‘I watched The Exorcist when I was your age. I slept with my light on for two nights after that. I know how you felt.’
‘I’ve walked through there before late at night,’ Brad said, calmer now that Rose’s father had been appeased for the moment.
‘I’d agree with you,’ Wendy said. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of, only your imagination. You’re through the gates, then what?’
‘We walked through. It’s dark and eerily quiet. I’m frightened, holding on to Brad. We can see the gate out onto Kilburn Lane, the lights, the sound of the traffic.’
‘You’re less frightened now?’
‘A little.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘A man rushed past us.’
‘You got a good look?’
‘He had a hat, a coat, his face concealed,’ Brad said. ‘We were more interested in catching the next bus.’
‘And then?’
‘I looked over to my left. That’s when I saw a body on the grave,’ Rose said.
‘But it was dark.’
‘The street light was shining onto it from over the wall. I don’t know why I looked; maybe I relaxed a bit, seeing that we were nearly out of the place. I screamed, but Brad couldn’t see it at first. After he looked again, he could see it and the knife in the person’s back.’
‘It’s a woman,’ Wendy said. ‘Any idea who she is?’
‘We didn’t look that closely, but no,’ Brad said.
‘The man rushing by? Do you think he was the murderer?’
‘We wouldn’t know. How could we?’
‘You can’t. However, a man who concealed his face, dressed for a cold night, is suspicious,’ Wendy said. ‘Or don’t you think so?’
‘He could be,’ Brad admitted.
Wendy realised that asking for the opinion of a sixteen-year-old youth who had more on his mind than murder, or at least he had had earlier, did not seem the wisest thing to do, but the consensus from the crime scene investigators and the attending police was that the man they had seen was probably the murderer. Not only had the impression of a man’s size 9 shoe been found near to the body, but there had also been scuffing on the gravel path where the man had left the grass and moved away.
According to the dead woman’s body temperature and the state of rigor, death had been ascertained as being five to ten minutes before Brad and Rose had walked past, which meant that the murderer may have been startled by them and that he could possibly see them as a threat.
‘Your descriptions are vague,’ Wendy said. ‘Any more you can give us?’
‘It was dark. It was only on the grave that the light shone, and he wasn’t there.’
Wendy left the two bewildered would-be lovers and walked over to Rose’s father.
‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘They’ve had a fright. It’s not every day you see a dead body; see a murderer.’
‘She’s doing well at school, is our Rose. It’s not like her to do something like this,’ Tim Winston said.
‘The first flush of womanhood? What did you expect? A vestal virgin?’ Wendy realised that she was being harsh with the man, but she didn’t need either Brad or Rose intimidated by her father, or nervous of the police. In time, they would remember small fragments of what they had seen, but it wasn’t to happen that night.
‘My wife and I, we’re liberal people. We understand the modern generation, been there ourselves, but when it's your daughter…’
‘We all react to type, isn’t that the truth? Anyway, take it easy for a couple of days, and I’ll be in touch again. The eyes see, but the mind doesn’t always register.’
‘I’ll not do anything. Brad Robinson?’
‘He’s not been in trouble, not according to us.’
‘His family?’
‘The sins of the parent, or in his case his brother and sister, are not visited on the youngest member of the family.’
‘If she had waited, chosen someone more suitable…’
‘She’s chosen him, and from what I can see, he’s a normal teenage male. We can’t blame him for his older brother.’
‘His sister?’
‘Nor her. She’s been at the police station for soliciting, but that’s all.’
‘Is she…?’
‘Is your daughter still pure and chaste, is that what you’re about to say?’
‘It was.’
‘According to her, she is, but you’ll not stop her, just hope that she exercises good judgement.’
‘We know, but Brad Robinson. She’s such a timid soul, forever reading mushy romance novels.’
Wendy left the father and walked over to where DCI Cook and DI Hill were standing.
‘Any luck?’ Isaac said.
‘Two young kids getting up to mischief, nothing more.’
‘But they saw the murderer?’
‘It looks that way. We’ll get what we can from them tonight, but it’s dark in there. At least it was till the CSIs set up their lights. They wouldn’t have seen a lot, and besides, murder wasn’t part of their plan for tonight.’
‘We’ve all been there,’ Larry said.
‘Not with a fifteen-year-old, I hope,’ Wendy said.
Larry thought back to his youth. ‘I might have.’
Wendy had to admit it was an honest answer.
Gordon Windsor came over. ‘You’ll want a brief report,’ he said.
To Isaac, Windor’s verbal report was as good as a detailed one from the pathologist. The salient facts would be given, enough to commence the murder investigation, to start to bring the perpetrator to justice.
‘We would,’ Isaac said.
‘Very well. Female, Caucasian, brunette, between thirty-five and forty-four years of age. Pathology can confirm that better than me.’
‘Identification?’
‘Nothing that we’ve found, and apart from the knife in the back, no other sign of violence.’
‘A random killing?’ Wendy asked.
‘No sign of a struggle would indicate that the woman was there voluntarily, which means she would have known her killer.’
‘A romantic tryst?’ Isaac asked.
‘In a graveyard?’ Windsor’s response.
‘A sense of the macabre.’
‘If it is, then you’ll need to prove it.
