The Heights

by Parker Bilal

  He picked up his phone again, replayed the message and then stared at the device for a long while, trying to decipher what might lie behind the coroner’s words. Then he got to his feet and went through to the kitchen to get another drink.

  Even back when he was in the Met, Archie generally never called him in person. He sent cryptic emails at best. Most of the time he just sent out his reports and waited, relying on the fact that Drake was generally more keen on getting information out of him than he was on giving it. This, then, suggested something different. Drake knew what it was. He also knew it couldn’t wait. He set the glass down with a sigh and headed for the door, picking up keys and jacket along the way.

  The chief pathologist was in his office when Drake arrived. It was still early evening, yet in front of him on the desk stood an open bottle of twelve-year-old Balvenie whisky. He held it up.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve stopped drinking?’ The pathologist arched an eyebrow as he leaned over to pour them both a glass. ‘Perhaps it’s this new life of yours? Good healthy living in the private sector?’

  ‘It’s a whole new world out there.’ Drake sipped the whisky as he sat down. ‘I have a serious feeling I know what you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘That’s the problem with you investigator types, always guessing. I do actually have some news. Not sure if it’s bad, or just interesting.’

  ‘This is you being cryptic.’

  ‘It’s a condition. We call it being human, or trying anyway.’ Archie sighed. ‘Anyhow, we ran a DNA test on Mary Stuart and matched the head to the unidentified torso that turned up in Brighton four years ago.’

  ‘So it is Zelda?’

  ‘Everything seems to indicate that is the case.’ Archie was shaking his head. ‘One interesting fact. The DNA report matching the torso to items in her room has disappeared.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘It happens. What can I say? As a result of that, the body was filed as a missing person. The pathologist filed her as an unidentified Jane Doe who had been in a collision with a boat. Not uncommon but still, any fool looking at that would know it wasn’t made by a propeller. Luckily the body was kept in storage and we could do another test.’

  ‘Will this change the circumstances of the investigation?’

  ‘You mean, will they make it a priority? I doubt it. She’s still a cold case from four years ago. An unknown foreign citizen who died under obscure circumstances. They’re not going to be breaking the door down to find who did it.’ Archie leaned forward to lock his fingers together on the desktop. Drake had never seen him quite this sober, despite the Scotch.

  ‘Why so coy, doc? I mean, this is good, right?’

  ‘What you hoped for, perhaps. You’re looking for closure. I understand that. Just beware of wishful thinking, trying to tie loose ends together.’

  ‘Do I detect a note of cynicism?’

  Archie studied the amber liquid in his glass. ‘Forensics ran some other tests.’

  ‘What other tests?’

  ‘Well, they found dog hairs for a start.’

  ‘Dog hairs?’ Drake frowned.

  ‘Yes, it’s confusing the issue because there are extraneous tissue samples that look like they might be animal tissue.’

  ‘Animal? You mean something had started to eat it?’

  Archie looked at him like a man whose patience was not unlimited. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s not clear what the connection is between the hairs and the tissue. They might be unrelated.’

  ‘So … you’re not saying a dog was feeding on her?’

  ‘Not exactly. There’s no indication of that. The wound is remarkably smooth and clean, and the head is generally, as I said, well preserved.’

  ‘You did say that, several times.’

  ‘So these samples came from the area around the wound, which suggests that the knife, or possibly the head, came into contact with a surface that had contained animal matter.’

  ‘Okay, so we’re talking about a butcher’s shop, something like that?’ Drake still had the sense that this was not the whole story.

  ‘That’s not what immediately concerns me.’

  Drake noted the change in the other man’s tone. ‘What does immediately concern you?’ he asked slowly.

  The coroner cleared his throat. ‘Other items were located. The head was, you will recall, wrapped up in newspapers and old rags.’

  ‘I do recall. In fact, if I’m not very much mistaken these items included a newspaper with an article in it all about me.’

  ‘Which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is interesting in its own right.’

  ‘Depends on your definition of interesting. Look, I’m not trying to hurry you, but I would appreciate it if you would get to the point, Archie.’

  ‘The fact that you were the subject of that article was not, I suggest now, an accident. It implies that the killer was trying to point the finger, at you.’

  Drake shrugged. ‘Sounds a fair conclusion. It could also be a coincidence.’

  ‘We’re men of science and deduction, Cal. We don’t believe in fate. Things happen for a reason. Coincidence is trying to tell us something.’ Archie refilled their glasses.

  ‘And what exactly is that?’

  Archie let out a long sigh and reached for his glass again. He was about to take a drink when he stopped himself. ‘How long have we known each other?’

  ‘Long enough to stop playing games.’

  ‘I’ve always thought you were a good man, Cal. At heart, I mean. We all have our weaknesses, our indulgences, but at the end it comes down to whether someone is fundamentally, deep down, good or bad. I’ve always taken you for one of the good ones.’

  ‘You say that as though you no longer believe it.’

  ‘They found your blood on one of the rags.’

  Drake sat up. ‘My blood? That can’t be right.’

