‘Hang on,’ she said, gripping his coat. ‘I’m a police officer. What were you doing on that boat?’ The man stared back at her with red-rimmed eyes, his face deeply lined, unshaven, half covered with wild wet hair.
He gave a hoarse cough. ‘Vicky’s.’
‘I know whose it is. How did you get in?’
‘Key,’ he muttered. ‘Vicky gave me a key.’
‘Show me.’
She relaxed her grip and he pulled a key on a lanyard out of his pocket. Kathy took it. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tisdell,’ he barked, drawing himself up to attention, and she wondered if he’d spent time in the army, or maybe prison.
‘Ned Tisdell?’ Kathy remembered the name. ‘You have a boat, don’t you?’
His head jerked down the line. ‘Venerable Bede.’
‘And what were you doing on Vicky’s boat?’
‘Nothing.’
Kathy noticed an angular lump in his coat and put her hand to it, feeling something hard beneath the fabric. ‘What’s that? Show me.’
She stepped back a little as he reluctantly opened his coat and produced a paperback book, The Pale King, and the framed print of a black bird which Kathy had noticed before. ‘Those belong to Vicky,’ she said, taking them from him.
‘They’re mine . . . lent them to her.’
‘Can you prove that?’
He shrugged, all the time keeping his eyes fixed disconcertingly wide on her face.
‘Well, they’re going to have to stay here for the time being.’
‘What are you doing here?’ he said suddenly.
It seemed a strange question, and Kathy was now more than a little suspicious that Tisdell wasn’t quite right in his head. ‘I’m investigating Vicky’s death.’
‘Hah!’ he laughed, incredulous. ‘But you know who killed her.’
‘What do you mean?’
He laughed again, shaking his head.
‘Why would anyone want to kill Vicky?’ she asked, keeping her voice level, as if his words had made perfect sense.
‘Because,’ he said, eyes bright, nose twitching, leaning forward as if to smell her, ‘she carried the mark of the beast. But you know that,’ he said dismissively. Then a thought seemed to strike him. ‘Are you trying to pin it on me? Is that what this is about?’ His brow furrowed and he rose on the balls of his feet, becoming agitated. ‘Yes, you bastards! That is what this is about, isn’t it?’
‘Calm down, Ned. No one’s trying to pin anything on you.’
‘Liar!’ he roared and drew back his arm, fist bunched.
‘Ned!’
The voice made him freeze. They both turned and saw a dark-haired, sharp-faced woman approaching on the towpath.
‘Put your hand down at once, Ned,’ she said sharply.
He glared at her. ‘They’re trying to frame me, Anne.’
‘No.’ As the woman stepped towards him Tisdell abruptly grabbed her arm and swung her into Kathy and charged off along the towpath. By the time the two women had found their footing again he was fleeing up the stairs that led from the towpath to the street and vanishing into the darkness beyond.
‘Are you all right?’ Kathy said.
The woman nodded. ‘He forgets to take his medication and gets overexcited. I’m sorry. He’ll calm down. He’s harmless really.’
Kathy pulled out her phone. ‘I’m going to have to call this in.’
‘No, please don’t do that. Look, I’m Anne Downey. I own Aquarius, over there. I’m getting soaked. Can we talk inside?’
Kathy followed her onto her boat, the same size as the others, hers tastefully functional with fittings that might have come from IKEA.
‘You’re the doctor, aren’t you?’ Kathy said. ‘The Stapletons mentioned you.’
‘Yes, that’s right. And they told me about you. I’m sorry I’d already left for work when Howard found Vicky. I might have been able to do something.’
She was asking for reassurance, Kathy thought, and said, ‘No, we believe she’d been dead some time by then.’
‘You’re not local CID, are you? Do you think there’s something suspicious about Vicky’s death?’
‘We just want to be sure. Did you know her well?’
‘Fairly well. We’d drop in on each other after work for a drink, that sort of thing.’
