Chapter 3
First day in Fife.
Brodie didn’t mind. His stepson lived in Kelty, and he was used to driving over to see him. Eric had MS, and it was a struggle for him to drive over to Edinburgh these days. His girlfriend, Chrissie, worked wonders, looking after him and running a small private investigation firm.
Once again, Brodie had to fill a man’s boots.
DCI Alan McRae was still missing – no trace, no message, no body. Officially, he was classed as absent without leave. Unofficially, most of them suspected he was dead.
Now someone else was.
Traffic was getting heavier, so he switched on his siren and lights, skirting past the start of the morning rush hour, heavier coming into Edinburgh, in the opposite direction to his travel. He drove across the Forth, the sun crawling into the sky behind him, casting long shadows over the water.
By the time he drove through Kirkcaldy Esplanade, up the hill on the A921 and down the narrow access road to the Pathhead Sands beach car park, uniformed officers had already cordoned off a wide stretch of the beach just north of the promenade.
Blue-and-white police tape fluttered in the early morning breeze, anchored by wooden stakes driven hastily into the sand.
A few curious dog walkers hovered nearby, held back by officers, their pets sniffing the wind, oblivious.
The tide was low, the sea pulled back to reveal a stretch of wet, glistening sand.
He parked behind DI Art McKenzie’s Ford and walked towards the tape. The smell hit him first – salt and seaweed and something else, something that didn’t belong on a beach at sunrise. The forensics tent was positioned about thirty yards from the waterline.
‘Sir.’ Art appeared at his elbow, looking older and more tired than he had two weeks ago. ‘Glad you could make it.’
‘What have we got?’
‘Female, late twenties, naked. Found by a dog walker about two hours ago.’
‘Cause?’
‘That’s the question, isn’t it? No obvious trauma, no blood. Could be drowning, could be drugs, could be something else entirely.’
They walked towards the forensics tent that had been put over the victim, and Brodie felt his stomach tighten. He’d seen plenty of corpses in his career, but something about this one was different. Wrong. Found on a beach. Like before…
Inside the tent, she was lying on her back about thirty yards from the waterline, arms at her sides, legs straight. Her head was tilted slightly upward, as if she were gazing at the morning sky.
‘Christ,’ Brodie said quietly.
‘Aye. Reminds you of something, doesn’t it?’
It did. It reminded him of seven other women, found in similar circumstances, positioned with the same unnatural precision. The Embalmer’s victims.
‘Any ID?’
‘Nothing. No clothes, no purse, no jewellery. Nothing that reveals who she was or how she came here. But we haven’t moved her yet.’ There was a knowing look between the two detectives; all The Embalmer victims had their handbags placed underneath their bodies in the sand.
‘Where’s the pathologist?’
‘On his way. Should be here soon.’
Brodie stood and looked around the beach. Empty, except for the police and the dead woman. No witnesses, no obvious evidence, no easy answers.
‘Art, this looks exactly like—’
‘The Embalmer. I know. Same positioning, same attention to detail, same complete absence of useful evidence.’
‘But The Embalmer started seven years ago.’
‘Maybe he’s back. Maybe he never left. This could be a copycat.
’ Art shrugged. He hadn’t worked the original case but had studied it.
Along with missing DCI Alan McRae. Neither of them could figure anything out.
Maybe they would have had more luck if they’d been on the original team, but they weren’t.
‘The Embalmer stuck around for eighteen months before disappearing.’ He looked at Art. ‘We’re both experienced enough to know why some killers stop.’
The thought hung in the air between them.
‘We need to treat this as connected,’ Brodie said.
Brodie stood beside the body, careful not to disturb anything. The positioning was perfect – not natural, not accidental, but deliberate. Someone had arranged her like this, taking time to get it exactly right.
DS Cameron Reid came into the tent.
‘Morning, sir. Or what passes for one. I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again so soon.’
Brodie returned the nod. ‘I wish it was under different circumstances.’
‘Don’t we all.’ Cameron looked grim. ‘Female. Late twenties, maybe early thirties. No obvious signs of restraint or trauma – no blood that we can see, anyway. Lying on her back, arms by her sides. It’s too neat. Staged, probably.’
