This Body of Death

by Elizabeth George

Barbara chalked it up to the outfit. She and Hadiyyah had managed the purchase of that staple of all women’s wardrobes—the A-line skirt—but that was it. After returning Hadiyyah to Mrs. Silver, Barbara had donned the skirt in a hurry, had seen it was several inches too long, had decided to wear it anyway, but had done nothing else about her appearance other than to loop the necklace from Accessorize round her neck.

  She said, “The Met,” to the constable, who gaped at her before he managed to gather his wits enough to say, “Inside,” and to offer her the sign-in sheet on a clipboard.

  How bloody helpful, Barbara thought. She replaced her ID in her shoulder bag, fished out a packet of fags, and lit up. She was about to make a polite request for a wee bit more information as to the precise location of the crime scene when a slow-moving procession emerged from beneath the plane trees just beyond the cemetery fence. This comprised an ambulance crew, a pathologist with professional bag in hand, and a uniformed constable. The ambulance crew had a body bag on a trolley, which they’d been carrying like a stretcher. They paused to lower its legs. They then continued towards the gates.

  Barbara met them just inside. She said, “Superintendent Ardery?” and the pathologist nodded vaguely in a northern direction. “Uniforms along the way,” was the limit of the guidance she gave although she added, “You’ll see them. Fingertip search,” to indicate there would be enough of them to give Barbara further directions should she need them.

  She didn’t, as things turned out, although she was quite surprised she managed to find the crime scene at all, considering the maze that constituted the cemetery. But within minutes, the spire of a chapel came into view and soon enough she saw Isabelle Ardery with a police photographer. They were bent over the screen of his digital camera. As Barbara approached them, she heard her name called. Winston Nkata was emerging from a secondary path near a lichenous stone bench, flipping closed a leather notebook in which, Barbara knew, beautifully legible observations would be written in his maddeningly elegant cursive.

  She said, “So what is it?”

  He filled her in. As he was doing so, Isabelle Ardery’s voice cut in with a “Sergeant Havers,” which was spoken in a tone that indicated neither welcome nor pleasure, despite her orders that Barbara was to come posthaste to the cemetery. Nkata and Barbara turned to see the superintendent approaching. Ardery stalked, no walking or strolling here. Her face was stony. “Are you trying to be amusing?” she asked.

  Barbara knew her expression was a blank. She said, “Eh?” She glanced at Nkata. He looked equally mystified.

  “Is this your idea of professional?” Ardery asked.

  “Oh.” Barbara gave a look at what she could see of her kit. Red high-top trainers, navy blue skirt dangling a good five inches below her knees, T-shirt printed with “Talk to the Fist Cos the Face Ain’t Listening,” and necklace of chain, beads, and a filigree pendant. She saw how Ardery might take her getup: a bit of I’ll-show-you. She said, “Sorry, guv. It’s as far as I got.” Next to her, she saw Nkata lift his hand to his mouth. She knew the lout was trying to hide a smile. “Really,” she said, “God’s truth. You said to get out here so I came on the run. I didn’t have time—”

  “That’s enough.” Ardery gave her a once-over, her eyes narrowed. She said, “Remove the necklace. Believe me, it does nothing to improve.”

  Barbara did so. Nkata turned away. His shoulders quivered slightly. He coughed. Ardery barked at him, “What have you got?”

  He pivoted back to her. “Kids who found the body’re gone now. Locals took them to the station for a complete statement, but I managed a word before they left. It’s a boy and girl.” He recited the rest of what he’d learned: Two adolescents had seen a boy come out of the murder site; their description was so far limited to “he had a huge bum and his trousers were falling” but the male adolescent claimed he probably could help with an e-fit. That was all they were able to contribute because they’d evidently been heading towards the annex for sex and “likely wouldn’t’ve noticed the crucifixion if it had been going on in front of them.”

  “We’ll want whatever statement they give to the locals,” Ardery said. She filled Barbara in on the details of the crime and called the photographer over to run through the digital pictures once again. As Nkata and Barbara looked them over, Ardery said, “Arterial wound. Whoever did it was going to be, literally, covered in blood.”

