‘It’s Kathy. She disappeared for a few days and now she’s back and she’s passed out. I think she’s been drugged.’
‘Call an ambulance.’
‘Yes, I could do that.’
There was a moment’s silence, then the pathologist said, ‘But you thought of me instead. Why?’
‘Something’s going on here that I don’t understand, Sundeep. I’d value your insights.’
There was a sigh, then, ‘Where is she?’
‘At her flat in Finchley.’
‘I’ll be at least an hour. Are you sure you shouldn’t call an ambulance?’
‘I will if there’s any change. Thanks, Sundeep.’
‘Give me the address.’
When he rang off Brock turned to Jock and asked him to bring Sundeep up when he arrived. ‘I’ll stay with her, Jock. Thanks for your help. Oh, incidentally, the car that brought her here, did you get a look at it?’
‘A black Merc, tinted glass. But I didn’t think to get its number, and I couldn’t see the driver. I was more concerned with helping Kathy.’
While he waited, Brock gazed around the room. It didn’t look as if Kathy had been there for days—the congealed plate in the sink, a bowl with a couple of wrinkled apples, a curdled bottle of milk in the fridge, a copy of last Thursday’s newspaper. Kathy’s laptop was on the table in front of the window, surrounded by pages of scribbled notes, a London A–Z and a guidebook to the inland waterways of the UK. He began to examine the notes. They appeared to be working through a series of recent dates, listing times with London place names against them, with the most recent on top, the final entry being for the previous Thursday, 16.12.33—16.13.07, Limehouse Basin. At the bottom of the pile the earliest sheet contained a mobile phone number. Brock dialled it.
‘Hello?’
He didn’t recognise the voice at first. ‘Who is that?’
‘That you, boss? This is Zack.’
‘Zack . . . What did Kathy phone you about last Wednesday?’
There was a hesitation. ‘I heard you were asking about her, boss. Is she all right?’
‘I sincerely hope so, Zack. So what’s the answer?’
‘She, er, asked me not to mention it to anyone. She wanted me to get hold of surveillance tapes from the ASU helicopters for her.’
‘What was she looking for?’
‘A boat, she said. She wanted shots of waterways, to see if she could spot it.’
‘And did she find it?’
‘No idea, boss. Sorry, I wanted to tell you . . . Is she in trouble?’
‘Just keep this to yourself, Zack. What job did you put it down to?’
‘None. I did it on the quiet.’
‘Let’s keep it that way.’
Brock rang off and turned to see Kathy stirring on the sofa. He went to her, helped her to sit up and fetched her a glass of water. She gulped it down.
‘Oh,’ she said, blinking, looking around. ‘Home. Just a dream.’
‘What was, Kathy?’
‘Cold . . . dark.’
‘You feel all right now?’
‘Mm.’ She nodded, closed her eyes and the glass fell from her hand, tipping water across Brock’s lap.
He propped Kathy up with cushions and was rubbing himself down with a tea towel when the doorbell rang. Sundeep stared quizzically at his wet trousers.
‘Small accident,’ Brock said. ‘She woke briefly. Very groggy. Come in.’
Kathy began to come round again as Sundeep was taking her pulse. ‘I haven’t had one of these in ages,’ he said cheerfully. ‘A live patient, I mean. Maybe I’ve lost the knack.’ He gently lifted her eyelids, examining her pupils, then made her follow his moving finger. After a series of other tests he asked her if he could remove her top. She mumbled, ‘Okay,’ and Brock helped him. The pathologist carefully examined her skin, pointing to several tiny red marks on her right arm, and opened the dressings to examine the wounds beneath.
When he’d finished he sat back. ‘She’s recovering from heavy sedation. She’s had a number of injections, and been dressed for some minor burns and abrasions, I’d say professionally.’
‘By a doctor?’ Brock was thinking of Anne Downey.
‘Or a nurse or paramedic.’ Sundeep gazed at Kathy thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to take some blood and run toxicology tests.’
‘Yes,’ Brock agreed.
