Necessary as Blood

After a quarter of an hour the woman said, ‘I think that‘s all we can do without disturbing the upper remains. But fortunately the lower body was a bit to one side, so I think you can get some idea of what we‘ve got.‘
    Kaleem knelt down again and peered in. ‘There‘s a hand and forearm visible. From the size, I‘d say they belong to a child. And there‘s hair. Long, and dark. So I would guess, given the suspect‘s history, that this victim is female.‘
    ‘Oh.‘ Gemma drew in a breath as an added weight of sorrow descended upon her.
    The little girl had stopped appearing in the window, not because she‘d been passed on to another man, but because she had died.
    ‘Was the girl there longer than Sandra, do you think?‘ she asked Kaleem.
    ‘Can‘t say for certain without tests, but it looks as if decomposition is a little more advanced. There‘s no lime over these deeper remains, however, so decomposition might have progressed more rapidly.‘
    Gemma frowned. ‘Why no lime over the girl, I wonder?‘
    ‘Maybe the girl‘s death was an accident,‘ Melody suggested. ‘He got too rough with her, or... well, anyway, whatever happened... maybe he just took advantage of the work in progress.‘ She gestured at the garden.
    ‘And, then, when it came to Sandra,‘ continued Gemma, ‘he must have figured that what had worked once would work again. But he had to put her body closer to the surface, so risked taking the time to get the lime. It was a Sunday, after all. He could just have driven to a garden centre that afternoon. He wouldn‘t have buried her until after dark.‘
    ‘It must have been back-breaking,‘ said Kincaid, without the least trace of sympathy. ‘I‘ll bet we find he took a few days off work afterwards.‘
    ‘But why didn‘t he bury Naz?‘ asked Gemma.
    ‘He was running out of room. And maybe the lime hadn‘t worked as well as he‘d thought.‘ Kincaid shrugged. ‘Or maybe he just didn‘t want to dig up his pavers again. But whatever the reason, it was a bad decision. If Naz Malik had disappeared without a trace, we might never have learned what happened to Naz or Sandra. Or this girl.‘
    ‘We found a pair of glasses, guv,‘ said the female tech. ‘Almost forgot, in all the excitement. They were under the shrubs, covered with some leaf mould.‘ She gestured towards the fill buckets, and Gemma saw a small evidence bag pushed to one side. She crossed the garden and picked up the bag, studying it. They looked just like the glasses Naz had been wearing in the photos on Sandra‘s corkboard.
    ‘I‘m certain these belonged to Naz,‘ she said. ‘Do you think‘ — she hesitated, hating the idea — ‘do you think he left them deliberately?‘
    ‘If Alexander invited him out here for a drink — and I wouldn‘t be surprised if the idea appealed to him, the twisted bastard‘ — Kincaid grimaced — ‘then kept him here, drugged, until dark, Naz might have had periods when he was conscious enough to realize what was happening.‘
    Cullen was shaking his head, not in disagreement, but in an expression that bordered on wonder. ‘Maybe that‘s what Alexander was looking for that day in the mortuary, when we thought he might have gone through Naz‘s effects,‘ he said. ‘He realized he‘d slipped up. But, my God, what a nerve.‘
    The enclosed space of the garden was beginning to bake in the afternoon sun, and the odour rising from the pit was unmistakable. Gemma stepped back until she stood partly in the shade cast by the house. She looked up at the dark brick wall. ‘What we still don‘t understand is what brought Sandra here that day.‘
    ‘They found a camera inside,‘ said the tech. ‘In the bedroom nearest the bathroom upstairs. There were some girls‘ trinkets in a drawer, and a folded sari. The camera was tucked underneath, in the folds of the cloth.‘
    Gemma imagined Sandra, driven by an impulse they might never understand, perhaps asking to use the loo, then darting across the hall for a quick look in the bedroom. Had she meant to take a photo of the sari, but tucked her camera beneath the silk when she heard Alexander coming?
    ‘Were there any pictures on the camera?‘ she asked.
    ‘I don‘t know, guv,‘ the woman answered. ‘But I don‘t think they‘ve sent it to the lab yet.‘
    ‘I want to see it,‘ Gemma said. She turned and went into the house, and Kincaid followed her.
    While he went upstairs, she waited in the kitchen, listening