Gill stepped away, went to the window, looking out at the back, a tiny yard walled by broad, horizontal planks for fencing. Perfect climbing territory for a house burglar, but this girl had nothing worth taking. Unless somebody came to steal drugs. The telly in the corner by the window wasn’t a flat screen but an old monster, impossible to move without transport.
As they moved the table, the victim’s left arm slumped, gravity pulling it down, unfolding. ‘No sign of rigor,’ Gill said. If the body was still pliable and there were no obvious signs of decomposition, it meant the time of death was recent. Rigor came on a few hours after death and lasted for between one and three days, depending on the external conditions.
Ranjeet continued his examination. ‘Wound to the left arm,’ he pointed out, ‘probably defensive.’
Gill squatted down, careful not to get her feet in the puddle of blood congealing around the girl’s torso. The cut was a couple of inches below her wrist, along the edge of the bone. ‘The weapon?’ Gill asked.
‘No sign,’ said one of the CSI guys. Gill looked at the cut and at the tattoo that braceleted the girl’s wrist in gothic script. ‘Who’s Sean?’ she said.
‘Boyfriend,’ Phil supplied.
Ranjeet took the body temperature. He nodded at the result. ‘Thirty-five point nine, still warm.’ A CSI began the process of placing and removing tape on the girl’s body and then taking swabs from the mouth, nose and vagina.
Gill and Phil discussed what further actions should be taken to retrieve crime-scene evidence, among them recovering the remaining bed linen from the bedroom.
‘Undress her now.’ A large plastic sheet was placed to the side of the dead girl and then the body was lifted as carefully as possible and laid on it. The CSIs removed the housecoat, the back of it drenched in blood, and put it in an evidence bag.
‘We’ll be ready to lift her soon,’ Ranjeet said. The stretcher and the body bag were prepared. Any further examination of the body would be done at the mortuary as part of the post-mortem; they wouldn’t turn her over here and risk destroying evidence.
So, Lisa Finn, thought Gill as she prepared to leave, what the hell happened to you?
THERE WAS ALWAYS that buzz when they picked up a job. A spurt of something in the gut, a kick-start to the heart. ‘You’re a ghoul, Janet,’ Ade had said to her one time.
‘I’m a detective,’ Janet said, ‘this is what I do, this is what I’m good at. We find the bastards, we get them sent down.’
