Death and Deception Read Free Page B

stood up and stepped back outside to join Gould.
    ‘D’you know what I hated most about working Vice?’
    ‘I didn’t know you had,’ said Gould.
    ‘It was finding girls like this. I could cope with the whores and the druggies, but young kids like this, wrong place, wrong time…makes me angry.’
    Gould sighed, ‘Yeah, and this one doesn’t even look used, does she? No needle marks, no smell of alcohol.’
    ‘No obvious cause of death. Obvious result, though.’ Dan stared off into the trees.
    ‘You alright?’
    Dan shrugged. ‘Yeah, sorry, thinking about something else.’ Thinking about my stupid, fucked-up sister. But he couldn’t say that, not to this stranger. Gould had been around so long he’d probably arrested her on more than one occasion, and Dan didn’t want to be associated with her through work. Not yet, anyway.
    Fox tore off his gloves, ‘Too soon to tell what time she died, but I can say that there are signs of some kind of altercation. Now, if ye’ll back away nicely, boys, I’ll get the lassie back to my nice cool hospital and we can find out what else she wants to tell us.’ He finished stuffing his papers into his bag. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Post-Mortem will begin at 10.00am.’
    He nodded at the waiting undertakers, who zipped Carly Braithwaite into a bag and lifted her onto a stretcher, ready for the long walk across the field to the waiting black van.
    ‘She must have been killed somewhere else,’ said Dan, eyeing the debris around their feet. ‘Forensics aren’t going to find anything useful amongst all this rubbish, and there’s no sign of a bag or a coat or anything, just an old school scarf that could be hers.’ They watched as the scarf was bundled into a bag and labelled.
    Dan poked an empty tobacco pouch with his toe. ‘If you killed her elsewhere, why bring her to this copse? It’s hardly a safe place to dump a body with a thousand kids on site. Anybody could have come up here.’
    ‘Maybe that’s what the murderer wanted, for the body to be found,’ offered Gould.
    ‘Hmm, maybe. Or maybe he had to stash her somewhere quickly and was planning to come back the next night and move her, but three snot-nosed kids discovered her first?’
    They watched the Forensic team tracing a third possible route through the trees to the quiet road beyond. One of them turned and gave them a thumbs up, indicating fresh tyre marks on the soft mud at the side of the road.        ‘Guess we were right about her being brought here,’ said Dan. ‘I’ll bet you a tenner she was killed Saturday or Sunday and moved here in the dark.’
    Gould thought about the bet for a moment.
    ‘Nah, easy money for you.’
    Dan shrugged. ‘It’ll be good if they can identify the tyre prints, it may help to identify the vehicle that brought her here.’
    ‘And a set of footprints would be handy. At least we’ve got an idea when she died now.’ Gould looked up at Dan from under bushy eyebrows,‘and it looks like you’ve got your murder.’
    Dan fought the treacherous worm of excitement in his belly. First case, first murder, all his. He almost rubbed his hands together.
    ‘We’ve got a lot of people to talk to, and there’s no point hanging round here. If I go over and see the family once they’re home, will you supervise the school interviews?’
    ‘Sure,’ replied Gould, unzipping the front of his suit with an audible sigh, and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. His earlier antagonism appeared to have been softened by the encounter with Fox. ‘I’m quite looking forward to interviewing someone on a murder case for the first time in four years.’
    ‘Right. I’ll get Sally Ellis to meet me at the Braithwaite house, sir. She can act as family liaison for the next few days.’
    ‘Good idea. By the way, you can call me Ian,’ he said, ‘as we’ll be working together.’
    Dan smiled, one small battle won.
    ‘I won’t mess up, you know, Ian. We’ll get to the