Shallow Water

by Hunter J Walker

  Tanya took a sheaf of evidence bags out of her pocket and collected two mugs before moving on to the bathroom for a pair of toothbrushes, then into the bedroom for her hairbrush. Douglas noticed an ashtray on the windowsill and bagged that as well. He wondered if she smoked, or whether it was for visitors, as the room didn’t smell of cigarettes.

  ‘Have you checked the bin?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Paper, notes, cigarette ends or anything interesting; also have you looked in the freezer and the cistern.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You get the bin and I’ll do the freezer.’

  Tanya took the white bin-liner out of the bin and checked there was nothing underneath it in the bin. She opened the bag and picked out the rubbish item by item, a tin can, a lemonade can, a Pizza box, four used teabags, a milk carton with mould growing inside. Finally she could see the bottom of the bag and two cigarette butts. She placed the butts in separate bags and labelled them. Then carefully put the rubbish back in the bin bag.

  Douglas appeared from the bathroom and she held up the two evidence bags with cigarette butts inside. ‘Got these, are we interested in the rest of the rubbish?’

  ‘Not at this stage, put the bag back in the bin in case we need to re-examine this place.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘Nothing of interest in the freezer and likewise the cistern – let’s get what we have back to the lab.’

  ‘What about the techie guy?’

  ‘Bollocks, I’d forgotten him…find out if he’s on his way?’ Douglas said and wandered over to the window to wait for the answer.

  Tanya joined him by the window. ‘He’s just leaving.’

  ‘I wish I could afford a flat with this view, I suppose it adds to the price.’

  ‘You’re not badly paid.’

  ‘We’re not well paid either, until we reach Inspector or above. Chief Inspectors get a reasonable amount.’

  ‘Chief Inspector; is that your ambition?’

  ‘What’s your ambition, Tanya? I don’t think Sergeant quite fits,’ Douglas said. When she didn’t reply he nudged her with his thigh.

  ‘I haven’t thought about it,’ she said and nudged him back.

  The sound of the doorbell interrupted the exchange before Douglas had time to work out a reply.

  *****

  Douglas Ashburner found a space in the Mortuary car park at the rear of the building, parked and made his way inside, where he found Nicola in an earnest discussion with Professor Gatward and a new man, whom he had not seen before. The mortuary technician, Miss Ackerson, appeared by Douglas’s side and he gestured towards the group. ‘He’s new?’

  ‘He’s called Eric, just arrived and he’s assisting today. The Prof wants to know if he can actually use a scalpel.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Are you doing anything interesting this weekend Douglas?

  ‘Visiting my girlfriend’s parents.’

  ‘If it falls through, I’m free this weekend. I can show you my tattoo; it’s in an interesting place.’

  Professor Gatward interrupted the conversation. ‘I know the Procurator Fiscal is paying for this performance, but I would prefer it if we started on time. Apologies, DC Ashburner, but do you know where your girlfriend is?’

  ‘Sorry Professor, I’m as much in the dark as you.’

  Miss Ackerson muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Douglas to hear. ‘Run over by a bus, if there’s any justice,’ she said and then she beamed a brilliant smile at him.

  The door opened and Susanne Glendinning entered followed by a short, overweight man in a crumpled grey suit. ‘Apologies everyone, my fault, meeting overran and we couldn’t get away.’

  The Professor nodded gravely. ‘Shall we proceed? Miss Ackerson, please start the recorder. And I take it we do not have a name for this unfortunate young man, DI Collins?’

  ‘I was promised a DNA result today, but no luck so far.’

  ‘This life is but a vale of tears and broken expectations,’ the Professor murmured.

  Once the photographs had been taken of the bruising, the burns and the other injuries to the surface of the body, the Y incision was made and the skin peeled back. The internal organs were removed, samples of blood, urine and eye fluid taken and the stomach contents removed.

  *****

  Douglas felt someone behind him and turned his head to look; it was Susanne. ‘Hello, darling, why is he here?’ he said nodding in the direction of the short overweight man.

