Sausage Hall

by Christina James

  “Perhaps. Or maybe pays their wages – at way below the national average. In return for services rendered.”

  “Kevan de Vries owns a lot of businesses. Most of them are run on low-tech manual labour.”

  “Precisely,” said Tim. “I’d like you to start checking out the payroll of his businesses. All of them. Find out the workers’ names, when they started work, where they live, how much they get paid. If Thornton allows it, you might get Katrin to help. She’s good at that sort of thing.” He looked at his watch.

  “Where is Juliet? It’s not like her to be late. Do you think I should call her? See if she’s OK?”

  “I’d give it until this afternoon,” Andy replied. “She may just have had a heavy night.” Tim grinned. Neither of them thought this likely. “Or overslept,” Andy finished lamely. “There’s bound to be an explanation. It doesn’t seem fair to breathe down her neck so soon, especially as she’s never been late before.”

  “You’re right,” said Tim. “I’ll wait a couple of hours.” He picked up the journal. “In the meantime, I’m going to see Katrin. There’s a job I need her to do. I’ll mention the de Vries stuff while I’m there.”

  “Right,” said Andy. “If your job’s what I think it is, may I suggest you should be careful? It wouldn’t be right to drag her into your defiance of Superintendent Thornton. Sir,” he added. There was a silence. “I’ll get on with studying the de Vries payrolls, then, shall I, until I hear whether she can help?”

  Twenty

  Two days later, Tim was standing by the window of his office looking gloomily out on to the Sheep Market when his telephone rang.

  “Hello, Tim, it’s Patti Gardner here.” He noted that the formality had returned to her voice. “I wanted to let you know that we were right about the skeletons. Carbon 14 dating suggests that the three women died around 1890, plus or minus ten years.” Modest as ever, she had said ‘we’, not ‘I’. Tim was grateful. He guessed that the reason for Patti’s measured tones was in part because of the conversation they’d had about proceeding with the case. She knew that Tim would now have to request permission from Superintendent Thornton to proceed. How Thornton would react was anybody’s guess. Of one thing Tim was certain: he’d want the business of the faked passports cleared up in double-quick time now, so that Kevan de Vries, if he appeared to be innocent, could be released as quickly as possible to rejoin his wife in Saint Lucia.

  “Are you still there?” said Patti.

  “Hmn? Yes, sorry,” said Tim. “I was just trying to think this through.”

  “Do you want me to write a report that you can show Superintendent Thornton?”

  “Yes – thanks – that would be great. And Patti?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know what you were saying about where they came from? Did you carry out those tests, as well?”

  “I’ve taken some samples. I’ve had to send them to a lab in London: it’s too sophisticated a technique for the equipment we have here.”

  “OK, thank you.”

  “Do you want me to wait until I’ve got those results as well before I send the report?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Four or five days, probably.”

  “In that case, no. I can’t stall Thornton for that long. But let me know as soon as the results come through.”

  “Of course. And I’ll have the report with you later today. I’ll email it, so keep on looking out for it.”

  “Will do.”

  Tim replaced the phone in its cradle. Not for the first time, he reflected fleetingly on his good fortune in being surrounded by so many efficient and industrious women. That in turn made him think of Juliet. Her neighbour had called the police station just before midday to say that he’d found her collapsed on the floor of her flat. She’d been rushed to the Pilgrim Hospital and had been there for almost forty-eight hours now. Although her condition was stable, they were no further forward in establishing what was wrong with her. He was about to pick up the phone to enquire again when it started to ring.

  “DI Yates, is that you?” He recognised Ricky MacFadyen’s voice immediately.

  “Hello, Ricky. I’m glad that you’ve called, because I have some news. As Patti Gardner thought, the skeletons found at the de Vries house aren’t modern. I’ve just been speaking to Patti, and she says that . . .”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir.” Ricky sounded agitated. “This is urgent.”

  “What do you mean? Where are you?”

