“Don’t want any of them falling over the cliffs in the dark.”
There was only about one hour of daylight left, Callie knew, and it would take longer than that to get a team of searchers together.
Reluctantly, Miller nodded his agreement.
“What about this body and the tide?” he asked the crime scene manager.
“We should be able to clear the beach before it comes in,” Brewer reassured him. “If we hustle. The difficult bit will be getting the body back to where the van is parked before we get cut off. Need to get moving soon.”
“Bloody hell,” Jeffries commented as the little man bustled away to make sure his team had collected as much of the surrounding detritus as possible. “Not exactly a convenient place to find a body.”
And Callie had to agree.
* * *
Billy was in his office when Callie popped in at lunchtime the next day. She had been called to the hospital to take swabs from a young woman who had reported that she had been raped. Callie found sexual crimes particularly difficult and after an hour of collecting evidence and counselling the distraught young woman, felt she needed a break before returning to do her evening surgery.
“Hiya,” Billy said, but Callie couldn’t help noticing that his smile and greeting were not as cheerful as usual.
She sat down in the chair opposite his desk and gave him a long look.
“What’s up?”
“If you’ve come to ask me about the young woman found on the beach last night, the body has already gone so that the Home Office pathologist can do the PM in better facilities.”
“Ah,” she said and understood. Callie’s godfather had been the local pathologist until his death and over the years, she had listened to his frequent complaints about Home Office pathologists coming in and taking over all the interesting cases.
“Have you thought about registering to be one yourself?” she asked.
“Of course, but it’s not that easy.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Nothing worth having ever is,” she quoted her mother’s favourite phrase from when she was growing up and complaining about having to work so hard to get her A-levels.
“It’s not just the qualifications, I have completed quite a few of the modules already and I’m working my way towards the rest,” he admitted.
Callie tried not to look surprised, or hurt, that it was news to her.
“It’s more that you have to be a member of a recognised group practice and there’s only six of those in the country.”
Callie understood his concerns.
“The ones that come here always seem to come from South London.”
“That’s right, there’s a large practice covering the whole of the south east. It makes it easier for the rota to make sure that there’s always someone on call.”
“And what are the barriers to joining them once you do have the qualifications?”
“Firstly, they’d have to have a vacancy and they don’t have one at the moment. In fact, they have a waiting list.”
“And secondly?”
“If I joined them, most of the work would be in London, which is understandable. I’m not sure living down here would make sense.”
He looked at her and she could see his problem. When he was living and working in Brighton, the roads were faster and covering London would have been less of a problem. He might even have considered moving up there anyway, as his family were from a suburb to the south of the city. But the roads and trains from Hastings made commuting to London difficult and the town hospital was a small one, lacking facilities – a backwater for the career-minded. If he wanted to be a Home Office forensic pathologist, or at some point he decided to turn to teaching, become a professor even, he would have to move. He would have to leave Hastings.
It was a dilemma she understood well. She had watched her godfather struggle with it over the years and had often thought that he regretted staying in Hastings. Work versus home life was a delicate balance, as she knew only too well, and you had to be happy with the way it worked for you.
“If you want to be a Home Office forensic pathologist, Billy, you have to go for it. We’ll work something out, but I’ll never hold you back.”
He came over to her and gave her a hug.
“Thank you,” he said and smiled, only this time he looked like he meant it.
Callie just wished she could ignore the knot of anxiety that had formed in her stomach.
Chapter 19
The evening news had included a short item featuring pictures of both body number nine and the young woman found the day before and asking for information about them. They had used the picture that Lisa produced for Callie, which made her happy that she had braved her concerns about meeting the photographer again after the rally, and set her wondering again about the black eye she had tried so hard to cover up. Callie was sure she must have got it at the rally, the question was, who was responsible? It wasn’t surprising that Lisa had decided to take time off work because of it – a crime lab was the last place you could get away with saying you walked into a cupboard door, they spent far too much time analysing evidence in domestic violence cases to let that go.
“About time they started to try and find out who body nine really was,” Callie said crossly to Kate.
“Better late than never,” Kate replied, opening a packet of crisps and laying it on the table between them. “The pictures were very clear, I can’t believe no one will recognise them.”
“I know. There will probably be hundreds of calls.” Callie knew that Miller had been given a
