by Peter Helton
‘Yes, Fairfield, underwear. And I want you to look into it. So to speak.’ Denkhaus tore himself away from the view and gave the sickly cheese plant a disgusted look before sitting down behind his desk, still not meeting the inspector’s gaze.
‘But surely that’s not a CID matter, uniform deals with that sort of thing quite admirably.’
‘It’s not just underwear disappearing from clotheslines anymore. He’s now breaking into people’s houses, going through … women’s things. Photographing them.’ Denkhaus made an impatient gesture with his hand, as though he could wave the subject away like an unpleasant smell. ‘Usually while the women are in the house. It’s got to stop.’
‘I still don’t see why us, sir.’
Denkhaus sighed and lent back in his chair. ‘Because a couple of nights ago it happened to the ACC’s wife, that’s why! And Anderson asked for you. He remembered meeting you and was impressed. You should be flattered.’
Fairfield also remembered Assistant Chief Constable Anderson, a barrel-chested man with a booming voice, and was reasonably certain that it was not her achievements as a police officer that had impressed him when she had been introduced. He had only spoken a few words to her and those he had addressed mainly to her breasts. ‘I see,’ said Fairfield neutrally.
‘Good. Get stuck into it. Catch the little pervert before he does something worse. These things have a nasty habit of escalating.’
‘Yes, sir. Before I go, sir … Every time I come in here that cheese plant looks more miserable.’
Denkhaus made a sour face. ‘It was a present from the ACC’s wife.’
‘And you’ve been trying to kill it ever since, haven’t you? Well, I’m taking it into protective custody,’ she said and walked past his desk, snatching up the suspiciously light pot.
‘Thank you, DI Fairfield,’ Denkhaus said, turning to his computer screen, ‘I hope you two will be very happy together.’
‘Her driver? She had a driver?’ Austin looked back at the Steadman house in consternation. ‘And he tells us now?’
They had met up again by Austin’s Micra. McLusky insisted on having a smoke before getting back in, so they talked across the roof of the car. ‘Until about two weeks ago. She’d lost her licence for drink driving and got a lengthy ban. She needed a driver to carry on with her work. She only got her licence back ten days ago.’
‘So Steadman could be telling the truth when he said she liked to just drive around. Must still have been quite a novelty, being back behind the wheel.’
‘It’s possible. She had a nice enough car. Her driver’s name is Lisa Burns.’
‘Do we have an address?’
McLusky flicked his cigarette butt into the centre of the road. ‘No. But I know what she’s doing, now that she no longer drives Barbara Steadman’s beemer.’
Nowhere in the tiny taxi cab office in Whiteladies Road was private enough, so all three of them sat in the back of the blue taxi. Lisa Burns took the fold-down seat, facing Austin and McLusky. Burns looked older than her forty years, with very short hair dyed silver, a sharp nose and straight, thin lips. Her quick, pale blue eyes darted across the officers’ features as though she was trying to store away every detail.
‘Yeah, I stopped chauffeuring Barbara two weeks ago. That was sad enough. I quite liked her. And now she’s dead, it’s hard to believe. I knew it was coming of course. I mean her getting her licence back. So I managed to have a job lined up. Lucky, I suppose, considering the times.’
McLusky started gently. ‘What was Mrs Steadman like to work for?’
‘Oh, all right. She was … yeah, she was OK. And she paid well.’
‘How did you come to work for her? Were you with an agency?’
‘No, nothing like that. I did do a chauffeur course, once. Well, didn’t stick the whole course, too poncey, but I’d learnt the basics. Nah, I was driving a cab when I met her. I picked her up from court the day she got banned from driving. She just couldn’t stop crying, that’s how we got talking. By the time we got to her house she’d hired me. She offered me more money than I’d been making driving the cab and without any of the hassle you get with punters. I jumped at it. Seven series Beemer, no pukers, no drunks, no aggro. It was a no brainer.’
‘And where did you drive Mrs Steadman? To work and home again, presumably. Where else?’
