Local Gone Missing(61)

Elise ignored him. She was on a roll. “We’ll need to take away all of your clothes and shoes for examination, Pauline.”

And the fight seemed to go out of Pauline. She drooped in her chair, hands to her face.

“You need to be looking at what he’s been doing,” she said quietly. “It’ll be on his laptop. He’s been up to his old tricks again.”





Forty-five


THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019





Elise


Pauline claimed she knew nothing more about Charlie’s business practices except there’d been knocks at the door at night.

“Charlie said not to answer them—said it was kids but I knew it wasn’t. We’d been here before. I thought we’d left all that behind in London,” she offered before weeping mascara stains into Mr. Grimes’s white shirt.

They had to let Pauline go while further inquiries were carried out and she left with her chin up. But she wasn’t sashaying anymore.

Elise watched as she walked away, clinging onto Mr. Grimes’s arm, and was secretly relieved. She was exhausted too.

“How are we getting on with Charlie’s laptop?” she said to Caro. “Have we got access to his e-mails yet?”

“I’ll find out. But it’s time-out for you, boss,” Caro said. “Do not speak for twenty minutes—and close the blinds so you can shut your eyes.”

“Bloody hell, this isn’t a nursery. . . .” Elise tried to laugh it off. But she felt her eyelids droop as she reread the pathologist’s report, and when the words began to swim, she rang Aoife Mortimer.

“Hello!” the pathologist said. “What’s today’s intellectual exercise?”

“Ha! Actually, I’m back at work—I got the call after I got home from the hospital.”

“Wow! And how do you feel about that?”

“Fine, fine. I’m feeling good,” Elise lied. “But I’m having to hit the ground running. Can you talk me through a couple of things? I think Charlie Perry may have been in his house the whole weekend. We know now that he was dropped off there Friday night and there are zero sightings of him until his body turned up. I need to know what he was doing in there. Was he hiding or could he have been held prisoner?”

“Well, his wrists and ankles were unmarked—no rope or plastic tie marks on the skin, no bruises or abrasions.”

“Was he drugged?”

“There’s nothing obvious but we’re analyzing fluids, his hair and fingernails,” Aoife said. “There was nothing in his stomach. The only thing I found was sweet corn and tiny shreds of plastic in the bowel.”

“Sweet corn and plastic? Right.” Elise tried to sound like she was keeping up.

“We found the remains of a tuna and sweet corn sandwich in the Perrys’ kitchen bin with Charlie’s saliva on it. He must have wolfed it down in a hurry—it appears he ate some of the shrink-wrap covering.”

“Really?”

“Plastic lurks around the gut if you swallow it. You should see a drug mule’s stomach contents.”

“That’s a treat I’ll pass on. So situation normal—it’s a waiting game for results. But whoever attacked or manhandled the body must have left some trace? There should be sweat and fibers transferred in the process unless they were wearing a hazmat suit. They haven’t found any matches to anyone of interest yet but the lab is working on it. When do you think you’ll hear?”

“Ha! You haven’t been away that long—your guess is as good as mine.”

“Still here, Elise?” DCI McBride stuck his head round the door as she started rereading her notes from Pauline’s interview.

“Yes, sir, just bringing myself up to speed.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be in the building after midday today, according to Occupational Health. Don’t overdo it on your first day or they’ll crucify me.”

“I won’t,” Elise said.

“I’ll give you a lift home,” Caro said, appearing at McBride’s side. “Leave it to me, sir.”

Elise waited until her boss had disappeared down the corridor before picking up the folders and her bag.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go to the scene. I need to fix the layout in my head.”

“Hang on! Didn’t you hear McBride?”

“He said I shouldn’t be in the building and I won’t be.”



* * *



—

The door to Tall Trees had been wedged open to allow the parade of white-suited Scenes of Crime Officers easy access. Elise put on her own suit, pulling the hood over her head and zipping it up to her throat, and looked round. She realized she looked the same as everyone else for the first time in months, and smiled.

It was way too hot for extra layers and she felt a bit heady. Inside the house, years of damp cooled her core like an ice challenge and she shivered.

Caro rustled in behind her. “Come on, boss, let’s get down there while the lights are still up.”

Caro led them into the cellar and Elise looked up through the hatch to where she’d stood with her shirt over her nose three days earlier. There were numbered evidence markers on the floor showing where Charlie’s body had lain and a deep black stain from body fluids seeping into the dirt floor.