Death Lies Beneath (7 page)

‘Get the victim’s photograph circulated to Southampton Airport.’

Horton quickly added, ‘And Bournemouth, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.’

‘Circulate her picture to all airports in the south,’ commanded Uckfield. ‘One of the aircrew might remember her, a good-looking woman like that can’t have gone unnoticed.’

Horton refrained from saying that she could easily have been overlooked in such busy airport terminals.

Trueman nodded and disappeared as Eames appeared on the threshold. Horton saw Uckfield give her the once-over but this time there was no leer, and not even the hint of a lustful thought in his bloodshot eyes. Instead his glance was decidedly cool. Maybe his libido was suffering from the heat and overwork and his temper was certainly frayed. Usually the big man fancied anything in a skirt, or trousers come to that, if it was female, breathing and halfway passable. Although Uckfield had admitted to Horton that he drew the line at DCI Lorraine Bliss, adding with a sneer that she aimed her sights higher than a mere detective superintendent. But Horton dismissed Uckfield’s claims that Bliss was having an affair with Dean. He just couldn’t see it.

‘Any thoughts on the video?’ Horton asked Eames, hoping his own expression didn’t betray any lustful thoughts. He had to admit Eames was very attractive.

‘Not one of Woodley’s mourners slips out of sight for a second,’ she answered. ‘The victim doesn’t appear to acknowledge them and she certainly doesn’t speak to them. Neither does she talk to anyone in the Willard funeral party. Could she have known you were filming her? Perhaps she saw the van with the darkened windows and she’d been warned about a possible police presence.’ Clearly by Uckfield’s frown he didn’t like the sound of that. Detecting it, Eames quickly added, ‘I called Cliff Wesley again but he’s still not answering his mobile.’

Uckfield’s phone rang. Eames slipped out but with a wave of his hand, Uckfield indicated for Horton to stay. Into the receiver Uckfield said, ‘Sixty minutes. Yeah, in the conference room.’ Replacing the phone he addressed Horton. ‘I’m arranging a press briefing and if Cliff Wesley shows up I’ll make sure he’s asked if he remembers seeing the victim.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Get over to the mortuary and see what Dr Clayton’s got. If she can give us something that will help identify the victim in the next hour tell her I’ll buy her the most expensive drink on the bloody planet.’

Horton didn’t think that would be much of an incentive. He’d reached the door before Uckfield called out, ‘And take the blonde beauty with you.’

‘A
few minutes earlier, Inspector, and you could have watched Tom sew her back together,’ Dr Clayton greeted them cheerfully as they stepped into the chilly mortuary. Pulling off the unflattering but practical green plastic cap and running a hand through her spiky auburn hair, she eyed Eames curiously.

Horton swiftly made the introductions while trying to ignore the smell and his churning stomach. If he’d known he was going to come here he might have postponed eating the ham, salad and pickle sandwich in Uckfield’s office. He saw Gaye’s quizzical look when he mentioned where Eames had come from but he furnished no explanation and Gaye didn’t ask for one. He thought how tiny she looked beside Eames, who had to be a good five feet eight inches while Gaye was barely five two. In the green loose mortuary garb she looked rather like a child wearing clothes that were too big for her, he thought, while Eames had a transparent plastic overall tied firmly around her slim waist over her trousers and shirt. She, like him, was also wearing the flat white mortuary wellington boots. And she looked as though she was born to wear them. The ‘blonde beauty’ with notebook and pen in hand was coolly studying the corpse with its ugly great stitches down the chest and across the upper forehead as though it was a specimen in the laboratory, without any sign of revulsion.

‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing to a mark just above the victim’s right breast. ‘A tattoo?’

‘No, a birthmark in the shape of a butterfly I rather think,’ Gaye answered. ‘And it’s the only distinguishing mark on her.’

Horton peered at it. He didn’t think it was enough to make Uckfield happy.

Gaye continued, ‘She has borne children, or
a
child certainly.’

So someone must miss her.
Or had she also walked out on her child like his mother had walked out on him? He bet Eames had never experienced the pain of rejection. But this wasn’t about him or Eames, he scolded himself. It was about a woman who had been brutally murdered. He put his full attention on what Dr Clayton was saying.

