Falling More Slowly ilm-1

by Peter Helton

  ‘I did call your mobile but it was always unavailable. They gave me your number and address in Albany Road, after they checked with Southampton that I was who I said I was.’

  ‘Laura, what are you doing here?’

  Louise got up, smoothed her dress and picked up her handbag. ‘I’d better go, I can see you have things to discuss.’

  ‘No, wait, I mean, I’ll call you a cab.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, I’ll call myself one.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. Bye-bye, Liam.’ She twisted lightly away from the hand he had laid on her arm and didn’t look back as she descended the stairs. McLusky closed the door gingerly behind her.

  ‘I did call, honestly, Liam. I thought I’d see how you are, I couldn’t have known you’d be having company. So soon.’ Casually opening the doors to both spare room and bathroom she nodded knowingly, went on into the kitchen where she stalled in mock astonishment for a moment, then tested the weight of the kettle before flicking the on-switch.

  He leant against the door frame, hands buried in his pockets. ‘Make yourself at home, Laura.’

  ‘Well, it does all look so familiar. It’s an exact copy of the place you had when I first met you. I don’t even have to see your bedroom, it’s a mattress on the floor and a bin-liner with dirty laundry in the corner, am I right?’ Her smile finally reached her eyes. ‘But even then you at least had a fridge. You need a bit of help with this nest-making thing.’

  ‘Is that what you came here for, to help me build a nest?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all. I had an interview today at the university here.’

  ‘To do what? And why here?’

  She turned her back on him while she pretended to look for tea and mugs in the dresser. ‘It’s for a degree course. I’m going to be a student.’

  ‘A student. Studying what?’ Laura had never before given the slightest hint that she wanted to resume her education.

  ‘You could sound a bit more pleased for me. Archaeology. Field archaeology.’

  ‘You’re going to … dig up stuff.’ It figured.

  She turned, folded her arms and leant back against the dresser, the search abandoned. ‘That’s the plan. I had an interview today, it went well. At least I think it did.’

  ‘And what brought this on? I mean, you never talked about archaeology before.’

  ‘Yes I did. Well, I always watched stuff on telly.’

  ‘What about your job?’

  ‘The surgery is merging with a larger one and they don’t need two administrators so I took the redundancy they offered. It’ll pay towards my degree.’

  ‘But why here? Don’t they do archaeology at Southampton?’

  ‘They do but here I get to study with the good-looking bloke from the telly.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I am. The fees are lower and I prefer the course programme.’

  ‘I see. Well, I …’ He let out a deep breath through puffed-up cheeks. ‘That’s … brilliant. But why are you still here? In town, I mean?’

  ‘There’s a field trip for interested applicants tomorrow, we’ll spend the weekend on a dig near here. They didn’t tell us what, I think it’s to test our dedication.’

  ‘Could be a Roman villa.’

  ‘Medieval midden heap.’

  ‘Ancient burial.’

  ‘Who was that woman?’

  ‘Someone who helped me with a case.’

  ‘But she’s not an officer.’

  ‘No, she works at the uni.’

  ‘Might get to see more of her then. Me, not you, I mean. Ehm …’ Laura frowned at the kitchen again. ‘I’m not sure I really want a hot drink.’

  ‘There’s some red wine …’

  ‘You know I’m allergic to red.’

  ‘There’s a late-night place down the road, I’ll get you a bottle of white.’ He picked up his jacket, shook it but didn’t hear his keys. ‘I’ll ring the door bell, I won’t be a sec.’ While he walked quickly along the road McLusky marvelled at how Laura had managed within two minutes to drive away the woman he had hoped to take to bed yet had him trotting along to the late-night pub to fetch a bottle of overpriced white for her. Three years, that’s how. Three years of living and fighting and scratching their names into each other.

  Laura walked through to the one door she hadn’t opened yet. She pushed it wide without entering. A mattress on the floor, as she had expected. Yet there wasn’t the accumulation of beer cans and empty cigarette packets that used to complete the picture and there were no black bin-liners either. Another sure sign that she had interrupted something was the fact that the bed was made. Liam never made a bed unless he expected to share it. And only then for the first half a dozen times. Unless the accident, as everyone had insisted on calling his attempted murder, had miraculously changed him into a tidy person. It had left him looking leaner and paler than she had ever seen him but underneath she suspected the same old Liam. So why was she here?

  The door bell rang, two short pings, the way he always rang it. She pressed the button on the intercom until she heard the door open downstairs then on a sudden impulse went into the bathroom. Here she was back on very familiar ground. Several damp towels draped wherever, the wash basin encircled with used razors and a tube of toothpaste spilling its guts. In the corner behind the door, a stray black sock. This chaos had always infuriated her, so why did a fierce nostalgia bite at her now? She heard the clinking of bottles and quickly checked herself in the mirror, make-up, hair, teeth, then pulled a face at herself.

  From the sitting room came a girl’s voice. ‘Liam? I pilfered six bottles of Pilsener from the pub and I want you to arrest me. I suggest a strip search and a night in custody. Where are you?’

  Laura found the voice belonged to a blonde girl showing surprise, a pierced belly button and a lot of leg below the hem of a frayed denim miniskirt.

