skin.
Enough. I pulled up the sheet, made sure
it entirely covered Lianne, not even a strand of
hair showing. I wanted to say something, anything,
to break the silence, but I couldn't think of anything
to say so I cleared my throat loudly instead.
Immediately Alexandra clipped back into the room.
She must have been waiting just outside.
"Finished?" 133
"Yes."
Lianne was lying in a drawer and with an effort,
Alexandra pushed it back as if into a giant
filing cabinet. "Nothing you couldn't have found in the
report, was there?" she asked, with a touch of
sharpness.
"I wanted to look at the wounds," I said.
I collected my case, my mac, stumbled
through the door into the drenching downpour. I lifted
my face up to the sky and let rain stream over it
like tears.
----
I went back to my boxy room at the station and
rifled through Lianne's file again, though I
knew it pretty well by now. I looked first at
the sparse sheet of biography: young woman known
as Lianne, estimated age around seventeen,
thought to have turned up in the Kersey Town area
seven to eight months ago, stayed briefly in a
hostel run by a man called William
Pavic, otherwise--according to the couple of fellow
drifters the police had managed to track down
-comslept in parks and on benches and in the
doorways of shops or, every so often, on the
floor of a luckier friend who lived in a BandB.
That was all--notothing about her character, her friendships, her
sexual history. It didn't say whether she
had been a virgin or not.
I picked up the map of where her body had
been found, X marks the spot. Then I dialed
through to Furth.
"I'd like to see where she was found," I said.
"Maybe this afternoon, after my clinic work? Say
five o'clock, is that possible?"
"I'll get Gil to take you there," he
answered. I could almost hear him smile.
----
"Here's where Doll did her," he said,
glancing sideways at me. He stood back
to let me see.
Lianne's body had been found on a
steepish bank behind the stump of a dead tree, where
ragwort, cow parsley and nettles grew. You
could still see from the crushed and broken stems where she
had sprawled face down. Her head had been
pushed right into the green forest of weeds. Her feet,
in their white pumps and perky red-striped socks,
had been resting against a broken bottle.
Tatters of plastic hung from the brambles and
floated in the oily brown water. There 135
were cigarette packets and old stubs ground into the
mud of the canal towpath. A tiny plastic
horse lay just in front of Lianne's hiding
place; probably some toddler had let it drop
there. Just behind it I could see a bike wheel,
rusting and bent.
"And a young man found her?"
"That's right. Darryl something or other."
"Pearce?"
"Yeah, a jogger. Serves him right. Did you
read his statement? He found her as she was dying.
More or less. He was staggering along here and heard
her crying out."
"But she had died by the time he found her."
"Wanker--that's Darryl, not you. He pissed
around her for ten minutes, he said, deciding what
to do. Scared out of his wits, more like. Then, by the time
he got his bottle back and looked and then
called us and we got there, she was dead. If
he'd walked straight round, she could have told him
who'd done it. Saved us an inquiry."
"Wasn't he a suspect?"
"Course. But he didn't touch the body.
Old Lianne looked as if she'd been
sprayed with blood. The killer must have been
covered. We did swabs on Darryl, fiber
tests, everything. Not a sausage."
"And there was the woman, Mary Gould," I
said, half to myself.
"Yeah, the old dear with bread for the ducks.
She came from the other side of the bushes, from the
flats. She saw the body and just legged it back
home. She didn't phone until the next day.
We've put her medal on hold."
I turned back to the spot and stared at it.
"And then Doll came forward a couple of days
later to say he'd been lurking in the area," said
Gil. "He didn't
Enough. I pulled up the sheet, made sure
it entirely covered Lianne, not even a strand of
hair showing. I wanted to say something, anything,
to break the silence, but I couldn't think of anything
to say so I cleared my throat loudly instead.
Immediately Alexandra clipped back into the room.
She must have been waiting just outside.
"Finished?" 133
"Yes."
Lianne was lying in a drawer and with an effort,
Alexandra pushed it back as if into a giant
filing cabinet. "Nothing you couldn't have found in the
report, was there?" she asked, with a touch of
sharpness.
"I wanted to look at the wounds," I said.
I collected my case, my mac, stumbled
through the door into the drenching downpour. I lifted
my face up to the sky and let rain stream over it
like tears.
----
I went back to my boxy room at the station and
rifled through Lianne's file again, though I
knew it pretty well by now. I looked first at
the sparse sheet of biography: young woman known
as Lianne, estimated age around seventeen,
thought to have turned up in the Kersey Town area
seven to eight months ago, stayed briefly in a
hostel run by a man called William
Pavic, otherwise--according to the couple of fellow
drifters the police had managed to track down
-comslept in parks and on benches and in the
doorways of shops or, every so often, on the
floor of a luckier friend who lived in a BandB.
That was all--notothing about her character, her friendships, her
sexual history. It didn't say whether she
had been a virgin or not.
I picked up the map of where her body had
been found, X marks the spot. Then I dialed
through to Furth.
"I'd like to see where she was found," I said.
"Maybe this afternoon, after my clinic work? Say
five o'clock, is that possible?"
"I'll get Gil to take you there," he
answered. I could almost hear him smile.
----
"Here's where Doll did her," he said,
glancing sideways at me. He stood back
to let me see.
Lianne's body had been found on a
steepish bank behind the stump of a dead tree, where
ragwort, cow parsley and nettles grew. You
could still see from the crushed and broken stems where she
had sprawled face down. Her head had been
pushed right into the green forest of weeds. Her feet,
in their white pumps and perky red-striped socks,
had been resting against a broken bottle.
Tatters of plastic hung from the brambles and
floated in the oily brown water. There 135
were cigarette packets and old stubs ground into the
mud of the canal towpath. A tiny plastic
horse lay just in front of Lianne's hiding
place; probably some toddler had let it drop
there. Just behind it I could see a bike wheel,
rusting and bent.
"And a young man found her?"
"That's right. Darryl something or other."
"Pearce?"
"Yeah, a jogger. Serves him right. Did you
read his statement? He found her as she was dying.
More or less. He was staggering along here and heard
her crying out."
"But she had died by the time he found her."
"Wanker--that's Darryl, not you. He pissed
around her for ten minutes, he said, deciding what
to do. Scared out of his wits, more like. Then, by the time
he got his bottle back and looked and then
called us and we got there, she was dead. If
he'd walked straight round, she could have told him
who'd done it. Saved us an inquiry."
"Wasn't he a suspect?"
"Course. But he didn't touch the body.
Old Lianne looked as if she'd been
sprayed with blood. The killer must have been
covered. We did swabs on Darryl, fiber
tests, everything. Not a sausage."
"And there was the woman, Mary Gould," I
said, half to myself.
"Yeah, the old dear with bread for the ducks.
She came from the other side of the bushes, from the
flats. She saw the body and just legged it back
home. She didn't phone until the next day.
We've put her medal on hold."
I turned back to the spot and stared at it.
"And then Doll came forward a couple of days
later to say he'd been lurking in the area," said
Gil. "He didn't
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