Kitabı oku: «Woman in the Water»
WOMAN IN THE WATER
Katerina Diamond
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Copyright © Katerina Diamond 2019
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Claudia Carlsen/Arcangel Images
Katerina Diamond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008282950
Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008282967
Version: 2019-09-17
Praise for Katerina Diamond
‘Diamond is the master of gripping literature’
Evening Standard
‘A terrific story, originally told. All hail the new queen of crime!’
Heat
‘A web of a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader on their seat … don’t read it before bed if you’re easily spooked!’
Sun
‘A page-turner with a keep-you-guessing plot’
Sunday Times Crime Club
‘Packed with twists until the last page’
Closer
‘Deliciously dark, keeps her readers guessing throughout as she leads us on a very secretive, VERY twisted journey’
Lisa Hall, bestselling author of Between You and Me
Dedication
For Pat and Kitty
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Katerina Diamond
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the same author
About the Publisher
Prologue
It’s so cold out here. I stare up at the ink blue sky above me, not a cloud in sight, and focus on the stars, a passing airplane twinkles and blinks as it crosses. I hear my name being called, but aside from shivering, I can’t move, my whole body numb. I don’t want them to find me.
I’m as close to death as I have ever been, but I still hang on. I don’t know why when I have wished for the end so many times before. I need to stop fighting it. I need to let myself just slip away.
Chapter One
DS Adrian Miles soaked in the sunrise as he drove home along Glasshouse Lane after a few days away with his partner, DS Imogen Grey, far from local prying eyes. They had barely noticed the relationship creeping up on them. They had gone from strangers to good friends within weeks of meeting each other, then things had blossomed and grown between them until the chemistry was undeniable. They were still in the early stages, not enough to announce anything, not enough to tell anyone.
He smiled to himself as he thought about the last few days, weeks, months. Every moment was a countdown to the next time they could be alone together.
It was always so quiet on these suburban streets, especially at this time in the morning, and the calming effect of the River Exe seemed to ebb into these surrounding neighbourhoods. Something about living near water makes people generally more relaxed. He must have driven past at least ten people out for a morning stroll with their dogs. Maybe getting a dog would be a good way to get out of the house more; these days, he mostly just drove anywhere rather than walk.
More often than not, as he drove he found himself thinking about Imogen and missing her when she wasn’t beside him, in any capacity. These feelings had crept up on him and he found himself completely losing himself to her, as though he had no choice in the matter. He’d also sometimes find himself smiling, without realising. Was this happiness?
It was certainly difficult with Imogen wanting to keep it a secret. Although relationships were allowed it definitely complicated things at work. The DCI had expressed in the past that she wasn’t overly keen on relationships within the unit. It was a mess for sure, but worst-case scenario one of them could transfer to a different division. He wouldn’t let work get in the way of this. Adrian had never felt like other people in as much as he had never thought himself capable of a meaningful and grown-up relationship. If that’s what this was then he would rather lose his job than her. He couldn’t lose her, not after all the pain of losing his previous more serious relationships. Jobs were replaceable, people weren’t.
He spotted a group of women gathered by the riverside wall. As much as anything, it was a strange time of day for this kind of gathering. The sun was barely up. They were looking over towards a small muddy offshoot of river that ran through the thickets. There was something about the way they were talking to each other that made Adrian pull the car over. Brows creased, they turned towards him, eyeing him suspiciously before turning their attention back to something on the other side of the wall.
‘Everything all right?’ Adrian said, pulling his warrant card from his pocket and showing the women.
Their faces lightened immediately and one of the women stepped forwards. She scrutinised his ID before speaking.
‘There’s something in the water. The kids were out playing on that patch of grass last night. They kept saying how there was someone in the water and this morning my two maintained they saw a dead body down in the water before they came home – had nightmares because of it. We thought it was part of their game last night, you know what kids are like. We can’t really see from here and none of us want to climb the wall to go and check. There’s something there but it’s in the shadow of those bushes. It could be anything.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ Adrian asked.
‘I don’t know if you’ve got kids, but they can be known to tell the odd porky. I asked the girls if they would come with me and look, but there are so many bushes we can’t see anything clearly.’