‘Were you her doctor?’
‘No. I don’t think she had a regular GP.’
‘She had some sleeping pills beside her bed. Did you prescribe them?’
‘Oh . . .’ Downey coloured a little, then looked concerned. ‘Yes, actually, I did. She was having trouble getting to sleep. Why? You’re surely not thinking of suicide, are you?’
‘Is that unlikely, in your opinion?’
‘Yes! Vicky wasn’t depressed, I’d swear to that.’
‘Molly Stapleton seemed to think that she was agitated and tense.’
For just a moment Kathy thought she saw something in the other woman’s eyes, as if she wanted to tell her something, then she seemed to change her mind and said, ‘Well, we all have our problems. I think Vicky was having some difficulties coping at work.’
‘In what way?’
‘I think her boss was putting pressure on her, you know, the usual thing.’
‘Harassing her? Sexually perhaps?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Anne Downey spoke carefully, choosing her words.
Kathy noticed that her coat, soaked from the rain, was dripping onto the matting on the floor, and she apologised.
‘Don’t worry. Give me your coat and I’ll hang it up,’ Downey said, and handed Kathy a towel to dry her face and hair. Kathy also wiped the book and framed print. ‘Tisdell was taking these from Vicky’s boat,’ she said and as she did so she noticed a single word, Nevermore, etched into the scrolls of lines beneath the bird in the picture. ‘What does that mean?’
The doctor seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said, ‘That’s from the poem, “The Raven”, you know?’
Kathy turned the picture over and noticed that the tape on the back had been neatly sliced open. She glanced at Downey and saw that she was staring at the cuts, then, when she realised that Kathy was watching her, quickly looked away. ‘Looks as if the back’s been opened,’ Kathy said, easing it off. There was nothing behind the print. ‘Did she hide something here, do you think?’
‘No idea.’
‘Are you aware that Vicky Hawke wasn’t her real name? It was Gudrun Kite. Does that mean anything to you?’ She studied the doctor’s face. Her surprise seemed muted.
‘No.’
There was something slightly strange about her manner, an evasiveness perhaps, as if she felt uncomfortable talking about this. After Tisdell’s bizarre outburst, Kathy felt an odd sense of alienation, as if these boat people inhabited a parallel universe of fog and secrets.
‘We have to assume that Vicky was trying to hide her presence here.’
Downey looked away. She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘You could be right. I never saw her bring a friend back to her boat. She was certainly very new to narrowboating.’
‘Do you know how she came to be here?’
‘Not really. The mooring became vacant and she just showed up on her boat. She caused a bit of chaos when she arrived—she really wasn’t used to handling a narrowboat. We felt kind of responsible for her, I suppose. We all pitched in to show her the ropes.’
‘What about Ned Tisdell—are you his doctor?’
‘No, but he told me that he’s on medication, and I’ve tried to keep an eye on him. He was pretty devastated when he heard the news about Vicky. Please don’t be too hard on him. He’s had a few problems in his life, but his heart’s in the right place. Authority figures make him nervous. I think that’s what that was all about, really, the way he reacted to you. But there was no harm done, was there?’
Kathy paused, imagining the reaction she’d get from DC Judd if she requested help in arresting Tisdell on suspicion. ‘He
seemed quite irrational, saying Vicky was killed.’
‘He just gets confused sometimes. He was very attached to her.’
‘That’s what’s worrying me.’
‘You mean, was he obsessive? No, they were friends, that’s all. Look, I’ll check on him when he comes back, and I’ll make sure he takes his pills and behaves.’
Despite her misgivings, Kathy decided to let it go. She thanked the doctor and left to go aboard Gudrun’s boat, Grace. She replaced the things Tisdell had taken, then tried calling the number that Desmond Kite had given her, but there was no answering ring. After another search for possible hidden storage places she left empty-handed, locking the doors behind her.
