The Oakhurst Murders Duology

6-2

“HOW BAD IS IT?” INSPECTOR Stevens asked the moment Mitchell entered his office.

Mitchell didn’t answer straightaway, he waited until he had taken a seat across from his superior. “Bad,” he said finally. “You remember how bad James Goode looked after his tractor rolled on him?”

Stevens nodded, it wasn’t something he was likely to forget; it had surprised everyone at the scene that the farmer had survived the accident, let alone that he made an almost complete recovery.

“Worse than that. She looked like a victim from one of those horror movies you see on TV late at night. Whoever killed her, he must have really hated her, or been really angry with her, because he beat the hell out of her. I mean he just beat the hell out of her. She had cuts and bruises just about everywhere I could see: arms, legs, body, face. God knows how many of her bones must have been broken.” Mitchell had to take a moment to try and force away the memory of what he had seen. “I’m no expert, and Kelly’s out of his depth with this, but it looks as though she was kicked and punched repeatedly; her face...it’s just unrecognisable. It’s so badly damaged it’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a girl or a boy. If she wasn’t naked I think it would have taken me a while to figure it out.

“That’s not even the worst of it...I told you something was carved into her stomach.”

Stevens nodded.

“Well I was able to make it out before I left – whoever killed her, he carved ‘Tease’ into her.” He shook his head at the memory of what he had seen.

Stevens could only stare at his subordinate. “She’s naked?” he asked finally, focusing on something he found less troubling. He was inexperienced in investigations, of any kind, but especially murder investigations, just like Mitchell, but he did think that the nakedness of the girl they believed to be Georgina Ryder was more important than the fact that she had been beaten so badly.

“Yes,” Mitchell said with a slow nod of his head that made plain he was thinking along the same lines as his superior. “Near as dammit anyway. She had on the remains of a dress – it looked like it had been all but torn from her – same for her bra, and we found her underpants a short distance away. If you ask me, it looked as though they were ripped off her and simply thrown aside.”

“Was she...?” Stevens couldn’t bring himself to finish the question, and it was several long moments before Mitchell could bring himself to answer it.

“That’s something the pathologist is going to have to answer when the post-mortem is done,” Mitchell said finally. “But if you’re asking my opinion.” He hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I think she was raped. I think he beat her unconscious, ripped her clothes off, and then – then he did what he wanted with her.”

There was silence for several long moments, during which time Stevens pulled a bottle of whiskey from behind the files in the bottom drawer of his desk. Two glasses joined the bottle on the desk, both of which he filled half full. He said nothing until they had both finished what he liked to call a good stiffener. When he had drained his glass, and the fire in his throat had subsided, he asked, “How was she killed? Was it the beating?”

“I don’t have anywhere near the experience to answer that,” Mitchell admitted, his voice a little hoarse after the strong liquor. “I’m inclined to think it was the beating, and Kelly’s of the same opinion – he couldn’t see any obvious signs of anything else that might have led to her death, though he did admit that a post-mortem might pick up any number of things he couldn’t see. Mr Wild, however...”

“That’s our newest resident, the gentleman who found our murdered girl, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. He claims he’s a former detective inspector.” Mitchell was pleased to see his own disbelief mirrored in his superior’s face.

“Isn’t he only about thirty?”

“Mid-thirties I think; all I know for sure is, he’s a damned sight younger than you or me. Anyway, he claims he’s a retired detective inspector, he also claims that marks around the girl’s throat mean she was strangled.”

“Beaten, raped, and strangled. My God!” Stevens couldn’t help gasping. “How did we ever reach the point where something like this could happen in our village?”

“I’ve no idea.” Mitchell was as much at a loss as his superior. “You read about this kind of thing in the papers, but I never thought we’d have to deal with it here.”

There was another period of silence as the two long-serving police officers tried to come to terms with things.

“What are the chances Mr Wild is responsible for the murder?” Stevens asked.

