Soft Summer Blood

by Peter Helton

  His apparent inability to come to grips with completing paperwork on time or returning questionnaires by the required deadline had been brought up by Superintendent Denkhaus at his last PDR – Personal Development Review – where McLusky had confessed that his stress levels rose dramatically as soon as a questionnaire landed on his desk. They had promptly sent him an SAF – a Stress Assessment Form – to fill in, which amused him only long enough to drop it into the bin. When they asked why he hadn’t returned it, he pretended not to have received it. They had sent him another one, which added to McLusky’s stress.

  Some of these acronyms did not even make sense; it was obvious that HOLMES – the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System – had ‘large’ and ‘major’ squeezed into it purely to spell the name of the famous detective, since there were no ‘small’ or ‘minor’ enquiry systems as far as he could tell. WORMS stood for Warrant Management System, which surely should be WARMS. McLusky sighed and pulled the Stress Assessment Form towards him and started filling the blank spaces with impatient, jabbing biro marks.

  Selling up was out of the question. Yes, Woodlea House had become too big with Yvonne dead and David, his less-than-perfect son, visiting only when his business ventures needed bailing out, but he could not imagine living anywhere else. It was home. Could the strange feelings of unease he was experiencing from time to time perhaps be a sign of old age? Becoming fearful? He did not feel old yet – hell, he had just taken up jogging and was already feeling the benefits. Maybe he should talk to his doctor about it. Anxiety disorder, that kind of thing. But he didn’t want to start taking pills for bloody anxiety; that was ridiculous.

  He stood on the veranda, the French windows closed firmly behind him. It was late again. A bit too late for his liking – he preferred a little more illumination for his evening run – but he had been working on his still life until the last light had drained from the sky. Perhaps he should give it a miss tonight.

  No, that would be cowardly. It would be giving in to wishy-washy feelings of angst. Anyway, exercise, he had heard on Radio Four, was beneficial in cases of anxiety and depression. He performed a few half-hearted warm-up exercises, jogged on the spot for a moment, felt foolish doing it and set off. The moment his feet touched the springy lawn he felt better, full of purpose, and he fell into the familiar rhythm of running and breathing: monotonous, measured, meditative. He broke into a sweat almost immediately. Along the long flower border, on to the stone-flagged path. He was not sure why he wore a T-shirt at all – no one was going to see him – but he had never liked being bare-chested, except perhaps on a beach or a boat. And he hadn’t been on a boat since … well, since that day in 1998. Past the cold greenhouse, seven strides, past the heated greenhouse, eleven strides. He felt vulnerable unless he was fully dressed; even these ridiculous shorts made him feel somehow exposed. He had never been a very physical person, much to Yvonne’s regret. And David’s, too – he hadn’t been the football-kicking type of dad, to be sure. Through the scented garden and up towards the three oaks.

  Charles slowed. It was even darker here close to the large trees and, damn it, here it was again – that anxious feeling – and it had caught him at almost exactly the same spot in his run. He had never checked the back gate. Why had he not made the effort? He would feel better now if he knew it was secure. In the light of day he had dismissed all his night-time fears, yet here was that feeling again. He had also meant to talk to the gardeners about the back gate, but the business of the day had driven it from his mind. He stopped running and jogged on the spot for a bit, then stood still altogether, trying to level his breathing. It was the same feeling, and he felt it in the same place – how odd – as though it was somehow bound up with the location. The anxiety sat in his stomach just below his solar plexus, but the impression that he was being watched he felt all over on his exposed skin. He took a few tentative steps forward under the dark canopy of the oak trees, then stopped again and looked back towards the lower scented garden where nothing moved. The thin sound of a crack, as from a twig snapping underfoot, reached his right ear, and he whirled around, looking up towards the circular lawn where the statue of Hebe stood unrecognizable, a black silhouette in the fading grey dusk. The crack had been quite close. Did twigs crack by themselves? It could be a badger. Badgers could dig their way into the garden even under the enclosing wall. He felt the desperate urge to turn back towards the house the way he had come. But no. He was not going to give in to childish feelings. Then quite a different thought struck him. What if he was going senile? Dementia? Whatever it was, he could not allow himself to be spooked in his own garden. He would go forward, not back; he would get past this anxiety and resume his run. He was still sweating. It was very warm and very still. Perhaps he would just walk the rest. Yes. He moved forward, tentatively, setting down each foot in turn quietly, towards the figure of Hebe. There were still crickets rasping in the grass around him. Another crack, this time behind him. He turned around. Under the three oaks, where he had halted a moment ago, stood a figure, completely dark, as though masked; not even the eyes were visible. The figure stood not twelve paces away in the deeper darkness under the trees.

