Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven #3)(29)

Hoyle and Edgar react instinctively and suspend the interview.

Lenny motions to me. ‘You’re coming.’

‘He’s under arrest,’ protests Hoyle.

‘Last time I looked, stupidity wasn’t a crime,’ says Lenny. ‘Otherwise we’d be short-staffed.’

‘This is my investigation.’

‘And I outrank you. Take it up with the chief constable.’

Early November and the overnight temperatures have dropped into single figures. A light rain is falling from a starless sky as a convoy of police cars travels along narrow country lanes, snaking around blind bends and over humpback bridges, the headlights forming a tunnel through the landscape.

Turning onto a farm track, the lead car lurches into a pothole, bottoming out, rock against metal. The constable at the wheel apologises but doesn’t slow down. Instead, we buck and weave along the muddy track, which follows the raised bank of a drainage ditch. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of ploughed fields and patches of trees and the light of a distant farmhouse.

A lone tree appears ahead of us, lit from below, as though someone is camping beneath the branches. Figures create shadows. Police officers. Crime scene investigators. Pulling through another farm gate, we cross a culvert and stop at the edge of the lighted area. The tree is an ancient oak, turned white by the spotlights.

Matching strides with Lenny, I walk along the eastern bank of the ditch. A fetid chemical smell rises from the water – a mixture of fertiliser and faeces. Hoyle is ahead of us, still grumbling.

‘Are they sure it’s Maya?’ I ask.

‘She has a tattoo of a bluebird on her shoulder,’ says Lenny.

We reach the tree where the blades of a plough have left a teardrop-shaped section of compacted earth around the trunk. Bare branches reach out across the drainage canal, where the water looks black as sump oil and refuses to reflect the light. A shuffling figure encased from head to toe in pale blue coveralls is moving gingerly through the mud and reeds towards a bundle of rags.

‘I need more evidence bags,’ he yells, turning towards the brightness. His John Lennon glasses blink when they catch the light. He is attached to a safety harness, which is looped around the waist of another technician, who is letting out rope, or pulling in slack. She is the woman I met on the stairs at the murder house, Cassie Wright.

The SOCO in the water lifts a camera and focuses on some detail. The flash leaves a white dot dancing on my retinas. Someone hooks a clip onto the safety rope and the evidence bags slide into his hands. Crouching down, he collects a soft drink can between his gloved fingertips and slips it into a bag.

We’re joined on the edge of the ditch by Robert Ness, a senior Home Office pathologist, who gets called Nessie behind his back, but never to his face because he’s six-three and over two hundred pounds. Until I met him, I expected him to be Scottish, but he has Jamaican parentage and a Scouse accent.

‘I’d have done it myself but it’s a body mass issue,’ he says, motioning to the water. ‘We sent Voigt. He’s expendable, but if he drops that camera I’ll have his guts for garters.’

Voigt struggles to keep his balance in the mud, his legs braced apart, squatting to lower his centre of gravity.

‘He’s going to need more than a tetanus booster if he falls in there,’ says Lenny.

My eyes study the water ahead of him and settle on a dumped car tyre and the bundle of rags, which now appears to be a discarded tarpaulin. Voigt carefully pulls back the tarp, revealing the body. He calls out details.

‘Caucasian female. Thirties. She doesn’t have any hair.’

‘Say that again,’ says Hoyle.

‘Her head has been shaved.’ Voigt moves around the body. ‘Stud earrings. Polish on her fingernails. Soft colour.’

‘To your left – next to your knee,’ calls Ness.

Voigt follows his instructions, bending to pick up a crisp packet, which he seals in a plastic evidence bag. Each time he moves, he searches for his centre of gravity before he takes a photograph or collects a sample.

The crime scene manager, Craig Dyson, is hovering near Ness’s shoulder, awaiting instructions.

‘We’ll need a stretcher and guide ropes to move the body,’ says the pathologist. ‘Use the branches of the tree as a tether point. You might want to get a winch.’

Dyson begins making the arrangements.

Ness looks at the terrain. ‘It’s been raining, which will make it harder to find footprints or tyre tracks.’

‘Who discovered the body?’ I ask.

‘A local farmer.’ He points to lights on a distant ridge. ‘He saw a vehicle on the track last night. Thought some local teenagers had come out to party. Forgot about it until this afternoon. He was checking fences when his dogs started barking.’

I peer into the darkness, knowing that I might need to return and study the location in daylight, to understand the landmarks and the lines of sight.

‘Where does this track lead?’ I ask.

‘An abandoned barn.’

‘What about those buildings?’ I point to the far side of the field where I can make out the sloping silhouette of rooftops.

‘Piggeries,’ says Ness. ‘Hence the smell.’

I can picture the history of this area – the mum-and-dad smallholdings swallowed up and turned into a mega-farm. High-intensity agriculture, the changing face of the British countryside.