  ‘It’s science, Cal, not the reading of tea leaves. Your DNA is on record for elimination purposes and it came up a match.’

  Drake set down his glass, suddenly stone-cold sober. ‘That makes no sense.’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you. That’s why I’m telling you.’ Archie thumped a fist on the desk. ‘I just want you to tell me that it’s not true. You didn’t kill that woman.’

  ‘I didn’t kill that woman.’

  ‘Then how do you explain your blood being there?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I hate to tell you this, Cal, but this is beginning to look like what used to be called an open-and-shut case. The blood samples are recent, but that doesn’t clear you. Prisons are full of people denying what they did. I don’t need to tell you that.’

  By now Drake was on his feet, restlessly pacing from one side of the room to the other.

  ‘Somebody got hold of my blood. A sample.’

  ‘Did you give blood recently? Have a date with a vampire?’

  Drake squinted at him. ‘There’s a funny side to this, Archie, but right now I’m not seeing it.’

  ‘Well, you need to start thinking of one because I can’t sit on this for long. Matches are time-logged. I can’t change that. It’ll only look like I’m doing you a favour.’

  ‘You’re sure there’s no mistake?’

  Archie inclined his head. ‘Facts are facts. You need to find out how this happened.’

  As he headed for the door, Drake paused once more. ‘Let me ask you a question, doc. The condition of the head and the presence of animal tissue. That suggests a butcher’s freezer to me.’

  ‘Why not? A typical industrial freezer can go down to minus forty or more. At that temperature you can pretty much stop all deterioration processes in their tracks.’ Archie reached for the bottle. Without bothering to offer, he poured himself a glass. ‘There’s also the line of the incision, which shows remarkable regularity, in dealing with bone, cartilage and flesh. To cut through material like that without deviation suggests a h
igh-powered mechanical blade, possibly with small serrations.’

  ‘Meaning an electric saw of some kind?’

  ‘We’re talking about an abattoir, a slaughterhouse, something along those lines. Once we get the measurements through to forensics for comparison we’ll know more. Right now I would put my money on an abattoir tool. Long blade. Sturdy and powerful. This thing went through her spine like a knife through soft butter.’

  Drake winced. ‘Thanks, doc. Enlightening, as always.’

  ‘All organic lifeforms are the same. Once they no longer carry the force of life in them, they become just that, inanimate matter.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a more poetic version of that somewhere.’

  Archie raised his glass in salute. ‘If you want my advice, you need to move quickly. Someone’s got it in for you, Cal. If you don’t clear your name, you may not get a second chance.’

  23

  Drake arrived back home to find his way into the building blocked by a big man in a biker’s leather jacket struggling with a child and shopping bags. It was only when Drake made to move past that he heard the child call his name.

  ‘Cal!’

  ‘Hey, Joe.’

  João, or Joe, as he preferred to be called, was nearly nine now. His hair was growing out into a fuzzy afro of dark hair tipped with blond ringlets. He was still the skinny little kid that Drake remembered, although they hadn’t seen each other for a while. The man ignored Drake. He picked up the shopping bags and shuffled over to enter the lift without anything more than a nod.

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘Later, alligator!’ shouted Joe.

  The doors slid shut and Drake turned towards the stairs. It was a long climb, but it was preferable to sharing the lift with Maritza’s new friend. It was more than a year since Drake and his downstairs neighbour had brought their casual relationship to an end. Maritza was an artist, and she had the temperament to match. She’d disappeared for months without a word, but he felt that Joe shouldn’t pay the price for the complicated way grown-ups lead their lives, so Drake hadn’t wanted to press him. He could tell that the boy felt a little awkward about the situation.

  Drake himself wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Archie had given him a lot to think about. If it was possible that someone had gone to the trouble of trying to frame him for a murder that happened four years ago, then the question was why. Either someone was worried that an investigation might find the real killer, or they saw an opportunity to get Drake. There was something personal about that second prospect that disturbed him. This wasn’t just business, this was someone with a grudge serious enough to hold on to Zelda’s head for all this time. That someone had to be connected to Goran’s murder too.

  The name that kept popping into Drake’s head was that of Pryce, even though he had nothing in the way of evidence that he was behind it. He knew only that Vernon Pryce had held a grudge against him for years and would have been more than happy to see Drake go down for Zelda’s murder. He might even believe that he was responsible in some way. Pinning a murder on someone wouldn’t have been all that alien to him either. Drake knew that Pryce wasn’t beneath stooping to such methods to clear a case. There had been rumours about him for years.

  Back on the sofa in the living room, Drake lay in the dark trying to think. He was curious about Fender. Who he was and where he fitted into the picture. Also, how he had managed to get hold of Zelda’s head. It seemed clear now that he had staged the whole business on the Tube intentionally to draw the maximum amount of attention. He wanted Zelda and her killer to be exposed to the world. That seemed like an unlikely course for the actual killer, even if he thought he could throw the blame on Drake. Did that mean that whoever Fender was, he wasn’t responsible for her death?

