They walked a few yards along the road, noting the officers and CSIs probing the ditch and long grass for any clues as to what might have happened. There was a chance that the girl’s clothes and bag were nearby. A purse or mobile could help them with the identification. Others had climbed over the drystone wall and were searching for anything that might have been thrown there. Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy with his trusty Pentax, which he wouldn’t give up despite offers of a state-of-the-art digital SLR. He took digital photographs, too, of course, with a pocket Cyber-shot, as did many of the CSIs and investigating officers these days, but the Pentax shots were the “official” ones, the pictures that got tacked to the whiteboard during briefing sessions and progress meetings.

Dr. Burns was scribbling in his notebook when Annie and Gerry arrived by the corpse. “You two,” he said.

Annie smiled. “DCI—I mean Detective Superintendent Banks is on another case. High profile, probably. He’s too good for the likes of us anymore.”

Dr. Burns smiled back. “I doubt that very much,” he said.

Annie was joking. The few times she had met with Banks since his promotion, usually for a drink after work, he had seemed much as normal, complaining about the paperwork and boring meetings, but around the station he had been far more remote and preoccupied. Hardly surprising, she thought, given his added responsibilities. His new office also put him farther away from the squad room, so they didn’t bump into each other as often during the day. Annie had put in an application for promotion to DCI, but budget cuts were back with a vengeance since Banks had scraped through. They were already reducing the senior ranks, and there were plenty of constables and sergeants out there who had passed their OSPRE exams and were still without positions. The truth was, she’d have to take a few more courses and kiss a lot more arse before she got a promotion. Gerry, too, however well she did on her sergeant’s exams.

“So what have we got?” she asked Dr. Burns.

“Just what it looks like, at least until Dr. Glendenning gets her on the slab. He might well discover some poison hitherto unknown to man, or signs of a blade so thin and needle sharp it leaves no trace to the naked eye. But until then, my opinion is that the poor girl was beaten to death.”

“No chance it was a hit and run?”