A Good Way to Go

by Peter Helton

  McLusky just nodded. ‘I should think so too.’

  Denkhaus however put a stop to pizza boys dumping their deliveries at the front desk since Sergeant Hayes could not get any police work done while having to sort out whose was the meat feast with extra chilli and who had ordered the ham-and-pineapple. McLusky didn’t care. He hardly noticed what he was eating these days; more than once he surprised himself by finishing a chocolate bar while working and only realizing it when it was gone, then having to uncrumple the wrapper to find out what kind it had been. Being a detective inspector was a stressful job at the best of times; with the canteen stubbornly closed, endless cups of instant coffee and his bloodstream racing with sugar it became a physical challenge as well. He had developed a cough, his body felt itchy as soon as he stepped from the shower, he had given himself a shaving rash and half of the time felt like throwing things at the wall, in particular his mobile, which stubbornly refused to ring.

  He was at the newsagent’s buying more cigarettes and chocolate bars when at last it did. He ran out of the shop before answering it, with the girl calling after him from behind the counter: ‘You’ve left your change! And your Mars bars!’

  McLusky stuck a finger in one ear to shut out the noise and hear what was being said. ‘Well, you’ve wanted to know what happened to the lamb in wolf’s clothing, you’ve got him back.’ Street noises at the other end, street noises at McLusky’s end too as a noisy scooter prattled past him.

  ‘Did you kill him?’ McLusky asked in a matter of fact voice.

  ‘He expired last night. I take it you haven’t found him yet. Get a move on or you’ll start lagging behind.’

  ‘Behind what?’

  ‘Behind me, Inspector.’

  ‘What have you done with his body?’ Even to himself his voice sounded tired.

  ‘I’m not telling you that, you need to have something to do, can’t expect to get everything handed to you on a plate. You’re going to find him soon enough, I expect.’ McLusky thought he could hear the sound of his adversary taking a drag on a cigarette and exhaling. ‘I’m making it easy for you as it is, I could have buried them all six foot under and you’d never find them. But I want you to find them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So everyone knows you can’t get away with this shit forever. Right, got to go.’ The line went dead. McLusky used his airwave to tell control that he had been contacted and that there was one more dead body to be found somewhere in the city.

  Another day, another body. McLusky tried to feel some kind of compassion for the dead councillor but all he could find in his heart was loathing for the killer.

  ‘He’s bound to be mental,’ Austin said. ‘Does he sound mental?’

  ‘They are all mental. The question isn’t “is the killer mental” but “does he know it’s currently against the law to kill people who have offended you” and I’d say he knows that well but doesn’t care. So spare me the mental-health angle.’

  ‘Yeah, all right, I wasn’t making a case for leniency, you know?’

  ‘Good. Now get on with something. Go and harass forensics. Or go and find Lamb’s carcass.’

  Austin left McLusky’s office swiftly and closed the door noisily. McLusky sat back in his chair and silently fumed for a moment, then realized that his hated mobile was still at Technical Support and took a deep breath and exhaled noisily. The absence of the phone’s evil presence soothed him a little. He opened his desk drawer and chose a sticky almond Danish from the bag of six assorted ones he had bought at Rossi’s on his way out, sank his grateful teeth into it and started work. The morning passed without Lamb’s body being found and McLusky began to worry. The body was the only true connection they had to the killer. The phone calls were too short to fix a location, the phones stolen and the connections between the victims tenuous. Without the body, progress would grind to a crawl. Back in Southampton, as a DC, McLusky had been part of a failed murder investigation and he never wanted to repeat the experience. Naturally no one spoke in terms of failure; unsolved murders were never forgotten, cases never shelved but regularly reviewed. All detectives dreaded those cases that might come back to haunt them in the future, often revealing omissions or mistakes made by the original investigators.

  By lunchtime McLusky felt queasy from worry and too much sugar. He knew the only answer to that was to eat real food. He left the station and made for the Bristolian. There were other places closer to the station but not only did he like the place and liked the food, he knew that there was at least a faint chance of finding Laura there.

