They turned their attention to Amy Llewellyn, whose smiling face crowned the top of the murder board.
“Why her?”
“Why anybody?” Ryan countered.
If she had been younger, from a less secure background, homeless or with a history of alcohol or substance abuse, Ryan might have thought Amy was a random choice. Young, vulnerable men and women often ended up on the streets, in one form or another. Some wanted to escape, others had no choice. Nameless, faceless, with no family to care whether they went missing or not.
The perfect hunting ground for a certain breed of killer.
But Amy?
“Nice girl, nice home, nice family. What happened?” Phillips voiced the same thoughts.
“Keir Edwards is what happened.”
“We don’t know –”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the party line.”
Phillips refolded his arms mutinously.
“Just trying to keep things on a level playing field, guv. Last thing we want to do is barge into HMP Frankland, guns blazing at Edwards, only to uncover some other bit of evidence pointing to the bloke in the cell next door.”
Ryan agreed with him, but it did little to dilute the sense of driving urgency, which he felt whenever anybody mentioned the man’s name.
While he ruminated on it, the rest of the team began to file into the room. The first thing they saw was the large, colour photographs of Amy Llewellyn. One clearly showed her in life, the other showed her in death. Ryan waited until they had settled themselves, after all the handshaking and backslapping they seemed to need before they concentrated on finding a killer. With admirable poise, he watched DI Denise MacKenzie stalk to the front and take a seat, leaving a pointed gap between herself and Phillips. Ryan wondered how opposites often attracted. There, on the one hand, was his sergeant: gruff, canny and loyal as a basset hound, but he was no oil painting. There, on the other, was MacKenzie: feisty and smart with a striking mane of golden red hair and a quick brain beneath it.
Ah, l’amour.
Briefly, he thought of his own Anna. She was probably sitting in her little study, immersed in some old book or another. He loved to find her like that, her elegant neck bent over an inscrutable text while she toyed with the ends of her dark hair.
The sooner he got on with the briefing, the sooner he could go home to her.
“Alright, settle down.”
Chairs scraped, conversations died.
“Welcome to the first briefing of ‘Operation Hadrian’. Another original name from the Powers That Be,” he added. “Thanks to all of you who worked at the scene today and to those of you who have abandoned your day off to join us. Your commitment is much appreciated.”
He tapped a knuckle on the board behind him.
“For those of you who need to catch up, here’s a potted summary. Our witness, Colin Hart, found what we now know to be the remains of Amy Llewellyn, inside a hollowed-out cavity of the stretch of Hadrian’s Wall known as ‘Sycamore Gap’. Early this morning, around five-thirty, he was out walking along that stretch. He parked his car at Housesteads, walked west towards that spot to catch the sunrise and natural curiosity got the better of him.
“He reported his find to the Control Room, who referred the incident directly to Gregson before dispatching Phillips and myself to the scene. The Chief felt it was necessary to call out the infantry on this one, given the potential media intrusion alongside the active presence of interested parties.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” MacKenzie sniped, with a deadly sideways look at Phillips.
Ryan decided to let the interruption pass.
“Professor Freeman is the senior archaeologist for National Heritage in this region. She has been vocal in her objection to any undue interference with the site. Regardless, we were able to confirm that the remains fall under our remit. Faulkner,” he eyed the senior CSI who had discarded his customary overalls in favour of navy cords and a matching blue jumper. It made him seem less like a scientist and more of an ordinary man; not somebody who picked over the scenes of violent crime on a daily basis. “Special thanks to you and your team for such sympathetic handling of the excavation site, particularly under that level of supervision.”
The CSI mumbled something and adjusted his glasses. He was not a man who enjoyed attention.
Ryan turned back to the board and tacked up a large copy of the diagram the anthropologist had given him earlier that day, which showed the presence of injuries on Amy Llewellyn’s skeleton.
“Phillips and I paid a visit to the pathologist this afternoon. He and the forensic anthropologist agree that, aside from childhood injuries, there are two main things to note. The first is the presence of a fairly large skull fracture running along the squamosal suture, which divides the left temporal and parietal lobes,” he tapped a finger behind his left ear to illustrate. “The second is a break in her left wrist, which happened on or around the time she died.”