  Susanne pursed her lips. ‘The Fiscal seemed a bit nervous about this case for some reason I can’t fathom and he sent him along as an additional witness in case there are any foul-ups. But it just looks like the result of another nasty gangland feud to me.’

  ‘It probably wasn’t. We think he’s a software guru by the name of Marcus Triffit – spotless record, not even a parking ticket.’

  ‘Why did they do this to him?’

  ‘They worked him over and used a blowlamp on his feet. When they were finished they strangled him and smashed his face in to make him unrecognisable.’

  ‘That’s what, not why, Douglas?’

  ‘It’s also why, they wanted information and he didn’t know, or couldn’t tell them, what they wanted to know.’

  Susanne sighed. ‘This could get complicated, but there’s nothing more I can do here, I’m going back to the office.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘And don’t be too late,’ Susanne said and pecked him on the cheek before turning on her heel and marching off down the corridor, her high heels clicking on the tiled floor.

  ‘You’re right,’ he called after her.

  ‘I usually am.’

  When she was gone he looked round to see Miss Ackerson standing in the doorway to the mortuary watching him.

  ‘Home? That means you’ve moved in with the Ice Queen? If I were you I’d make sure she doesn’t freeze any important bits off.’

  He laughed. ‘There is no danger of that Miss Ackerson.’

  She sashayed up to him and stood on her tiptoes. ‘You can call me Lindi.’

  Douglas desperately tried to think of something to say that would distract her. ‘Why do you work here, there must be pleasanter jobs?’

  ‘Mostly it’s run of the mill accidents or unknown causes of death, but every so often there’s a juicy murder.’

  ‘What did you do before this?’ Douglas asked as he tried to reconcile the mortuary technician’s elfin looks with the ghoulish sentiment she had just expressed.

  ‘I was a beautician, but tarting up stupid women day after day was driving me mad, so I applied for this job when it came up.’

  ‘Your true vocation?’

  ‘Yesss…isn’t it great?’

  Douglas felt relieved when Professor Gatward interrupted them. ‘Miss Ackerson, samples to the lab please.’

  She grinned at him, took the samples and departed. Glancing around and finding he was alone with the Professor he asked: ‘Doesn’t it worry you that she’s so perfectly suited to this job.’

  ‘No…just glad she’s not going to leave when I’ve trained her to the right standard.’

  *****

  At his desk Douglas sat down and opened up his computer. Tanya brought him a coffee, hot and strong, without being asked. She sat the cup down on the desk and drew up a chair to sit beside him. She crossed long legs and sat back before she grinned at him. ‘Now comes the difficult question, what was all that stuff about this morning?’

  Before he could reply, the door opened and Nicola bustled into the room, followed by Julie. They were scarcely in the room before Nicola said: ‘Julie, let’s see if you can manage two teas without making a mess of it.’ Making a beeline for Douglas she stopped in front of his desk and smiled. ‘Congratulations are in order Dougie. Whatever it was that Double-Barrelled discussed with you really got on that snotty cow’s tits! And now you can explain it, because it didn’t make any bloody sense to me.’


  ‘Better take a seat, boss, because this will take a while and I’m not sure I’ve got the whole story yet.’

  Nicola pulled a chair from the nearest desk. ‘That cow Grey claimed he was working on a new form of software to watch for market instability, so the Scotia Investment Bank could protect itself in future.’

  Douglas shook his head. ‘That’s not what James Double Barrelled told us. According to him, Marcus was an encryption and decryption expert, who did work for banks, credit card companies, computer companies, secure memory storage systems and so on. He may also have worked for the government at some point. Anyway, he was the real deal, a genius according to James and he came up here for some unspecified reason – I’d guess a nervous breakdown. In his own time he was also working on the fast factorisation method of breaking public-key encryption – it’s the codebreakers Grail Quest.’

  ‘And this is of importance, how? Nicola said.

  ‘If he succeeded, all banking and credit card transactions would become an open book – the whole banking system would be compromised.’

  Nicolas snorted. ‘He worked on this for the company?’

