The CSI van stopped in the lane outside for someone to get out, already in his protective suit. Short and spry, he marched over as if he meant business from the word go. “Do we have a senior investigating officer?”
“Guilty,” Diamond said and got a sharp look back.
Names were exchanged. The man was Wolfgang, and he spoke his name the English way, with a W. “Good to see the tape in place, but we will need to extend the cordon another three metres in each direction. First we need an officer at the gate to make sure some idiot doesn’t drive into the field and override the tyre marks. Will you arrange that?”
“Consider it done.” Diamond beckoned to one of the uniformed bobbies and issued the instruction.
“I heard there’s blood,” Wolfgang said. “Is there a body?”
“If there is, I need to go to Specsavers.”
No smile. “In that case another vehicle may have removed it from the scene and there should be tracks.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted at the back of the gatekeeper, “Careful where you tread, particularly in the muddy area.” And then he raised his voice still more. “Have any of you people brought forensic suits and overshoes? If you have, put them on, please. If not, we have a supply.”
Scene of crime officers were always bossy. Everyone else was a menace in their eyes, liable to corrupt the scene and add to their workload, an opinion probably borne out of experience.
Diamond and his colleagues dragged the polyethylene suits over their clothes and watched the first moves from a safe distance. A photographer in the same approved kit started taking overview pictures of the scene from multiple angles on the safe side of the tape. A discussion was held before the next step, after which Wolfgang strutted over to Diamond’s group.
“You probably want a closer look.”
“It would help.”
“Can we agree on the common approach path, then? I propose making it over there where my team are standing, in a straight line to the offside of the vehicle. I need to conduct a fingertip search of the strip of ground before anyone else uses it.”
“Suits me.” You didn’t argue with Wolfgang.
Two SOCOs shoulder to shoulder and on hands and knees inched into the sealed-off area. Behind them, a note taker stood ready to log any finds.
It was no use getting impatient, Diamond knew from long experience at crime scenes. This one was about as fresh as it got. The problem with the disappearances of Tudor and Nicol had been the delay in getting there. In the case of Tudor it was four years. Nicol’s absence was more recent but hadn’t been treated as serious for four days until his bloodstained belt was found — four days in which the scene was churned up by vehicles. Shocking as it was, this new incident was an opportunity. A fresh crime scene would surely yield valuable information.
“How long before it gets dark?” Halliwell said. “Three hours maximum? At this rate we’ll all be back tomorrow.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ingeborg said. “I’m not on duty tomorrow.”
“They may bring in arc lamps and work through the night.”
“Oh heck, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Were you planning an evening out, by any chance?”
Diamond got on the phone to Georgina and asked her to authorise a wider search next morning. The SOCOs had staked out their territory. It was up to the police to go over the rest of the field. If there wasn’t a body to be found, there might be other evidence, even a discarded murder weapon.
Georgina had already heard about the find and was eager to know what had happened. Diamond couldn’t tell her much. To be fair, she didn’t need any convincing of the need for more bobbies. She asked if the press had arrived at the scene and was relieved to be told they hadn’t. “Heaven only knows what they’ll make of this, following on from everything else.”
Diamond was summoned to the approach path, now marked and ready for use. Stepping plates had been laid over the turf. After Wolfgang’s elaborate preparation, the walk out to the Range Rover would feel like the first steps on the moon.
“Don’t touch a thing,” he was warned by the pocket-sized CSI supremo. “Don’t even think about touching anything.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Wolfgang.”
“You’d be amazed how some senior officers behave.”
“And some, like me, always do as we are told.”
Wolfgang was carrying a holdall that looked like a beach bag. He came to a halt about six feet back from the Range Rover. The driver’s door had been left partly open. Someone had wiped a space on the window and left a smear. “Did your people do this?” He was sounding increasingly like a headmaster.
“They’re not my people. They’re the patrol officers who got here first. I told them you’ll need their prints.”
“Also a statement detailing everything they did. I need to know how much of the scene is compromised.” Wolfgang put his left foot forward as if he was testing the thickness of ice. He produced a ruler from the bag and used it to ease the door fully open without using his latex-gloved hands. Then he handed Diamond a torch and stood back. “You first.” He had his procedures and he was sticking to them. Protocol decrees that the senior investigating officer is the first to examine the scene.
Diamond stepped up.
The cloud cover meant that at this time of day the torch was needed for inspecting the inside of the car. The beam of light showed him the banal but instructive sight of fish and chips on the passenger seat, the packet partially open as if the victim had got hungry and started eating. Deans had kept his word to Natalie.
The seats and safety belts appeared to be unmarked. He backed away and moved the circle of light along the bodywork. There was the dried mud you’d expect from a vehicle splashing through country lanes and there were also marks that overlaid the mud and were darker. They had spattered the side from a different angle.
Blood.
He found a smear that he took to be a bloody handprint that had slid down the slippery surface.
“That’s a hand mark by the look of it,” he told Wolfgang. “Looks to me as if he stepped out and was attacked and fell back against the side. Can you get fingerprints?”
“Hard to say,” Wolfgang told him. “They’re not sharp. The blood itself may be a better identifier. There’s a large patch on the ground to your right. He was bleeding heavily. Do you know who he was?”
“The owner of the car is a man called Greg Deans, a TV executive who was reported missing last night. You should be able to get a DNA sample from his home. He lived under a mile from here. If he was badly wounded, I wonder if he tried to get home.”
“He wouldn’t have got far, going by the blood loss,” Wolfgang said. “It’s more likely he fell right here and didn’t get up. Look at the scuff marks made by his shoes as he slid down. Look at the amount of blood on the turf.”
Diamond moved the torch over the dark patch and didn’t need any more convincing.
“Are there specks of blood on the fish and chips?”
Diamond leaned right in for a better view and his head touched something. Wolfgang won’t thank me for this, he thought. He supposed he’d nudged the rear-view mirror. He hadn’t. When he saw what it was he felt an uprush of excitement. He pulled his head and shoulders out of the car. “Have I gone to heaven, or is that a dashboard camera?”
The stone-faced SOCO changed places with Diamond. “You’re correct,” he said after some time and without a trace of emotion. “It’s not all that modern, but it seems to be hard-wired. We can play it back and see what’s on it if you like.”