was up a slope, but even so a reasonably fit man carrying a body – assuming the victim was average size and weight – could probably cover that distance in six to eight seconds. Which didn’t make him hopeful about witnesses driving by and catching their killer in the act.
All in all, it was a good spot. Well-chosen. The best they could probably hope for was dash cam footage that might have caught any cars parked in the lay-by over the last couple of days.
Holt waited for him, his face alert with excitement, pointing further into the trees as he caught up.
‘It’s just down there,’ he said. ‘There’s a dip in the ground but you can’t see it until you’re virtually on top of it.’
‘The Thames Valley boys been all right about handing this over?’
Holt nodded. ‘No bother at all. They seemed happy about it.’
Gilbourne allowed the younger detective to lead, pushing through low bushes and stepping over logs rotting on the ground. The ground was muddy, the path slick with autumn rain and the air heavy with the smell of moss. About twenty metres from the road they reached another couple of uniformed officers, thumbs hooked into their stab vests at a cordon of blue and white police tape, the outer perimeter put in place to stop anyone else stumbling into the scene. There was no media presence yet, but with the number of police vehicles pulled into the lay-by behind them, it was only a matter of time. He made a mental note to give the force press office a heads-up when he was on his way back to the station later.
‘Did she disturb anything, the dog walker?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Holt said. ‘They’ve got her in a patrol car back at the lay-by.’
‘Did you ask her?’
‘I assumed the uniforms checked that with her, and they didn’t pass on anything to me.’
Gilbourne took out packet of Marlboros from his pocket and lit one with his Zippo, taking a long drag on the fresh cigarette. He had seen too many crime scenes messed up by over-zealous bystanders, putting their hands on the victim, contaminating good sources of DNA and trampling trace evidence into the ground in a misplaced effort to help. He’d even had one screwed-up scene where a guy tried to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a neighbour who’d been dead for more than twenty-four hours. That had taken some untangling.
‘Let’s not assume, OK, Nathan?’ He blew smoke upwards into the air. ‘Have another chat with her, double-check she didn’t touch anything or let the dog near the body.’
The younger detective took half a step away from the smoke and seemed about to protest, but decided against it.
‘You want me to do that now?’ he said.
‘In a minute. Let’s have a look at the scene first.’
Yellow and black crime scene tape was strung between trees to create the inner perimeter, a small square scene-of-crime tent at its centre. The tent’s flap was pinned open and they could see a pair of feet, one shoe on and one fallen to the side. Stepping plates had been laid on the ground to create a common approach path, leading away from the tent to the edge of the inner cordon. The plates – ridged metal squares that stood proud of the ground – didn’t follow the trodden path through the woods. Instead they went up and to the side, an awkward route that would have been chosen as the least likely to have been taken by the suspect, to prevent trampling of evidence by investigators.
Gilbourne could feel the tingling buzz as the pills started to kick in, lighting up his nerve endings, making everything sharper, clearer; the muted colours of the day that little bit brighter. Was it even the pills, or was it something else? The buzz of the scene, the mental challenge of putting the pieces together, the thrill of the chase? Maybe a bit of both.
He was going to miss this.
He nodded a hello to the lead SOCO, Fiona Whyler, as they approached. She was in white crime scene overalls, masked and hooded and with one booted foot on either bank of the small stream.
‘Stuart,’ she said with a small wave. She stepped back onto the near bank and made her way carefully along the stepping plates to the crime scene tape. She had a pale, milky complexion, a few strands of red hair escaping from the hood of her overalls. She smiled, crow’s feet crinkling at her eyes. ‘Thought