Thomas & Charlotte Pitt 29 - Death On Blackheath Read Online Free PDF

face. He indicated the older man, who was shorter than Pitt and slightly built, his brown hair liberally sprinkled with grey. ‘This is Dr Whistler,’ he introduced him. He did not bother to explain who Pitt was. Presumably that had been done before he arrived.
    Whistler inclined his head. ‘Morning, Commander. Nasty one, I’m afraid.’ There was a rough edge to his voice from perhaps more than the wretched morning, and an unmistakable pity in his face. He stepped back as he spoke, so Pitt could see behind him a rough cloth covering the body they had found.
    Pitt took a deep breath of the air, cold and clean, then he bent to remove the cloth. In summer there would have been a smell, but the wind and the ice had kept it at bay. The body had been severely mutilated. Most of the face was so damaged as to be unrecognisable: the nose split, the lips removed as if by a knife. The eyes themselves were gone, presumably taken by scavenging animals. Only the arch of the brow was left to give an idea of their shape. The flesh was stripped from the cheeks, but the jawbone and teeth were intact. One could only imagine how her smile might have been.
    Pitt looked at the rest of her body. She was quite tall, almost Charlotte’s height, and handsomely built, with a generous bosom, slender waist, long legs. Her clothes had protected most of her from the ravages of animals, and the normal decay had not yet reached the stage of disintegration. Pitt forced himself to look at her hair. It was wet and matted from exposure to the elements, but it was still possible to see that when one took the pins out it would fall at least half-way down her back, and that once dry it would be thick and of a deep chestnut colour.
    Was it Kitty Ryder? Probably. They had said she was tall, handsomely built, and had beautiful hair, a shade of auburn like that found on the area steps, with the blood and glass.
    He looked back at the surgeon. ‘Did you find anything to indicate how she died?’ he asked.
    Whistler shook his head. ‘Not for certain. I think there are some broken bones, but I’ll have to get her back to the morgue to remove her clothes and look at her much more carefully. Nothing obvious. No bullets, no stab wounds that I can see. She wasn’t strangled and there’s no visible damage to the skull.’
    ‘Anything to identify her?’ Pitt asked a little sharply. He wanted it not to be Kitty Ryder. He would be very relieved if the body had no connection to the Kynaston house, except a reasonable proximity. More than that, he wanted it to be a woman he knew nothing about, even though they would still have to learn. Nobody should die alone and anonymously, as if they did not matter. He would just prefer it to be a regular police job.
    ‘Possibly,’ Whistler said, meeting Pitt’s eyes. ‘A very handsome gold fob watch. I looked at it carefully. Unusual and quite old, I think. Not hers, that’s for sure. It’s very definitely a man’s.’
    ‘Stolen?’ Pitt asked unhappily.
    ‘I should think so. Most likely recently, or she wouldn’t be carrying it around with her.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    Whistler pursed his lips. ‘A handkerchief with flowers and initials embroidered on it, and a key. Looks like the sort of thing that would open a cupboard. Too small to be a door key. Might be a desk, or even a drawer, although not many drawers have separate keys.’ He looked across at the sergeant. ‘I gave it all to him. I’m afraid that’s it, for the meantime.’
    Pitt looked back at the body again. ‘Did animals do that to her, or was it deliberate?’
    ‘It was deliberate,’ Whistler replied. ‘A knife rather than teeth. I’ll know more about it when I look at her more closely, and not by the light of a bulls’-eye lantern when I’m freezing up here on the edge of a damn gravel pit at the crack of dawn. It looks like the bloody end of the world up here!’
    Pitt nodded without answering. He turned to the sergeant, holding his hand out,