Written In Blood

25-2

“WELL THAT WAS A WASTE of time,” Mitchell said as he unlocked the patrol car he and Melissa were using. He couldn’t keep the frustration he felt from his voice, though he did hold it in until Constance had closed the front door and he was reasonably sure he was not going to be overheard. “Your gran can’t be certain it was Mr Wild she saw driving down the road after Lucy, which means we’ve got nothing we can pin on him but a bunch of coincidences. If we try and arrest him again without getting some real evidence, that lawyer of his is going to eat us alive.”

Melissa felt some sympathy for the predicament Mitchell was in, but couldn’t help thinking that if he had waited until he had evidence, rather than rushing to a conclusion he couldn’t support, he would not be in his current position.

“Hopefully, the post-mortem will give us some evidence we can use,” Melissa said, speaking over the top of the car. “Or the forensics team will find something; they had most of yesterday at the two crime scenes, and they’re back again today. Whoever killed Georgina and Lucy, whether it’s Mr Wild or someone else, I can’t see that they’ll have managed to avoid leaving any evidence at all, it’s just a matter of time before it’s found.”

“And how many girls could he have attacked before then?” Mitchell wanted to know. “No girl in the village is going to be safe until Wild is behind bars.”

Melissa wondered if the girls of the village would be safe even with Wild behind bars; she wasn’t convinced the author was responsible for the murder. She said nothing of what she was thinking, though, sure that Mitchell would not take well to the suggestion he was wrong. Instead of voicing her thoughts, she said, “Why don’t we take a walk down the road and see what we can see. We know Lucy didn’t make it as far as the village, at least not as far as we’ve heard; that means she must have been grabbed between here and the church. We might be able to find something that will tell us what happened to her and where.”

Mitchell considered the idea briefly before deciding it was a good one. He had been about to suggest they get some lunch and consider the next thing they should do, but they could do that after searching the area for clues, which he doubted would take them long.

“I’ll take this side of the road, you take the other,” he said, locking the car again.

Melissa nodded, pleased that he thought her idea worth following. She had taken just a couple of steps, her eyes on the ground at her feet, when she absently reached into her pocket for one of the chocolate bars she kept about her person. She tore open the wrapper and chewed noisily as she scrutinised the ground before and around her; she didn’t want to say as much, but she had very little idea of what she was looking for, and could only hope that any evidence there might be would leap out at her.

Mitchell reached the end of the row of three houses before he realised Melissa was not keeping pace with him. Looking around, he saw that she was about ten yards back, standing at the gate in the wall and looking down the path that ran along the side of the field. He glanced in the direction Melissa was looking, but could see nothing to explain why she had paused in her search of the road.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Have you spotted something?”

“No,” Melissa admitted. “There’s nothing along the road, not that I’ve seen, anyway, but I was just thinking, we’ve assumed Lucy was grabbed between here and the church, within about five minutes of her leaving Mr Wild’s, because she would have been seen if she made it as far as the church or the pub. What if we’re wrong, though, what if she didn’t head for the village; Lucy would have made it home in about half the time if she cut across the fields and followed the river, and if she did take the short-cut, she could have been grabbed at any point between here and the other side.”

Mitchell considered that theory, as he again looked over the gate at the field and the dirt path. “Would Lucy take the shortcut?” he asked finally. “It might save her twenty minutes or so, but would she really have crossed the fields to do so?”

“I don’t see why not, it’s not like she’s afraid to get dirty, and if the outfit she was wearing really was the sort that would get a reaction from her parents, she’d have wanted to get home before them, so she could get changed,” Melissa said. “I think it’s more likely that she went across the fields than down the road towards the village; whoever it is that grabbed her, Mr Wild or whoever,” she added quickly when she saw that Mitchell was about to say something, “would have been taking a hell of a risk in grabbing her off the road – anyone could have come along and seen him, especially since she would have been nearly at the church by the time he could have caught up to her. Going across the fields would have given her attacker more time to grab her, without being seen. He could have taken her to wherever it is he killed her then, which he’s got to have done by car because it’s over a mile from here to where she was found, and probably longer from wherever she was grabbed.”

Mitchell was not happy that the idea had come from Melissa, rather than him, but couldn’t deny that it had merit. “We’ll continue on down to the church, checking the ground between here and there, then we’ll come back up and start a search of the field. If we find anything, we’ll mark the spot for forensics.”

**