‘Where?’ Adrian said, walking up to the wall and looking over into the riverside shrubbery.
The light was terrible and so he would have to climb over to take a closer look.
‘Can you see that blue thing?’ The same woman who had spoken pointed towards the left side of the greenery.
Adrian put his card back in his pocket and hoisted himself over the wall, trying to make it look effortless – he had an audience, after all.
The drop on the other side was a little lower and he just managed to save himself from embarrassment when he fell by placing his hand on the ground as though he were a superhero who had fallen from a great height. Anything over four feet was a bit too high for Adrian. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, but he wanted to avoid any humiliation, as this could all end up in a police report, depending on what he found in the river.
He took his phone out of his pocket and switched on the torch; the sky had adopted a grey-and-orange hue as the sun hid behind the houses. The blue thing in the bushes looked like denim. It was obscured and could just as easily be a discarded denim jacket or plastic bag from a newsagent as anything else. He tried not to think about the anything else. As he got closer it became clear that whatever it was, it wasn’t a discarded item of clothing. Please don’t let it be a child.
Holding his breath, Adrian edged closer to the pair of legs that lay in the undergrowth, the top of the body still obscured by the bushes. Forced to climb into the river, he put his phone between his teeth as he walked around the legs into the water. It was cold and muddy; he tried not to slip on the mud banks as he made his way to the top of the form. After taking the phone from his mouth, he shone the light on the legs, gradually moving upwards until he found a head.
It was a woman. She wore a baggy cream Aran jumper and jeans. One of her boots was missing. Her right arm, hips and backside were submerged in the water, but her body was contorted in such a way that her head, legs and left arm were out of the water. Her face was dirty, one eye swollen from a possible fracture as the bruising had closed it, but her other big blue eye was staring at him, fixed.
He turned the torch off on his phone and dialled DI Matt Walsh.
‘We need a team down on Glasshouse Lane. I’ve sent over my location. I’ve found a body in the water.’
‘A body in the water? A dead body? How?’ Walsh responded.
‘Well, I was driving down the road when I saw a group of women by the riverside wall. I approached the women and they said that last night their kids were playing outside and this morning told their parents they saw something that resembled a body.
‘Description of the victim is: female, Caucasian, maybe twenty-five years old, blonde hair, blue eyes. Looks like she was assaulted beforehand. She’s been here at least the one night, not sure how much longer.’
Suddenly, Adrian felt a hand grip his calf. The kind you half expect when you step out of bed in the middle of the night. He froze. He took a deep breath before turning the dim light of the phone screen towards the woman to illuminate her face. She blinked slowly.
She was alive.
‘Adrian?’ Walsh said.
‘She’s alive, Walsh, get an ambulance! She’s alive!’
Chapter Two
Adrian immediately removed his jacket and threw it over the woman to keep her warm. He stuffed his phone into his back pocket and knelt down next to her, gently removing the muddy hair from her face. She was younger than him, mid twenties at a guess.
‘Can you hear me? I’m Detective Sergeant Adrian Miles; I’m going to help you. Can you move?’
She nodded her head weakly. How long had she been here? She must be freezing. Even in the summer the river wasn’t warm.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
‘I’m so c-c-cold,’ she said faintly.
‘We have to wait here for the guys with the stretcher, OK? I don’t want to move you in case anything is broken.’
He went to stand again but she grabbed his hand, this time with more strength than before.
‘P-p-please get me out of h-h-here,’ the woman whispered.
DS Miles could see she had tried to pull herself out of the water, which is why only part of her was still submerged.
‘We really should wait for the paramedics.’
‘C-cold … P-please,’ she rasped.
‘OK, I’ll try. But you tell me straight away if I hurt you.’
Lying next to her on the bank, Adrian got as close to her as he could, the chill of the water against his thighs inconsequential. She groaned as he tilted her enough that he could slip his shoulder underneath hers and gradually slide his arm under her for support as he tried to pull her from the brambles. She was weak and completely limp, with barely enough strength to lift her head. The left side of her torso was supported by the right side of his. Some of her blonde hair had become entangled in the spiny branches that protruded from the hedge. Adrian gently tugged at the hair to dislodge it, leaving some of it behind.
