‘Sorry,’ he said, his Welsh accent tempered by a university education. ‘I’m the only one here. I wasn’t expecting company.’
Under different circumstances and probably in the course of work, Donovan would have responded to a line like that by asking with a raised eyebrow what other things the technician got up to in the mortuary when no one else was there, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t about anyone else. This wasn’t an enquiry in the name of work. This was his life.
His son.
The technician checked the note that Davies gave him, opened the corresponding drawer. He pulled out a plastic-sheeted body.
Donovan trembled.
The technician unzipped the plastic, looked up before opening it.
‘It’s, uh … the body’s been in the water a while. It’s not … like it is on TV, you know.’
Peta nodded.
‘Just, y’know, prepare yourself for a shock, like, is what I’m saying.’
He unfolded the plastic back. The body lying there had once been a human boy. But that seemed a long time ago. It had since become the property of the ocean, its plaything; buffeted, tossed and swollen up by the waves, gnawed and chewed on by fish and other marine creatures. Eventually given up and returned to shore, all further possibilities exhausted.
But there was one thing the body wasn’t.
‘It … it’s not him,’ said Donovan.
The other three looked at him.
‘It’s not him.’
Donovan looked again at the body. It was a mess. But the basic shape was still there. And even allowing for the intervening three years and the treatment of the sea, it wasn’t David. He could see that.
Davies frowned. ‘Are you sure, Mr Donovan? The body’s in a bit of a state and there’s still the DNA tests, but—’
‘It’s not him.’ Donovan’s voice became stronger. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or despondent. ‘I can feel it. I know it. It’s not him.’
Davies nodded at the technician, who re-covered the corpse and sealed it once again in the wall. He looked at Peta, who gave a shrug, then at Donovan.
‘Thank you for coming down,’ he said. ‘Hope we haven’t wasted your time too much.’
‘It hasn’t been a waste of time,’ said Donovan. ‘At least there’s …’
He was about to say ‘hope’ but stopped himself.
Davies caught the unsaid words, nodded.
Another technician was called and a DNA swab taken from Donovan’s mouth with a cotton bud. The results would be ready within forty-eight hours at the earliest, Donovan was told, and he nodded. But he knew what the answer would be. He gave a sigh. Whether of relief or any other emotion he couldn’t tell.
‘What will you do now?’ Peta asked Davies.
‘Continue with our lines of enquiry. Perhaps someone from another mispers organization will get in touch. We’ll continue asking around in the boating community, see if they’ve heard of anyone going overboard.’
‘He could have fallen off a cruise ship,’ said Peta.
‘Or off a trawler or a merchant ship. Could have been people smuggling. An illegal immigrant.’ Davies sighed. ‘Someone knows, somewhere. I just hope they can let us know.’
They thanked the technician and left the mortuary. He nodded. Before the heavy plastic doors had swung shut behind them, the Foo Fighters were rocking the place out again.
Davies walked them to the front door of the hospital. He gave them the names, locations and directions of a couple of chain hotels that he could recommend, shook hands with them both, wished them well and walked back to his car.
Peta and Donovan watched him drive off.
Peta looked at Donovan. He was watching Davies’s red rear lights disappear, merge anonymously with all the other red rear lights on the roads. Become lost in the crowd.
There, then gone.
There, then gone.
She tugged on his arm. He looked at her with eyes that seemed to have aged several years in the space of hours. She dredged up a smile for him.
‘Let’s go and find somewhere to stay for the night.’
Donovan appreciated the effort she had made with the smile, returned it.
‘OK.’ His voice more of a sigh than a sound.
They walked back to the car. Arm in arm.
They found a Holiday Inn, booked two separate rooms.
‘You going to be OK on your own?’ Peta asked.
Donovan looked at her. Peta’s eyes held so many questions; some she wanted answers to, some she didn’t dare ask, some she couldn’t even articulate. He knew all this because he wanted to put many of the same questions to her. But he also knew the overriding reason for her question because he still remembered what had happened the last time they had booked in to separate rooms in a hotel.
Donovan had tried to kill himself. And Peta had had to stop him.
‘Yeah, I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’
‘Not much, I don’t.’
‘I do want a drink, though.’
‘I’d better keep you company.’
Donovan looked at her. He knew the last thing she wanted to do was watch him drink and not be able to join in.
‘I won’t have one, then,’ he said. Peta began to argue but he cut her off. ‘But I’m hungry. Fancy something to eat?’
She did.
They ate at the hotel restaurant. The food was passable, the drinks studiedly non-alcoholic, the conversation light and diversionary. Like two ice skaters dancing on an unsafe, cracked lake, wilfully ignoring the huge elephant sat in the middle.
Donovan and Peta walked along the hall, reached his bedroom. She turned to him, caught his eye with hers, held it.
‘Is it a relief,’ she asked. ‘or not?’
