Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(53)

The dog lunged and snapped at her as she passed. The owner muttered she was sorry. Janet cursed loudly, put a spurt of speed on and powered up the hill and away from the path. Virgin snow crunched beneath her feet. She pushed hard with her thighs until she reached the copse at the summit and the trees closed around her. She had stitch now; clasping her side she slowed to a walk to catch her breath as she dragged the cold air into her burning lungs.

She moved slowly forward, stepping over the fallen branches and stopped by one of the trees to listen to the faint knocking sound of a woodpecker drilling for food or maybe it was a squirrel cracking a nut – she didn’t know which. It was a knocking sound. Her breath snorted into the air, her body was steaming. She felt the chill begin as the sweat cooled her body but she stood in the perfect still beneath the pines and listened to the knocking. Her eyes searched the copse and found the slight movement responsible, the bobbing head of a crow. She walked quietly towards it, her eyes fixed on the black shiny wings of the bird. It looked up as she approached – it was feeding, working hard at something on the ground, knocking it with its beak. As she approached it stopped and stared defiantly at her but then flapped noisily off into the nearest tree and watched her approach. As Janet stepped over the fallen branch her feet moved in slow motion as her eyes made sense of what she saw. A woman’s naked body surrounded by a shroud of the freshly fallen white snow. The woman’s face was a scarecrow mask of make-up and the skin had been peeled up from her breasts like a crimson bra. Her black empty eye sockets stared up at the crows in the trees.





Chapter 24


Carter pulled up the hood of his forensic suit as he and Willis waited to be allowed to cross over into the crime scene. They saw the tall frame of Sandford walk across to them from where he’d been searching the far side of the trees. He climbed over the fallen tree debris; moving cautiously, picking his way amongst the branches.

‘I’ve finished here, for now.’ he said to Carter. He nodded to Ebony. ‘We’ll keep it taped off for a few more days yet. We’ll have to wait till the snow melts to look for tracks.’

‘How long’s she been here, do you think?’ Carter asked Sandford. Ebony was looking down over the white expanse of the Heath. In the distance, people were walking their dogs or jogging along the paths around its edge. Carter followed her gaze and then swung back to Sandford. ‘She can’t have been here any longer than a couple of days. This is a busy place.’

‘Twenty-four hours, Doc estimates,’ replied Sandford. ‘Left here before last night’s snowfall. She’s frozen solid.’ Sandford turned and led the way woods.

‘Who found her?’

‘A jogger named Janet Leonard. She’s waiting in the squad car.’

‘Does it look like it’s the same man? Is it Hawk?’

Sandford stopped walking and turned to fix Carter with a gaze that told Carter that, even for a seasoned professional, it was a sight not soon forgotten. He nodded. ‘Her body’s a real mess.’

They came to the area beyond the fallen tree trunk and the woman’s body began to come into view. Harding had brushed away the snow from around her.

Carter stopped in his tracks. ‘Christ.’

Ebony took a step to his side and crouched beside her.

‘It’s the same as last time.’

‘Yes,’ said Harding.

‘What happened to the bag?’ Ebony was looking at the plastic shards scattered in the snow.

‘A badger, fox or even someone’s pet dog has been at it,’ answered Harding. ‘Maybe they were disturbed.’

Carter drew level. ‘What about her eyes?’ he asked.

Harding looked up at the pine trees around them. The crows watched them. The air hung dank and dark, trapped in the shadows of the trees. The crows shifted in the upper branches of the pines as they waited, ever hopeful of finishing their meal.

‘Crows have large beaks for tearing flesh. The birds have had a go at her face. Soft entry points like the eyes were the best option; the rest of her is frozen.

Ebony watched Harding brush the last of the snow away from the body and onto a plastic sheet she had tucked in around it. She looked down at the ulcerated sites across the body. ‘She is just like Emily Styles but a lot thinner, a lot more emaciated.’

Harding paused in her work and sighed; her white breath stayed as a shroud in the air. She shook her head. ‘It’s hard to know how she made it to even this point. She has been like this for a long time.’

‘She looks like a sick joke,’ said Ebony. She looked at the remnants of blue eye-shadow and the few spikes of painted-on lashes visible above the empty eye sockets, the clownish circles of red stain on her cheeks.

‘He must really hate women, all women – vanity, masks of make-up.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Carter. ‘He’s saying – do you still find her pretty? Folded the skin from her breasts like a bra top, exposed the flesh beneath to say: look at the woman beneath. We can rule out this being Danielle Foster,’ said Carter. ‘This woman’s skeletal, she must have been kept somewhere a long time to get like this.’ There was silence except for the slip and splash of snow from the branches. ‘How did she die, Doctor?’

Harding moved the woman’s head to one side as she examined her neck.