Bernard stepped back and surveyed the room. ‘From what I’ve seen, this room hasn’t been cleaned or vacuumed very well. We’ve already found several different hair samples, old bits of bitten nails and don’t get me started on all the fingerprints in this room. It’s a forensics nightmare.’
Gina caught sight of a shelf holding several books above the bed, mostly Reader’s Digest collections. She had to agree with Bernard as she stared at the thin layer of dust that led from one end of the shelf to the other. ‘Cause of death?’
Bernard nodded to usher Gina out. For the time being, she’d seen enough. What she needed now were Bernard’s initial thoughts on what the evidence was telling him.
She clunked on the stepping plates and followed him back out to the carpeted floor on the landing, allowing the crime scene investigators time and room to get on with their huge list of tasks. An outer cordon was being wrapped around the staircase.
‘I need to get through. My room is there,’ a teary woman said. It was the blonde-haired woman whom Samuel Avery had been comforting.
The officer blocking the route continued to apply the cordon. ‘Really sorry but could you please join the others back in the function room. We’ll let you know as soon as you can pass through.’
The woman stood for a moment as if waiting for the officer to change her mind. When she realised she wouldn’t be allowed to pass, she hitched up her dress and went back down the stairs.
Bernard caught up with Gina and they pulled down their face masks. He scratched his escaping grey beard as he stood hunched over, looking down at her as he spoke. ‘I’ll give you what I know now and, as always, I’ll prepare my report and send it straight your way. If I come across anything that I can share immediately, I’ll call you.’
Gina nodded. ‘Okay, thanks. But what can you tell me now?’
‘You see the blood to her nose and face, there’s a little bit in her hair too. Two injuries. Her nose is obviously broken, that’s where all the blood came from. There is a slight split to her head; the nature of the mark suggests she was hit with something hard. I did notice a tiny smear of blood on the lamp base and that matches my initial thought that she could have been hit with that. As always, anything I say now has not been confirmed. Only a post-mortem and our lab results will verify everything or offer further or different evidence. The pillow beside her was also covered in blood but this had been positioned blood side down so that it wouldn’t be seen straight away. Initial theory we are working on is that she was either killed by one of the blows to her head or smothered with the pillow.’
Gina nodded. ‘Smothered?’
‘I’ve already said this and I stick by it for now, the blood smeared all over the back of the pillow suggests there was a struggle. I would go with smothered.’
‘And whoever did this, placed the same pillow back on the other side of the bed, blood side down when they’d finished.’ Gina paused. ‘It looks like our victim had also been placed on her pillow. I noticed she was tilted up slightly.’
‘That’s right. Someone placed her like that with her hands on her middle. It looks like flower petals were then sprinkled over her. And the indentation on the bed next to her suggests that someone else lay on her bed at some point. The positioning of the bed cover shows that this couldn’t have been our victim. We need to get the samples to the lab and the body to the morgue before I can give you anything more.’
‘Time of death?’
‘Her body temperature suggests within the past four hours.’
‘One more thing. Did you find a phone?’
He shook his head. ‘No, not as yet. If we come across one in the meantime, I’ll have it bagged and let you know.’
She knew that was all she was getting for now. The thought of Holly being suffocated with a pillow, panicking and trying to fight off her attacker sent a wave of nausea through Gina. She shook that thought away as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. There was a text message from Briggs.
Interviews happening in the function room. Wyre has arrived too. We’ll pool everything back at the station in a briefing later. I’ll get breakfast in for the team when we leave. No one will be going home in a hurry. I need you back on duty for the foreseeable. Briggs.
The last thing she could think about was food. She walked towards the large leaded window. As she released her brown kinked hair from the hair cover, a flash of light coming from the corner of the garden caught her attention. No sooner had it appeared, it disappeared. She tensed up as it happened again. Pressing her nose on the window for a better look, she could clearly see the light of a phone being held out and the head of a distant person.
As she phoned Briggs, she heard her heart thrumming in her ears. ‘Pick up, pick up,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘Harte.’
‘Get someone in the garden. Bottom left when you leave the function room. There was someone out there on their own a moment ago. I saw the light from their phone leading away and now it’s gone. Stop them.’
She hung up and ran back the way she had come, tangling up the cordon tape as she hurried to the stairwell. ‘Sorry,’ she shouted back to the police officer. Darting down the stairs, her heart was beating out of her chest. She couldn’t risk losing sight of him. If he was Holly’s killer, she was going to be the one to bring him in.
Chapter Five
Gina sprinted across the lawn until she reached Briggs and PC Smith. ‘We’ve called out, we’ve searched, but they’re not answering. Two officers are continuing to search the woodland.’
Gina pushed her way past Briggs, calling out as she caught her breath. ‘Police, you are leaving the scene of a crime. Come back now. Stop.’ It was no good. Whoever she’d seen escaping through the back of the garden had long gone. They had a good enough head start. ‘Damn it! Have you called for backup?’
Briggs’s shoulders dropped. ‘Of course I have, Harte. We have officers heading to the main roads that surround the woodland. If someone has left here, they’d have to come out on one of two roads.’
She didn’t know why she doubted him. Maybe it was her increasing need to be fully in control of everything. She wanted to interview all the guests and staff, be with Bernard and the forensics team, be the one to chase their suspect into the woods and fields and be the one waiting at the roadside for him or her to emerge.
A man pushed his way through the officers on the terrace. ‘Who’s in charge here? I demand to speak to someone in a position of authority. Is it you?’ He instantly looked to Briggs for an answer. This time the man was right – but in Gina’s experience, the majority of the people she met asked the suited man on the scene if he was the one in charge. This time she didn’t get to say she was.
‘I’m DCI Briggs and this is DI Harte. DI Harte is the Senior Investigating Officer.’
Gina went to speak, her gaze fixed on Briggs as she realised he was stepping back and allowing her to take the lead on the case, as she had been doing for a while now. As soon as DS Driscoll landed, Briggs would be back in his office working the investigation, being the interface between the team and the press. She cleared her throat. ‘How can I help you?’