Final Cut Read Free

direction.
    ‘You’ve got Rosie?’
    ‘Would you like me to bring Rosie over?’
    McNab waited, judging when it would be OK to approach. He held the doll up to the light so that the girl could see it, then began to walk forward. That was when he noticed she was cradling something.
    ‘What have you got there, Emma?’
    McNab directed the torch on to the girl’s hands.
    The strong beam picked out a pair of hollow eyes, the curve of a cheekbone. Now McNab was spooked. Where the hell had the kid found a human skull? McNab heard the intake of breath behind him as someone else made out the shape in the torchlight. A metre away now, McNab crouched on a level with the child.
    ‘Where did you find that, Emma?’ he said softly.
    She stared at him. ‘I was lost. I heard them calling me.’
    Something cold and claw-like gripped McNab’s spine. Whatever was happening here, he didn’t like it.
    ‘Did you find it under this tree?’ His eyes roamed the ground round the girl.
    She pointed at the pile of brushwood. ‘In there.’
    ‘What if we exchange Rosie for . . . that?’ McNab couldn’t bring himself to say ‘skull’.
    Emma thought about it.
    ‘Your mum’s waiting at the hospital for you,’ he tried.
    ‘He killed them. They were small like me.’ Her eyes filled with tears.
    His apprehension was growing by the second. ‘What do you mean, them , Emma?’
    The girl stood up and handed him the skull. Having rid herself of it, she seemed to crumple. ‘I want my mummy.’
    McNab put one arm around her trembling body.
    ‘It’s going to be OK. You’ve been a very brave girl.’
    He waited until the small figure retreated hand in hand with a female officer before he took a proper look. He was no anthropologist but he could tell the skull was human, probably that of a child.
    McNab approached the pile of brushwood. It stood three feet high and double that in width. He’d passed numerous similar mounds in his trudge through the woods looking for Emma. He ran his beam over the heap. It looked undisturbed apart from an opening in the right-hand side.
    McNab was conscious again of the strange humming sound he’d heard as he’d approached the clearing. So it hadn’t been the girl making that noise. He tried to pinpoint where it was coming from but couldn’t.
    He took a GPS reading of the site, then called the station to report the recovery of the missing girl and the subsequent discovery of human remains.

5
    Despite the mask, the sickly-sweet smell of roasted flesh invaded Rhona’s nose and mouth. Of all the scents of death, this was the one she found most difficult. She kept her breathing shallow and picked her way through the debris until she reached the back wall.
    ‘A member of the public reported seeing flames at nine o’clock,’ Bill said from the open end of the skip. ‘When the engine got here ten minutes later, it was pretty well over.’
    ‘When did they spot there was someone inside?’
    ‘When they turned off the hoses.’
    Once ignited, the fire had had the benefit of a confined space and a strong updraught. The result was both bizarre and horrific. The lower part of the victim was virtually unmarked, yet the head had apparently exploded, coating the nearby walls with fragments of bone and brain.
    Rhona crouched next to the body and began to check for anything that might help with identification. Her thorough search produced an undamaged pack of playing cards from a back trouser pocket, obviously shielded from the blaze by the bulk of the body, and a dog tag round the remains of the neck. Rhona lifted it free and took a closer look. The flat metal disc was blackened with soot but she could decipher enough of the inscription to believe it might be genuine.
    Rhona bagged both items and passed them to Bill. ‘If it is a soldier, the tag will provide us with his identity.’
    ‘OK, where’s the fire?’
    Rhona recognised the voice of Chrissy McInsh, her forensic assistant.
    Chrissy stuck her head