Vera and Robson would have known what to expect and were unmoved. Vera stood, hands on hips, breathing heavily. Holly thought it was the most exercise she’d had for years. She felt a smug smile crawl across her face.
‘Where’s the dead woman then?’ Vera asked.
‘This way,’ Robson said. ‘I would never have seen her, but I was clambering round, looking for phone signal, and I almost fell over her.’
‘Just stay where you are and point it out to us.’ Vera was her imperious self again.
He pointed to the far edge of the clear fell. ‘About ten yards in over there.’
Holly followed Vera. They made their way around the clearing, close to the surrounding trees, a longer distance but much easier than climbing over the piles of branches and roots.
Robson shouted over to them. ‘I’ve marked it with a ribbon.’ A pause. ‘I think an animal has been at her. A dog maybe. They exercise the hounds up here.’
Holly, not usually squeamish, thought she would vomit.
The ribbon was motionless in the still air, and they found her easily once they knew where to look. She’d been pulled a short distance from the forest edge and covered with spindly branches, but a flash of colour showed through. A blue Gore-Tex jacket. Vera leaned over and cleared a few of the branches away so they could see enough to make a positive identification, though Holly thought there was no doubt that this was Constance Browne. She stared out at them. Part of her cheek had been nibbled away, but there was no head wound that Holly could see, no blood and bone. Vera was leaning over her, torch in her hand, muttering to herself.
‘Eh, pet, what a place to end up. I think they strangled you. Look at this mark around your neck. What did they use? Not that scarf. A bit of wire or twine? I hope you fought back. Let’s hope for a bit of skin under your nails. Something for us to work with.’
She shot a quick, defiant look at Holly. ‘Don’t mind me. I always talk to the dead. You get more sense from them than the living most times.’ She straightened and shouted out to Robson. ‘I’d like you and my colleague here to go back to the road in my vehicle. Holly will give directions to my forensic team and the pathologist and when they arrive, could you show them the way? They’ll have their own four-by-four. We’ll give you a lift home then.’
‘What about you, boss?’ Holly said. ‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll stay with her.’ Vera gave a little smile. ‘Keep her company and scare off any other animals that might want to spoil our scene.’
‘Would you rather I do it?’
There was a pause and for a while Holly was afraid Vera might agree.
‘Nah,’ she said at last. ‘There’s nothing to fear from the dead. They can’t hurt us. And I owe her. If I’d been more patient when I first went to interview her, asked her the right questions, she’d still be alive. She was killed for the secrets she kept. Besides, you’re fitter than me. I’d show myself up by not keeping pace.’
Holly didn’t push the point. She could think of nothing worse than waiting here in the dark. She’d started walking back towards Robson when Vera called out to her.
‘You’ll find a hip flask in the dash. Best malt saved for special occasions. Bring it back with you. I’ll need warming up by the time you get here.’ She paused for a beat. ‘And I reckon this was a woman who’d understand quality.’
Holly lifted an arm to show she’d heard and understood, and walked on.
Chapter Thirty
VERA WATCHED THE TORCH LIGHTS BOUNCING away until they disappeared. She’d switched hers off. The moon gave all the light she needed. She knew better than to explore the scene before Billy Cartwright got his mitts on it, though she’d already decided this wasn’t where Constance Browne had been killed. The teacher had been brought here, either dragged from the place where Robson had left his van, or driven in a quad bike or tractor. She could have been dragged; she’d been a slight woman, not a peck of fat on her thanks to all that Pilates and healthy eating. She’d more likely been driven, though that didn’t help much with the identity of the murderer. Neil Heslop had been driving a tractor the night he found Lorna Falstone’s body, and his lasses whizzed around the place on quad bikes. Even the big house had a grand four-wheel-drive vehicle that would probably have made it if the driver had more nerve than Vera.
Vera was angry, and still mumbled under her breath to the frozen woman.
Chances are you’d never have been found. Left here to rot and to be pulled apart by animals. Leaving us all wondering what had happened to you. All those bairns you taught during your career, thinking you’d just run away and left them.
Vera had never felt at home in the forest. She liked open spaces and hills. She thought she needed a view across half the county as far as the Cumbrian border, and with the hint of the coast in the opposite direction. The rows of trees, uniform and without character, depressed her.
Hector had brought her here occasionally, when he was in the middle of his egg-collecting addiction. She saw now that was what it had been. The only order in the chaos of their lives had been the narrow shelves in the case that would have looked more fitting in a museum. He’d displayed the