As soon as she was free, he put his arm around her waist and tried to move with her away from the hedge. Her head thumped against his chest. He felt her sigh heavily, her weak heartbeat gently beating against his arm. He pushed his legs against the floor of the muddy bank and as he moved up onto the safety of the grass, she moved with him. He sat up and she lolloped forwards, weak from exhaustion. Adrian didn’t care to think how long she had been lying there. He moved her onto his lap and put her arm around his shoulder.
‘Can you put your arms around my neck and hold it? I need to use my arm to leverage myself to standing.’
Fingernails dug into his skin. He could feel that she was using everything she had to hold on and probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long, so he pushed himself up before quickly making sure both of his arms were securely around her. He heard the gasps of the women as he emerged from the bushes with the woman lying against him.
‘Oh my God!’ one of the women cried.
‘Is she alive?’ another shouted.
‘Could you get some blankets or something to warm her up quickly while we wait for the medics?’
In situations like this, it was instinct and training that carried Adrian through, but at some point, there is a moment where you get to think about what is actually going on and that’s when the reality of the situation hits home. Who was this girl? How had she got here? Who had done this to her? She was petite and her injuries were not the result of an accident. He could see fingermarks on her neck and he clenched his jaw to suppress the rage that threatened.
Adrian lay her on the grass and stroked her forehead. She began to tremble and Adrian hoped the medics would appear before she got hypothermia.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice breaking as she spoke, and a guttural moan followed soon after as she began to cry.
The ladies from the houses opposite the wall appeared holding blankets. He noticed one of them was filming with their mobile phone, which ignited the anger that he was fighting so hard to suppress.
‘I’ll be back in a moment. I’m just going to grab those blankets, see if we can warm you up a bit.’
She tried to grab at his shirt, to stop him from leaving. She mouthed as if to speak but nothing came out.
‘I won’t be a second. I’m coming back, I promise.’
He stood and walked over to the woman holding the phone.
‘Can I ask you not to share that video until we have had a chance to identify the woman and inform her family. It would be horrible to find out something like this from a video on the internet, wouldn’t it?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t going to share it,’ she said, her cheeks flushing.
‘My colleagues will be here any second to take all of your names. Please just wait here.’
‘I got you these blankets; they are my kids’ blankets; it’s all I had. Sorry.’
‘Thank you.’
Adrian took the blankets and walked back to the lady on the ground. He was starting to feel cold himself. He was thankful that the area was poorly lit, so at least the video would be poor quality. He covered her with the kitten-patterned blankets and waited for the ambulance; the sirens were getting closer.
In the back of the ambulance, Adrian stayed with the woman. It felt wrong to leave her at this point. She must have been terrified and hopefully, she knew she could trust Adrian by now. The paramedics had cut off her wet jeans and covered her in a thermal blanket to help bring her temperature back up.
‘What happened?’ one of the paramedics said.
‘Some kids found her; I just pulled her out. I’m hoping the doc can tell us more about what’s happened to her.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘I don’t know,’ Adrian said, realising she hadn’t answered him when he had asked her before.
‘What’s your name, love?’ the paramedic asked the woman, leaning down to hear better.
The woman winced and closed her eyes as the ambulance went over a pothole. She squeezed Adrian’s hand weakly.
They pulled up outside the hospital and Adrian saw that Dr Hadley was waiting outside the emergency department’s bay doors. Adrian had texted her to come and meet them. Dr Hadley had worked with the police on numerous occasions and Adrian knew she specialised in women’s cases, especially where sexual assault was a probability. The clothes the victim was wearing were intact when he found her, which was unusual in cases of sexual assault. But whatever had happened to her, this was a horrific attack that she wasn’t going to be getting over anytime soon. If she made it, that is.
‘I’m going to go now, but I will be back.’
‘Please don’t go,’ the woman said.
‘This is my friend Dr Hadley and she is going to look after you, OK? I’ll be back before you know it,’ Adrian told her.
The woman nodded.
‘Thank you, DS Miles. I’ll give you a call after I’ve done a thorough examination,’ Dr Hadley said with a heavy sigh as she appraised the woman’s condition.
