Dead in the Water

by Aline Templeton

  Where was Marcus, anyway? She scowled, dragging her cases from the boot. He should be looking out for her, worrying in case she was lying in a ditch somewhere.

  It wasn’t a good sign. Just lately she’d sensed a slight cooling-off, which gave her a little flutter of panic. She wasn’t absolutely sure she was still in love with him, but he was her security in the cut-throat game which was her profession.

  Jaki was remarkably realistic. She was talented, but so were plenty of other pretty girls, and she hadn’t yet won the viewers’ hearts to the point where she was fireproof. While she was Marcus’s squeeze, she could be pretty sure she wouldn’t be written out.

  That made her sound a hard, calculating bitch – well, perhaps she was, in a way, but she genuinely had fancied Marcus rotten. He was the dream answer to an internet WLTM ad: BHM, GSOH, NM – and who wouldn’t like to meet a not married, big handsome male with a good sense of humour, and a bit of fame chucked in for extras? And he didn’t fancy himself even more than you did and play the big star. He was a honey, and she’d had a crush on him right from the start, never thinking he’d look at her twice. But in the long intervals between takes they’d talked a lot, and she made him laugh, then one thing led to another.

  For someone over forty, he was pretty cool, but she had to admit they hadn’t much in common. His idea of a great night out was something heavy at the theatre, then a restaurant where the waiters winced if you clinked a glass accidentally, and the only time she’d taken him clubbing had been a disaster. ‘How can you stand the smell?’ he’d demanded, wrinkling his nose. ‘All these sweaty bodies! And the noise . . .’

  So she hadn’t tried again. Jaki did her clubbing when he was otherwise engaged, but she was always careful. Marcus was showbiz news, in Scotland at least, and no rotten stringer was going to catch her draped around some other guy and write an item he’d see sooner or later. She’d no illusions about ‘for ever’ – and she knew he didn’t either – but she was in no hurry to move on.

  Though as she rang the bell and crossed the cavernous vestibule to open the front door, the thought crossed her mind that if spending much time in this dump was a condition of the relationship, she might be ready to move on sooner rather than later.

  ‘Darling, could I possibly have some more Badoit?’ Sylvia Lascelles was being saintly about the delay to lunch, but subtly so that it was hardly noticeable how saintly she was being.

  Marcus, who had refilled his own glass with wine more than once, leaped to oblige. ‘I’m sorry, Sylvia. I can’t think what’s keeping Jaki. I tried ringing, but she’s switched off.’

  ‘Very sensible, when she’s driving,’ Sylvia said sweetly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m happy just sitting here and looking out at that divine view.’

  The conservatory at the back of Tulach House had an elevated position, making it possible to look out on one side to the Irish Sea and on the other to Luce Bay. The sun was shining but a strong wind was seeking out the gaps around the window panes where the putty had perished.

  Sylvia, a veteran of Tulach weekends, had come armed with a soft blue-grey cashmere throw – by some happy coincidence, almost exactly the colour of her eyes. Marcus was wearing a thick-knit navy Guernsey sweater and even so his hands were red with cold. He was further away from the radiator than she was.

  The sound of a clanging bell brought him to his feet, relief showing in his face, though Sylvia judged, clinically, that this had more to do with the delay to lunch than with loving anxiety.

  ‘Great! That’ll be Jaki. I’ll introduce her, and check that the food – not just food, M & S food –’ he parodied the advertisement, ‘hasn’t been reduced to a crisp.’

  Sylvia sighed as he left. This tedious girl, butting in on her idyllic weekend in Laddie’s glorious house with her darling Marcus! She didn’t think the relationship sounded serious, though, and she’d just caught the faintest hint that he regretted asking Jaki down early. She’d seen the girl on the box and she wasn’t Marcus’s type at all – a common little floozie, Laddie would have called her. His son might well find his impression of her changed now she was here at Tulach, still so much infused with Laddie’s personality.

  She could hear their voices now, the girl’s high-pitched and querulous. Marcus wouldn’t like that, especially since she should be apologetic about keeping them waiting. Sylvia swivelled in her chair, prepared her high-wattage smile and beamed it at the girl who came in.

