Free Lying Dead by Aline Templeton Page A

Fleming could see the shadowy shapes of the fallen trees whose roots had tangled together to form this sheltering bank. Nodding an acknowledgement to the other officers grouped around, waiting for official confirmation of death, she splashed her way across the burn to stand beside him.
        At her approach Carstairs straightened up, glaring at her as he stripped off his rubber gloves. ‘This really is the outside of enough! When I agreed to accept this post there was no indication that mountaineering would form part of my duties!’
        ‘Of course not,’ Fleming agreed soothingly as she reached him, resisting the temptation to add that they would, of course, issue an immediate directive that no one must die above sea level. ‘Very difficult, I know. Have you had time to come to any conclusions yet?’
        ‘Well, I can certify death. Obviously.’
        Fleming looked down. The woman was lying on her back, her head turned to one side. She had been smartly, quite expensively dressed; she had a small diamond in her nose and a chunky gold earring in the ear that was visible. She was young, and the sickening injury under the matted mass of long dark hair was, indeed, eloquent proof.
        ‘And equally obviously,’ Carstairs went on, ‘the fatal injury was not self-inflicted. With the evidence of extensive bruising to the face and the absence of any possible agent of accident in the vicinity, I think we can risk assuming that we are talking about unlawful killing.’
        Fleming jerked her head at MacNee, who had been a silent observer. He nodded, then, signalling to one of the uniformed officers who was holding a radio phone, retreated with him out of earshot. That gave them all they needed to summon the pathology team.
        ‘Any estimate of time?’ Fleming asked.
        Carstairs pursed his mouth. ‘Not without a much more detailed examination than I am paid to do. But with the usual provisos about variations in temperature and so on, we might surmise from the absence of rigor mortis that death took place at least thirty-six hours ago.’
        ‘And at most?’
        ‘My good woman,’ he said witheringly, ‘if I could establish that, on the basis of the most cursory examination in semi-darkness, I would set up as a psychic.’
        ‘Mmm,’ Fleming said. When you were compressing your lips to prevent a tart response from escaping it was about all you could say.
        ‘What I can tell you, with a tolerable degree of certainty, is that the body was moved here after death. No sign of blood, for a start.
        ‘Now, perhaps I may be permitted to return home? We are having a dinner party tonight and my wife is relying on me to make my special dressing for the salad.’
        ‘See and give your hands a good wash first.’ MacNee had returned, earning himself a jab in the ribs as he muttered this in Fleming’s ear.
        ‘Of course, doctor,’ she said smoothly. ‘Thank you very much for dealing with this so promptly.’
        Carstairs grunted ungraciously, packed up his bag and picked his way back across the burn, uttering an expletive as a stone shifted under his foot and his shoe filled with water.
        Fleming turned to look again at the body. It had been protected from the worst of the rain by the overhanging roots, but even so the clothes were damp. She had been pretty, probably, before some brute beat her up and death slackened the skin of her face. She’d been young, anyway – late twenties, perhaps. Untimely death, however it came, always hit you hard, and now she felt horror, too, that someone’s rage – fuelled, more than likely, by drink or drugs or both – could reduce an attractive young woman to the sad remains lying before her now.
        Behind her, she heard one of the officers laughing, and almost swung round with a reprimand. But that was how they worked – how they had to work, if they were not to be overwhelmed by the tragedies of life that were