‘Don’t mind me,’ Kathy murmured, eyes still closed.
‘She’s on the mend.’ Brock smiled at her.
‘Stabbed in the back,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
She winced and eased her shoulders. Sundeep got to his feet, walked round behind the sofa and got her to lean forward so that he could examine her back. He found a small dressing beneath the left shoulder blade, which he peeled away to reveal an angry red puncture.
‘Another injection?’ Brock asked.
‘Looks like it. A big one. Like an epidural, but not quite in the right place.’ He got a new dressing from his bag and applied it, then took some blood samples from her good arm. He asked her about allergies and tried to get her to tell him what had happened.
‘Jack Bragg,’ she said, eyes still closed. ‘Broke my shoulder.’
‘And after that?’ Brock urged her, but she shook her head drowsily.
‘Give her time,’ Sundeep said. ‘She needs to sleep. I’ll give you some antibiotics and painkillers for when she wakes up.’
‘These injections,’ Brock said, ‘how old are they?’
Sundeep shrugged. ‘They look fresh to me. The last twenty-four hours.’
Together they helped take Kathy through to her bedroom and got her into bed, then Sundeep left. Brock took out his phone and put a call through to the contact number he had for the investigating officer of the narrowboat fire.
‘I was about to phone you, sir,’ the man said. ‘I think we may have a name for that boat. Wondered if it meant anything to you.’
‘Venerable Bede,’ Brock said. ‘Owner Ned Tisdell.’
‘Right! How did you know?’
‘Just a guess. How did you find out?’
‘A marina manager at Limehouse Basin phoned us to suggest the name after he heard about the fire. He said that boat was moored in the basin for three nights last week, leaving on Friday afternoon at two fifty, which could have placed him at the Mile End Lock at about the right time. He also told us that a female police officer called at his office later that afternoon looking for the boat. Mean anything, sir?’
‘Yes, that would have been one of my officers. We wanted to speak to the boat owner about a suspicious death.’
‘I see. So the officer didn’t find the Venerable Bede then?’
‘No. Is there any other identification for the burnt-out boat?’
‘It conforms to the registered dimensions of the Venerable Bede’s licence, but otherwise no.’
‘No trace of Tisdell?’
‘We’re satisfied now that there are no human remains among the debris. We think that the owner must have moored the boat and left it for a while, during which vandals set it on fire.’
‘Vandals?’
‘Yes, there’s been a spate of break-ins and vandalism of boats on the Regent’s Canal in recent months. We’ve got a pretty good idea who the culprits are. We think this is one attack that got out of hand. Our informant at Limehouse Basin remembers that the boat was carrying drums of fuel on its roof, and possibly cans of paint, and the fire brigade reckon that’s what caused such an intense blaze. If the boat wasn’t insured, Tisdell is probably happy to keep out of the way and let us dispose of it. I see he’s got a record, by the way.’
‘True enough. So, case closed then?’
‘Looks like it.’
Brock phoned Bren at Queen Anne’s Gate, and gave him an outline of what had happened. ‘Put out an alert for Tisdell, will you, Bren? Hospitals, airports—and see if we can get a fix on him through his phone or credit card.’ He rang off and went back to Kathy�
�s bedroom, where she was lying, dead to the world.
‘What have you been up to, Kathy?’ he murmured. ‘Why couldn’t you let me know?’ She had been convinced that she’d seen Tisdell at the Pewsey Clinic, he guessed, and determined to track him down to prove it. So where had she been since Friday night?
He took up his phone again and rang Suzanne at her shop in Battle, and told her what had happened. She was just about to close up for the evening and said that she’d come straight up to London, but Brock suggested she wait until the morning. ‘I’ll stay with her tonight,’ he said, ‘make sure she’s okay. There’s not really enough room here for three of us.’
He waited by Kathy’s bedside, checking every few minutes to make sure that she was still breathing, so still was she. Finally he got up to make a cup of coffee and when he returned Kathy opened her eyes.