  ‘Jaki, darling! Come and say hello.’ She held out her hand, heavy with rings. ‘Have you had an absolutely ghastly journey? Poor love!’

  The girl did indeed look a little dazzled. ‘Miss – Miss Lascelles,’ she stammered, and came to take the bejewelled, twisted hand. She was wearing skinny jeans, green suede ankle boots and a short-sleeved, low-necked smock in olive, burnt-orange and brown, and she was shivering.

  However much it might be ‘in’ this year, it wasn’t a good look – muddy colours with that slightly sallow complexion and goose-flesh on her bare arms.

  ‘But you’re freezing!’ Sylvia exclaimed. ‘Come and huddle by the radiator, and Marcus shall run and get you one of his huge cosy sweaters. Quick, Marcus darling, before she dies of hypothermia!’ Marcus departed.

  ‘Now, what you need is a dram. Over there – the decanter.’ She indicated a tray with a silver-topped crystal decanter, tumblers and a bottle of Badoit.

  Obediently, Jaki went over to it. ‘Is there any vodka and tonic?’

  ‘Goodness, sweetie, here you have to drink the vin du pays! It’s the only thing that keeps out the cold. That’s Bladnoch, the local malt.’

  Dubiously, Jaki poured some into a tumbler and came to sit as close to the panel heater as she could, sipping it uncertainly.

  Marcus reappeared, holding a huge, very thick, scratchy-looking oatmeal sweater. ‘It’ll look a bit odd, I’m afraid, but it’s the warmest thing I could find.’

  He pulled it over her head and surveyed the result. ‘Oh dear,’ he laughed. ‘It does rather swamp you. But Sylvia understands all about the draughts here and I think you’re gorgeous anyway.’ He kissed her on the tip of her nose.

  Amused, Sylvia noticed that the smile Jaki gave him as she thanked him and wrapped it more closely round her suggested that she had murder in her heart.

  Marcus was peering doubtfully at the cottage pie – it seemed to have sort of black bits round the edges – when the phone rang. It was the landline, not his mobile, which was surprising. Being here so seldom, he never gave anyone this number.

  It must be someone local, a family friend, perhaps. ‘Hello?’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Marcus! A voice from your past! You’ll never guess who it is!’

  It was a loud, over-confident voice, and he did, in fact, recognize it. It belonged to Diane Hodge, and he almost groaned aloud. She was the spoiled only daughter of a Glasgow businessman who had come for years to holiday in Sandhead, over on Luce Bay, and she had horrified her family by marrying the barman from a local hotel. They’d lived there for a few years in the Eighties, but before long Gavin Hodge joined his father-in-law’s building firm and they’d gone off to Glasgow.

  The local grapevine must be working overtime. Before, no one knew if he was popping down for a weekend and he’d been spared this sort of call.

  ‘Diane!’ Marcus said without enthusiasm. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘You guessed!’ She sounded disappointed. ‘Well, once seen, never forgotten, as they say! I heard in the baker’s you’re back for a bit – to be honest, the whole place is talking about the great man!’

  Diane laughed. Marcus held the phone away from his ear.

  ‘We retired down here two years ago,’ she went on. ‘Dad died, and we thought, why not sell up and have a good time while we’re young enough to enjoy it? Gav has a yacht to play with, and I’m afraid we’re serial cruisers too – never at home! Still, we got back from the Galapagos a fortnight ago and we’re here at Miramar all week, so you must come over – no ex
cuses! Bring Sylvia Lascelles too, naturally. I hear she’s staying with you.’

  The last thing he wanted was an old pals’ reunion, least of all with Diane and the boorish Gavin, who’d taunted young Marcus Lazansky about his foreign name and called him stuck-up because he’d gone to boarding school. He had no wish to revisit all the unpleasant memories of the time before Marcus Lindsay, actor, was born. He’d shut them off, padlocked away in some dingy attic of his mind, and now Diane was coming, crowbar in hand.

  He spoke firmly. ‘Terribly kind, but I’m going to have to say no. Sylvia’s not awfully mobile so we’re saving her strength for filming next week.’