  ‘What … what are you doing here?’ Mendenhall asked. His voice was not as firm as he would have liked. ‘What do you want?’ He received no answer. But somehow he knew what the figure wanted, instinctively, however absurd it might be. ‘Why?’ he whispered into the silence. The dark shape took three, four, five quick paces towards him, raised one arm and levelled a gun at him, the bright metal glinting in the starlight. He flinched back. The muzzle flash was blinding, the sharp bark of the shot shrill in his ears. The bullet ripped through his throat and unbalanced him. His hand flew up to the screaming wound and found gushing blood. The pain was hideous. He opened his mouth, perhaps to scream, but already could not find the strength. He felt the world fading from him, darker and darker still, weightless and hideously silent. He did not feel himself crumple to the ground where he lay still, did not hear the soft swish and bubble as his heart pumped his blood into the lawn.

  TWO

  McLusky gasped, then swallowed down the remark on his lips. He wanted to scream, ‘How much?’ but felt he might descend into a parody of the outraged customer.

  The man behind the desk was aware of it. ‘You did say “whatever it takes” when you brought it in,’ he reminded him. ‘There was the bodywork, front panels, headlight, replacement bonnet and the respray. And you asked us to get it through the MOT while it was in and that took some welding and, of course, the new brakes. Satnav installed and one speaker replaced, oil change, valeting—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can read,’ said McLusky who was holding the itemized bill and reaching for his credit card. The drawbacks of having bought an enormous twenty-year-old Mercedes were there in black and white.

  The garage manager tried to cheer him. ‘Your car should drive like new. Now it’s been fully serviced, it should also do at least fifteen miles to the gallon again. If driven reasonably. It is a very fine example of an SEC and unless you drive it through a fence again, it should give you years of service and pleasure.’

  Service and pleasure, thought McLusky as he handed over his card, sounded like some corporate logo. In his mind he tried it out above the Avon and Somerset Constabulary emblem and quickly dismissed it. Yes, the car looked as splendid as when he had bought it, if not better. He had foolishly fallen in love with the thing and handed it over to the garage like a wounded pet after he had used it as a battering ram to break down a rather substantial fence. Never mind; there was the possibility of compensation; his actions – highly commended – had after all saved a life. His bravery for confronting a gun-wielding killer unarmed and without his bullet-proof vest had also found favourable mention, although less charitable colleagues had called it stupidity. In retrospect, McLusky had to agree with them; he still relived the incident in his nightmares.

  All thoughts of it disappeared, however, when he swung himself, sev
eral thousand pounds poorer, into the leather driving seat of his car. He patted the walnut dashboard, started the five-litre engine and, with a Stone Roses tape in the old-fashioned stereo, turned into the Fishponds Road and glided majestically through the morning traffic. He had his car back, it had passed its MOT, the ashtrays were empty and the cigarette lighter worked. He inhaled the fragrant smoke and tried to relax into the pleasure of driving, but the thought of his own bodywork having to pass an MOT soon spoilt it for him. He took a couple of greedy drags from his cigarette and dropped it half-smoked out of the window. He admonished himself in an imitation of Laura’s voice – ‘Filthy habit anyway, Liam’ – yet he thought he could feel the unsmoked half of the cigarette like an amputated phantom limb.