Adrian watched as they wheeled the trolley into the hospital through the emergency doors, two uniformed officers following behind. The ambulance doors closed and the vehicle drove out of the bay.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, DS Miles texted Imogen to come and pick him up. Still covered in mud, his clothes still damp, Adrian needed to get changed before the last half an hour got a chance to creep under his skin. Someone had hurt this woman and discarded her. He was going to find out who.
Chapter Three
Imogen put a towel down on the passenger seat of her car before Adrian sat down. He had that look in his eye, that angry, determined look he got when he was well into a case and it wasn’t going their way. Whatever he had seen had obviously affected him; he seemed anxious and slightly haunted.
‘What happened? I only saw you a couple of hours ago,’ she asked.
‘That woman I found. She was completely fucked up, thrown away like rubbish. It was awful. I thought she was dead. She looked dead.’
‘You found her in time, though. You got her to the hospital.’
‘Who does that to another person? Sometimes I feel like we are swimming against the tide with this job, I really do. Every day it’s something else; it never stops.’
Imogen knew that this was about more than the woman he had rescued today – it was about the woman he grew up with, about his parents. Adrian rarely talked about his mother, but Imogen knew that his father had been violent and that Adrian struggled to accept aggression towards women on any level. She knew what it was like to grow up in challenging circumstances, but not a day went by when she wasn’t grateful that there was no kind of abuse in her own childhood; she had seen what it had done to friends. Working in the police, she knew how demoralising an abusive childhood was and how massively it impacted who people became.
‘You’ll feel better after you get cleaned up,’ she said. ‘We can go straight back to the hospital as soon as you’ve showered.’
‘What if she dies?’
‘Whatever comes next, we are going to find out what happened to her. She’s not going to die. I know it. You saved her, Adrian.’
Imogen parked the car near Adrian’s house and he jumped out immediately. He didn’t want to hang around, she could tell. He unlocked his door and went inside, leaving it open for her to follow.
Imogen made herself comfortable on the sofa and waited for Adrian to return. She was at home in his house now, maybe even more at home here than in her own place.
There was an old cookery show on TV; it was one she hadn’t seen since her mum was alive and she felt a pang of sadness as thoughts of her mother crossed her mind. They used to watch Keith Floyd together regularly; her mother loved his vibrancy and authenticity. She would wink and say that she had met him once, and Imogen wondered if it was code, a clue that he was her biological father. The mythical bio-dad who was everything from a prince to a crack addict – it seemed silly now to think that she thought this TV celebrity might be her father. There again, her mother had a way of doing the unexpected, so it wasn’t completely out of the question.
It had been almost a year since her mother had died and she had barely allowed herself time to think about her. Once she gave herself that permission, there would be no stopping it and so she preferred not to start. Imogen had always felt as though crying was a weakness in some way and so she was loath to succumb. She switched channels until she found something less emotionally challenging.
Her eyes became heavy as she focused on the screen, the Northern accents a refreshing change from the Devonshire twang that she was used to.
Adrian’s lips woke her, pressing against hers gently; she wondered what she must look like and hoped she wasn’t drooling.
‘I forgot to say thanks,’ he said before kissing her again.
She kissed him back.
‘Feel better?’ Imogen said.
‘I’m sorry if I was a shit,’ Adrian said, perching on the sofa next to her.
She moved to accommodate him and nestled in his arm as he drew her closer.
‘You weren’t. I get it. That must have been a traumatic experience for you. Sorry you had to go through it alone.’
‘I’d better get back to the hospital,’ Adrian said.
‘Can we just stay here for a minute?’
‘DI Walsh is already there. She hasn’t woken yet, but I’d like to be there when she does eventually wake up. I offered for us to do the night shift. He just phoned to tell me the doctor ruled out sexual assault.’
‘Well, that’s something at least,’ Imogen said.
‘Is it? I don’t see how anything could have made it any worse. She was as near to death as anyone I have ever seen. When I felt her hand around my leg, I thought I had lost my mind. She looked so … she just looked gone. I should have checked her pulse straight away.’
‘She’s in good hands now. The doctors will take care of her. We just need to find out who she is and how she ended up there. How about you? Are you OK?’
‘I don’t know if OK is the right word for it.’
