiling, but a darkness in her eyes told Hillary that the woman already knew this call was not about her husband.

‘May I come in please, Mrs Sutton,’ Hillary asked gently, hoping the woman PC family liaison officer she’d radioed in for would be here soon. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

Claire Sutton swallowed hard but nodded and stepped to
one side. She was wearing dark blue leggings and an
extra-large
T-shirt with a cartoon Tasmanian Devil picture on it. ‘Go on straight through to the living-room. Davey’s laid out on the sofa, but there’s arm chairs. I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

And before Hillary could stop her, the woman had darted off into a tiny kitchen leaving Hillary to make her way
reluctantly
to the only other room on this floor. A spiral wooden staircase, set against the living-room wall allowed access to the rooms upstairs. Since the cottage was tiny, she was not surprised that their son had moved out at the first chance he got. Or had the Suttons been living elsewhere when their son had still been in the nest?

‘Hello.’ The hoarse voice came from the sofa, where a lean, flush-faced man was lying. He had a large, multi-coloured crocheted blanket over him, and beside him, on a small wooden table, was a tall glass of what looked like lemon barley water.

‘Mr Sutton? DI Greene,’ Hillary once more showed her ID, and sank down into the armchair Davey Sutton indicated. He sat up slowly, careful to keep the blanket around him, and from the quick glimpse she got of his hairy legs, Hillary guessed he was wearing little more than a vest and Y-fronts underneath. He coughed painfully and reached for his glass, just as his wife came through with a tray of tea.

‘Ah, something hot. Just what the old throat needs,’ Davey Sutton smiled, his voice little more than a croak. Claire Sutton sat down abruptly. She looked very pale.

Hillary glanced around the room, which was pretty
standard
. The furniture suite took up nearly all the space, and a large-screen television in one corner dominated the
cream-painted
room. Somewhat to her surprise, the walls contained two original oil paintings. Traditional landscapes, painted in baffling, eye-catching colours. Perfectly blue meadows, pale yellow skies, purple and orange trees. Each carefully painted to resemble a Constable-esque landscape, but the colours
jarred like a psychedelic nightmare. It was a clever concept, but to Hillary’s, admittedly untrained eye, it didn’t quite seem to work. The paintings made her feel jittery, and annoyed.

She pulled her gaze away from them and met Claire Sutton’s fearful eye. ‘They’re our Wayne’s. He’s an artist,’ she added. ‘A proper one. Earns his living at it and everything. They were some of his earlier works – done when he was still at art college. He wanted us to have them. Do you like them?’

Hillary smiled. ‘They’re very striking,’ she said, truthfully. ‘Mrs Sutton, Mr Sutton, as I said, I have some bad news.’

At this, Davey Sutton suddenly erupted into a coughing fit. He had thinning dark brown hair and large brown eyes, now red-rimmed from the summer cold that was shaking his lean form. He banged a fist on to his chest, hacked and hawked, and reached for his tea. He took a sip, then glanced at his wife, then at Hillary, then cleared his throat again.

‘What kind of bad news then?’ he eventually asked.

Hillary took a long, slow breath and decided to ease into it gently. ‘Have you heard from your son Wayne recently? I understand he rents a place on the other side of the village?’

‘No, not since last Thursday. He came over for some supper,’ Claire Sutton said. ‘What’s happened to him then? He crashed that fancy car of his? Always said it was too fast for him. Sports cars!’ she snorted. ‘What’s he want with one of them, I ask you. Is it bad? The crash, like?’ Her voice wobbled on the last few syllables, and wordlessly her husband reached across to take her hand in his and squeeze it hard.

‘He hasn’t crashed his car, Mrs Sutton,’ Hillary said gently, then added softly, ‘This morning, a young man’s body was found in a meadow by two young boys. An elderly woman has positively identified him as being Wayne, but of course, that was only from a photograph, and isn’t yet official.’

Claire Sutton blinked. ‘So it might not be him?’