‘Oh everywhere. To work, of course, and between cities, London quite often, she hated trains, Swansea, Cardiff, mostly for work. She was quite a high flyer.’
‘What about outside of work?’
‘Where did I drive her? She didn’t seem to have that many friends but she went to restaurants, she liked Browns for lunch for some reason.’
‘Drinks?’
‘Yes. Not with me, you understand. But yeah, she liked a drink, quite a lot of it, to be honest. It’s what lost her her licence in the first place. And now she had me to drive her everywhere she could of course drink as much as she liked.’
‘Any special friends?’
‘Well, yes, she did have affairs. She did go out with men, though she never discussed them with me. Not a lot of men, I don’t mean that. Mustn’t start false rumours. I think she tried internet dating for a while.’
‘Could you describe any of them?’ Austin asked, notebook at the ready.
‘Not really, she was very discreet. I never had any of them in the car. Not once. I only ever caught a glimpse of two of them and they both had dark hair and they were a bit younger than her. Well dressed but you’d expect that. She wasn’t out there for a bit of rough.’
‘When did Mrs Steadman last meet one of these men?’
‘It’s hard to say. I often dropped her at restaurants or near the harbour and she’d later call me and say I wasn’t needed, you know what I mean? The last time was the day before she got her licence back.’
‘Where did you drop her?’
‘Near the harbour. She often went to places in the centre. Once or twice it was the Isis.’
‘Nice.’ McLusky had eaten at the luxurious restaurant once, a command performance in public relations organized by the superintendent. ‘She didn’t say where she was going that last time?’
‘As I said, she was very discreet. She never chatted much about her private life, not to me. And she didn’t use the car or me as a way to impress people. I wouldn’t roll up in front of the restaurant and hold doors open for her and stuff. I was always around the corner. I was spiriting her away.’
‘Did you ever drive her husband?’
‘No, never.’
‘But you have met him?’
‘No, just saw him once from afar at the house.’
‘Did you notice any change in her patterns, her mood or her behaviour over the past days or weeks?’
‘She did go up and down a lot recently. But she was always a bit like that. You can’t smoke in here,’ Burns warned McLusky who was getting ready to light up.
McLusky opened the door. ‘Okay, thanks for talking to us. Leave your address with my sergeant.’ He stepped outside and lit his cigarette and waited curbside for Austin to join him. When he did, Austin stood upwind from him. He had given up smoking himself and being around the inspector still tested his resolve.
‘What do you think?’ McLusky asked.
‘Sounds genuine. She always knew the job would end, there’s no grudge there.’
‘And what about the Steadmans?’
‘Classic marital stalemate, I’d say. Both drink and can afford to do it in style, wife has affairs and hubby says he doesn’t care.’
‘If she was internet dating we’ll have to find the agency and see who she met up with. She might have run into her killer there.’
‘I’ll get Deedee on to it.’
‘Anyways, let’s grab some lunch.’
Anyone eating at the Albany Road Station canteen quickly learnt to avoid any dish with the word ‘bake’ in its name, with the result that the caterers continuously renamed the same dishes to sneak t
hem in under the radar. That was how McLusky ended up jabbing his fork aimlessly into a yellow crust of strangely insubstantial potato mash to hunt for evidence of food below. ‘How’s your hotpot?’ he asked Austin.
‘Well, it’s hot and they probably made it in a pot, that’s about it. What’s yours?’
McLusky pushed out his bottom lip and lifted up a loaded fork to stare at it. ‘Mystery White Fish in Gloopy Sauce. With mash on top.’
‘Which used to be called Ocean Bake. How could you fall for that? Call yourself a detective.’
‘I know. I’m a total failure,’ he said and shovelled some of it into his mouth.
Austin’s mobile chimed and he answered it. He listened, dropped his cutlery on to his plate in disgust. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
SEVEN
‘It’s hard to believe,’ Austin said. ‘Honestly, it was so quiet while you were suspended.’
‘Oh, yeah, apart from a couple of riots,’ McLusky said. He was driving at speed in his Mazda on Brunel Way across the river. ‘I’m surprised you’re not blaming me for those as well.’