‘I can see your brain ticking over. You can’t overthink this one; you’re going to do your head in. You acted quickly and now that woman is in hospital getting treatment thanks to you. You did absolutely everything you could. This isn’t on you. This is on whoever did that to her, OK?’
‘This is going to be a messy one, isn’t it?’ Adrian sighed.
‘Let’s hope we have seen the worst of it. Whatever happened to her, she’s got us now. And we can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else,’ Imogen placated but knew his mind was already swimming with the ghosts of his own past.
‘I wish I shared your optimism.’
‘If I had been through what she had been through then there is no one else I would want on my side. You saved her life, Adrian. Remember that.’
Chapter Four
I am in a hospital bed, everything hurts and I don’t know how I got here. Various nurses and doctors come and go – I haven’t opened my eyes yet, but I hear them speaking. I know from their conversation that I have no identification on me and they have no other way for them to identify me. I wonder if this is all a dream – am I really asleep? Or maybe I’m really dead and in some kind of celestial waiting room. I can’t say I would be devastated if that were the case. I feel no pain – I am grateful for the drugs they’ve given me. I fade in and out of sleep, undecided on whether or not I even want to wake. Maybe this time I can disappear. I have a head start and he thinks I’m dead.
Chapter Five
Adrian watched the numbers and lines on the heart monitor. He had no idea what any of the information meant, but it was steady and so he assumed that was a good thing. They weren’t in intensive care either, which also boded well for the mystery woman. The easy chair in the hospital cubicle was comfortable and he had volunteered to stay until the woman woke. He had sent Imogen home after a couple of hours; there was no point in both of them losing the night.
Adrian was shaken by what had happened. He had seen plenty of horrific cases in his time as a DS and he wondered if there would ever come a time when he wasn’t shocked by this kind of thing. But being upset was the right reaction. The moment you stopped being upset was the moment you should go and do something else. It’s normal to be afraid or angry. It’s normal to feel frustrated or powerless in some situations. You had to keep it inside, though. You had to stay strong, not just for yourself, but also for the people around you. One chink in the armour and all of your defences were compromised.
A nurse came in with a small basin and a cloth. She smiled uncomfortably at Adrian then gently wiped the woman’s face and hair, trying to soften the mud that had now dried on her skin and clumped together at her roots. They had already scraped under her fingernails and taken photographs of any abrasions or bruises. But legally they couldn’t take blood samples or test her DNA without consent and she would need to be awake for that. The nurse rinsed the cloth and dabbed at a cut across the woman’s eyebrow.
As he watched the nurse, Adrian remembered his mother, a fragment of time that they shared together. In a conscious effort to block out his father, Adrian’s mother had also disappeared into the back regions of Adrian’s memory, but it hadn’t worked and his father now became more prominent than ever.
The moment he thought of now was of his mother sitting with him at the kitchen table, remnants of a shattered plate on the floor as they played Connect 4. Adrian’s father had thrown the plate across the room and it had glanced off his mother’s temple before smashing against the terracotta floor tiles. She steadied herself against the counter and, in order to distract Adrian from the argument, she smoothed her skirt and suggested he run upstairs and get a game for them to play.
When he returned, she had a plaster over her eyebrow and it was as if nothing had happened. They played the game over and over until bedtime, presumably just to avoid any kind of conversation or acknowledgment of what had transpired. Until weeks later, that is, when there was a fragment of blue-and-white willow china lodged under the corner of the washing machine that his mother had missed. The rest of the memories of his mother then faded and reappeared with little clarity; she was an extra in his childhood with barely a speaking role.
Outside, the light faded as the machines bleeped and blinked at regular intervals. Who was this woman? Why had no one reported her missing? Was no one missing a daughter? A sister? Wife? No one even remotely matching her description was in the recent additions to the missing persons database. This was highly unusual and Adrian considered all the questions he didn’t even know to ask yet. Already unnerved, Adrian folded his arms and settled in for the night.
Troubling dreams woke him – bruised faces of women he had questioned over his years in the police. Whether it was a husband, a father or a stranger, the assailants were almost always men and more often than not they were known to the victim. He knew that domestic violence wasn’t purely men against women, but in his experience that was much more common, or at least women coming forward and reporting it was. People warn you about strangers, but no one warns you about the people you love, the people who say they love you.
