by David Hodges
‘Looks like a classic case of drowning anyway,’ forensic pathologist, Gerry Stone, announced, his pink perspiring cheeks creased into a beaming smile.
‘Time of death?’ Roscoe barked back, shelving his gum in the side of his mouth for a moment.
Stone pulled off his hood and thought for a moment. ‘I’d say she’s been in the water at least a couple of days. Quite a bit of gas is evident in the body, which is undoubtedly what brought her to the surface and, though the low temperature will to some extent have delayed the progressive maceration of the skin I would be looking for in a twenty-four to thirty-six hour immersion, the initial signs are still present – blanched colour, swelling and wrinkling of the finger-tips—’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Roscoe cut in quickly, as usual, intolerant of clinical explanations and keen to cut to the chase. ‘So, accidental death then?’
The pathologist frowned. ‘Oh, I think you’re jumping the gun there, Detective Inspector,’ he admonished. ‘I’m merely saying that, from my initial observations of the condition of the body, it seems likely that she drowned. I can find no obvious signs of violence, apart from some superficial cuts, bruising and abrasions on her hands, face and head, and some tears to her fingernails. I would suggest these were probably sustained after death when her body came into contact with the river bottom or floating debris – not unusual in a drowning case – and, with the river now double its size after bursting its banks, she could have struck anything, from submerged fence posts to brick walls. Nothing really sinister, though. She’s also plainly taken in a lot of water, which suggests that her respiratory system was still functioning immediately prior to her death, but I won’t be able to say much more—’
‘Until after the PM,’ Roscoe finished for him, well used to the familiar stock phrase used by almost every forensic pathologist he had encountered in his long career.
Stone shrugged. ‘That’s about it,’ he replied. ‘I’m minded to take some river samples to see if we can match them with the water she has absorbed. That would serve to confirm or otherwise the location of her death, but apart from this, there’s not a lot more I can do here. We’ll just have to see what the PM can tell us.’
The DI grunted. ‘Very little, I bet,’ he grumbled. ‘Bloody river has seen to that.’ He resumed chewing. ‘Keep me informed of anything you turn up, though.’
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ Stone said and made a vain attempt at humour by raising three podgy fingers of one hand close together in an erect salute. ‘Scout’s honour.’
Roscoe was not amused and ignored his witticism, his teeth chomping noisily on his gum. ‘And you’re sure we have no idea where she actually went in?’ he growled, half-turning towards the uniform sergeant who had remained at his elbow.
The sergeant shook his head. ‘No idea at all, sir,’ he confirmed. ‘The body could have been swept down here for quite a distance before it got stuck in some driftwood. Current is very strong – especially now that the river is so swollen.’
The DI blew a bubble with his gum. ‘So, who pulled her out?’ he queried.
‘Bloke from the Environment Agency – a Gus Hand. He came to check on the station pump and saw her body caught up in the flotsam just below the pumping station. Said she definitely wasn’t there when he came by here yesterday.’
‘But there’s nothing to say she couldn’t have been dumped here after he left?’
‘Not if my assessment is correct, Mr Roscoe,’ the pathologist put in a little indignantly. ‘This isn’t a corpse that has been “dumped” in the river overnight. She has been under water for quite some time before surfacing and becoming trapped here.’
Roscoe grunted an acknowledgment, but continued to address the sergeant. ‘Where is this Gus Hand now?’
‘Out checking on other pumps.’ The uniformed man tensed when he saw Roscoe’s scowl deepen and, perhaps anticipating a criticism, he added quickly, ‘He was interviewed, sir,’ he said, ‘but was adamant that he saw no one at the scene or anywhere near it and had never clapped eyes on the dead woman before. One of my lads noted his address and took a quick statement off him – just in case we needed to see him again.’
The DI nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned towards the door. ‘Looks like just another straightforward drowning then,’ he commented. ‘Silly bitch probably got too close to the edge somewhere and fell in.’
Kate winced at his blatant insensitivity, but, knowing from past experience that it would be a waste of time trying to pull him up on it, she simply followed him outside without commenting on the remark. ‘We’ll need to get hold of a relative for ID purposes,’ she said instead, stopping by his car.
