The Forgotten Sea

by Beverley Harper

  Humming tunelessly, Francois’ eyes ran up her torso. Small breasts, ribcage sticking out slightly. He’d seen that in other young girls. This one would have been around nineteen. Probably thought she was too fat! There was some bruising on both upper arms, fingerprints by the look of them. He picked up the scalpel again and patiently scratched away the outer layer of the skin. The bruises went deeper. Perfect imprints of a thumb and three fingers on both arms. Francois was glad the girl had been white. Bruises on a black skin can sometimes be missed.

  The marks on their own may, or may not, be significant. Coupled with the abrasion on her lower spine, they could have been caused during intercourse. He needed something more. And then he found it. In the crook of her right arm, the main vein had been penetrated deeply and roughly. A search for other injection marks revealed nothing. That was good. A single puncture was an excellent indicator of foul play. Having cleared the area of sand, he dissected slowly around it, taking care to include some of the surrounding muscle, noting how the area was tinged with red, a sure sign that the injection had been administered ante-mortem. Jeet placed the sample in a jar which he labelled and then put into a small polystyrene box. All specimens taken from the body would travel to the police forensic laboratory in this airtight container. There, scientific officers would examine each and every one of them in minute detail.

  ‘Okay, little one. Let’s get serious here.’

  Working quickly and efficiently, Francois took samples of hair from the girl’s head, armpits, pubic area, eyelashes and eyebrows. He then scraped under each fingernail before taking clippings from several. Vaginal and rectal swabs were also taken. Finished with those, he set to work on the face and neck, checking for injuries. ‘Frenulum intact, teeth in good order, no bruises. No-one punched you in the face, did they, my beauty?’ Francois was talking mainly to himself. ‘Lips a bit bruised. Hmmmm. Let’s see.’ He scraped at the skin on her lips and took some away from the jaw area. ‘Heavy-duty kissing with a gentleman in need of a shave,’ he observed.

  Jeet looked at him politely.

  ‘Signs of passionate kissing. Nothing wrong with that.’ Prost went to move on with his work.

  Jeet was still watching him, pen poised.

  ‘Write it down, man.’

  The assistant grinned behind his mask and scribbled furiously.

  Francois examined the girl’s teeth. ‘All her own and well looked after.’ Jeet faithfully wrote down his observations. Both men knew that if the girl was local then the exercise was probably a waste of time. Forensic dentistry was impossible since Mauritian dentists did not keep records. Besides, her clothing made Prost reasonably certain that she was a local. He shifted his attention to her neck. No bruises. He’d lay odds that the hyoid bone was still intact. Dissecting through skin and tissue, he examined it. Perfectly fine. No strangulation.

  Prost moved on up to her scalp. First the skin. He cut from ear to ear, over the top of her head. With a fresh body, the business of pulling the front half of the scalp forwards over the face and the other half backwards is not too difficult. The skin is still firm enough to withstand considerable pressure. But, after four days in the sea, this girl’s skin was fragile. It took a long time to expose the skull sufficiently to open it.

  Once done, Francois picked up the electric saw. Cutting from just above one eyebrow, he only stopped when he reached the back of the head. The process was repeated on the other side. Putting down the saw, he inserted the dessertspoon’s handle into the cut and twisted off the skull. From long practice he made it look easy but it took skill to know exactly where to cut and how to expose the brain without destroying possible evidence. As expected, the brain was swollen and beginning to liquefy. No blood in either of the cerebral hemispheres, no sign of internal injuries. ‘Ante-mortem injuries nil,’ he barked at Jeet, checking the skull with fingers and eyes. ‘And nothing post-mortem either.’

  ‘Okay, little one. Let’s take a look inside.’

  Jeet adjusted his facemask. He did not mind the sight or sound of the deep incision which ripped the girl from abdomen to sternum so that the forensic surgeon could work unencumbered. Nor was he bothered by the breastbone being cut and cranked open. He was not, however, particularly fond of the smell. Even fresh bodies gave off a sickly odour as their inner workings were exposed.

  Francois paid no attention to the smell. It was as much a part of his daily life as the aroma of rising bread is to a baker. Totally absorbed, he went straight to the girl’s reproductive organs.