  “I’m still at Laurieston. I’ve stayed here, as you instructed, sir. But I’ve just taken a call from one of the officers from Boston who came here when the house was broken into, who’d been contacted by the police in King’s Lynn . . .”

  “Regular little jungle telegraph, isn’t it?” observed Tim sardonically.

  “Yes, sir,” said Ricky, with impatient politeness. “Anyway, the message was that they’ve found the body of a young woman, half-buried in the woods at Sandringham.”

  Tim was all attention now.

  “Thanks for letting me know. Of course you’re right to tell me about it. But surely it’s a case for the Norfolk Constabulary to pick up on? Why did they want to inform you – or us?”

  “The girl was found naked. But there was a bundle of clothing on the ground beside her. It included overalls and overshoes marked with the de Vries logo.”

  “I see.” Tim was still thinking about the implications of this when Ricky started speaking again.

  “Laundry marks on the clothes suggest that she was employed in the de Vries canning factory at Sutton Bridge. But she’s been dead for a while and none of the workers from there has been reported missing.”

  “I agree that that’s odd and, as you know, I tend to mistrust coincidences. The de Vries name turning up again is certainly a coincidence, but not much of a one, given that my understanding is that the de Vries empire employs several thousand people. And, at a pinch, we could claim that Sutton Bridge is on our patch, although as you know we don’t often penetrate that far. But aside from the fact that we’re working with Mr de Vries on these other matters, I fail to see why Norfolk needed to tell you so urgently about the dead girl. What are their thoughts? Illegal immigrants, or home-grown slave labour?”

  “They say they’ve got an open mind about it. Could be either of those, I suppose; though I’d put my money on illegal immigrants. They’re keener on getting on than people who’ve already fallen through the cracks in our society. Smarter, therefore, and more industrious.”

  Tim nodded assent, realising as he did so that the gesture was invisible to Ricky.

  “But I still don’t see what the panic’s about, given that we’re holding Kevan de Vries ourselves. If he’s involved in this new case – which he very well may not be – he’s already here for questioning. I’m assuming that he can’t hear you, by the way?”

  “No, sir, I’m making this call from my car.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Tim. “Well? What’s spooking them? Am I right in thinking that it does have something to do with him?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Yes. Well, when I told PC Bedford at Norfolk that we were now only holding de Vries on the passports charge, and that Superintendent Thornton was keen to allow him to get back to his wife . . .”

  “So you told him that the skeletons were probably too old to have been put there by anyone still living?”

  “Yes. I . . .”

  Tim sighed exaggeratedly.

  “Really, Ricky, I would have expected more discretion from you. You realise that I haven’t told Thornton himself that yet? I’d better do it now, and at the double, too. I’d intended to wait until Patti’s report came through, but, as you say, the matter is now urgent. I take it, by the way, that Norfolk want to make sure that de Vries is detained until the
y can get to him for questioning?”“Yes.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, should it, as you’re on the spot? They ought to know that they’ll have to run the gauntlet of his solicitor, though. They’d better not put a foot wrong, or Ms Rook will crack down on them with all the civil liberties charges in the book. No doubt you’ll be able to manage to convey that piece of information satisfactorily, given your obvious communications skills.”

  Twenty-One

  The girl laid out on the mortuary slab was emaciated rather than slim. She had brown eyes and very blonde, curly hair which clung flatly and without sheen to her forehead. The mortician lifted the cloth that was covering her and Tim saw that she was naked.

  “I understand she was found like this, without clothes.”

  “Yes. Her clothes had been tossed in a bundle into the bushes nearby. They’re in a plastic bag on the counter.”

  “So she was entirely naked? No underwear?”

  “I believe not. I wasn’t first on the scene, but there are photographs if you want to check.” Professor Salkeld removed one of his latex gloves with a slapping sound and tossed it on to his workbench. He walked across to the desk in the corner of the morgue and removed from it a blue plastic folder. He handed this to Tim, who opened it and withdrew a set of matt photographs, each with a scale measure running down its left-hand side. Most were pictures of the girl lying on the ground, taken from different angles. A couple of others showed the clothes in the undergrowth.

