She reached off-camera and returned with a large, neon-coloured can in one hand, and a small evidence bag in the other. She held up the bag to the camera while she took a big slurp from the can. A trickle of luminous orange liquid dribbled down her chin.
“What are we looking at?” asked Ben, squinting at the out-of-focus contents of the bag.
“It’s a ring. Gold,” Shona said. “Geoff must’ve missed it. No wonder, it was sort of fused with the flesh and blackened like the rest of the body.”
“Lovely,” Tyler remarked.
“It’s a wedding ring, I’d say, except it was on the wrong hand. Ring finger on the right hand instead of the left. I’m going to get someone from Geoff’s team to come over and collect it, and they can do their stuff on it.”
“Any markings? Engravings?” Ben asked.
“Address and phone number of his next of kin?” Hamza added.
“Not sure,” Shona admitted. “Probably not that last one, though. It’ll need cleaned up before we can get anything like that.”
From elsewhere in the station there came a knocking. A swift rat-a-tat-tat of someone at the door. Ben nudged Tyler and gave a little jerk of his head. “Better get that, son. There’s no one else in.”
“On it, boss,” said Tyler, who was secretly quite relieved to be getting away from the call. The nitty-gritty of the post-mortem procedure was generally not something he enjoyed digging into.
He left the room with a skip in his step, and pulled the Incident Room door closed behind him.
A moment later, before the conversation could go much further, he opened the door again, and leaned his head around it.
“Eh, I don’t know if it’s just my imagination,” he said. “But I think Jesus might be at the door.”
Shona knocked back another swig of her energy drink, then returned to the black rectangle on her screen which had, until just a moment ago, been a window filled with people she knew.
She watched it until she’d finished the can, quietly hoping that the call might resume, and they could pick up where they’d left off.
Besides, if it really was the Lord Jesus Christ who was at the door, she’d have quite liked to have said hello.
She added the empty can to the pyramid she was building on the floor by her desk, stood frozen for a few seconds while she waited to see if it would collapse, then she sat back in her chair, rocked it from side to side, and tapped her hands on her legs.
Ben was right, of course. She should go home. She needed to rest.
But she hadn’t been home on her own in a long, long time.
And she wasn’t about to start now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The man at the door, Ben and Hamza both had to admit, did have a certain Christ-like quality about him. He had worked hard to cultivate it, too, not just in his physical appearance and the way he dressed, but in the air of calm and serenity he worked so very hard to project.
“Bonjour. I was told to meet Detective Chief Inspector Logan here,” he said, still standing outside while the three detectives stared at him in equal parts confusion and amusement.
“You’re French,” Tyler told him.
“Oui. Yes. My name is André Douville. I am the chaperone at Westerly Wellness. You know, the retreat?”
“On the wall. In the caravan,” Tyler said.
It was André’s turn to look confused. “Pardon?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Hamza. “We’ve heard of you, aye.”
“You’d best come in,” Ben said, stepping aside. “DCI Logan isn’t back yet, but if he said to meet him here, I’d imagine he’ll be here soon. You can come in and wait.”
While André hitched up his long white robe and stepped inside, Tyler stole a glance at his watch. “Don’t forget we’re meant to be going to the pub for lu…” he began, then he course corrected. “…for the investigation. To investigate. For the purposes of…” He tapped the watch. “We were going to go there in half an hour.”
“Aye, well, I’m sure we can delay it, if necessary,” Ben said. Try as he might, though, he was unable to hide his own disappointment. “For a few minutes, anyway. Here, Mr…”
“Douville.”
“Take a seat. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”
André lifted his nose higher in the air, like he was sniffing out his options. “What kinds of tea do you have?”
Ben pulled a buggered if I know face and looked to Tyler and Hamza for assistance.