  “Unless she was taken by surprise from the back,” Barbara pointed out. “Her head grabbed, pulled back, the weapon driven in from behind. You’d have blood on the arm and the hands, then, but little enough on the body. Right?”

  “Possibly,” Ardery said. “But one couldn’t be taken by surprise where the body was, Sergeant.”

  Barbara could see the secondary building from where they were standing. She said, “Taken by surprise then dragged in there?”

  “No sign of dragging.”

  “Do we know who she is?” Barbara looked up from the pictures.

  “No ID. We’ve got a perimeter search going on, but if that doesn’t turn up the weapon or something telling us who she is, we’ll do a grid of the entire place and take it in sections. I want you in charge of that. Coordinate with the locals. I want you in charge of a house-to-house as well. Concentrate first on the terraces bordering the cemetery. Handle that and we’ll reconvene at the Met.”

  Barbara nodded as Nkata said, “Want me to wait for the e-fit, guv?”

  “Do that as well,” Ardery said to Barbara. “Make sure their statement gets sent over to Victoria Street. And I want you to see if you can squeeze anything else out of them.”

  Nkata said, “I can—”

  “You’ll continue to drive me,” Ardery told him. She looked towards the perimeter of the clearing in which the chapel sat. Constables were conducting the search there. They’d move outward in circles till they found—or didn’t find—the weapon, the victim’s bag, or anything else that might constitute evidence. It was a nightmare location that could produce too much or nothing at all.

  Nkata was silent. Barbara saw a muscle move in his jaw. He finally said, “Due respect, guv, but don’t you want a constable driving you? Or a special, even?”

  Ardery said, “If I wanted a constable or a special, I’d have got one. Do you have a problem with the assignment, Sergeant?”

  “Seems like I could best be used—”

  “As I want to use you,” Ardery cut in. “Are we clear on that?”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Guv,” politely, in affirmation.

  BELLA MCHAGGIS WAS utterly drenched in sweat, but in a good way. She’d just completed her hot yoga class—although any yoga class would have turned into hot yoga in the current weather—and she was feeling both virtuous and peaceful. She had Mr. McHaggis to thank for this. Had the poor bloke not died on the toilet seat, member in hand and Page Three girl spread out buxomly on the floor in front of him, she’d have likely still been in the shape she was in on that morning she’d found him gone to his eternal reward. But seeing poor McHaggis like that had been a call to arms. Whereas, before his death, Bella hadn’t been able to climb a flight of stairs without losing her breath, now she could do that and more. She was particularly proud of her limber body. Why, she could bend from the waist and put her palms on the floor. She could lift her leg to the height of the fireplace mantel. Not at all bad for a bird of sixty-five.

  She was on Putney High Street, heading for home. She was still wearing her yoga kit, and she had her mat rolled beneath her arm. She was thinking about worms, specifically the composting worms that lived in a rather complicated setup in her back garden. They were amazing little creatures—bless them, they ate virtually anything one handed over—but they needed some care. They didn’t like extremes: too much hot or too much cold and off they’d go to the big compost heap in the sky. So she was considering how much constituted too much heat when she passed the local tobacconist where an Evening Standard placard stood out front, advertising t
he day’s last edition of that paper.

  Bella was used to seeing some dramatic event reduced to three or four scrawled words suitable for bringing people into the shop to purchase a paper. Usually, she walked on by on her way to her home in Oxford Road because as far as she was concerned, there were far too many newspapers in London—both broadsheets and tabloids—and, recycling aside, they were eating up every woodland on earth, so she was damned if she would contribute to them. But this particular placard slowed her steps: “Woman Dead in Abney Park.”

  Bella hadn’t a clue where Abney Park was, but she stood there on the pavement with pedestrians passing her by and she wondered if it was at all possible …She didn’t want to think it was. She hated the idea that it might be. But since it could be, she went within and purchased a copy of the paper, telling herself that at least she could shred it and feed it to the worms if it turned out that there was nothing to the story.

