Free African Sky by Tony Park Page B

course, and somehow, in death, looked more innocent than in life. But gone was the mischievous sparkle in her eyes; the insincere smile that she put on when talking to the Wingco; no tongue-poking behind Susannah Beattie’s back. She had been no angel, of that he was sure, but he hoped she was somewhere peaceful now. ‘It’s her,’ he said. He bit his lip at the sight of the angry ligature marks on the soft skin of her neck.
    â€˜For the record, this is Felicity Langham?’ Hayes asked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    Pip ignored Hayes, the doctor and the body. She looked across the table straight into Bryant’s eyes. If he didn’t love the dead woman, he had at least been with her, she thought. Those were not the eyes of a detached superior officer gazing on the body of an airwoman under his command. Bryant was reliving memories – of quite what, she could not know. If she’d had her way, she would have studied him for as long as he wanted to gaze at her and remember.
    Instead, Hayes cut the moment short. ‘Well, that’s that then. On to the next, if you please, Doctor.’
    Apart from being quietly appalled at Hayes’ lack of sympathy, she was furious that he had given Bryant a chance to recompose himself and get back to business. She assumed his reaction to the viewing of the pilot’s body would be markedly different.
    Bryant opened the folder he was carrying. She noticed he didn’t flinch as the doctor pulled back the sheet and revealed the gory mess that was Smythe’s face. The eyes were gone, only empty sockets encrusted with dried black blood remained. The cheeks, too, had been torn in places by the scavengers’ hooked beaks.
    â€˜Says in the file he’s got a “distinguishing mark”, a large brown birthmark on his back, on the upper right shoulderblade. Can you roll him over, Doc?’ Bryant said.
    â€˜Of course,’ the doctor replied.
    Pip gagged and turned away. There had been a lingering smell of rotting meat in the room when they entered, and she could handle that, but the pulling back of the starched sheet and the movement of the body had intensified the smell incredibly. Apart from Felicity Langham, she had seen only one dead body so far in her six months as an auxiliary policewoman: a man who had been killed in a car crash. It had been a bloody affair but, as a farmer’s wife, she was used to the sight of gore. The smell of this corpse, however, was unlike anything she had ever encountered. As the doctor moved the body, an audible whoosh of bodily gas escaped.
    Pip felt the blood drain from her face. She clamped a hand over her mouth and nose to shut out the vile odours and hold back her bile, and mentally cursed her weakness when she noticed Hayes grinning at her.
    â€˜Try breathing through your mouth,’ Bryant said to her. ‘He’s our man, Doc. Sergeant James Gerald Smythe, Royal Air Force, aged nineteen.’
    â€˜Thank you, Squadron Leader,’ Hayes said, taking the details down in his notebook. ‘Anything you can tell us at this stage, Doctor Strachan?’
    Pip swallowed hard and glanced over at Bryant. She had been right about him, although it was cold comfort after the way she had very nearly embarrassed herself in front of the three men. She had wanted desperately to throw up, but managed to suppress it. Bryant was back to what she now regarded as his usual hard-bitten, melancholy demeanour. He was all business when it came to identifying the body of yet another one of his pilots. Hayes, again, was showing his stupidity by getting the doctor talking in front of someone who was proving to be of more interest by the hour in the investigation of Felicity Langham’s death.
    â€˜Starting with the woman, Miss Langham, as we now know her, died of strangulation.’
    â€˜What did the killer use? Bare hands?’ Hayes asked.
    â€˜There are ligature marks, as though something was wrapped around her