All the Rage

Adam Fawley
5 April 2018
17.22

I'm not the first on-site; I can see Colin Boddie's car, and the CSI van is already parked up. But the two technicians are still sitting inside. They know I'll want to see the scene for myself before it's touched. Before it's disturbed.

I turn up my collar before I get out, hoping rain this heavy will give me some sort of anonymity, but the hacks have already worked out something is up. There are too many of us here now: however casually we play this, it's only a matter of time.

The uniform at the tape sends me in the right direction without (thankfully) being witless enough to stand there and actually point, and soon I'm over my boots in mud and slurry and struggling to keep vertical. We're in enough shit, frankly, without the literal version. Up ahead I can see a white tent, a scattering of search party members, and Ian Barnetson, standing unmoving, watching me approach. His face is bleak.

`˜Are we sure it's her?' I say as I draw level.

He nods. `˜As sure as we can be right now, sir, based on what she was wearing.'

`˜Have we found anything else?'

`˜No weapon in the immediate vicinity, but we don't know where she went into the water, so it could be anywhere. Likewise there's no handbag and no phone.' He holds my gaze. `˜And no underwear either. The state of the body `“ I don't think there's much doubt about what he did to her.'

I swallow hard. Force myself to put up some professional protection. And then I think about Sasha's mother, who won't have that luxury. About her father, who's only just found her again. I wonder what I'd do, how I'd feel if it was me `“ if I had a daughter. And then I think `“ and it comes almost as a wonder `“ perhaps I already do.

In the gloom inside the CSI tent the only thing I can see at first is Colin Boddie crouched on the ground, his paper suit slightly luminous in the failing light. I say his name and he stands up and turns towards me and gestures to what they found.

There's no blood, because the river has seen to that, but there is damage. A cruel, relentless, again-and-again damage that would have taken time and intent to inflict. Dozens of cuts and contusions on her bare legs, and the washed-out stains of the same violence on her clothes. The flesh around her wrists sliced and swollen by the cable ties where she tried desperately to get free. And worse `“ worse than all this `“ the plastic bag, knotted hard behind her neck, clinging half transparent to the mess of brain and bone and hair.

A plastic bag. Cable ties. I can't pretend I wasn't expecting this. But it's a kick in the gut all the same.

`˜She took one hell of a beating,' says Boddie quietly. `˜But you don't need a pathologist to tell you that.'

`˜Please tell me at least some of those injuries are post-mortem.'

He makes a face. `˜Some of them, yes. But the way that bag is tied, it's possible she blacked out from lack of oxygen. We'll just have to hope so, won't we. At least before he started on her face.'

* * *

***

`˜He must be the one who found her,' observes Nina Mukerjee as a tall uniformed officer passes by where she and Clive Conway are unloading their equipment from the back of the CSI van.

Conway glances across. The man is up to his waist in mud. `˜That's Barnetson. Poor sod. It doesn't get any shittier than that.'

There's a group of CID officers gathered a few yards away and Nina watches Barnetson go up and join them.

`˜Fawley doesn't look too happy either,' she says.

`˜Well, are you surprised?' replies Clive, not bothering to look. `˜That's one pair of Hugo Boss brogues I wouldn't want to be in right now.'

`˜It's not his fault the press are shits. Or that people have ridiculous expectations about clear-up times based on the crap they see on telly.'

`˜It's not just that,' he says, glancing up. `˜Word is there's another case `“ someone Fawley put away years ago. Apparently the similarities were already starting to look embarrassing. And now this.'

He gives Nina a meaningful look, then turns to lift out the last case, banging the doors shut.

`˜You don't seriously think Fawley would fabricate evidence?'

Nina wouldn't say she knew the DI very well `“ not personally anyway. But she's never had the slightest doubt about his professionalism. Or his integrity.

Conway shrugs. `˜It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. Could just be a good old-fashioned cock-up.'

At the far end of the car park, three harassed uniforms are trying to keep the press corralled behind the police tape, but there'll still be footage of Fawley on tonight's news. And of us too, no doubt, thinks Nina. There's always mileage in a white suit. Until, of course, the undertakers arrive.

She drags herself back to the task in hand. `˜So what's the plan?'

`˜One of the search teams has found what looks like drag marks on the bank. Could be where she went in.'

Nina squints up at the sky. If it was dry, they'd be looking for footprints, blood, DNA, but now?

Clive makes a face, reading her mind. `˜I know, but if we wanted a cushy life we'd never have gone into this bloody job in the first place, now would we.'

* * *