Not Dead Yet

cardboard you’ve now become, bitch?’
    She put the knife down, raised her hand making their special sign. ‘Secret fox!’

60
    Glenn was still thinking about Norman Potting and Bella Moy at 6.45 the next morning, as he made the now familiar left turn at the West Sussex Piscatorial Society sign and crossed the cattle grid. Ominous clouds were thickening overhead and he didn’t need the weather forecast on the radio to tell him a deluge was on its way. Rain was not good news for an outdoor crime scene.
    In the city, the uniform division called it ‘Policeman Rain’. The streets were always much quieter when it was raining, there were fewer street fights, fewer muggings and bag snatches, fewer break-ins, and fewer drug dealers lurking on corners. Villains did not like getting wet any more than anyone else. But for crime scenes, heavy rain was the worst news, because crucial evidence, such as tyre marks, footprints, clothing fibres and hairs could get washed away very rapidly.
    He was excited by Roy’s news last night that a head had been found. There was no guarantee it would turn out to be ‘Unknown Berwick Male’s’, but if his clothes were here, and it matched the limbs, then it was highly likely. And if they had the head, they might be able to get a visual identification of the victim, and failing that, identification through dental records. Quite apart from anything else, the swifter this investigation moved forward under his stewardship, the better it would reflect on him.
    It was strange, he thought. On all previous murder investigations he had been on, he – and every member of the enquiry team – developed empathy with the victims, and it became personal, a determination to bring the perpetrator to justice. But at the moment, although a man was dead, without knowing his identity he felt distanced from him.
    As he drove through the abandoned farmyard development, he was a little surprised not to see the big yellow SSU truck in situ – if they had found the head last night, he would have thought theywould have been out in force here from first light today, doing a fingertip search of the area around it. But it was possible they had been called out to an emergency operation somewhere else. The only vehicles here were a marked police car, its windows drenched in dew, belonging to the hapless officer on the last shift of overnight crime scene guard duty, standing forlornly in front of the tape, and a small blue Vauxhall Nova. It might be the Home Office pathologist’s, he speculated, but he would have thought that covering the mileage he did, and carting around his equipment, he would have had a more substantial vehicle.
    He pulled alongside it and, before switching off the ignition, checked the overnight serials on the car’s computer, to see if there had been any incidents logged that might have required the SSU’s attendance. But it had been a quiet night, just run-of-the-mill stuff. A car theft, two RTCs, a robbery at the Clock Tower, a smashed window at Waitrose, a boat set on fire at the Marina, two domestic fights. He climbed out and peered through the Vauxhall’s window, but the interior of the car looked as pristine and impersonal as a newly collected rental.
    He opened the boot of his car and struggled into a protective suit, then pulled on the gum boots he had brought, not making the same mistake as yesterday of ruining his shoes in the mire. Then he clumped his way carefully through the slippery mud of the track and up to the very young woman police officer, and held up his warrant card. Her name badge read PC Sophie Gorringe.
    ‘I’m the deputy SIO – everything all right?’
    She nodded and gave him a stoic smile. She looked in her late teens, and could have barely left college, he thought.
    ‘Long vigil?’
    ‘Two hours to go, still,’ she said. ‘Nicer since it got light – it was quite spooky when it was dark – kept hearing an owl.’
    ‘Whose is that car?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
    Sophie Gorringe was about to speak, when he heard a familiar chirpy voice behind him.
    ‘Mine, Detective Sergeant Branson!’
    Glenn recognized the voice instantly. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be on honeymoon?’ he said in dismay, as he turned.
    The twenty-five-year-old reporter from the Argus smiled smugly. He was thin faced, with short, gelled-back hair, wearing a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a narrow tie, and chewing gum, as ever. His face was nut brown, except