On the way home she picked up a pizza base and some ingredients at the supermarket, and after a shower set about preparing a meal. As she worked she recalled the things that Ned Tisdell had said to her, trying to remember his exact words. What did ‘the mark of the beast’ mean? She thought she’d heard the term before but couldn’t recall the reference. It sounded occult.
She fired up her laptop and googled the phrase, coming up with a long list of websites apparently devoted to it. She opened one and read.
The prophecies concerning the Mark of the Beast are about to be fulfilled, and those who worship the Beast and receive his mark will face God’s wrath. The Beast is Satan himself, and his mark is a physical sign that the bearer is his worshipper. This truth is made plain to us in the Book of Revelation, 13:16–17, as follows:
‘He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.’
Kathy shook her head, dismissing it as Tisdell’s raving, then read the second paragraph again, a mark on their right hand, remembering the sticking plaster on Gudrun’s hand. Then the oven timer beeped that her pizza was ready, and she shrugged, closed the computer and went to fetch a knife and fork.
7
A subdued sense of crisis pervaded the team during the following week, and not just in the old Georgian terrace in Queen Anne’s Gate where they were based but throughout the whole of Homicide and Serious Crime as rumours circulated of desks being cleared, familiar faces disappearing, restructurings being implemented. It was as if the first shocks of a long-forecast storm had finally arrived, in flurries of suddenly convened meetings and urgent demands for reports and analyses. D.K. Payne and his team of task auditors were everywhere, querying everything, leaving a trail of muttering detectives and tearful civilian staff in their wake, and behind them, mostly unseen but always felt, the intimidating figure of Commander Lynch loomed large.
And with all this going on, a sheaf of urgent memos clutched in his free hand, Brock was irritated to get a phone call from someone he’d never heard of, who claimed to be a friend of a friend. The Indian accent misled him, and he was about to snap that he was quite happy with his phone plan and ring off when he caught the name Andy Harris, and listened more closely. He had to ask the caller to repeat his own name a couple of times before he finally got it, Dr Chinmay Chandramouli.
‘I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, I think I’ve got you at a bad time.’ The voice was brisk.
‘No, it’s all right. How exactly can I help you?’
‘I’m a fellow of your old college, Trinity. The Master would have rung you himself, but he was called away suddenly to Geneva—something about the Large Hadron Collider—and I’m speaking for him. He’d be extremely pleased if you’d accept an invitation to come up and dine with him.’
‘Really?’ Brock was astonished.
‘Yes. May I ask, has Inspector Kolla briefed you about her visit to Cambridge at the weekend?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Brock’s heart sank.
‘I was tutor to both Freyja and Gudrun Kite during their time with us. We’re all shocked by this latest disaster to hit Professor Kite’s family. He is in a very poor way, and when Andy contacted us we were able to persuade Desmond to come and live in college, at least for a while, so that we can keep an eye on him. May I ask if there have been any developments regarding Gudrun’s death?’
‘It’s in the coroner’s hands, Dr Chandramouli. There appear to be no grounds for suspecting anything other than an unfortunate accident.’
‘I see. There has been a great deal of discussion in college about the deaths of the two girls, of course. One of our fellows is Professor Iwan Bronikowski at the Institute of Criminology, over at Sidgwick Avenue. You may know of him? He has been informing us about investigative procedures and recent developments in forensic science.’
Brock had an image of elderly dons at high table mulling over the finer points of DNA analysis and the law and he stifled a groan.
‘Of course, Iwan isn’t a practitioner like yourself, and several of us feel that it would be invaluable to have a practitioner’s insights. The Master is especially keen.’
Kathy had warned him, but he hadn’t expected this kind of approach. ‘Dr Chandramouli . . .’
‘Chinmay, please.’
