A Shred of Evidence (12 page)

“So you don’t think it was rape,” she said.

“I didn’t say that. But if it was,” said Freddie, “no force was used, and no resistance offered.” He bent over the body. “So …” The words came out in little groups as he did something unspeakable to the corpse. “Either she consented to sex … before any of this happened, or … she was in no condition …” He made a little grunt as he succeeded in removing whatever it was, “… 
to
resist,” he finished, straightening up and favouring Judy with a brief smile before making some unintelligible notes into the microphone above his head.

“That just meant that the victim was healthy,” he explained when he had finished. “She has no toxic substances in her body. Heart, liver and lights all sound as a bell.”

Judy didn’t want to think about Natalie as a healthy teenage girl. She much preferred her victims entirely unknown to her. “Can you tell me any more about the head injury?” she asked.

“Not much.” He bent to his task again, and didn’t speak for some minutes. “I can see two distinct blows, and then any number. Can’t give you any indication of the build or weight of her attacker, either, I’m afraid.” He rinsed his gloved hands and signalled for the body to be taken away.

The cleaning-up operation wasn’t much better than the postmortem itself. Judy felt sick.

“I can tell you how it was done, though,” Freddie said, and stepped back. “Someone put a hand over her face.” He demonstrated on his own face. “Like this. There are marks of the thumb and little finger of a right hand on her cheekbones. Her assailant pushed—” He pushed his own head back. “Her head hit the edge of the concrete pipe. No great strength required. Just one forceful, unexpected push.”

He took his hand away from his face. “That first blow didn’t do a terrific amount of damage, but she slid down the edge of the pipe, I think, from the slight grazing to her back. That could be how her skirt got pushed up.”

“Rather than by her assailant?”

Freddie shrugged. “It’s perfectly possible,” he said.

But Freddie still hadn’t ruled out rape.

“And while she was in a sitting position,” he went on, “her head was repeatedly struck against the concrete, which was
when the real harm was done. When her attacker let go, she was either pushed inside the pipe or fell inward of her own accord. And after some minutes, she was strangled.”

Judy wanted out of here. “Is that when you think she was sexually assaulted?” she asked.

“I don’t think anything,” he said automatically. “But if she had removed her own underclothing and put it in her pocket prior to the attack, I would have thought that she would just have removed the tights and pants together, wouldn’t you? It’s quicker.”

Judy was no expert in alfresco sex, but it seemed a reasonable supposition. She nodded.

“I would therefore have expected to find the pants still inside the tights, or lying about near the body, if he’d pulled them away from one another. I don’t think he could have pulled the tights out of her pocket and left the pants in there unless they had been put in separately, which seems unlikely.”

Judy nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

“Which is why I am not ruling out the possibility that the removal of her underwear was subsequent to the attack, and that a sexual assault took place then, either before or after she was asphyxiated.”

Judy closed her eyes. Poor little Natalie.

“If it’s any consolation, I doubt that she knew much about it,” said Freddie.

Judy opened her eyes, startled to hear Freddie departing from his usual clinical attitude.

“Her mother said that she had a quick meal at home before she went out,” he said. “The digestive processes have taken their natural course in the time you would expect them to have taken. That suggests that there was no prolonged period of fear.”

Judy was grateful to Freddie for saying it, but the whole thing had taken only fifteen minutes. Not, in her layman’s opinion, enough time to have affected the digestive processes anyway.

Freddie smiled sympathetically, something Judy hadn’t realized that he could do.

“Time of death,” he went on. “Well, that tallies with the witness’s statement. Even by the time I examined her, she was obviously very recently dead. With the temperatures that the police surgeon took, which were higher than normal because of the asphyxia, I’d say between nine-thirty and ten-thirty, and probably somewhere between the two is about right.”

Judy nodded.

“In other words,” Freddie went on, “she could certainly have been killed while this lady was in the woods with her dog.”

“And the assailant’s hand could have muffled any cry,” Judy said, at last finding her voice.

