Dirty Weekend Read Free Page B

holding.
    ‘Soil samples. From a series of locations around the scene.’
    I noticed how mask-like her face seemed, as if it were stretched too tight across the bones of her face.
    ‘Samples I need to examine,’ she said. ‘And from what I hear,’ she looked around at the others, ‘things in Canberra are still somewhat backward. I believe I’m the first palynologist employed here full-time.’
    I couldn’t help thinking that if they were all like her, she’d probably be the last.
    ‘Okay. Carry on,’ I said and watched while she went back to work, confident she’d won that round. I actually knew something of her discipline, but I didn’t intend to play ego games with her. And, to be fair, as a particle man myself, the forensic evidence Sofia Verstoek might discover could be of great help to this investigation.
    ‘She can’t help it,’ said Brian, before I could say anything. ‘You’ve heard the definition of a well-balanced New Zealander.’
    I hadn’t.
    ‘A chip on both shoulders.’
    It certainly seemed apt in this case.
    ‘Apparently, they’ve been using forensic palynology in New Zealand for twenty-five years, but until I met her ladyship, I’d never heard of it.’
    I went to my car and pulled on a sterile suit and gloves from the collection I keep in the back in a plastic fishing container. I had to admit Sofia Verstoek had a point—I should have suited up before approaching. As I was about to pull the plastic covers over my shoes, I bent and sniffed. Damned if I could smell anything.
    I collected my video camera, grabbed the smaller tackle box that I used to house my bits and pieces and made my way towards the small group of people who stood around the body of Tianna Richardson.
    Even from a slight distance, the body on the tarmac, left arm flung out at shoulder height, legs sprawled, head turned away, could never be mistaken for someone who was merely sleeping. Or even unconscious. I’d been to the crime scenes of a lot of violent, fatal sexual assaults and this had all the trademarks—legs outflung, skirt bunched up, panties tugged down, abrasions down one side of the leg, dried blood smearing the thighs.
    Tianna still had her curvaceous figure, perhaps a little heavier than I recalled, and the lurex thread on her jacket glittered as I approached. The spangled top she was wearing revealed a strip of tanned belly just above her waist and her long dark skirt was bunched up across her thighs and belly, barely keeping her decent. Her panties, a black lace figure-of-eight, were twisted round her right ankle above a high-heeled sandalled foot, the shoe half pulled off. The other sandal was missing.
    ‘Ah, Jack,’ said Harry Marshall, nodding to me. ‘I thought it was you getting out of that wagon, but then I remembered that you’re supposed to be keeping decent hours these days.’
    Insomniac clinical director and senior pathologist at the Canberra morgue, Harry was an old friend and we went back a very long way—I counted him as a personal friend as well as a colleague. The good humour in his lively eyes was unmistakeable but he was looking tireder and older than when we last met.
    ‘I wish we didn’t always have to meet like this,’ I said, ‘over half-naked women.’
    ‘It’s our fatal charm, Doctor,’ Harry said, looking more closely at the woman who lay near my plastic-covered shoes. ‘Someone’s charm was certainly fatal for this one,’ he continued, gently lifting and turning the dead woman’s head to reveal a matted, bloody area at the back. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Looks like she’s been bashed with a weapon of some sort.’
    ‘We haven’t found any weapon,’ said Brian, who’d been directing the search around the immediate area. ‘This place,’ he continued, gesturing back towards the nightclub building, ‘is one of those grab-a-granny joints. Some of the guys from work come here towards the end of the week. They reckon you’re guaranteed a sure thing. Reckon