The Polish Detective

by Hania Allen

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Set in Dundee, this fast-paced crime novel is the first to feature Polish Detective Sergeant Dania Gorska. Volatile times in the city of discovery . . . DS Dania Gorska is a stranger in a foreign land. Born in Poland and transferred from London to Dundee's specialist crime division, she is called upon to investigate a series of grotesque killings where the victims are first brutally murdered and then displayed in a bizarre manner. Although seemingly unrelated, clues point to the victims having been members of a local druidic cult. While solving these murders is Dania's priority, she finds herself increasingly drawn to the case of two runaway teenage girls. But when she learns they were also members of the same druid group she becomes convinced their disappearance is linked to the murders. And, despite what the evidence suggests, Dania starts to fear that the girls have not run away but are actually the newest, undiscovered victims of the killer . . . Praise for Hania Allen ' Nicely nasty in all the right places. . . The story rattles along until bringing the curtain down with an unnerving twist' Craig Robertson ' Captivating characters and an intriguing plot. A great new find for crime fans' Lin Anderson 'Pitch-perfect . . . a witty, tense crime novel written in a highly readable style ' Russel D McLean

Release date: January 11, 2018

Publisher: Constable

Print pages: 384

Sample

It was when she glanced at it the second time that Jenn realised something was different. She squeezed the brakes hard, bringing the bicycle to a shuddering stop.

The scarecrow, bathed in May sunshine, stood where it always did in the middle of the wheat field. The clothes were the same: tatty straw hat with the floppy poppy, tartan scarf knotted under the neck, and the yellow shirt under the sky-blue workman’s dungarees. The figure wasn’t hanging right, though, making her suspect that someone had messed with it, probably those lads from the village dressing up in the clothes and scaring people. Instead of the pink head with its bulbous nose and creepy bowl-shaped smile, the face was white, the mouth open and smeared with red. Jenn swung her leg over the seat and propped the bicycle against the stone wall. She stared at the scarecrow for several seconds, and then climbed over the wall into the field.

With mounting anticipation, she made her way towards the figure, ignoring the green stalks catching at her ankles. She’d seen this scarecrow many times on her trips down the Liff Road and she knew everything about it, having helped Aleck, the estate manager, assemble and erect it a few years before. It hung with arms outstretched on crossed wooden poles. But, as she approached, she saw what it was that was different.

The woman’s skin was the colour of ash, and her hair was plastered to her forehead, the brownish henna shade clashing with the red of the poppy. Her blue-veined hands were rigid, the fingers splayed. Jenn felt a growing tingling in her blood. From watching repeats of Silent Witness, but mainly from what Aleck had taught her about the process of decomposition, including the first stage of rigor mortis, she knew that the body stiffens after death, becoming flaccid after a time. She also knew that the degree of stiffness gives the police an estimate of the time of death. Whoever had dressed the woman and arranged her on the sticks would have known it too. Jenn reached out a hand and prodded the body. Underneath the soft dungarees it was rock hard. The woman had died with her eyes open, their expression one of horror, mingled with accusation. Peering into those dead eyes with their glassy stare, Jenn imagined how rigor would wear off. The softening eyes would cry real tears. The distorted mouth would become flaccid and slowly close.

Round the woman’s neck was a chain to which was attached a card in a plastic sleeve. Jenn resisted the temptation to turn it over. Something she’d also learnt from Silent Witness was not to touch anything. Every contact leaves a trace.

She walked backwards, unable to tear her gaze from the woman’s face, and then remembered that someone should call the police. With her heart thudding against her chest, she pulled the phone out of her jeans.

The phones in the room were ringing, but it was Detective Sergeant Dania Gorska who picked up first. ‘It’s the station controller, sir,’ she said, the phone to her ear. ‘Someone’s reported a body on the Liff Road.’

DI Blair Chirnside was at the other end of the room, giving instructions to the duty sergeant. He shouted across, ‘Which part of the Liff Road?’

‘Off the Coupar Angus, south of Muirhead. The lady didn’t give a name. She said she’ll wait for us there.’

‘Let’s go then, Sergeant.’

Protocol dictated that, as the junior officer, she should drive the staff Skoda, but Chirnside nodded to her to get in at the passenger’s side and he slipped in behind the wheel. Was he being gallant or was he one of those men who felt uncomfortable with women driving? She’d been in Dundee for six weeks but Chirnside continued to maintain a respectful distance, which meant that she had little choice but to do the same. They were still at the dancing-around-each-other stage, something with which she was familiar from her time in London, where officers seemed to come and go with confusing regularity. But six weeks of formality was a record. She consoled herself by remembering that he behaved the same way towards the other female staff.

