Fall by Candice Fox Read Free Book Online

positioning of her body, lying on her back, hidden from view of the road – was the killer ashamed of his act? It was a bit confusing on that score. According to the textbook, a victim positioned on her back and uncovered suggested a willingness for the body to be found. Usually killers who are ashamed of what they’ve done curl the body on its side, suggesting peacefulness, sleep. Or they turn her over, hide the face and injuries in the grass. On the back, face up, is probably how the victim fell out of the guy’s arms, carried fireman-style and then flopped down, arms out. So the killer wasn’t displaying any shame in the positioning of the body. But leaving the victim off behind the bushes – that was strange. In the right circumstances, it could have been days before one ofthe joggers pumping along the road at the bottom of the hill smelled her, before someone let a dog off the leash and the beast came up here. A mixed display. Not ashamed, but not exhibitionist. There was an uncertainty about it.
    This was probably a first kill.
    I looked around at the paperbarks surrounding us, pale and spotted trunks that had stood watch over the girl’s final seconds. Or had they? There was no indication that the brutality had occurred here. No blood spatter. But the victim looked like a Centennial Park jogger. I’d been one myself once. Centennial Park is a great starting ground for weight-losers rather than serious runners – it’s mostly flat, and the familiarity of landmarks helps you control the panic that you’ll never make it to the end. The main obstacles are old people, dogs, kids on push scooters. I shifted the girl’s shoulder up a fraction and looked at the lividity, the dark purple on her back and hips where the blood had begun to pool. There were carpet patterns in the blood on the backs of her arms.
    So if the runner was picked up from here, but wasn’t killed here, why was she brought back here? Why risk returning a victim to the place where you abducted her? Was the location important to the killer? Maybe she wasn’t taken far. Maybe the whole thing happened in the park. I looked towards the road, at the cars parked under the trees.
    â€˜Let’s set up a tent before we move her. I want to catch any fibres.’
    Eden rose and directed a nearby tech to bring in a tent so we could examine the body without onlookers gawking at us. I instructed another to go down and get a video of all the cars in the immediate vicinity.
    I heard a noise. I reached under the tarp and unclipped a mobile phone from the girl’s waist. Wires ran up through her shirt, under her bra, to her collar. I pulled the headphones clear and looked at the screen. Her running music was still playing. ‘Hazard’ by Richard Marx. Ominous. I scrolled through the songs and found the girl had a weird compilation going. Plenty of 1980s love ballads and murder songs. Depressed taste. A recent break-up? Was she pounding the pavement to lose the kilos gained during a now-dead relationship? I sat back on my haunches and realised it was the first personal thing I knew about the girl. Her current music taste. More personal details would follow, and they would all be sad to learn. Sometimes the stupidity of it hit me suddenly, right in the middle of the job. Everything she had been, whoever she was going to be – it was all over now.
    â€˜Hey, dickhead,’ Hooky called. I looked over. She was standing closer now but still off and away from the centre of the crime scene, not wanting to contaminate any of it with her DNA. It’s shockingly easy to leave pieces of yourself at a crime scene. Just by standing there, flaking skin and dropping hairs like a tree shedding its winter leaves.
    â€˜Did she have an app going?’ Hooky asked.
    â€˜A what?’
    â€˜An app.’
    I looked at her blankly. Hooky beckoned me and I took the phone. I let her direct me around it. As a kid, there