Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(14)

‘Not sure your rectal probe’s gonna help on this one,’ she said, bending down to take a better look.

The hand itself looked in reasonable condition but icy cold to her touch despite the heat of the day. The skin was smooth and she suspected the hand was male.

‘Has it been moved?’ Kim asked.

Penn shook his head as Kim began to walk around it.

‘Is it just a hand?’ Bryant asked as Mitch took out a large plastic sheet and began to unfold it.

Keats shook his head. ‘There appears to be a foot on that side and an elbow on that side and some hair on the top.’

Kim moved aside as two techies began taking photographs from all angles.

‘So, you reckon we’ve got the whole body in there?’ Kim asked.

‘Definitely possible given the body parts we can see, but separating them from the mangled metal is not going to be an easy task.’

Kim had a sudden thought. ‘So, who gets him, you or Mitch?’

Were they looking at a body or clues? How could Keats perform any kind of post-mortem and how could Mitch take the metal apart while trying to preserve the body parts, because one thing was for certain: suicide it was not.

‘I’m pretty sure this is going to be a joint project,’ Keats said as the photographers stepped back from the cube.

‘Okay, guys, lets tip it,’ Mitch said.

Mitch’s team gathered around the cube, and Keats stepped forward to observe. Mitch gave the instructions and the cube was eased over onto the plastic sheet exposing the side that had been on the ground.

‘Oh shit,’ Kim said, when she saw that the whole underneath was stained with blood.





Nineteen





Kim ended the call as Keats headed out of the yard closely followed by Mitch, who were both following the low-loader that had been ordered to transfer the cube to the lab. Neither vehicle had been equipped for transportation, so Mitch had simply wrapped it in plastic to preserve evidence.

A second team of Forensics had arrived and under instruction from Mitch would focus on the area the vehicle had been stored prior to crushing, while the initial team would focus on the crusher.

Penn had been dispatched back to the office to start searching the missing persons reports and identifying possibilities.

‘So, how you doing, Dob?’ Kim asked, entering the office building at the centre of the site. The afternoon sun was beating down on the felt roof and the south-facing windows making the space stuffy and unbearable. A three-speed fan did nothing to cool the air and only threw up dust particles into the rays of sunlight.

‘I’m all right but the missus is still shitting bricks,’ he said, although Kim could see the slight tremble to his hand as he moved a paperweight to the pile of papers closest to the fan.

‘Understandable,’ she acknowledged.

He used the back of his hand to wipe a line of sweat that had formed between his nose and upper lip.

‘Look, I dow mean to be insensitive…’

‘Then don’t be,’ Kim said simply. ‘You can have your equipment back when we’re finished but until then, you’re closed, matey.’

His mouth opened and his eyes rolled all at the same time as though he was using every body part he could think of to communicate his displeasure.

‘I gotta pay guys to just sit around until…’

‘You could always get ’em in here for a spring clean,’ she said, lifting up a folder to reveal another pile of papers hiding underneath. ‘Talking of which, I need the make, model and registration number of the vehicle, the name and address of the person who brought it in and on what date.’

‘Toyota Corolla,’ he answered.

She waited.

Nothing.

‘Okay, that was two answers of the six I want and to be fair they’re the least helpful two answers you could have given me,’ she said, glowering at him.

He shrugged and motioned to the desk that looked as though two printing presses had made babies. ‘It’s on a bit of paper. It’s ’ere somewhere.’

‘Bookkeeper took a holiday?’ Bryant queried, taking a look over the desk.

‘Yeah since the last bloody recession when folks stopped buying new cars,’ he said.

Kim tipped her head. ‘You’re not suffering too bad, Dob,’ she said, nodding outside to the rows and stack of cars. It wasn’t like he had a lot of room.

‘Tell that to the bank manager or even better tell it to the wife,’ he moaned.

‘You gotta have a system of some kind,’ she said. Dobbie had been in business too long for this level of stupidity.

‘Yeah, I write shit down on a piece of paper until I get time to do the books,’ he said, rubbing a dirty wrist across his forehead.

‘So, you don’t put cars in any area based on the day they came in or?—’

‘Is that really a serious question?’ he asked, looking to Bryant for a clue.

Her colleague nodded.

‘Yeah, I operate under the “wherever there’s fucking space” system and it’s worked all right for me for—’

‘Well, not really because the undisputed facts are that there was a person in that car when you put it in the crusher. So, how the hell did he get there?’

‘Hey, we ay done—’