  He should have known that wouldn’t work. Diane’s attitude to obstacles in her path had always been to stomp them flat.

  ‘What a shame! I’d have loved to show you Miramar – we designed it ourselves, you know. But we’ll pop over instead, cheer you both up. Can’t have you just sitting staring at each other all weekend!’ She laughed again. ‘Anyway, I’m dying to meet Sylvia. I’m her biggest fan! Tonight? Tomorrow?’

  Tomorrow was at least further away. Outmanoeuvred, Marcus agreed to that.

  ‘Brilliant! Sixish?’

  ‘Sixish,’ he agreed gloomily, and set down the phone. He should have said no, flatly, but he wasn’t very good at that. He could only hope the price for his weakness wouldn’t be too high.

  3

  No body. No crime scene. No SOCOs to send out to do a detailed search. No sophisticated forensic analysis to provide answers. No computer summary of reports. No eyewitnesses to question. No adrenalin rush.

  Just dusty papers and reports, a box of personal effects and a few photographs of Ailsa Grant, alive and dead, yellowed with the passage of time. Cold case was a good description, though perhaps dead case was better. It would be no more than dry bones that lay in these boxes.

  Fleming had only a hazy memory of the news story concerning a murdered young woman thrown into the sea at the Mull of Galloway and some sort of scandal, the detail of which eluded her. It wasn’t like a case where the body was there in front of her. And yet, and yet . . . those photos.

  The photos were on the top of the first, catalogued box. There was one of Ailsa Grant, alive: a studio portrait of the type then fashionable, showing a face broad across the cheekbones, with strongly marked brows and a wide mouth. The hair was long and blonde, though dark eyebrows suggested this was not its natural colour. She had slightly hooded, grey-blue eyes and a tiny mole to the left of her mouth. Her nose and chin were a touch too prominent and she had, Fleming suspected, the sort of looks that wouldn’t wear well. Here, though, with the blush of youth and her lips parted in a studied smile, she looked pretty enough.

  The post-mortem photographs showed wide-open, glassy eyes and a water-bloated face, battered with gashes and what looked like a smashed cheekbone, but she was perfectly recognizable.

  As Fleming looked at her, the dead case came to life. This wasn’t just a murder statistic, this was a girl who would have been her own age, if she had lived. She had worn the same fashions, danced to the same music, dreamed dreams and had visions of her future too. The gross injuries had been suffered by flesh and blood, and Fleming heard the cry for justice as if the images themselves had given voice. With new enthusiasm she turned to her dusty task.

  She had come in reluctantly this morning. She was feeling edgy, and though she was technically off duty she wasn’t relaxing. When Bill, exasperated by her fidgeting, suggested she’d feel better if she went in to work, she had groaned and agreed.

  There were practical difficulties to deal with, but she knew in her heart that it was the link with her father here that was bothering her most. She didn’t want to be a witness to the humiliation he had suffered in being reprimanded. Snooping on something he had chosen to keep a secret from her was distasteful enough, and the thought that she was reviewing his work as a superior officer was even worse. He’d minded that he’d never made rank as an inspector; she had only realized how much when she told him of her promotion with pride, then had responded to his bitter reaction with a certain bitterness of her own.

  There had always been respect, though, and after his death she had even come to admire the way he had upheld the standards he believed in. If he had been arrogantly unprofessional, as it sounded as if he might have been, it would hurt to find her respect and admiration misplaced.

  The investigation, though, wasn’t about her domestic hang-ups. It was about this girl, whose case deserved the exhaustive investigation it would be getting if this had happened yesterday, and it merited urgency, too. After all, Ailsa had waited long enough for justice.

  Fleming focused first on the post-mortem shots, and frowned. Ailsa’s hair seemed to have been neatly combed back from her face – that was odd, surely, given what the other photos showed of extensive injury to the back of the skull. They were interior shots, not taken in situ when the body had been brought ashore.

  How, Fleming wondered, had foul play been established? She could see no signs on the clothed body which weren’t consonant with a violent sea. Many suspicious features can have an innocent explanation and there are no universal lab tests for murder by drowning.

