‘Was she sexually assaulted?’ I ask.
‘There are traces of semen in her hair.’
A bubble of air gets trapped in my throat.
The pathologist drops to his haunches, pointing to Jodie’s boots. ‘They’re full of water and I found pondweed in her hair. Fairham Brook is beyond those trees.’ He indicates the bruising on her forehead. ‘That’s an impact injury, likely caused by a fall.’
‘What about the scratches on her arms?’
‘From branches and brambles.’
She tried to run.
Lenny turns away and summons DS Edgar. ‘I want police divers here at first light. We’re looking for her mobile phone and a polka-dot print tote bag.’
Leaving the SOCO tent, I keep to the duckboards until I reach the perimeter of the crime scene. A carpet of papery leaves squelches beneath my boots, hiding roots that bump up from the ground ready to catch my ankles. In daylight the clearing would be visible from the footpath, or the top of the embankment. At night it disappears and becomes darker than the meadow because overhanging branches block out the ambient light.
Lenny has joined me. We scramble up the embankment using the trees as handholds.
‘Where does the footpath lead?’ I ask.
‘Once it crosses the footbridge it hits a T-junction. To the right is Farnborough Road. Turn left and it crosses the tramlines and eventually reaches Forsyth Academy, Jodie’s school. Her family lives beyond, in Clifton. This would have been a shortcut home.’
‘From where?’
‘Her cousin’s house. Tasmin Whitaker lives five minutes from here.’
Below us, a group of forensic technicians have lifted Jodie’s body onto a white plastic sheet that is folded over her and sealed. A second layer of plastic is zipped up, cocooning her in a bag with handles that is carried by four men to a waiting ambulance.
Lenny watches in silence, her dark hair boxed on her neck.
‘The tabloids will have wet dreams over this one. A pretty church-going schoolgirl; a champion figure skater.’
‘Figure skater?’
‘The Times profiled her during the summer. They called her the golden girl of British skating.’
Crossing the footbridge, we follow the asphalt path to the community centre. Most of the locals have gone home, escaping the cold, but TV crews and reporters have taken their places. Cameras are shouldered. Spotlights blaze.
‘Is it Jodie?’ someone yells.
‘How did she die?’
‘Was she raped?’
‘Any suspects?’
The questions seem brutal in the circumstances, but Lenny keeps her head down, hands in her pockets.
We pause at the police car. ‘What do you need?’ she asks.
‘Can I talk to her family?’
‘They haven’t been formally notified.’
‘I think they know.’
5
The semi-detached house has a single bay window on the lower floor and a small square of soggy front garden surrounded on three sides by a heavily pruned knee-high hedge. Two vehicles are parked nose to tail in the driveway – one a black cab and the other a new-model Lexus with a darker-than-legal tint on the windows.
A police constable is waiting outside, stamping her feet against the cold. Lenny presses a doorbell. Dougal Sheehan answers and looks past us, as though hoping we might have brought his daughter home.
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Lenore Parvel,’ says Lenny. ‘I wanted to speak to you and your wife.’
Wordlessly, he turns and leads us into an over-furnished sitting room with a lumpy sofa and two worn armchairs. A TV is showing football with the sound turned down.
Maggie Sheehan is standing in the arched doorway to the kitchen. Everything about her is crumpled and diminished. The forward cant of her shoulders. The dark rings beneath her eyes. A string of polished wooden rosary beads are clenched in her fist.
‘Mrs Sheehan,’ begins Lenny.
‘Please call me Maggie,’ she replies mechanically, before introducing her brother, Bryan, and his wife, Felicity, who are sitting at the kitchen table. The Whitakers are Tasmin’s parents, come to offer support.
Lenny is standing in the centre of the living room with her legs braced apart and hands clasped like she’s on a parade ground. Some people own every space they inhabit, but Lenny seems to conquer the room quietly, taking it inch by inch with the force of her personality.
Maggie takes a seat on the sofa. The skin above her collarbone is mottled and there are cracks in the make-up around her eyes. Dougal is next to her. She reaches for his hand. He takes it reluctantly, as though unwilling to show any frailty.
The Whitakers are side by side in the arched doorway, their faces filled with dreadful knowing.
Lenny begins. ‘It is my sad duty to inform you that the body of a teenage girl has been found beside Silverdale Walk. She matches the description of your daughter Jodie.’
Maggie blinks and glances at Dougal, as though waiting for a translation. His eyes are closed, but a tear squeezes from one corner and he wipes it away with the back of his hand.
‘How did she die?’ he whispers.
‘We believe her death to be suspicious.’
Dougal gets to his feet and sways unsteadily, gripping the back of the sofa for support. He’s a big man, who looks like a builder or a butcher. Big arms. Big hands.
‘We will need one of you to formally identify Jodie,’ says Lenny. ‘It doesn’t have to be today. I can send a car in the morning.’
‘Where is she now?’ asks Maggie.
‘She’s been taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre. There will need to be a post mortem.’
‘You’re going to cut her up,’ says Dougal.
‘We’re investigating a homicide.’
Maggie Sheehan’s fingers have found her rosary beads. She clutches the tiny crucifix in her fist, squeezing it so tightly it leaves an imprint when she opens her palm. She must have prayed all day, daring to hope, but nobody has answered.
Bryan and Felicity hug each other in the doorway. They’re physically the same size but she seems to be holding him up.
‘We need to establish Jodie’s movements,’ says Lenny. ‘When did you last see her?’
‘At the fireworks,’ replies Maggie.
‘We go to Bonfire Night every year,’ echoes Felicity. ‘Nobody calls it Guy Fawkes Night any more. Maybe it’s not politically correct. The Gunpowder Plot and all that.’
She’s a tall, striking woman, with a plume of silver flowing through her thick dark hair from the left side of her temple to the collar of her blouse.
‘Who was Jodie with at the fireworks?’ interrupts Lenny.
‘Tasmin. Our daughter.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Schoolmates. Friends. Neighbours. It was like a big street party. I took a bottle of champagne and glasses.’
Maggie retrieves a cotton handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and blows her nose. It makes everybody turn.
‘I should have made her come home after the fireworks,’ she whispers, her voice breaking. ‘I shouldn’t have let her stay out.’
‘This is not your fault,’ scolds Felicity.
‘She should have been home. She would have been safe.’