Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) Read Online Free Page B

item they’d found in situ, then bagged and tagged it, the number on the evidence bag corresponding with the number on the yellow plastic markers.
    Before long, the road on either side of the girl’s body was littered with markers, but Reilly paid little attention to what her team were doing – she was focused on the body, her flashlight moving at a snail’s pace up and down the corpse.
    Every so often she would stop, and try to order her thoughts, before continuing her search. So engrossed was she that she didn’t notice the approach of Karen Thompson, the Medical Examiner. The older woman gave a little cough.  ‘Reilly, OK for me to do my initial exam on the body now?’
    Reilly looked up, surprised.  ‘I didn’t hear you pull up. That would be great, thank you.’ She stood up and moved a respectful few paces back to allow her the space to conduct her examination.
    A tall imposing woman in her late forties, Thompson lowered herself slowly to her knees and hunched over the corpse.  She had a distinctive way of leaning over the bodies she examined, almost as though she needed to get close enough to them to hear their stories.
    Reilly was aware of the doctor talking to herself, almost as if she was cross ex amining the victim in a witness box, her latex-gloved hands gently turning the limbs, checking under the hairline at the base of the girl’s skull, feeling for broken bones, crushed muscles, ligaments and tendons torn apart by the impact of whatever had hit her.
    After a minute or two she climbed to her feet.
    Reilly eagerly awaited her verdict, but Karen wasn’t done, simply changing position. She moved to the other side of the body, knelt down once more and resumed the examination.
    Reilly already had a fair idea of what she was going to say. She had enough training and experience to know the difference between injuries that directly caused death and those that had occurred post-mortem, but she knew better than to say anything – it was protocol and politeness to defer to the ME, even when the cause of death seemed obvious.
    Finally, Karen Thompson finished her examination and called the detectives back over.
    ‘Hit and run. Killed on impact,’ she stated sympathetically, turning her wide eyes on the three of them. ‘But I’m sure you already knew that.’ She nodded towards the body.  ‘See here…’ Reilly and the detectives crouched down over the body together.  ‘Impact was right here.’  Karen pointed to the back of the girl’s legs. ‘She was struck from behind, just above the knees. But there’s also impact here.’ She gently lifted the girl’s nightdress to reveal contusions on her lower back.
    Chris frowned. ‘So more likely a van than a car?’
    ‘Correct. A car would have rolled her up across the bonnet, causing a different pattern of injuries. So yes, a slightly larger vehicle with a flatter, non-aerodynamic front end.’
    ‘And the official cause of death?’
    Thompson crouched down again, and indicated that the others should do the same. She gently prodded the back of the dead girl’s skull – it gave slightly under the pressure of her fingers. ‘Secondary impact. All these other injuries’ –  she indicated the grazes and abrasions to her arms and legs – ‘are primary, arising from contact with the vehicle itself, but the secondary injury –  blunt force of impact to the head –  would have killed her, after the collision threw her into the air and back onto the tarmac.’
                    ‘So we should be looking for a van with damage to the front and probably a cracked windshield,’  Chris stated flatly.
    ‘I’ll be able to tell you more after full autopsy of course. I’ve called to arrange transport and will try to schedule the  exam for tomorrow afternoon. All going well you can expect the full report by teatime tomorrow, but you might have to wait a little longer for the toxicology report.’
                  ‘Thanks,