  ‘I guess that’s what his homemade supercomputer was for.’

  ‘Did he succeed?’

  Douglas shrugged. ‘Who knows? Was there any information in the papers from the flat, or the computers?’

  ‘The techie guys haven’t got past the encryption on his computers yet,’ Nicola responded.

  ‘James also took a phone call for Triffit at work – it was a woman with a fancy accent. It might be worth checking through the firm’s call logs to see if she can be traced.’

  Nicola shook her head. ‘Not yet, wait until there is something concrete to go on, there are plenty of other actions to be going on with.’

  ‘What’s top of the list?’

  ‘You two,’ Nicola said, pointing at Douglas and then at Tanya. ‘Get hold of the CCTV from Shona Doherty’s flat, the techie guys must have it by now. I have a feeling that something interesting will show up, and keep at it until you’ve finished the whole lot.’

  *****

  ‘Where do you do your shopping, darling?’ Douglas asked.

  Susanne looked at him incredulously. ‘What brought this on?’

  ‘Brought what on?’ I’m just trying to fill up the freezer with some things we could actually eat. There’s more booze than food in this flat. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if we were stocking up for a party.’

  ‘Oh, you want a party, is that it?’ She paused. ‘Alright, you can ask all your friends and colleagues and I can ask all my friends and colleagues and we’ll see if it ends in a punch up.’

  ‘All right, you draw up a list and I’ll draw up a list – then we swap lists and put a line though all the ones we think are dodgy ones until we have equal numbers.’

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘Is that too sensible?’

  Susanne pouted. ‘Suppose mine don’t come?’

  ‘You would still have vetted all mine.’

  ‘All right, when do you suggest we hold this party?’

  ‘Three or four week’s time?’

  ‘OK, Douglas, I concede, but I want a dinner party as well.’

  ‘Dinner party, who’s doing the cooking?’

  ‘Mother will send Cook over for the evening; we just have to put her up in a hotel for the night.’

  ‘And your parents will starve for the evening?’

  ‘No, silly, they’ll be here as well.’

  ‘How the other one percent lives…all right, getting back to the shopping?’

  ‘I go to M&S sometimes,’ Susanne admitted.

  ‘I had to throw out most of the stuff in the fridge – everything was out of date, or rotten, and that open bottle of white wine had turned into vinegar. The freezer stuff is probably all right, but I think we should eat it sometime soon. Anyway there’s a cheap supermarket down the road, we can stock up on the essentials there.’

  ‘Who have you been taking lessons from? The contents of your fridge are mostly beer.’

  ‘At least it gets consumed on a regular basis.’

  ‘And don’t think you’re filling our fridge with your beer.’

  Douglas changed tack. ‘Are you coming shopping or not, we have thirty minutes before it shuts?’

  ‘We’ll take your car; I don’t want mine seen near the place.’

  *****

  Douglas followed Susanne into the supermarket pushing the trolley. Susanne wandered off while he found the fruit and vegetables and poked around selecting the better examples on offer. He added four different cheeses, then salami, bread, butter, chicken and four sauces, but needing Susanne’s opinion of the meat he wandered round looking for her. Despite the relatively small size of the place it took him a while to locate her. She was studying the wine display.

  ‘Some of this wine isn’t bad, Douglas, the Chateaux neuf du Pape is a good price…and a St. Emilion Grand Cru. Let’s have a couple of each for the weekend…and two of the Sancerre as well. Daddy won’t have to raid the wine cellar.’

  Douglas watched Susanne load the trolley. ‘Can I have some beer as well?’ he interjected. ‘It’s over here.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘We’ll need a bigger trolley.’

  ‘Get another one then.’

  He left her to push the trolley to the checkout and went to get another one for the beer. He paid and pushed his trolley out into the car park where found Susanne waiting by the rear of the Astra. ‘How much did your load cost?’ he grinned at her.

  ‘Never mind – exactly how much beer did you get.’

  ‘A few bottles.’

  ‘I can see more than a few bottles.’

