Written In Blood

25-3

THE SEARCH OF THE ROAD revealed nothing – Mitchell and Melissa made it as far as the church and the pub, which faced one another across the road, without finding anything to suggest that Lucy Goulding had ever been that way – so they returned to the field, where they hit pay-dirt, at least Mitchell did.

Mitchell had gone about a hundred and fifty yards, when he spotted something up ahead in the narrow strip of scrub grass that grew alongside the wall. He hurried forwards and dropped to his knees the moment he reached the object he had seen - it was a book, one of several that were scattered over half a dozen feet. He was about to pick up the nearest of the books to take a closer look at it, when he saw the name on the cover – Zack Wild; a quick glance at the other books revealed that they were all by his one and only suspect, and when he used a pen to flip open one of the covers without disturbing any evidence, he saw that the book had been autographed by the author with a short message to Lucy Goulding.

“It looks like you were right, Mel,” Mitchell called out, more annoyed than before that checking the field had not been his idea, though he was glad that the evidence had been found. “This seems to be the spot where Lucy was attacked; Wild said he autographed several books for her before she left his place.”

Pleased that her idea had borne fruit, Melissa hurried over to join Mitchell. The moment she reached him she saw the books; a couple were piled together, while the others were scattered along the wall and partially concealed by the scrub grass. She also saw the remnants of the bag they must have been in, and something else.

“Sergeant, I think you should see this.” Following the example set by her superior, she used a pen to lift the item she had found from the clump of grass it lay in.

Mitchell was surprised by the note of revulsion in his subordinate’s voice, she sounded just as she had upon catching sight of Georgina Ryder’s body. When he saw what it was that Melissa had found, he understood her tone. Dangling from the pen Melissa held was a scrap of cloth, bright orange, and so lacy as to be sheer, a scrap of cloth that had once been a thong. He knew, without thinking or asking, that the once-thong had been Lucy Goulding’s, and that it had been ripped from her body when she was grabbed by the man who went on to kill her.

“Jesus!” Was all Mitchell could bring himself to say for quite some time. He had been told what condition Lucy’s body was in when it was found, along with the fact that she was naked, which had led to his guessing – just as he had when he saw Georgina Ryder’s body – that Lucy had been r***d before being murdered; there was something about the sight of an item of intimate clothing, so obviously torn from the body, that made his guess seem so much more real.

“Are you okay to stay here and keep an eye on the area, while I go and arrange for the forensics people to come over and check this place out?” he asked once he recovered the ability to speak.

Melissa nodded hesitantly, not trusting herself to speak. She wasn’t about to say as much, but the idea of staying alone where someone had been attacked, and possibly r***d and murdered, made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.