Cold Comfort (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 5)

Nobody disagreed.

“Where is the farmer now?” Oliver asked, looking around the group.

“Still losing his breakfast in the trees.” Harry moved until he was as upwind from the stench, and mentally heaved a sigh of relief when his lungs began to clear, and his sickness eased enough for him to be able to talk freely.

Oliver scowled at the body. “Felicity Inson wasn’t kidnapped. She lived around here and was murdered the day she vanished. Unless I am mistaken, this here is one of the missing women who was kidnapped several months ago. I believe that the last sighting of her was in London.”

“So, why would he – they – kill one and not the other?” Will murmured thoughtfully.

“The fact that she didn’t disappear doesn’t mean Felicity was killed by someone different. For some reason, the killer who has kidnapped the other women changed his mind about kidnapping Felicity and killed her instead. We just don’t know why yet.” Oliver scratched at his aching head and struggled to stem the tide of frustration that surged through him.

“Is it possible that Felicity struggled and created a huge ruckus when the kidnapper tried to snatch her, so he killed her? Maybe he murdered her when he realised that he couldn’t snatch her quietly like he had the others?” Phillip suggested.

High atop the bluff, nobody from the village would hear a young woman scream if she was accosted and there was a struggle.

“So, we know now that Felicity was not killed by another killer, but the same person who has been kidnapping young women. We also know that our fiend likes to dump his victims’ bodies here for whatever reason, presumably because he knows they are likely to be found.” Harry placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “What we don’t know is why our kidnapper has decided to kil

l this victim. I mean, why now? Why her? Why leave her here and connect himself to another murder several months ago?”

“Because he knows we cannot catch him,” Oliver growled, his voice rife with frustration. “He knows we don’t have anything on him that will bring him to justice. He has been operating for several months and we have yet to catch him.”

“I hate these bloody cat and mouse games. We are always second-guessing everything,” Ryan snarled suddenly, his voice rife with disgust.

“Do you think the Rigley Row mob have anything to do with the murders? Is it possible the women are being killed in retaliation for us closing down their operation in Rigley Row? I mean, if there is nowhere for the blackguards to keep them, maybe their victims have to die?” Niall sighed heavily and waited.

“I wish we knew,” Oliver replied.

They all knew that the gangs who lived and ran their criminal operations from Rigley Row, a particularly dangerous part of London’s backstreets, were involved in the kidnapping of several young women from Leicestershire and Derbyshire. That had been established not long after the last of the women had been snatched because the young women had appeared in London and had been identified by the Star Elite. However, when Rigley Row had been raided several weeks ago, not all the kidnap victims had been found.

“The killer may be someone from Rigley Row who has connections here, but I doubt anybody from Rigley Row would want to drag a victim all the way up here just to kill them. It doesn’t make sense. If anything, they would have killed the women and left them on the War Office’s doorstep. That is something the Rigley Row mob would enjoy.” Oliver hated to have to do it, but he stepped closer to the body to take a proper look at the victim in the hope of being able to name her.

“Do you know something? I see this kind of thing all too often, but it never ceases to make me feel sick,” Will huffed.

“She has been dead for several days,” Oliver murmured, doing his best to keep his face impassive as he studied what was visible of the corpse. “But she was buried last night, when the villagers saw someone up here.”

“Mother of God,” Ryan hissed.

“Why wait several days to bury her corpse?” Will ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

Oliver shook his head. Words failed him sometimes, especially at times like this.

“It’s damned macabre,” Phillip huffed.

“I just can’t see that anybody travelled anywhere with her smelling like this.” Harry snorted. “Who in the Hell would want to travel anywhere with this? The smell would waft around for miles given how windy it has been. You couldn’t hide anything with this in the back of your cart.”

“I agree,” Oliver replied.

“Well, what we know is that she has been dead for several days, and only buried here last night, so someone carted her around the village. It’s sick, and grotesque that they would then not even bother to bury her properly, but the facts are here before us.” Ryan stepped back a little when the smell wafted toward him.

“There is a message in leaving her like this. They want us to know that we aren’t aware if our victims are alive or dead, and that we will only find the deceased when the kidnapper says so. It puts the kidnapper very firmly in control.” Oliver stood up and threw a warning look at his colleagues.

“She hasn’t been interfered with by animals,” Rhys informed him, tipping his head to study the body’s position in the soil. “It looks to me as if she has been almost ritualistically arranged; as if presented to whichever unlucky bastard finds her.”

Oliver nodded. The woman’s clothing had been straightened as if her death was being presented to the world as a fait accompli. All buttons on her worn shirt had been fastened, the skirt primly tugged down to cover her legs to the tips of her aged boots. Even her hair had been brushed away from her mottled cheeks so the grotesque Fate that had befallen her was visible on her twisted features.

“She looks like she is silently screaming,” Rhys whispered.

Oliver walked around the corpse, making sure not to allow his gaze to stray to the young woman’s sightless eyes, which stared blankly at the rolling thunderclouds high above. The gaping maw of her mouth was open as if in the middle of a silent scream. It gave her an eerie, frozen appearance that was deeply disturbing. Whoever had left her had positioned the woman’s arms, so they lay perfectly straight against her sides. She had indeed been presented to the world.