Secrets of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

– they retained heat that would otherwise be lost as the blood stopped flowing and the muscles relaxed. Children and the elderly lost body heat faster than adults. A victim who had been in ill health would also lose heat more rapidly.
    Yet here it was all irrelevant. The nature of the victim’s death had destroyed his first line of forensic examination.
    ‘Mr Roger Farrell, aged forty-five, with an address in Nottingham,’ said Carol Villiers. ‘The BMW is registered to him and his driving licence is in his wallet, along with credit cards, a Tesco Clubcard and a National Trust membership card. Not much cash, but I don’t suppose he needed it today.’
    Cooper pointed at the windscreen, where a parking ticket was stuck to the glass.
    ‘Just enough for the parking charge.’
    Carol Villiers had always been an outdoor girl andthe first bit of sun brought out the colour in her face. Sometimes Cooper was struck by how pale her eyes were. Sandy, as if bleached in a desert climate. They’d gone to school together, studied for their A-levels at High Peak College at the same time, got a bit drunk with a group of mates in a local pub when they received their results. She had been a good friend whom he’d been sorry to say goodbye to when she’d left to sign up with the RAF Police. She’d be the first to say that she’d changed now. She was much tougher, more confident. Experience had shaped her in those years she’d been away.
    Though he’d known her for such a long time, there were subjects Carol Villiers never talked to him about. One was her husband, Glen, who had been killed in Helmand Province on a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
    The medical examiner was straightening up from a crouching position, half in and half out of the car. His scene suit rustled and Cooper could see he was sweating underneath it. Trickles of perspiration ran from his temples into the neck of the suit. He’d been in the job for a long time and was probably unfit. He would never make it as a police officer, though he was a person they often had to reply on.
    ‘There isn’t a hope of getting a time of death,’ he said, confirming Cooper’s suspicion. ‘Not from the body temperature, anyway.
Rigor
might tell us something. In my opinion, you’d be better looking for witnesses or other circumstantial evidence to establish how long he’s been dead.’
    Cooper nodded. Oh, great. Another one who wasreluctant to commit himself. But it was understandable in this case.
    He looked around the car park and scanned the roof line of the information centre, searching for cameras.
    ‘CCTV?’ he said.
    Villiers shook her head. ‘Nothing. It’s been discussed because the woods here are supposed to be a well-known dogging site. But there’s no money in the budget.’
    ‘No big surprise there.’
    It was one of the things you got used to in a rural area, outside the centre of town. No coverage from CCTV cameras.
    ‘So who found the body?’ he asked.
    ‘One of the staff at the information centre,’ said Villiers. ‘Her name is Marnie Letts. She’s still a bit upset, I’m afraid. The experience has knocked her sideways.’
    ‘We’ll treat her gently.’
    It was standard practice for staff at sites like Heeley Bank to alert the police in these circumstances, though usually it was just a stolen vehicle, abandoned by joy-riders in a quiet spot. With luck, the car would be relatively undamaged and could be returned to its owner. Occasionally, a vehicle was found burned out and stood ruining the view until the insurance company arranged its removal.
    Not this one, though. The BMW was different.
    Villiers read from her notes. ‘When Miss Letts turned up for work this morning, the blue BMW was still in the car park from yesterday. She wiped the moistureoff the window and said she could see the shape of a man slumped in the driver’s seat. His face was turned away from her and his head had slipped sideways at an unnatural angle. When she made the