  There were more questions than he had answers to and he was getting hungry. He’d been drinking on an empty stomach, he realised, having not thought about food all day. He sat up, reaching for his phone, and dialled in his usual order to a Balti place in Falcon Road. Then he flipped open his laptop and clicked through the audio-visual files Milo had sent him one more time. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for any longer, but he was convinced that he must have missed something.

  He stared at an image from the exterior of Clapham Common station for about ten minutes before he realised that he was looking at images from the day before the head was found. He was about to click away when something caught his eye. It took him a few moments to figure out how to move the image and zoom in on the top left-hand corner. A large white box truck was trying to park but was making a dog’s dinner out of it. There was writing on the outside of the panelling. Green Gardens Halal Meat Packing. Drake was staring at the image, trying to remember where he had seen it before, when the doorbell rang. He got up, expecting his food to have arrived. Instead, he opened the door to find Maritza standing there.

  She took two steps back and wrapped her arms around herself. She wore a baggy brown cardigan over her usual paint-spattered overalls.

  ‘Hey,’ she smiled.

  ‘Hi,’ he replied. ‘Wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Sorry, yes. I should have called.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. Come in.’ He stepped aside, but she shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, no, I can’t. João said he saw you.’

  It was Drake’s turn to smile. ‘Yeah, he’s grown. You’ve been away.’

  ‘We were in Rio for a couple of months to see my parents. My father was ill.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s okay, you know me and family.’ Her face broke into one of those great big grins that he had always loved and he felt his heart give an unfamiliar lurch. Then she was back on an even keel, all business-like. ‘Look, I just wanted to say, João has been asking about you. I think he misses you. This whole thing …’ Avoiding his gaze, her eyes fixed on a spot on the doorframe where the paint was flaking. ‘What I’m trying to say is that, if you feel like it, some time, I’m sure he’d love to catch up.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Great. I think he’s looking for male role models.’

  ‘What about …?’

  ‘Shane?’ She pulled a face. ‘Kids are not really his thing. I think João can feel that.’

  ‘Right.’ Cal wondered when he had qualified as having kids as his thing, but he wasn’t going to quibble. During their time together he and Joe had got along easily. They were comfortable in each other’s company.

  Maritza nodded. ‘I think he just needs some sense of order.’

  ‘Right, well, you know, sure. I’d be happy to.’

  ‘Maybe just babysitting one evening? Not a school night.’

  ‘Sure, pizza and television.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’ There was another long pause. The kind you could have fitted a coffin into lengthwise. ‘You and me … I mean, we …’ She left the sentence open ended. Drake knew what she meant. There were too many weird angles on this thing.

  ‘It’s complicated. Look, I’m happy to take care of Joe. You just tell me when.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘I know, I just …’

  ‘He’s a great kid. Just, you know, give me notice.’

  ‘Right. Thanks. You know …’ she began as she turned away. They looked at one another. She waved the thought away with a swipe of her hand. ‘Forget it.’

  Drake shut the door and wandered back through the kitchen to the living room, fixing himself another drink on the way. He reached into the freezer compartment and winced. Withdrawing his hand he saw the narrow scar, almost healed. He took his drink into the other room and sat down on the sofa, holding his hand up to the light.

  He remembered now. It was over a week since he’d cut himself. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa one evening. Maybe he’d had a few drinks too many, but he’d woken in the middle of the night thirsty and went into the kitchen to get some water. He’d knocked a
glass over and then tried to catch it before it fell into the sink and broke. Throwing out his hand, he’d managed to punch the glass into the wall tiles. A shard of broken glass had cut him deeply. He remembered reaching for the closest thing to hand, a white T-shirt, and wrapped it around his hand. Then he lay down again. When he woke up the cloth was soaked in blood. The wound had clearly been deeper than he had thought. He washed it and poured iodine on it, then he patched it as best he could and hoped it would heal without stitches. The T-shirt had gone into the rubbish and was thrown out a day later.

  Getting up now, he went over to the window and peered down into the shadows around the base of the building. Had someone been watching him? Had they seen him buzzing himself into the yard behind the building where the bins were kept? Someone who had noticed the bandage on his hand? Someone who had been very lucky, or had spotted an opportunity. Or maybe luck had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was fate.

  24

  The club was in the basement of an old church. The word ‘Cryptography’ was spelled out in neon letters behind the bar. She wondered if that was the name of the place. Names seemed like the evening’s theme. Her date introduced himself as Jindy, which she assumed was short for Jindal. The softer ending didn’t suit him. It suggested he was trying to project a more female-friendly version of the macho guy that he really was underneath. She wasn’t really in the mood for this, but they had arranged it days ago. So they danced and did shots and then danced some more. At a certain point, feeling sweaty and free, Ray decided that she would probably say yes if he invited her back.

  His place turned out to be a huge penthouse in Canary Wharf, with floor-to-ceiling windows and nothing to block the view but an expensive leather sofa. The only other furniture on display was a bed up against the wall.

  ‘I like the minimalism of it,’ she said, as he handed her a drink.