Page 11 of Three Widows

She ducked her head back inside the tent. ‘Grainne, any idea how long she’s been dead?’

‘Maybe five or six hours, and she’s been out in the open long enough for the birds to disfigure her. The pathologist will give you a more definite answer.’

Lottie walked with Boyd back along the stepping plates. ‘We need to establish who she is. That will give us a starting point.’

‘Why dump her here?’ he said. ‘Does it hold some significance for her murderer?’

‘She wasn’t killed here, that much is obvious. Someone went to the trouble of transporting her body and leaving it out in the open to be found. Why?’

‘Wait for the post—’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Lottie walked to the edge of the cordon. ‘But it strikes me that she was posed and left to be found. Who does that?’

‘An arrogant son of a bitch.’

She took off her overshoes. ‘Where’s the guy who called it in?’

Boyd pointed to a man sitting in the passenger seat of a squad car, door open, smoking a cigarette. ‘Graham Ward, aged twenty-seven. Lorry driver. He drove straight here from the docks. Arrived at six twenty. Parked in Bay 13 and walked over for a smoke.’

Lottie approached the car. ‘Mr Ward, I’m Detective Inspector Lottie Parker. Can you tell me what led you to discover the body?’

‘Just having a smoke. There were birds on top of her. They flew off when I got a fit of coughing. Never seen a dead body before and don’t want to ever again. It was the yellow material, you know. I saw that from my lorry as I drove in. And the birds…’ His body convulsed in a long shiver. ‘Just wandered over to see what it was. Never expected… you know…’ He gulped. ‘Sorry.’

The tremor in his hands was so bad he let the cigarette fall to the ground, where it sizzled in a puddle.

‘See anyone else around?’

‘Just the lads operating the lift at the bay. They began unloading the lorry and I left for my smoke.’

‘Do you know her?’ Lottie asked.

‘The dead woman? I never saw her before in my life. Was she shot? It looked like a bullet wound to me.’

‘And you’d know a bullet wound, would you?’

‘Not a real one like that. Just what you see on the telly. You can’t think I have anything to do with it?’

‘Not at all, but we will need a formal statement, fingerprints and a DNA sample. Elimination purposes.’

‘I never touched her. I couldn’t do anything like… like that. Her arms and legs… God, it’s brutal.’

‘I know, Graham,’ Boyd said. ‘It’s a shock to the system. We’ll get you to the station for that statement.’

‘What about my lorry?’

‘You’ll be dropped back here.’ Boyd turned to the garda driver and instructed him to bring Ward to the station.

When they were alone, Lottie said, ‘He didn’t do it.’

‘I figured that. What’s your rationale?’

She shrugged, looking around her. ‘The depot cameras will have recorded him arriving. Once we have time of death, and confirm his movements, we’ll know for sure. Get the footage and have McKeown examine it.’

Detective Sam McKeown was their go-to CCTV guy. A pain in the arse, but he was good at his job.

‘Where’s Kirby this morning?’ Boyd asked.

‘That’s just what I was wondering,’ Lottie said.