‘We’ve got a new case,’ he said, handing the notes he’d made to DC Rick Cooper. ‘It’s an interesting one. A body has been found inside a suitcase at a house in Skellingthorpe.’
He looked at Rick, who was quickly scanning the notes. ‘Can you and Sophie collect background information while Karen and I go to the scene? We’ll need to find out everything we can about the house and its owner. The officers who found the body say it’s very old, practically a skeleton. The house belongs to Albert Johnson, an elderly man who suffered a fall. Police and paramedics were called to the scene, and it was while the officers were securing his house that they found the body.’
DS Karen Hart stood up, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair. ‘I bet that gave them a shock.’
‘I imagine so. Both officers are going to stay at the house so we can have a chat with them when we get there. The crime scene unit are already on their way, and so is the pathologist.’
Rick looked up and passed the notes to DC Sophie Jones. ‘We’ll look into his background, sir. Do we know if anyone else shares the house with him?’
DI Morgan shook his head. ‘No, we don’t know much about him at all, so that’s one of the first things you’ll need to determine.’ He turned to look at Karen. ‘Ready?’
‘Lead the way.’
They reached the detached property in Skellingthorpe just after eleven a.m. The spring sunshine was finally burning off the persistent mist, but it lingered in the open fields around the property, giving the area a strange, otherworldly appearance.
It was March, but the weather this morning felt more like autumn, Karen thought as she pulled on the handbrake. The remnants of the mist made her feel gloomy and cold.
‘It’s pretty isolated around here,’ DI Morgan said as he unfastened his seatbelt.
Karen nodded. There was a small house on the other side of the road, but apart from that, the next nearest house had to be over a mile away.
‘The perfect place for a murder to be carried out without anyone noticing or hearing anything,’ Karen said.
‘That’s a morbid thought.’
They both got out of the car and walked towards the uniformed officer standing beside the crumbling stone wall at the front of the property.
‘Morning, ma’am, sir,’ the officer said as he held out the logbook for them to sign.
‘Where are the officers who found the body?’ DI Morgan asked.
The uniformed officer pointed in the direction of a squad car. ‘They’re sitting in the back of that car, sir. They were pretty shaken up.’
Karen felt her stomach tighten. She hated attending crime scenes, but it was a necessary part of the job. It was hard to investigate a case without seeing where the crime had been committed. The scene usually held many clues. Maybe the one in this case would be less disturbing than others she’d attended. If the body was very old, she hoped that meant the smell wouldn’t be too bad this time.
‘Good, the pathologist is here already,’ Karen said, scanning the logbook before signing it.
‘Yes, he arrived about ten minutes ago, ma’am.’ The officer lifted the crime scene tape.
Karen ducked beneath the tape, and DI Morgan followed.
She carefully picked her way along the garden path. It was only the beginning of spring, but green weeds were already poking through cracks between the paving slabs. The front garden, although small, was mature and full of a mixture of evergreen plants and stick-like perennials that hadn’t yet been cut back.
Mr Johnson, or whoever else had lived here with him, was certainly green-fingered, but it seemed like the garden was getting too much for him. The narrow path led around the side of the house, and markers had been laid out to indicate the route they should take so that the scene would be disturbed as little as possible. At the back door, Karen saw a pane of glass had been broken and guessed that was how the officers had gained entry to the house.
A box full of protective shoe coverings sat at the side of the back door. Karen selected a pair and slid them over her shoes. DI Morgan did the same, then they put on protective gloves and entered the house.
Karen nodded a greeting to one of the crime scene photographers who was taking photographs of the kitchen.
‘Raj is upstairs. First bedroom on the right,’ the photographer said, then turned back to her work.
Karen thanked her and walked ahead towards the stairs.
‘This is where Albert Johnson was found,’ DI Morgan said as they reached the base of the steps.
Karen felt a pang of sympathy for the old man, who’d been hurt and stranded at the bottom of the stairs, but quickly pushed the feeling away. The old man could be a murderer. In fact, it was extremely likely that he was. She supposed murderers got old and frail just like everyone else.
They climbed the stairs and made their way to the first bedroom. Inside, the pathologist was already hard at work peering into the suitcase.
Karen had never seen a body like it. It wasn’t completely skeletonised. There was some shrivelled brown skin hanging on to the brown and yellow limb bones. It looked like a shrunken shell of a person.
She stepped forward and said hello to Raj, but her eyes didn’t leave the collection of leathery skin and bones inside the suitcase.
‘Good morning,’ Raj said, straightening up. ‘I can’t examine the body properly here, so I’m going to move the whole lot back to the lab.’
Karen tore her gaze away from the body to look at Raj.
Rajinder Kumar reminded her of an Indian Poirot. He was short, overweight and had a fine moustache. Considering his line of work, Karen had found him consistently cheerful and always helpful. She liked working with him.
‘Can you give us some idea of how long ago she or he died?’ DI Morgan said as he stared at the body with the same intensity Karen had a few moments earlier.
Raj pursed his lips and then said, ‘I can’t give you an accurate answer, but I’d say at least twenty years, probably no more than forty.’
He pointed out some fabric draped over what Karen assumed was a leg bone. ‘Our victim was wearing some manmade fabric, which might help us with identification. I’d guess from the size of the bones and the width of the pelvis that our victim is a man, but don’t hold me to it.’
Karen leaned forward, intrigued by the fabric. It was vivid blue, stained with splotches of yellow and brown. No doubt the colour had been dulled by the passage of time and by decomposing fluids seeping into it, which would mean it had been an even brighter blue when the fabric was new. ‘It looks a bit like one of those tracksuit tops. You know, they were all the rage in the eighties.’
‘Like a shell suit?’ DI Morgan asked, standing further back from the body than Karen, but still studying it intently.
‘Yes, and they were all manmade fibres, weren’t they? That would explain why it lasted all this time, and the bright colour.’ Karen looked at the pathologist.
Raj nodded. ‘Quite likely. The cotton and other natural fibres seem to have degraded. I might be able to recover something once we get the body back to the lab.’
DI Morgan slowly circled the case. ‘It’s strange,’ he said finally.
That was the understatement of the century. A body in a suitcase was more than strange in Karen’s book.