She risked a glance at his profile. He was a short stocky man in his mid- to late fifties, with hair that had more grey in it than dark. It was longish at the sides and back, but had almost disappeared on top, giving him the appearance of a monk. The pale spotty complexion suggested a bad diet. That, and the smell of stale tobacco that clung to his suit, made her wonder if he was heading for a coronary. His watery eyes and occasional wheezing and coughing suggested it might be his lungs that got him first.

Dania, who liked to know who her boss was, had asked around and learnt that he was single and lived with his elderly parents. A kindly man who didn’t fly off into murderous rages like some senior coppers she’d known, he’d been good to her when she first arrived, making sure she knew her way around, and ensuring she was properly settled in.

They left West Bell Street station, a building that, with its many banks of windows, had a look of authority to it, and swung into the Marketgait. Dania had long since concluded that the reason God had invented sat-navs was because of the maze of hilly streets in Dundee’s city centre. Chirnside turned left at Dudhope Roundabout and, with a few nifty lane changes, followed the twisting and turning Lochee Road until it became the Coupar Angus, taking them north towards the intersection with the A90. There were fewer buildings here, the houses and apartment blocks yielding to green spaces. She knew this route, as it took her to the retail park off Kingsway and also to the cinema complex near Camperdown Park.

‘I’m sure you didn’t think you’d be getting another case as quickly as this,’ Chirnside said grimly.

She was used to cases piling up. Secretly, she was pleased she wouldn’t be spending her Saturday-morning shift cross-referencing reports and entering them on to the database. Desk work wasn’t something she relished, although she understood the necessity for it. What floated her boat was thinking laterally and solving problems, something she’d found she was good at, and which, along with her ability to ask the right questions at the right time, especially awkward ones, had accounted for her rapid promotion to detective sergeant.

‘You did a cracking job on your first case, by the way, Dania.’

‘It’s kind of you to say so, sir.’

‘I give praise where praise is due. I’m keen for you to make progress here. You’ve made an excellent start, and I’ve added a note to your record.’

This was more than she’d expected, and she felt a pure pleasure that her hard work and ability had been noticed. Her sole focus since her first day had been on a particularly challenging sexual-assault case, which had been running for months. She’d come in in the middle and it had been her input, acknowledged by the other detectives – grudgingly by some – that had brought it to a rapid and unequivocal conclusion.

Her fellow officers had begun by calling her ‘Danuta’, the name on her application form, until she explained that Polish allowed for certain diminutives, and it would be more than acceptable for them to use the usual form, ‘Dania’. They nodded, smiling, and she realised that they might already know this, given the number of Poles in Dundee.

They’d been wary of her at first, thinking she’d want to act like a big shot from London, but an evening at their local, where she’d shown them how to drink vodka without setting their throats on fire, and told a string of Communist-era Polish jokes, had settled it. A perennial favourite was: where can you find the best view in Warsaw? The answer: from the top of the Palace of Culture and Science – a ‘gift’ from the Soviet Union. Why? Because it’s the only place in Warsaw from which you can’t see the Palace of Culture and Science. The laughter had told her she was one of them. It had been worth the huge bar bill. But she could see the unspoken question in their eyes – why had she left the Met? The truth, that her marriage had broken down, wasn’t something she was prepared to share with them quite yet.

They passed the roundabout at Camperdown Park and the sign for Birkhill, and were immediately into countryside. She loved this stretch of road, overhung with huge trees. On the right was the sign for Templeton Woods and then, in quick succession, a notice for a pick-your-own-strawberries place, and the sign for Birkhill Cemetery. She wondered who would pick fruit so close to decaying corpses. It struck her that the minerals leaching into the soil might make the fruit taste better.

The trees gave way to fields and then they were cruising through the villages of Birkhill and Muirhead. The sat-nav told them they would shortly need to turn left.

Chirnside slowed to a crawl as he approached the traffic lights. On the left-hand corner was Tiddlywinks Nursery School, the name painted on the white building in large, brightly coloured letters.

‘Last time I was here, we found a man passed out just behind Tiddlywinks,’ he said grimly. ‘The needle was lying next to him.’

‘He did it beside a nursery school?’

‘Drugs are the scourge of this city, Dania. We have more drug deaths per head than the rest of Scotland.’

‘How do the drugs come in, sir? Organised-crime groups?’