He nodded. ‘OK, I’ll leave that with you, but I don’t intend going overboard with what looks to me like a straightforward accidental drowning. Just go through the usual motions, eh? I’ve already got SOCO en route, just to keep everyone happy, even though there’s not much they can do here under the circumstances, and when they’ve done their bit, we’ll get the stiff off to the morgue.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Oh, yeah, and tell that bright spark of yours back there to come and see me for his appraisal at 1500 hours this afternoon. Might as well get that crap over today anyway.’ He bared his teeth in the semblance of a grin as he threw open the door of his car and slid behind the wheel. ‘You can come back in his motor once you’ve tied everything up here, but no games of mothers and fathers on the way, eh?’
Kate met his gaze with an icy stare, closing the door behind him and standing back as he started the engine. ‘Anything else, sir?’ she snapped through the open window.
His grin broadened. ‘No, I think I’ve covered about everything, don’t you?’ he shouted, noisily engaging first gear.
‘Too bloody much,’ she murmured as he drove away.
As it transpired, SOCO – or the Scientific Investigation team as they now liked to be called – didn’t arrive on the scene until half an hour after Roscoe had left and Kate used the wait to put her husband straight on one or two things as they sat in his CID car.
‘Dipstick!’ she snapped as an opener. ‘Why the hell do you do it?’
Hayden seemed taken aback. ‘Why do I do what, old girl?’
‘Well, for starters, turn up here looking like a bundle of shit!’
He made a pained grimace. ‘Oh thanks for the vote of confidence – and in such colourful language too.’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘You have the cheek to censure me for using bad language after your performance this morning? Do you realize I had to cover for you with Roscoe – yet again?’
He winced, looking uncomfortable. ‘Sorry, old girl?’
‘And don’t call me old girl, not when we’re on duty!’
He gave a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry – Sergeant.’
She controlled herself with an effort. ‘Listen to me, you useless prat, I told Roscoe you were out on the Landy misper inquiry when he walked into the office this morning—’
‘Well, I was, in a manner of speaking.’
‘Only after I rang home to get you out of bed. Must you always be bloody late?’
He flinched. ‘I find getting up early a bit of a problem, you know that.’
‘Early?’ she blazed. ‘When I left you this morning, it was after eight o’clock and you promised me you would be in the nick by nine, as rostered.’ He didn’t answer and she studied him suspiciously for a second. ‘As a matter of interest, did you ever manage to get to Ellie Landy’s digs?’
He frowned. ‘Of course I did – well, nearly, before I was diverted here by the control room.’
She took a deep breath. ‘So you never actually spoke to the landlady who reported her missing?’
He hesitated. ‘Er – no, not exactly.’
She stared at the roof of the car for a moment as if counting to ten. ‘I just don’t get you sometimes, I really don’t.’
He looked down at his lap, a doleful expression on his face. ‘Sorry, old girl,’ he mutt
ered, like a child admonished by a teacher. ‘I know I’m a waste of space and I let you down – but thanks for covering for me anyway.’
She sighed her frustration, then slowly shook her head, unable to be angry with him anymore. It was always the same with Hayden. She doted on this gentle, overweight, untidy man of hers, with his public school accent and courteous old-fashioned ways, even though she sometimes felt like giving him a good hard kick into the twenty-first century which he inhabited with such obvious reluctance.
He was quite simply a throwback from a past era, someone who would have been more at home in a P.G. Wodehouse drawing room with Wooster and Jeeves. She had never known him to swear or lose his temper and his disorganized, easy-going approach to life could be absolutely infuriating for those who had to work with him. At the same time, however, he was the sort of thoroughly decent person whom it was almost impossible to dislike. And, though his rough, more streetwise CID colleagues certainly saw him as a real oddball, they tended to treat him and his eccentricities with a sort of patronizing tolerant amusement – which served to annoy her even more, especially as Ted Roscoe wasn’t inclined to be so magnanimous towards him and Hayden seemed to delight in inadvertently dropping himself in it with the DI at every opportunity.