  ‘Oh sorry, hi, didn’t know he had company. I’m Rebecca.’ She was cradling half a dozen bottles of beer in front of her no doubt perfect chest. ‘Where is he then?’

  ‘He just popped out, he’ll be back in a minute. I was just leaving.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I am.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘Absolutely certain. Abso-bloody-lutely.’ She slammed the front door and clattered noisily down the stairs. As she left the building she nearly collided with McLusky carrying a bottle of wine by the neck like a weapon.

  ‘Where’re you going? I just got your wine, I thought we were having a drink?’

  She didn’t stop but walked a few steps backwards. ‘Some other time, Liam, you’re far too busy right now.’ She smiled and waved then walked quickly away. Just around the corner she passed a man in a blue rainproof examining his shoes. She couldn’t be absolutely certain but hadn’t he been there examining his shoes when she arrived? Not that it bloody mattered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlene Kernley hated this bit. She didn’t like walking home in the dark and she hated walking right by the river but it was such a shortcut. At first she used to take the bus but the return ticket had gone up so much she would have to work forty minutes each day — she had worked it out on a calculator — just to pay the fare, so now she walked and this shortcut made it just about bearable.

  There were the lights around the swing bridge but the further she walked the darker it got. The council should really put some lamps here. She never used it in winter, far too dark before and after work, she always went the long way round. But at this time of the year there was still some light left in the sky and it was only in the middle between the bridges that it got really scary. She shouldn’t walk home alone, there were so many places where someone could lie in wait and jump out at you. She knew in theory that things like that happened but they didn’t happen all that often, surely, and never to anyone she knew.

  At intervals Charlene checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was there. If she saw someone she would run. Not that sh
e could run very far, not with her asthma, but there were cars driving up there, she would make it that far.

  There was no one. No one but her. No one else was stupid enough to use this shortcut, she thought icily.

  Charlene could feel herself go wheezy — hell, she could hear herself go wheezy, it was so quiet on this stretch. She stopped, got out her inhaler, always in her left jacket pocket, shook it and took a deep suck into her lungs. That was better. Her biggest fear was that one day it would simply stop working. One day she would use her puffer and nothing would happen. She was only seventeen now, could you really live all your life relying on your inhaler being there when you felt that someone had stolen all the oxygen from the air? But then you never knew, they might find a cure for asthma though she wasn’t sure they were actually looking for one.

  As she set off again, aiming for the weak puddle of light that a sodium lamp from the bridge threw on to the path, a shiny object near the edge of it drew her eye. It gave her something else to aim for, would take her mind off things for the next few yards. Probably broken glass, there seemed to be a lot of it lying about, mostly beer bottles. But this was no beer bottle, the thing looked square. As she got closer she thought she knew what it was and quickened her step, despite still feeling a little wheezy. No longer checking behind her now.

  It was a mobile phone. Not the latest model but not a crap one either. Black and silver and so heavy in the hand. Not a scratch on it, it looked polished in the gloom. Charlene didn’t own a mobile, simply couldn’t afford it at the moment. Every kid in the street had a mobile, the parents probably picked up the bill. Even though she was working five days at the canteen she couldn’t afford it. She wondered whether this one worked, it would be just her luck to find a broken one. Where did you switch this on? This button at the top, she supposed.

  The tongue of magnesium-powered flame that shot straight into her mouth seemed to consume all the oxygen in the world. She had swallowed live coals and now her head was on fire. While the melting plastic of the phone’s casing fused with the burning flesh of her hand she staggered back, trying to escape from the blinding swirls of coloured pain in front of her eyes. With her airways soldered shut with fear, panic and fire she whirled around, unseeing, hoping to extinguish the fire in her face and hand. She didn’t realize that she was already falling, pitching sideways into the oily water with a silent scream. The other reason she hated walking by the river: she had never learned to swim. The ice-cold grip of the black water mixed with the fire in her mouth, indistinguishable. Charlene kicked her legs and thrashed her arms, straining towards what she thought was the surface, what she hoped was up, but it was dark now, cold and black. The pain in her chest was raging, it became huge, it became unbearable, her heart punched like a fist into her throat. Nowhere was up, it was all down, it was all black. Charlene stopped struggling and the pain popped like a child’s balloon.

  ‘Mum being in and out of hospital all the time is how I learnt to cook. No, it’s a lie, my dad trying to cook for us, that’s what did it. He was awful. In the kitchen, I mean. Can you cook?’

  ‘Don’t know, never tried it.’ His stomach rumbled but McLusky didn’t mind waiting. He lit another cigarette and poured more wine. What for him made this unexpected domesticity quite acceptable was that the cook was messy and dressed in nothing but a T-shirt.

  At first Rebecca had just been there, then been there again, then been there still. Soon a portfolio, a messy bundle of drawings and a toolbox had appeared, along with a holdall full of clothes. On cue the fridge-freezer was delivered. The empty fridge had given rise to shopping. This in turn had spawned cooking.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I’ve been known to boil potatoes and shove lamb chops under the grill.’