‘Aye, they’ve infiltrated the city.’ His expression hardened. ‘It’s my long-term goal to crack down on them.’

The lights went to green and they turned into the Liff Road.

To Dania’s surprise, there was a police office on the right, complete with blue lamp. The notice on the door urged the public to contact 999 in an emergency, and 101 if they wanted to speak to someone. The building looked deserted.

They passed Muirhead Medical Centre and, a second later, they left the village. There was a sign, ‘Red squirrels for 1/2 a mile’, and another on the right, welcoming them to Backmuir Wood. The thick woodland, its trees in full foliage, was separated from the road by a low dry-stone wall.

Chirnside hit the brakes. The sudden deceleration caused Dania to lurch forward and strain against the seatbelt.

A girl with blonde hair was standing in the middle of the tarmac. Seeing them, she lifted both arms above her head, staring fixedly.

Chirnside brought the car to a stop. He cut the engine, and he and Dania hurried out.

The girl was of medium height, with skin so pale that it was almost transparent, and a determined expression, accentuated by the frown lines between her eyes. Her hair was long and fine, the kind easily blown about in the wind. Dania felt a twinge of envy. Her own, also blonde, but shading into brown, was thick and heavy, and the only way she could manage it was by wearing it in a shaggy bob.

‘Jenn McLaughlin,’ Chirnside said, the words barely audible. ‘It was you who called the station.’

Dania glanced at him, registering the shock on his face. Perhaps, like her, he’d expected someone older. But this girl looked in her teens. And she was someone he knew. He seemed incapable of speaking, so Dania said, ‘We’re from Tayside Police.’

‘Aye, I know,’ the girl said in a soft voice. ‘I need to see your IDs.’

Frowning, Dania pulled out her card. Chirnside did the same.

Jenn gave Dania’s only a brief glance. But she lingered over the DI’s. Whatever the reason, she spent more time studying his image than the occasion warranted. When she handed back the card, she stared at him with an expression that could best be described as hostile. It left Dania wondering how they knew each other.

‘You said you’d found a body, Jenn,’ he said in a changed voice. He swallowed noisily, and then looked over his shoulder towards Backmuir Wood.

Dania knew what he was thinking: a druggie finding a lonely spot amongst the trees and unintentionally taking an overdose. She imagined the limp body, the empty eyes, the needle still in the arm. Something made her reach across and slip an arm round Jenn. The girl stiffened but then moved closer to the detective. Dania could smell the lilac-scented shampoo in her hair.

‘Can you show us where he is?’ she said quietly.

Jenn’s response was to point into the field. ‘There’s a body inside the scarecrow. And it’s a she, not a he.’

Dania felt her throat tighten. A body inside the scarecrow?

‘Will you take a statement, Sergeant?’ Chirnside said, his voice sounding strange.

‘Yes, sir.’

The field’s boundary wall was made of stones, but was overgrown front and back with weeds and grass. Immediately behind it, the farmer had erected a low wire fence. Chirnside stepped over it and almost ran across the corn.

The wind gusted suddenly, tugging at Dania’s hair and whipping Jenn’s across her face.

‘Shall we do this in the car, Jenn?’

‘If you like.’

They sat in the back of the Skoda. Dania pulled out her notebook. She was good at putting people at their ease, and yet there was no need with this girl: she seemed completely in control of herself, gazing unblinkingly with pale blue eyes.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Gorska,’ Dania said with a smile.

Interest flickered on Jenn’s face. ‘You’re Polish, aren’t you?’

‘Can you tell from my name?’

‘From the way you speak. We’ve got some Polish girls in my class. They don’t sound like you, though. But their parents do.’

‘Which school do you go to?’

‘St John’s High. It’s a Catholic school.’

Dania hesitated. ‘How old are you?’

‘Seventeen. I like your jacket, by the way. It’s Black Watch tartan.’

‘Jenn, can you tell me how you found the scarecrow?’

‘I was cycling along the road and I happened to glance into the field.’ She ran her hands down her jeans. ‘I’ve seen that scarecrow lots of times, but it looked different today. So I went up for a closer look. I saw straightaway that someone had dressed a woman in the scarecrow’s clothes. And that she was dead.’

‘How do you know she was dead?’

The girl seemed to consider this. ‘The obvious indicator is that her hands are rigid. That’s rigor mortis.’

‘What were you doing cycling along this road?’

‘I was going to see Aleck. Aleck Docherty. He manages this estate,’ she added, indicating the surrounding fields with a nod of her head.

