Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(6)

Harding finished handling and dissecting the organs and continued her examination of Millie Stephens’ body. Carter and Willis came to stand behind Mark, who was waiting, scalpel poised, to start cutting around the scalp.

‘Two sites at the back of her skull,’ he said, turning the head, which was resting on a metal plinth, just to raise it enough for examination. ‘A here and another, B, here,’ he went on, as the hair and flesh on the scalp had become enmeshed with bone and concaved in two places in her skull. ‘Neat small areas, made by two different weapons delivered with the same force, probably same weight. Some type of hammer on A, the other a sort of curved claw pick at B.’ He began cutting across the top of the head from ear to ear and, using a scalpel, dug away at the membrane that attached it to the skull, until the top section of scalp was free. Then he placed it over Millie’s face before freeing the rest of it to make it possible to examine the skull more easily. Harding leaned closer to shine a light directly on the breaks in the skull.

‘Contusions, made before death. Site A has a blunt force trauma,’ Harding said, ‘site B has extended cracking spreading out from the wound. This has travelled much further into the brain. Definitely, wound B would have been enough to kill her. It must have left her unconscious at least.’

Willis stayed at the head of the table to watch, whilst Carter stayed a few feet away as Mark sawed through the section of skull and cut through the membrane.

‘We’ll dredge the river to see if we can find the weapons.’

‘It’s going to be hard to get public sympathy for this murder, isn’t it?’ said Harding.

‘Yes,’ answered Carter. ‘It shouldn’t be, though it’s always difficult when it’s a prostitute, but one that helped cover up the murder of a schoolgirl? Yeah, you’re right – it will be tricky.’





Chapter 4


Saturday 20 May 2000


Heather was cleaning up the yard after a busy day of pony club. All the kids had been picked up now and it was over for another week. She was watching Millie grow more anxious as it got near to finishing time. Heather got on with her work whilst watching Millie trying desperately to catch the farmhand’s eye. It wasn’t working, Gavin was focused on wheeling the muck from the stables and tipping it onto the manure pile. Gavin, the oldest of the farmhands, was muscled and mouthy and he belched and spat but Millie idolised him; Heather really didn’t understand why. Millie’s dad mended farm machinery and he was the same rough, hard-working type as Gavin, so maybe that was the reason. Her dad, however, was a nice man; Gavin wasn’t. Mr Stephens had brought Millie up on his own since her mother died when she was four. Millie was headed for a degree in agriculture and was starting university in October. She had been looking forward to it, having worked hard for her exams, and had seemed happy and excited. But that had all changed when she had become obsessed with Gavin. Now, all Millie wanted to do was hang around the farm, making her father angry when he came to pick her up and she didn’t want to go. He looked disappointed with her. Heather recognised that look very well. It was the same one her own father gave to her every day, but Millie had never said her father hit her; she never had to hide her bruises or lie about how she got them like Heather did.

Heather brushed the dirty water, straw and muck into the drainage channels at the side of the yard with firm hard pushes of the bristle brush. She was wiry and strong, but still had a lot of filling out left to do. She was a slip of a girl with bony hips and fried-egg breasts and long shapeless pins of legs. Heather was tall for her age, at five nine, although she walked with her shoulders a little rounded and her eyes on the ground, but when she did look up she had dark eyes, a wide mouth, full lips and the expression of an innocent Italian beauty. Heather would be sixteen in September.

Millie was sighing and mooching and Heather knew there were still tasks to be done. She wanted to say something to Millie to make her feel better but she couldn’t think of anything that might help. So, Heather carried on with her tasks and now she took over Millie’s as well. She still had Murphy to bed down for the evening; all the other ponies were in their stables or rugged up and out in the fields. It was a light evening, now the days were stretching into the start of summer, but it was still cold as the sunset neared. She was just beginning to feel the chill after the hot day as she wound the hose back on its reel, waiting for her friend Ash to come and see her before she had to head home; he lived in a van with his mum, on the edge of the farm.

She looked up as Nicola walked into the yard in her long skirt and Smiley top and came over to give Heather a hug. Gavin had stopped his work to greet her, and so had the other stable girl, Yvonne. Yvonne was a watcher, she didn’t say much to anyone. Millie had come out from the feed store.

‘How is my beautiful Heather, still hard at work?’ She smoothed Heather’s hair and kissed her.

Heather’s uncle, the farm owner, Trevor Truscott, came by on his way into the house.

‘You’d better be getting home, Heather.’ Truscott’s eyes were on Nicola and the two exchanged a smile. ‘I don’t want your dad ringing me.’

Truscott didn’t wait for a reply but went into the house via the back door and the boot room. Heather heard him shout out to his wife to see if she was there. She was a riding instructor. There was little love between the two any more. Everyone knew she was in love with her ex-husband who had recently moved back into the area and the two had been seen parked up in lay-bys.