Free Child's Play by Alison Taylor

for now, but first things first. She died from asphyxia due to drowning in salt water, but there’s also a great deal of mud, vegetable and other debris in her mouth, some of which gravitated to her lungs, indicating shallow water. She ingested a small amount of food about five hours before she died, which was probably no later than the early hours of Wednesday morning.’
    ‘ How d’you know?’
    ‘ I said probably , Michael,’ the pathologist reminded him. ‘Some fifty hours elapsed between when she was last seen on Tuesday and her being pulled out of the water this afternoon. Taking all known factors into account, including the effect of immersion on the process of decomposition, she’s been dead some forty-three to forty-six hours.’ He paused and McKenna heard paper rustle. ‘The body’s free of disease, she didn’t smoke, and I found no alcohol and no signs of the use of controlled substances. Oddly, she wasn’t particularly well-nourished — in fact, her stomach’s a little shrunken. The hymen,’ he went on, ‘was ruptured, but not necessarily through sexual intercourse. Riding, gymnastics and tampons are other possible culprits. There was no semen present, she wasn’t pregnant and hadn’t given birth. When the diatom tests are completed I’ll be able to tell you approximately where she drowned.’
    ‘ She seems to have entered the water about two hundred yards downstream of Britannia Bridge. You should have samples from the area within the hour.’
    ‘ Why d’you say “seems”?’
    McKenna rubbed his forehead. ‘Bryn followed her from the school to the water’s edge, but that doesn’t constitute proof. The scent could be a leftover from another trip, particularly as she went via the stables.’
    ‘ He’s not stupid! He’d have trailed her back were that the case. She was hardly likely to swim home up the Strait.’
    ‘ Are you sure she didn’t go off one of the bridges?’
    ‘Fall ers and jumpers usually look as if they’ve dropped a hundred and fifty feet onto concrete instead of water. She hasn’t got a single broken bone.’
    ‘ A man fell off Menai Bridge some years ago and survived with barely a scratch.’
    ‘ Quite,’ Roberts agreed. ‘I look on him as the exception that proves the rule.’
    ‘ You’re not helping, Eifion.’
    ‘ That’s what I meant by balanced probabilities.’
    ‘ Then tell me what probabilities to balance.’
    ‘ Although you don’t know enough about her to discount suicide, there are more certain ways of disposing of yourself than lying face down in the shallows.’
    ‘ So what about an accident?’ McKenna argued. ‘Perhaps she fell and stunned herself.’
    ‘But what was she doing there at that time of night in the first place? She wasn’t dressed for trysting.’
    ‘ Girls don’t necessarily, these days.’
    ‘B ut they will dab on the lipstick and perfume, which she hadn’t. In my view, she’d thrown on the first things to hand and that suggests she went out in a hurry, probably to do something of a practical nature. Don’t forget,’ Roberts went on, ‘she was ready for bed when last seen. Who saw her, by the way? Did she speak to them?’
    ‘ No. Two form mates just caught a glimpse of her.’ McKenna fidgeted with his pen. ‘Aren’t you making a lot of assumptions?’
    ‘ I’m creating a hierarchy.’ After a moment’s silence Roberts asked, ‘You say she went to the stables? Any idea why?’
    ‘ Not a clue. Her horse was in the paddock with the others on Wednesday morning. Nor was there a single hoof print anywhere near the trail Bryn followed.’
    ‘ Right. I’ll get back to work and I need to know as soon as possible about any injuries or falls she’d had in the past month or so.’
    ‘ How badly damaged is the body?’
    ‘ She’s had less of a battering than people usually get in the Strait, but there are still plenty of contusions and lacerations, including some to the head. But such are the biochemical