Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

* * * * *

A solicitor from the firm of Grant, Harding and Wilkinson was representing Ronnie Fisher, and as Hunter stepped into the soundproof interview room he had already prepared his thoughts for a challenging interrogation, most likely a battle of wills between himself and a ‘pain in the arse’ defence solicitor.

Seeing the legal representative, Hunter took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. This one had an appearance even smoother than Peter Blake-Hall’s solicitor. He looked to be in his mid-fifties with a good head of neatly trimmed silver grey hair and wore a dark blue pinstriped suit, which appeared handmade. A white Oxford, button-down shirt was teamed with a dark blue monogrammed tie.

This man was no legal clerk, thought Hunter, as he dragged out one of the chairs opposite. His appearance shouted senior partner.

Hunter dropped his folder onto the table and lowered himself slowly into the chair.

Grace took the seat beside him, next to the tape recording machine.

Hunter made the introductions and flipped open his folder of notes.

“Mr James Harding.” The solicitor replied.

Guessed right.

Ronnie Fisher was silent. He half-sat, half-lazed on his seat, legs out straight, arms folded, his chin resting on his chest. He didn’t acknowledge them with even a glance.

Hunter couldn’t help but notice the ugly red graze across his forehead, and his badly swollen nose and mouth. He fought back the urge to smirk.

He waited for the tape machine to kick in and then cautioned Ronnie Fisher. “Do you understand what I have just said, Mr Fisher?”

Silence.

“I first want to talk to you about the attack on me last night, when you tried to stab me.”

Silence.

For almost forty-five minutes Hunter fired round after round of questions, firstly regarding the attack upon himself and then the stabbing of Mike Sampson. Ronnie Fisher refused to speak. Hunter would have preferred to have engaged in verbal combat, but he knew how it would look when it was put to a jury and he let out a satisfied sigh as he finished the last question.

As the first tape came to an end, Hunter closed his folder and half rose from his chair. Leaning across the table, using his arms as supports, he announced in a strong formal voice, “Ronnie Fisher, I am charging you with the attempted murder of Detective Constable Michael Sampson and the attempted murder of myself. Would you like to say anything about that?”

Ronnie Fisher raised his head and gave him a hate-filled stare.

* * * * *

The Task Force Specialist Search Team who were combing the woods for Lucy’s body had finished exploring the first marked-out grid section shortly before eleven am.

The nature of the work had been tedious and laborious and so when the call came for them to have a break, there was an almost unanimous sigh of relief.

Police Constable Craig Darrington was busting. For the past hour he had needed a piss, so when the shout went up he immediately scampered away from his group to a holly bush he had spotted earlier, just outside the search grid.

Quickly, he released the waist belt containing his equipment, and unzipped his coveralls, gasping with relief as the stream of urine left his aching bladder. At first he stared around him, checking no one could see what he was doing, but then, as his jet-stream of piss turned to a trickle he dropped his gaze to the ground, ready to zip himself back up and return to his team. For a brief moment he studied the area where he had urinated. The unusual undulation of a small section of the woodland floor caught his attention. His eyes drifted around the uneven oblong shape for a few seconds and that was when he spotted a discarded cigarette butt. For a further few seconds he studied the uneven surface and came to the decision that he needed to explore this, if only to satisfy his curiosity. He reached out for his metal ‘sniffer rod,’ which had been resting against the holly bush and set it atop the mound. With an almighty strike, he thrust it through the top layer of soil. He heard a muffled crack from beneath the earth and the most awful putrefying smell drifted out from the centre of the hollow pole. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled and then he yelled, “Sir, over here!”

* * * * *

Detective Inspector Scaife took the call from the Task Force Inspector and immediately informed Detective Superintendent Dawn Leggate of the search team’s discovery.

Hunter and Grace entered the office after their interview and the SIO met them.

“Drop what you’re doing. You two are coming with me,” she ordered. She filled them in as they headed downstairs to the exit. They piled into a spare car and raced up to the scene.

Hunter drove at break-neck speed. At one stage, coming out of a bend, close to the public entrance into the woods, he had to brake sharply to avoid hitting a photographer dashing from between the trees.

“It hasn’t taken the press long,” the Detective Superintendent said, as a posse of them swarmed towards their slowing car.

As Hunter weaved a course through, he saw a couple of uniformed officers were doing their level best to corral them back.

Hunter jockeyed the unmarked car between the ruts of a thin winding path for another few hundred yards, until he spotted a caravan of parked and marked Task Force vans and Scenes of Crime vehicles lining the narrow track. There, he stopped.

Quickly suiting themselves into protective coveralls, the three detectives left the car, and tramped the small distance, over damp and springy ground, to where a white tent had already been erected. Uniformed officers were putting the finishing touches to the setting up of a sterile perimeter using blue and white crime scene tape.

The team had worked fast, thought Hunter, as he ducked beneath the plastic tape and headed towards the forensic tent. Outside of it, two white-suited members of the Forensic Team were sifting loose soil onto a small pile.

Inside, three forensic specialists were on their knees, using hand trowels to scrape away lumps of soil. Duncan Wroe, clipboard in hand, was supervising things.

They had already removed a good couple of inches of topsoil.

Duncan levelled his gaze at the SIO. “You’ve already been updated ma’am?”

She nodded, “The task force Inspector rang the office half-an-hour ago. He said that they think they’ve found a body.”

“It’s certainly looking like that, unless someone’s buried their pet here.”

Another hour later, soil scraping resulted in a six-inch dip in the earth. The loose dirt had been emptied into plastic containers and carried outside to be sifted for evidence — a slow but necessary job.

Hunter was just checking the time on his watch — his stomach was telling him it was long past lunch-time, when he heard a rustling from the ground.

He glanced down, just as a member of the digging team pushed themselves back from the hole.

A young woman’s voice announced excitedly, “I’ve found something!”

* * * * *

It took the forensic team another two hours to fully unearth the remains of a body, wrapped inside semi-transparent extra strong plastic sheeting, the type used by builders.

It took another half-an-hour of careful handling before they loaded it into the private ambulance so that it could be safely transported to The Medico Legal Centre for a post-mortem.

* * * * *

Professor Lizzie McCormack had been called out to carry out the examination of the human remains, and by 3.30pm, she and her technician, together with Hunter, Detective Superintendent Leggate and SOCO supervisor Duncan Wroe, had all assembled inside the autopsy room at the Centre.

The pathologist sliced open the heavy duty plastic sheeting which contained the cadaver. As she worked, she talked; the in-built microphones picking up everything she said, relaying her words back to state-of-the-art digital voice recording machine.