  He opened the hatch. ‘I think I’ll put it on the back seat,’ he said looking at the space taken by her trolley load. ‘I wonder what the neighbours will think when you haul that load into the lift?’

  ‘I’ll leave the hauling to you.’

  Douglas piled the packs of beer onto the back seat. ‘We could get a barbecue as well – they had some on offer – it doesn’t have to be a fancy one,’ he said as he closed the door.

  ‘The neighbours will have a very low opinion of you.’

  ‘It would go nicely on the terrace.’

  ‘I’ll have to check the rental agreement first.’

  ‘OK…and who’s going to cook this evening, or what?’

  ‘This late, it’s going to be or what. There are more than twenty places to eat within a ten-minute walk of home – we can choose one on the way…now start driving.’

  ‘Let’s get the coins back first.’

  When he returned without the trolleys and the pound coins in his pocket, he found Susanne leaning on the car roof. She said: ‘Did you ask DI Collins for time off? I promised father we would go over to my parents for dinner tomorrow tonight.’

  ‘Yes, darling, I asked her for the evening off and a late start on Sunday. I just need her to remember she agreed.’

  *****

  James picked up the pint glass and wandered over to the far end of the bar making himself comfortable at a window seat. Joanna had gone back to her flat to check if Henry had returned. He sat thinking about Marcus’ fate – the police hadn’t told him much, but the six o’clock news had implied he’d been tortured before being killed.

  ‘James, such a nice boy!’

  The voice surprised him and he jerked his head round to see who was winding him up. He recognised the voice once he had seen her face: it was the nurse from the ward, looking very different in a black dress.

  ‘What kind of question is that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put you down as the arrogant sort who’d wind people up. So I’m thinking you didn’t mean to return the form.’

  ‘Err…the customer survey?’

  She sat next to him on the banquette where her dress seemed shorter and tighter when she was sitting down. ‘Yes, that’s the one. Scarface wasn’t a difficult alias to crack as y
ou’d put down the ward number. Doctor Geraldine was most shocked; she thought you were such a polite young man.’

  ‘Well…yes, I can explain.’

  Nurse Carol Barnes moved and pressed against him. ‘No need to, James, you were quite explicit about what you wanted to do…what was it?’ She leant nearer and whispered close to his ear. ‘Yes, I remember now: I would bend her over the operating table any day.’

  She ran her hand down his leg. ‘Do you want to make good on that offer?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘It’s Friday night, I’m not on until four tomorrow morning and the Hospital is pretty empty over the weekend. Gynae have this very interesting chair they use for operations involving certain parts of the female anatomy. I used to work in that theatre getting the patients ready for their examinations and you’d never think a woman’s legs could spread that far apart.’

  Chapter 9

  Saturday

  Douglas left Susanne sleeping, dressed quietly and left her flat to arrive at the MIU well ahead of time. But no sooner had he sat down at his desk than Nicola put her head out of her office. ‘Dougie, how very nice of you to actually arrive on time this fine Saturday morning,’ she said loudly. ‘Go and find Tanya and want to see you the pair of you in my office without delay.’

  He phoned her mobile and it went to voice mail. He searched all the usual places and he was just about to admit failure when she appeared in the MIU suite. He passed on Nicola’s instruction and she followed him to the office. As soon as they were seated Nicola began: ‘I’ve set up a conference call with Miranda Sutherland for this morning. With the time difference, it’s afternoon in Dubai and she should now be in the British Embassy. They have verified her identity and shown her the email I sent.’

  Douglas nodded. ‘Do we have a script for this interview?’

  ‘We can use the notes of her husband’s interview and see how her answers tally with his. Not that a separated couple usually have a good word to say about each other.’

  Douglas went out to his desk where he printed off three copies of the interview with Samuel Sutherland. When he returned to the office, Nicola had cleared her desk of files by the simple expedience of dumping them on the floor. She placed the telephone in the centre of her desk. ‘Let’s see if I can remember how to do a conference call,’ she said and pressed one of the buttons. ‘Dougie, ring my number and we’ll see if your voice comes out of the speaker.’