Mark Sennen - Touch

The last word hung for a moment, the room’s usual buzz stilled apart from a trilling phone. A knocking sound made everyone turn to where Riley stood at the whiteboard tapping his fingers on the picture of Simone Ashton.

‘The question is who is the unlucky one this time?’

Savage shivered at Riley’s words. The pretty face in the photograph smiled out, the expression unaltered from a minute ago. And yet now it was possible the girl might be dead.

‘Answer that, someone!’ Savage broke the spell, pointing at the ringing phone. ‘Darius, inform Hardin and wait here until I call. If I can get an ID, and the body belongs to one of the misper girls, then I want you at her place of work pronto. Jane, you are with me, come on!’

Everyone became animated again, the phone answered, a babble of conversation starting up, people moving with renewed vigour. Savage looked on for a few seconds and then she was sprinting from the room with her trusty DC in tow.

*

The blustery weather that had brought sunshine and showers for their last visit to Malstead Down was gone and now rain fell vertically from a blackened sky. Without a breath of wind to shift the clouds it seemed to Savage as if the rain might continue forever. She parked the car on the edge of the green, well away from the church. With the engine off the only noise was the drumming of water on the car roof. They sat for a couple of minutes, almost as if not moving would freeze the passing of time and maybe prevent anything bad from ever happening again. It was Calter who brought some lightness to the occasion.

‘Grim, ma’am,’ she said, peering out of the windscreen. ‘But if that is your DC Newlyn then I might just move to Totnes.’

Newlyn was walking over the green toward the church. Well-wrapped in waterproofs, his handsome, boyish face poked out from the hood. He spotted their car, waved at them and jogged across. Savage lowered the window.

‘Morning, Constable. This is becoming a habit. Who discovered the body?’ Savage asked.

‘Morning, ma’am,’ Newlyn nodded at Savage and beamed in at Calter. ‘Jean Sotherwell.’

‘Oh no, please tell me you are joking?’

‘No, I am afraid not. She was doing the flowers for the Sunday service. She went to the church first thing this morning. When she found the body she had a heart attack.’

‘Bloody hell. That’s not good.’

‘Not for us or her. Thankfully she was conscious when the ambulance arrived and the paramedics seemed hopeful.’

‘Well, that’s something. I bet it won’t be long before old Foxy starts poking his nose in.’

‘Apparently he is at a Chief Constables’ conference in Birmingham. On his way back this afternoon.’

‘We had better get a move on then.’ Savage looked around at the mixture of cottages and larger dwellings dotted about the green. They had a good view of the church. ‘All these houses will need to be door-stepped again.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Savage got out of the car and put waterproofs on, leaving Calter flirting with Newlyn. She walked over to where a SOC van stood near the church. Next to it a stepladder was leaning against the churchyard wall. Savage spotted another familiar face as John Layton got out of the van, pulling on his raincoat and plonking his Tilley hat on his head.

‘We must stop meeting like this,’ Savage said. Then she pointed at the ladder and the tape running to the church. ‘You like your ladders, don’t you?’

Layton grinned. ‘We are pretty sure the perpetrator came through the main entrance since the vestry is always locked. This is an alternative way in, keeping us clear of the evidence trail, such as there is.’

‘Can I go in?’

‘Through the vestry, yes. The police surgeon has been and gone and Nesbit is on his way.’

‘He will be cross I beat him to the scene again.’

‘He is cross already. I had to break the news that the ambulance crew had moved the body.’

‘Careless of them.’

‘They didn’t have much choice. Either that or leave the old dear crushed underneath.’

‘I’ll take a peek inside if you don’t mind?’ Savage said.

‘Be my guest. There are some PPE packs inside the door on the left.’

Savage signed the log that Layton proffered and clambered over the ladder into the churchyard.

The blue and white tape leading to the vestry door weaved among the gravestones, and as she passed each stone she had the weird sense that she was walking over long dead bodies in order to view a fresh one.

She opened the door to the vestry and stepped out of the rain into the silence of the church. Someone had put up a written note on the door leading to the main part. The message said ‘Coats off, suits on BEFORE YOU OPEN THIS DOOR.’

Savage took off her wet coat and hung it up on a peg next to a row of cassocks and surplices. Then she opened one of the PPE packs, put on the disposable suit and tied her hair back, pulling the suit hood up and making sure the elastic was drawn snug around her face. Next on went the paper face mask covering her nose and mouth and a pair of plastic overshoes. Finally she pulled on the nitrile gloves. These days you couldn’t be too careful.

The heavy oak door swung open without a sound and she left the vestry and entered the church.

A harsh light flared up at the altar for a split second and for a moment the two white cloaked figures there looked like angels, frozen in time as if they were on a giant canvas. The light flashed again and the angels moved about their business. The illusion was dispelled when one of them spotted her and called out a warning muffled by his mask.

‘Keep to the right if you wouldn’t mind, ma’am.’

The main aisle had been taped off, but she could walk up the right hand side of the pews and go behind the choir stalls to view the chancel.

As she emerged from behind the stalls she caught sight of the girl’s body. It was lying tumbled on the floor, half-covered by a white sheet or cloth. Savage looked at the face. Simone Ashton, no question about the identity this time. Simone’s beautiful blonde hair contrasted with the horrific mess of flesh at the mouth and Calter’s earlier comment about escalation came back to her.

‘Worse than last time, isn’t it?’ The voice belonged to Rod Oliver, unrecognisable behind the mask. No sign of his stupid assistant. ‘Same cut in the belly too, but like before it hasn’t bled and there is nothing else suggesting trauma.’

‘The CSM said the body had been moved?’

‘The casualty was underneath the body. The paramedics didn’t have a lot of choice. We believe it was on the altar wrapped in the white cloth.’

‘And Foxy’s mother-in-law pulled the cloth off?’

‘Yes, seems that way. Under UV we might be able to get some idea of how it was positioned. Turin shroud sort of thing.’

Savage left Oliver and wandered back the way she had come. A third CSI knelt on the floor near the entrance and he beckoned Savage over, pointing to a set of muddy footprints.

‘They are good prints and we believe the church was cleaned yesterday so they could well belong to whoever brought her here.’

‘They are certainly too large for the flower lady.’

‘Yup. And the print is something like a welly boot.’

The CSI told her they would be doing a fingertip search of the church once Rod Oliver had finished taking his photographs. In the meantime she could walk around if she didn’t touch anything and kept away from the entrance, the aisle and the chancel.

Savage moved towards the rear of the church to view the whole tableau. At the back there were several stacks of chairs and a little play area with a soft rug and some plastic toys she thought would have occupied Jamie for precisely two and a half minutes. Next to the play area the font stood atop a stone pedestal. The font itself was an elaborate marble affair with many carvings on the outside. The wooden lid lay half-open, balanced on the edge in a precarious position.