  He didn’t. He did spot Ethan, the long-haired second-year student he had twice seen her with. He was sitting with two other men of a similar age, talking animatedly over open notebooks, iPads and coffee cups; there was always the possibility that Laura might join them. He could tell Ethan had noticed him but had chosen to ignore him. McLusky ordered the big breakfast platter that, besides all the cholesterol a police officer could ask for, comprised a blob of ‘sesame infused spinach’ which he frowned at as an alien invader in the land of the full English but wolfed down anyway. Laura did not make an appearance. He would have to be grown-up about it and call her. But not today, not until the investigation had borne fruit.

  The Bristol Herald printed a special edition almost entirely devoted to the case. The tone was becoming hysterical; no one was safe. The police were unable to protect the citizens. And, naturally, they were ‘clueless’. Phil Warren continued her theme of the ‘bungler’ and posed the question of whether the killer had abducted the right victim. It sailed perilously close to unacceptably bad taste but the edition sold out within two hours. A profile of the councillor took up a double spread, with photographs of the family and the house. A photograph of McLusky with the caption Detective Inspector Liam McLusky speaking to investigative journalist Phillipa Warren surprised him. ‘The devious cow,’ he muttered when he realized that Phil had secretly brought a photographer with her to the Eldon House meeting. McLusky recognized the potted palm behind him; the photograph had been cropped and the drinks on the table photoshopped out. The Herald had made an official request for a second interview with McLusky as the investigating officer, which had been refused. DSI Denkhaus also refused to hold a press conference but made a short statement to the press on the crumbling concrete steps of the station. He made reassuring noises for precisely ninety seconds and took no questions. McLusky’s shift ended without Lamb’s body having been discovered; he went home via a convenience store where he bought a ‘Hot & Spicy’ Indian ready meal. When he unpacked it in his kitchen he realized it was a meal for two. Undeterred, he heated it up and had a good stab at eating all of it. He groaned as he walked wearily across the street to the Barge Inn where he sat at the bar and let Paul the landlord refill his pint glass until closing time.

  It was two in the morning when he woke to the unfamiliar bleeping of his pink plastic mobile. Blindly he groped around for it and when he found it had to prise his eyes open to find the right button. He grunted something only an experienced DS like Austin could interpret as ‘McLusky’.

  ‘Your airwave is off and you didn’t give control your new mobile number,’ McLusky heard him say. ‘Lamb’s body has been found. It’s in Mina Road Park.’

  ‘Is that where you are?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. On my way.’

  For a long moment McLusky was not on his way anywhere. Eventually, knowing he would lose the fight to stay awake if he tarried much longer, he pushed himself upright on the mattress. Nausea swept over him and half of his brain seemed to have refused to come up with him. He was still drunk and his insides churned with Indian spices and beer. Having shuffled to the bathroom it took him twenty minutes to come out again, considerably lighter, feeling less sick but slow-witted and deeply unhappy with his lot.

  While he brewed coffee his mobile bleeped. ‘Denkhaus has just pulled up, where are you?’

  ‘Logistical problems,’ he managed to get out. ‘P
ractically on my way.’ The pain he felt as the coffee hit his stomach did more to wake him up than the caffeine. He added two antacid tablets to the breakfast menu and drove out to St Werburghs.

  Mina Road Park did not look at its best at three o’clock in the morning, swamped by police officers and dissected by police tape. McLusky’s Mercedes was the last of over a dozen police vehicles to arrive at the little park. The trees were still bare; flower beds and grass looked grey under the glare of generator-powered lights. Austin, who had looked out for his arrival filled him in as quickly as possible. ‘Body was found by a Keith Barren. He’s a chef and was on his way back from work.’

  ‘Works late.’

  ‘Had a few beers afterwards. He remembers seeing the figure of a man asleep on that bench when he went to work and didn’t think anything of it.’ Austin gestured at the cluster of white-suited investigators around the bench. Behind it McLusky could make out the signature feature of the park, a restored Victorian urinal. ‘The body was rolled in that filthy blanket so he assumed it was a homeless bloke but when he saw him again on his way back from work and he didn’t seem to have moved he decided he’d see if he was all right. Gave him quite a shock.’