Donovan sighed, grateful for the opportunity to talk, pleased she had waited until he was almost turned in for the night. He didn’t want to say more than was necessary. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I looked at that body, that swollen, chewed body … and it wasn’t him. I’d been expecting the worst, bracing myself for whatever. But when I saw it wasn’t him …’ Another sigh. ‘I don’t know. Part of me wanted it to be him. Because then I would know. For definite. I could plan, one way or the other. But it’s not, so I can’t …’
Peta nodded.
‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ he said. ‘The knowledge he’s dead, or the hope he isn’t.’
He shook his head. Yawned.
‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘Get some rest.’
‘I want to see, though. Where they found him. I … I want to see.’
‘Get some sleep.’
Donovan nodded. Turned to enter his room. Before he could, Peta hugged him.
‘Thank you,’ he said, voice muffled by her embrace. ‘Thank you.’
He felt her smile as she pushed against him. He nodded.
They separated while the embrace was just one of mutual support.
Donovan entered his room, closed the door behind him, stripped, climbed into bed. He was more tired than he had felt for ages.
But it still took him hours to get to sleep.
Donovan stood alone on the empty beach, looking out at the sea.
Looking for boats.
For answers.
But neither came.
Donovan sighed. Became aware of someone standing at his side.
‘Hi, Peta.’
She was pulling her clothing around herself, shivering.
‘God, it’s freezing here.’
‘I won’t be long.’
He kept staring out to sea. She kept shivering. Neither spoke. Eventually Peta sighed.
‘Let it go, Joe,’ she said, teeth actually chattering.
He looked at her. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know. We don’t know the boy’s identity, but we do know he isn’t David. Just let it go at that.’
Donovan shook his head. ‘I can’t.’
‘You have to.’
<
br /> He sighed again. ‘I just wanted to see this place for myself. Where the boy was found.’
She stamped her feet, willed the blood to move around her body. ‘What for?’
‘I don’t know.’ Donovan almost smiled. ‘Yes, I do. It sounds stupid when I say it aloud. But I just wanted to see if I could pick up any … I don’t know … resonances of what had happened to him. Clues to his life.’
‘Why? What would that prove?’
He shook his head, unable or unwilling to articulate the voice that emanated from deep within him, that forlorn and desperate voice whispering to him, telling him that if he found out what had happened to the boy he could use those clues to guess what had happened to David.
And perhaps be able to find him.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
Peta sighed. ‘Some things you just can’t solve, Joe. Some things you just have to give up.’
Donovan said nothing, just kept staring out to sea.
‘Like they tell you in AA,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you just have to admit you can’t do everything, give things up to a higher power.’
‘Then what?’ he said without taking his eyes off the horizon.
She shrugged. ‘Get on with things. Let life go on.’
Donovan thought for a long time, saying nothing, then nodded. He turned to face her. Peta wasn’t sure if the drops of water on his face were tears or sea mist.
Donovan pretended not to know the difference either.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home.’
They walked back to the cliff, made their way up the path and back to the road together.
25
‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit …’
DI Nattrass stood in the women’s toilet in Market Street police station, gripping the wash basin so tight she threatened to pull it from the wall, her head down and avoiding her own eyes in the mirror.
Water trickled from the tap in front of her, ran unnoticed down the plughole.
She sighed, clenched her eyes tight shut until galaxies imploded on the backs of her eyelids, opened them again.
Two days.
Or, strictly speaking, two nights and a day. Since the disappearance of Jill Tennant. Another female student missing. Another high-profile, high-grade case.
The inquiry room was in overdrive: bodies drafted in for door to door, to follow up leads, to man the phones. All ranks and levels. Anyone and everyone doing anything and everything. Whatever it took to find Jill Tennant.
Detective Chief Inspector Bob Fenton was working hard at stillness, at being the quiet eye of the storm. And failing. The team was working hard around the clock to find the girl, Fenton more so. He hadn’t slept, had only eaten when his body had threatened to stop functioning. Personal responsibility for the inquiry was his. With regular briefings and talks with his team, both for information and inspiration, he was leading by the front and the members of his team responded to that. They, too, gave it their all.
Including Nattrass. The first briefing, called early on Tuesday morning, had given them the news. Jill Tennant missing. Michael Nell disappeared. Join the dots. Let the clues speak for themselves. Other avenues, Fenton had explained, were going to be investigated. But the inference was that it was pretty clear who their main suspect was. Not only that, but the post-mortem results and forensic evidence in the Lisa Hill case have been re-examined and, due to findings of strange, unexplained bruising on the body, a definite link drawn between her death and that of Ashley Malcolm. Michael Nell’s whereabouts at the time of Lisa Hill’s disappearance were to be looked into. But they had to move fast. Or Jill Tennant would be his third victim.
Nattrass had then been called into Fenton’s office after the briefing.
‘Where’s Paul Turnbull?’ Fenton had asked before she could sit down.
‘I don’t know, he’s …’
A shiver ran through her. The Bacchus on Sunday night, Turnbull, drunk, telling her he was going to go after Nell, make him pay for what he had done.
I’m ganna have him. Have the cunt … The picture of Ashley held pathetically in his hand …
Then another girl abducted. Then Nell disappeared. And Turnbull also.
