‘Message for you. I was about to interrupt your meeting. Urgent, ma’am.’ He nodded at Skeeter before returning behind the glass screen.
She read it. ‘Shit! They’ve found a body and they believe it’s Carla Sharpe. We’re meeting Mason there and he specifically requests your attendance, Wicca.’
‘Joy!’ Skeeter pulled a false smile. ‘He must really like me!’
Chapter 12
The whole of Midge Mill Lane was closed off by police cars and tape; a flapping plethora of blue-and-white plastic strips announced it was the boundary of a crime scene. It oscillated further when April’s car arrived. Looking at the map, it showed a narrow lane, about two miles in length. It had been bypassed years ago relieving it of traffic and noise, but instead bestowing it with pot holes as it was now seemingly forgotten. Today, ironically, it had taken a death to bring it back to life.
They observed the usual procedures until directed to park in Mill Farm’s yard. The remains of the windmill stood on the smallest of hills that was a high point for the flat surrounding farm land. Two CSI vans were parked further along the lane.
Skeeter climbed out and immediately scanned the area. To the west the land was flat and endless. It was not to her liking. Flat as a witch’s tit, she thought, bringing a smile to her lips as she turned her gaze east where the ground was on the rise. A large copse of trees swung over the hill before breaking into the hedgerows as if compensating for the bland landscape opposite. North and south seemed to be a mixture of both and to her that was what farmland should look like. Tan Pit Cottage, her home, was within the folds of similar hills, probably the highest point once you move away from the coast before you strike the Pennines proper.
DCI Mason walked across the yard wearing green wellington boots. They looked incongruous with the suit as the trousers appeared ruched.
‘This way, farmer seems fine, more worried about birds pecking his spring cabbage to be honest with you. Once he’d got over the initial shock and had a brew, he wanted to continue working on the field below the crime scene. Time’s money, he persistently advises.’ He paused resting his hands on his hips. ‘He makes the scarecrows in the first place so to find one had been exchanged for a corpse. Apparently these scarecrows have been renowned in the area for some time.’ He handed April an electronic tablet. ‘That’s the image of the scarecrow and whoever did this copied the original well. If you flick along you can see the corpse. Almost bang on for detail. Slight difference in jacket but to anyone passing along the road it would appear the same. Even he didn’t notice until the birds started their feeding frenzy, and he made the bloody thing. If you get a whiff of death, the farmer found and moved the rotting carcass of a deer near the hedge there. May have encouraged the feeding frenzy.’
The drone sat in his hand like a miniature dog, legs outstretched. He wiped the camera and the gimbal moved loosely. The small, green light flashed at the back of the body, a signal that it was connected to the controller. Finding a flat area, he placed the drone down carefully and collected the handset. It was ready to fly. Seventeen satellites had linked with it and the craft knew its home point. He tapped the take-off button on the screen and a circle appeared in the centre. Resting his finger on it the green line illuminated as it ran around the circle. On completing three hundred and sixty degrees, he lifted his finger. The drone rose a metre into the air. Within two minutes it hovered at three hundred and five feet, its eight blades barely audible. Turning the drone towards the farm, he pushed the right lever forward and the craft began its journey, unseen and unheard.
The scene, where white suited figures were walking around the blue and white forensic tent concealing the body, seemed surreal, almost unworldly. The alien forms, the monocoloured ground, and the polytunnels in the distance all contrived to make Skeeter imagine she was witnessing man’s early colonisation of a planet. Even the colour of the continuous blanket of cloud and the lack of breeze enhanced her perception.
Looking down at the tablet’s screen, she scrolled through the images. The footprints, pushed deep into the soil were probably those of the farmer. The close-up shots of the face were disconcerting. The plethora of beaks had torn away flesh leaving a raw, sinewy mass of marks beneath the fringe line. The eyes were long gone along with the nose. The knotted gag had forced the lips forward and had been easy picking leaving gums and teeth exposed. The area around the sliced neck had also received attention from the scavenging birds.
‘Similar injury as in Jennings’s murder, a ripping and tearing but here the birds have taken the injury to a higher level.’
In further photographs it was clear that the ears too had been savaged. The blood had obviously settled in the lower portion of the body leaving the exposed upper flesh ghostly and pallid.
‘Copied even down to the spinning discs. Clever. Our killer didn’t want this to be found for a while and we thought that too about Jennings’s location. Isolated spots seem to be the name of this killer’s game. My bet is that the soil on the shoes will be a perfect match to that near this body,’ April announced before looking at Mason and Skeeter. ‘The killer’s teasing himself, or us.’
Skeeter focused on the image of the red cap; the white swoosh mark partly concealed in the loose soil. ‘Or just bloody stupid and filled with an abundance of self-importance. See it all the time in bouts when visiting wrestling clubs come to take us on. The loud, arrogant ones are usually on