  McLusky’s voice betrayed little enthusiasm. ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘Quite bad, yes. Worse than Bothwick. You look a bit under the weather if you don’t mind me mentioning it.’

  McLusky crossed the grass to the deposition sight. ‘I’m fine, it’s just the lighting, Jane, arc lights don’t suit my complexion.’

  Denkhaus looked wide awake. ‘I hope you have a strong stomach, McLusky, it’s not pretty, first thing in the morning. You did take your time getting here.’ Waving away an attempt to excuse his late arrival he kept talking while McLusky suited up. ‘This is a high-profile case, Deputy Chief Exec abducted and killed. The press will have a field day if they find out that you spoke to the killer moments before Lamb was snatched from his car. It’s already beginning to look like they’re right when they accuse us of being unable to protect people. We’re playing catch-up, we’re just mopping up after the killer.’

  ‘What about Richard Leslie? Can we arrange closer police protection for him?’

  ‘He’s refusing. We still have a couple of uniforms outside his house but he complained when they followed him to work. He feels he has no more to fear from the killer after his brother and his bible intervened. You must have another stab at interviewing Michael Leslie. Surely he can be made to see that the living are more important than a bloody oath on the bible.’

  ‘That’s pretty unorthodox talk for a CID officer, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  Denkhaus tutted irritably. ‘It’s different in a court of law.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll see it that way but I’ll have another go. I had planned to all along, I’m hoping a few days without questions have calmed him down a bit. I’m not holding my breath though.’

  McLusky unconsciously held his breath, however, as he bent over the corpse on the bench, then let it out audibly when he saw the extent of damage done to David Lamb’s face.

  ‘Inspector.’ Dr Coulthart greeted him softly and scrutinized McLusky’s face while he scrutinized Lamb’s. ‘If you don’t mind me saying …’

  ‘I don’t look well,’ McLusky forestalled his solicitude. ‘It’s called a hangover.’

  ‘That, indeed, would have been my diagnosis.’

  Lamb’s face was distorted in death agony, his mouth open, revealing his front teeth had been broken. The inside of his mouth was black with dried blood, his skin exploded around the closed eyes, the nose destroyed. ‘Did he fry him?’

  ‘Electrocution? Yes. I’ll have yet to establish if that is what killed him, though.’

  ‘It’s what he had planned for him. He did it to Bothwick by mistake. Though right now I don’t really give a shit whether he died from electric shock or had his head caved in or you find a knife in his back.’

  Coulthart was taken aback and looked at him quizzically. ‘But surely you should, Inspector.’

  ‘I know, I should, but this morning I really don’t.’ The pain in McLusky’s stomach had receded to a dull ache. The headache that sat above his eyes throbbed whenever he bent down or moved his head from side to side. His chest felt raw from smoking too much yet he craved a cigarette even while suspecting it would make him throw up.

  ‘I will try and fit in Mr Lamb’s autopsy this morning. Will it be you attending?’ Coulthart asked doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, it’ll be me.’

  ‘Then we’ll make it late morning, give you time to recover first.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’ McLusky quickly put distance between himself and the corpse.

  A fingertip search of the entire park was well under way even though nobody expected to find anything useful. ‘He stopped his van over there, I expect, closest point.’ Austin waved an arm towards the road. ‘He carried him. SOCOs identified a couple of places where he put him down or dropped him.’

  ‘Lamb was quite heavy,’ McLusky agreed. ‘And again, he could have just dumped him close to the road and driven off. Carrying him all the way to the bench was a considerable risk, he could easily have been seen. But he wanted him on that bench, he wanted him to look like a rough sleeper. It was important. No CCTV anywhere?’

  ‘No. Carefully chosen, like the other deposition sites.’

  They both stood, with their hands in their pockets, studying the scene, thinking.