‘She was very healthy: no deteriorating organs, no evidence of alcoholism or drugs, about forty-three give or take a couple of years and as I said at the scene, a woman who took good care of herself. She was well-groomed: eyebrows are beautifully shaped, fingernails and toenails are manicured and varnished.’ Gaye pulled down the cover to the waist and lifted out the victim’s right hand to show Horton the neatly shaped pink nails on the end of long slender fingers. ‘She’s certainly never done any manual work and I doubt she did much washing up, unless she wore rubber gloves, but I think household chores would be well down this lady’s list of priorities. She looks to me to be a very high-maintenance woman.’

Eames said, ‘Can I see her clothes?’

Dr Clayton pulled the trolley containing the evidence bags towards her and handed over the hat. Eames studied it for some moments. Horton caught Gaye’s inquisitive glance. He shrugged a response.

‘It’s by Philip Treacy,’ Eames announced, looking up. ‘He’s one of the top milliners in the country, and probably in the world, and it’s a new creation, this season’s or rather I should say part of the spring collection rather than the summer one.’

Gaye raised her eyebrows in surprise. But why wasn’t he surprised? Somehow he expected Eames to know this kind of thing and he judged her knowledge wasn’t gained from working at Europol on an investigation involving counterfeit designer wear. Her voice, bearing, manner and looks screamed class to him. He wondered how she’d ended up becoming a police officer.

‘Expensive?’ he asked.

‘That depends on who you’re asking,’ she answered earnestly. ‘About a thousand pounds new.’

‘For a hat!’ he exclaimed.

‘A mere nothing, then,’ tossed Gaye Clayton lightly.

Eames smiled. ‘Even if she bought it second hand, which I doubt, it would have cost her about three hundred pounds.’ She picked up the bag containing the shoe. ‘This is a Jimmy Choo.’

‘A what?’ asked Horton.

By the way Eames eyed him he could see that she wasn’t sure if he was taking the rise. He wasn’t. Obviously seeing this she continued. ‘Since Choo launched his label in 1996 he’s built up a celebrity and wealthy client base. If we find the victim’s bag, I expect it will also be a Jimmy Choo. The soles are showing a little wear but the heel has never been repaired. I don’t think the victim would have gone to that much trouble.’

‘Cost?’

‘About four hundred, maybe five hundred pounds.’

‘And the dress?’

Eames went through the same ritual, studying it intently before answering. ‘Cotton blend with an exposed double-ended zip down the back, very provocative, and only someone with her kind of figure, shapely but slim and firm, would look good in it.’

Like you
, thought Horton. He caught Gaye’s glance and shifted a little uncomfortably seeing she’d easily read his thoughts. Eames hadn’t, though. Still examining the dress she added, ‘It’s by Victoria Beckham, which means it cost somewhere in the region of two, maybe three thousand pounds.’

Horton eyed her disbelievingly.

‘It might even have cost more,’ Eames said. ‘Everything I’ve seen so far is genuine and I would say bought new.’

‘As I said,’ Gaye chipped in, ‘a high-maintenance lady.’

And clearly one who had money. Marty Stapleton’s money? he wondered. He could see that was what Eames was thinking. A thought occurred to him but it would keep.

Eames continued. ‘Her underwear is silk, sexy and again very expensive. We might be able to trace her through the top fashion houses, designer shops or Internet sites that sell these kind of clothes but that would take considerable time.’

And resources, Horton thought, which they didn’t have, unless Europol assisted. He looked at Gaye Clayton, hoping there might be a short cut.

Interpreting his silent plea she said, ‘OK, so much for the entrée. Let’s get down to the main course and see if that helps or hinders your investigations. There is no evidence that she was manhandled or subjected to any kind of physical abuse before being killed. She was also alive when she entered the water, but not for long. The stab wound is located on the right side of the back, twenty-one inches below the top of the head and five inches from the front of the body. The knife entered the skin, the subcutaneous tissue, and through the right seventh rib before penetrating the right pleural cavity. The estimated length of the total wound path is about four inches. A fatal wound causing perforation of the right lung and a haemothorax.’

‘And the weapon?’ asked Horton.

‘A very sharp single-bladed pointed knife, difficult to say the exact size but approximately seven inches in length. There are no signs she put up a struggle. The knife was thrust upwards with some strength.’

