Chapter 3 #2
I take a step closer, and lean down toward the dead woman’s face.
She’s in her late thirties, slim, pretty—if you like that kind of thing, which I suppose I do—and her general appearance suggests three things to me: money, vanity, and self-control.
She has the kind of body that has been taken care of with years of gym visits, diets, and costly creams. Her long, expertly bleached blond hair looks as though she might have just brushed it before lying down in the mud.
Strands of gold in the grime. No sign of a struggle.
Her bright blue eyes are still wide open, as though shocked by the last thing that they saw, and from the color and condition of her skin, she has not been here long.
The corpse is fully clothed. Everything this woman is wearing looks expensive: a woolen coat, a silky-looking blouse, and a black leather skirt.
Her shoes appear to be the only thing missing—not ideal for a walk in the woods.
It’s impossible not to notice her small, pretty feet, but it’s the blouse I find myself staring at.
Like the lace bra underneath, I can see that it used to be white.
Both are now stained red, and it’s clear from the frenzied pattern of flesh and torn fabric that she was stabbed multiple times in the chest.
I have a curious urge to touch her, but don’t.
That’s when I notice the victim’s fingernails. They’ve been roughly cut to the quick, and that isn’t all. I loathe being seen wearing glasses, but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so I find the nonprescription pair I keep for emergencies and take a closer look.
Red varnish has been used to spell letters on the nails of her right hand:
TWO
I look at the left hand and it’s the same, but the letters spell a different word:
FACED
This wasn’t a crime of passion; this murder was planned.
I tune back into here and now, and realize that Priya hasn’t noticed yet; she’s been too busy reading me her notes and telling me her thoughts.
I generally find she tends to talk unless specifically asked to stop.
Her words trip over themselves, rushing out of her mouth and into my ears.
I try to look interested, translating her hurried sentences as she says them.
“… I’ve initiated all standard golden-hour procedures.
There’s no CCTV in this part of town, but we’re gathering footage from the high street.
I’m guessing she didn’t walk here barefoot in the middle of winter, but without any ID or vehicle registration—the parking lot was completely empty—I can’t issue an ANPR… ”
People rarely say what they mean under stress, and all I hear is her desperation to prove to me that she can handle this.
“Have you seen a dead body before?” I ask, interrupting.
She stands a little straighter and sticks out her chin like a disgruntled child.
“Yes. In the morgue.”
“Not the same,” I mutter beneath my breath.
There are so many things I could teach her, things she doesn’t know she needs to learn.
“I’ve been thinking about the message the killer wanted to send,” Priya says, staring back down at her notepad, where I can see the beginnings of one of her many lists.
“They wanted people to know that the victim was two-faced,” I reply, and she looks confused. “Her fingernails. I think someone cut them and wrote a message.”
Priya frowns then bends down to get a closer look. She stares up at me in wonder, as though I’m Hercule Poirot. I guess reading is my superpower.
I avoid her gaze and return my attention to the face of the woman lying in the dirt.
Then I instruct one of the forensics team to take pictures of her from every angle.
She looks like the kind of person who enjoyed having her photo taken, wearing her vanity like a badge.
The flash blinds me, and I’m reminded of another time and place: London a few years ago, reporters and cameras on a street corner, clamoring to get a shot of something they shouldn’t want to see.
I bury the memory—I can’t stand the press—then I notice something else.
The dead woman’s mouth is ever so slightly open.
“Shine your flashlight on her face.”
Priya does as I ask, and I get down on my knees again to take a closer look at the body. Lips that were once pink have turned blue, but I can see something red hiding in the dark space between them. I reach to touch it, without thinking, as though under a spell.
“Sir?”
Priya interrupts my mistake before I make it.
She is uncomfortably close to me; so much so that I can smell her perfume, along with her breath: a light whiff of recently drunk tea.
I turn and see an old frown form on her young face.
I would have thought this whole experience—finding a body in the woods for the first time—might have fazed her, unnerved her a little, but maybe I was wrong.
I try to remember how old Priya is—I find it so hard to tell with women.
If I had to guess I’d say late twenties or early thirties.
Still hungry with ambition, confident of her own potential, unscarred by the disappointments that life has yet to hit her with.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the pathologist to examine the body before we touch anything?” she asks, already knowing the answer.
Priya sticks to the rules the way good liars stick to their stories. She says “pathologist” like a kid who just learned a new word in school, one who wants people to hear them use it in a sentence.
“Absolutely,” I reply, and take a step back.
Unlike my colleague, I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies before, but this is not like any case I have previously worked on.
I zone out a little again while Priya starts to speculate about the identity of the woman.
It feels like this is the start of something big, and I wonder if I’m up to the task.
No two murders are the same, but it’s been years since I handled a case even remotely like this, and a lot has changed since then.
The job has changed, I’ve changed, and it isn’t just that.
This is different.
I’ve never worked on the murder of someone I know before.
And I knew this woman well.
I was with her last night.