the swimsuit.”
Stella had a complex role in the CID squad, part apologist for her boss, part minder, and quite often the butt of her wit. She’d learned to take it with good humour. Her calm presence was a big asset at times like this. Together they crunched up the steep bank of pebbles.
“We can assume she was murdered some time in the afternoon,” Hen said, as much to herself as Stella. “I asked the lifeguard if there was any stiffening of the muscles when they carried the body up the beach, and he didn’t notice any. As a rough estimate, rigor mortis sets in after three hours or so. In warm conditions it works faster. I’d like the opinion of the pathologist-when he finally gets here-but…”
“She was strangled here?” Stella said in disbelief, turning to give her boss a hand up the last of the steep ascent.
“That’s the supposition.”
“On a public beach?”
“I know,” Hen said. She paused to draw a breath at the top of the bank. The smoking wasn’t kind to her lungs. “My first reaction was the same as yours, Stell, but I’m changing my mind. We can assume she was lying down, enjoying the sun, like most people are on a beach, and she had a windbreak around her head and shoulders, as the lifeguard stated. That means the killer was screened on three sides. He could choose his moment when no one was coming up the beach towards them.”
“Not easy, “ Stella was bold enough to point out. “On a beach as crowded as that, people are going back and forth all the time, for a swim, or just to look at the water. And some of the sunbathers are stretched out with nothing else to do except watching others.”
“You can’t see much through a windbreak. He could strangle her without anyone realising what he was up to. She’d be relaxed, maybe lying on her side with her eyes shut. Even asleep. If they arrived together, he’s already in position beside her. If not, he flops down as if he’s going to sunbathe with her. They’re lying on sand, so she wouldn’t hear him arrive. When he thinks no one is watching, he pulls the ligature over her head and tightens it before she knows what’s happening. If anyone did get a look, they could easily think they were snogging. Any sound she makes will be muffled. A beach is a place where no one gets excited if a woman screams.”
“Even so.”
“Don’t you buy it, Stell?”
Stella gave a shrug that meant she was dubious, but couldn’t supply a more plausible theory. “There must have been people really close. They’re stretched out in their thousands on a gorgeous day like today.”
“But they wouldn’t expect to be witnesses to a murder. Not on a south coast beach on a Sunday afternoon.”
They found the lifeguard sitting outside his hut. His duties had ended two hours ago, but he’d been told to wait, and at this end of the day he was looking less macho than a young man of his occupation should, with goose-pimpled legs and a tan steadily turning as blue as his tattooed biceps. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was massaging the backs of them.
Hen asked him his name. It was Emerson. He was Australian. Almost certainly didn’t have a work permit, which may have accounted for his guarded manner.
“You were here keeping watch, Mr Emerson,” she said to him, making it sound like dereliction of duty. “Didn’t you see what happened?”
“Sorry.”
“You lads have little else to do all day except study the women. Didn’t you notice this one?”
“She was some way off.”
“But you don’t sit on your backside all day. You’re responsible for the whole beach, aren’t you?”
“That’s true in theory, but-”
“You didn’t notice her?”
“There were a couple of thousand people here, easy.”
“Have you seen her before, on other days?”
A shake of the head.
“Do you remember
“The guy who told us about her.”
“This was when?”
“Getting on for high tide. Around four thirty.”
“Describe him. What age?”
“About thirty.”
“Go on.”
“Tall and thin, with short, brown hair. Skin going red. Do you want his name?”
Hen said with more approval, “You got his name?”
“Smith.”
A sigh and an ironic, “Oh, thanks.”
“But he has a kid called Haley.”
An interested tilt of the head. “How do you know this?”
“Earlier in the afternoon she was lost. Smith came up here and reported it. I told him kids often get lost and I’d spread the word. He told me where they were sitting and I said he should try the beach cafe, where the ices are sold. Kids stand in line for a long time there and sometimes the parents get worried. But I found the kid myself, looking lost, only a short way from here.”
“Waiting for an ice cream?”
“No. She’d come to our hut with some friends for first aid and then got separated from them.”
“Was she hurt?”
He shook his head. “It was one of the other kids who needed the first aid. Hit in the face with a Frisbee. Haley was OK. I handed her back to her mother.”
“The mother?” Hen said, interested. “You met her mother as well?”
“Right.”
“Smith’s wife?”
“I guess. The kid called her mummy for sure. A bottle blonde, short, a bit overweight. Red two-piece. She was in tears when I turned up with Haley.”
“So you saw exactly where these people were on the beach?”
“I didn’t go right over. The mother ran up when she saw me with the kid.”
“The woman who was murdered must have been somewhere near them.”
“If you say so. It was really crowded.”
“Where was Haley’s father at this time?”
“Don’t know. Still searching, I guess.”
“And he was definitely the same man who told you about the dead woman?”
“That’s for sure.”
“Did he give his first name?”
“No. He just said his missing child was called Haley Smith, aged five, and he described her.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“Accent?”
“Where was he from? Round here?”
“Couldn’t say. You poms all sound the same to me. He wasn’t foreign, far as I could tell.”
“So Haley was returned to her mother?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Then Mr Smith comes back and tells you he’s found a dead woman?”
“That was a good half-hour after. I went back with him to look and it was true. The tide was already washing over her.”
“How was she lying?”
“Face down, stretched out. You could easily think she was asleep.”
“I understand she was behind a windbreak.”
“That’s right.”
