Death and Deception Read Free Page A

first and my last. Dan, this is Dr Campbell Fox, the best, well, probably the only, leadi ng pathologist to come out of the Gorbals. He is the expert. Be glad we’ve got him.’
    Dan turned, took in the vast girth, height and beard for the first time, and felt a bit overwhelmed. Standing at just less than six feet, Dan felt short compared to this giant.
    ‘Pleasure to meet you, sir.’ He put out a hand and felt it disappear into the moist softness of Fox’s paw. Together they ducked under the flap of the tent and Dan experienced the familiar feeling of cold, of quiet stillness, that being in the presence of death always brought. Even Gould was quiet.
    Fox turned the girl onto her back. Dan knelt and studied her face, close enough to see each eyelash on the good eye, far enough away to ignore the gaping darkness where her other eye should have been. She had dark hair and pale skin, just like him. She was slender, and tall, just like him. She could be his sister.
    He breathed rapidly through his nose. It had been the substance of his nightmares for years, that one day he would be called to a crime scene and it would be Alison lying there, white and silent instead of this girl. Although, in Alison’s case, the cause of death would be only too easy to read in the mad dance of tracks that would, by now, be pocking every available vein in her body.
    He pushed back a lock of hair from Carly Braithwaite’s face. There was so little damage, it was hard to see how she had died. Would it have been better for everybody if Alison had died, he thought, early on in her chosen career of addict, thief and prostitute, before she’d become welded into the life? He and his parents could have grieved then, and shared good memories. As it was, the only time they heard from her was when she was begging for money, or had broken into the house and taken it.
    He often wondered if it was the regular police visits when he was a boy, bringing Alison home drunk, or high on Christ knew what, the tension and relief mingling with his mother’s tears, and the calmness and kindness of the officers, that had made him join up.
    Fox winked at Gould over Dan’s head.
    ‘Straight to work, eh? Nice to see them keen. Well, you already know who she is. All the personal stuff can be read in my report at your leisure. No obvious cause of death, but there are marks on her neck and face which may indicate asphyxiation.’
    Fox bent a knee and used Dan’s shoulder to steady himself as he knelt next to the body. With some delicacy and precision, he pulled back the top of Carly Braithwaite’s hoody to expose her white neck.
    ‘I draw your attention to the faint bruise marks on the front of the neck. Such marks may indicate pressure from a forearm, perhaps. She wasn’t strangled in the way you would understand such a term, with fingers round the throat. No ligature used.’ He pulled up the sleeve of her t-shirt. ‘There are bruises on the upper arms, consistent with being held around the biceps. The eye appears to have been dislodged by a crow or magpie post-mortem. I don’t think it relates to her death. She was fully clothed except for one shoe, and there is no bag, phone, purse or anything else personal in the immediate area.’
    Dan noticed that Fox lost his strong Glasgow accent when he was in professional mode. Seven years at medical school in Edinburgh would do that to a man. He’d lost his own Devon burr after three years with the Met. It didn’t do to give people too much ammunition.
    ‘Any idea what time she might have died?’
    Fox pushed himself up and sat on the log to gather his notes.
    ‘Rigor Mortis has set in, so at least twelve hours ago, but I’ll know more when we get her back to the hospital. She has got some pooling of the blood suggesting she was either carried here and dumped, or moved within the copse to hide her. That’s what Forensics are doing now, trying to work out if she was brought here post-mortem, and if so, how.’
    Dan