Page 84 of The Unforgiven

“I do. I was there. Long time ago though.” Liz sighed, looking at nothing in the distance.

“What were the boys like those summers? Do you remember Lennon or Craig or Marc?” I prompted, any insights could be useful, given that Wrigley was keen on pursuing any leads on where those boys were now. I knew information was already coming in; my phone kept vibrating in my shoulder bag.

Meredith frowned. “They played football a lot, and sometimes knocked about with the girls, but none of them stood out. They were on the beach or the field most of the time with a ball. They were what, fourteen, fifteen? They hadn’t got to the partying stage yet.”

“Were there any fallings out between them? Anything you remember about how they got on?” Lachy sounded impatient. He needed to develop his tolerance for older ladies as they were often a source of useful information.

Liz shook her head, then rubbed it with the towel she was carrying. “Nothing you wouldn’t expect from teenagers that age. They teased each other, and Chelsea and Dolly bullied the others in different ways, but that’s life, isn’t it? The boys were just boys. It’s a shame about the girls being killed. It wasn’t anything to do with coming here, was it?”

I had every feeling it was.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

We didn’t go back to the Pigeon Loft. A phone call from Wrigley when we’d stopped at Chester services for a coffee diverted us to head straight to the Brooklands Boating Basin, a former industrial inlet, because the third report that morning of a woman’s body floating in water had actually been accurate. Since the discovery of Brooke O’Hara, we’d had multiple calls a day that ended up being false reports. The best one had been a floating blow-up doll dressed in a nurse’s outfit.

The caller for this had been a mother, taking a morning walk with her baby in a pram and her three-year-old daughter, who’d been the one to spot the hand of Evelyn Smith, pointing out the painted nails, which still looked social media-worthy, even in death.

We hadn’t formally identified Evelyn, but the nails were a giveaway, having had a whole social media account dedicated to them. The scene had been secured, the victim semi-submerged, trapped against debris cluster near the basin bank, the path of which was overgrown and dense with vegetation, other than the path which feet had worn when strolling by. There was no clothing visible while she was in the water, just the hand andpart of her forehead, hair floating up, mingling with the reeds, making it look like a modern-day Lady of Shalott.

I watched as the CSIs worked under Jenna’s instruction to move the body out of the water, three of them in waterproofs and waders, this procedure routine now. The body was clothed, jeans and a light-coloured vest top, no shoes, although one of the crime scene techs had found a designer trainer further along which had been bagged.

From her front, there were no signs of injuries visible, but we all expected to see the knife marks in her back when she was at the mortuary.

My half-brother wandered over to me after overseeing the movement of her body, now securely bagged, into the vehicle.

“I believe you were expecting this one?” he said, taking off a pair of gloves. “The missing woman.”

“I’d hoped she’d disappeared to spite her boyfriend.” I really had. “Looks like that didn’t happen.”

“Unless she staged it, but that would be pretty desperate and require some help. How’s things going otherwise?”

“Okay.” I wanted to tell him about Cavan and Lucy, wanted to share it with someone who might understand. “How’s the house?”

“Coming on. No real problems so far. I’d best head off – are you on post-mortem duty?”

I had indeed pulled that short straw. “I am. I’ll see you there.”

Vinny and I got to the mortuary well after Nate had begun the postmortem, a quick team briefing to refocus everyone after what we’d learned over the course of the day so far delaying us, which I was more than happy with. We didn’t always stay for the entire process, just enough to get an idea of what had happened, if that was possible. The pathologist would send through aninitial report, and then a longer, more detailed one would come through later on.

Nate looked over at us through the window, scrubbed up and almost unidentifiable. It felt strange seeing him and Jenna Osei talking to each other, standing closer than would normally be professional, me knowing – along with everyone else – that they were in a relationship that was serious enough to warrant Nate moving to Manchester.

“Do you want the headlines?” He asked, passing an implement to his assistant. I didn’t want to know what it was used for.

“Go ahead,” Vinny said, hands in pockets, legs slightly spread, looking every inch like you expected a police sergeant to look if transplanted from the nineteen seventies. “When’s Saira back, by the way?”

“Next week, and you’re off the hook. She’s had a fling while she’s been on holiday so you’re yesterday’s news.” Nate looked amused.

“Thank fuck for that.” Vinny looked a little lighter. “So go on, who’ve we got here?”

“A well-nourished adult Caucasian female, who appears consistent with known identity. I’d agree with this being Evelyn Smith. She’s five foot seven, and around sixty-two kilograms.” He accepted another implement from his assistant. “Early stages of aquatic decomposition are consistent with less than twenty-four hours in water with skin slippage on her hands and feet, and mild bloating of her abdomen but no advanced marbling. So far, I’ve noted one penetrating stab wound located in the midline of the back, approximately between the T6 and T7 vertebrae, and the wound path suggests moderate force, and a narrow, double edged blade.”

“Is it the same knife as before?” This was all sounding very familiar.

“It’s consistent with it, but I’ll do some more tests to ascertain if it’s the same. But what you have that’s different is that she was drugged. The entry of the stab wound is downward, back to front, and lightly left to right. It’s pierced the left lung and caused blood in the chest cavity, which resulted in her death. There’s evidence of needle marks in the elbow creases and her neck, but some of the healing indicates prior ongoing injection. She was dead before she hit the water, as in I don’t think she was stabbed and then fell in the water. Judging by her lungs, she was already deceased. I’ve already had a good look at her. Stomach is empty also – she hadn’t eaten for at least twenty-four hours prior to death.” He and his assistant careful turned Evelyn Smith over. “You haven’t got repeated stab wounds like the others. This was once and done. There are no skeletal injuries or cranial trauma, but there are marks around her wrists and ankles which suggest she was restrained. I’ll let you have an idea of what with in the report.”

“We have a few differences. She’s died within the last – how long?” I asked, trying to make it look as if I was studying the body but looking anywhere else.

“No more than forty-eight hours.” He took a couple of photos before handing the camera back to his assistant. “I would suggest that the man you have in custody is not the killer of this woman here.”