breaking, ‘I can’t stop thinking about it – his hands on her – touching her – his disgusting disgusting –’
She breaks down now, and Somer moves quickly to her side, wrapping her arms around her as she sobs.
‘Whatever happens,’ she whispers, ‘I’m here. I’m here.’
* * *
It’s nearly 8.00 when the phone rings in the incident room. It’s the desk officer. Someone’s come in with information, he says. About the Sasha Blake case.
Quinn sighs audibly and looks round the room, but there’s no one junior enough to dump on. He hauls his jacket off the back of the chair and heads downstairs.
* * *
‘Ah, Sergeant, good of you to rejoin us.’
Gislingham closes the door behind him. ‘It was the boss. I had to take the call. I didn’t realize it would take so long.’
The body is on its front now, a sheet covering it from the neck down. The back of the head is a snarl of wet hair and gluey brain tissue, and near the crown of her head, a paler, rawer patch where the scalp is hanging away from the skull.
‘I thought as much at the scene,’ says Boddie, seeing his stare, ‘and I was right: quite a large quantity of her hair was pulled out. And it was done before she died.’
He moves further down the table and lifts the sheet, and even Gislingham, who’s no rookie, who’s done this many times before, has to turn away.
‘The underwear was missing, as you know,’ continues Boddie. ‘I’ve taken vaginal swabs, but I doubt they’re going to be much use.’
‘Because she was in the water?’ asks Gislingham, keeping his gaze fixed on Boddie. ‘Or because he was wearing a condom?’
Boddie shrugs. ‘The first, absolutely; the second, quite possibly.’
‘But she was definitely raped?’
Boddie makes a face. ‘All the circumstantial signs say so – the missing underwear, the scratches on her thighs. But without DNA we may not be able to prove it one hundred per cent.’
He looks down at the body and then at Gislingham. And then he pulls the sheet gently back in place.
* * *
It was worth shifting his arse down here, after all. The ‘informant’ in reception is about twenty-five, with a sleek auburn ponytail and a leather skirt that only just escapes the word ‘mini’. Quinn elects to ignore the knowing smirk from the desk officer and walks across to where the woman is sitting, staring intently at her mobile phone.
‘Miss –?’
She looks up and smiles. ‘Nicole. Nicole Bowen.’
‘I believe you have some information for us? About Sasha Blake?’
‘Yes,’ she says, still looking at him confidently. ‘I think I might have seen her.’
Quinn sits down next to her, gets out his iPad and starts to make an entry on the system.
She looks across, straining to see what he’s writing. ‘I thought policemen still used notebooks and manky old biros with chewed ends.’
‘Some do,’ he says drily. ‘But I don’t.’
‘You have single-handedly shattered all my illusions. TV crime shows will never be the same again.’
She smiles once more. She has her legs crossed and her fingers laced around one knee.
‘The sighting, Miss Bowen?’
‘I told you, Nicole,’ she says, leaning on the name. And leaning forward. He can smell her hair.
‘OK, Nicole. When was it that you saw Sasha?’
‘I think it was about two weeks ago. She was with two other girls.’
Quinn looks up, sits back. ‘That was ten days before she went missing. What made you think it’s relevant?’
She flushes. ‘Well, I just thought –’
His eyes narrow. What’s this woman playing at? Or perhaps it’s him she’s playing. ‘You didn’t see her at all, did you?’
Her chin lifts. ‘No, I’m sure I did –’
‘Who are you, Miss Bowen? Assuming, of course, that really is your name.’
‘I don’t know what you mean –’
He gets to his feet. ‘You’re press, aren’t you –’
She’s shaking her head. ‘No – I’m not – not in the way you think, anyway –’
He’s really angry now. ‘Don’t you know what you just did is completely unethical? Not to mention wasting police time, which I could book you for if I could be bloody bothered. But I am going to report you to your bloody editor. Who is it – who do you work for?’
She gets up and pulls a lanyard from her pocket. The thick plastic card shows her face, her name. And along the bottom, ASSISTANT PRODUCER, POLYMUS STUDIOS.
That stops him in his tracks. ‘You’re in film?’
She shakes her head. ‘TV, mainly.’
‘I’m not with you. What’s that got to do with Sasha