The Trail Killer

Twenty-eight

Weather conditions were identical to when she'd headed out there on Saturday with Bridcutt - brief, occasional flashes of sunshine peeking through a sky mottled mostly white and grey. The route she took was markedly different however. To hell with parking up at the trail entrance and battling her way up that damn hill again. No, this time she headed out onto the backroads, more through luck than judgement wound up on the one which snaked between the woods and the foot of the slope leading up to the farmhouse. Slowing to walking pace, she veered onto the tufty grass verge beneath the dry stone wall, tucked up as closely as possible in the hope the roof of the Marina would remain out of sight to any prying eyes above. The downside of the operation was that she was forced to somewhat ungraciously struggle herself out of the vehicle on the passenger side.

Once out into the breezy open air, she stood perfectly still for several moments, listened: a few distant baas of sheep, but no human voices. Glancing then around to get a precise measure of her bearings, she realised she'd parked around a hundred yards before the gate which linked the central woodland path to the rightward slant of the hiking trail over the Pitman land. In a more or less direct line through the trees to her left, meanwhile - a couple of hundred yards or so inside - was the spot where Joanne Renshaw had so suddenly and brutally met her end.

Although Shields was equally as convinced as Bridcutt that Pitman was their man, the location of the crime scene remained one of the two remaining questions she had yet to find a credible answer to. How exactly had Joanne ended up so far inside? The assertion of both Gooch and Bridcutt that she'd been pulled in at knifepoint still just didn't wash with her.

As the sun momentarily peeped through the clouds, her gaze chanced upon a bright spot of yellow amidst the undergrowth between two nearby trees. She strode over to take a look, stooped herself down. Some type of wildflower about to bloom. And yes, she remembered that one of the friends she'd interviewed the day Joanne had been reported missing had mentioned her passion for such things. Though as a primary school teacher she had of course been obliged to teach the full gamut of subjects, her specialisation had been in Biology. Could that have been it, Shields wondered? Joanne had been collecting wildflowers?

She explored further inside the treeline, her focus rotated down around her feet. Searched for more emerging spots of colour.

Magnetically almost, she found herself drawn in the direction where that ripped, bloodied corpse had lain in the undergrowth. Spent a quiet, respectful minute at the makeshift wooden cross she came across. A framed photograph of Joanne was propped against its base - her smile that of a young woman content in the knowledge that in all probability she still had half a century or more to left live, would some day find the right man, become a mother, progress in her career, experience many more of those rare, precious moments which made all life's travails worthwhile.

Whichever friend or relative it was who'd put together the ad hoc shrine had also left small glass jar, the water inside tea green in colour, a bunch of violets drooping over the top. As for wildflowers, however - no, Shields hadn't detected much. The odd faint prick of white or yellow or burgundy or blue, but nothing fully bloomed. The petals still tight and vertical, yet to unfurl.

Joanne's murder had taken place exactly two weeks earlier, Shields realised. She squinted her eyes to the watch face of her Casio: 10.41. Two weeks and roundabout an hour, to be precise. Easter had come early that year, still the month of March. Far too soon to be hunting down wildflowers in the woods.

And so the question still remained: why had Joanne ventured so far inside?

After picking her way back towards the road, Shields halted a couple of yards inside the treeline. The angle of her upward gaze cut through a couple of trunks towards the farmhouse at the top of the hill beyond.