Against the Clock

detective, but you’ll get all the help you need or want. One thing about this job: you never stop learning. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something will sneak up behind you and kick you in…the armpit.’
She laughed. ‘I won’t be afraid to ask.’
The sun was up and the traffic was light. They talked more music: Elvis and Michael Jackson conspiracy theories. Oasis or Blur? Lillian looked at him then.
‘When’s the last time you were in a pub and a Blur song came on and everybody started singing it?’ she asked. ‘Exactly. I was in a pub last night and they started playing “Wonderwall” and every bugger in the place was singing it.’
The Beetles versus the Stones was just starting to get heated when Harry pulled in behind one of the patrol cars.
The wind coming in off the sea caught him off guard for a moment. Had his hair been longer, he was sure it would have been blown into some kind of bouffant.
They showed their warrant cards to a uniform standing next to the police tape that was barring entry to the promenade at this end.
Down on the sand, a big bastard in a wax jacket was standing with his hands in his jacket pockets. His hair was being pulled over his head in a comb-over, although DI Ronnie Vallance wasn’t going bald. He was tall as well as broad, and if anybody ever needed plans to build a brick shithouse, then a photo of Vallance would do the trick.
‘What’s the script here, Ronnie?’ Harry asked, trudging across the sand to where Vallance was standing with DS Eve Bell.
‘Morning, sir. Lil.’ Vallance pointed to the phone box up on the pavement. ‘Anonymous phone call made from that call box up there. Male voice, Irish accent, but it sounded put on. Not like yours.’ He nodded to the DS.
‘How could they tell?’ Lillian asked.
‘It just sounded fake, by all accounts,’ Vallance replied. ‘The treble-nine operator thought it sounded like a wind-up at first. It was only taken seriously when a patrol unit was dispatched and they found that lassie there.’
They turned to look at a forensics tent that had been erected close to the sea wall. Harry assumed that the ‘lassie there’ was still inside, being processed.
‘Any ID on her?’ Lillian asked.
‘Aye. Kate Murphy will give you the grand tour. She’s in there now, poking and prodding the victim.’
Harry nodded and indicated for Lillian to follow him. He pulled open one of the flaps on the tent and saw the plastic-wrapped corpse at the feet of the pathologist. With Kate was Angie Patterson, one of the mortuary assistants. They both looked up as if an intruder had just come in, despite the beach being littered with more polis than used condoms.
‘Harry,’ Kate said. ‘Come in and have a look. Hello, DS O’Shea.’
‘Morning, ma’am.’
Harry nodded to Angie, who was standing at the foot of the shrink-wrapped corpse. Both pathology women were wearing their white suits. Harry felt his feet slipping into the sand and wished he had put boots on.
‘This is a new one on me,’ he said, crouching down to have a look at the young woman’s face. It had pink patches on it. ‘Carbon monoxide poisoning?’
‘I would say so,’ said Kate. ‘I cut the shrink wrap down the middle to do a preliminary exam and we found old clothing. Forensics want you to take a look before they bag it.’
Harry and Lillian snapped on nitrile gloves and Harry gently pulled the layer of wrap to one side. The deceased was fully clothed in a hoody and jeans, but there was a dress shoved inside.
Angie held up a plastic evidence bag. ‘They bagged this lot but left it for you to see,’ she said.
Harry took it and looked into it without opening it. There was a photo of a young girl wearing the dress that was inside the plastic. The girl looked like the victim, but younger.
‘Turn the bag round,’ Kate said. ‘There’s a name on the back of the photo.’
Harry turned it round and looked, holding the photo tight against the plastic bag.
Sandra Robertson.
‘It’s unusual for somebody to dump a body like this,’ Lillian said. ‘Usually, they’re wrapped in a carpet.’
‘This guy wanted to keep all this stuff together,’ Harry said. ‘Plus, she would have been easier to carry when he was dumping her, and not quite as obvious as a carpet.’
‘It also looks like she was partially strangled once, but the marks are faded, like she was maybe tortured at one time,’ Kate said. ‘Looks like with something soft, like a scarf.’
‘Rough time of death?’
‘A few weeks ago, I’d say. There’s evidence of the body being stored in a freezer. Maybe he killed her, then kept her somewhere while he figured out what to do with her.’
‘Okay, Kate, thanks for that. I’ll have somebody come down to the mortuary when you do the post-mortem. Probably Gregg and Eve Bell.’
‘No problem. But if you change your mind, you’re more than welcome to join us.’
‘Thanks, but I have a lot of work to catch up on.’
It was known just how much Harry hated attending the actual dissection of a victim. They were betting people in the mortuary and always had a book going for whenever Harry turned up, to see whether he would toss his bag or not. ‘It’s the smell,’ he would tell them, but he’d still be open to mockery nonetheless.
He left the tent with Lillian and approached Vallance, who was talking with a uniformed sergeant. He was giving her some order. Harry saw Simon Gregg up on the promenade.
‘He can’t swim,’ Vallance said, coming over to Harry with a stumbling gait as his shoes sank into the sand.
‘The sea’s nowhere near us,’ Harry said. ‘The big streak of piss better not be skiving. Is there a lassie up there he fancies or something?’
‘He’s trying to find any witnesses who maybe saw somebody using the phone box. One person thought he saw somebody in it, but