The Red Ribbon Girls by Adam J Wright

Author:Adam J Wright [Wright, Adam J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Dani arrives at headquarters to find the post-mortem report on Amy Donovan sitting on her desk. She reads it thoroughly but it doesn’t tell her anything she hadn’t already guessed. There were no signs of a struggle because, like the other women, Amy had been injected with a solution of diazepam suspended in saline. The injection was administered into her trapezius muscle. Death was due to drowning in the body of water in which she’d been found.

The report tells Dani nothing new, nothing helpful.

The forensic report is just as unhelpful. Rickman’s team has taken particles from the water and the grass in the area where Amy was found but apart from dog hairs and a couple of fibres that don’t match any of the fibres from the other crime scenes, there’s nothing earth-shattering, no clue that breaks the case open.

She looks up to see Matt Flowers approaching her desk with two mugs of coffee. He puts one in front of her.

“Thanks, Matt. Please tell me you have some good news regarding this case.”

“Afraid not, Guv.”

Dani slides the post-mortem report across the desk towards him. “Pull up a chair and read this.”

He does so, grabbing a spare chair from the next desk and poring over the report with an intense focus. When he’s done, he closes the folder and says, “Same as all the others. He drugs them and then drowns them.”

“Do you think he adds the red ribbon before he drowns them or after they’re dead?”

Matt shrugs. “Does is make a difference?”

She lets out a sigh. “Probably not. I just want to know every detail, no matter how small. What goes through his mind when he drowns them? Who do they remind him of after he’s added the ribbon?”

“Do you think he visits them later?” Matt asks. “Maybe he goes back again and again.”

“Maybe. That would be consistent with a lot of killers’ behaviour. And we always find them just as a thaw begins. Before that, they’re probably lying under a layer of ice for a few days.”

“Like a butterfly under glass,” Matt says.

Dani nods. “Yeah, he must visit them, admire his own handiwork. For him, it’s all about the visual he creates. So I’d say he goes back again and again to look at his creation.”

She swallows some of the coffee and says, “Andrew Thomas, the dog walker who found her. Did he see anyone hanging around in that area on any of the days previous to discovering the body?”

“No, Guv. He doesn’t always walk the dog at the same location. Said he hasn’t been to that particular spot in quite a while.”

“Has anybody else been up there recently? Hikers? Locals?”

“We’ve put up posters in the area and we’re inquiring at the local villages, B&Bs, and hotels. A walking group from Leeds was up there the day after Amy went missing and a couple of the members recall seeing a green Land Rover Defender parked by the side of the road but no one remembers the registration or any distinguishing marks on the vehicle.

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