After the formalities were over, the three men headed
up the thickly carpeted stairs to room 403.
“We tried to do as you asked,” Loder said as they climbed. “You might see some traces of the SOCO team’s presence, but otherwise …” He had a local accent, a kind of deep burr like a mist around his vowels, and he spoke slowly, pausing between thoughts.
The uniformed constable stepped aside at Loder’s gesture, and they entered the room and turned on the light. They had no need to wear surgical gloves, as the forensic scientists had already been over the scene. What they were getting was part preservation, part recreation.
First, Banks studied the room in general. It was unusually spacious for a seaside hotel room, with a high ceiling, ornate moulding and an oriel window overlooking the sea, now only a dim presence beyond the Esplanade lights. The window was open a fraction and Banks felt the pleasant chill of the breeze and heard the distant wash of waves on the beach. Gristhorpe stood beside him, similarly watchful. The wallpaper, a bright flower pattern, gave a cheerful aura, and a framed watercolour of Weymouth’s seafront hung over the writing-desk. There was little other furniture: armchair, television, dressing-table, wardrobe and bedside tables—and the large bed itself. Banks left that until last.
The shape of a woman’s body was clearly defined by the twisted white sheet that covered it. At first glance, it looked like someone sprawled on her back in the morning just before stretching and getting up. But instead of her head resting on the pillow, the pillow was resting on her head.
“Is this how you found her?” Banks asked Loder.
He nodded. “The doc did his stuff, of course, but he tried not to disturb her too much. We put the body back much as it was, as you requested.”
There was an implied criticism in his tone. Why on
earth, Loder seemed to be asking, did you want us to leave the body? But Banks ignored him. He always liked to get the feel of a scene; somehow it told him much more than photographs, drawings and reports. There was nothing morbid in his need to see the body where it lay; in fact, in many instances, this included, he would far rather not. But it did make a difference. Not only did it give him some sort of contact with the victim, the symbolism of having touched the corpse, something he needed to fuel him through a murder investigation, but it also sometimes enabled him to enter the criminal’s and the victim’s minds. He didn’t think there was anything particularly psychic about this; it was more a Holmesian manner of working back from the little things one observed to the circumstances that created them. There was no denying, though, that sometimes he did get a true feel for the way the killer thought and what his next moves might be.
From the disapproval in his tone, Banks formed the impression that Loder was a highly moral man, outraged not only by the murder but by the delay in getting the corpse to its proper place. It was a woman’s body, too, and that seemed to embarrass him.
Slowly, Banks walked over to the bed and picked up the pillow. Gristhorpe stood beside him. The woman’s long blonde hair lay spread out on the undersheet. She had been beautiful, no doubt about that: fine bone structure, a clear complexion, full lips. Apart from her head, only her neck and shoulders were exposed, alabaster skin clouded with the bluish tinge of cyanosis.
Her left hand grasped the top of the sheet and bunched it up. She wore red nail polish, but Banks thought he could also detect traces of blood around the tips of her fingers and smeared on the white sheet. He lifted the sheet. She was naked underneath. Carefully, he replaced
it, as if to avoid causing her further embarrassment. Loder wasn’t the only sensitive one, no matter what he thought.
Gristhorpe opened one of her eyelids. “See that,” he said pointing to the red pinpricks of blood in the once-blue eye.
Banks nodded. It was a petechial haemorrhage, one sign of asphyxiation, most likely in this case caused by the pillow.
Banks touched her right hand and shivered; it was cold and stiff with rigor.
“We’ve got the skin and blood samples, of course,” said Loder, when he saw Banks examining the nails. “Looks like she put up a bit of a struggle. We should be able to type the killer, maybe even do a DNA profile.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Gristhorpe said. “This one’s got to be stopped fast.”
“We-ell,” said Loder, in his slow burr, “at least it’ll come in useful in court. Is it her, the one you’re looking for?”
“We didn’t have a very good description,” Gristhorpe answered. “Alan?”
“Couldn’t say.” Banks turned to Loder. “She was with the man, though, you said?”
“Yes. The one with the nice smile. You mentioned it specifically in the papers. That’s why we called you boys in.”
“Any identification?” Gristhorpe asked.
Loder shook his head. “Nothing. Whoever did it took everything. Clothes, handbag, the lot. We tried her fingerprints but they’re not on file.” He paused. “It looks as if she was killed here, and the doc says she certainly hasn’t been moved since she died. He’s anxious to get to the PM, of course, but ruling out drugs, his findings so far are consistent with asphyxiation.”
“Any idea of the time?”
“Doc puts it between six and nine in the morning.”
“Anything else we should know?”
Loder glanced towards the body and paused for a moment before speaking. “Nothing else unusual about the body,” he said, “unless you count the fact that she’d had sex around the time she was killed.”
“Forced?”
“Not so far as the doc could make out.” Loder walked towards the window, leaned on the sill and looked out over the Esplanade lights. “But it probably wouldn’t be, would it, if she was sleeping with the bloke. Now, if you gentlemen are through, could we possibly get out of here? I seem to have spent far too much time with her already today.” He sounded weary, and Banks wondered if he were not only tired but ill; he certainly seemed unusually thin and pale.