Freddie nodded. “Yes,” he said. “So there’s no reason from my point of view to doubt your informant. She would have been unlikely to hear anything, and I doubt if there would have been time for the victim to cry out at all, come to that. The first head injury probably caused her to lose consciousness to a degree, as I said. The subsequent blows to the head would have rendered her at best semi-conscious.”

Judy escaped then, having to make herself walk through the labyrinthine corridors instead of run, which was what her whole being was telling her to do. She would never, never get used to mortuaries and bodies being opened up like sardine cans. Never.

Kim kept looking at the empty table where Natalie would have been sitting. They were in the form room; lessons were disrupted because of the police being at the school, and anyway no one could have concentrated.

Mr. Murray had just left the room, and had told them to stay there.

“He’s a bit weird, isn’t he?” said one of the girls, leaning back in her chair to speak to Kim.

Kim frowned. “Who?” she said.

“Mr. Murray,” she said.

No, he wasn’t. He was nice. Kim shrugged.

“Haven’t you noticed?” said the girl.

“No,” said Kim.

“He looks at you funny,” she said.

“At me?” said Kim, astonished.

“No! At everyone.”

“Does he?” said Kim, disbelieving.

“Well,” she said, “he was looking at me when he came in here. And Marian—she said he looked at her, too. And Debs says he stared at her in assembly this morning.”

Kim sighed. This was bound to happen, she supposed, after something like this. They’d think men were following them home next. “Maybe he just fancies girls with long hair,” she said. “I’ve not noticed him looking at me funny.”

Poor Mr. Murray.

She hadn’t told Colin where she was.

She had done this before; come here to think, when staying in the house had seemed impossible. The last time had been when she had found that letter.

Erica felt the tears coming again, the tears that she had cried all night, and had controlled only once she was up by a considerable effort of will.

She shouldn’t be doing this to him, not really. The police suspected him of murder, and he hadn’t killed the girl. Just had an affair with her. And now she had disappeared without telling him where she was. The police might think that he’d done away with her too.

No. No, that was nonsense. They didn’t start accusing you of having done away with your wife just because she had gone out without telling you. But Colin would be worried. Half of her wanted him to be, but the other half knew it wasn’t fair to add to his problems, even if they were of his own making. The police must have found out that he’d been seeing Natalie, she thought, otherwise why would Sergeant Finch have been asking all those questions? Why would be have taken his running things away? It wasn’t anything she had said, even if Colin thought it was.

Anyway, she wasn’t going to stay away, not like last time. She had just needed somewhere to go, somewhere quiet to
think. She wouldn’t leave Colin wondering where she was. It wasn’t fair, leaving him alone like that this morning, really.

But she had been alone, she thought, blowing her nose. She had been alone all summer while he must have been seeing that girl, every time he went to athletics meetings. Taking her with him, as likely as not. She had known there must be someone.

She had known really, ever since the letter she had found at the end of last term, the one that said all those things about what they had done together …

Had she been checking up on him when she had taken the dog to the Green? She didn’t know. She didn’t honestly know. But it didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened. Colin had heard Sherry bark, looked up and seen her, then had just taken off as fast as he could. He wanted her to face him with it so that he could try to convince her that she was mistaken.

She wasn’t. She wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to give him the chance to deny it. He couldn’t deny it if he wasn’t even supposed to know it had happened.

She stood up. She would go home now. Colin would have gone to work.

“Colin Cochrane works here, doesn’t he?” asked Tom, settling himself down with a coffee in the staff room, which was occupied by a sole female, pretty and plump.

“Yes” was the short, and, Tom felt, would-be dismissive reply.

He wondered a bit about that. There was nothing the police had done to indicate that Cochrane was a suspect, unless he’d told them himself that they had removed his tracksuit and trainers for examination, which seemed a little unlikely. Not the sort of thing Cocky Colin Cochrane wanted to get into the papers, Tom was sure, however innocent he may prove to be.

So why the hostility? It was there, quite definitely. Perhaps she just didn’t care for total strangers joining her on a free period that she had thought she would be spending in peace.

“Tom Finch,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m a DS with Stansfield CID. We’re here about—”

“I know why you’re here,” she said.

Tom nodded. “The headmaster said I could get a cup of coffee in here,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind me being here. But it’s thirsty work, interviewing.”

