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“But …” He points back to the dump site. “A doctor …”
“Sorry. A doctor can’t do anything for him now.”
The homeless man shakes his head, redirecting his gaze to the ground.
“No. I didn’t see nothing,” he concludes.
Adam accepts defeat. Even if he did share something useful, the homeless guy’s a lousy witness. A defense lawyer would shoot holes in his account in seconds.
The man gestures to the cigarette, now burned down to the butt. “Can I have another?”
Adam pulls out the pack and hands it to him with the lighter. “Here,” he says, then he digs in his pocket. He pulls out the cash he has—a few notes and coins—and passes them across. “For your help.”
The man snatches them, then scuttles away with a nervous backward glance. Adam finishes his cigarette as Jamie heads toward him.
“Did he see anything?” Jamie asks when he’s by his side.
“Nothing. I’m surprised they called it in at all. What have you done with our new recruit?”
“Ellie Quinn? Sent her off with uniforms for some house-to-house.” Jamie’s gaze drifts back to the crime scene. “She doesn’t need to see that,” he finishes. “Not on her first day.”
Adam silently agrees. He likes new blood on the team. Like Ellie, they’re keen, desperate to make their mark. But she looks so innocent. Mentally he gives her three months before she requests a transfer out. Six, tops.
Adam follows Jamie’s line of sight to the dead body. The rubbish throws amorphous shapes across the ground; it instinctively makes something in his body recoil, even from this distance.
No, they don’t want to break Ellie Quinn today.
“Any luck with the camera?” he asks instead.
“Fake,” Jamie replies. “And not a good one either—I could tell just by looking up at it. It’s a perfect dump site. No reliable witnesses, no overlooking houses. Easy access.”
Adam nods, looking out at the wasteland. The floodlights glance off broken glass, mirrors to the devastation in the mud. SOCOs are taking molds from the few distinguishable tire tracks with powdered stone, photographs already captured. He turns to Jamie. “How was your honeymoon, anyway?”
“Wonderful. Californian sunshine, white sandy beaches, blue skies.” Jamie pauses, looking back to where Dr. Ross is standing up from the body. “A bit different to tonight.”
Dr. Ross turns and gestures to them, a quick raise of his long arm. They walk back across.
“Male, thirty to forty,” he says, getting straight to the point. “Maybe. Dead no more than a few days, although I’ll know more when I get him back to the mortuary and review the entomology. Considerable damage to the soft tissues by carnivores—had a good go at his face and abdomen.”
“Suspicious death?” Jamie asks.
The doctor scoffs. “He didn’t get here by himself, DS Hoxton. I’ll do the PM tomorrow. Make sure you’re there for ten.”
And he walks away without another word.
“Short but sweet,” Jamie mutters. Adam takes a long breath in.
The SOCOs gather around again, cameras capturing the scene before the body is taken away. It’s a nasty final resting place: rats and foxes abound, left out to the elements.
“Didn’t make any effort to bury it,” Adam comments.
“Perhaps the killer thought he’d be eaten and scattered before anyone found the body,” Jamie replies.
“Or perhaps he didn’t care.”
But then something catches his eye. He’d not given it much thought before, but now, with the flashes from the cameras, the glare of the floodlights, it stands out among the mess and chaos. Daubed on the side of the discarded fridge in green spray paint, three symbols: “XII.”
He squints at it. It seems out of place: perfectly straight, on a fridge fallen to its side. Directly above the victim’s head. A marker.
