Already Dead(27)

By the time Diane Fry slithered a few yards through the woods, the clothes found by the search team had already been bagged, and markers were placed on the rock. Two SOCOs were struggling to erect a scene tent over the location.

Even in the best of circumstances, the loss of trace evidence from exposure to the weather was a major problem with an open scene like this. Any DNA in the vicinity would be degrading as they watched. And if the rain turned torrential again, the place would become a swamp.

‘Do we know what the weather forecast is?’ asked Fry.

Irvine pulled out his iPhone and tapped the weather app. ‘An eighty per cent chance of rain by four o’clock,’ he said.

‘Is that thing accurate?’

‘Spot on, usually,’ said Irvine.

A SOCO handed her an evidence bag. ‘There’s your victim’s ID, Sergeant.’

Fry turned it over to see a mobile phone and the contents of a leather wallet. Driving licence, credit cards, an AA membership card, a small stack of ten and twenty pound notes.

‘Glen Turner.’

Hurst immediately made a call to check on the name. ‘Yes, he’s a misper,’ she said. ‘He was reported missing yesterday by his mother, Mrs Ingrid Turner. The description she gave fits, too. An address in Wirksworth.’

Fry still found her grasp of local geography was lacking, even after the years she’d spent in this area. ‘Wirksworth? How near is that?’

‘Pretty close,’ said Irvine. ‘Five or six miles to the east, I’d say, on the other side of Brassington. It’s the nearest small town.’

‘How long has Mr Turner been missing, do we know?’

‘The mother says he didn’t come home on Tuesday night. She waited a while before she reported it because she wasn’t sure if it was an emergency or not.’

Fry nodded. It was a common belief that you had to wait twenty-four hours before reporting a missing person, but it wasn’t true. You could make a report to the police as soon as you were convinced someone was missing. It sounded as though Mrs Turner had done that.

‘We’d better get to the address straight away,’ she said.

She called Luke Irvine over and instructed him to find out what car Glen Turner drove and get a search started for it.

‘It must be somewhere,’ she said. ‘He didn’t walk out here from Wirksworth. We need to find out as much as we can.’

‘About the victim?’ said Irvine.

‘Of course, Luke. You know that’s the starting point in victimology – working out what could have put two people in a particular location at that time. When we can answer that, we’ll have a clue about what happened.’





10





Ben Cooper rolled his head over on the pillow and squeezed his eyes tighter shut. Promethazine hydrochloride had filled his head with glue. His limbs lay heavy and deadened, as if his body had been poured full of cement while he slept. His mind was too gummed up for logical thoughts to drag themselves free from the sticky embrace of the sedative.

For the past hour he’d been drifting in that state halfway between sleeping and waking, conscious of noises filtering in through the window, aware of the light flickering on the wall, but unable to dredge up the energy to stir himself. His mouth felt dry, and he longed for water. Deep memories swirled in the dehydrated depths of consciousness, and his body twitched with pain. They were memories filled with heat and flame, smells and sounds that churned and splintered in his mind but refused to coalesce.

A thump on the bed made him automatically stretch out a hand. Hope the cat purred loudly as she rubbed her head against his fingers. Cooper croaked a faint greeting through parched lips. The cat purred more loudly, and gave him a silent cry. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Apparently, it was feeding time.

There was no clock in his bedroom. He’d come to rely on his iPhone for the time, but he’d left it switched off for a while now. He wasn’t even sure he’d charged the battery recently.

He shuffled towards the kitchen, put the kettle on for instant coffee and prised open a tin of cat food. When the cat was satisfied, he drank his coffee in silence. The taste was dull. But he didn’t have the energy or interest to produce something better for himself.

His electric shaver had no charge left either. He’d forgotten it had stopped working yesterday, and he couldn’t be bothered finding the charger. It didn’t matter, though. Shaving was a nuisance, and there was no one to make the effort for. He wouldn’t see anyone again today, except his brother. He tried to look out to see what the weather was doing, but the windows of the flat were filmed with water. He ought to get round to cleaning them some time. At least the rain might run off them, if they weren’t so dirty.