Free Blood Substitute by Margaret Duffy

is.’
    â€˜My name is Ingrid Langley. Please be so good as to tell him I’m here.’
    He looked dubious but went away, returning quite quickly.
    â€˜You were with Lieutenant-Colonel Gillard?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜You may go in.’
    I threaded my way between the vehicles, endeavouring not to slip over in the mud that had arrived in the yard. Lights had been rigged inside what I already knew to be the house’s normally gloomy interior, a generator humming in the comparative shelter of the open tractor shed. Stepping over cables, I went indoors. The hallway seemed to be full of people but the two dead ones lying on the floor in the cordoned-off front room where figures wearing anti-contamination suits worked took centre stage.
    It was obvious, right from the start – in other words due to the stench – that they had been there for several days. One did not have to be very clever, or observant, to see that they had been subjected to severe torment, exposed areas of skin bruised, the clothes blood-soaked and not related to the cause of death, a single shot to the head from behind.
    â€˜What brought you here, Miss Langley?’ asked the man standing nearest to me: Hume.
    I told him, adding, ‘Do you know who they were?’
    â€˜No, not yet. There’s no identification on them.’
    For some reason I found myself stammering. ‘Are … are there letters or initials carved on the bodies?’
    He gazed at me in surprise. ‘We haven’t got that far yet. What makes you think there might be?’
    â€˜Patrick’s working on the Cliff Morley case and I’m wondering if they’re the two informers he’s looking for in Bristol. There are similarities between the state of these bodies and Morley’s.’
    Hume appeared to find this far-fetched but said, ‘Well, we won’t be able to tell until the PMs are done – not with all that bloodstaining. We’re still waiting for the pathologist to arrive – I reckon he’s got himself well and truly lost.’
    I doubted it was the same two men – I had not seen any mugshots of the Bristol pair, if indeed they had criminal records – as it seemed too much of a coincidence. To Hume I said, ‘It might save a lot of work if you sent photos of these two to the Avon and Somerset force – Superintendent Paul Reece. He’s at HQ in Portishead. Would you do that?’
    â€˜You mean it might not be my case at all?’ he enquired after due thought.
    I gave him a sweet smile. ‘No.’
    He did not give me a straight answer and carried on directing the procedings. I hung around. The pathologist, from Exeter, eventually turned up, furious because he had damaged his new car on a stone wall negotiating a tight turn. After an interminable wait while he did what he had to, during which time I went outside for some fresh air and to check on the baby swallows, Hume came out, hurried through the rain into the building where the Land Rover had been housed and called me over.
    â€˜I asked Doctor Greene to examine the bodies for any knife marks,’ he said. ‘It meant swabbing down their torsos but yes, you’re right. I’ll get those pictures off to Portishead as soon as possible.’
    â€˜Could you make out any actual letters?’
    â€˜Not really. Not under these somewhat primitive conditions. Possibly BB or RB. As I said, we’ll know more at the post-mortems.’
    â€˜Could they be RK?’
    â€˜It’s possible.’
    â€˜Has the pathologist any idea if they were killed here, or elsewhere?’
    â€˜We haven’t discussed that yet but seeing there was very little blood beneath the bodies when they were moved I’d say they were dead, or very nearly so, when they arrived.’
    It was important to get hold of Patrick. This I endeavoured to achieve, sitting in the car, by doing what he had done, calling his mobile,