‘Hi,’ she said faintly. ‘Have you come to visit me? Did the nurse let you in?’
‘You’re at home now. You’ve had a rough time. How do you feel?’
She swallowed painfully and winced as she moved her left arm. ‘This bloody thing hurts.’ Her voice was stronger now, but hoarse.
‘Yes, I’ve got something for that.’
He fetched a glass of water and helped ease her up into a sitting position against her pillows. There was a little more colour in her face and her mind seemed more alert. Brock gave her some of Sundeep’s pills.
‘How long have I slept?’ she croaked, squinting at the closed curtains, the bedside light. ‘Is it Thursday night?’
‘It’s Monday night, Kathy.’
‘What?’ She looked at him incredulously. ‘No . . . that’s not right.’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Brock said. ‘What’s the last thing you remember?’
She frowned, thinking. ‘The clinic . . . then I came home. Wednesday? Thursday?’
‘You came home from the clinic last Wednesday. Nicole phoned you on Thursday, but nobody’s seen you since then. We were worried about you.’
She took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I remember being back here, in the flat. Bored.’
‘You were trying to track down Ned Tisdell’s boat, from the ASU film that Zack got you.’
‘Oh yes . . . Yes!’ Her face brightened. ‘When I left the clinic I got the cab to stop on the way home at mooring places on the river nearby.’ She bit her lip with the effort of remembering. ‘I found out that Tisdell’s boat had been moored at Eel Pie Island on the night that they caught Bragg—the night I saw Tisdell in the clinic. You see? I was right! He was there!’
‘Well done,’ Brock said gently. ‘So when you got home you started looking for him on those aerial shots.’
‘Yes. I remembered that his boat had a blue tarpaulin on its roof. It took me ages, but eventually I spotted him at Limehouse Basin. So I went down there. He’d already left a few hours before, so I took a punt on him having gone back up the Regent’s Canal. Ooh . . .’ She paused and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead.
‘Headache?’ Brock asked.
‘Yes. Just suddenly came on.’
He waited until she relaxed again and sank her head back against the pillows with a sigh.
‘You found him then, at Mile End Lock.’
‘Did I?’ Her breathing seemed to have become more laboured.
‘Yes. There was a fire. You burned your arm.’
‘Oh . . .’ She gulped. ‘Don’t know, but I can taste it.’
‘What?’
‘The smoke . . . burning paint . . . it’s in my throat. I can’t get rid of it.’
‘You don’t remember the fire?’
She shook her head, face creased as if in pain.
‘There’s plenty of time,’ Brock said soothingly, although his chest was tight with impatience.
A little later Sundeep phoned. ‘I’ve got some preliminary results.’
‘That was very quick,’ Brock said.
‘I took the samples in myself and stood over them while they did the tests. They’re only generic profiles at this stage, but they should be accurate enough. She’s been given a cocktail of sedatives. We’ve identified propofol, plus a benzodiazepine . . .’
‘Rohypnol?’ Brock said.
‘Something like that, plus something else, a beta blocker, probably propranolol. It’s used to treat anxiety and panic, but currently there’s research going on to see if propranolol can be used to erase the memory of trauma, if it’s administered immediately after the event.’
‘To wipe out a memory?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it work? Is it permanent?’
‘We don’t know.’
When Brock finished the call he saw that Kathy had slipped back into sleep. He switched off her light and went back to the living room and watched the evening news. He felt hungry but didn’t want to leave Kathy alone, and phoned Jock, who said he could organise some takeaway. While he waited he switched on Kathy’s laptop and checked its record of recently opened documents. In Google history he found that she had been searching the British Waterways website, and looking up references to the Pewsey Clinic, and newspaper reports on Jack Bragg. And that was the thing, he thought later as he sat chewing his tandoori chicken—what the hell did those things have to do with one another?