  She didn’t read it at once. Indeed, since she didn’t like to appear the kind of person who could be seduced into buying a tabloid because of an advertising ploy, she also purchased some breath mints and a packet of Wrigley’s spearmint from the shop. She rejected the offer of a plastic bag for these items—one had to draw the line somewhere and Bella refused to participate in the further littering and destruction of the planet through the means of the plastic carrier bags one saw blowing along high streets every day—and went on her way.

  Oxford Road wasn’t far from the tobacconist, a narrow thoroughfare perpendicular both to Putney Bridge Road and to the river. It was less than a quarter hour’s walk from the yoga studio, so in no time at all Bella was through her front gate and dodging the eight plastic rubbish bins she used for recycling in her small front garden.

  Inside the house, she went into the kitchen where she brewed one of her two daily cups of green tea. She hated the stuff—it tasted like what she imagined horse piss would taste like—but she’d read enough about its value, so she regularly plugged her nose and tossed the brew down her throat. It wasn’t until she’d drunk the ghastly cuppa that she spread the paper on the work top and took a look at its unfolded front page.

  The photograph was not illuminating. It showed a park entrance guarded by a cop. There was a secondary picture cutting into this one, an aerial shot depicting a clearing in the midst of what looked like a forested area and in the centre of this clearing a church of some kind with white-suited crime scene people crawling round it.

  Bella consumed the accompanying story, seeking the relevant bits: young woman, murdered, apparently stabbed, nicely dressed, no identification …

  She made the jump to page three where she saw an e-fit with the words person of interest being sought beneath it. E-fits, she thought, never looked like the person they turned out to be depicting, and this particular one looked so universal that virtually any adolescent boy on the street could have been picked up by the police and questioned as a result of it: dark hair falling over his eyes, chubby face, wearing a hoodie—at least the hood was down and not up—in spite of the heat …Totally useless as far as a description went. She’d just seen a dozen such boys on Putney High Street.

  The article indicated that this particular individual had been seen leaving the crime scene in Abney Park Cemetery and, reading this, Bella dug out an old A-Z from the bookshelves in the dining room. She located this place in Stoke Newington, and the very fact of Stoke Newington, miles upon miles from Putney, gave her pause. She was in the midst of this pause when she heard the front door being unlocked and steps coming down the corridor in her direction.

  She said, “Frazer, luv?” and didn’t wait for his reply. She made it her business to know the comings and goings of her lodgers, and it was the hour at which Frazer Chaplin returned from his day job to freshen up and change his clothes for his evening employment. She greatly admired this about the young man: the fact that he had two jobs. Industrious people were the sort of people she liked letting rooms to. “Got a moment?”

  Frazer came to the doorway as she looked up from the A-Z. He raised an eyebrow—black like his hair, which was thick and curly and spoke of Spain at the time of the Moors although the boy himself was Irish—and he said, “Blazing today, eh? Every kid in Bayswater was at the ice and bowl, Mrs. McH.”

  “No doubt,” Bella said. “Have a look in here, luv.”

  She took him to the kitchen and showed him the paper. He scanned the article then looked at her. “And?” He sounded perplexed.

  “What do you mean ‘And?’ Young woman, dressed nicely, dead …”

  He twigged then, and his expression altered. “Oh no. I don’ think so,” he said although he did sound slightly hesitant when he went on with, “Really, it can’t be, Mrs. McH.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because why would she be up in Stoke Newington? And why in a cemetery, for God’s good love?” He looked at the photographs once again. He looked at the e-fit as well. He shook his head slowly. “No. No. Truly. More likely she’s just gone somewhere for a break, to get away from the heat. To the sea or something, don’t you think? Who could blame her, like?”

  “She would have said. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone to worry. I expect you know that.”

  Frazer raised his head from his study of the newspaper photos, alarm in his eyes, a fact that Bella noted with gratification. There were few things in life she loathed more than a slow learner, and she gave Frazer high marks for his ability to infer. He said, “I’ve not broken the rule again. I might not be the brightest coin in the collection plate, but I’m not—”

  “I know, luv,” Bella said quickly. God knew he was a good boy at heart. Easily led, perhaps. Rather too much taken when it came to a bit of skirt. But still good in all the important ways. “I know, I know. But sometimes young women can be barracudas, as you’ve seen for yourself.”

