In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(36)
“And the girl?” Lynley asked.
“Skull cracked like an egg. The post-cerebral artery was pierced.”
Which meant what exactly, Hanken enquired.
“Epidural haematoma. Internal bleeding, pressure on the brain. She died in less than an hour.”
“It took longer than the boy?”
“Right. But she'd have been unconscious once she was hit.”
“Could we have two killers?” Hanken asked directly.
“Could have, yes,” Dr. Myles confirmed.
“Defensive wounds on the boy?” Lynley asked.
None that were obvious, Dr. Myles replied. She settled her trainers into a sports bag and zipped it smartly before giving the officers her attention again.
Hanken asked for confirmation on the times of the deaths. Dr. Myles enquired what times his own forensic pathologist had given him. Thirty-six to forty-eight hours before the bodies had been discovered, Hanken told her.
“I wouldn't argue with that.” And she scooped up her bag, nodded a curt farewell, and headed towards the hospital exit.
Now in the car, Lynley reflected on what they knew: that the boy had brought nothing with him into the camp site; that there were anonymous and threatening letters left at the scene; that the girl was unconscious for close to an hour; that the two means of murder were entirely different.
Lynley was dwelling on this last thought when Hanken swung the car to the left, and they headed north in the direction of a town called Tideswell. Along this route they ultimately regained the River Wye, where the steep cliffs and the woods surrounding Miller's Dale had long since brought dusk to the village. Just beyond the last cottage, a narrow lane veered northwest and Hanken steered the Ford into it. They quickly climbed above the woods and the valley and within minutes were cruising along a vast expanse of heather and gorse that appeared to undulate endlessly towards the horizon.
“Calder Moor,” Hanken said. “The largest moor in all the White Peak. It stretches from here to Castleton.” He drove another minute in silence till they came to a lay-by. He pulled into it and let the engine idle. “If she'd gone camping in the Dark Peak, we'd have had Mountain Rescue going after her eventually when she didn't turn up. No little old bat with a doggy to walk would've taken her constitutional up there and found the bodies. But this”—he swept his hand in an arc above the dashboard—“is accessible, all of it. There're miles and miles to cover if someone gets lost, but at least those miles can be handled on foot. Not an easy walk and not entirely safe. But easier to tackle than the peat bogs you'll find round Kinder Scout. If someone had to be murdered in the district, better it happened here, on the limestone plateau, than the other.”
“Is this where Nicola Maiden set off?” Lynley asked. There was no track that he could see from the car. The girl would have had to fight her way through everything from bracken to bilberry.
Hanken rolled down his window and spat out his chewing gum. He reached over Lynley and flipped open the glove compartment to fish out another stick. “She set off from the other side, northwest of here. She was hiking out to Nine Sisters Henge, which's closer to the western boundary of the moor. Rather more of interest to be looked at on that side: tumuli, caverns, caves, barrows. Nine Sisters Henge is the highlight.”
“You're from this area?” Lynley asked.
Hanken didn't answer at once. He looked as if he was considering whether to answer at all. He made the decision at last and said, “From Wirksworth,” and appeared to seal his lips on the subject.
“You're lucky to live where your history is. I wish I could say the same for myself.”
“Depends on the history,” Hanken said, and changed gears abruptly with, “Want to have a look at the site?”
Lynley was wise enough to know that how he met the offer to look over the crime scene would be crucial to the relationship he developed with the other officer. The truth was that he did want to see the site of the murders. No matter the point at which he joined an investigation, there was always a time during the course of the enquiry when he felt the need to look things over himself. Not because he didn't trust the competence of his fellow investigators but because only through a firsthand viewing of as much as possible of what related to the case was he able to become a part of the crime. And it was in becoming a part of the crime that he did his best work. Photographs, reports, and physical evidence conveyed a great deal. But sometimes the place where a murder occurred held back secrets from even the most astute observer. It would be in pursuit of those secrets that Lynley would inspect a murder scene. However, inspecting this particular murder scene ran the risk of unnecessarily alienating DI Hanken, and nothing Hanken had said or done so far even hinted that he might overlook a detail.
There would be an occasion, Lynley thought, when he and the other officer wouldn't be working this case in each other's presence. When that occasion arose, he would have ample opportunity to examine the location where Nicola Maiden and the boy had died.
“You and your team have covered that end of things, as far as I can see,” Lynley said. “It wastes our time for me to go over what you've already done.”
Hanken gave him another lengthy scrutiny, chewing his gum in staccato. “Wise decision,” he said with a nod as he put the car back into gear.
They cruised northwards along the eastern edge of the moor. Perhaps a mile beyond the little market town of Tideswell, they turned to the east and began to leave the heather, bilberry, and bracken behind. They drove a short distance into a dale—its gentle slopes dotted with trees that were only just beginning to display the foliage of the coming autumn—and at a junction that was curiously signposted to the “plague village,” they headed north again.