He looked over at the woman and saw something different about the way she was breathing. It was shorter, shallower – more controlled than before. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and he stood slowly so as not to startle the woman who was almost certainly now awake. Her one good eye opened and she looked across to him; the swelling in the other had reduced significantly since he had found her. She started to breathe faster.
‘Hey, I’m a police officer. My name is DS Adrian Miles. I found you by the river. Do you remember?’
She blinked away a tear and he felt her fingers brush against his hand.
‘Water,’ she mouthed.
He couldn’t hear her, but he could see the formation of the word on her lips.
‘I’ll get a nurse.’
‘Wait,’ she whispered again, the faint noise coming from her. Then she wrapped her fingers around his. ‘Thank you.’
Out of nowhere, Adrian felt a weight in his throat. What if he hadn’t found her when he did? Adrian leaned in and spoke softly to her.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
She closed her eye again, although this time it stayed closed tight as a tear rolled down her face.
‘I don’t remember,’ she said weakly.
Chapter Six
The police officer is sitting by my bed. I have the smallest memory of him pulling me out of the water. I open my eyes and he rushes over. He asks my name again but I tell him I don’t remember.
Maybe I could get away this time. Couldn’t I? He has that look in his eyes; I have seen it a million times before. He tells me I am safe now. He thinks he saved me. I can’t be saved.
Chapter Seven
Imogen stood by the wall and looked over the crime scene. She hadn’t been able to relax, so she took Adrian to the hospital last night and got down to Glasshouse Lane as soon as the sun came up the next morning. They needed to figure out what had happened to their Jane Doe. Best-case scenario, they would find some kind of identification that the woman dropped. Imogen knew the scene hadn’t been fully processed yet and so there would be people there.
It was a huge area to cover. The woman could have got to the river from several access points and they would need to check all of those as well as the routes from the access points to where she was now. Not to mention the fact that the river itself posed a massive problem in terms of processing evidence. Even just getting hold of the correct equipment took time, as it had to be shared with the whole constabulary. Water and forensics didn’t mix.
Imogen climbed the makeshift step that put her on the other side of the wall. She saw the techs working meticulously beside the riverbank, pulling snagged hair and fabric from the branches that overhung the water. The inhabitants of the houses surrounding the area gathered back by the road to try to catch a glimpse of the crime scene technicians at work. DI Matt Walsh was already there when she arrived and he surveyed the river, trying to work out where the woman could have come from.
The forensics team were spaced out along the riverbank looking for any evidence that pertained to the woman Adrian found. Imogen looked on at the chaotic hedgerows that enclosed the water and was glad at least that this part wasn’t her job. She didn’t have the patience for something as meticulous as forensics.
‘They’ve got another one!’ someone called.
It took a few moments to realise what that meant. No one moved and then suddenly everyone sprang into action. There was someone else in the water.
Imogen walked as quickly as she could to the technician who had called out, careful not to step on anything that could later be determined as evidence.
‘Got another what? A person?’ Imogen asked.
‘Yep, about a mile upriver.’
‘Alive?’ Imogen said.
The technician shook his head as Matt Walsh got to him.
‘What’s going on?’ Walsh asked.
‘There’s another body, but according to the technician at the scene it’s difficult to discern anything. Male this time. He’s in a pretty bad way, apparently. He’s been beaten, by the sounds of it. They are just securing it now. There’s no real riverbank up that end and so they will transport it straight to the morgue.’
‘They can’t tell anything else?’ DI Walsh asked the tech.
‘Late twenties at a guess, but we will know more when we get him back to the pathologist.’
‘We’ll need to set up a tent before the news cameras get wind of this. Dead body adds to the news appeal of this case and we need to find out who it is, first. Did you speak to DS Miles? Is the woman awake yet?’
‘Yes, DS Miles called to say she’s awake but she hasn’t said anything meaningful yet. She claims she doesn’t remember anything. Including her name.’
‘Get over there and see if you can find out anything about this man. The DCI is going to want a briefing ASAP with both you and Adrian. See if you can drag him away from the hospital. He seems to be taking this case rather personally.’
‘He did pull her out of the river. He feels responsible for her. That’s all. I’ll do my best to get her to talk.’