‘He’s what?’
‘I … don’t know. Sir.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Saturday, I think. Didn’t turn up yesterday. Thought he must be sick or something.’ Sweat trickled down her spine. She wanted to scratch the itch in the hollow of her back but didn’t dare move. ‘Didn’t think anything of it.’
Fenton stared at her, laser beams seemingly searing into the part of her brain responsible for truth and lies. ‘You didn’t think anything of it?’
The urge to scratch the itch was becoming overwhelming. She wished she had sat down. She shook her head. ‘No. He’d been working pretty hard. We all had. And I think he had some trouble at home. Just thought … might have been exhaustion.’
Fenton kept up the stare. Now her legs felt hot and prickly. She felt twelve years old again, reporting to the headmaster to answer for indiscretions.
‘What if I told you,’ he said, his eyes unblinking, unflinchingly locked on hers, ‘that DS Turnbull turned up outside Michael Nell’s house and relieved the surveillance team of their duty, taking over from them?’
Nattrass swallowed, her throat hot and dry. She opened her mouth. No words emerged.
‘And while doing this he was reported as being drunk?’
Nattrass shook her head. ‘Shit …’
Fenton nodded. ‘Shit is right. And he’s in it. One way or the other.’
Nattrass was curious at his choice of words despite herself. ‘One way or the other?’
Fenton sat back in his leather armchair, relaxing his posture but not his intention. ‘One way or the other,’ he said. ‘Sit down, Diane.’
Nattrass gratefully took the offered seat.
‘The two surveillance boys have been reprimanded,’ said Fenton in a tone that made Nattrass glad she hadn’t been one of them. ‘But we are left with both a missing main suspect and an investigating officer.’
She nodded, said nothing.
‘Comments? Ideas?’
She had heard those two words many times before. Usually at the start of one of Fenton’s brainstorming sessions, the investigating officers around the table throwing out theories as to what could have happened in whichever crime they were investigating. She had enjoyed them at first, felt they were a useful part of the process in the apprehension of dangerous criminals. Exercises in getting inside a deviant mind. But lately she was beginning to feel they resembled nothing more than a bunch of blokes – and they were usually blokes – sitting in a pub trying to work out what had happened with only a supply of tabloid facts to base any motives or assumptions on. Plus her ideas were always ignored: the older dinosaurs treated her as if she was invisible; the younger ones ignored her because she was past the age group they wanted to shag.
But this was different.
‘Well … could Nell have surprised Paul? Injured him? Killed him, even?’
‘And then run? Finding another victim along the way? Possible.’ Fenton nodded. ‘But not very plausible. This feels planned.’
‘Could Paul have followed him? Gone undercover?’
‘Why? Why not call in if he saw something?’
‘Because … because he lost his phone. His battery died.’
Fenton looked at her. Try harder, the look said.
‘He knew he shouldn’t have been there and knew he would be reprimanded?’
Fenton gave a thoughtful nod, as if he was processing the information. ‘Possible. Anything else?’
She knew what he was waiting for her to say. Fenton wasn’t stupid. He had seen how Turnbull had been the last few days, the state he was in. He must have done.
I’m ganna have him. Have the cunt… The picture of Ashley held pathetically in his hand …
Could he have done it? Could he have crossed
the line …?
‘What about Nell’s father?’ said Nattrass with a deliberate change of thought. ‘Can he shed any light on the subject?’
She felt sure that Fenton had noticed her ploy, but he didn’t mention it.
‘Claims to be just as worried as we are about finding him. Now believes him to be innocent and wants to help him. Protect him. Still leaves us no further forward in finding Paul Turnbull.’
‘No.’
Fenton leaned forward. ‘I think if we find Paul Turnbull we find Michael Nell. If we find Michael Nell we find Jill Tennant. That’s my feeling. My gut feeling.’
Nattrass nodded. Her mind fleetingly flashed on an image of blokes in a pub sharing tabloid insights, leaving her excluded. She quickly banished it.
‘Unfortunately I can’t spare you at the moment to follow that chain of reasoning. I want you to re-interview that university teacher she was supposed to be on the way to meeting when she disappeared.’
‘Is he a suspect?’
‘As I said, we’re looking at different lines of enquiry. Two students. Both at the same university. Someone with his colourful past might be worth looking into. Perhaps you might get something different from him than a male officer would.’
‘Colourful past?’
Fenton’s cheek twitched. He almost smiled. ‘Read up on him. You’ll see what I mean.’
Nattrass nodded and stood up. ‘I’ll get on to it right away, sir.’
She made for the door.
‘Diane …’
She stopped, turned.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘This is the time to tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Anything. Anything to do with Paul Turnbull that could help us find him, Nell and the Tennant girl. Anything. No matter how delicate. In confidence. This is the time.’
Nattrass looked at him, her hand on the door knob.
Have the cunt…
‘There’s nothing else I can think of, sir. I’ve told you everything.’
Nattrass left the room, closing the door behind her.
Whatever else, Turnbull was her partner. He deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Bone Machine Page 21
