Already Dead(43)

‘What hopes do we have of some quick results from the forensics?’ she asked.

‘Good for identification evidence, if we can find some. Anything else … well, you know what it’s like now.’

Fry sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’

She knew there was no point arguing. Trying to demand faster results would be a waste of her breath.

In Derbyshire, as in the rest of the country, the Forensic Science Service was badly missed. Since the dismantling of the FSS, the procurement of specialist forensic services had become a shopping trip. Senior police officers ordered tests by price from a menu, as if they were visiting a Chinese restaurant. Often there was no one to take an overview of a case and assess what was actually needed and might produce useful results. It was all about what could be afforded in the budget, which evidence might convince the Crown Prosecution Service to take a case forward.

Fry stirred the toe of her shoe in the muddy water that streamed past her feet into the crime scene. Paramount among those forensic menu items was DNA. It was the chef’s dish of the day, chosen by every customer who couldn’t decide what else to order. Well, DNA persuaded juries, all right. Every juror on the bench had watched a series or two of CSI: Miami and knew you needed DNA analysis to prove a person’s guilt beyond doubt. Without it, juries were reluctant to convict, believing the police and prosecution had fallen down on the job. They didn’t understand how flawed DNA evidence could be, and how difficult to interpret accurately. And they didn’t know it was impossible to obtain it from a waterlogged crime scene.

She noticed a civilian standing at the outer cordon. A small, wiry man in his sixties, wearing an old-fashioned oilskin, steel-toecapped boots and a tweed cap.

‘Who is that?’ she asked.

‘The landowner,’ said Abbott. ‘A local farmer. He’s keen to help, he says.’

‘That makes a change.’

Fry went to introduce herself. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Fry, Edendale CID.’

He shook her hand. A firm, rough grip.

‘Bill Maskrey.’

‘Thank you for offering your co-operation, Mr Maskrey. It’s appreciated.’

‘We have to do our bit where we can. Your lot have helped me in the past.’

‘They have? Well, good. And are these woods yours?’

‘This part is. The bigger section over yonder is National Trust property, but on a long lease to the Forestry Commission.’ Maskrey peered at the activity in the stream bed. ‘I see your chaps are finding a lot of rubbish. That’ll have washed down the stream, I suppose.’

‘Do you get much litter left in the woods?’

‘Oh yes, I find all kinds of things,’ said Maskrey. ‘I try to keep my livestock out of here, because you never know what they might pick up that would get stuck in their stomachs. Just a small plastic bag can be lethal.’

‘So you must get people coming in. Hikers, perhaps?’

‘A few. There’s a public footpath from the road that goes up to the rocks.’

‘Rocks?’

‘Haven’t you seen them? Eagle Rocks. Top of this hill. That’s where people walk to. But the path skirts the edge of the wood. The hikers aren’t a problem.’

Fry looked at him, wondering if she should revise her view of his co-operativeness. Would he turn out to be one more enigmatic local with a penchant for baffling hints and sudden silences?

‘If not the hikers, then – someone else?’ she asked.

‘Of course, we have the big problem,’ said Maskrey.

‘Which is?’

‘Off-roaders, of course. Don’t you know about them?’

‘Why should I?’

‘We’ve reported them often enough. Trail bikes, but four-wheel drives as well sometimes. They’ve been churning the place up. Making a right mess.’

He gestured at the woods. Fry didn’t see how they could be any more of a mess than they were now.

‘I’ll see what we have on record.’

‘You should. They can turn nasty. That poor bugger down there might just have crossed them the wrong way.’

Fry’s phone rang. It was Luke Irvine.

‘Mr Turner’s car has turned up,’ he said. ‘The blue Renault Mégane. It’s in a car park at a pub in Brassington. The nearest village to your scene.’

Fry took a last look at the scene before she left. As the level of the water around the body dropped, the fingers of one hand had begun to protrude above the surface, along with a blue-veined foot. Streaks of dark blood made the white skin look like scoops of ice cream, drizzled with chocolate.

Available officers had been allocated to canvass any properties they could find in the area near Sparrow Wood, though Fry could see as she passed through that there weren’t many of them. A couple of farms, the odd small cottage, a quarry company with a site access near the junction for the Brassington road.