‘You have to admit, two murders in your first week back is quite surprising.’
‘No, Jane, what’s surprising is that they want us to attend a second one when we’re nowhere yet with the first body. If it had also been found in the canal I could understand it. But on an allotment?’
‘Not actually on the allotments, right next to them where it goes down to the railway line.’
‘Whatever,’ said McLusky, fighting the steering of the car. ‘I just want to know why we’re suddenly the only two detectives in Bristol.’ As McLusky took the roundabout at forty miles per hour the limitations of the suspension became all too apparent and he had to work hand over fist at the steering wheel and slow right down to keep the car from mounting the pavement. ‘Sorry about that. I’ll get it fixed, I promise,’ he said as he slewed into Clanage Road.
‘It wants fixing with a new one,’ Austin said primly. ‘Turn right at that little lane at the end of the allotments.’
When he did, McLusky could see that they were probably the last to arrive at the scene. A few hundred yards further on stretched a long line of vehicles. Brightly marked police cars, red, yellow and white against the green of the playing fields to their left, forensics vans, the Range Rover of DSI Denkhaus, the dark blue Jaguar of the pathologist, the sombre coroner’s van and even a big command vehicle had been crammed into the narrow lane. McLusky stopped well before he reached the line of vehicles, performed a six-point turn on the ungenerous width of tarmac and parked.
‘Planning a quick get-away?’ Austin asked.
‘I live in hope.’
‘Hope, Liam? That’s called delusion round here.’
It may have been unseasonably mild but on the allotments beyond the fence not much seemed to grow yet among the browns and greys of their winter livery. DS Austin entertained vague notions of one day creating a vegetable patch for his fiancée, Eve, in their tiny back garden but the inspector, he knew, was always happiest with solid tarmac under his feet. McLusky walked along without giving the allotments a single glance, eyes fixed on the figures busying themselves around the white tent on the slope of the railway cutting. From a distance most of the figures in their white crime-scene suits looked the same but McLusky spotted the unmistakable shape of the superintendent. He made straight for him.
‘Afternoon, sir. What have we got?’
‘Male, mid-thirties. Various wounds.’
‘Killed here?’
‘Probably deposition site.’
‘ID?’
‘Nothing so far.’ Denkhaus gave him a joyless smile. ‘So why did I call you?’
‘That would have been my next question, sir, yes.’
‘Well, have a good look at him and have a word with Coulthart.’ Denkhaus checked his watch. ‘Report to me back at the station, I’m late for a meeting.’
McLusky who had automatically checked his own watch – still stopped at ten to seven – made for the command vehicle where he donned a protective suit while quietly grumbling at no one in particular. Austin knew not to inquire. Suited up, both of them trod carefully along the marked path, took deep breaths and entered the tent. It had been erected with difficulty on the slope of the railway cutting. All around the tent a fingertip search was on the way, but here inside only the video man and the pathologist attended the dead body.
The corpse lay with head pointing down the incline, one arm twisted under the body, head to the side. The face appeared to McLusky hideously contorted, as though frozen mid-scream. The hair was a matted, bloody mess and both face and neck were covered in smears of blood. The corpse was dressed in a dark suit and white shirt. Its feet were bare.
‘Ah, you finally made it,’ was how the pathologist greeted them. He had been squatting by the side of the body and straightened up now.
‘And a good afternoon to you too,’ McLusky said with bitter cheerfulness. ‘Deposition site, I was told.’
‘Indeed. Though I don’t think deposited is quite the word I would use were I asked to describe it.’
‘I’m asking.’
‘This one was dumped. Flung into the weeds. A bit like fly tipping.’
‘There’s certainly enough of that going on round here.’
‘Flung?’ Austin repeated. ‘Does that mean we’re looking for more than one person? Hard to fling a man that size.’
