SEVEN
Williams and Munro stood by the open back door of the police car as the wind whipped viciously around them. Munro watched her colleague with a growing sense of unease. He had stopped dead as soon as he opened the car door and had stood there almost transfixed shining his torch inside for what felt to Munro like a full minute.
She had been steeling herself for what she would find and had half wondered if she would be able to fully function when confronted by her first in the field dead body. But she hadn’t expected Williams, who had already seen the poor man, to freeze like this. But here he was just standing there opened mouthed at what his torch light found (or didn’t find?) in the back seat.
“Ian?” She said too softly for him to hear in the maelstrom around them as if she were reluctant to break the spell which rooted him to the spot. “Ian?” She said much louder this time but again he didn’t reply. She let out a curse under her breath and forced herself to move to his side and following the torch light, she peered into the back of the car, half expecting to find it empty as she did so.
She gasped, it was far from empty. The blood covered body of a man who looked at first glance to be in his mid-forties was laid awkwardly on the back seat. Williams’ coat had slipped off the man to reveal him in all his naked glory. She could see rivulets of drying blood, which looked almost black in the harsh torch light, seeping from under the body, off the seat and into the dark foot well below.
Then she noticed fresh scars glistening in the torch light. “Jesus, I thought you said he was struck by lightning?”
Even in the half-light and the position he was laid in Suzy could see the man’s back was covered in literally dozens of fresh deep wounds. She turned to Williams who shook his head ever so slightly, his eyes still on the body.
“Ian!” She said harshly.
“They weren’t there...” His voice trailed away.
Fear stabbed at Suzy’s guts, she had never seen him so terrified. “What do you mean, they weren’t there? Look at them!”
Williams finally tore himself away from the ghastly sight. “You think I could miss something like that?” He said firmly. But the instant the words were out of his mouth his face grew uncertain again. “Could I?” He added.
“Ian, it was dark, you were in the middle of a hurricane for Christ sake.”
He nodded as if wanting to believe her but still his eyes betrayed him.
She began to unravel the sheet. “Anyway, we can worry about what you did and didn’t notice later. First things first, we need to get this poor bastard inside.” She ducked into the back of the car and was instantly hit with the sickening smell of fresh blood. She swallowed against a wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her.
Thankfully the other back door opened and Williams appeared at the other side. “Here, give me the other end.”
Suzy threw the other end of the sheet over to him and they began the awkward task of wrapping him in the material in the cramped confines of the car.
“Suzy,” Williams said tentatively. She looked at him as she lifted the man’s bare feet and eased them into the sheet. “Sorry, I don’t know what happened there. Guess I just froze.”
“It’s okay,” Suzy said. “I won’t tell the other lads.” She was glad to see the ghost of a smile play on Williams’ lips. But added grimly. “But this means this wasn’t an accident, Ian.”
“Yeah,” he said concentrating on the task at hand and trying not to fixate on the seeping wounds he had somehow missed.
Pete Mulgrave offered up a prayer of thanks to the God of volunteer lifeboat men that at least the workmen had had time to completely finish the boatshed before the storm had kicked in. It felt good to be in a solid structure where the wind and rain outside couldn’t shake the walls and roof. Although the storm did its best to huff and puff, it couldn’t so much as rattle the sturdy double glazed windows.
Pete finished clearing the long work bench which ran almost the entire width of the shed in preparation for the body. The body, he shuddered at the thought of being in the same building as a dead body. Not that it would have been the first time. Pete had been a volunteer lifeboat man for ten years and although it was thankfully rare these days. The sea around the east coast of England still managed to claim the odd victim here and there.
Poor drown souls found bobbing bloated out to sea, or washed up on shore to be left at the mercy of the birds and wild animals that scouted the coast line for a free meal, those were the worst. Pete shook the image of a woman he had once found snagged on some rocks near Reaton sands half a decade ago now out of his head. They had been searching for her for a week and it still brought bile to the back of his throat to think of the state she was in.
The powerful exterior proximity light perched above the boatshed’s large double doors came on pulling him back to the here and now. He trotted alongside the covered lifeboat and over to a smaller access door just to the left of the main doors and opened it slightly expecting to see Williams and Munro trudging over with a grim bundle between them.
