The Reborn by Lin Anderson Read Free Book Online

to say to one another until the strategy meeting. She certainly wasn’t planning on mentioning the submission of her forensic evidence in support of Bill.
    Dr Sissons acknowledged their entry with a nod. His corroborator today was Dr Sylvia Barnes. Rhona had met her before and they exchanged smiles through the masks. Sylvia was in her thirties, married to an engineer, with young children. Rhona and Sean had had dinner at their family home in Newton Mearns. It had been a pleasant evening, if a little domestic for her taste. It was around the time Sean had fancied himself as a father, particularly when fuelled by whisky. Rhona had feared that freshly bathed and sweet-smelling youngsters coming to say their goodnights to the assembled dinner party would only serve to encourage him. He hadn’t brought the subject up in the taxi on the way back to the flat, but she’d known it was on his mind.
    The other two men were the PF and a SOCO to record the post-mortem via photographs and video. The purpose of the exercise was to establish how the victim had died. A decision on suicide, accident, murder or natural causes was the normal outcome. In many cases, this one included, it seemed a foregone conclusion, but that didn’t matter, the procedure was the same.
    Sissons began sampling the body. Blood, hair (body and head) and swabs from all orifices. Then it was time for the hands. The marks on the palms had not gone unnoticed. Now they were up for discussion. The SOCO took further photographs, while the pathologist verbally recorded their existence. Rhona waited to see if anyone realised what the marks might be, before she asked for a mirror and held it up in front of the right hand.
    ‘It says “daisy”,’ exclaimed Slater.
    Rhona moved the mirror to the left hand. ‘This one says “chain”. The words are in mirror writing. I haven’t processed the material used to write them but I’d hazard a guess and say it was probably a make-up pencil such as kohl.’
    ‘You think this was done by her assailant?’ Slater said.
    ‘It’s not smudged, so she couldn’t have used her hands after the words were written.’
    ‘Daisy chain. Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?’ Slater said.
    ‘What exactly are you thinking?’ Sissons’s voice was clipped.
    ‘Daisy chaining. You know. Group sex?’
    Just hearing Slater say ‘sex’ made Rhona shudder. She tried to dispel the image of him indulging in group sex, or any kind of sex for that matter.
    ‘I checked out the term on the internet. It’s quite common. Used often for florists and organisations that involve children. Although DI Slater’s right, it does have strong sexual connotations in some contexts. The mirror writing aspect is even more interesting. Research suggests it’s an inherited ability which very few people have. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote many of his notes that way and it got him into trouble with the Church, because of its satanic associations. And pacts with the devil were traditionally written backwards.’
    ‘You’re suggesting the death has satanic overtones?’ Slater said.
    ‘I’m just telling you what I found.’
    While the scientific officer took finger and handprints, Rhona revealed she’d retrieved coloured fibres or hairs from under a fingernail.
    ‘So which were they, fibres or hairs?’ asked Slater.
    ‘When I’ve had time to examine them, I’ll tell you.’
    She turned her attention to the scientific officer, who was now taking a footprint since Kira had been found with one shoe missing. Rhona was struck by how small the girl’s feet were. Sissons had recorded her height as a little over five feet, but her feet were tiny even for someone that size. She had measured the shoe picked up in the maze as 22 centimetres, which meant Kira wore a 2.5 in British sizing.
    ‘We already know the baby was only a week shy of full term,’ said Rhona.
    Sissons nodded and spoke into the microphone. ‘No bruising on the front of the body, apart