well after death.”
Jonah thought back to the extensive flooding that had hit the New Forest—what, four years ago? “So she didn’t drown,” he said.
McCullough gave him a level look. “She might have drowned.”
“All right.” He gave her a small smile. “But she was also, separately, submerged. And you haven’t found evidence of drowning.”
“No, but don’t rule it out until I’m sure.”
“Noted. Anything else at the scene?”
“Assorted buried items that we’re searching through. There’s likely to have been some previous contamination of the site, and there are items that might have been carried in by floodwater. So far, nothing exciting. Potato chip packets, a crushed beer can, a rubber ball, some unidentified plastic remnants. No weapons. So nothing for you to get hopelessly excited about. Sorry.”
Jonah shook his head, thanked her, and let himself out of the morgue. He felt a mixture of relief at the natural light outside and discomfort at the sudden arrival of sticky heat. He met Hanson on the stairs, files held to her chest a little self-consciously. It looked like she was still working on the docks investigation, which was pretty committed when there was a murder to excite them all.
She turned to walk up the stairs with him. “Chief’d like an update.”
“I’m on my way.”
Hanson nodded, waited a few steps, and then said, “Is it definitely a murder?”
“It looks likely.”
“Was she shot?”
Jonah glanced at her, slightly startled by the question. “Possibly. No sign of it so far. But more significantly, she was found alongside the remains of a stash of Dexedrine. So it’s possible that she overdosed, but it’s also possible that she found something she shouldn’t have done.”
He saw Hanson’s small smile. The dilated pupils.
“So it might have been the other kids, either killing her or hiding her death.”
“Definitely a strong possibility.”
* * *
—
“FUCKING HELL.”
This in a complaining tone from DS O’Malley, oldest member of Jonah’s team, as the two Intelligence officers deposited four boxes of case files onto the table at the front of the briefing room. His slightly florid face was slack with surprise.
“Don’t use up all the swearwords just yet,” Jonah said dryly. “This is just the locally stored stuff.”
“No, this is the first load of the locally stored stuff,” Amir, one of the slightly awkward Intelligence staff, said, pulling at his tie. “These are from 1983. Then there are another five covering the years from ’84 to ’98, when it was officially declared a cold case. The more recent stuff—which from what’s logged on the system looks like it’s mostly disproved sightings and phone calls from the parents—is on the database.”
Lightman lifted a hand. “Sorry, but…’83? That’s—”
“Aurora Jackson, Ben. Missing person. Domnall’s probably the only one old enough to have heard of her.”
Amir excused himself, and Jonah glanced at his team. Lightman with his total calm in the face of this, as everything; Hanson and the eagerness that made her shift in her seat; and O’Malley, whose face was thoughtful.
Jonah pulled the plastic folder off the top of one of the boxes and opened it. The glossy-printed photo on the top looked strangely new. Aurora, smiling slightly crookedly at the camera in a school photograph. Blazingly beautiful in this picture, though Jonah could still remember her before she’d emerged from the chrysalis of childhood. He remembered the slightly chubby, frizzy-haired girl whose clothes were always a mess. The ugly younger sister of the girl everybody wanted.
He tacked the photo to the whiteboard.
“Seriously?” O’Malley glanced around at Lightman and Hanson. Hanson was wearing a slightly smug expression. She’d known the punch line. “That’s…it’s the biggest missing-persons case I can remember.”
“It’s no longer a missing persons.”
Jonah tacked a photo of the remains McCullough had dug up alongside the school photo. “Aurora’s body was found buried under a tree next to the river less than a quarter of a mile from the campsite. Buried with her are some foil packets of Dexedrine, and it looks like there might have been more.”
He saw Lightman taking notes on an A4 pad. He might as well have been writing a Christmas card for all the emotional reaction. O’Malley was sitting back, looking between him and the images, his lined forehead creased up further. Jonah recognized the expression. It was the struggle to match up snatches of memory with the reality of the find. A legend come to life. Except that she was in no way alive.
“I want us to acquaint ourselves with the original investigation in full. I want notes and a summary