Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(10)

The technicians worked around her and she blocked out the surrounding chatter. For a moment Kim was as still as the body. Everything faded away as she focussed her senses on the woman before her. The only thing that mattered was the clues she still held. Anything other than the victim disappeared from her mind as she allowed her gaze to start at the partly exposed feet.

The woman’s toes peeked from gladiator sandals with two strap fastenings above each ankle. Only one of the straps of each sandal was tied.

The skirt was long and flowing, a gypsy skirt formed of vertical patterns up to the elasticated waistband. Kim took a closer look. The skirt rested just above the sandals all the way around, as though placed with care. A lilac vest top with thin straps showed the absence of a bra. The slight frame didn’t require one. A simple chain with a gold cross hung below the neck, falling on the breastbone.

Her arms were placed a couple of inches away from her torso. The wrists were barely discernible from the rest of her arms. A thin strap of white showed where her watch should have been on the left wrist, but it was the right wrist that caused Kim to pause.

A perfect line encircled the wrist and a graze had removed some of the skin from the top of the hand. Kim needed no more information to deduce the mark and the graze were from the presence of handcuffs.

Her heart beat faster for just a few seconds as her eyes lingered on the injury. She remembered how that same red ring had looked on her own six-year-old hand. The memory of soreness from the scraped skin passed fleetingly through her, causing her to rub the top of her own hand. Sometimes she needed to remind herself that it was long gone; although new flesh had grown and healed it away she would still be able to draw its shape back onto her skin twenty-eight years later.

She shook her head to release her mind from the past.

Her gaze travelled up to what used to be a head. The skull was distorted as though someone had taken a bite out of it like an apple. Dried blood covered every inch of the skin and had formed rivulets over the woman’s jaw and down her neck. The right-hand side of her hair was coloured red from blood and the left was blonde. Kim guessed it was where she had turned her head slightly into the ground to try to avoid the blows.

The nose appeared to be pointing to the left. The flesh would have swollen immediately upon impact. Injuries inflicted after death didn’t swell, indicating the victim had been alive during the beating.

‘What the…?’ Kim said, leaning down. Her attention was drawn to the line between the upper and lower lip. A brown substance had rested there.

‘Easy, Inspector,’ Keats warned, watching her every move.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, tipping her head to get a better look.

Keats leaned down from the other side of the body and took a deep breath before placing his face next to to the victim to get a closer look. He didn’t want to exhale and blow away valuable evidence.

‘Looks like dirt,’ he said, meeting her gaze.

‘In her mouth?’ Kim asked.

Keats pressed a single finger to a couple of areas of the woman’s swollen face. How he knew what he was touching was a mystery to Kim.

‘Don’t quote me until I get her back but I think her mouth is full of it.’

Kim stood and looked around. ‘Here,’ she called, spotting an area that had clearly been disturbed. A tech marked where she pointed as she moved out of the way. If the killer had scraped at the ground to loosen the dirt he could have left something behind.

Bryant appeared beside her and held out a cardboard cup. She took it and sipped as she turned her attention to Keats. ‘I already know she’s been here less than twelve hours and there’s no other wound, so…’

‘Hear that, guys? The detective inspector knows it all so let’s just pack up now and bury her tomorrow.’

For a split second Kim wondered if he was referring to the victim or her.

Both she and the technicians ignored him.

‘The professor was very informative while we were waiting for you.’

‘So you won’t be grilling me for an early post-mortem then?’ he retorted.

‘You wish. Speaking of which…’

‘Tomorrow at nine and I’m not budging.’

‘Fine.’

‘Bryant, feel her forehead. No fight. She’s sickening for something.’

She offered him a brief smile.

The timing of the post-mortem suited her perfectly. There was no handbag close by or pockets in the victim’s clothing so identification would be the priority of the day.

Kim took one last walk around the body, committing every detail to memory. She paused. There was something she hadn’t noted before. She reached towards the left hand, but Keats swatted her away.

‘Don’t even think about it. They need to be bagged.’

Kim raised an eyebrow. This was not her first dead body.

The hands were one of the most important elements of a body at a crime scene. There could be anything under the fingernails: skin, a fibre, a clue.

She moved along the body to the feet and found the same clue there.

She touched the nail of the big toe gently, rubbing the tip of her finger back and forth.

She felt footsteps approach behind her as she knelt down and brought her face closer to the toes.

‘Well… Detective Inspector, it appears we meet again.’

Kim’s eyelids snapped open at the voice she recognised all too well.