Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(20)

She followed Catherine out the door and turned left. The discovery of Jemima’s body had curtailed their guided tour and Kim could see they were now taking the other route.

‘So you’re an entomologist?’ Kim asked as they left the gravel and stepped onto grass.

‘Yes,’ Catherine answered.

‘And you’ve worked here for—’

‘I’m thinking, Inspector. I work as I walk.’

So do I, Kim thought. Or at least I try to.

Catherine’s words were not unpleasant or rude. Merely cool and detached. Not unlike herself, Kim conceded.

‘Am I a suspect?’ she asked and Kim saw the first evidence of an expression. It was the hint of a smile.

‘Everyone is a suspect,’ Kim answered honestly. ‘So…’

‘I have worked at Westerley since it opened, having been asked by Professor Wright to leave my old job.’

‘And you two met…?’

‘I was a student of his at Aston University.’

‘So what appealed to you about… oh my God!’ Kim exclaimed.

‘I’d like you to meet Elvis,’ Catherine said.

A body had been placed half sitting, half lying against the trunk of the tree. Kim was glad Catherine pointed out the name as she honestly could not have fixed a gender.

It wasn’t the sight of the body that had startled her. It was the volume of wasps.

One buzzed close to her ear and she instantly swatted it away. Two hovered close to Catherine’s right eye, but she made no move to displace them.

Nerves of steel, Kim noted.

‘Elvis is helping us learn about wasp activity on the body.’

‘How?’ Kim asked.

Catherine leaned down closer to the body. Kim did not. She had seen many dead bodies that were combed for clues to help her do her job. Somehow the sight of corpses deliberately abandoned to the insect and wildlife community for feasting and housing was a new experience for her.

‘We all know that clumps of fly eggs hatch into thousands of maggots in as little as four to six hours. But yellow jackets and wasps show up within the first few hours too. Some feed on the body itself. Others snag flies in their wing, carry them off and decapitate them with one swift bite of their jaws. Others feast on the masses of fly eggs or the young maggots hatching in the body’s openings.’

‘So what are you hoping to learn about the wasps?’ Kim asked, taking a step back. Catherine’s movement around the body had caused a clump of them to emerge from the left eye of the corpse.

Catherine didn’t move a muscle.

‘I want to analyse the level of wasp activity against the level of decomposition. The fresh stage, the bloated stage, the decay stage and the dry stage.’

Kim could verify from the unique aroma that Elvis had not yet reached the dry stage.

‘Is there a reason Elvis is under a tree?’

Catherine nodded as she pushed herself to her feet.

‘Bodies left in the sun tend to mummify. The skin becomes tough like leather, impervious to maggots.’

Kim was prevented from asking anything further as Catherine began to write. Kim watched the hand move across the paper but it was the joints that caught her eye. All four knuckles contrasted with the tanned skin. Each one of them was white with scar tissue.

‘You can speak,’ Catherine said.

The woman tried to write something and then shook the pen up and down.

‘You really do like your insects, don’t you?’

‘I am fascinated by their ability to survive. I only hope they never learn to communicate with each other.’

‘Why?’ Kim asked, finding the statement a little strange.

‘Because there are over a million species of insect and they represent more than half of all known living organisms. So if they ever managed to communicate with each other, we’re in big trouble.’

Kim had never thought of that. But perhaps Catherine had thought about it enough for both of them.

Catherine shook the pen again and then looked at Kim.

‘Do you…?’

Kim shook her head.

As Catherine spun it between her palms Kim glanced over towards the location she’d stood in just twenty-four hours earlier. There was no activity.

‘Have the techs gone?’

Catherine nodded. ‘Just before I got in this morning.’

Kim hadn’t been informed they’d finished collecting evidence.

She took out her phone and dialled Woody’s number.

‘Stone,’ he greeted.

‘The techs have gone, sir. It’s a pretty big area. I can’t believe they’ve finished combing it already.’

‘I know,’ he responded. ‘It was my instruction. They were called off first thing this morning.’

‘May I ask…?’

‘Not that I have to explain my decisions to you but a deserted terror cell was discovered in Digbeth yesterday afternoon.’

Ah, she needed no further explanation. That was a priority job. Every inch of an abandoned cell would be analysed. Over here, Kim was dealing with one person who was already dead. Clues in Digbeth could lead to saving hundreds if not thousands of people.

But just because she understood it didn’t mean she had to like it.

‘Okay, sir, thank you for letting me know.’