‘Chinmay, I think DI Kolla explained to Professor Kite that Freyja’s death is outside our scope. I have no information about it and can’t intervene—’
‘Oh no, no, we quite understand that. And we’re not asking for any special favours with regard to the investigation into Gudrun’s death. No, what we’re concerned about is Desmond’s mental health. He’s quite obsessed about Freyja’s death and we feel we need to be better informed in order to reason with him and help him come to terms with it. I have spoken to the chief constable here—a Sidney Sussex man, incidentally—and he thinks it could be a very good idea. He feels, as we do, that a Scotland Yard officer like yourself could add considerable weight to our efforts.’
I’ll bet he does, Brock thought.
‘If you can spare the time.’
‘That could be a problem.’ But part of Brock’s mind was turning over the possibility. It had been years since he had been back to Cambridge.
‘A weekend? Next weekend?’
‘I’m sorry. At the moment it’s impossible for me to leave town.’
‘Ah . . . Well then, might I come down to London and buy you lunch, as quick as you like, and talk over a few thoughts?’
Reluctantly Brock agreed and they fixed a time for the following day.
‘Thank you so much,’ Dr Chandramouli said. ‘The Master will be so pleased.’
Later that same day Kathy took a phone call in the room she shared with DI Bren Gurney at the back of the building, with its view through a tall sash window into a fern-filled courtyard. It was the pathologist, Sundeep Mehta.
‘I’ve just had the toxicology results back for Gudrun Kite, Kathy.’
‘That was very fast.’
‘Yes, I got the impression from Brock that he wanted this cleared up quickly, so I applied a bit of pressure. They confirm my opinion from the post-mortem, that cause of death was carbon-monoxide poisoning. She had ingested a moderate amount of alcohol and a rather heavy dose of benzodiazepine—the sleeping pills, presumably—but not enough to kill her.’
‘Enough to knock her out?’
‘Possibly. But no physical signs of foul play.’
‘Okay. There was one thing I noticed, a sticking plaster on her right hand. It looked fresh.’
‘Yes, as was the wound it covered. A neat incision into the flesh between the thumb and index finger, just over a centimetre deep, made immediately pre- or post-mortem.’
‘Post-mortem? Are you saying someone cut her after she was dead, and applied a dressing?’
‘Well, in theory it’s possible. There was little sign of haemostasis, you see, the first stage of healing, which begins immediately after a cut.’
‘What caused it?’
‘I’ve no idea. Did you notice anything sharp she could have cut herself with—scissors, a kitchen knife?’
Kathy remembered a sharp knife in on
e of the kitchen drawers, but there had been no sign of blood, nor was there a bloody tissue or dressing wrapper in the waste bin. Perhaps Gudrun had flushed them down the loo.
She thanked Sundeep and asked for a copy of his report, just for the record.
The report was lying on her desk the next day when she returned from getting a coffee, and Mickey Schaeffer was standing over it, reading. He looked up. ‘Hi. I’m trying to find the Weston file. You don’t have it, do you?’
‘No, not me. Maybe Bren.’
‘Right.’ His eyes dropped to Sundeep’s report again. ‘Who’s Gudrun Kite?’
‘The girl on the canal boat. Vicky Hawke was an assumed name. She’d taken someone else’s identity.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
He was looking at her keenly, as if trying to make her out, and she felt herself becoming irritated under his examination.
‘Do you still think she was murdered?’
She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look like it. The post-mortem report confirms the pathologist’s suspicion—carbon-monoxide poisoning.’
‘I didn’t think we were still involved.’
‘We’re not. I was just curious.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I wouldn’t let our task auditor find out. You know, the review team gave Brock a pasting over our handling of this—a catalogue of errors, they called it.’
She didn’t know, and she wondered how he did. ‘Who told you that?’
‘DKP. A warning.’
It took her a moment to work it out—D.K. Payne, the task auditor. Why had Payne warned Mickey and not her?
The conversation annoyed her, and after Mickey left she phoned DC Judd at Paddington—‘Just to check you got my report about the dead woman’s identity,’ she told him.
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