‘You got a sample from her?’
‘DNA and some hair before we left the hospital. She must have taken people in her car at one stage or another.’
‘I’ll find her and check,’ Doherty said. Jim Greenwood, he knew, would have shown more deference to the forensics, but it didn’t matter. And besides, now he had a reason to contact Diane again. He found a quiet spot and phoned.
‘Who else has been in your car?’ he said.
‘It’s not the sort of car that people like to get into, is it?’
‘Not now, it isn’t,’ Doherty said. ‘Who else has been in the car in the last month?’
‘I only use it for work and the shops of a weekend. And it definitely doesn’t get serviced.’
‘How many people?’
‘Two, it’s definitely only two people.’
‘Do you have names for them?’
‘Blossom James is one of them. She’s from the Caribbean.’
‘Black?’
‘I’m not sure we should mention a person’s colour any more, but yes. She’s definitely black, short curly hair.’
‘Easy to isolate. Anyone else?’
‘Yasmin Chand. Her heritage’s Indian, although she speaks with a West Country accent. She gets upset if you call her anything other than English.’
‘Even so, her DNA will be Asian. If that’s the only two, then we probably don’t need to trouble them, not yet.’ Then Doherty said, ‘I thought Tuesday.’
‘What for? Your next phone call?’
‘You and I, a restaurant in town.’
‘I’m working the night shift on Tuesday.’
‘Wednesday, then.’
‘Wednesday, 7 p.m.’
Doherty ended the call, a beaming smile on his face.
‘We found someone else’s hair in the driver’s seat,’ the forensic scientist said. ‘What about the car’s owner? What did she have to say?’
‘Next Wednesday,’ Doherty replied.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sorry, miles away. The only two people who’ve been in the car in the last month were a black woman from the Caribbean and an English-born Indian, Asian DNA, I suppose.’
‘It’s neither of them. We found a few blonde hairs. We’ll check it out, but it looks Caucasian.’
‘You’ve got the results from the blonde hair found at the murder site?’
‘We do. We’ll compare, let you know. The results won’t be through today, though.’
***
Palmer couldn’t loosen the bindings that held him tight. He was parched, his throat was sore, his wrists were red raw. Time had lost all meaning, and his thoughts no longer dwelt on Liz, only on his dire situation.
He heard the sound of a car outside, the slamming of a door, the creaking of the barn door.
‘I see you’re still here.’ Armstrong said.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘We spoke about this before.’ A grin spread across the man’s face. ‘I’ve solved my dilemma,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to know what it is, do you?’
‘Not now,’ Palmer said.
‘I thought I could use you, but you’d only cause me trouble later on.’
‘I’ll do what you want.’
‘Jacob hadn’t done anything, not really. My boss told him that he was safe. But then he changed his mind, the same as me.’
‘Untie my hands.’
‘I will in a minute, but you know what they say, your first kill is always the hardest. Jacob Wolfenden’s outside.’
‘I heard a gunshot before.’
‘It would be good if you understood,’ Armstrong said, realising that he was baiting the man, enjoying the power he exerted over a fellow human being. In prison, it had been him who had been subservient, always licking the boots of the prison officers, sucking up to the prisoners who ran the place.
Armstrong left the man and walked out of the barn. He lifted the lid of the drum. All he could see was a revolting mass of acid, flesh and fat. The smell was horrendous; he slammed the lid shut. A 44-gallon drum wouldn’t take two men, even though Wolfenden had been underweight.
‘I could leave you here,’ Armstrong said on his return. ‘You might be discovered one day, or I could set the barn on fire, but that would draw attention. There wouldn’t be much of you left, just a burnt cinder. My boss owns this place, and he’d not appreciate anyone knocking on his door. They’re bound to if they find a barbequed man. He’s getting old now, wants a quiet life.’
Armstrong looked at the man in front of him, sitting with his head down, not moving. ‘There’s a compost heap outside. I’ll make sure you’re well covered. Think of it: in death, you’ll be giving life back to the soil. An admirable end to a worthless life. How are you with a shovel?’
No answer.
Armstrong raised himself from the bale of hay, feeling the pain in his back; the reality that he wasn’t as young as he once was. He lifted Palmer’s head, looked the man in the face, saw his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. ‘You’re still with me,’ he said.
A gasping sound from the other man.
‘It seems a waste of a bullet.’
He looked around the barn, found some fencing wire. He wrapped it around Palmer’s neck and twisted.
Afterwards, he realised that it had been too easy; and not only that, he had enjoyed it.
Outside, the compost heap, a legacy from when the farm had been viable. He took the shovel and started digging a hole in it, big enough for a body. Returning to the barn, he dragged Palmer outside, stripped him as he had Jacob Wolfenden,
Changing out of his suit, he put on a pair of overalls and a face mask, and changed his shoes for workman’s boots.
In the boot of the car, a chainsaw. Decomposition is faster if the bones are reduced in mass, the body sectioned up into more digestible pieces, he knew.
Twenty minutes later, exhausted, he removed the blood-soaked clothing and the boots, and put them where he had burnt Wolfenden’s and