He felt tired, and dozed off for a short while on the sofa before blinking suddenly awake. Getting to his feet, he washed the dishes in the sink and began taking a closer interest in his surroundings. He remembered his first visit to this flat—how many years ago?—the Marx Sisters case, the first time they’d worked together, when he’d felt obliged to visit her to apologise in person for doubting her integrity. He had brought a bunch of flowers—blue cornflowers—a gesture which she had quite rightly treated with withering contempt, although she was only a sergeant and he a chief inspector. He smiled at the recollection. He had realised then that she was someone special, someone he would have to take account of, and she hadn’t disappointed him. In fact, he realised, she had reinvigorated his career, bringing a new freshness and dynamic to his life. Was that why he hadn’t seriously thought about quitting along with Sharpe and the others? Because life without Kathy would be too dull?
In all those years she didn’t seem to have accumulated much, he thought, looking around, compared to the stuff that had ended up in his place. Was that because she was too single-minded about her job, or because she was on her own? He examined the collection of CDs in the cupboard. All the Norah Jones albums were there. ‘There are times when only Norah Jones will do,’ she’d told him once. He picked the first, Come Away with Me, and slipped it into her CD player.
He stood at the window, listening to the title track, looking down at the ribbons of lights threading out across the city. Her laptop was on the table in front of the window, and he wondered about emails. It was pure chance that he’d seen Zack’s number on the desk and found out about her search for Tisdell’s boat. What might there be in her emails? Perhaps Tisdell had tried to contact her. All the same, he felt guilty clicking on the icon and opening up her mail.
Junk, a magazine subscription reminder, several emails from her friend Nicole (one with recipes, another coyly recommending a dating site a friend had used, a third suggesting a theatre visit), more junk. He almost missed [email protected].
Hi Kathy,
How are you? Are you sure the old man liked his coffee machine? I thought it was a good idea of yours, but his letter of thanks finally arrived this morning (doesn’t he like emails?) and it seemed very formal and cold. Am I wasting my time? I wish I could chat to you on the phone, but I can never catch you in, and I don’t like to call your mobile in case you’re in the middle of a crime scene or something. The first snow fell last night and I thought of you. You’ve got to come to Montreal for Xmas! You’d love it.
Don’t work too hard,
John.
Brock felt his face burn. Kathy had been keeping up a correspondence with his son! Well, why shouldn’t she? A
nd it was she who had suggested the coffee machine for his birthday. The old man . . . formal and cold. He hadn’t meant to be. He just hadn’t found it easy, coming to terms with an unknown adult son. And what sort of email was this anyway? A love letter?
He took a deep breath and stared out of the window into the darkness. What business was it of his?
He closed down the laptop and tried to concentrate on Norah Jones.
21
Suzanne arrived early the next morning, carrying a bag full of groceries, health drinks, muffins and coffee. Brock, who had slept uncomfortably on the sofa, had heard Kathy cry out from time to time during the night, but now she seemed to be well rested and alert, and mobile enough to go to the bathroom and give herself a wash.
She returned and sat with them at the table, which Suzanne had cleared and set for breakfast. Kathy shivered and Brock picked up the old green Barbour jacket slung across the back of a chair. ‘Is this yours?’ he said.
She stared at it. ‘No. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘You were wearing it when you came home yesterday.’ He felt in the pockets, but there was nothing there. For some reason it seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
Suzanne went to find Kathy a jumper, and Brock, munching a muffin, said, ‘When we spoke last night, you said the last thing you could remember was going to Limehouse Basin to find Ned Tisdell.’
Kathy nodded.
‘You had your car with you?’
She frowned, thinking. ‘Ye-es . . . yes, that’s right, I drove out there.’
‘And then?’
She stared at the wall, sipping her coffee. ‘Um . . . It was late afternoon. I drove north, I think.’
‘Following the Regent’s Canal.’
She nodded.
‘To Mile End.’
‘Really?’
‘There’s a lock there. It was getting dark. On one side of the canal there were university buildings, and on the other a park. You found Tisdell’s boat moored just past the lock, remember?’
She screwed her forehead in concentration. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘There was a fire, Kathy. Last night you said you could still taste it.’
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