Her foot slid out from under her again, and she swore under her breath. Checking over her shoulder, she could still see the tops of some of the guests’ heads, the ones who had ventured away from the marquee to smoke cigarettes, and there was no way she was peeing within sight of someone.
The ground began to level out, and Eva spotted a large rhododendron to her right.
She hiccupped, then groaned as she stepped into a large puddle left by the morning’s rainfall.
‘I’m having one more glass of champagne, then I’m calling it a night,’ she muttered as she squatted behind the shrub.
She sighed with relief, and then straightened and tried to wipe as much of the muddy water off her sandals as she could, swearing as she recalled she hadn’t even paid her credit card bill yet, and here she was with damaged shoes that she’d only purchased a week ago.
Eva sighed, and resolving to leave as soon as possible, she turned to make her way back up the slope, and stopped.
At first, she couldn’t work out what she was seeing.
A form lay stretched out behind one of the other rhododendron bushes several paces away from her position. Only the legs were visible, white and unmoving.
She swallowed, and moved closer, squinting in the poor light.
It looked like a person, and as she wobbled her way towards it, she recognised the skirt of the dress.
‘Sophie? That you? You pass out or something?’
Concerned, she quickened her pace.
She’d done a first aid course at school, and knew that if someone had passed out, you were meant to check their airway and then put them in the recovery position. If Sophie had passed out drunk, then she needed help.
‘Soph?’
As she rounded the corner of the shrub, she gasped.
Her best friend lay motionless, a dark splattered pattern now strewn across her new dress, her body twisted at an impossible angle where she’d fallen, one leg tangled behind the other and her face turned away from where Eva stood.
‘Sophie?’
She moved around her friend, fighting down the urge to panic. If her friend needed first aid, she had to keep calm.
As she stepped over Sophie’s feet to crouch down next to her, she stopped.
Sophie’s eyes were wide open in terror, a thick trickle of the same dark splatter covering her cheek, a gaping recess where her nose had splintered into her face.
Eva screamed.
Two
Detective Sergeant Kay Hunter swung her car through the gated entrance and kept a steady distance behind Detective Inspector Devon Sharp’s vehicle.
She wasn’t on call that evening, but within minutes of her mobile phone ringing and taking down the address from Sharp, she’d hastily dressed and hurried out to her car.
‘I’m going to need your help with this one,’ he’d said. ‘Uniform have three cars on site, but there are a lot of people to deal with.’
She’d driven north out of town for at least fifteen minutes before turning into a narrow lane. Sharp’s vehicle had been parked over to the left in a lay-by and she’d slowed as she approached to let him pull out and take the lead. Five minutes later, they’d arrived at the property.
She knew the area – a golf course swept beyond the trees that lined the opposite side of the lane, and most of the houses were centuries old, passed down through families that suffered the expense of the upkeep rather than experience the humiliation of their family homes being sold to developers by a common property agent.
As the narrow driveway curved and widened out, she realised what Sharp had meant by the number of people.
Cars littered the gravel apron in front of the large house, while groups of men and women in formal wear milled about the space.
Kay braked next to Sharp’s vehicle and grabbed her bag, then joined him next to his car and ran her eyes over the gathered partygoers.
Most wore expressions of disbelief. A distraught woman sobbed while the man accompanying her guided her to a wooden garden seat before kneeling beside her and talking to her in low tones.
Kay rubbed at her right eye, unable to conceal the sigh that escaped her lips. ‘They’re all drunk, aren’t they?’
‘Most of them, I would expect,’ said Sharp. ‘If they weren’t to start off with, then they will be now, given the circumstances.’
Kay groaned. Trying to collate witness statements within the first few hours of a murder investigation was imperative, before people’s memories became hazy or influenced by talking to others and comparing what they’d seen. Add alcohol to the mix, and it made an already difficult job near impossible.
‘Who’s in charge of the guest list?’
‘Gavin Piper’s working with uniform – he’s here, somewhere,’ Sharp added, casting his eyes over the people gathered around. ‘Get your bearings – I’ll meet you out the back on the terrace in ten minutes, and then we’ll speak to the victim’s parents.’
‘Okay.’
Kay wandered through the house, her eyes sweeping over the uniformed officers that had spread out amongst the rooms interviewing one guest at a time, their faces patient as they tried to coax coherent information from the intoxicated partygoers.
The statements would be analysed in the morning by the assembled team, and then the hard work of filling in the gaps would begin.
She passed by the living area, and found a side door that had been left open that led out to a paved terrace, abutted by a large white marquee.
At the outer edges of the terrace, braziers smouldered while a small team of uniformed officers guarded each one, their stance enough to put off anyone thinking of approaching the iron frames.
At first, Kay wondered what they were doing, the question quickly dying on her lips as she realised the fires had been smothered by the quick-thinking first responders, in order to preserve the remains of any murder weapon that might have been thrust
