in her early nineties. But there are people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties as well. In all the previous years, we only ever had two people found like this who were under sixty. One of those was a likely drug overdose, and another one was believed to be a suicide. All but one of the people this year have no apparent cause of death.’
‘You mean they’re just so decomposed, we can’t tell the cause of death?’ the man in the cardigan said. His voice was deep, sonorous, as though it came from some vast cavern within him.
‘Yes, partly,’ I said, warming to my subject now, ‘but also the majority of these people were found in normal places in their homes: lying on their beds, or sitting in their armchairs. In previous years we’ve had bodies found decomposed under a makeshift noose, for example, or in the bath, as though they might have drowned. Some of the incident logs aren’t specific about the location of the body, but, even so, there don’t seem to be many that we could put down to anything other than that they – well, that they just died.’
‘Sir, I did some work with Hampshire on the Rachelle Hudson case,’ Ellen Traynor said to Frosty. ‘It was quite strange at the time. It wasn’t just that she’d apparently chosen to withdraw from society; she seemed to have chosen to die.’
‘Chosen to die?’ DI Frost said. The whole room was silent.
‘Yes. There was no food at all in the house. Not a crumb. She was lying on the bed in the flat, very badly decomposed. The coroner couldn’t establish a cause of death but his theory was that she’d starved.’
‘Nicer ways to end it all than that,’ Mandy said.
‘Quite.’ Andrew Frost fell silent and studied the slide. I began to feel uncomfortable again.
‘I’m not sure if this is the right forum for this, really,’ he said at last. ‘If there was anything to suggest foul play…’
‘Only the unusual ages,’ I said. ‘And the fact that they all appear to have gone totally unmissed. You do get that sometimes with elderly people who are so afraid of being shipped off to a home that they actively avoid contact with the outside world, but not with younger people.’
‘Is this just our borough?’ Ellen asked then. ‘What about other parts of the county?’
I’d forgotten all about my last slide; I could have kicked myself. ‘That’s interesting too. I’ve got it on the next slide…’
Kate took her cue and pressed the button.
‘It’s a simple enough graph. As you can see, all the other areas are following similar patterns to previous years. Whatever it is that’s causing this spike, it’s only happening in Briarstone.’
They all stared at the slide. The woman from Social Services even had her mouth open. Frosty ran one hand through his short grey hair. ‘I’ll bring it up at the Force Tactical,’ he said at last. ‘See if anyone from Major Crime has any ideas. Can you email me your slides, Annabel?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘I’ll do it now while I’ve got them open, if you like,’ said Kate helpfully.
‘You coming?’ Trigger said to Kate, standing in the doorway with his coat on.
It was half-past three. Trigger had his own parking space owing to a slightly dodgy hip (which curiously didn’t stop him fell-walking, his favourite weekend and holiday pastime), and Kate usually cadged a lift with him back up to the Park and Ride.
‘I’ve got stuff to do, Trig,’ she said. ‘Thanks anyway. See you tomorrow.’
I looked at her in surprise. Normally, once the tactical presentation was over for another fortnight, she was so worn out with the effort that she’d leave extra early.
‘Frosty emailed you yet?’ she asked, when Trigger had gone. The station had fallen quiet; even the tannoy hadn’t had anything to say for the last hour or so.
‘Yes,’ I said. He’d emailed me about an hour before, but I’d been too upset and frustrated to say anything.
‘And?’
‘He said they won’t even look at it. Apparently they said they’ve got enough to do with all the actual crimes they’re investigating.’
‘Told you.’
Her response wasn’t exactly helpful, but at least she was showing an interest in it, even if it was just so she could be smug.
‘This force is too obsessed with meeting Home Office targets,’ I said. ‘Everything’s about disposals and sanction-detection rates. If they can’t clear something up, they’re finding a way to pretend it didn’t happen or wasn’t a crime after all.