  Turning next to the box of personal effects, Fleming ripped off the sealing tape and lifted the flaps. On top, neatly folded, was a pale blue tweed coat, ragged and stained and bleached by sea-water. It still had two elaborate flower-shaped buttons, one hanging by a thread. There was a shapeless green dress and some underwear. That was all. Fleming closed the box on the pathetic collection, then hesitated.

  She was tempted to go straight to the pathologist’s report. On the other hand, working steadily through would reflect the ordinary course of an investigation. She went to Box 1.

  The first item was Sergeant Angus Laird’s police notebook. She hadn’t quite prepared herself for the sight of her father’s familiar handwriting. He had the fine, old-fashioned copperplate style taught in those days, very strong and confident. She could hear his voice as she read, and she felt her throat constrict.

  He had been first on the scene, and on his own. A helicopter had been scrambled by the coastguard after a lighthouse keeper spotted a body, washed up on a spur of rock below the cliffs to the north-west of the lighthouse. The keeper had identified the body as Ailsa Grant from Balnakenny, a farm half a mile away.

  There had been a firm presumption of suicide, and there was a tell-tale entry explaining Laird’s conviction. ‘Deceased was visibly pregnant.’ His moral standards had always been uncompromising and there was a hint in his tone that, given the girl’s condition, this was only to be expected.

  Of course! Fleming remembered now. That was the scandal! The ultimate shame at that time, every parent’s fear – and she had to admit that even today she wouldn’t be overjoyed if Cat bounced in and announced she was pregnant, with no father around for the baby. She certainly knew her father had fretted that she, Marjory, with her independence and even a certain wildness at one time before she met Bill, might get herself ‘in trouble’ as it was always described.

  Bailey’s report came next. He too had believed it was suicide so, as she had guessed from the photographs, there had been no obviously suspicious signs. There was a cryptic passage about a ‘major breakdown in procedure’ before the body was moved to the mortuary and the word ‘recalcitrant’ was used to describe Sergeant Laird’s refusal to accept that the presumption of suicide had led to serious error.

  Fleming re-read it, puzzled. She had no problem with recalcitrant – being recalcitrant was her father’s favourite hobby – and never admitting he was wrong was standard practice. But ‘breakdown in procedure’. The Procedure Manual was Angus Laird’s bible: he’d always ranted against any form of policing which did not comply with it, boringly when she was a child and annoyingly when she was a serving officer herself. Yet he seemed to have let them take the young woman’s body away to her home to wait for the ambulance. He had even taken identification from Ailsa’s
father and brother on the spot, which certainly now would be formally done in the mortuary.

  It was a small, personal mystery; she couldn’t afford to waste professional time on it, yet inconsistencies were sometimes like a swirl in the water which spoke of a fish below. She filed it mentally and went on.

  Fleming flicked through the statements from lighthouse keepers and their wives. None had seen or heard anything, but then it had been a savage night; with their shutters latched against the elements they probably wouldn’t have heard a brass band outside playing Sousa marches, let alone the sound of a car arriving, or the screams of a girl – muffled, probably, in any case.

  She speed-read the notebooks of officers who had arrived later and the coastguard report, then paused over the statements from Ailsa’s parents and her brother. It might be better to see the evidence of murder first. Hindsight might indicate questions not asked at the time.

  The autopsy report must be here somewhere. This was it – in a format style, typed a little unevenly in blue. It had been conducted in the mortuary of the local hospital and she ran her eye down dates, times, list of officials present. She smiled at the name DI Bailey – he’d have loved that – and turned to the report’s findings.

  It was a serious disappointment, short and inexplicit. She hadn’t expected the detail and the battery of test results that were standard now, but even so, she sensed it hadn’t been a meticulous process – something to check with Bailey. A pre-death injury to the back of the skull from contact with a stone was recorded, but with no indication of size or shape. Lungs: no water present, again baldly presented, but Fleming knew this didn’t necessarily indicate murder. In a substantial minority of cases the shock contact with water produced vagal inhibition and stopped the heart.