Why this big affable eccentric had chosen the police as a career, Kate just could not understand and yet, to be fair, he had been an asset to the team on more than one occasion, his laid-back style and untidy appearance belying a razor sharp mind and close attention to detail that had resulted in the successful conclusion of several high-profile cases. Maybe that was why he had survived for so long in the unforgiving detective environment.
‘Just tuck your shirt in, will you?’ she said finally and, throwing the door open, climbed out to meet the SOCO team as their white Scientific Investigations van bumped along the track towards them.
CHAPTER 2
Ellie Landy’s former digs were in a red-brick end-of-terrace on the Bridgwater side of Highbridge and the sign in the window downstairs said ‘Vacancies’. The middle-aged woman who opened the door had uncombed blonde hair and was wielding a cigarette in a tortoiseshell holder like a blackboard pointer. Her eyes lit up behind the matching tortoiseshell spectacles the moment she saw what she obviously thought were a couple of potential new paying guests on her doorstep. The glint soon faded, however, when Kate produced her warrant card and told her who they were.
‘Not before time,’ the woman snapped, stepping aside to let them into the hallway. ‘I telephoned your lot hours ago.’
Kate threw Hayden a venomous look, but was all smiles when she faced the other woman again. ‘And you are—?’ she began.
‘Daphne Snell. I own the place. And the little bitch I reported missing has done a bunk – in my opinion, to avoid paying what she owes me.’
Ah, Kate thought, so your phone call was not prompted by concern for your lodger’s wellbeing then? What a surprise!
‘When did she leave?’ she asked.
‘Three days ago after breakfast and she must have been in a hurry, ‘cause she left all her stuff behind.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
Snell shrugged. ‘Clothes, personal things, you know.’
‘Didn’t that strike you as strange?’
‘Why should it? She obviously couldn’t be seen leaving with all her gear, could she? That would have given the game away.’
‘How long was she here?’
‘Only a couple of nights – arrived in some swanky new sports car. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since.’
Kate was tempted to tell her that that could be because she had drowned but then thought better of it.
‘But why wait three days before ringing us?’
Daphne Snell grunted. ‘Been away at me sister’s for the weekend. Son, Graham, has been looking after things here for me and he never thought to tell me until today.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘At the bookies probably. It’s all he thinks about lately.’
‘Did he actually see her drive away in her sports car?’
‘Dunno, but the car’s not out front now, so she must have driven off in it.’
‘I don’t suppose you can remember what sort of sports car it was?’
‘MG, I think. Blue.’
Kate stared around the green painted walls of the hallway, picking up the distinctive smell of yesterday’s cabbage on the stale air – probably coming from a kitchen at the end of the hall. Drawing back from the smoke from Snell’s cigarette that was enveloping her like a fug, she said, ‘Have you checked her room?’
Obviously the dragon had, but she wasn’t about to admit it. ‘’Course not,’ she said, lowering her gaze. ‘I’m not one to do things like that.’
‘But you said just now that she left all her things behind. How would you know that without checking her room?’
Snell scowled. ‘What’s this, the third degree?’
Kate smiled faintly, but didn’t answer her. ‘Mind if we take a look now?’
For reply, Snell simply shrugged again, took another drag on her cigarette and said, ‘Suit yourselves. I’ll get you the spare key.’
Ellie Landy’s room was on the first floor, just off the landing, a crooked figure ‘three’ on the door. At Kate’s request, the dragon shuffled away in her tattered carpet slippers, leaving Hayden and herself to go through the room on their own – not that there was much to see.
The bed was neatly made up but, apart from some cosmetics, a paperback book and a clouded glass of water on the bedside cabinet, the only other immediate sign of occupancy was a large haversack on a chair in one corner. Both the single wardrobe and rickety looking chest of drawers turned out to be completely empty.
‘She obviously wasn’t intending to stay long,’ Kate commented.
‘Would you?’ Hayden said with a short laugh, watching as she lifted the haversack off the chair and up-ended it on the bed.