‘By a man?’ enquired Eames, looking up from her notes.

‘Not necessarily. A stab wound such as this can be made with minimal force. The important factor is the sharpness of the tip of the blade, and this one was very sharp. Once it has penetrated clothing and skin remarkably little force is required to follow through and create a deep knife wound. Also the faster the stabbing action, the easier it is to penetrate skin. However, the thrust of the knife was underhand, which suggests a man rather than a woman, who tend to favour overhand thrusts. She was killed some time between ten thirty and midnight.’

After everyone had left the sailing club, and by that time it was dark, thought Horton.

‘Thirdly and most interesting is this.’ Gaye pulled the cover further down until it reached the body’s knees. ‘As you can see from the pubic hair your victim was a natural blonde. The hair on her head was dyed black and her eyebrows and eyelashes were tinted black. And I discovered something else which is slightly unusual. She was wearing coloured contact lenses to make her eyes brown. Your victim was not naturally dark-haired and brown-eyed; she was a blue-eyed blonde, much like you, Agent Eames. Now why would she want to change her appearance?’

Why indeed?
He glanced at Eames, whose brow puckered with thought as her posh pen hovered over her notebook.

Gaye added, ‘I’ll send her clothes for forensic examination unless you’d like to take them with you.’

Eames answered, ‘No, but we’d like photographs of them please and of the birthmark.’

‘Tom will email them to Sergeant Trueman. I’ve also sent fingerprints over to the fingerprint bureau and DNA for analysis. Oh, and two further things. She had sexual intercourse not long before death and it was consensual.’

With one of Woodley’s mates!
Unlikely, thought Horton. He frowned as his mind grappled with this new information.

Gaye said, ‘She’d also eaten a meal five to six hours before she died, probably between five thirty and six thirty. Again there is no sign of her having been forcibly fed.’

‘What kind of meal?’ asked Horton.

‘I’ll let you know as soon as I can.’

Horton thanked her. He caught her quizzical glance before he left, which made him feel a little uncomfortable. Why, he didn’t know, or perhaps he did. He wondered if Dr Clayton was a mind-reader as well as a pathologist. He hoped not because she might have sensed that Agent Eames disturbed him, and not just mentally either.

Outside he said, ‘Does the fact she was really blonde strike any chords with you?’

‘Not immediately but I’ll circulate a revised description to Europol. I’ll also issue a new photograph of the victim with her natural colouring once the photographic unit give us a computer-generated image.’

‘It doesn’t sound as though she was held somewhere against her will. And I can’t see her having sex and eating a meal with any of Woodley’s associates.’

Eames considered this. ‘Perhaps she met someone before meeting her killer.’

That was entirely possible but why hadn’t this person come forward? Perhaps whoever it was didn’t know she’d been killed. He said, ‘While we’re here, let’s see if we can have a word with Fiona Wright.’

They made their way to the radiography department in the hospital. Horton was mulling over Dr Clayton’s revelations but he was still no nearer a conclusion by the time they located Fiona Wright. She’d finished with her patients for the day and waved them into seats in the small air-conditioned consulting room.

‘I had been hoping to go sailing tonight,’ she said, ‘but obviously because of the police investigation, that’s out of the question.’ She pushed back her shoulder-length brown hair and gave them both a nervous smile. Horton guessed she was in her late thirties. There was no ring on her left hand or indeed on any of her fingers but that didn’t mean she wasn’t married or living with someone, she probably removed her jewellery for work.

She said, ‘Gaye told me that you’d probably want to speak to me about that poor woman’s death. Do you know who she is yet?’

‘We’re still trying to establish that.’ He nodded at Eames, who took the photograph from her jacket pocket. As she handed it across to Fiona Wright, Horton wondered how much more different the victim would look blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

‘Have you seen this woman before?’ Eames asked.

After studying the picture carefully, Fiona Wright said, ‘No. Gaye told me where her body had been found. I certainly didn’t see her last night. I arrived at the club just after seven and left just before ten with Gaye. There was no one outside then.’

‘Any cars parked that you didn’t recognize?’

‘Only a silver Range Rover.’

And Horton knew that belonged to the Chief Constable. ‘Did you leave the club by the front entrance at any time while you were there?’