CHAPTER 7

Melissa stood at the door to the police station, watching Liam Walker as he walked off up the road, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he was barefoot, having left his running shoes at the station for forensics. She had been there for half a minute or so when she became aware of a presence at her elbow. Turning, she found that Mitchell was standing there, his eyes also on the annoyance on his face that Melissa found troubling.

"You think he had something to do with the murder, Don't you?", she said.

Mitchell shrugged,and said unconvincingly , " I don't know. He has an explanation for his discovery of the body, one that could be true, or could be completely made up. And right now, we have no reason for thinking he's lied to us, and a number of reasons for thinking he's telling the truth. If he's connected to the murder, why would he have led us to the body? And why would he tell us he didn't touch the body and voluntarily give us his trainers, that doesn't make any sense if he's the murderer".

"But you think he might be involved in the murder, so why don't you question him about it more?" Melissa didn't believe Liam Walker was a murderer, though she realised she didn't know the man and so had no idea what he might be capable of; despite that she couldn't understand why the author had been allowed to leave without being questioned more thoroughly.

"Because I've got no evidence, and if he is the killer, I don't want him to know I'm on to him until I do", Mitchell told her. " The inspector is making inquires into Mr Walker to find out if he really is a former DI , and whatever there is to know about him. Hopefully, when we know something of the man , we'll have some idea of whether he could be the murderer. If he isn't, we'll have to start looking elsewhere, perhaps at the rest of the village."

Melissa could tell Mitchell didn't like the thought of having to do that, it wasn't something she particularly liked either. "How long until the forensics team, and the detective who's going to handle the investigation, get here?" she asked.

"The forensic team should be here in another hour, hour and half," Mitchell told her." But there won't be a detective, atleast not for the time being". He saw Melissa's surprise. "The inspector and I discussed having a detective, and decided it would be better for the village of we try and solve this ourselves".

"What are we going to do to catch the killer than?" Melissa asked, wracking her brains to try and think how an investigation should be conducted.

"First things first," Mitchell said. "We need to go and see John and Verity Wilson and let them know about this morning's discovery, assuming they haven't already been told. After that, we need to talk to everyone we spoke to last week, when Ava first went missing, they may remember something now they didn't at the time. we also need to speak to anyone who might have held a grudge against her. Then we need to speak to Catherine Harper, her house keeper, and anyone who may have seen Emma yesterday, before she apparently went missing, so we can try and find out what's happened to her, assuming she hasn't already come home".

**********

"Hello, John, can we come in?" Mitchell asked when the front door was opened.

The man who stood in the doorway looked, understandably, to be in the midst of nightmare, Melissa thought as she took in his rumpled clothing, the stubble on his chin, and his generally unkempt appearance. she had never seen him look less like the accountant he was - he looked more like a homeless person.

"Ha-have you found Ava?" John Wilson asked.

Mitchell inferred from that question that his friend had heard nothing of that morning from anyone else in the village. "We should talk inside," he told his friend, his voice neutral, to avoid giving either hope or cause for alarm.

"You have , haven't you , you have found Ava," John Wilson said in a striken voice as he stepped back from the doorway to let the two constable in.

"we may have," Mitchell said as he entered and made his way into the living room. "I'm sorry, but the body of a young girl was found first thing this morning, early indication are that it could be Ava . we still need to confirm the identity of the girl," he hastened to say," and that could take some time" .

"What do you mean you need to confirm her identity?" John Wilson wanted to know. "You have known Ava all her life, you're the closest thing to an uncle she's got, surely you can say if it's her or not".

"The outfit matches what you said Ava was wearing when you saw her last , but there are complicating factor that make it hard to say for sure who the girl is; the length of time she's been out there , the weather during that time, and the fact that she was..." Mitchell hesitated for a moment and then went on. "There's no easy way to say this, John, but the girl found this morning was beaten- beaten to death, that's why it's hard for me to say that it's definitely Ava".

"Ava was murdered?"

The shocked question came from the doorway, not the sofa, and three pairs of eyes turned in time to see Verity Wilson collapse to the floor in a dead faint. John was on his feet in an instant, so he could hurry over to his wife , and with Mitchell's help he got her to the sofa , where he set about trying to revive her- it took a short while.

"Is Verity right?" John asked hesitantly once his wife was fully revived and he had been assured that she was going to be alright or atleast as alright as anyone could be under the circumstances. "Was Ava -was she- murdered?"

Mitchell would have preferred not to be asked the question, but since it had been asked, he couldn't ignore it. "Based on what I saw this morning...." He nodded heavily, sadly. "Yes, the girl that was found this morning was murdered.But," he went on quickly to try and forestall a second collapse from Verity, " we don't yet know for sure that the body is Ava".

"How can you not know something like that?" verity snapped. Although she appeared frail and overwhelmed by the strain of her daughter's disappearance, sitting there in the protective embrace of her husband, there was a strength to her voice. "You've known Ava all her life, and honestly , how many missing girl's can be there in the village?"

"As of Catherine Harper report last night, two," Mitchell told her . "Ava and Emma, and there's always the possibility that the girl that was found is someone from outside the village. A slim possibility, I know, but one that can't be ignored at the moment".

"If you're not sure it's Ava ," John said, his voice catching in his throat momentarily. "Why are you here? Can't you see what an effect this is having on verity ?" He tightened his arm around his wife's shoulder, pulling her closer, as if to comfort her, though she seemed less in need of comfort than he did.

"I appreciate that, John, verity, and if I could have avoided this visit, I would have, especially while the identification is uncertain," Mitchell told his friends. "We all know how quickly gossip goes around the village, bad quicker than the good, though. Sooner or later, and more likely sooner, someone would have been in touch to tell you about the body that was found. Most likely they would have taken a small amount of information and embellished it out of all recognition. I thought, and inspector Stevens agreed , that you would prefer to hear what was going on first-hand, from me, and to hear the facts , few as they are".

John digested that for a while before nodding. "You are right. There's a lot of people in the village who like spreading gossip, no matter how bad, and they're none too careful about getting things right when they tell people what they have heared. I wish, with all my heart, that we didn't have to hear this, that Ava would come walking through that door like nothing's happened, and she's only been gone for few hours, but I think we both knew, when she didn't come home first night, that something had happened. she is such a good girl, she'd never stay away from home for a day, let alone this long, without contacting us."

Mitchell was a little disturbed by the way his friends attention wandered, and how it seemed as though he was talking to himself. He made no mention of his concern, however, just then wasn't the time.

"was Ava really murdered?" verity asked. "Could it have been an accident?"

"As I've said, we don't yet know for sure that the girl found this morning is Ava , we still need to confirm her identity. As for whether she was murdered- I wish I could say otherwise, give you some comfort, but yes I believe she was. It will be pathologist to say for certain, however, once he's completed the postmortem".

"A post-mortem? is that really necessary?"

Mitchell nodded. "I'm afraid so; apparently, it's a legal requirement under the circumstances. it'll establish how she died, and help confirm whether the girl is Ava".

John roused himself from the reverie he had fallen into. "Shouldn't I go to the morgue and see if I can identify Ava?" he asked.

Mitchell immediate thought was that it would do no good for John to go to the morgue, the odds of him being able to identify the girl were somewhere between slim and none. He didn't say as much, though, for he suspected that going to the morgue would provide John with a measure of closure he wouldn't otherwise get, despite the circumstances.

"One of you should," he said, after thinking a bit . "I'm not sure how much success you'll have with making an identification," he admitted. "But if you can , even if you are only able to say that it isn't Ava , it will provide us all with an answer, rather than waiting for the results of whatever tests the pathologist has to run ".

"I'll go", John said decisively.