Final Cut Read Free Page B

would want some once you smelled it.’
    Rhona took a bite of the smoked sausage. It tasted delicious.
    ‘We’ll have to let them remove the body soon,’ she said.
    Chrissy took a slurp of tea and grimaced. She helped herself to two sugars from an open bag on the table and gave the mug a quick stir.
    ‘So, what do you think? Suicide, murder or plain unlucky?’
    Rhona had been asking herself the same question. She’d found nothing so far to suggest foul play, but lab tests on the debris would confirm whether any accelerant had been used. The presence of an accelerant wouldn’t necessarily mean murder, however. If the guy was troubled he could have set fire to the skip himself.
    ‘Let’s wait and see,’ was all she would say.
    ‘Spoken like a true scientist.’
    Steve was proving to be a perfect host. He produced Jaffa cakes for pudding.
    ‘I took a look at the surveillance tape while I was waiting for you lot to arrive. I spotted the young guy come in. There was also a car parked near the entrance for a while. I gave the tape to your boss.’
    ‘Is there a recording of the fire?’ asked Rhona.
    Steve shook his head. ‘The one camera’s directed on the entrance gates.’
    They reluctantly left the warmth of the Portakabin and went back to the skip. Half the debris had been cleared, leaving a free passage to the body. The duty pathologist had arrived. His job was to establish that a death had occurred, not difficult under the circumstances.
    ‘Is he dead?’ asked Chrissy with a straight face.
    Dr Sissons’ ability to deal with violent death in all its particular Glasgow forms would never be in dispute. How he managed to do that particular job without a sense of humour, black or otherwise, baffled everyone he met, including Rhona.
    Sissons pointedly ignored Chrissy’s joking enquiry – cheeky young women didn’t figure on his radar at all – and continued to study the wall behind the corpse.
    Chrissy threw Rhona a look.
    ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ he finally ventured.
    ‘Me neither,’ Rhona agreed.
    Sissons was an experienced pathologist who’d studied more dead bodies than Chrissy had eaten sausage suppers. If he hadn’t encountered this phenomenon before, few had.
    ‘I’ll deliver his brains later,’ Chrissy promised as Sissons departed.
    Rhona’s assistant invariably had the last word.
    When she and Chrissy eventually vacated the skip, Rhona went in search of Bill. He was standing near the entrance with a figure she recognised immediately. McNab’s expression caused her heart to sink.
    ‘No luck?’
    ‘We found her. She’s fine.’
    ‘So what’s wrong?’
    ‘That’s not all we found.’
    The rain had lessened to a freezing drizzle. Despite the layers of clothing under her forensic suit, the cold was seeping into Rhona’s bones. Her teeth chattered as she waited for him to explain.
    ‘She was about half a mile from the car, sitting under a tree . . . holding a human skull.’
    ‘What?’
    McNab nodded. ‘You heard right, a skull. Small. Looks like it’s been there for a while.’
    ‘A newborn?’
    The discovery of baby remains was not uncommon. The public would be amazed to know just how regularly tiny skeletons were uncovered, hidden under floorboards, buried in gardens or abandoned in the open. Even nowadays, women still gave birth to babies they or their partners didn’t want.
    McNab indicated a measurement with his hands. ‘About this wide.’
    ‘A child or small adult,’ agreed Rhona.
    ‘The site’s secured. You can take a look tomorrow,’ Bill said.
    They retreated to the Portakabin. Steve had left it open for them, urging them to make tea whenever they wanted. Chrissy had left with the other SOCOs, so it was just the three of them.
    Bill slipped the tape in the recorder. The CCTV footage was grainy and grey but Rhona could make out the gates and the barrier. She saw a figure, blurred by snow, climb the wire.
    ‘Note the time. Nine forty