  ‘There’ll be more,’ McLusky said eventually. ‘But how many?’

  ‘And why?’

  ‘If we knew that. I asked him that and he wouldn’t reveal it. But how many more and who? It drives me up the wall.’

  ‘Next time he calls, ask him?’ Austin suggested.

  ‘Yes, DS Austin, I will.’ He would get the phone back later this morning and hated the thought of it. ‘The papers are right, we can’t stop him.’

  It was a few minutes before noon when McLusky found himself in Barrow Gurney in the viewing suite of the autopsy room. ‘You look almost human,’ Coulthart greeted him.

  McLusky had recovered to the extent that he now thought of himself as at least eighty per cent human. He had smoked, coughed, sipped strong tea – a drink he reserved for the times when his stomach refused to hold down coffee – and around mid-morning had forced himself to eat a day-old Danish pastry from his desk drawer. ‘Can we just get on with it?’ McLusky snapped.

  ‘Perhaps I’m mistaken,’ Coulthart said softly. ‘By all means, let us proceed.’

  This was the point when McLusky usually unfocussed his eyes to spare himself the details of the procedure, unless the pathologist drew his attention to particular features. Today, however, McLusky paid close attention. He was angry with himself for having drunk too much the night before and was punishing himself, yet he found that far from making him feel worse it managed to divert his attention from the precarious workings of his insides.

  ‘Mr Lamb was severely beaten.’

  ‘I can see that. What with?’

  ‘All sorts. Fists, I believe, the size of the bruises around his eyes and cheeks are consistent with that, but also instruments, perhaps a broomstick or a piece of pipe. And I believe he was kicked, too, probably while lying on the ground. All his ribs are broken on his left side, one pierced his lung.’ Coulthart indicated the X-ray displayed on one of the monitors. ‘And his elbow was probably broken at the same time. He has a shattered cheekbone too. Quite a frenzied attack.’

  ‘What killed him?’

  Coulthart looked up and gave him a benign smile. ‘I am glad you have recovered from the world-weariness that ailed you earlier this morning. It was heart failure, brought on by electrocution. I’d say he died late yesterday evening. As you saw this morning he was dressed, though his shoes are missing. The blanket has gone to forensics. Synthetic, faded blue, probably had been washed several times in the past or bleached by sunlight. It was liberally stained from various sources so forensics migh
t make you a happy man soon.’

  ‘That’ll be a first,’ McLusky said automatically, though quietly he kept his fingers crossed that the blanket would have a story to tell, unlike the radiator, which probably came from a skip, the clothesline, which was too ubiquitous, and the buoy, which had been stolen along with the dinghy.

  Curiously, when McLusky left the mortuary building after the autopsy he stepped into a ray of sunshine that seemed inexplicably to lighten his mood. He lit a cigarette and stood for a while, eyes closed, his face turned towards the sun, sensing its brightness through his closed eyelids, trying to absorb it. He would go and find something proper to eat and then go and nail the bastard.

  The ringing of the phone shocked him out of it. ‘I see you found him then. I’m glad I got him off my list at last.’ Traffic noise, as before. A particularly loud engine came past, forcing the voice to pause.

  McLusky almost shouted. ‘How long is your bloody list?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. The more I think about it the longer it gets. After what you said to the press about me I’m wondering if you shouldn’t be on it.’

  ‘That’s been tried before, you sadistic arsehole, and I’m still here.’

  There was a pause. ‘You shouldn’t have said that. You really shouldn’t have said that.’ The line went dead.

  McLusky got into his car and drove to Technical Support.

  Fairfield slammed the front door of her building, unlocked the door to her mezzanine and slammed that door behind her. The bulky bag and roll of paper she’d been carrying dropped heavily on to the sitting room floor, followed by her shoes. She needed a drink. In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of wine and drained it. I needed that. I wanted that drink two hours ago. Fairfield told herself that if things progressed the way they were going at the moment she’d probably end up sipping from a hip flask at unobserved moments.