In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

looking at.

“Oh my Lord.” She went light-headed.

She'd seen death before in many guises, but none had been as grisly as this. At her feet, a young man lay curled like a foetus, dressed head to toe in nothing but black, with that same colour puckering burnt flesh from eye to jaw on one side of his face. His cropped hair was black as well, as was the ponytail that sprang from his skull. His goatee was black. His fingernails were black. He wore an onyx ring and an earring of black. The only colour that offered relief from the black-aside from the sleeping bag of blue-was the magenta of blood, and that was everywhere: on the ground beneath him, saturating his clothes, pooling from scores of wounds on his torso.

Phoebe dropped the sleeping bag and backed away from the body. She felt hot. She felt cold. She knew that she was about to faint. She chided herself for her lack of backbone. She said, “Benbow?” and over her voice she heard the dog barking. He'd never stopped. But four of her senses had deadened with shock, heightening and honing her fifth sense: sight.

She scooped up the dog and stumbled from the horror.

The day had altered completely by the time the police arrived. In the way of weather in the Peaks, a morning that had been born into sunshine and perfect sky had reached its maturity in fog. It slithered over the distant crest of Kinder Scout, creeping across the high moors from the northwest. When the Buxton police set up their crime scene tape, they did it with the mist falling on their shoulders like spirits descending to visit the site.

Before he went out to join the scenes of crime team, Detective Inspector Peter Hanken had a word with the woman who'd stumbled upon the body. She was sitting in the back of a panda car, a dog on her lap. Hanken normally liked dogs a great deal: He was the master of two Irish setters who were almost as much his pride and joy as were his three children. But this pathetic-looking mongrel with his unkempt coat of mangy fur and his sludge- coloured eyes looked a likely candidate for the dog meat factory. And he smelled like a dustbin left in the sun.

Not that there was any sun, which lowered Hanken's spirits even further. On every side of him, he encountered grey-in the sky, on the landscape, and in the grizzled hair of the old woman before him-and grey had long had the capability of sinking his ship faster than the dawning knowledge of what a murder investigation was going to do to his weekend plans.

Over the top of the car Hanken said to Patty Stewart-a WPC with a heart-shaped face and breasts that had long been the objects of fantasy for half a dozen of the younger DCs-“Name?”

Stewart filled in all the blanks in her typical competent manner. “Phoebe Neill. She's a home nurse. From Sheffield.”

“What the hell was she doing out here?”

“Her patient died yesterday evening. She took it hard. She brought his dog out here for a walk. It helps, she said.”

Hanken had seen plenty of death in his years of policing. And in his experience, nothing helped. He slapped his palm against the roof of the car and opened the door, saying to Stewart, “Get on with it, then.” He slid inside.

“Is it Miss or Missus?” he said after introducing himself to the home nurse.

The dog strained forward against her hands, which she'd placed on his chest just above his legs. She held him in position firmly. She said, “He's friendly. If you'd just let him smell your hand…” and she added, “Miss,” when Hanken obliged.

He excavated the particulars from her, trying to ignore the mongrel's rank odour. When he was satisfied that she'd seen no other sign of life besides the ravens who'd fled the scene like the marauders they were, he said, “You didn't disturb the area?” and narrowed his eyes when she flushed.

“I know what's appropriate in the situation. One does watch police dramas on the television occasionally. But, you see, I didn't know there would be a body beneath the blanket… only it wasn't a blanket at all, was it? It was a sleeping bag that'd been slashed to bits. And as there was rubbish all round the site, I suppose that I-”

“Rubbish?” Hanken interrupted impatiently.

“Papers. Camping things. Lots of white feathers. There were bits and pieces everywhere.” The woman smiled with a pitiful eagerness to please.

“You didn't disturb anything, did you?” Hanken asked.

No. Of course she hadn't done that. Except for the blanket, which she'd moved. Except that it hadn't been a blanket, had it, but a sleeping bag. Which was where the body was. Beneath the bag. As she'd just said…

Right, right, right, Hanken thought. She was a real Aunt Edna. This was probably the most excitement she'd had in her life and she was determined to prolong the experience.

“And when I saw it… him…” She blinked as if afraid to cry and recognising, correctly, how little stock Hanken put in women who shed tears. “I believe in God, you know, in a greater purpose behind all that happens. But when someone dies in such a way, it tests my faith. It surely does.” She lowered her face to Benbow's head. The dog squirmed round and licked her nose.

Hanken asked her what she needed, if she wanted a WPC to take her home. He told her that there would likely be more questions. She was not to leave the country. If she traveled from Sheffield, she was to let him know where she could be reached. Not that he thought he'd need her again. But there were some parts of his job that he did by rote.

The actual murder site was irritatingly remote and inaccessible by any means other than foot, mountain bike, or helicopter. Given these options, Hanken had called in a few favours at Mountain Rescue and had managed to hijack an RAF chopper that was just concluding a search for two lost hikers in the Dark Peak. He used the waiting helicopter now to ferry himself to Nine Sisters Henge.

The fog wasn't heavy-just wet as the dickens-and when they made their approach, he could see the popped lightning of flash bulbs as the police photographer documented the crime scene. To the southeast of the trees, a small crowd milled. Forensic pathologist and forensic biologists, uniformed constables, evidence officers equipped with collection kits, they were waiting for the photographer to finish his work. They were also waiting for Hanken.

The DI asked the helicopter's pilot to hover above the birch copse for a minute prior to landing. From two hundred and fifty feet above the ground-sufficient distance so as not to disturb the evidence-he saw that a campsite had been set up within the perimeter of the old stone circle. A small blue tent domed against the northern face of one stone, and a fire ring burned black like the pupil of an eye in the circle's centre. On the ground lay a silver emergency blanket and nearby a square sit mat coloured bright yellow. A black and red rucksack spat out its contents, and a small camping cook stove tumbled onto its side. From the air, it didn't look like the nasty piece of business that it was,

Hanken thought. But distance did that to you, giving a false assurance that all was well.

The chopper set him down fifty yards to the southeast of the site. He ducked beneath the blades and joined his team on the ground as the police photographer strode out of the copse. He said, “Ugly mess.”

Hanken said, “Right,” and “Wait here,” to the team. He slapped his hand against the limestone sentry marking the entrance to the copse, and alone he started down the path beneath the trees, where the leaves dripped condensation from the fog onto his shoulders.

At the entrance to Nine Sisters proper, Hanken paused and let his gaze roam where it would. From the ground now, he saw that the tent was a size suitable for one, and that fact was in keeping with the rest of the gear scattered round the circle: one sleeping bag, one rucksack, one emergency blanket, a single sit mat. What he hadn't seen from the air he saw now. A map case gaped open with its contents half torn. A single ground cloth crumpled against the solitary rucksack. One small hiking boot toppled into the charred remains of the central fire and another lay nearby discarded. White feathers clung wetly to everything.

When at last he moved from the entrance, Hanken engaged in his usual preliminary observation of a crime scene: He stood over each noticeable physical item and considered it with his mind clear of possible explanations. Most officers, he knew, went directly to the victim. But Hanken believed that a body-brought to its death through human brutality-was traumatic enough to deaden not only the senses but also the intellect, leaving one incapable of seeing the truth when it lay openly before him. So he went from one object to the next, studying it without disturbing it. And thus he made his initial examination of the tent, the rucksack, the mat, the map case, and the rest of the equipment-from socks to soap-that was tossed round in the inside of the circle. He took the most time over a flannel shirt and the boots. And when he'd seen enough of these objects, he turned to the body.