Hillary shrugged, very gently. ‘We need someone to go to the mortuary and make a more formal identification,’ she
hedged, not exactly answering her question, whilst at the same time, giving the impression that it probably wasn’t a good idea to hold out too much hope. On the way over here, Keith Barrington had called in to say nobody was answering at Wayne Sutton’s cottage, and the next door neighbour was
positive
he hadn’t been in all the previous night.

‘Davey can’t do it, he’s ill,’ Claire Sutton at once.

‘Do you have any more children, Mrs Sutton? Perhaps Wayne’s brother or sister could do it?’ she suggested carefully.

‘Can’t. He’s our only one,’ Claire Sutton said forlornly, and began to cry.

The WPC came a few minutes later, and competently took charge. Within the hour, Claire Sutton and her mother, Wayne’s grandmother, who had driven over from her home in nearby Aynho, were on their way to Oxford to view the body.

With a small sigh of relief, Hillary stepped outside into the high noon heat and leaned against the fence. A blackbird, busy tugging worms from the lawn, cocked her a quick look, and flew off, cackling. From across the farmyard opposite, a woman watched her from an open doorway.

Hillary straightened her shoulders and walked over.

The farmer’s wife, a woman maybe a few years younger than Claire Sutton, watched her approach with pale blue eyes that gave away little. Hillary showed her ID card, and once again introduced herself.

‘Jenny Somerleigh,’ the woman nodded, making no move to invite her in. But the shade under her porch was nice and cool, and Hillary had had enough of sitting anyway.

‘Do you know the Suttons well?’ Hillary asked, by way of opening gambit.

‘Few years. We rented them the cottage back in 2002. Nothing wrong, I hope?’

‘There’s been something of a family tragedy,’ Hillary hedged. Whilst she was in little doubt about the identity of the
corpse, she had to be discreet for a while longer yet. ‘Any
problems
? They ever late with the rent, loud parties, anything of that sort?’

‘Nah. Mark didn’t like it when that son of theirs parked a tatty old caravan out the back, but then, you couldn’t see it from the front, and there ain’t no near neighbours either side to complain. But we was glad when he left, nevertheless, and they sold it on.’

‘I see,’ Hillary nodded. ‘The son any trouble? I hear he used to be an art student. They can be a bit of a handful.’ She smiled encouragingly.

Jenny Somerleigh nodded seriously. ‘Drugs you mean. And booze? No, nothing like that. Plenty of naked ladies though,’ she added, grinning widely, and showing a row of very badly kept teeth.

‘Really? I thought he was into landscapes,’ Hillary said, but supposed any young lad, given a legitimate excuse to stare at naked women all day long, was hardly going to turn up his nose.

‘Oh, I dunno about that. But I didn’t mean that he painted them,’ Jenny said, and grinned again. ‘Wayne’s too
good-looking
for his own good. And knows how to use the old charm. He liked more mature women – or so he always said. Know what I mean?’

‘Oh,’ Hillary nodded wisely. ‘Funny, his mother tells me he’s got a regular girlfriend. A woman a few years younger than himself.’

‘That pretty thing with long hair? Young, drives a battered mini?’ Jenny tapped the side of her nose. ‘Too poor for our Wayne, I’m thinking. But then, she’s young and pretty and he probably needed some relief from the rest of his blue-rinse army, as my Barry calls ’em.’

Hillary smiled. ‘Sounds like Wayne wasn’t exactly
monogamous
.’ And into her mind flashed the image of a cut-out red paper heart. A valentine? A cruel joke? Or a calling card that represented the very real anguish and rage of a female killer?

The farmer’s wife laughed again. ‘You can say that again.’ She seemed about to say something more, but just then the sound of a baby’s angry cry rang out behind her from the house, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly. ‘Look, sorry, gotta go,’ and before Hillary could say another word, took a step back and promptly shut the door in her face.

Hillary’s lips twisted wryly, and she wondered what else Jenny Somerleigh might have said and decided to come back for a return visit later. First, she’d try some more of the
neighbours
.

