Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves Page A

had seen them at the crime scene – the pinpoint haemorrhages caused by obstruction of the veins in the neck. The classic sign of strangulation.
    ‘Not manual strangulation,’ Keating was saying. ‘No finger marks. See the line around the neck. It hasn’t broken the skin, so not wire, unless it was plastic-coated. Fine rope, perhaps.’
    And that too was the same as in the Armstrong case.
    She watched as he continued his external examination, saw Billy take all the samples – a trace of lipstick left even after her submersion in seawater, fingernail scrapings, a clip of pubic hair – but her mind was buzzing with theories and ideas. What could connect these two very different young people? Keating began his dissection and still her thoughts were racing.
    When it was over, she sat with him again in his office. Outside, it was just getting light. Soon the hospital staff on early shift would be arriving. There was more coffee. Chocolate biscuits. She realized she was starving. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
    ‘I don’t think there’s much else I can give you,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to suggest she was assaulted before she was strangled. She’d been sexually active, but not recently. No pregnancy and she’d never had children.’ He paused. ‘She had all that ahead of her. Such a shame.’
    ‘She didn’t struggle,’ Vera said. ‘Did she know the murderer?’
    ‘Not necessarily. He could have surprised her.’
    ‘It could have been a woman.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Physically a woman could have done it.’
    But Vera could tell he didn’t really believe in a woman as a killer. He was a chivalrous and old-fashioned man. Women who missed the opportunity of childbirth were to be pitied. I suppose, she thought, that he pities me.

 
Chapter Thirteen
     
    The press hadn’t yet tracked down Lily Marsh’s parents, or if they had they were showing more than their usual restraint. The young police officer waiting with them said there’d been no phone calls, no visitors apart from the rector from the village church and Mrs Marsh’s sister.
    ‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,’ he said. ‘The way the mother talks, it’s as if the girl’s just gone away for a while and will turn up any time.’
    The couple were more elderly than Vera had expected. Phyllis had been forty-four when Lily was born and her husband five years older. ‘We’d given up, Inspector. It was like a miracle.’
    Almost hope for me, then. But Vera knew she’d never have children. And the aching for them had almost passed anyway.
    Lily’s parents lived in a neat semi. They’d lived there since they were married. Phyllis explained this as she made them tea. ‘It’s all paid off. We thought it would be something to leave to our daughter. We’ve no other savings.’ For the second time in a week Vera was listening to a bereaved mother talking too much, fending off thoughts and memories with words. When Vera and Joe arrived, the husband, Dennis, was in the small greenhouse in the back garden and they let him escape back there once they’d introduced themselves. Phyllis greeted Joe Ashworth like a friend, but Dennis was finding it harder than his wife to hold himself together. He had a blank, wild look on his face. ‘I’ll come out and chat to you in a bit,’ Vera said, ‘when I’ve had my tea.’
    Through the window of the small living room they saw him perched on an upturned box, staring into space.
    ‘He’s always had trouble with his nerves,’ Phyllis said. Vera thought she caught the hint of accusation in her words. Now, when she most needed support, her husband was falling apart, still making demands on her.
    The three of them sat clutching cups and saucers. Phyllis apologized for forgetting the sugar, though none of them took it, and jumped up to fetch it from the kitchen. She was a small, energetic woman, in her late sixties. She wore her hair in a tight white perm. ‘I was always worried