  “Not this time. And not this young woman.”

  “But you were friendly with her, yes?”

  “Like I’m friendly with Paolo. Like I’m friendly with you.”

  “Given,” Bella said, although she couldn’t help feeling a wee bit warmed by his declaration of friendship towards herself. “But being friendly gives one access to people, to what’s going on inside them. So don’t you think she seemed different lately? Didn’t she seem to have something on her mind?”

  Frazer rubbed his hand along his jaw as he considered the question. Bella could hear the scritch of his whiskers against his palm. He’d have to shave before he went off to work. “I’ve not much talent for reading people,” he finally said. “Not like you.” He was quiet again. Bella liked this about him as well. He didn’t rush forward with foolish opinions based on nothing, like so many young people. He was thoughtful and unafraid to take his time. He said, “Could be—if it is her and I’m not saying it is because it hardly makes sense, really—she went up there to think. Needing a quiet place, it being a cemetery.”

  “To think?” Bella said. “All the way to Stoke Newington in order to think? She can think anywhere. She can think in the garden. She can think in her bedroom. She can think if she takes a walk by the river.”

  “All right. Then what?” Frazer asked. “Saying it’s her. Why would she go?”

  “She’s been secretive lately. Not her usual self. If it’s her, she went up there for no good reason.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as meeting someone. Such as meeting someone who killed her.”

  “That’s dead mad, that is.”

  “It may be, but I’m phoning anyway.”

  “Who?”

  “The cops, luv. They’re asking for information and we have it, you and I.”

  “What? That there’s a lodger hasn’t come home in two nights? I expect there’s situations like that all over town.”

  “May well be. But this particular lodger has a brown eye and a green one, and I doubt you’re going to find that description common to anyone else who’s gone missing.”

  “But if it’s her and
if she’s dead …” Frazer said nothing more and Bella looked up from the paper. There was certainly something in his tone, and Bella’s suspicions were roused. But her concerns were assuaged when he went on with, “She’s such a grand girl, Mrs. McH. She’s always been open and friendly, hasn’t she. She’s never acted like someone with secrets. So if it’s her, the question isn’t so much why was she there but who on God’s green earth would want to kill her?”

  “Some madman, luv,” Bella replied. “You and I know London’s crawling with them.”

  BELOW HIM, HE could hear the usual noise: acoustic guitars and electric guitars, both played badly. The acoustic guitars were bearable as the hesitant chords at least were not amplified. As for the electric guitars, it seemed to him that the worse the player, the louder the amplification employed. It was as if whoever the student was, he or she enjoyed being bad. Or perhaps the instructor enjoyed allowing the student to be bad and at maximum volume, as if there were a lesson being taught that had nothing to do with music. He couldn’t sort out why this might be the case, but he’d long ago given up trying to understand the people among whom he lived.

  If you declared, you would understand. If you showed yourself as who you could be. Nine orders but we— we—are the highest. Distort God’s plan and you fall like the others. Do you wish to—

  A shriek from a chord gone very wrong. It dispelled the voices. There was blessing in that. He needed to be out of this place, as he usually was, for the hours that the shop beneath him was open for business. But he hadn’t been able to leave for two days. It had taken that long to remove the blood.

  He had a bed-sit and he’d used its washbasin. It was tiny, though, and tucked into the corner of the room. It was also within sight of the window, so he’d had to be careful because although it was unlikely that someone would see him through the wispy curtains, there was always a chance that a breeze could blow them away from the aperture at the moment when he was wringing cherry-stained water from the shirt or the jacket or even the trousers. Still, he wanted a breeze even as he knew a breeze would be dangerous to him. He’d opened the window in the first place because it was so hot in the bed-sit that he hadn’t been able to breathe properly and useless to us now unless you show yourself had battered against his eardrums and the thought of air had him stumbling to the window and shoving it open. He’d done it at night, he had done it at night, which meant he was able to make distinctions and we are not intended to battle each other. We are meant to battle the sons of Darkness. Do you not see—