‘And he’s a friend of yours?’

‘Aye.’ Her expression softened. ‘I’ve known him all my life.’ She looked behind Dania’s head towards where Chirnside was standing staring at the scarecrow. ‘I helped him make that. That’s my old hat, the one with the poppy.’

She could have been describing herself in a photograph. ‘Whose estate is this?’ Dania said.

‘It belongs to the local laird, Graham Farquhar. He owns the land as far as the eye can see. And then a bit more.’

‘And where does he live?’

‘Go all the way down that road, and it’s behind the wood. Backmuir Hall. You can’t miss it. Think Downton Abbey and you’ve got some idea.’ She said it without a trace of irony. Or envy.

‘I’ll need your address, Jenn, as well as Aleck Docherty’s.’

‘I live on Oaktree Farm, north of Muirhead. Aleck lives further down this road. It’s not far from Liff village. Keeper’s Cottage. The name’s on the gate.’

‘Keeper’s Cottage? What does he keep, then?’ Dania said, trying a lame joke.

The girl looked at her steadily. ‘He’s a gamekeeper.’

‘Ah.’ After a pause, Dania said, ‘Do you cycle down this road often?’

‘Only when I go to see Aleck.’

‘And were you here yesterday?’

‘Aye, I dropped in to Keeper’s after school.’

‘Did you see anything unusual? People you don’t normally see round here? A car parked on the road?’

‘People don’t really park here,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way. ‘I can’t remember seeing anything out of the ordinary. I cycle along this road quite quickly.’ She looked past Dania towards the scarecrow. ‘I wouldn’t have noticed anything today if I hadn’t glanced across that field.’

‘Did you stay long with Aleck yesterday?’

The girl narrowed her eyes, making Dania feel that she’d crossed a line. ‘Maybe half an hour. I had to get home for tea.’

‘And how are you feeling?’ When the girl didn’t reply, Dania added gently, ‘It must have been a shock for you. It’s not every day you find a dead body.’

‘I’m used to finding dead bodies. The fields and roads are littered with them.’

‘Yes, but they’re animals.’

‘But they’re still dead.’ She shrugged, as if to take the sting out of the remark. Dania had the strangest sensation that she was speaking to an adult.

‘What do you do when you go to see Aleck?’

‘I help him on the estate.’

‘It’s Saturday. Wouldn’t you rather be with your school-friends?’

An expression Dania couldn’t read crossed the girl’s face. She shifted her gaze to a point behind Dania’s shoulder. ‘Your DI’s coming back,’ she said stiffly.

Chirnside was making his way across the field in long, loping strides.

Dania stepped out of the car, feeling the wind lift her hair. As Chirnside approached, she saw his face clearly. It was grey with shock.

He wiped the sweat from his upper lip. ‘Call it in, Dania.’ There was an edge of panic to his voice. ‘We need Forensics out here. And the procurator fiscal.’

‘Got it.’

‘What about the girl?’

‘She seems okay.’ Dania very nearly added, ‘But are you?’

‘And the statement?’

‘I’ve got everything we need for now.’

‘We’ll have to get her home.’

‘She lives not far from here, in Muirhead. I think she could probably cycle home.’

Jenn was getting out of the car. They turned and looked at her. She returned their gaze without blinking.

And the thought crossed Dania’s mind then that the girl had seen something, either here or elsewhere. Something that she didn’t yet recognise as significant.

It was now mid-morning and the Liff Road had been transformed. An entire section had been cordoned off and, because walkers in Backmuir Wood might use the exits in the boundary wall, police officers had been stationed along it at intervals. The area around the scarecrow was taped off, and rows of uniforms in reflective jackets were systematically searching through the wheat.

Dania, in protective suit and slippers, was getting her first good look at the victim. Seeing the pouched eyes and the hennaed hair, she realised she’d seen the woman before. It was when Chirnside lifted the ID card and Dania squinted at the photograph of the smiling face that it came to her: the woman had been interviewed, although Dania couldn’t now remember in what connection, and her photograph had appeared in the Dundee Courier.

‘Her name’s Judith Johnstone,’ Chirnside said wearily. He gestured to the ID. ‘That’s the crest of Dundee University.’

‘She’s wearing bright red lipstick.’

The remark caused the attending pathologist, who’d been standing watching the photographer, to turn. ‘We haven’t been introduced,’ he said in a bass voice. He had a Mick Jagger mouth that smiled easily. ‘I’m Professor Milo Slaughter.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I know. Great name for a pathologist.’

