Soul Seeker Read Free Page A

the building. Beverley noted a kitchen through the windows, one that she recognized from costumed dramas on the box, and a small back parlour in which there were a widescreen plasma television and a big hi-fi system, items in a small pocket of the new millennium. Owen Gardner, then, was apparently not completely immersed in the wrong century.
    One side was metal fencing with a gate in, opposite this was a concrete, prefabricated milking parlour, whilst across from the back of the farmhouse was a slurry pit. Beverley could think of nothing she’d rather see first thing of a morning when she looked out of her back door; it was a large one, too, almost full, a hazy kaleidoscope of various shades of bilious green, browns and greys.
    It was also the centre of attention. A quick glance told her that there were four uniforms and three plain clothes police clustered around it, to all intents and purposes just aimlessly milling, ants without the queen to direct them.
    As soon as Beverley appeared, one of them turned and came hurrying towards her; it was Fisher. Beverley was not a fan of obesity, in neither women nor men, whatever their age, but there was also a certain kind of thinness that she found disturbing; it was a sallow, unhealthy kind of emaciation and Fisher – newly promoted to detective sergeant – personified it. Clothes, no matter how small, seemed to hang off him, his collar touched his neck only ever at one point, his eyes peered out at the world from two moulded caves.
    His expression was one of great relief. ‘Chief Inspector! Good to see you.’
    Of course he would think it was good to see her. Until their arrival, he had been the senior officer and therefore in charge of the crime scene; responsibility sat on him rather as his dandruff did; it was a coating, nothing more, and something of an embarrassment. Fisher’s promotion had been a surprise, and not just to Beverley. He was not venal, nor was he lazy which, she supposed, put him about a fairly large distance above the competition, but he was thick. Beverley had long ago concluded that brains weren’t necessary for much of police work; indeed, in the execution of the overwhelming majority of tasks that the police were required to perform, brains were a positive disadvantage. No army wanted infantry that was intelligent, cannon fodder that could think and thus maybe decide that there was more to life than being in the front line and getting hurt. You’d only want brains in those giving the orders; evolution had decided for a very good reason that it was better to have the brains stored in the head than in the hands. She looked at Fisher, looked into his eyes, and suspected that he was a revolutionary dead end. The Sun quick crossword was his intellectual zenith, and that only rarely accomplished.
    She said nothing, but then she didn’t need to; Rebecca Lancefield was already rushing to show her abilities. ‘Where’s Owen Gardner?’
    â€˜In the farmhouse.’
    â€˜And the dog?’
    â€˜Muzzled and chained around the back of the cowshed.’
    Beverley asked, ‘What about the dog?’
    Lancefield said, before Fisher could even begin compiling his thoughts into his version of human speech, ‘It was the dog that found it, sir. I’m afraid it got chewed up pretty badly before Gardner was able to get it off her.’
    Beverley raised her eyebrows. ‘And where did the dog find it?’
    Fisher said brightly, ‘The slurry pit.’
    She had somehow guessed that this would prove to be the case. ‘Where is it now?’
    â€˜We bagged it,’ was Fisher’s bright response, one that produced a correspondingly depressing feeling inside Beverley. We bagged it . It was what the police now did; they no longer looked for clues and then deduced from them, they now bagged them. If they had made evidence bags big enough, they would be bagging the fucking bodies so they wouldn’t have