“I won’t know that until I’ve spoken to him. He’s in the interview room, waiting to give his statement. He didn’t seem all that bothered by having discovered a body, but I suppose if he is a former detective inspector, he must be used to that kind of thing. Any chance you can find out if he really is an ex-DI?”

Stevens nodded. “It’s likely to take me a while, unless you know what force he’s supposed to have worked for.”

“Not yet, but I’ll ask him.”

“Good. While I’m checking that out, I’ll see what else I can find out about him. If it’s not Mr Wild, who could have killed Georgina, if that is who’s been found?”

“I have no idea,” Mitchell admitted. “Either it’s someone from outside the village, which seems unlikely given how far we are from anywhere, or it’s someone we know, and I can’t think of a single person in the village who could have done what I saw. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it possible for someone to do that kind of damage to another person.” He shook his head at the image that crept, unbidden, into his mind. “You should be glad you weren’t there, it was enough to turn your stomach; it was all I could do not to throw up – Melissa wasn’t so lucky, she threw up all over Mr Wild’s feet.”

“Okay, so you’re going to interview Mr Wild, while I see what I can find out about him, Mike is out at the body, keeping an eye on it, and I’ve got forensics on their way. I take it you’re going to see the Ryders after you’ve spoken to Mr Wild.”

Mitchell nodded. “I’d rather not, not until I’m more certain the body is Georgina, but we both know how rumour and gossip goes around the village. It’s probably too late, but I’d rather they hear about this morning’s discovery from me, at least that way they’ll get the facts, what few we have, rather than whatever Jean Frost has overheard and embellished.”

“Are you still set against them making an identification?”

“I’ll do my best to talk them out of it. Verity will never be able to handle a trip to the morgue, she’s been a wreck since Georgina went missing; I don’t think John’ll handle it any better, especially given the mess she’s in, and I don’t see any point in putting him through the ordeal when he’s unlikely to be able to make an identification.”

“I’ll leave that up to you. Do you need anything, other than what I’ve already organised?”

“Yes, I’m going to need a search party to comb the woods around where Georgina was found; as many officers from town as you can get.”

Stevens frowned. “Officers from town? Surely we can get enough volunteers from the village, why do we need officers from town?”

“Two reasons,” Mitchell said, having had the time to think about what he needed. “Firstly, the villagers won’t have a clue what they’d be looking for, they’re likely to stop the search for every little thing that looks out of place, which means it’ll take forever for the search to get anywhere. We can’t afford to waste that kind of time. Secondly, if the murderer is someone from the village, not Wild, I’d rather not give him a chance to destroy any evidence he might have left behind.”

Reluctantly, Stevens accepted the logic of that. “That brings me to the next thing, the chief inspector, I called him this morning to get the forensics team and he offered me a detective to handle the case, but said we can handle it ourselves if we wish, it’s my decision, for the time being. What do you think?”

Mitchell’s first instinct, which he almost went with, was to accept the offer. He held back, though, to give himself time to think. Finally, he said, “A part of me wants to say, ‘get the detective’, let him handle this, he’ll know what he’s doing. Another part of me thinks it’s a bad idea. The village is going to have a hard enough time dealing with what’s happened, without having a stranger come in and poke and pry about – they’d have no idea about anyone and will only jump to all kinds of wrong conclusions.”

“I have to admit, that is a concern that occurred to me,” Stevens said. “I’ll tell the chief inspector that we’ll handle things ourselves for now. I think he’ll be glad, I got the impression he was wondering where he’d be able to find a detective for us. If things change, though, he’ll have to find us someone. Talking of things changing, what do you intend doing about Lucy Goulding?”

“I hadn’t planned on doing anything. You know as well as I do that Lucy is almost certainly not missing, she’ll turn up soon enough, having been at a party or something, just like she usually is, and Theresa will have made a fuss about nothing.”

“You’re probably right, but under the circumstances I don’t think we can afford to ignore the possibility that she really is missing.”

**