  “As I think you’ll find,” said the Professor grimly, “there was no underwear – either on the body or with the other clothes. Just jeans and a white T-shirt and the de Vries overall and rubber clogs.”

  “Anything in her pockets that might help to identify her? Any jewellery, keys, purse? Anything at all that’s personal?”

  “Nothing. Not even a comb or a packet of tissues.”

  “What conclusions have you drawn? Can you tell us the approximate time of death, or what killed her?”

  “She’s been dead for several days – I can’t be more precise than that. I’m not yet sure about the cause of death – I may not be able to establish it with certainty – but my guess is that she was either strangled or asphyxiated. I could be wrong about that, you understand, and I’ll need to check the body for toxins. So long after death, though, the tests may not be completely accurate.”

  “Anything else?”

  “As you can see, she’s painfully thin. There could be a number of reasons for that: she may have been suffering from some underlying illness, or simply an eating disorder; or perhaps she was too poor to be able to eat properly.”

  “Surely not that? Even if she only worked on the floor of a food-packing shed, my understanding is that the de Vries companies pay relatively well. They don’t allow their employees to starve.”

  Professor Salkeld shrugged.

  “I’m only telling you what I see. I have no idea of what this woman’s circumstances were when she was alive; I can merely make suggestions about what may have caused her physical condition at the time of her demise. She was a woman, not a girl, by the way. I know that your colleague told you that she was a teenager, but I think that the officers who first attended were misled by her size. She may have been the weight of a young adolescent, but other factors – in particular, the maturity of her skull and the state of her teeth – tell me that she was at least twenty-five and possibly a couple of years older than that.”

  “Are there any marks or distinguishing features on the body?”

  “Yes, two.” Professor Salkeld moved to the foot of the trolley where the corpse lay and lifted the sheet so that its feet were exposed. “As you can see, she’d had a tattoo in the shape of a chain bracelet etched on her right ankle.” He folded the sheet down again, then reached underneath it to take one of the dead girl’s hands in his own. “And although she bit her nails, she also painted them. Bright turquoise, although some of it’s now chipped off. I’d have expected it to be against the rules for an employee in a food factory, although that would depend on what her actual job was.”

  He passed the hand to Tim with the same deference that he always adopted towards the cadavers in his care. Tim took it from him with equal reverence. As always, he was shocked by the profound coldness that death brings to the flesh. He bent to examine the short, slender fingers. The bitten nails were rather grubby, the turquoise varnish lurid and peeling. He was struck with some force by the pathos of the woman’s forlorn attempt to introduce some colour and no doubt what she believed to be sophistication into her life.

  “There are no overt signs of abuse? Bruises, cuts, lacerations, anything under the nails, evidence of forced sexual penetration?”

  “There are one or two minor bruises, but they’re probably of no significance. If she was indeed a factory worker, they’re the sort of small injuries she would have incurred all the time – knocking her limbs against machinery, that type of thing. Nothing under the nails, but, as you see, she had none to speak of. There is one thing that concerns me, however: her anal sphincter is extremely loose, and there are signs of inflammation in the surrounding tissue. Again it’s not conclusive, but this could be evidence of deviant sexual behaviour. If so, whether it took place with or without her consent is impossible to tell.”

  “Have you swabbed for semen?”

  Professor Salkeld regarded Tim over the top of his rather smart Armani spectacles with a look that spelled mild amusement tinged with a hefty dose of sardonic irony.

