Cross and Burn by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page B

replaced with a pile of crumbling bricks. Beer cans were piled at either end of the sofa and three ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts and roaches. Empty blister packs of over-the-counter painkillers were scattered around among crushed boxes that had once held pizzas and burgers. The stench was a gruesome mixture of all the things she wished she’d never smelled.
    Paula turned back to stare bleakly at the murdered woman. She longed for Tony Hill’s facility for reading a crime scene and understanding something of the mind that had created it. But her skills were for interrogating the living, not the dead. She’d go through the motions at the crime scene, but she knew she’d always have to rely on other specialists for what it could reveal.
    And right on cue, one of those specialists walked in on them. ‘DCI Fielding. You have something for me, I’ve been told?’ Paula recognised the warm Canadian drawl of Dr Grisha Shatalov, the Home Office pathologist who generally worked Bradfield’s homicides. He clapped Paula’s shoulder softly as he passed her. ‘Paula. Good to see you.’
    Fielding stepped aside with what looked like relief on the little Paula could see of her face. ‘She’s all yours, Doc. Brutal, this one.’
    ‘Taking someone’s life? That’s always brutal in my book.’ Grisha hunkered down by the body. ‘Even when it looks gentle.’ He moved his hands over her body, gradually applying pressure and pausing to gauge temperature and rigor.
    ‘Did she die here?’ Fielding’s question was brusque. It sounded to Paula as though her reputation for impatience was well-founded. There was clearly no place here for the exchange of pleasantries she’d always seen between Carol and Grisha. Straight to business and no messing around, that seemed to be Fielding’s style. Like a lot of women in senior positions, she set out her stall to out-tough the men.
    Grisha glanced over his shoulder. ‘I’d say so. You’ve got blood spatter from the head wound, you’ve got lividity that looks to me like she hasn’t been moved post-mortem. Chances are high she was still alive when he brought her here.’ He looked up at the photographer. ‘Are you done here? Can I move her?’
    ‘She’s all yours, mate.’ The cameraman stepped away and left them to it.
    Grisha carefully tilted the victim’s head to one side. ‘Look, here. You see this?’ He pointed to a depression in the skull, blonde hair turned dark and matted with a mixture of blood and brain matter. ‘A blow to the head with something long, rounded and heavy. A baseball bat or a metal pipe. I’ll have a better idea once I get her to the lab. If nothing else had happened to her, chances are that would have killed her. But he made sure by giving her a good kicking.’ He gestured at the bruises on her torso. ‘Large, irregular rounded shapes, it’s a classic bruise from a kick. And the colour, red shading towards purple. That tells us she was still alive when he gave kicking her to death his best shot.’ He sat on his heels and considered. ‘Either he’s smart or he got lucky.’ He paused expectantly.
    ‘I’ve not got time for twenty questions,’ Fielding groused. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘He kicked her. He kept on kicking her. He didn’t stamp on her. It would have been better for you if he had. You might have got a sole pattern from his boots.’
    ‘Bastard.’ Fielding sounded disgusted. ‘Boots, not shoes?’ Her face gave nothing away, but she folded her arms across her chest as if to defend herself from the violence.
    ‘Given the extent of the damage – her face is wrecked, Fielding, look at it – my best guess would be steel toecaps. And that tends to boots rather than shoes.’ Grisha pointed to her left ankle. ‘Check out those abrasions. Looks like a restraint tell-tale to me. A shackle of some description. But one with a straight edge. Maybe designed for pipework rather than humans. That’s why it’s torn the skin the