Free Dying to Meet You by Patricia Scott Page A

him and he nearly keeled over to join her. Still shaking, coming in closer, to look down again into the water, he could see her large bloodshot blue eyes, and gaping mouth, the bedraggled blue silk flower like an anemone pinned in her blonde hair. There was a pendent necklace glinting silver on her swollen neck under the water, her hands tied together behind her back by a heavy rope which was attached to a paddle boat tethered to the grassy bank.
    He had fumbled clumsily with the mobile in his uniform jacket pocket and dialled the local police station.
    When they arrived he had straightened himself up to meet them.
    ‘Take your dog away, now, please, Mr Wherrett. You live in the cottage by the park gates? Right. Go back home now. Have a cup of tea and someone will come and question you presently.’ Peterson said to the pale and still visibly agitated Park Keeper.
    ‘Thank you, Superintendent. I’ll be there when you need me.’
    Peterson stared down into the water. The girl looked as if she had been strangled. Was she a local girl or a holidaymaker? It was going to be difficult to identify her without a stitch of clothing. They had to hope that her family came forward soon to report her missing.
    The Scene of Crime officers started covering the grass banks and gravel paths inch by inch looking for clues and taking essential pictures. Granger arrived soon afterwards to swell their numbers. ‘Good morning, Superintendent. You nearly didn’t get me,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘I was called out for an emergency; a home birth early this morning. Baby was a whopper nearly ten and half pounds. Hello, what have we got here then? God! No - don’t tell me, is this another one?’
    ‘It seems like it.’
    ‘Another young woman submerged in water.’ He shook his head and groaned. ‘Can’t you find any attached to the land for me?’ he said waiting for them to carefully untie and detach the body from the paddle boat and bring it up out of the water.
    ‘She’s young - hardly more than a school kid,’ he commented as the body was brought out and put down carefully on the grassy bank. ‘She’s taken a battering about the head like the first victim but not gutted like the last one,’ he said looking down at the sad battered face of the young victim.
    ‘Death by strangulation, the throat bruised like before - there’s something twisted around a silver chain with a pendant attached.’ He queried this with his eyes on Peterson and Farmer. ‘Possibly been sexually assaulted.’
    ‘Thanks, Granger.’
    ‘Same as before then, practically,’ Farmer said grimly with a frown.
    Peterson shook her head and sighed. ‘When is it going to stop? How’s he picking them? Just look at her. This youngster ... she’s barely out of the cradle. It’s going to worry all the local parents sick.’
    ‘ I think this is the connection,’ the police surgeon said as he indicated again the silver chain that was wound tightly into the raw, bruised neck. ‘If I’m not mistaken this girl is wearing a pendant which is very similar to those belonging to the other two victims.’
    ‘Well so she is,’ said Trask taking a closer look and chewing briskly on his gum. ‘What does it mean?’
    ‘That’s what you’ll have to find out,’ said Peterson. ‘Jude Van Hoet wore one and Linda. Jude Van Hoet’s was an expensive gold number decorated with small diamonds and this one is set in silver. But it’s the same astrological sign of Cancer the crab,’ she said taking a closer look examining the tiny silver pendant with her gloved hand. ‘Well at least it’s a start. Something to work on. Tell the Park keeper to keep the gates closed till the forensics are done here. We don’t want crowds getting in the way.’
    ‘Let’s hope that somebody comes forward quick to identify the girl.’
    ‘There must be somebody who had reported that she’s gone missing,’ Trask said thinking of his own young daughters back at home. He wondered how he