  She was not pregnant, nor had she been recently. Francois checked this carefully. Backstreet abortions were a common enough occurrence and sometimes, when they went wrong, the evidence of such an event was thrown into the sea to allow nature, and the ever-hungry sharks, to take care of.

  Satisfied that an unwanted pregnancy had not caused the girl’s demise, he started looking elsewhere. No water in the lungs. She’d died before entering the sea. Heart fine. Liver looked okay. No hepatitis-type symptoms. Not a habitual user of drugs in any case.

  The stomach contents were next. Sometimes, if it was full, Prost favoured the method of tying off the top and bottom and putting the whole lot into a container. This girl’s stomach was practically empty and the contents not immediately recognisable. The lab boys would have to analyse what little there was. Using his trusty dessertspoon, Prost scooped out the contents and slopped them into a jar. Then he turned his attention to the other organs. Pancreas, large and small bowels, kidneys, bladder, uterus and ovaries were all healthy. ‘Clean living little thing,’ he observed to no-one in particular.

  Jeet just shook his head. As one of three mortuary assistants, he was used to pathologists. His regular boss, Dr Boolell, kept up a running commentary while working and it fell to Jeet to know what to write down and what to ignore. Dr Prost was more economical with his words but he worked the same way. Blood, bile and urine samples would be next, so he stood ready to receive them.

  Nearly completed, Francois straightened and stretched. He’d been bending over the body for nearly two hours and his back hurt. At that moment the door opened and Detective Sham entered the room, his eyes studiously avoiding the cadaver. ‘Finished?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘I’ll wait outside.’

  ‘If you like.’ Francois grinned sadistically. ‘Though you might spot something I’ve missed.’

  Sham didn’t know Prost well enough to be sure he was joking. And he wasn’t about to hang around long enough to find out. ‘I’ll just be outside.’ With that, the decidedly pale detective left the room.

  Francois bent to his task again. Liver, brain and kidney samples to check for oedema or renal failure, and a specimen of bile from the gall bladder which would be specifically examined for drug abuse.

  ‘That’s it.’ He snapped off his gloves. ‘Let’s see what stories that lot tells us.’ Opening the door, he went in search of the detective who had disappeared outside for a cigarette. Francois found him leaning, with studied nonchalance, against the wall of the building.

  Sham looked up when he saw Prost walking towards him, dropped the cigarette, ground it out beneath his shoe and nudged himself away from the wall.

  ‘All done,’ Francois called cheerfully.

  ‘Got anything for me?’

  ‘Bit early to tell.’

  Sham rolled his eyes. Dr Boolell was usually prepared to take a flyer on such things.

  ‘But I can tell you that she was probably a local girl, she was not a habitual druggie, she wasn’t pregnant, she was dead when she hit the water and she has an interesting puncture mark on her arm. Will that do?’

  Sham nodded once. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Francois said pleasantly. ‘Got to sew her up. See you around.’ He returned to the morgue to perform the one part of his job he didn’t enjoy. It was no problem cutting bodies open, that was exciting, but the need to make them pretty again for the sake of their relatives was onerous. With this one’s skin
in such a condition the stitches would probably tear and refuse to hold. As for the missing eye, all he could do was cover it with gauze. Whoever had the misfortune to identify this little girl was in for one hell of a shock.

  Detective Sham returned to the police station. Even before he entered the building it was obvious that some kind of drama was taking place at reception. A flash premonition warned him that his name would be in the cast. Head down, he walked quickly past the desk where a tall, dark-haired, well-dressed woman was tearfully accusing an obviously harassed sergeant of not taking her seriously.

  ‘Sir.’

  Damn the man! Why can’t he handle it? Sham sighed and turned.

  ‘Sir, this is Mrs Vitry. She wants to speak to someone in authority.’ Behind her back the desk sergeant pulled a face which said, ‘Rather you than me.’

  Sham forced a smile. ‘Please come this way, Mrs Vitry.’

