Simon Beckett - The Chemistry of Death

The bird opened its eyes.

Lyn cried out and stumbled backwards as it began to thrash about, head jerking against the wire pinning its neck. It was damaging itself even more, but she couldn't bring herself to go near the wildly beating wings. Her mind was beginning to function again, making the connection between this and the dead hare, laid on the path as though for her to find. And then that was swept away by a more urgent realization.

If the bird was still alive it couldn't have been here long. Someone had done this recently.

Someone who knew she'd find it.

Part of her insisted that was just fantasy, but she was already sprinting back down the path. Branches whipped her as she pounded past, no thought of pacing herself now, just get out get out get out yelling again and again in her head. She didn't care if she was being stupid or not, wanted only to escape from the woods to the open landscape beyond. Only one more twist in the path and she'd be able to see it. Her breath rasped as she ran, eyes flitting to the trees at either side, expecting someone to appear out of them at any second. But no-one did. She gave a half-moan, half-sob as she neared the final bend. Not far, she thought, and as she felt the first stirrings of relief something snatched her foot out from under her.

There was no time to react. She pitched forward onto the ground, the impact forcing the air from her lungs. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Stunned, she managed one breath, then another, sucking the damp scent of loam into her throat. Still dazed, she looked back at what had tripped her. At first what she saw made no sense. One leg was stretched out awkwardly, the foot twisted at an odd angle. There was a thin gleam of fishing line snagged around it. No, she realized, not fishing line.

Wire.

Understanding came too late. As she tried to scramble to her feet a shadow fell across her. Something pressed into her face, smothering her. She tried to rear back from the cloying, chemical stink, fighting with all the strength in her legs and arms. It wasn't enough. And now even that was ebbing. Her struggles grew weak as the morning swam away from her, light bleeding to black. No! She tried to resist, but she was already sinking further into darkness, like a pebble dropped into a well.

Was there a last sense of disbelief before consciousness winked out? Possibly, though it wouldn't have lasted long.

Not long at all.

For the rest of the village, the day broke as any other. Perhaps a little more breathless, excited by the continued presence of the police and speculation about the identity of the dead woman. It was a soap opera come to life, Manham's very own melodrama. Someone had died, yes, but for most people it was still a tragedy at arm's length, and therefore not really a tragedy at all. The unspoken assumption was that it was some stranger. If it had been one of the village's own, wouldn't it have been known? Wouldn't the victim have been missed, the perpetrator recognized? No, far more likely that it was an outsider, some human flotsam from a town or city who had climbed into the wrong car, only to wash up here. And so it was regarded almost as an entertainment, a rare treat that could be savoured without shock or grief.

Not even the fact that the police were asking about Sally Palmer was enough to change that. Everyone knew she was a writer, often travelled to London. Her face was too fresh in people's minds to associate with what had been found on the marsh. So Manham was unable to take any of it seriously, slow to accept the fact that, far from being an onlooker, its role was far more central.

That would change before the day was out.

It changed for me at eleven o'clock that morning, with the phone call from Mackenzie. I'd slept badly, gone into the surgery early to try and shake the vestiges of another night's ghosts from my mind. When the phone on my desk rang and Janice told me who was on the line I felt a renewed tension in my gut.

'Put him through.'

The hiatus of connection seemed endless, yet not long enough.

'We've got a fingerprint match,' Mackenzie said as soon as he came on. 'It's Sally Palmer.'

'Are you sure?' Stupid question, I thought.

'No doubt about it. The prints match samples from her house. And we've got hers on record as well. She was arrested during a protest when she was a student.'

She hadn't struck me as the militant type, but then I hadn't really got to know her. And never would now.

Mackenzie hadn't finished. 'Now we've got a firm ID we can get things moving. But I thought you might be interested to know we still haven't found anyone who can remember seeing her after the pub barbecue.'

He waited, as if I should find some significance in that. It took me a moment to drag my thoughts back. 'You mean the maths don't add up,' I said.

'Not if she's only been dead for nine or ten days. It's looking likely now that she went missing almost a fortnight ago. That leaves several days unaccounted for.'

'That was only an estimate,' I told him. 'I could be wrong. What does the pathologist say?'

'He's still looking into it,' he said, dryly. 'But so far he isn't disagreeing.'

I wasn't surprised. I'd once come across a murder victim who'd been stored in a freezer for several weeks before the killer finally dumped the body, but usually the physical processes of decay worked to an ordered timetable. It might vary depending on the environment, be slowed down or speeded up by temperature and humidity. But once they were taken into account then the process was readable. And what I'd seen at the marsh the day before – I still hadn't made the emotional jump to connecting it with the woman I'd known – had been as irrefutable as the hands on a stopwatch. It was just a matter of understanding it.

That was something few pathologists were comfortable with. There was a degree of overlap between forensic anthropology and pathology, but once serious decomposition started most pathologists tended to throw up their hands. Their area of expertise was cause of death, and that became increasingly difficult to determine once the body's biology started to break down. Which was where my work started.

Not any more, I reminded myself.

'You still there, Dr Hunter?' Mackenzie asked.

'Yes.'

'Good, because this is going to leave us with a predicament. One way or another we need to account for those extra days.'

'She might have been holed up writing. Or just have gone off somewhere. Been called away without having time to tell anyone.'

'And been killed as soon as she got back, without anyone in the village seeing her?'

'It's possible,' I said stubbornly. 'She could have surprised a burglar.'

'She could,' Mackenzie conceded. 'In which case we need to know one way or the other.'

'I don't see where I come into it.'

'What about the dog?'

'The dog?' I repeated, but I could already see what he was getting at.

'It makes sense to assume that whoever killed Sally Palmer killed her dog as well. So the question is, how long has the dog been dead?'

I was torn between being impressed at Mackenzie's sharpness, and irritation that I hadn't seen it myself. Of course, I'd been trying hard not to think about it at all. But there was a time when I wouldn't have needed it pointing out.

'If the dog's been dead roughly the same length of time,' Mackenzie went on, 'then that gives more credence to your burglar. She's either here all the time writing or arrives back from wherever, her dog disturbs an intruder, he kills them both and then dumps her body on the marsh. Or whatever. But if the dog's been dead longer that puts a different complexion on it. Because that means whoever murdered her didn't do it straight away. He kept her prisoner for a few days before getting bored and carving her up with a knife.'