Her gaze moves lower, alights on the woman’s black dress and her shoes. One strappy sandal is half off, the woman’s perfect inky-blue pedicure visible. Elin wants to preserve this fragment of the woman in her mind—the one part of her untouched.
“Any ID?”
“No, and I don’t see a bag or phone. Either she didn’t have them on her, or they’ve gotten lost somewhere in the fall.” Jon clears his throat. “I think we’ll take the boat back, leave you to it, if you’re good to take it from here.”
His words propel her into action. Reaching into her bag, Elin pulls out her kit, forensic suits, overshoes, and gloves, then passes a set to Steed.
“Okay for me to go in?” Rachel pulls up the hood of her own suit.
Elin nods. They scramble into their suits, the rustling of the paper amplified in the quiet. They wait while Rachel photographs the body, the pool of blood around her head.
A few minutes later, Rachel puts the camera aside, starts patting down the body, examining the small pockets at the sides of the woman’s dress. She confirms they’re empty.
“The rigor?”
She considers. “I’d say it still isn’t complete. She’s been here longer than a few hours but not more than twelve.”
That gives Elin something to work with—the woman probably fell in the early hours of the morning.
“Can we turn her over? Look for any other wounds?” In particular, Elin’s looking for signs of an attack: a gunshot, puncture wounds.
Steed steps carefully around the body until he’s directly opposite Rachel. On the count of three, they turn the woman. Rachel examines her back and legs. “Nothing. Can’t see any other abrasions apart from collateral damage from the fall, scratches to her hands and arms. No obvious defensive wounds either, no bruising or signs of restraint around her wrists. Fingernails look clean.”
Elin nods. From what Rachel’s said, this may have been just a fall, but she can’t discount the possibility that she was pushed. A well-aimed, careful shove from behind would result in the same outcome without any obvious defensive wounds.
As Rachel picks up her camera, Elin turns to Steed. “Let’s cordon off the area with tape. Establish a common approach path and start a scene log. I can’t imagine there’s going to be anyone wandering about, but just in case. If you’re okay to preserve the scene, I’m going to update Anna, then check in with Leon.”
“Sounds good.” Steed steps forward, face flushed.
Elin hesitates. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He clears his throat. “It’s just—we had something similar happen with a family member . . . It brings it back.”
As Elin says a few reassuring words, it’s clear from his rapid blinks that he’s still riding the feeling. She wants to offer comfort but knows if she gives in to any kind of emotion she’ll lose the focus she’s desperately clinging to.
“Right,” Elin says finally, giving a nod. “I’ll see you in a bit.” Taking off her suit, she starts back over the rocks, but a few yards from the scene, she stops, blinded by a sudden, sharp glint from the cliff above. When she turns her head, it’s gone, but the glint reappears as she walks: a hazy semicircular glow flickering in the center of her vision each time she blinks.
It takes a while to leave her, but even when it does, Elin still feels unsettled.
She’s picking up on something scorched about the island, a strange stillness that seems unnatural somehow, malevolent.
14
Hana wakes up sweaty, sheets twisted around her in a knot. Her head is pounding, the room is shifting on its axis as she sits up, the rattan chair in the corner and the cheese plant beside it stretching and elongating before her eyes.
The sensation makes her feel disoriented, anxious, and for a moment, she’s back there—the panic-filled days after Liam’s death. Not just one grief but two: the loss of Liam and also the loss of their dream of starting a family, snuffed out before they’d gotten off the starting blocks. A few months before his accident, they’d taken tentative steps toward IVF.
Hana was consumed by regrets.
Why hadn’t they started the process sooner? Taken action rather than just talked about it? At least she’d have had something of Liam. Something to hold on to while everything else fell away.
Another surge of nausea.
Swinging her legs out of bed, Hana walks to the sink in the bathroom and refills her glass. She reaches for her transparent zip-up toiletry bag filled with medical supplies. She’s turning into her mother, she thinks, popping two tablets from the foil packet of paracetamol. Always be prepared.