The Oakhurst Murders Duology

5-3

“IS THAT MR WILD?” MELISSA asked when they had gone another half a mile or so.

“I can’t imagine we’re going to find two people this far out from the village so early on a Saturday. Thinking about it, you’re not likely to find someone out here any day of the week, regardless of the time. I wonder what he was doing out here,” Mitchell said suspiciously before striding ahead so he could reach the man who had disturbed his Saturday morning lie-in. “Mr Wild, Sergeant Mitchell.”

“Hello, sergeant.” Zack held out his hand. “I know who you are, doctor.” He shook the older man’s hand when the other two had caught up. “My neighbour, Constance Hawkins, pointed you out to me in case I should have need of your services. I’ve not seen you before, though, constable, and I’m sure I’d remember.”

Melissa flushed as she shook his hand, having been taken by surprise by the compliment. “Mel, Melissa,” she stammered before taking a deep breath to calm herself. “Constable Turner I mean.” She couldn’t believe how she was reacting to the compliment, or more accurately to him – in shorts and a t-shirt it was clear that he kept himself in good shape, without being overly muscular, which she didn’t like in a man – and the touch of his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“If you’re quite finished,” Mitchell said sharply. “You told Constable Pritchard, when you called the station, that you found a body; what can you tell me about it, the person you found, I mean.”

“Female, mid-teens at a guess, but it’s hard to say for sure,” Zack said as he led the two police officers and the doctor around the bend in the river on his way to where he had made his discovery. “One thing I can tell you for sure, she was murdered, and she’s been out here for at least a couple of days, perhaps as long as a week.”

“How can you be so certain the girl you found was murdered?” Mitchell asked; he couldn’t say why, but he was suspicious of the way the stranger talked so casually about murder, and how long he thought the body had been there. “And how did you find her?” He had to lengthen his stride to keep up with the younger man. “This isn’t the sort of place people come without a good reason. Even the local fishermen use the other side of the village. The last person I can recall that came out this way was an archaeologist we had in the village last autumn, and he only came out here because of the old watchtower.” He gestured to the ruined structure, which stood on a hill a short distance away, where it would have commanded a view of the river and the surrounding lands. “He seemed to think it’s Roman, reckoned there’s an old fort around here somewhere.”

“I was out jogging, that’s how I found her,” Zack said. “I was heading along the other bank from the pub, saw something out of place, got curious, and waded across. Wish I’d ignored it and gone on jogging, I wished that before I was even sure what I’d found; wading the river wasn’t my brightest idea.

“As for how I know she was murdered, there she is.” He indicated with a nod of his head. “You’ll understand when you see her.”

“Bloody hell!” The oath escaped Mitchell the moment he got within a dozen feet of the girl Zack Wild had stumbled on. There was no question about her being dead, or about her having been murdered. He swallowed convulsively against the urge to throw up. “You’d better stay back, Melissa, you don’t need to see this,” he said when he had himself under control.

The warning came too late.

“Oh god!” Melissa turned away from the body on the ground, disgusted by the sight of what had once been a teenage girl, dropped to her knees, and vomited. She threw-up until there was nothing left in her stomach. Only when she was finished did she realise that she had emptied her stomach all over the feet of the man she had so recently met. “Sorry,” she apologised in a weak and miserable voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” Zack said unconcernedly. Kicking off his running shoes, he carried them the short distance to the river, so he could wash them and his feet off.

“No, I’m sorry, they must be ruined now. Let me know how much they cost, and I’ll pay you back.”

“There’s no need to do that,” Zack told her. “I was thinking about getting myself some new running shoes, now I’ve got the perfect excuse for doing so, I should be thanking you.”

Mitchell ignored both Melissa and Zack Wild as he moved closer to the body on the ground. His first glimpse of the girl had been bad enough, the sight got worse as he drew closer, though. Her face was such a mess it was all but impossible to tell it was a girl, let alone who she was, but that was nothing compared to the rest of her. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t either bruised or covered in blood; if she hadn’t been naked, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to tell her s*x.

As if the injuries done to the rest of her body weren’t enough, the person who had killed her had taken a knife – he assumed it was a knife – and carved letters into her stomach.

It was the letters that made Mitchell feel as though he was going to empty his stomach, as Melissa had. He simply could not imagine why someone would have done that, it was an act of evil beyond his comprehension.

“Is it Georgina?” he asked of the doctor, who was at his elbow.

Kelly studied the face of the girl on the ground dispassionately for several long moments. He was not as affected by what he was seeing as the two police officers – he had seen plenty of horrible things during his career as a medical professional – but was not unaffected, though in his case he felt saddened rather than disgusted by the scene.

Finally, he shook his head. “At a guess, I’d say it’s Georgina, but I wouldn’t want to be held to that. It could be just about anyone, if I’m honest.”

Mitchell frowned. “Why can’t you be sure it’s her? You’ve been treating Georgina since she was a baby, you must have some idea whether it’s her or not.”

“The face is too badly damaged to say for definite who it might be. Georgina has a mole in that position.” Kelly indicated the growth near the girl’s left armpit. “But I wouldn’t want to base an identification on it. You’re good friends with the family, you’ve probably seen more of Georgina over the years than me, can’t you say if it’s her?”

Reluctantly, Mitchell was forced to admit that he couldn’t. “I don’t think I could be certain, if I thought I was looking at my own daughter,” he said unhappily. “Could it be Lucy Goulding, rather than Georgina Ryder?”

“My gut feeling,” Kelly said. “Is that this is Georgina, but I think you’re going to have to rely on blood tests or dental records to be certain. Sorry, I wish I could be more help.”

Mitchell clapped the doctor on the shoulder. “No need for you to be sorry. If I can’t be sure who she is, I can’t expect you to be. Can you give me any idea how she was killed? Obviously, she was beaten, severely, but was that enough...” Before he could finish, the phone in his pocket began ringing. He quickly excused himself, so he could answer it, though he was sure he knew who was trying to get hold of him.

Kelly used the excuse of giving Mitchell privacy for his call to get away from the body. He moved to where Melissa was standing with the village’s newcomer and found them in conversation.

“Why do you say I’ll be lucky if I don’t see more murders like this?”

Melissa’s face was ashen, and her voice trembled in a way that made Kelly worry she was suffering from shock.

“Because a murder like this is often only a beginning,” Zack told her. “It’s usually the result of someone bottling up frustration and anger until something or someone pushes them over the edge and they explode. When that happens, they generally react in one of three ways: either they immediately commit suicide out of remorse, they hand themselves in to the police, or they go back to bottling things up until they explode again. If they do that then each explosion is likely to be worse than the one before. Not only that but there’s a risk they’ll have enjoyed killing the girl and will actively want to duplicate the thrill. If that’s the case, you’re in real trouble.”

**