Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(2)

‘Basically – he says she wouldn’t have gone far in this canal.’

Carter looked past her to the man in the dark overcoat walking away.

‘Is he the lock keeper?’

‘No, he’s the man who was here when the boys were messing about and fell onto the ice. But he knows all about the Regent’s Canal – he works in the Canal Museum just down the road. He said that different types of locks allow for different water levels and movement between sections of canal.’

Carter swivelled on his heels to look around him and get his bearings. ‘Plenty of ways to get down here, especially with all the development that’s going on. There’s two acres of Camley Park on the other side of the canal for a start. Did he mention if there was any CCTV?’

‘The nearest is two hundred metres away, Guv.’

Carter stepped closer to the side of the canal and knelt to pick up a piece of the broken ice.

‘Got to be two inches thick.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘We’ll need to wait for the ice to thaw before we can get the divers in to search.’

‘Yes, Guv – forecast isn’t good. No more snow for a few days but then it’s coming back.’

Carter’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of journalists on the bridge that spanned the canal up to their right. He could just about make them out: dark shadows moving through the fog. He heard them clanking their equipment as they hurried down as far as they were allowed onto the towpath. They stopped fifty metres away from where Carter and Ebony stood; just near where their car was parked. Next they heard an officer on the edge of the crime scene talking to them, directing them to where they could stand. Carter scowled.

‘They didn’t take long to find out.’

‘No, Guv. The canal man said the lad who fell on the ice took pictures on his phone; his friends wouldn’t help him out till he put it on Instagram.’

‘Little bastards. Where is he now?’

‘In a cell; he’s given his statement already. Now he’s waiting for someone to be free to tell him he can leave.’

‘Good. Make him sweat for a few hours.’ He shook his head, trying to shake off a headache. He’d spent the evening reminiscing with an old friend and a bottle of JD and now he was beginning to feel the hangover start. He rubbed his face and sighed. ‘What’s the matter with people? Should have respect for another human being. Now we’ve got the frigging newspapers before we’ve even had a chance to assess the situation, let alone inform the family.’

Carter pulled back the entrance to the crime scene tent and stooped as he stepped inside; Willis followed. The smell hit Carter so hard that he was in danger of throwing up. He instinctively drew his scarf up over his nose.

‘Doctor Harding?’

A blonde-haired woman in a white forensic suit was kneeling beside the remains of the woman, which were bloated and blackened by the water. The woman’s head was inside a polythene bag. She had wounds as big as teacups that had eaten into her body.

Doctor Harding looked up and nodded. She didn’t smile. She wasn’t one for automatic gestures of politeness. ‘Willis . . .’ She handed Ebony a pair of gloves. ‘Help me with the body.’ A police photographer moved around and between them in the small tent as he took pictures of the body.

Carter spoke from behind his scarf. ‘How old do you put her, Doc?’

‘Mid-twenties.’

‘Any birthmarks, operation scars? Anything that might help us to identify her?’

‘There’s a tattoo running up the outside of her left ankle.’ Harding turned the victim’s left leg over. ‘I think it’s something written in Norse. I saw something like it once before, on a bald-headed man. That time it turned out to be an ancient proverb meaning: A cleaved head no longer plots.’

‘Yeah,’ said Carter. ‘I remember that guy – had it around his crown, didn’t he? Drug dealer from Croydon, came up to deal with the Turks on Caledonian Road. It proved to be a perfect guideline for someone to cut the top of his head off like a boiled egg. Let’s see if our mermaid shows up anywhere on the system.’

‘Yes, Guv,’ said the photographer.

‘Whoever she was, she’s definitely undernourished,’ said Harding.

‘How long’s she been in the water?’ asked Carter.

‘A few months, at least. She went in when the water was warmer. Decomposition started but then slowed right down.’

Carter hovered nearer and looked directly down over the body at the plastic bag covering her head. ‘Her face looks like something from a waxworks horror museum,’ he observed. He moved closer. ‘It looks like it’s made of cheese.’

The photographer stood where Carter had been to take his shots of the head. Carter pulled back.

Harding nodded. ‘It’s called adipocere – the absence of oxygen and plenty of moisture inside the bag have caused the fats from her face and her brain matter to fuse, turning her face into soap.’

‘Prostitute maybe?’ asked Carter. ‘A client went too far: got carried away with the bag, and killed her by accident then dumped her here?’

‘Pretty risky getting undressed in the middle of King’s Cross,’ Harding answered as she turned the woman’s head towards Ebony and searched for the best place to begin cutting open the bag.