  ‘That’s cooking. One step up from heating up ready-meals, anyway.’

  The sound of his airwave springing to life next door made McLusky even hungrier. He groaned theatrically.

  Rebecca turned round to face him. Blood red sauce spattered from the spoon she held aloft on to the floor. ‘What?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Tell them you’re a hundred miles away, visiting sick relatives. That’s what I always do.’

  ‘Ah, that doesn’t work any more. Airwave radio has GPS. They know exactly where I am.’

  ‘Then don’t answer it.’

  ‘There’s always that, I suppose.’

  He answered it, scribbled down the unfamiliar street references and promised he was on his way.

  ‘But what about your supper?’

  The sentence had a painful familiarity about it, despite coming from the lips of a half-naked girl he barely knew. Her voice still had the fresh tone of surprise, regret and genuine commiseration it would soon lose. Given time the tone of that same sentence would change first to resignation, then resentment and accusation.

  ‘Leave me some.’ He stooped to kiss her goodbye. ‘What is it, anyway?’

  ‘Not telling you now.’ She kissed him, wrapping arms and one leg around him, a hero’s goodbye. ‘Is it at least something important?’

  ‘It is to someone.’ He took a deep breath, his nostrils filling with the fragrance of her hair, the aroma of her food. He pulled away with twin regrets.

  A short necklace of arc lights had already been strung along the riverside. He abandoned his car at the end of a line of police vehicles on the road and stood next to a muddy bicycle by some railings near a large landlocked ship’s anchor. This stretch of water was called the Cumberland Basin, he had learned over the radio, and somewhere close by was something called the Floating Harbour. Here a paved path ran along the basin between the bridges. Now it was busy with officers and crime scene technicians but before their arrival it had to have been deserted at this time of the day and year. Another blank patch on McLusky’s mind-map of the city had been filled in. But ultimately it made no difference where this was. Death loved dark water but had never been choosy. If what had occurred down there turned out to be murder then this dismal stretch of water would forever appear as a stain on the emotional map he carried to navigate the city by. When the stains on the map began to run into each other then it might be time to move on. Or take early retirement.

  Flashing his ID to the constable standing guard at the anchor was unnecessary: the PC recognized him from the Easter egg bomb as a sarcastic CID bastard. When he saw McLusky bend over the edge to get a look at a frogman in the water he fervently wished someone would nudge him in.

  Most of the activity was concentrated in an area where the body had been pulled from the river. The pathologist was there already, kneeling white-suited by a rectangle of tarpaulin on which rested the body of a woman. It was fully clothed, which was always good news.

  McLusky suited up; it gave him time to remember the pathologist’s name before approaching him. ‘Evening, Dr Coulthard.’

  ‘Inspector …’

  The pathologist concentrated his examination on the face and neck of the victim. Here scorch marks were the prominent feature, clearly discernible even under the covering of oily slime. The victim’s right hand was encased in a clear evidence bag, secured at the wrist with a soft tie.

  ‘Any clues as to the cause of death yet?’

  ‘Mm? Not really, but my guess is that she drowned.’

  ‘Then what’s with her face, are those burn marks around her mouth?’

  ‘They appear to be.’

  ‘Did that happen before death?’

  ‘Rest assured, I think we’ll find it did.’

  ‘Thank the gods for that. I can deal with strange but I hate weird.’ So far McLusky saw no reason why he shouldn’t hand this over to someone else. He was, after all, supposed to concentrate on finding the bomber. Drowned girls didn’t fit the remit. ‘Still, very strange, how do you burn yourself on an empty path next to the water? It wasn’t one of those fire-spitting accidents?’ It was not unheard of that unwise street performers who spat and swallowed fire reached for the petrol when par
affin was unobtainable. The results were invariably disastrous, occasionally fatal.

  Coulthard straightened up, shaking his head slowly. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘So, what, a freak accident?’

  ‘Almost right, inspector. My guess is accident arranged by a freak.’

  McLusky’s mood took a nosedive. He pointed to the victim’s wrapped hand. ‘She picked something up?’

  ‘Yes. It looks to me like the melted remnants of a mobile phone, fused into her charred skin. The phone must have contained some kind of accelerant, possibly similar to the one used in the powder compact. Once it went off she couldn’t have dropped it if she’d tried. The thing must have burnt instantly with such a fierce heat that it stuck to her hand. My guess is she tried to douse the pain, fell in and drowned. This is definitely another one of yours. Sorry. I could see you were hoping otherwise.’

  McLusky straightened up and looked about. ‘What a shit place to die too. I wonder where she found the thing.’ Would the bomber leave it here, where few people came? Why not? But more than likely she had picked up the phone, if that’s what it turned out to be, somewhere else. And they might never know. Unless.

  A preliminary search of the area was already under way, the fingertip search would have to wait until daylight. Austin appeared by his side. ‘We got a tentative ID, she was carrying a library card. No photo ID though. Charlene Kernley. We came up with an address near Ashton Gate. I think she was taking a shortcut.’

  ‘Walking alone after dark … Not that it would have made any difference. How old do we think she was?’

  ‘No more than sixteen, seventeen.’

  ‘Who found her?’