The Boneyard: A gripping serial killer crime thriller. Mark Sennen
up here. No ID or anything like that. No obvious signs of trauma, but she’s wedged down in a deep crevice so we won’t know much about cause of death until we get her out.’ The CSI waved at a colleague a hundred metres away. ‘Look, you can go over there now. Keep between the strips of tape.’
Savage thanked the CSI and she and Calter went to get kitted up. Ten minutes later and they ambled up between the two lines of tape towards the distinct clusters of rock, the tallest twice the height of a man. Over by one, several white-suited figures worked in a line, circumnavigating the rocks like a giant clock hand. At the tor, an aluminium ladder leaned against a pillar of granite. Savage’s eyes followed the ladder upward to the top of the rock where another man stood surveying the view. Like the other CSIs he wore a white suit with bootlets and blue gloves. Unlike them he had a grubby Tilley hat perched on his head. As he turned his head he spotted Savage and raised a hand and tipped the hat.
‘Charlotte!’ John Layton’s voice boomed out across the hillside. ‘Come on over.’
Savage and Calter continued between the parallel tapes until they reached the ladder. Layton stood at the top looking down, his angular face silhouetted against the pale sky.
‘I’m pretty sure they didn’t come this way,’ he said. ‘So it’s safe for you to come up. But be careful, hey?’
Savage moved to the ladder and began climbing. At the top Layton offered a hand, but she scowled at him and stepped onto the rock.
‘I’m a woman, not a bloody invalid. What’s got into you?’
‘Sorry, I was only trying to help.’
‘Well don’t.’ Savage looked past Layton to a tripod arrangement with a pulley and a rope. The tripod straddled a crack in the rocks. ‘She’s down there?’
‘Self-evidently.’
Savage narrowed her gaze, trying to penetrate the gloom in the crack. Two metres or so down, a shelf of granite overhung a patch of bare earth. Sticking out from beneath the rock was a bare foot, mud and dirt on the sole, bright-red varnish on a toenail. Savage moved her head to try to see more. Sparkles came from a silver dress, another flash of light from something clutched in an outstretched fist.
‘A nail file,’ Layton said as Calter joined Savage at the crack. ‘Only I don’t think she was up here for a spot of manicuring.’
‘Self-defence, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘Which means this was no accident. And she’s not exactly dressed for a day on the hills, is she? Not dressed for anything much, to be honest.’
‘No.’ Savage glanced back to the car park, just a stone’s throw away. ‘What about a lovers’ tiff which got out of hand? They drove here for a smooch up on the rocks and something went wrong.’
‘A smooch?’ Calter smiled. ‘You’re showing your age, ma’am. I think people go in for more than smooching these days.’
Savage ignored Calter’s jibe. ‘This is surely too close to the road and too public a place to try and conceal a body.’
‘Might have looked different in the dark.’
‘True. But would anyone come here if they hadn’t already visited?’ Savage stood and turned to Layton. The crack was so narrow a full-grown man couldn’t fit down. ‘How are you going to get her out?’
‘Barbara.’ Layton pointed to where a petite woman in a white PPE suit was cresting the top of the ladder. ‘She’s small enough. The only question is, whether she’s brave enough?’
It took the best part of half an hour to extract the body. DC Barbara Hooper was lowered into the gap and managed to attach a harness round the girl which enabled the body to be winched out. The process was painstaking, Layton keen not to cause unnecessary damage to the corpse. He signalled to Savage as the girl was carried down to ground level and laid on a body bag.
‘She’s not been here long,’ Layton said as Savage came over. ‘Twenty-four hours max.’
‘Rigor mortis?’ Savage said as she stared down at the girl’s right hand where the nail file lay in a tight grip. A sparkly dress woven from silver thread had split down one side, the round of a breast partially exposed. Long blonde hair framed a face which wore bright red lipstick and heavy eyeshadow and eyeliner. The make-up looked odd on the now-sallow skin. The girl’s right thigh had a graze down one side, rivulets of dried blood visible on the pale surface.
‘Yes.’ Layton gestured at the car park. ‘But I was thinking more along the lines that this is a popular place, especially at the weekend. During the day, there’d have been witnesses. Which means she was dumped here when it was dark, most probably last night.’
‘There’s no sign of serious trauma,’ Savage said. ‘A few grazes on the arms and legs. That brown mark on her upper thigh.’
‘Interesting.’ Layton nodded as he knelt beside the girl. He pulled out a polygrip bag and a pair of tweezers and began to lift fragments of something from the skin. ‘Red paint and rust,’ he said, once he’d finished. ‘As if she’d brushed against an old piece of metal at some point. The metal caused the graze and left these specks.’
‘Where could they come from?’
‘No idea.’ Layton pushed himself up and turned to Savage. ‘One other thing I noticed when I was, er, down there. She’s not wearing any knickers. Do you think that’s suspicious?’
As one, Layton and Savage turned to Calter.
‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ The DC blushed. ‘I’m no expert.’
Savage rescued Calter. ‘She could have taken them off, and I guess the most likely reason for that would be to have sex.’ She peered down. Layton was correct about the lack of underwear; under the hem of the short dress, she could see the pubic area smooth and shaven, just a thin strip of hair above. ‘Perhaps this is a simple sexual encounter which went wrong.’
‘Dogging?’ Calter said.
Savage looked across to the rock. ‘An exciting place to do it. Up there. The dress suggests she’d been out somewhere, a club or a party. Could she have come here willingly with a lover?’
‘Too cold for me, ma’am, but I get your drift.’ Calter followed Savage’s gaze. ‘She climbed up onto the tor with her partner and then fell between the rocks. If the liaison was a risky one then whoever she was with may not have wanted to report the accident.’
‘Sounds unlikely,’ Layton said. ‘They could have at least made an anonymous phone call to alert someone. Plus an accident doesn’t explain why she’s holding the nail file.’
‘Ma’am?’ Calter touched Savage on the arm and gestured for her to step away. She lowered her voice. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The brief?’
‘What brief?’
‘The one from the FBI. Hardin circulated it amongst us junior detectives. More of an exercise than anything. Still, I remember reading that along with the human remains, the cops in the US found partially charred piles of clothing. Dresses, jeans, bras, shoes and socks. No knickers. The conclusion was the killer had taken the knickers away as some kind of trophy.’
Savage stopped a few metres from the body. She remembered scanning one of the FBI reports the night in the hotel. Tiredness had won over the reams of paper and hundreds of bullet points. She must have skipped over the section about the missing underwear. Now she turned back and looked at the girl and weighed the evidence. The victim had been dumped somewhere in the wilderness, had blonde hair just like the girls in the US, and was missing her underwear.
‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Malcolm bloody Kendwick.’