“Okay.” She took a deep, regretful breath. “You’re right. There’s no sense in pissing off Pearson prematurely. But as soon as you have something, call me.”
“You know I will.” He smiled down the line.
“In the meantime, I’ll go through the old case files. I’ve got them stashed away in a box in the attic.”
“They gave them to you?” He was surprised, but then twenty years was a long time ago. Back then, they didn’t have the same security protocols they had now.
“Copies,” she clarified. “I haven’t looked at them in years.”
“Now would be a good time,” agreed Rob.
They said goodbye and ended the call shortly after that.
“Meeting, guys!”
They had to tie up the loose ends in the Katie Wells case in order to prepare for Tessa Parvin’s prosecution.
Everyone gathered around.
“First up, the allotment where she held Katie,” said Rob.
Jenny glanced up. “Yes, forensics went in first thing this morning. There’s evidence of Katie having stayed there, including a box of old toys, presumably belonging to Arina, and Katie’s old clothes were found in a tip out on the street.”
“Great, that’s good.” Along with the signed confession, it should be a slam dunk. “Any sign of the dog?”
Jenny grinned. “Yes, that’s the good part. Asher was found in the shed and when the officer told Lisa Wells he would probably be put down, Katie asked if she could adopt him. So, Ash is now Flash and has a new home.”
Rob chuckled. “I’m glad.” At least something good had come out of all this. It wasn’t the dog’s fault, after all.
Next, Rob asked Will to update them on Arina Parvin’s post-mortem.
“There was no obvious cause of death.” He swiped at his tablet. “The pathologist couldn’t find any evidence of strangulation or trauma to the body. Due to the level of decomposition, it’s impossible to say whether she’d been sexually assaulted. She thinks not.”
A small comfort. “But we don’t know for sure?” said Rob.
Will shook his head.
“Also, due to a process of elimination, the most likely cause of death is drug-related.”
“You mean she was poisoned?” asked Rob.
Will shrugged. “Sedated. Drugged. Given a lethal cocktail. Although, it’s little more than guess work at this point. Her words. They’ve taken samples for a toxicology but with her having been in the ground for so long, they’re not sure if they’ll find anything.”
“Understood.”
They lamented the details of the post-mortem for a while longer, then Rob tied up the briefing. It got to a point where they were just going round in circles.
“Keep looking into those other disappearances,” he told them. “There must be a connection somewhere.”
Several phones beeped at once. Mallory got to his first.
“Shit.”
“What?” said Rob.
“You’re never going to believe this.”
Rob waved his hand. “What is it?”
“The dog squad have located another body on Bisley Common, near to where Arina Parvin was found.”
35
“Another body?” Had he heard correctly?
But Mallory was reading another text.
They all waited. Nobody breathed.
He glanced up, grave faced. “The K-9 team leader says the dogs were acting strangely when they left yesterday, so they thought go back for another sweep this morning.”
“Who’s in charge?”
“A Sergeant Wilson.”
“Give me his number.”
The briefing clearly over, the team dispersed. Except Mallory.
It took six rings before Wilson answered. Judging by the wind echoing down the line, he was out in the open somewhere. Bisley Common, maybe?
Rob introduced himself and asked for particulars. The second body could be some ancient burial site or another pet dog. He had to be sure.
“It appears to be the corpse of a young girl,” Wilson said, putting paid to any of his theories that it wasn’t related. “She’s got long hair and looks to be wearing a school uniform of some sort. I can’t tell much more than that, the bottom half is still underground.”
His heart beat faster.
“Is she covered by anything? A sheet, for example?”
“Yes, sir. It looks like a thin piece of material but it’s badly damaged and falling apart.”
“Thank you, Wilson. Have you called SOCO yet?”
“They’re on their way, sir.”
He nodded to himself. Wilson seemed an astute and capable officer. Intuitive too, to take the dogs back to the crime scene. Rare, in his world. “Okay, and you’ve cordoned off the site, have you?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve called the local police who’ve set up a perimeter.”
“Good work, sergeant. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Er, sir, there’s one more thing.” The hollow wail of the wind down the line made Rob’s hair stand on end.
“What’s that?”
“The dogs are going berserk. I think we may have found more possible gravesites.”
Rob was shocked into silence.
When he recovered, he said, “Do you mean to tell me there may be more than one body?”
“Yes, sir. Judging by the dogs’ behaviour, I suspect there might be multiple bodies in this particular section of the common.”
Holy shit.
His voice was croaky when he replied, “Keep going, then. I’m leaving now.”
Bisley Common was more sombre now the clouds had gathered. Rain threatened, Rob could smell the dampness in the air. Shadows flickered across the heath, causing them to pull their jackets tighter around them.
They parked where they had before and marched towards the dense wood where Arina’s body had been discovered. This next burial site was less than twenty metres from Arina, in a small clearing. Above, the murmuring leaves provided a restless and unnerving commentary.
By the time they got there, the entire clearing had been cordoned off, a circle of police tape wound around the first line of trees. Rob was pleased to see the local cops were preventing walkers from stopping and were taking down the details of anyone who crossed the line.
Rob and Mallory showed their warrant cards and ducked under the cordon.
“What have we got?” he asked Liz, who was on her knees beside the freshly dug grave. A mound of dirt lay to one side. A crime scene technician painstakingly took samples of the soil around the body.
There were four other spots highlighted by police markers. At