‘They must be connected and so she must know something. Tread lightly, but see if you can push for information on who did this to them and who the other victim is.’
Imogen trudged back to the car. As awful as it was, a body would at least tell them something – it was a break in the case. But then, what could the motive be? Revenge? Hatred? Punishment? A message? Over her time in the police, Imogen had realised that when it came to murder, there weren’t that many possible motives; figuring out who these people were was key to finding out why this had happened to them.
Chapter Eight
Imogen handed Adrian a coffee she had picked up on the way over. He hadn’t left the hospital all night; he had barely slept since she had been discovered yesterday. He was a mess.
She looked at the woman. She could see instantly why Adrian was so affected by this case. Who wouldn’t be? The cuts and bruises across the woman’s face looked angry against her pale, shiny porcelain skin. Imogen could see the weave line of the woman’s hair extensions – not cheap ones, either. The nails she had left were acrylics, a French manicure. Her clothes were folded on the chair by the bed – Stella McCartney jeans that run at three hundred quid a go. Imogen wondered how much they would be worth now they had been cut into several pieces. There was also a gold ring, a wedding band, sitting on the bedside table. Presumably, it was hers. Whoever this lady was, she wasn’t destitute and yet still no one had reported her missing.
‘Hey,’ Adrian said, standing and stretching out of his hunched seated slumber.
Imogen waved Adrian over to the corner of the room, as far away from the woman as they could get without actually leaving the room.
‘We found another body in the water, about a mile from where you found the woman. Male, similar age – dead, though; much worse injuries than her. They must be connected. I’m going to have to ask her about it,’ she said quietly.
‘Why didn’t you call and tell me?’
‘I thought it would be better in person. DCI Kapoor wanted me to question her, so I thought it best just to tell you when I got here.’
The truth was, she wanted to check on Adrian. He had refused to leave until the woman had woken. Well, she was awake now.
‘Maybe he will have some ID on him. We still don’t know her name; she said she doesn’t remember.’
‘Do you believe her?’
‘I don’t know what I think, to be honest. I don’t know why she would lie. Do we know anything else about the body?’
‘No, but hopefully the pathologist will be able to tell us more. It’s possible he is your woman’s boyfriend but we don’t know that either. The DCI wants us back at the station to brief us after we have spoken to her.’
‘I don’t want to leave her.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘Dr Hadley said she is going to be fine – sore for a while, but fine. She was beaten quite badly, possibly with the intention of killing her. Now that we have found the other body, that seems quite likely. Whoever did this, I get the feeling it was personal. It must have been someone who had something against her, or him. She still had valuables on her so robbery wasn’t the end goal, and according to the doctor, neither was sexual assault. Most of the damage to her was on the surface, no internal injuries. I guess we need to figure out if they were both the target or if it’s something that’s only connected to one of them.’
‘It’s already been on the news that she’s in hospital,’ Imogen said.
It was almost impossible to keep a lid on any kind of news these days.
‘Do you think she could still be in danger?’ Adrian asked.
‘I don’t think we can know anything for sure at this point. That could be why she isn’t telling us her name. We need to speak to her.’
‘She woke briefly but she hasn’t said much about anything. It’s entirely possible she really doesn’t remember what happened, given the state of her and the injuries she sustained.’
‘Or she doesn’t want us to know what happened. Maybe she is still afraid. Whoever did this is still out there,’ Imogen said.
The truth was they could speculate all they wanted at this point. Until she gave them information, or they managed to identify the man whose body they found, they might as well just be pissing in the wind. Imogen could already see how invested Adrian was; he wasn’t about to walk away from this case. Imogen shuddered involuntarily, a chill at the nape of her neck. She had a bad feeling about this woman, whoever she was. Adrian was already well and truly hooked.
Chapter Nine
They found him. They think I am asleep, but I hear them whispering. Their words drift in and out of my head as they pass my bed. That’s what happens when I try to get away, people get hurt. He warns me and yet still I persist.
When will I ever learn?
I am both glad and disturbed that I can’t remember what happened that night. I have the tiniest ember of hope left. If he thinks I am dead, then there is still a chance that I can get far enough away before the truth comes out.
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