The Missing Corpse: A Jurassic Coast Mystery novella by Rachel McLean, book 1.5 in the Jurassic Coast Mysteries series - Chapter 1

Of the many calls Dorset Police received each year from members of the public who’d found a ‘dead body’, very few turned out to be actual dead bodies.

Most were plastic bags or old boots floating in a secluded pool. Some were scarecrows that had fallen from their perches. Last year, there had been a fly-tipper, still at large, who’d dumped at least twelve clothes shop mannequins in hedges and ditches along the A35 between Bridport and Axminster, prompting a flurry of 999 calls.

But sometimes, it turned out to be a dead body.

In the early morning light, PC Douglas Anderson climbed up the steep bank by the side of Lyme Road, which led down from the main road into Lyme Regis. Reaching the trees at the top of the bank, he saw the dead man on the ground. Todd Collier, who owned Greensleeves Farm, climbed up beside him.

The man was curled up on his side beside the tree roots, as though he was just sleeping. Douglas crouched and put a hand to the man’s neck to check for a pulse, but the pale skin, icy to the touch, confirmed what he already knew.

“That’s a dead man.”

“Told you it was,” said Todd.

“Dead body, is it?” called PC Wendy Sharman from the roadside below.

“It is.”

Douglas had seen plenty of corpses. It wasn’t always crime. When someone died alone at home or was killed in an accident, the police were often the first to attend the scene. And while Douglas had become familiar with the appearance of death, a corpse always brought out his solemn and sympathetic side.

His wife Naomi and his sister-in-law Tina (who was staying with them at the moment) both thought Douglas was a bit of a softie. And that was fine, as far as he was concerned. Having a heart wasn’t a bad quality in a copper. He cared about people, in life and in death.

The dead man’s hands were held together at his stomach, like he was huddling for warmth. But Douglas could see dried blood on those hands. It looked like he had been clutching a wound as he died.

“Reckon he might have been stabbed or shot,” he called down to Wendy.

She climbed up the bank to join him.

Douglas looked around. This was a crime scene now. They’d have to close a section of the road and tape off much of the area.

“Todd,” he said to the farmer. “D’you mind going back down to the road?”

“A dead body don’t bother me,” Todd said.

Douglas pointed to the farmer’s boots. “We don’t want any more contamination of the crime scene than we’ve already got.”

“Oh. Right-o, squire.”

As Todd backed away, Wendy pointed to items scattered near the man. Coins and banknotes lay on the grass beside a wallet, marked by smeared fingerprints.

“He was going for his phone,” she said, pointing it out on the ground just below the man’s lifeless fingers.

Douglas nodded. “Think you’re right.”

He crouched, pulled on a pair of latex gloves and teased open the wallet. Standard procedure was not to disturb anything until CID and CSI got to the scene, but if they could identify the man…

He opened the wallet on the ground, just wide enough to see the driver’s licence. Douglas tilted his head to read.

“Anthony Tarone.”

“Tarone?” said Wendy.

The name nudged something in Douglas’s brain, too. “The Freeman family?”

Wendy sighed. Anthony Tarone was an associate of a known crime group operating out of Exeter and Torquay, further west along the coast. Multiple arrests, plenty of court appearances, and yet the Freeman family crime gang still had their greasy fingers in cocaine distribution across the south west. They were a stain on the region, and notorious enough for two small-town coppers to have heard of one of their trusted lieutenants, Anthony Tarone.

“We don’t do gangsters in Lyme,” said Wendy.

Douglas turned to her “Today we do.”