‘Jesus Christ, you’d better come back and see what I’ve found!’ he said, then rested his hand against the side of the patrol car and threw up.
The partly decomposed body was minus limbs. But even in the appalling state of mutilation, the body half-caught in the shovel of the digger was obviously a female.
Anna was in bed reading, when the phone rang. It was Brandon. He didn’t waste time apologizing for the late-night call.
‘I thought you’d like to know: the local police sent to check on Gail Sickert reckon they have found her body.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, and it gets worse. They think she may have been partly fed to the pigs; her limbs are missing. They can’t be one hundred per cent sure it is her.’
‘Dear God.’
‘Yeah. So far, they’ve not found any remains of her kids. They asked for you to be contacted.’
‘Why me?’
‘You called them to check on her whereabouts, right?’
‘Yes — yes, I did.’
‘Well, they want to see you. They’ll also need her mother to identify the remains. You’ve got her contact numbers, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘No need to do anything tonight; call them in the morning. The murder enquiry will be out of our jurisdiction, so nothing more to do with us.’
‘I’ll do that, thanks.’
Anna replaced the phone, and then lay back on her pillow. There was no way she would call Beryl Dunn herself; she would give her details to the station and hopefully that would be all. At the same time, she could not help but feel guilty; it was hard to take in the full horror of what might have taken place. She couldn’t get out of her mind the memory of the dirty little child in her play swing.
Unable to sleep, she got up, made herself a cup of tea and telephoned the station in the New Forest. She was told that there was no one she could speak to at that time of night, and that she should call the next morning and ask for a Detective Inspector Brian Mallory. She gave her name, and said that she had been an investigating officer on a murder enquiry dealing with Gail’s brother, Arthur Murphy.
‘I’ll pass the message on.’
‘Has the victim been identified yet?’
‘I’m unable to give you any details, DI Travis.’
She was afraid he was going to cut her off. ‘Just one moment — I also would like to give you a contact number, in case the victim needs to be identified. Mrs Beryl Dunn is Gail Sickert’s mother.’
It seemed to take an interminable time for the duty Constable to take down the details. Anna ended up leaving her mobile number with him.
At seven-thirty the following morning, as Anna stepped out of the shower, her mobile phone rang. It was Mallory. He sounded very edgy.
‘Detective Inspector Travis, I would really appreciate it if you would come to the station first thing this morning. You apparently called last night? I would really like to talk to you.’
‘Have you managed to contact Beryl Dunn?’
‘Not as yet.’
‘Has anyone identified the victim?’
‘No, and we have as yet not found any other remains.’
‘Thank God.’
There was a pause. ‘Detective Travis, the victim is still at the site. Could you meet me there?’
‘Is it necessary?’
‘Yes, it is. We have got a management team organized. How soon can you get here? It’s just I would like as much information as possible, before an MIT team comes on board.’
Anna said she would meet him at ten, which gave her plenty of time to drive there. She wasn’t stupid; she knew they were unable to say whether or not the body was Gail Sickert. That’s what they needed her for; only then would they contact a relative for a formal ID.
Nowadays, the police system was run so differently from the way it had been in the past. Most local police stations dealt with traffic, burglary and any locally connected crime; murder was now only dealt with by a qualified and experienced team of specially trained detectives. An incident room would be set up at the local station and used as a base by the new team. Pathologists and forensic scientists would be brought in as quickly as possible. Anna hoped that by the time she did get to the bungalow, the murder team would be in motion and she could therefore get away as soon as possible.
The rain was lashing down and the drive to the bungalow awash; a number of patrol cars were parked up on the edges. She drove through the puddles and potholes as far as she could before a uniformed officer, wearing a cape, signalled for her to stop. She gave her name and said that she was here to meet Detective Inspector Brian Mallory. She was directed round to the back yard and asked to leave her car parked in the designated area.
Anna was glad she had put her Wellington boots and umbrella into the passenger seat-well. She wove her way round thick pools of mud and slime, and approached the yellow police crime scene cordons. She could see a lot of white-suited forensic officers moving in and around the area, their wagon parked up. The digger had been moved back and they were erecting a big white tent to cover the partly dug manure heap.
‘Is Detective Inspector Mallory here?’ she asked a female officer, who was standing with a big black umbrella.
‘Far side of the piggery, under the tarpaulin,’ she said.
Anna skirted around the crime scene ribbons towards the makeshift shelter. The officers were huddled together, as the rain was now even worse. Parked over to one side, away from the action, was the catering truck known as Teapot One.
Anna ducked beneath the tarpaulin and shook her umbrella outside.
‘Hi, are you Detective Inspector Travis?’
Anna gave a tight smile. ‘Yes, I’m DI Travis. Are you DI Mallory?’
‘Yes.’ Mallory was a thick-set man with iron-grey cropped hair and a red face with puffy cheeks. He reached out a big, thick-fingered hand to shake hers. ‘Thanks for coming; you want a coffee or tea?’
‘No, thank you.’ She looked around. ‘This is pretty grim.’
‘We’ve got masks if you go into the forensic tent, but it’s pretty well stinking all round. The pigs have been shut up, but they’re going to be moved out this morning by the landlord.’
The stench was getting to her, and she wrinkled her nose with distaste. ‘Wow, this is bad, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘We can talk in one of the patrol cars.’
‘I’m fine here, but I would like a mask.’
‘Right, I’ll get one for you.’
The other men under the tarpaulin were all in uniform; she gave a small nod to them, as Mallory returned with a mask in a plastic bag.
‘Have you found any other remains?’ she asked.
‘No, but then we didn’t do much of a search until we had the forensic teams in. We didn’t know what we should do. You know these murder teams like to get busy and not have their crime scene messed up, so I did it by the book. To be honest, we can’t cope with a major incident like this.’
Ripping open her plastic bag, Anna took out the mask, hooking the strings round her neck and pushing it up over her nose and mouth.
‘Who’s handling the investigation?’ she asked, her voice muffled.
‘Not been informed; being here, I’m not up to speed about what’s going on at the station.’
‘Anyway, you wanted to talk to me?’
‘Yes. You came here to interview Gail Sickert, or Summers, as she was called. I know you came back for a second visit.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we took your report seriously. I sent two men out here, but they didn’t get into the place; then when you contacted us again, I sent them back and…’ He nodded over to the white tent that was now almost fully erected and the forensic experts getting ready to check over the corpse. ‘We will have to pull down the henhouse and check around the pigpen, but we can’t really do that until the animals have been moved out.’