There was a large open area just beyond the shed and beyond that a large wooded area shrouded in darkness which was being battered by the storm. But neither police officer was to be seen. A sudden flutter of movement drew Pete’s eye over to the far side of the wood. A large piece of ripped tarpaulin was stuck high in the branches of a tree at the very edge of the light’s reach flapping like some huge snared black bat struggling to be free of its clutches. Directly below it a figure turned and walked off into the woods.
Pete started and may well have yelped out loud like a kicked dog. There had been a figure, hadn’t there? Just visible through the rain? Pete hadn’t noticed it until it moved off into the night, but there had been someone just standing there. Hadn’t there? With each passing second Pete doubted he had actually seen anything at all. I mean who would be mad enough to be out in this shit? He thought and scanned the edge of the wood as best he could through the torrent of rain. The tarpaulin whipped and turned in the tree. Yes that was real enough. Besides on a night like tonight with thunder storms and bodies down by the docks, a man could imagine anything.
“Pete!” The word drifted over to him through the storm. He turned to see Williams and Munro struggling over to him caring the body, now thankfully wrapped in a sheet.
“Come on,” he waved them over and as they approached he allowed himself one last glance at the wood. Yes a man could imagine anything was out there on a night like tonight he convinced himself. After all, the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
“I, erm, I need to take some pictures,” Williams said through chattering teeth as the three of them looked down at the forlorn sheet covered form laid on the bench. Blood had already begun seeping through the material in the short time it had taken them to lug the body from the car to the boatshed.
“Photos?” Pete exclaimed.
“Just a couple, for CID on the mainland.”
“This was an accident, right?” Pete asked.
“Someone calved him up,” Suzy replied grimly.
“Shite,” Pete breathed through his teeth. He turned away and walked over to the lifeboat. The sound of Williams and Munro unwrapping the body was more than enough to turn his stomach, let alone seeing the poor bastard. He idly tugged at the heavy canvas covering the boat, it didn’t need securing but he went through the motions nevertheless.
“Jesus,” he heard Munro say, as a camera phone flashed once, twice. “Get one of his face,” she said and the camera flashed again. “Cut him to pieces,” she added.
“Weird,” Williams said. “They look like patterns or something.” Flash. He exhaled deeply. “I’m sure they weren’t there before,” he added softly.
“Like I said it was dark, rain hammering down.” Munro said.
“Maybe,” then; “Bollocks to it, that’ll do for now.”
Pete was relieved to hear them begin to wrap the body up again. “Safe to turn around?” He asked.
“Sure,” Williams replied, “all done for now.”
Pete came back over and stood by the two officers. He winced, the sheet was covered with even more blood than before thanks to their efforts. And despite himself he couldn’t help but look at the impression of the dead man’s face in the tightly wrapped material.
“Christ, can we get out of here? I don’t know about you two but I could do with a stiff drink.” Pete said.
“Amen to that,” Munro said but didn’t take her eyes off the body.
Williams scrolled through the pictures on his phone and wrinkled his nose. “These are shit, but they’ll have to do for now. Pete do you have a proper camera we can use later, if the mainland need some better pics?”
“Yeah, there’s one in the office.”
“Okay, we’ll contact the mainland, let them know we have a murder here and send the pictures through, see what they want us to do next.” He eyed a nearby rain lashed window. “Not that we can do much in this.”
“You sure this is murder?” Pete asked.
“Positive,” he replied.
Again nobody moved they were like three mourners at a funeral, each waiting for one of the others to say a prayer.
“Thought I saw someone outside just know,” Pete said. It came out of nowhere as he had tried to put the incident out of his mind, but seeing this was now murder, was it now so far from a possibility?
“You sure?” Williams asked.
“Out by the woods. No, I’m not a hundred percent sure to be honest.” It seemed ludicrous now that he thought about it, but he was glad he had said it all the same. It felt good to get it out of his head especially now. Just in case.
“Let’s all keep an eye out until he can figure out what to do next.” Williams said
Suzy nodded. “Now I really need that drink.”