‘DS Dania Gorska.’

‘So what were you saying about lipstick?’

‘It’s been applied heavily, which means it has to be done carefully. But it’s been smeared.’

‘Go on.’

‘It suggests she’s been overpowered. Someone placing a hand over her mouth? Or maybe she’s been gagged.’

He threw Dania an appreciative look. ‘We’ll get an idea when we do the tests.’

‘I’m wondering if it’s a random killing, or whether she knew him.’

‘Too soon to tell,’ Chirnside said. He glanced at the pathologist. ‘Time of death, Prof?’

‘The body’s in full rigor. We’ve measured the ambient temperature and I’ll take the rectal when we get her down off the posts, but the more accurate potassium test can only be done in the lab.’

‘Your best guess?’

‘Yesterday afternoon.’ He stared at the scarecrow. ‘Strange way to crucify someone.’

Dania was about to press him, when a uniform called from the road. ‘We’ve found her car,’ he shouted to no one in particular.

‘Definitely hers?’ Chirnside shouted back.

‘We checked with the DVLA.’

‘So where is it?’

The man pointed south. ‘Round that corner, there’s a sharpish left turn with a sort of layby. It’s parked there. A Honda Civic. The keys are still in the ignition.’

‘Do you think she came to meet her killer, sir?’ Dania said.

‘It’s possible.’ Chirnside watched the photographer packing away his gear. ‘Any idea how she died, Prof?’

‘Too soon to say. There are no visible marks. You’ll have to wait till we get her down.’

‘There’s been no attempt to hide the corpse, or who she is,’ Dania said. ‘Clothes are sometimes removed to hide a person’s identity but that’s not the case here.’

Chirnside addressed himself to Milo. ‘How quickly can you get the PM authorised?’ he asked impatiently.

‘Monday at the earliest. But I’ll do a preliminary examination as soon as we get her back.’

‘Right.’ Chirnside marched off to speak to the SOCOs.

‘He’s in a bit of a hurry,’ Milo said, an amused expression in his eyes.

‘He’s a detective inspector. They’re always in a hurry.’ She gazed at the scarecrow. ‘Unusual thing to do,’ she murmured.

‘What is?’

‘Pose a body like this.’

‘You’d have to do it before rigor set in.’

‘It’s not impossible to dress a rigid corpse. We had a case like that in the Met.’

‘True. But look at the arms. They’re spread out. The legs too, although not as much. Once rigor’s advanced, you need considerable force to move limbs apart. My guess is he posed her here within a few hours of killing her.’

‘And once we have the time of death …’

‘… you’ll have some idea of when he brought the corpse here.’

‘Assuming he killed her elsewhere.’

‘And drove her car here with the body inside.’

Dania frowned. ‘He might have killed her here. In this field. Or she was still alive when he put her on the posts.’

‘Endless possibilities.’

‘He took a great risk. This seems to be the main road to Liff village. And, along there, you can see the traffic on the Coupar Angus Road.’

‘Suggests he erected this thing under cover of darkness.’

‘That’d be my guess.’

Milo signalled to one of his staff that it was time to move the corpse. ‘Will I see you later, DS Gorska?’ he said over his shoulder.

‘You will,’ she shouted to his retreating back.

Milo’s staff were working on loosening the soil underneath the scarecrow and, ordinarily, Dania would have observed the procedure. But she had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She turned and stared into Backmuir Wood. Someone, or something, was in there. She took a few steps towards the road, peering into the mass of trees with their intermeshed branches. A sudden gust of wind made them come alive, the wood creaking and groaning. The gust died just as suddenly, leaving behind an uneasy calm.

Chirnside returned. ‘They’re taking her to the lab the way she is. They’ll have to cut those sticks off her.’

‘Is the van wide enough, sir?’

‘It is if they turn her on her side. Amazing thing is, they’ve got extra-wide body bags.’ He glanced at Dania. ‘Let’s go,’ he added grimly.

As they walked up the road to where they’d left the car, her feeling of being watched returned. She stared again into the rustling woodland, wondering what was in there, yet seeing nothing.

Jenn pushed her bicycle into the yard of Oaktree Farm. She knew from the absence of the van that her mum was in Dundee’s High Street, selling eggs and cheese at the farmers’ market, something she did on the last Saturday of every month. She wouldn’t be back now till late afternoon.