It contained just a sponge bag and a meagre assortment of clothing, consisting of a pair of stout shoes, some skimpy lace knickers and bras, a couple of tops and a pair of corduroy trousers.
Hayden immediately seized on the underwear with a loud chortle.
‘Get a load of this, old girl,’ he commented, holding up a pair of black silk panties. ‘Just the job, eh?’
Kate gave him an old-fashioned look as she checked out the haversack’s side pockets. ‘Wouldn’t fit you, Hayd,’ she said drily, ‘so put them back, will you?’
He chuckled. ‘You should get knickers like these,’ he persisted, dropping them back on to the bed. ‘Real turn-on, they are.’
Kate snorted. ‘More of a turn-on than your bloody striped boxers anyway,’ she retorted, then abruptly broke off, tugging something free of the pocket she was searching.
‘And what’s wrong with my boxers?’ he exclaimed. ‘I think they’re pretty neat.’
‘Mobile phone charger,’ Kate snapped, ignoring his protestations and holding up a coil of black plastic wire with a plug on one end and a metal connector on the other.
Hayden made a face. ‘So what?’
‘It tells us she did have a phone with her.’
‘Well, no prizes for guessing that. Who goes anywhere today without a mobile or tablet – especially a journalist.’
‘But if the phone isn’t here, she must have had it on her when she died?’
Hayden glanced up from the book, looking puzzled. ‘I thought we’d already come to that conclusion, old girl, but, like the plod skipper said at the scene, she must have dropped it when she fell in the river. Simple enough explanation. Or maybe it just washed out of her pocket.’
Kate snorted. ‘Funny that her wallet and ID card didn’t wash out of her pocket at the same time – and another thing, where’s her notebook if one wasn’t found on her? I’ve never known a reporter to be without one. So, did she drop that too? Or was it washed out of her pocket, like her mobile?’
Hayden shrugged, ignoring the sarc
asm and picking up the paperback book to leaf through it instead. ‘Maybe uniform didn’t look hard enough. Easy thing to miss, a sodden notebook, don’t you think? And, after all, she was wearing an anorak which could have had several pockets, and the skipper admitted they hadn’t carried out a thorough search, for obvious reasons.’
Kate nodded slowly and started returning the clothing to the haversack.
‘Next stop, our coroner’s officer then,’ she said. ‘He would have bagged up her clothes and personal effects after she was deposited at the morgue – and we need one of those business cards the skipper was talking about so we can contact her boss for details of next of kin.’
It was apparent that Hayden wasn’t listening but staring at the paperback book with a heavy frown.
‘Hayden?’ Kate snapped, returning the haversack to the chair. ‘Hello? Anyone in there?’
For a moment there was no response and then suddenly he turned towards her with the book open at the title page. ‘What do you make of that then?’ he queried.
Kate took the book from him and closed it to stare at the cover. ‘The Way Through The Woods?’ she said, quoting the title. ‘I didn’t know you were an Inspector Morse fan?’
He shook his head impatiently. ‘No, not that. Open it at the title page.’
With a bemused shrug, she did so. ‘Signed edition?’ she commented, closing it again. ‘Lucky girl – or maybe not so lucky now.’
He sighed. ‘Sometimes, Kate, you are so thick,’ he said with uncharacteristic rudeness. ‘Look at the facing page.’
She threw him a daggers look and re-opened the book to peer inside again, noticing the biro scrawl immediately now. ‘Looks like “Fardmar 10.30”,’ she read aloud. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
He shook his head. ‘Look at it again. I think it says “Sandman 10.30”, do you see it?’
Another shrug, ‘OK, “Sandman”. So what? Maybe she was into horse-racing. Could be the 10.30 at some race-track. Hardly relevant to us.’
He looked unconvinced. ‘I might agree with you if she’d written Sandown. Sandown Park is quite a nice race-track in Surrey I’ve visited a couple of times but Sandman?’ He shook his head. ‘Never heard of that. And anyway, why would she write the name in a treasured novel, defacing the thing? And it’s obvious that she wrote the note in a hurry, which is why you couldn’t decipher it at first.’