‘Just the one,’ Coulthart said. He gestured up the slope. ‘SOCOs think they’ve identified one group of heavy footprints, deep imprints coming in and lighter ones going back up. One man, acting alone. He carried the dead man, hence the deeper footprints, tipped him down the slope and walked back, hence the lighter footprints. You are looking for one strong man.’
‘I’m not sure I’m looking for him at all,’ complained McLusky. ‘I’m in the middle of another investigation and so far I can see no connection. Unless you’re telling me this one was drowned, fished out of the canal and had his suit pressed before he was dumped here.’
Coulthart looked at McLusky over the top of his glasses and allowed a pause to develop that, better than words, said ‘are you quite finished?’. Then he peered through the bottom of his glasses at the body by his feet. ‘Two things. It’s hard to see with all this blood, but this man was gagged. He had a rag shoved inside his mouth and had it taped up. The tape is missing but the tell-tale signs are there. Discoloration and I’m sure we’ll find trace evidence of adhesive on his skin. Here’s the other thing I thought might make it of interest to you.’ Coulthart delicately pulled at the suit sleeve of the dead man’s arm, revealing a darkly discoloured wrist. Circling it was a single thin bracelet of dark blue cord.
Both McLusky and Austin squatted down to take a closer look. ‘It’s a bit of clothesline,’ Austin said.
‘Yes. Nylon clothesline. Different colour from the stuff on the woman but definitely clothesline. He has ligature marks on his wrists and ankles. Other marks too.’
‘Yes, what are those?’ Austin asked. ‘Looks blistered. Burn marks?’
‘Possible. Can’t say for sure until I get him on the table.’
‘When will that be?’ McLusky wanted to know.
‘Not today, perhaps not even tomorrow. We’re busy.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Some time last night, that’s as close as I can get.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Probably between six or seven o’clock and midnight. It all depends.’
‘What on?’ Austin asked.
‘The temperature wherever he was killed. The temperature of the vehicle that brought him here and so on and so on. Too many unknowns. You’ve been at this game long enough to know that whatever I say out here is no more than educated guesswork. But he was dumped here during the early hours.’
Outside the tent McLusky approached the uniformed sergeant in charge of the area search. ‘So who found the body?’
The sergeant made himself comfortable on his feet, glad
to be asked. ‘Couple of kids from the allotment, running after their dog. They’re still with their mother somewhere over there.’ He gestured over the fence towards the mosaic of plots and sheds. ‘Will you be questioning them?’
McLusky pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘Did they remove anything from the site? Find anything?’
‘They didn’t approach the body. Just retrieved their dog and ran back to tell mum.’
‘She call us?’
‘Yup.’
‘Anyone else approach the site between the kids finding it and you lot turning up? Did the mother go near it? Anyone?’
‘It appears not.’
‘Small mercies. As long as you have their contact details I’ll be happy. Hallelujah!’ McLusky had just found an unexpected Mars bar in his jacket and pulled it out like a conjurer who has surprised himself with his own trick. As he ripped the wrapper off the bar and sank his teeth into its soft sweetness he wondered whether he needed distracting from his cigarette cravings or was now developing an additional chocolate addiction. Either way, he would have to stock up again soon. He left the sergeant to direct his officers in the fingertip search and joined Austin on the tarmac where they struggled out of their scene suits.
‘Any thoughts, Jane?’
‘You’ll ruin your teeth.’
‘Your concern for my dental health is gratifying.’ McLusky crammed the last of the Mars bar into his mouth, making his next utterance barely comprehensible. ‘Anything else you want to contribute?’
Austin tried to make sense of it. ‘We have no ID for the bod and no one of his description has been reported missing. Both were gagged at some stage. We’ve got one bit of clothesline to link the two, but it’s the wrong colour and what house doesn’t have clothesline in the garden? You don’t look convinced.’
They started to walk down the line of cars. ‘I told you I had a bad feeling.’
Austin just nodded; McLusky always had a bad feeling. He probably woke up with a bad feeling every single morning. Perhaps that’s why he became a police officer.
‘But until we identify him,’ McLusky went on, ‘we’ll only have forensics to go on. Let them come up with something to link the two.’
