Malice in Cornwall by Graham Thomas Page B

found.”
    “The exact location may not be that easy to find. I was planning to take you out there myself.”
    Butts smiled benignly. “I wouldn't worry about it, sir. The tide has been in again this morning. I don't expect we'll find much.”
    Powell had forgotten about the tide, but he supposed he'd had his mind on other things at the time.
    “And besides,” Butts continued, “that reporter showed us where to look. Nice bit of skirt, that.”
    “You are referring, I take it, to
Ms.
Goode?” Powell said icily.
    Butts reddened. “Yes, sir. I, er, understand that it was Ms. Goode who found the body.”
    Powell examined his colleague as if he were some exotic insect climbing up the wall of a specimen jar. “Tell me. Butts, what do you make of all this?”
    Butts suddenly became animated. “The whole thing is obviously a crude joke perpetrated by somebody with a twisted sense of humor, and I'm damn well going to get to the bottom of it.”
    Powell was reminded of Dr. Harris's similar reaction. “Go on,” he prompted.
    “I used to fish around here as a lad. There are strong currents along this part of the coast and there's no way that a body drifting naturally would continue to wash up on the beach in Penrick Bay night after night. For a few days, maybe, but not two weeks. The bloody thing should have been in Boscastle by now. And then there's the Day-Glo bit.”
    “What's your explanation, then?”
    Butts appeared to consider his words carefully. “Your guess is as good as mine, but it's obviously been done for a purpose. To make a point of some kind.”
    “Yes, but what point?”
    Butts shrugged.
    “How about you, Bill? Any ideas?”
    Sergeant Black's lower lip protruded thoughtfully. “I think we need to have a closer look at the body,” he said.
    Powell rubbed his hands together briskly. “Let's do that. I'd like Dr. Harris to have a look at it this morning.”
    “But he's not a qualified pathologist,” Butts protested. “We've got a good man at Treliske Hospital in Truro—”
    “Nevertheless,” Powell interjected crisply, “Harris
is
a medical man, he's available, and he knows the territory. We can always get a second opinion.”
    Butts was obviously not pleased. “As you wish, sir.”
    When Dr. Harris turned up half an hour later in response to Powell's telephone call, Black and Butts carried a black body bag from the Polfrocks' garden shed and deposited it carefully on the ground behind the guesthouse. The sky was a brooding swirl of dark cloudsframed by spare, spring branches, and hardly a breath of air stirred. A flock of small birds appeared suddenly overhead, swerving away in unison as if interconnected by invisible control wires. Powell glanced up at the guesthouse. Sergeant Black bent down and unzipped the bag and then meticulously arranged things, as if he were creating a flower arrangement, so that the body, lying on its back, could be viewed to best advantage.
    It was not a pleasant sight. Decapitated, the reddish skin wrinkled and blistered and traced with prominent blood vessels, the stump of the neck, left arm, and both legs blackened at the ends, clumps of gray fur around the shoulders and breasts, and the remnants of what appeared to be some sort of orange garment hanging in tatters.
    Harris sucked in his breath thoughtfully. “Do you mind if I have a closer look?”
    Powell looked solemn. “Be my guest.”
    Harris removed a pair of surgical gloves from his medical bag and pulled them on. He knelt on the ground beside the body and examined it closely from one end to the other for a considerable period of time. Then he gingerly poked and prodded around the midriff for a few moments. Eventually he stood up, rubbing the small of his back. He smiled grimly. “Well, it's not a ghost, I can tell you that. It's a woman, all right, wearing a life jacket. If you look closely you can see the straps. It's pretty badly torn, but that gray fibrous material is kapok or something like it. Can