Outside of the golf course, the park was known for its simplicity and rural appearance. It wasn’t the first time she’d visited in connection with her work and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
Penn had texted her to say he was on the way, and she’d messaged back to tell him to park up at the warden’s base and head for Devil’s Armchair in the south. She was pretty sure he’d guess what she wanted to look at but not so much her reason for wanting him to meet her there.
She was surprised at the speed of his arrival even though they were only minutes away from the station. He must have hotfooted it out of there as soon as she texted him.
‘Which one?’ she asked, to save her reading through the statements.
‘Sorry, boss, I’m not sure…’
‘Which tree was Jamie Mills found hanging from?’
He shrugged looking along the row of oak trees. ‘Sorry, boss, I…’
‘How can you not know?’ she asked, feeling her voice rise.
‘We didn’t investigate, boss. Burns attended alone, agreed the manner of death with Keats and dispatched uniforms to take the statements.’
‘Is that how you investigate now? From your desk?’
‘Boss, I swear, it’s not by choice,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘Every one of us is sick to death of the office. We’ve solved nothing cos we’ve investigated nothing. The locals have enjoyed your time off more than you have.’
By ‘locals’ Kim knew he was referring to the criminal community.
She pushed down her irritation. She wasn’t being fair. She’d heard Stacey try and protest when Jamie’s name had been rubbed from the board.
‘So what do you think of the area?’ Kim asked.
Penn shrugged. ‘Nice enough, good view from up there. I once arranged to meet a girl at Devil’s Armchair. I was fifteen and she never showed up.’
Kim just stared and waited. Oh yeah, they were rusty all right.
Penn coloured. ‘Oh, you meant for suicide?’
‘No because obviously I care more about your teenage love life. Of course suicide.’
Penn took a look around and began to nod. ‘Yes, this could easily be a place he loved for some reason,’ he said, looking back towards the viewpoint. ‘People walk to the end of that path there, have a good look around and walk back into the park. They don’t come down here. I think he was only found so quickly cos some guy was looking for his retriever’s tennis ball.’
She’d already noted the absence of walking trails around this group of trees. Her own gut told her it was a secluded spot for suicide, if there even was such a thing.
‘Here, hold this,’ she said, thrusting her carrier bag at him. Time to get down to business. She took out her phone and accessed her emails. She clicked into a folder marked ‘Jamie’ and scrolled to the scanned statements. She read quickly.
‘Third from the left,’ she said, putting away her phone and moving to stand in front of the tree chosen by Jamie. Like the others around it, the branches were caught in that October transition stage of losing some of its leaves and clinging on to others.
‘Reckon you can climb it. To that branch there?’ she asked, pointing to a sturdy branch approximately three metres up.
Penn took a good look. ‘Yeah, I think so, if I wanted to.’
Kim took the carrier bag from him. ‘Let’s assume you want to,’ she said, nodding towards it. ‘Go on.’
He read her expression to see if she was serious.
He got his answer and moved towards it. He reached up and used the remnants of broken-off branches to climb, before using his feet to dig into the bark and use those same stubs of branches as footholds. It took him a good seven minutes of careful planning and placement, going backwards and forwards again, before he reached the point she’d indicated.
‘That it, boss?’ he asked, with his legs dangling either side of the branch.
‘Yep, you can come down now,’ she said.
He rubbed the dead bark from his hands as he came to stand beside her.