“I fail to see what Mr. Cochrane has to do with your enquiry,” she said.

“Oh, it was just that I met him last night,” said Tom. “It was his wife’s dog that—” He broke off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being a bit insensitive. Did you know Natalie?”

“She was in my biology class,” she said, softening slightly. “I didn’t know her particularly well, but obviously it’s been a terrible shock. I’m Mrs. Kane, by the way,” she added.

“I’m sure you don’t need me rabbiting on about Colin Cochrane,” said Tom, picking up his mug, making as if to leave. “I just—you know. I’ve only seen him on the telly before.”

“Please. Stay, if you want. It’s not your fault this terrible thing’s happened. I thought you’d been listening to school gossip, which is absolute nonsense. What did you want with Colin?”

Gossip? Tom hadn’t heard any gossip, but the staff did seem to like Cochrane. Mrs. Kane obviously did, so he wouldn’t get told any rumours about him by her. He’d try the kids. A much better bet.

“It must be funny, working with him,” he said, apparently quite uninterested in gossip.

“Funny?” said Mrs. Kane.

“Well, with him being famous, and all that. If I was him, I’d have packed all this in by now.”

Mrs. Kane’s eyebrows rose. “Some people are dedicated to what they do,” she said.

“Yes,” said Tom. “I suppose they are. The thing is, I’ve got a son—he’s six.” He delved into the wallet in which he really did keep a photograph of his children. “That’s him,” he said. “He’s really good at sport—better than you’d expect a kid that age to be. A lot better. I don’t know how young you should start them and I thought Colin might … I didn’t really get much chance to talk to him last night.”

She sighed. “Any other day I would have said that you could catch him at lunch,” she said. “He lunches with me as a rule. But I think he may go home to see how his wife is.”

Tom nodded. “Of course,” he said. “She was very shaken up.” He thought for a moment. “He doesn’t have lunch with his wife, then?” he asked. “She works here too, doesn’t she?”

Mrs. Kane smiled. “No scandal, I’m afraid,” she said. “Erica prefers to bring sandwiches. The teachers are expected to eat with the pupils if they stay in school for lunch.”

“Oh.” Tom smiled. “That’s what I call dedication,” he said. “No wonder Mrs. Cochrane prefers sandwiches.”

Mrs. Kane smiled back. “Lunch can be a bit trying,” she said. “But Colin would be pleased to talk to you about your son, I know. It’s just I think he probably won’t be there today.”

“He was saying last night that he’s moving up to long-distance running,” Tom said, with a hint of pride at his inside knowledge of the great man.

“Yes, so I believe.”

“Doesn’t always work, does it? If you’re used to middle-distance.”

Mrs. Kane smiled. “Oh, Colin will try to see to it that it works,” she said. “I’ve never met anyone so determined. So disciplined.”

Tom looked earnestly at Mrs. Kane. “How often does he do that run that he was doing last night?” he asked, awe-struck.

“Three or four times a week at least.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “That same run?” he asked. He outlined Colin Cochrane’s run, only to have Mrs. Kane join in with the last few stages.

“He might not go as far out as that each time,” she said. “It depends how long a run he’s doing. He sets himself a time, you see, and the round trip must be completed in the time he’s set. I told you—he won’t give up once he’s got hold of something. But I don’t think he’s being very sensible.”

“Do you think he’s overdoing it?”

“He … he’s a bit obsessive about it, I think,” she said. “But then, he’s like that about everything. He’s one of these people
who can’t just have an interest in something. He becomes hooked on it.”

Tom finished his coffee. “Well … let’s hope he makes it,” he said, getting up and going to the door. “It would be a shame to see him retire from running altogether.”

“I think he should,” said Mrs. Kane. “He’s not getting any younger.” She looked up at Tom. “He comes in here some mornings worn out,” she said. “I don’t honestly know why he’s doing it at all, but he does it too much too often, if you ask me.”

Tom couldn’t but agree that he’d done it once too often now.

Hannah strained to hear what the doctor was saying to her mother. She had been ill all night; her mother had found her being sick and had called the doctor first thing.