The Scent of Death

Three

Plot reminder: Jennifer believes there may be a link between the Kayleigh Harrison and Meghan Shaw cases.

*

As expected, the following day proved as bleak and enervating as the one which had preceded it. The cold was breath-snatching, the mist a constant, stubborn veil. Though in my time as a cadaver dog handler I'd deepened my sense of oneness with the natural world, and drawn enormous satisfaction from pushing my body to the very limits of exhaustion, there were days too in which pleasure was simply not to be found. Days which you just had to slog and heave your way through.

As I had also expected - subsconsciously perhaps - the day would prove a fruitless one. Lightning simply doesn't strike twice, and Meghan Shaw's remains were not to be found. By five-thirty I and the rest of the team were loading our overnight bags and spent, selfless dogs into our vehicles at the bed and breakfast car park.

Ours had been a two-day brief only. Between us, we had covered a ten-mile radius from the point where Meghan had said goodbye to her friend Amy seven days earlier, a surface area of more than three hundred square miles. With the police unable to provide any geo-specific leads, there was little more we could reasonably do for now. It was time to return to our normal lives, occupy ourselves with things other than the grim search for death. Bob and Maureen had their two teenage sons to usher towards adulthood, Ollie Vern his hillside of grazing sheep to tend, Paul Moore his cancer-suffering wife to succour and love.

And me? Oh, nothing quite so noble or urgent as my colleagues perhaps. Yet even so, I was eager to put the finishing touches to the children's book cover I'd recently been commissioned to do, see what other projects my agent had lined up for me. Immerse myself in a much softer and more inviting world than the one which for the previous forty-eight hours I'd been obliged to traverse.

Our goodbyes were thus brief and contained, a volley of valedictory calls and slammed car doors in the evening mist. As my shivering hand fumbled the key into the ignition, there was a rap of a knuckle at the glass beside me. Glancing up, I could see the tall, lean figure of Dominic Kelso gesturing that I should roll down the window for a moment.

"Just had Wilkins on the phone," he began, folding himself down to my level. "Height, estimated period of death, it all fits." His eyes were shadowed hollows, the streetlight above illuminating only his bald dome and creviced forehead. "They're running a DNA test from the bone marrow, should have the results tomorrow morning."

After offering a nod of gratitude for the update, I reached once more for the ignition key, ready to twist. Kelso remained there motionless at the half opened window however.

"I wasn't at all surprised yesterday you know. That you two came up trumps, I mean. I remember that very first training session, I could see it straight away. How determined you were." He nodded towards the back seat, from where a succession of faint canine snores could already be heard. "What a fine specimen Dudley is."

Though his words were welcome, spirit-lifting even, I could sense it coming: first the praise, then the admonishment.

"This is a team though, Jennifer, please remember that. Maybe you could, you know..." He let out an exhale, gave up trying to find a euphemistic way of putting it. "Be more of a team player I suppose."

I didn't respond because I wasn't supposed to respond. My task was simply to reflect, that was all, like some bright but problematic schoolgirl on the receiving end of a gentle chiding.

"Why don't you try to seek help, Jennifer? That's all I'm saying." He now reared himself back upright, his face disappearing from view. "A psychologist or what have you. There must be someone."