There were one or two cottages scattered far and wide on either side of the muck-strewn lane, but nobody was in at any of them, confirming her supposition that nearly all were rented out to workers who commuted either to Banbury, Oxford, or even further afield. Maybe Barry Somerleigh worked the farm alone?

She was just returning to her car when her mobile phone rang. It was the family liaison officer. Claire Sutton had confirmed the ID. Hillary thanked the WPC and rang off, opening her car door and then standing back as a wave of heat blasted out. She unwound the two front door windows and stood back outside the car, letting Puff the Tragic Wagon air a bit. Then, making a rare snap decision, she radioed HQ and got Gemma Fordham’s mobile telephone number, quickly entered it into her phone’s memory and hit
speed-dial
.

It was answered promptly.

‘DS Fordham.’ The deep, gravelly voice sounded alert and upbeat.

‘Gemma, it’s me,’ Hillary said, expecting to be recognized, and not disappointed.

‘Guv,’ Gemma Fordham said smartly.

‘I want you to leave off house-to-house and get back to HQ. Have a word with the PR Officer – I want you to do a radio broadcast on both BBC Radio Oxford and Fox FM, to catch
tonight’s commuter traffic, appealing for anyone to come forward who met or saw Wayne Sutton yesterday.’

It was throwing the new girl in at the deep end, but Hillary had no doubt she was up to it. Besides, she hated doing radio interviews herself.

‘Right, guv,’ Gemma said, totally unfazed, as if she did radio slots every day of the week. ‘ID’s confirmed then?’

‘Yes. I don’t usually go public so soon,’ Hillary said, then wondered why she felt the need to explain herself to her new, super-efficient DS, and carried on, a bit more sharply, ‘but the crime scene’s too far out of the way to make any witnesses to the actual event likely, and I need to get any interesting worms to come out of the woodwork as soon as possible. And from something one of the Suttons’ neighbours told me, I think there are plenty of worms of the female variety about who could tell us a thing or two.’ And, she thought silently, given that red paper heart, it would be interesting to see which women volunteered to come forward, and which had to be winkled out.

‘Right guv,’ Gemma Fordham said, and waited for Hillary to hang up first. When she did, she put her phone away
thoughtfully
, and allowed herself a small smile. The boss either trusted her with the radio appeal, or else wanted to give her enough rope to hang herself. Either way, she was obviously making an impression.

Then she felt the smile fall from her face and gave herself a mental kick. Making an impression was not exactly what she was there for. If she was going to get that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow she needed to be unobtrusive. To fly below the radar, to watch, listen and learn, then nip in and out again and be off before anyone could wonder why.

Damn it, she was going to have to keep her need to impress and outshine Hillary Greene firmly in check.

Oblivious to the glories of the late spring day around her, Gemma Fordham walked quickly back to the crime scene, and
got a lift back to HQ with a patrol car, already planning the radio appeal in her head. Quiet, calm, concise. Nothing flashy but enough to get the job done.

That was going to be her motto from now on.

Monica Freeman, the victim’s girlfriend, lived in a small block of red-brick flats overlooking a large car park in the nearby market town of Banbury. According to Claire Sutton, she worked as a trainee veterinary nurse at a practice in town, so Hillary wasn’t particularly surprised to find no one in at the flat. It didn’t take her long to walk back to her car or track down the surgery.

The Fairways Clinic was situated not far from the famous Banbury Cross, in a small, fairly new-looking industrial estate. Hillary parked in a surprisingly spacious car park and made her way to the clinic doors, feeling the sun beat down on her back and make a trickle of sweat run down her
shoulderblades
. Inside, a large black-and-white cat was yowling from the depths of a carrier-cage, and an excitable Jack Russell pup, wearing what looked like a lampshade around his neck, barked at the cat like a thing demented.

Hillary walked over to the reception desk and, low-voiced, asked if she might have a quiet word with Monica Freeman. She showed her ID card yet again, and the receptionist, a little wide-eyed, left the desk and moved quickly into the back, where something was whining pitifully.