  In his office, a small, square, airless room, he indicated a chair for her.’ Have a seat, Madame.’ He went around the dossier-strewn desk and sat down. He waited politely while Mrs Vitry tried to compose herself. When it became evident that she was fighting rising hysteria and not likely to get any calmer, Sham, with practised professionalism, asked,’ Now, how may I help you?’

  Within two minutes, the detective realised he’d found the identity of their corpse.

  ‘Why did you wait for five days?’ he asked the woman, deliberately stamping down the sympathy that welled in him. Mrs Vitry seemed like a nice person – intelligent, sincere and desperately worried. Sympathy wouldn’t help her when he broke the news. In Sham’s experience, receivers of shocking news needed kindness and controlled impartiality to help them through the first few terrible minutes.

  ‘She . . . we . . . she often stayed out of touch. We haven’t been getting along very well lately. Corrine has her own apartment. I did try to phone her but there has been no answer. When I went around there this morning the landlord said he hasn’t seen her for a while. Georges, that’s her boyfriend, said they’d had a fight and haven’t been in touch for a week. She’s not been at work either. They assumed she was sick and didn’t think anything of it. I . . . I know something is wrong. Perhaps it’s nothing but . . .’ She let it hang, not willing to voice her fears.

  Sham noted down the usual details: name, address, where she worked, names of friends, boyfriend’s name, et cetera, while Mrs Vitry fidgeted and wrung her handkerchief into a twisted knot. He knew he’d get no sense out of her once she’d been told about this morning’s discovery.

  ‘Do you have a recent photograph of your daughter, Madame?’

  Mrs Vitry produced several. Sham’s face revealed nothing, but a rush of anger hit him when he looked at the fresh-faced innocence of the beautiful young girl laughing at the camera.

  ‘When were these taken?’

  ‘Two months ago.’ Tears were forming in the woman’s eyes. ‘You know something, don’t you? Something has happened to Corrine. What is it? For God’s sake, what is it?’

  There was no other way, ‘I’m very sorry, Madame, but a young girl matching these photographs was found dead on a beach this morning. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you, or some other member of your immediate family, to come with me to the morgue.’

  The woman broke down. Sham found himself hoping that Dr Prost, in the process of making the body presentable, had had the forethought and sensitivity to do something about the missing eye.

  ONE

  A grey and distinctly unappetising dawn filtered through fogged windows of the Cremorne Point cottage Holly Jones called home. It had been a wild night. A freak storm, normally a summer phenomenon, had ripped through several suburbs of Sydney wreaking destruction and instant havoc. Trees were down, power out, roofs smashed by flying debris, the ground littered with branches, their leaves glistening wetly in the rain.

  The steaming coffee mug Holly held in her hands was both warm and comforting as she stared out at the cold scene. Late winter was drab enough without this. The morning’s view from her lounge, over the dull waters of Sydney Harbour, was depressing. Sluggish grey, almost sullen-looking. On most days dancing wavelets lit by brilliant sunshine sent bright shards of light skittering away to Point Piper on the far side. It was flat now, cold and menacing.

  She sipped the coffee slowly, reluctant to finish and brave the pandemonium that still battered the outside world. It was Sunday morning, at an hour when most sensible people were snuggled up in warm beds. Damn you, Quinn, she thought sourly. Why can’t you sleep late and take Sundays off like normal folk? As usual, he’d been unwilling to discuss whatever was on his mind over the telephone.

  ‘Come into the office in the morning. We’ll have a chat.’

  ‘What time?’ she’d asked, knowing it would be absurdly early.

  ‘Seven thirty.’ There’d been no apology in his voice.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday,’ she’d pointed out tartly.

  ‘So it is. See you then.’

  Sighing, Holly left her mug beside the sink and went to the telephone. Time to go. The luxury of a taxi was preferable to coaxing life into the draughty old MG, which was unreliable and hated cold early starts as much as its owner. She punched in a number and put the instrument to her ear, cursing when there was silence. ‘Damn it! So much for Plan A.’