The woman’s body was pale against the darker sand, the skin already damp with dew and sea mist. She looked almost peaceful, like someone sleeping on a summer afternoon. But there was nothing peaceful about this. Not here. Not now.
‘There are no drag marks. It’s like she was placed here,’ Art said.
Brodie crouched, studying the body without touching it. The tide hadn’t reached her. That meant she’d been placed after it receded, and before anyone arrived for their morning walk. That left a window of maybe two hours. Whoever did this had been watching. Waiting.
‘Who found her?’
‘A retired bloke out with his spaniel. Just after 5 a.m. Poor sod thought she was sunbathing at first.’
Brodie stood, brushing his hands against his trousers.
He glanced around. The beach stretched in both directions, empty save for gulls and police officers.
It was a flat expanse of sand used by early-morning joggers and dog walkers.
If someone had brought her here, they’d done it fast and quietly.
Having the car park in close proximity was no coincidence either.
Whoever had placed the woman had picked this beach carefully.
‘Still no word on McRae?’ Brodie asked.
‘None. He’s just… gone. And now this.’ Art gestured towards the body. ‘Whoever did this wanted us to find her. And early, before the beach filled up. It’s not just murder – it’s a message.’
Brodie looked down at the woman again. Her hair fanned around her like a halo, the faintest trace of a bruise beneath her jawline, almost hidden by the shadows. A message, yes – but to whom? And why now?
‘I want door-to-doors on every house and flat overlooking the Esplanade,’ Brodie said. ‘Pull CCTV from the shops, the promenade, anywhere with a view of the beach. Someone must have seen something – delivery vans, early risers, bin collections. And I want to know who she is.’
‘Already on it,’ Cameron replied, scribbling a note.
‘This isn’t random,’ Brodie added, eyes still fixed on the lifeless woman, his mind jumping back seven years, when they had discovered The Embalmer’s first victim.
‘Here’s the doc now,’ Cameron said, poking his head out of the tent.
He looked over the sand to the car park where a silver Subaru Outback was pulling in. A few seconds later, Dr Ronald ‘Sherlock’ Holmes retrieved his kit from the boot and slipped on the white suit before trudging over the sand towards the officers.
‘Liam! Back so soon?’ Sherlock said with a smile as he came inside the tent. ‘You must like it this side of the water.’
‘Needs must, Sherlock. I just go where I’m told to go.’ Brodie looked again at the car park to see Detective Superintendent Breck not quite parking his car but more abandoning it. He came onto the beach the same way Sherlock had.
Sherlock went to work, examining the young woman’s body as Breck approached and entered the tent.
‘Glad you could make it, Liam,’ Breck said, shaking hands with the DCI.
‘I thought DCI McRae would have been back,’ Brodie said.
‘Yes, well, nobody’s seen him or heard from him. He’s still listed as a missing person. We’re all hopeful, though. I mean, he might have had an accident, or a knock on the head, and he can’t remember who he is. Something like that.’
‘Jesus,’ Sherlock said, looking up at the others.
‘What’s wrong?’ Brodie asked.
‘This woman has been exsanguinated.’
‘What?’ Breck said. ‘Like in a funeral home?’
‘Exactly. I moved the sand away from her neck, and you can see the puncture hole. If she hasn’t been, I’d be very surprised.’
Brodie stood looking at the woman, the smell of the salty air drawing up into his nostrils.
‘The Embalmer case,’ he said.
‘Exactly. This is either the same killer, or someone who studied his work very carefully. Help me move her over.’
Brodie and Art helped Sherlock raise the woman up on one side but there was nothing underneath.
‘No handbag,’ Brodie said.
‘Handbag?’ Sherlock said.
‘Oh, I forgot, you didn’t work this case before, doc. We kept it out of the papers. The killer would leave the victim’s handbag underneath her in the sand. Not this time though.’
‘This could be a different killer, then?’ Sherlock said. ‘Even though the blood has been drained.’
‘It’s hard to say. Maybe he just changed his MO.’
‘Right. I’ll get the crew to load her into the van and get her across to Dunfermline.’
‘OK, doc. Catch you later,’ Brodie said. He felt something cold settle in his stomach. Was The Embalmer back? He had started killing seven years ago, in 2018. Was he back and starting where he’d left off? It would seem that way. But what about the lack of a bag underneath?
If he was back, the question was, why now?