  In the Albany Road station car park he inserted the Mercedes into its designated parking space, patently designed for vehicles of lesser dimensions, wriggled with difficulty free of the car, then made his way inside. He checked his watch: ten past eleven. Clearly coffee time. He bought a cup of strong canteen coffee, covered it with the saucer to keep in the heat and balanced it up the stairs, acknowledging ‘good mornings’ without taking his eyes off the cup. Earlier he had bought Danish pastries from Rossi’s, the Italian grocery above which he rented a flat from the Rossi family, and in his mind was already sinking his teeth into one of them when his mobile rang. He fished it from his jacket pocket and answered it.

  It was DS Austin. ‘Where are you, Liam?’

  ‘Do not fret, I am here; ETA one minute. What’s up?’

  ‘Suspicious death and it’s ours.’

  ‘Typical.’ McLusky put away his mobile and seconds later saw Austin in the flesh, standing at the top of the stairs.

  DS James Austin, known to his friends as Jane, was a dark-haired Scotsman whose soft Edinburgh accent had mellowed even further by not having lived there for seventeen of his twenty-nine years on earth. McLusky often accused him of secretly working out in the gym, but Austin was simply young, fit and naturally athletic. His fiancée had made him give up smoking and he drank less in a week than the inspector did in a day. McLusky was breathing hard by the time he reached the CID floor. The lift was in fact working again, but only adventurous souls ever used it since the thing was half a century old and regularly got stuck between floors. ‘What have we got, Jane? Tell me in my office.’

  He squeezed himself behind his desk, uncovered the cup and set it on its saucer; he opened a drawer from which he withdrew the bag of pastries. Picking an apricot Danish for himself, he offered the remaining one to Austin who asked what it was and, on being told that it was custard, declined.

  ‘Body found at the victim’s home just outside Dundry. Large property. Victim identified as Charles Mendenhall, sixty-four.’

  McLusky had fitted half his pastry into his mouth and only Austin could have interpreted his next utterance as ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘The gardeners.’

  ‘Ners? Gardeners? It’s that kind of place, is it?’ He picked up his car keys and the remaining pastry. ‘How can you not like custard? Everyone likes custard.’

  They took McLusky’s car. ‘Nice around here. Some massive houses,’ he said as he navigated along pleasant lanes, passing several large detached properties sitting impressively in their rural Somerset setting south-east of the city.

  ‘Not much of a nightlife around here,’ complained Austin.

  ‘Do you and Eve do a lot of that?’

  ‘Not really, no. Here it is: Woodlea.’

  It would have been difficult to miss since a uniformed officer was guarding the wide-open wrought-iron gate to the property. It was PC Ellen Purkis who knew both of the detectives; she allowed herself a brief smile tailored in intensity to the sombre occasion and stepped back to allow them to pass. Purkis had been guarding the entrance for an hour. She was desperate to use the toilet and had been contemplating a quick dash into the hedgerow on the other side of the lane when the detectives arrived.

  The drive towards the house was tarmacked, completely straight and lined on both sides with chestnut trees. The house was set back a hundred yards or so from the lane and the square forecourt was crowded with vehicles: vans, a red hatchback, police cars in bright livery, a police Land Rover, a forensics vehicle, the grey coroner’s van and the pathologist’s night-blue Jaguar, all standing in a line, bonnets pointing at the immense nineteenth-century building. The police Land Rover, which belonged to DSI Denkhaus, stood at the very right, blocking the wooden gates of the double garage. McLusky had an immediate impression of solid wealth. The house looked well maintained; all the windows sparkled in the sunlight, the planters near the door were crammed with well-tended plants. ‘In the library with a candlestick,’ he muttered as he parked his Mercedes at a wilful angle.

  A pink-faced scene-of-crime technician in a blue scene suit was removing an aluminium case from the back of his van. ‘In the garden behind the house,’ he answered McLusky’s question. He automatically handed the detectives two medium-sized suits to put on. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Cause of death?’ McLusky asked.

