From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
Sophie Valente followed her GPS faithfully through the undistinguished village of Bradesden, a development of identical houses jammed together behind a main street of low stone cottages with a village store and an ugly pub. The village was surrounded by rolling fields, broken up by low hedgerows and clumps of trees whose names she was perfectly happy to remain ignorant of. Sophie was a city girl; the countryside held no attractions for her. What did people do all day?
The satnav brought her to a narrow lane. The cars parked along the verge indicated she was in the right place. The huddles of men and women leaning on car bonnets, toting shotgun mics and long lenses, confirmed that. They looked up hopefully as she drove past but dismissed her so abruptly she felt insulted.
The police cordon consisted of an officer in a high-vis jacket standing in the middle of the road by a liveried police car. He took a step forward as she approached, holding his clipboard out as if it had the power to repel boarders. Here we go, today’s first dick-wave. Sophie wound down her window and presented her ID. ‘DI Valente from ReMIT.’
He looked unimpressed. ‘Car park’s full,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to park down the lane and walk back up.’
She could see empty verges beyond his car. ‘Thanks, Constable, but I think I’ll just park up ahead here in the lane.’
‘I’m supposed to keep the roadside clear.’
How they enjoyed the exercise of their petty little fragments of power, she thought. She knew she couldn’t afford to back down, not so early in her new role. Everybody seemed to know her background and, given that her own immediate colleagues didn’t rate her, she couldn’t afford to lose any more face. ‘And I’m supposed to be at the crime scene. I’m not asking your permission, I’m telling you to let me through.’
She could imagine his steady stubborn stare wearing down most people. Because most people had limited defences against silence in a face-to-face encounter. But Sophie had worked hard at not being most people. If she’d stayed in retail, she knew she’d have ended up near the top of the tree. But it had bored her. Being a cop seemed a more exciting option once the possibility opened up of not having to grind her way through the ranks to the interesting levels. And she wasn’t going to be put off by men who thought she shouldn’t be where she was, men who didn’t have the faintest idea what transferrable skills were. ‘I don’t want to waste my time explaining to your boss why I’ve kept him waiting.’
Slowly he stepped aside, making a show of writing on his clipboard. As she passed, she smiled. Not triumphant, not apologetic. Just a straightforward smile. ‘Thanks. I’ll mention how helpful you’ve been.’ His head came up and she caught a momentary flash of alarm. It was clear he really didn’t want his colleagues thinking he’d gone out of his way to be nice to the rookie inspector.
She drove on, parking behind the first car she came to, reasoning that it would likely be the last in the queue. She had a pair of wellies in the boot and she swapped them for her low-heeled court shoes before she headed up the lane and through a pair of stone pillars whose wrought-iron gates had been opened as wide as they would go. The tiny car park of the convent had probably never seen so much traffic, she thought. Police cars, the mobile forensics lab, the mortuary van, not to mention a canine patrol van. The whole of one side was occupied by the mobile incident room trailer, its generator keeping up a low grumble in the background.
Sophie made for the incident room. She had a name – DCI Alex Fielding – and she planned to use it. She walked in, passing a couple of uniforms who were heading out. Nobody looked up as she walked in; they all had their tasks and that was what they were focused on. She admired that. She stopped at the first desk she came to and cleared her throat. A grey-faced young man dragged his red-rimmed eyes from the screen. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘I’m DI Valente. I’m looking for DCI Fielding.’
‘Over in the big blue tent. Where they’re sorting out the bones.’ He returned to his screen.
The big blue tent was impossible to miss. It stood beyond the car park, obscuring much of a dirty white crenelated building in the Victorian Gothic style. Sophie assumed it was the convent of the Order of the Blessed Pearl. She pulled open the flap and stared into something that she supposed should be horrifying but which struck her as actually quite banal. A dozen or more trestle tables were scattered round the tent, each with its own bundle of bones laid out in approximate skeletons. Figures in the regulation white suits, bootees and nitrile gloves were either intently examining the remains or taking pictures on mobile phones and making notes on clipboards. A tall man was moving from table to table, asking questions and scribbling answers. DCI Fielding, Sophie guessed.
She waited till he approached the end of the tent where she stood then called, ‘Excuse me? DCI Fielding? I’m DI Valente from ReMIT.’
He looked startled, then amused. ‘You think I’m DCI Fielding? Your investigative skills need a bit of work, love.’ He turned and indicated a small figure deep in conversation with someone pointing his way through an array of bones. ‘That’s DCI Fielding.’ He raised his voice. ‘Guv?’
Fielding looked round. ‘What
