The Valley of Longing 6

‘How bad is it?’ Inspector Stevens asked of his sergeant, the moment Mitchell entered his office. Mitchell didn’t answer straight away, he waited until he had taken a seat across from his superior. ‘Bad,’ he said finally. ‘You remember how bad Neville Goody looked after his tractor rolled on him?’ Stevens nodded, it wasn’t something he was likely to forget; it had surprised everyone who was there at the scene, that the farmer survived the accident, let alone that he had 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 Kelvin’s out of his depth with this, but it looks as though she was kicked and punched repeatedly; her face …it’s just unrecognizable. It’s so badly damaged it’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a girl of a boy from the face. If she wasn’t naked, I think it would have taken me a while to figure it out, especially if she’d been in trousers or something boyish. ‘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 ‘TERT -KOESISTER GEVRIET’ into her’. He shook his head, not able to believe 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 lady they believed to be Lynne Hendricks, 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 panty 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 then, 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 STIFFNER. 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 Kelvin’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 lady, 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 damned sight younger than you or me. Anyway, he claims he’s a retired Detective, he also claims that marks around the lady’s throat suggest 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 Dorpie?’ ‘I’ve no idea.’ Mitchell was as much at a loss as his inspector. ‘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 between the two long serving police officers as they tried to come to terms with things, which wasn’t easy. ‘What are the chances Mr Wild is responsible for the murder?’ Stevens asked after several long moments; having failed to wrap his mind around things, he wanted to solve the murder as quickly as possible, so he could return his Dorpie to the peaceful place it had been before. ‘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, he must be used to that kind of thing. Any chance you can find out if he really is an ex Detective?’ Stevens nodded, ‘It’s likely to take me a while, unless you know which Station 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 Lynne, IF that is who’s been found?’ ‘I have no idea,’ Mitchell admitted. ‘Either it’s someone from outside the Dorpie, 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 Dorpie 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, and Mike is out at the body, keeping an eye on it, and I’ve got the coroner and forensics on their way. I take it you’re going to see the Hendricks after you’ve spoken to Mr Wild.’ Mitchell nodded. ‘I’d prefer not to, not until I’m more certain that the body is Lynne, but we both know how rumours and gossip goes around the Dorpie. 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 that whatever the Tabloids has overheard and embellished.’ ‘Are you still set against them making an identification?’ ‘I’ll do my best to talk them out of it. Felicity will never be able to handle a trip to the morgue, she’s been a wreck since Lynne went Missing; I don’t think Billy’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 else, apart from the coroner and forensics?’ ‘Yes, I’m going to need a search party to comb the woods around where Lynne was found; as many officers from Kuruman as you can get.’ Stevens frowned at that. ‘Officers from Kuruman? Surely we can get enough volunteers from Doring Draad, why do we need officers from Kuruman?’ ‘Two reasons,’ Mitchell told his superior. ‘Firstly, the residents won’t have a clue what they’d be looking for; if I’m honest, the same goes for me - they’re likely to stop the search every time they find the slightest 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, much as I dislike the idea, we can’t ignore the possibility that the murderer is someone from the Dorpie, I’d rather not give him a chance to destroy any evidence he might have left behind, if it is.’ Reluctantly, Stevens accepted the logic of that, even if he didn’t like it. ‘That brings me to the next thing, the chief Inspector, I called him this morning to get the coroner and forensics, 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, and give himself some time to think to try and come to the right decision. 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 bad idea. The Dorpie 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 as well,’ Stevens admitted. ‘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 Lily Potgieter?’ ‘I hadn’t planned on doing anything.’ Mitchell said. ‘You know as well as I do that Lily 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.’ Mitchell found Jack Wild and Melissa deep in conversation when he entered the interview room. He wasn’t happy about how friendly his constable seemed to be with the man he was about to question, he said nothing, however, since he didn’t want to antagonize his witness and possible suspect. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Wild,’ he apologised. ‘I see Constable James got you a drink, is there anything else you need before we get started with this interview?’ ‘Thank you, no’ Jack said. ‘She makes a strong coffee, I’m going to be bouncing off the walls as it is, without having anything else. I’d rather just get on with things, I’m sure we all have stuff to get on with.’ ‘Fair enough, perhaps you can start by telling me how you came to find the body.’ Mitchell said. ‘Sure. I was out for a run, saw something on the opposite bank, called it in, then waited for you guys to arrive.’ Jack said succinctly. Mitchell stared at the man on the other side of the table for several long moments, not quite able to believe that - that was all he seemed to want to say. ‘Can you expand on that for me?’ he asked. ‘For instance, why were you out for a run? Is it something you do regularly, or a once - off?’ ‘Regularly.’ Jack answered. ‘I go running most mornings, It’s a good way to keep myself in shape.’ ‘Do you run the same route every morning?’ Jack shrugged. ‘More or less. I try to do about 10 KMS every day, keeping to the same route, helps me know how far I’ve gone, and gives me some idea of whether I’m keeping to a regular pace.’ ‘10 Kms?’ Melissa blurted out in surprise. ‘You must be really fit if you do 10 Kms a day.’ The moment the words escaped her mouth, she found herself blushing, she couldn’t help wondering what had made her say such a thing, she sounded like a schoolgirl with a crush. A smile played about the corners of Jack’s mouth. ‘I guess fit is a matter of perspective,’ he said. ‘The older I get, the more exercise I have to do just to keep my weight stable. Working used to keep me pretty fit, but now I’m stuck at a computer all day. I’ve got to work that much harder not to go to flab.’ ‘If you run the same route every day.’ Mitchell said, far from pleased with the way the interview was going. ‘How is it you didn’t see the body until this morning? I’m not an expert, but it looked to me as if the body - he found it easier to think of the body as simply that, a body, rather than as a former person - had been there for a couple of days at least. Surely you should have seen it before now.’ ‘I said more or less,’ Jack pointed out. ‘Usually I follow the road through the Dorpie and out towards the entrance of town; it’s nice, straightforward, and it’s easy for me to know how far I’ve gone. The downside, though, is, it’s boring.’ He said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. ‘Since the weather was so good this morning, compared to what it’s been this past week, I thought I’d take a different route on my run; I do that every now and then. A change is as good as a rest, as they say. I only got as far as the Bar before I decided not to bother with my usual route; I turned off the road so I could head along the riverbank, and found the body after about a kilometer and a half, well, you saw where she was.’ Mitchell nodded. ‘If you left the road at the Bar, how is it you saw the body?’ he asked. ‘It was right at the edge of the trees, not easy to see from the East bank, especially with the grass about a foot tall, as it is there.’ ‘I couldn’t see it clearly.’ Jack admitted. ‘I caught a glimpse of something in the grass, that was all’ unfortunately. I’ve had enough experience of dead bodies to be pretty sure of what I was seeing, even If I couldn’t see it clearly. I didn’t want to call you guys, and lady,’ he said with a nod towards Melissa James,’ out there until I was positive, so I waded across to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. I wish they had been. I thought I left all that sort of things behind when I left the force.’ ‘Have you seen many bodies?’ Melissa asked, curiously getting the better of her desire not to annoy her superior. ‘Too many.’ Jack said. ‘Though to be sure, as I’m sure you’ll agree, one is too many.’ Melissa nodded her agreement of that.’ I hope you’re wrong about the body you found just being the first,’ She said. ‘Because I don’t think I could ever get used to what I saw this morning.’ ‘You never really get used to it, ‘Jack told her. ‘At least most people don’t. You sort of become inured to it, so you can keep going and do your job. It’s when you become used to it, If you ever do, that you have to start thinking about whether it’s time for you to stop and find something else to do.’ ‘Is that why you stopped being a detective?’ Melissa asked, realizing too late that it might sound rude. ‘If you don’t mind, Melissa.’ Mitchell said irritably. ‘What did you do after you were sure you had found a body?’ he asked of Jack Wild. ‘I called the police station to report it, then I went up to the bend in the river to wait for you guys to get there.’ ‘You didn’t check to see if she was alive or anything?’ Mitchell asked. ‘Constable Heath said when you called the station you said she was dead; did you check to be certain?’ Jack shook his head. ’There was no need. I knew she was dead as soon as I saw her. It would have been a waste of time to check, and doing so would have put any evidence there might be at risk. My old boss would crucify me if I did something like that, being retired is no excuse.’ Mitchell spent a few moments absorbing that before he posed his next question. ‘If you didn’t get close enough to risk any evidence, when did you insist on your trainers being bagged up for the forensics team? Surely they won’t find any trace of you on or around the body.’ ‘No, they won’t’ Jack said confidently.’ But if the forensics guys are at all thorough, they’ll check the ground for some distance around the body for evidence, and take casts of every shoe print they find; once they’ve done that they’ll want prints from the footwear all three of us were wearing this morning, so they can eliminate us from whatever they find.’ It had been some time he last had to explain forensics procedures to anyone. ‘If they want to be really thorough, they’ll even take our DNA and fingerprints.’ ‘Had you ever seen the girl before this morning?’ Mitchell asked, not at all happy to be having his job explained to him. ‘That’s hard to say,’ Jack told him. ‘Given how unrecognizable she was, I could have seen her every day, and I wouldn’t know it. Do you have any idea who she is?’ Mitchell considered that question briefly before answering. ‘We have reason to believe her name is Lynne Hendricks, she’s been missing for a week.’ ‘The name’s familiar; I heard around the village she was missing, but since I didn’t have a face to put to the name, it meant nothing to me,’ Jack said. ‘So you can tell us nothing about her disappearance and murder?’ ‘Sorry, no,’ Jack answered, doing his best to ignore the accusatory note in the sergeant’s voice. Melissa stood at the door to the police station, watching Jack Wild as he walked off up the road, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he was barefoot, having left his running shoes at station for forensics. She had been there for half a minute or so when she became aware of a presence at her elbow. Turning, she found that Mitchell was standing there, his eyes also on the author, a look of distaste and annoyance on his face that Melissa found troubling. ‘You think he had something to do with the murder, don’t you,’ she said. Mitchell shrugged, and said unconvincingly, ‘I don’t know. He has and explanation for his discovery of the body, one that could be true, or could be completely made up. And right now, we have no reason for thinking he’s lied to us, and a number of reasons for thinking he’s telling the truth. If he’s connected to the murder, why would he have led us to the body? And why would he tell us he didn’t touch the body and voluntarily give us his trainers, that doesn’t make any sense if he’s the murderer.’ ‘But you think he might be involved in the murder, so why didn’t you question him about it more?’ Melissa didn’t believe Jack Wild was a murderer, though she realized she didn’t know the man and so had no idea what he might be capable of; despite that she couldn’t understand why the author had been allowed to leave without being questioned more thoroughly. ‘Because I’ve got no evidence, and if he is the killer, I don’t want him to know I’m on to him until I do.’ Mitchell told her. ‘The inspector is making inquiries into Mr Wild to find out if he really is a former Detective, and whatever there is to know about him. Hopefully, when we know something of the man, we’ll have some idea of whether he could be the murderer. If he isn’t, we’ll have to start looking elsewhere, perhaps at he rest of our Dusty little Dorpie.’ Melissa could tell Mitchell didn’t like the thought of having to do that, it wasn’t something she particularly liked either. ‘How long until the forensics team, and the detective who’s going to handle the investigation, get here?’ she asked. ‘The forensics team should be here in another hour, hour and half,’ Mitchell told her. ‘But there won’t be a detective, at least not for the time being.’ He saw Melissa’s surprise. ‘The inspector and I discussed having a detective, and decided it would be better for the Dorpie, if we try and solve this ourselves.’ ‘What are we going to do to catch the killer then?’ Melissa asked, wracking her brains to try and think how an investigation should be conducted. ‘First things first,’ Mitchell said, ‘ We need to go and see Billy and Felicity Hendricks, and let then know about this morning’s discovery, assuming they haven’t already been told. After that, we need to talk to everyone we spoke to last week, when Lynne first went missing, they may remember something now they didn’t at the time. We also need to speak to anyone who might have held a grudge against her. Then we need to speak to Theresa Potgieter, her housekeeper, and anyone who may have seen Lily yesterday, before she apparently went missing, so we can try and find out what’s happened to her, assuming she hasn’t already come home.’