  Although she’d been living in the cottage for just over three months, she was still not completely unpacked. From a cardboard box in the bedroom Holly produced a woollen cap and a fluffy mohair scarf of a garish purple colour she’d been forced to knit by a sewing teacher who’d given up on ever teaching her to do anything more than sew on a button. Holly kept and wore the garment with pride. It was proof of her one and only venture into home craft. ‘Too thin,’ she told her reflection in the small oak-framed mirror. The face that looked back had a vulnerable quality. Large grey eyes, winged light brown brows, high cheekbones, full lips and a nose she described as long and bony but in fact was just high-bridged enough to save her face from bland prettiness.

  Sunday best it was not. Jeans, sneakers and an oversized sloppy joe which hung halfway to her knees and hid the boyishly slender body under it. She jammed the cap over short blonde hair, tucked errant strands up out of sight, didn’t like what it did for her face, tried to hook some back with her nails, lost patience and snatched the cap off again. Ruffling slim fingers through the offending hair, she tried again. The process didn’t work much better the second time. So she left it. Nothing seemed to work. To Holly, she was too thin and hated her nose.

  As she wound the scarf around her neck and pulled on an oiled cotton Drizabone jacket, Holly saw someone flawed, someone who had failed. There was pain and the start of fine bitter lines around the corners of her mouth. ‘Screw this,’ she muttered at the mirror. ‘Who cares?’

  Snatching car keys, Holly left the cottage and made her way carefully up thirty-three wet, leaf-strewn steps to the street where the MG was garaged. She had no umbrella. Her last one had disintegrated under similar weather conditions. The steps were stone blocks, old and slippery. Rain lashed down and, before she was halfway up, her cap and jeans were soaked. Water trickled under the scarf and the wind found small gaps in her clothing through which it blew its icy breath. At least the Drizabone worked.

  A tree had blown down across from the garage but she figured the MG could get round it. Further up the street, emergency teams were already out with chainsaws, cutting debris into manageable pieces ready to be carted away. At least two houses nearby were roof damaged. Fingers turning numb from the cold and wet, Holly fumbled with her keys and finally unlocked the garage doors. They were the old-fashioned kind, made of wood, which swung outwards and blocked the footpath. She wedged a brick against each so they didn’t blow shut and approached the MG. ‘Do me a favour. No sulks,’ she muttered.

  But the car sulked anyway and, by the time she backed out into the street, an understandably miserable paperboy on a bicycle was ready to trade insults with her. ‘Sorry,’ Holl
y said, hopping out of the car, which, left to its own devices – but for a recalcitrant choke with its own agenda – promptly stalled. One at a time she kicked away the bricks and managed to wrestle the doors closed.

  With the offending obstacles removed, the paperboy – a lad of maybe twelve or thirteen – exercised his limited vocabulary. ‘Stupid old cow.’ He pedalled away up the footpath, angrily flinging plastic-wrapped newspapers in the general direction of nearby houses.

  Holly slid back into the MG, adjusted the rear-vision mirror which, for some inexplicable reason, always seemed to need it, caught sight of herself, screwed up her nose and said, ‘Moo.’ Feeling slightly better, she played the usual start-or-flatten-the-battery battle of wits with the old car – a test of mental against mechanical tenacity which, more often of late, she lost. The engine hiccupped three times, groaned once, then roared into life and blew blue smoke as fat flatulence tumbled through the exhaust with unmitigated fervour. Holly, from years of experience, knew that this would be her only chance. She slammed the short gear lever forward and accelerated away.

  At this hour there was very little traffic. Driving rain that still fell with unrelenting ferocity quickly found its way inside the car. The heating system was basic and had only two settings – too hot or not hot enough. She set it on high and directed its blast towards her feet, knowing that by the time she reached the city, both legs would be toasted but the tip of her nose would need defrosting.

  She was heading for Market Street in the inner city and the offices of Out of Focus, a monthly magazine which occupied two floors of a high-rise building. Established in 1983, Out of Focus was a slightly off-the-wall publication with an investigative journalistic leaning towards the bizarre. Mainstream news was left to such conventional weekly publications as Time, Newsweek and the Bulletin. The editorial aim of Out of Focus was to feature reports of the unusual, the nearly or ex-famous and the far-flung and interesting. Readers of the magazine could be assured of only one thing: if there was such a thing as a BSc in useless though thoroughly entertaining information, Out of Focus would be required reading.