Jenn wandered into the kitchen and sat at the scarred pine table, resting her chin in her hands. The Polish detective had been insistent that she should go straight home, so she’d called Aleck to say that she wouldn’t be coming over. A pity that, as he’d promised to let her drive his new tractor. She wondered if she should go over in the afternoon, but it was likely that the police would still be on the estate. They were probably on their way to interview him right now.

Her thoughts drifted to the scarecrow. Or tattie bogle, as it was known here. And her shock at finding the body dressed in the dungarees. So where would the woman’s own clothes be? Would the police find them somewhere on the estate? If so, what would that mean for Aleck? He’d surely be implicated. The notion made her sit up sharply. She should ring him. But would he want her bothering him at a time like this? If the police were with him? Probably not.

She gazed through the dusty windows at the barn. If she held her breath and listened, she could hear the clucking of the hens as they foraged in the dust, and pecked at each other, and did the things hens do. Other than the herd of dairy cows, whose milk her mum used to make her award-winning cheeses, the hens were an important source of income, as were the acres of land they rented out to the neighbouring farmer because her widowed mother could no longer manage the crops.

The thought of her mum working so hard always galvanised Jenn into action. But she’d helped clean the kitchen the day before, rubbing down the whitewashed walls and mopping the flagged floor, even scrubbing the inside of the Aga. And the cows had been milked and the eggs collected, so there was nothing more to do on the farm. Her time was her own. There was homework, of course, but that could wait.

She left the kitchen and took the stairs to the first floor. The second door on the left was ajar. She pushed it wide.

Despite facing south, the room was always chilly, and a faint musty smell lingered in the air. She flopped on to the wickerwork chair beside the blackened fireplace, and ran the toe of her trainer across the rag rug. The shelf behind her sagged ominously. She’d have to do something about that before it collapsed under the weight of books. And the Swiss-cheese plant needed watering.

She got to her feet and studied her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. Her close-fitting jeans and t-shirt showed her muscular body to good advantage. It was the swimming, no question. Every weekday before school, she cycled to the Olympia Centre on East Whale Lane, and swam one hundred lengths in the training pool, trying to avoid careering into the grey-haired ladies. These women would chat to each other while doing their sedate breaststrokes, careless of the human torpedo in the left-hand lane. The pool opened at 10.00 a.m. on a Saturday. Perhaps she should go there now.

She sat down at the small dressing table and searched through the array of make-up items for the wand of pink lipgloss. After applying it to her lips, she smoothed away the excess at the corners. The effect was hardly transformative, as the gloss was the exact same colour as her lips. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

She lay down on the bed, and reached behind her to finger the curtains falling over the sill. Her thoughts slipped back to the woman in the scarecrow. Jenn’s knowledge of rigor came not just from listening to the forensic pathologist, Nikki Alexander, on Silent Witness, but because she herself kept the bodies of dead animals and birds in the woodland bordering Oaktree. They’d usually been run over by speeding drivers and were mostly rabbits and crows, although she’d been lucky enough to find a red fox. As often as she could, and at least once a week, she would visit the site to study the process of decomposition and the effects of insect activity.

She closed her eyes. She badly wanted to see Aleck. He’d likely be on his own, as his partner worked as a volunteer in the library on a Saturday. She could walk through Backmuir Wood and spy on Keeper’s Cottage from the safety of the trees. Once the police left, it would be safe to go inside.

As always, once she’d made a plan, she was filled with a sense of determination to see it through. She sprang to her feet, and left her sister’s bedroom.

The procurator fiscal, a lean middle-aged woman with a cap of dark hair, peered over the corpse, watching Professor Slaughter cut away the clothes. He was bent over the body, giving everyone a good view of his comb-over hairstyle.

They were in Ninewells Hospital, in the cutting rooms of the Centre for Forensic and Legal Medicine. The University of Dundee, as Dania had learnt, was funded by the Scottish Crown Office to provide forensic autopsy and toxicology services, including medico-legal dissections, to the Tayside region as well as to Fife and Central. The room they were in had the same musky smell, overlaid with antiseptic, that Dania recognised from similar rooms in her time at the Met.

The woman’s body, still posed on sticks, had been placed face down on two steel tables, her head protruding over the edge. The bags from her head, hands and feet had been removed, and Milo was working up the body, cutting through the legs of the dungarees with slow, deliberate movements. As he snipped the second of the two straps, he pulled the dungarees apart, and the sticks fell away, revealing the back of Judith Johnstone’s legs. She was wearing tights and black knickers. The assistant gathered up the sticks and set them on another table, next to the scarecrow’s scarf, which Milo had helpfully told the assem