Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(54)

She shook her head. ‘Can’t remember.’

‘You should accept my offer of more private work too.’

‘I don’t mind dipping my toe in it. Can’t argue about the money side of it, but I need to have the adrenalin rush, the challenge.’ She looked at Martingale and thought: smug bastard. ‘So, Mr Martingale . . . no dreams left? You have it all.’

His pale blue eyes shone in the candlelight. ‘I have a dream of not dying alone.’

‘Ha—’ Harding just about managed to stop herself from full-on laughing in his face. Was this a wind-up? She searched his face for the sarcasm she expected and saw none. His eyes were shining as he picked up his glass and saluted her.

‘To the most beautiful pathologist I know. Someone I’d definitely like to see more of. If she’ll let me. I hope you’re not feeling too tired tonight. I have a lot of skills I need to practise on you.’

‘I’m all yours, Doctor; can’t wait.’





Chapter 34


The next morning, on the outskirts of London the snow was melting from the hard shoulder of the M25. Two men were working their way up the verge, clearing up the rubbish and debris thrown out by passing traffic. Barry was in charge. Barry was going to be looking after Tom on his first week of work. They had been due to start last week but couldn’t because of the weather. Now it had warmed up a few degrees overnight and they were back to work.

Tom was starving. They’d already been working for two hours when the motorway maintenance van stopped at the services. He bought himself a full breakfast bap, reheated in the microwave in the garage: sausage, egg and bacon, ketchup, mustard and soggy bread. He didn’t care; he was so hungry.

Tom shook his head and laughed. ‘Get it down you, son . . . you’re gonna need all the energy you can get. It’s bloody freezing out there. We got three hours till we stop again. I’m going for a piss.’

By the time he came back Tom was aiming the wrapper at the bin and wiping the ketchup from his mouth.

‘Ready?’

Tom nodded. The traffic was post rush hour, lorries mainly. They headed along the hard shoulder, stopping every fifty metres to backtrack and check the verge. They split up, starting either end to meet in the middle.

Tom had his orange bag in his left hand, his metal claw pick-up device in his right. He prodded his claw into the gorse at the side of the verge to pick up the piece of black plastic that flapped in the wind every time a lorry raced past. His pincher clasped the black plastic and he pulled. A woman’s grey face turned from the snowy gorse as her body rolled down onto the tarmac.

His scream was lost in the whoosh and wail of a lorry as it passed.

Barry looked up to see Tom walking backwards towards the motorway traffic. ‘Watch out, mate . . .’ he called and screwed up his face at the icy wind that buffeted him as the lorry thundered past.

‘Oi, Tom . . . get your arse back, son,’ he shouted. Tom turned and looked at him, but didn’t answer. Standing in the path of an approaching lorry, he bent over, staggered backward and then a projectile vomit of full breakfast landed on the tarmac. The lorry swerved.

The woman’s head turned towards the road as if she were watching the passing traffic.

Carter had hardly slept when he’d finally made it back to his flat to make sure everything was still there and to get a few hours’ proper sleep and a change of clothes. Cabrina was on his mind here especially. He felt as if he were grieving. He reached out and slid his hand along the cold space in the bed next to him. Oh God . . . his mind went round and round and came back to the beginning and always Cabrina was in the centre of the circle, shaking her head at him and knowing that he just didn’t get it . . . what had he done wrong? Now the flat could stay a mess; nothing mattered any more.

The phone rang. It was Ebony.

‘There’s a woman’s body found on the hard shoulder at Junction twenty-three of the M25. Doctor Harding’s meeting us out there.’

The M25 motorway was closed between junctions. It was causing chaos in the morning traffic.

Carter approached. ‘Ebb?’

‘Woman’s body, sir. Thought you would want to see.’ She turned to point out the van parked nearby. ‘These motorway maintenance engineers found her.’

Carter stood in front of where the gorse had been cut and cleared to give better access. The woman’s naked body was lying on black plastic. He could see the white-grey of her body, and in its centre, shards of white bone protruded from the black gaping hole where her insides should have been.

Carter squatted beside Doctor Harding. ‘What do you think, Doc? She been here long?’

‘Less than twenty-four hours.’

Harding pulled back the plastic and revealed the rest of the woman’s body.

‘This has all the hallmarks of the others.’

Carter stood and looked down the lines of traffic on the other side of the carriageway; their tyres noisy on the wet tarmac. ‘So they left her just hidden, chucked in the bushes. She didn’t die here. Someone tied enough plastic around her to transport her in the boot of a car, not to make a mess, but they must have expected her to stay on the side of the road a bit longer.’

‘Animals could have started on her any time,’ said Harding.

Carter turned to Barry. ‘How often do you come along this strip and clean it?