EIGHT
News of a possible murder and one on of all places that little nondescript lump of rock situated just off the east coast of England called Widow’s Bay, had caused quite a stir on the mainland. Within half an hour of P.C Williams e-mailing through news of the attack and several blurry camera phone photos of the victim, he had been patched through to none other than Chief Inspector Lyle of Hull CID.
Lyle had requested any more info Williams could give him about the circumstances and Williams had done his best to bring Lyle up to date. He told him of finding the girl wandering in the vicinity of where he had found the victim, then alive and how he had died in the back of his police car. Williams thought it best to leave out the bit about the strangely dry area he had encountered.
The Chief Inspector had quizzed him on the wounds covering the victim’s back, which he seemed particularly interested in. Williams described them as best he could and again he left out the fact that he was sure they hadn’t been visible when he found the man. But truth be told he hadn’t been able to make out much on the man’s body due to the fresh blood which he had to admit must have come from somewhere, and the conditions they had endured just to get him to the boathouse.
Lyle pushed the point about the wounds and Williams had an awful feeling he knew what was coming next.
When he came off the radio, Williams was greeted by two expectant faces, Doctor Patten had gone back through to check on the girl in the next room.
“So?” Suzy asked. “What did he say?” Ever since they had got back into the office she had been sat at Pete’s desk idly doodling on a piece of paper. Williams look across at it, she had been trying to sketch the wounds but with little success judging by the amount of scribbled out pictures.
“Nothing much, they can’t do anything from the mainland until this weather lets up.” He said tearing his eyes away from the drawings, there was something about them, and the vague pictures he had taken that somewhere in the back of his mind looked familiar, but he just couldn’t place it.
“To be honest I couldn’t hear half of what he was saying.” He continued and turned to Pete. “That thing kept fading in and out.” He told him which won a shrug from the lifeboat man.
“That’s the best reception you are going to get in this weather, just be thankful it’s working at all.” Pete told him.
“True,” Williams had to admit, at least the e-mail with the photos got through, albeit at the third attempt.
He perched on the end of the table and listened to the storm battering the prefab as if he needed reminding it was still out there.
Doctor Patten came back in, her face set in a frown.
“Hey Rach,’” Suzy said. “How is she doing?”
“Same,” Rachel replied. The girl still hadn’t so much as acknowledged her presence since she arrived. At least she was calm she conceded, well borderline catatonic if truth be told, but that was better than her screaming the place down she told herself. “Here,” she said and threw Williams’ phone to him. The policeman had asked her to take a photo of the girl just in case they needed to ID her.
“And she still wasn’t said anything?” Williams asked hopefully as he caught the phone.
“Sorry, nothing at all, but to be fair you need a shrink not a family GP.” She looked at him, although he had dried off somewhat and had discarded his police jacket and tie, he stilled looked like a drown rat who hadn’t slept in days. “So what’s the plan?” She asked. “Keep an eye on her until the storm clears?”
“Pretty much,” he said. Then he made a face like he had just swallowed something foul tasting, he glanced at Suzy behind the desk. “The Inspector wants more photos of the body. Clearer more detailed stuff. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about the wounds. He thinks there’s something significant about them.”
Suzy tapped her pencil on the pad in front of her. “Makes sense,” she said less than enthusiastic.
“What about them?” Patten asked.
“I’d like for you to see them for yourself, if you wouldn’t mind?” Williams asked. “Suzy, you can sit this one out, keep an eye on the girl and the radio in case they call back.” He waited for her to protest, but she just nodded. He couldn’t blame her.
“Pete, I’m gonna need your camera?” Williams said.
“Oh, sure.” Pete darted over to the desk and began opening draw after draw looking for it.
“You ready doc’?”
Patten nodded although she wasn’t sure ready was the right word. Her mind drifted back to student autopsy observations when she was at university. Back then the bodies had all been specially prepared, the environments clean, sterile and above all controlled. Which she always found helped her maintain a certain distance from the physical task at hand. Just another lesson, interesting in a clean clinical way.
Certainly there had been videos and presentations on the more gory aspects of medical procedures. Road traffic accident aftermaths and the odd placement at the A&E department at Jimmy’s in Leeds. But there she was just an observer, occasionally called upon to assist but never more than fetching and carrying really. She was training to be a GP not a trauma surgeon.
This however Rachel Patten knew would be neither clean nor clinical. She suddenly felt a strange buzz of anticipation despite herself, after all it’s not every day you get to attend the photographing of a murder victim. She picked up her medical bag which had a few pairs of surgical gloves in it. “Ready when you are.” She said and was please at how confident her voice sounded.
“Here you go, Ian,” Pete passed a small digital camera to Williams.
“Thanks Pete. Right.” He took a breath and looked at each of them in turn. “We shouldn’t be too long. Suzy, if the girl says anything, anything at all...”
“I know,” Suzy said. “Write it down.”
“Right,” he said and pulled on his still damp coat. “Let’s go get piss wet through again, alright doc’?”
She smiled and zipped up her coat as far as it would go. “Right behind you.”
Pete forced the door open against the blistering weather outside and they both headed into the night for a date with a corpse.