  ‘We’re fairly certain it was a shooting.’

  They rounded the east side of the house with the scene-suit material swishing synthetically as they walked. ‘If it was a shooting, I’ll bet you a tenner the neighbours never heard a thing.’ The general public’s capacity for not noticing crime was one of the inspector’s favourite rants.

  ‘The nearest house is a quarter of a mile up the road,’ said Austin in defence of the neighbours. ‘Nice place, this,’ he mused as they passed a cast-iron table and chairs. ‘Tea out on the lawn.’

  ‘Bit too grand for me,’ said McLusky dismissively. Passing the greenhouses, they could see ahead a group of people, most in blue scene suits. Only two of them wore white suits; one was Dr Coulthart, the bespectacled pathologist who was examining the body on the ground, the other Detective Superintendent Denkhaus, standing close by. As McLusky and Austin approached the group, the DSI looked up, then wordlessly checked his watch. Greetings all round.

  The body lay crumpled on the immaculately trimmed grass of the circular lawn. The wound at the victim’s neck looked messy; the dead man’s mouth and eyes were wide open, his hands in front of him caked with dried blood. Beside him a large pool of blood had also dried, deeply staining the grass.

  ‘Dr Coulthart thinks he bled to death,’ said Denkhaus. McLusky wasn’t sure whether this was an attempt at black humour. Rumour had it that the DSI was on a diet, but the oversized scene suit made him look like a loosely filled weather balloon. McLusky hoped the rumours were unfounded since the superintendent reacted badly to sugar cravings and low-fat foods.

  ‘Who found him?’ McLusky wanted to know.

  ‘One of the gardeners,’ said Denkhaus.

  ‘There’s our killer, then,’ said McLusky distractedly as he squatted down to take a closer look.

  ‘You’ll find the gardener and his assistant in the kitchen,’ said Denkhaus. ‘You’re in charge, McLusky.’

  The DI looked up. ‘DCI Gaunt is due back from leave tomorrow. Will he take over?’

  ‘DCI Gaunt has been … erm … unavoidably detained. It’s your investigation, McLusky. Report directly to me.’ He nodded a goodbye towards the pathologist. ‘Jon.’

  McLusky waited until Denkhaus had swished out of earshot, then turned to his sergeant. ‘Gaunt unavoidably detained? Things are looking up.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Gaunt was almost universally disliked; McLusky was not sure whether Dr Coulthart shared this sentiment until the doctor said, ‘Indeed, indeed. Long may it last. And I think it could.’

  ‘Why, what have you heard?’ McLusky prompted.

  ‘DCI Gaunt bought a holiday home in Spain; he may have mentioned it …’

  ‘Once or twice,’ said Austin. Gaunt had talked of it incessantly.

  ‘He somewhat overdid the celebrations at a restaurant in
a nearby town, then drove home and on the way knocked a local girl off her scooter. Gaunt didn’t stop. The Spanish police have arrested him for drink-driving, dangerous driving and leaving the scene of an accident.’

  ‘Hit and run? Excellent,’ said McLusky and meant it. ‘And the girl?’

  ‘In hospital. Broken leg, broken wrist.’

  McLusky pulled a painful grimace. ‘In that case “unavoidably detained” was an accurate description. OK, celebrations over; what have we got here, doctor?’

  They were still closely surrounded by crime scene technicians making a fingertip search. One of them was trying to get a metal detector to work, calling forth pitiful squeals from the equipment and noisily complaining about it. ‘This thing is utter crap. My nephew has a better one.’

  ‘I’m pretty certain it’s a gunshot wound,’ said Coulthart.

  ‘Handgun?’

  ‘Most likely culprit. Fairly close range, by the looks of it. Bullet went through his neck, severed the carotid artery on that side. Game over. You can see there’ – he gently moved the head to give the officers a better view – ‘the exit wound.’

  ‘Is that what it is?’ All McLusky saw was a bloody mess as if a wild animal had taken a bite out of the man’s neck. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘So is he looking for our bullet?’