  “Yes, now you mention it, it did occur to me to do that. But you’re quite an expert on these matters yourself, I believe, so you’ll know that my chances of obtaining a semen swab that would allow me to identify her sexual partner so long after death are almost nil. The chances are that she engaged in both vaginal and anal intercourse in the hours preceding her death, but – with apologies for sounding like a gramophone record stuck in one groove – I can’t be definite about it. I’ll carry out some tests on the clothing as well – this may yield better results. But, as I’ve said, the underwear is absent. It’s likely that her attacker was forensically aware and deliberately removed her undergarments from the scene in order to prevent detection.”

  “Thank you, Professor, you’ve been as helpful as always.” As had often been the case in the past, Tim felt abashed by the Professor’s gentle mockery. He stood like a schoolboy in the presence of an eminent master.

  Professor Salkeld inclined his head slightly in a courtly acknowledgment of the compliment.

  “Of course I’ll let you know if I find anything else, especially anything that might help you to identify the poor woman.”

  Twenty-Two

  I know that I must brace myself to call Archie. Joanna calls him twice a week and she’ll certainly tell him that I’m here. Not only that, but I can’t talk to Joanna herself again until I can say we’ve spoken. Last night she was very agitated about the police, even though I didn’t tell her about the skeletons.

  My hands tremble as I search for the number of Archie’s school. It’s in Sleaford. Chosen, as Joanna has pointed out many times, so that visiting would be easy. As she would doubtless say if she were here now, I could hop in the car and be with him in less than an hour. I’ll be expected to indicate to the school what the purpose of such a visit might be. Mindful of this, I decide to talk to his housemaster first: Hamish Maitland. I find his number on a short typed list that has been pinned to the kitchen notice-board. Joanna’s handiwork, no doubt; or possibly Jean’s.

  The number turns out to be his direct line and, miracle of miracles, he is sitting beside his telephone.

  “Hamish Maitland? It’s Kevan de Vries. Archie de Vries’ father. I’ve just called to . . .”

  The voice at the other end cuts me short in mid-sentence.

  “Mr de Vries! I’m so glad to hear your voice. I’ve been meaning to call you myself.”
r />   His slight Scottish twang is irritating, as is his teacherly assumption of superiority.

  “Oh? Why is that? Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  “Well, now, that depends on what you mean by ‘wrong’. As I’m sure ye know, Archie didn’t take kindly to your own and his mother’s departure for abroad. No tae put too fine a point on it, he’s been quite difficult since you left. Nothing that we can’t handle, which is what we’re here for.” He allows a sort of pregnant silence to elapse, which I find infuriating. I leap quickly into the vacuum.

  “I’m glad that we’re agreed on that,” I say as smoothly as I can. “Your fees are not cheap, as we both know, but until now I’ve been convinced that Joanna and I are receiving good value for our money.”

  I, too, let a meaningful silence into the conversation. Much to my surprise, the sarky little rat shows that he’s prepared to take me on.

  “Yes. Well, Mrs de Vries is a different matter. Archie’s very upset about her . . . condition, as any wee lad would be, even without the challenges that Archie faces. I’ve a huge amount of respect for your wife, Mr de Vries, and the way that she is facing up to . . .”

  “Facing up to her death, you mean? Do go on.”

  He falters, but only for a few seconds.

  “What would really help,” he concludes in the bland, non-specific manner I’ve come to associate with his kind, “would be if yeself and Mrs de Vries could be a little more . . . co-ordinated – in your relations with Archie.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demand, my patience now threadbare. “Why can’t you just spit out exactly what it is you want to say, instead of talking in these dishonest insinuating riddles all the time?”

  This time the silence is much longer; so long, in fact, that if I couldn’t hear the man’s laboured breathing at the other end of the phone, I’d be inclined to think that he’d cut me off.

  “Very well, Mr de Vries, since you want it in the raw, you shall have it. I was just trying to spare the feelings of all concerned.” I can picture him, the paunchy little runt, steepling his fingers and telling himself to keep calm as he gets the better of me, disciplining himself not to show his glee. But I’m too weary and now too concerned about both Archie and Joanna to pursue his cat-and-mouse game any further.