Chapter 1 #2
Vicki Gibson was lying on her back, one leg bent so that the right foot rested under the other knee.
Both her red heels had come off and were stuck twisted in the grass; she was still wearing a red skirt and a black blouse, and a fluffy brown coat the gloom rendered as rust. Both arms were splayed out to her sides.
Her hair was long: swirling black tendrils in the grass, like she was lying in an inch of water.
She had no face left to speak of.
A bad one.
‘Well,’ I told Laura. ‘You were right.’
I was still noting the details though – a discarded red handbag rested beside her, the cord lying curled in the grass. Not robbery then. And the clothes didn’t appear to have been disturbed. That left one obvious possibility.
‘Andy.’ Simon Duncan, the forensic liaison for our department, was standing by the body. He nodded at me. ‘Glad you could make it.’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Simon was tall and mostly bald, with a climber’s build. Beside him, the pathologist, Chris Dale, who looked short and serious at the best of times, appeared even more so now, squatting down by his victim. He glanced up to acknowledge my presence, but only briefly.
‘I know it’s early days,’ I said, ‘but do we have anything concrete yet?’
Simon arched an eyebrow.
‘You’ve not got it figured out yet? You surprise me, Andrew. I thought that might explain the delay in your arrival – that you were already off arresting the perpetrator.’
‘I do have an idea,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you see if you can throw me off course, eh?’
Simon moved to one side, to allow the SOCO with the camera around to the head-end of the body. In doing so, he gave us a better view as well. It couldn’t really be called the ‘head-end’ anymore.
‘There’s one very obvious injury,’ Simon said, just as the camera flashed across it.
‘Or rather, numerous injuries to one specific part of the victim. As far as we can tell, there are no other serious injuries. I think we can probably run with the damage to the head being the cause of death rather than post-mortem.’
I nodded.
Whoever had attacked Vicki Gibson had beaten her about the head and face so severely that it was impossible to recognise her.
Even dental records would be unlikely, I thought, trying to examine the injuries professionally.
The front of her skull had been caved in.
There was her neck, pristine and unblemished, and that hair swirled above, but everything in between was gone.
‘No defensive injuries?’
Simon shook his head. ‘Looks like the first blow was enough to incapacitate her. He either dragged her through the hedge or else the blow knocked her that way.’
‘Too early to tell,’ I said.
‘Yes. Regardless, he hit her many times, and continued to do so long after her death. As you can see, the entire front of her skull has been seriously damaged.’
Yes, I could see that all too clearly.
I squatted down and peered at the hands.
‘No sexual assault?’
‘Nothing obvious at this stage.’
‘And no robbery.’
‘Her credit cards and money are still in the handbag.’ He arched his eyebrow again.’ I’m not throwing you so far, am I?’
‘I’m not telling you yet. Weapon?’
Simon shook his head. ‘Impossible to say for sure right now, or possibly at all. But since we’ve not found it I imagine it would be something small and hard: a hammer or a pipe. A rock perhaps. Something handheld anyway.’
I nodded. The weapon would need to be hard enough to inflict this level of damage, but light enough for the killer to be able to carry it away with him afterwards: something that could deliver the force of a boulder but not the weight.
That was an awful thought, of course. A heavy boulder might cause this level of damage with only one or two blows.
With something like a hammer, it would have taken much more time and effort, many, many more blows.
But it also meant this probably wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment crime. The attacker had most likely brought the weapon with him and taken it away again. And that degree of ferocity tended to indicate a personal motive. Not always, but usually.
‘Come on then, Sherlock Hicks. Let’s have it.’
I stood up.
‘Ex-husband.’ Then I corrected myself: ‘Well, ex-partner. She used to wear a ring, but doesn’t anymore. It might have been an engagement ring.’
‘Never married.’ Laura inclined her head. ‘The IT guys are pulling her files now though, so if there’s any previous complaints or restraining orders there we’ll know shortly.’
‘There will be,’ I said.
Bizarre as it sounds, I felt a little brighter.
As bad as this murder was – and it was bad – I knew it would also be explicable.
Because, ultimately, they all are. I’m not saying the explanation is ever satisfactory or reasonable – I’m not saying it’s ever enough – but the reason is always there, and it always makes sense to the person who did it.
The fact is, most crimes conform to mundane statistical patterns.
The vast majority of female murder victims, for example, are killed by somebody they know, and it’s usually a partner or recent partner.
Countrywide, two women die every week at the hands of men who are supposed to love them, or once claimed to, or imagine in their heads they did.
So – especially having ruled out robbery and sexual assault – an ex-partner was the obvious guess.
Most DV murders happen indoors, but this was close enough: someone had known where and when to find her.
And, now that I thought about it, the fact that Vicki Gibson, at the age of thirty-two, lived with her mother also indicated an ex rather than current partner.
I was sure that the IT guys – if not Carla Gibson herself – would very shortly give us a man’s name.
At some point in the past, either Vicki or her mother was likely to have called the police before, because these things rarely just explode out of nowhere.
Gibson’s ex-boyfriend would have a string of reports against his name, and probably some charges.
At some point, she would have dared to leave him.
And because of the type of man he was, the resentment and hurt everyone feels in such circumstances would have been much blacker and more aggressive than most.
From some of the other domestic homicides I’d dealt with, I could almost picture the pathetic bastard. When we picked him up, he’d probably still be blaming Vicki Gibson for what had happened – even now. Still convinced she’d pushed his buttons, and that it was somehow her fault.
‘We’ll see,’ Laura said.
‘We will.’
I was confident. This was a textbook bedroom crime, in my own personal architecture of murder. Hideous and awful, but comprehensible and quickly tied shut.
It had to be that.
What else could it be?