by Kate Medina
Dr Ghoshal’s coolly appraising brown eyes met hers over his clinical face mask. ‘Welcome, Dr Flynn. Is this your first autopsy?’
Jessie nodded. ‘Can’t you tell from the colour of my skin, which perfectly matches the colour of your tiles?’ And the colour of the corpses on your dissecting table – she didn’t say it. She had met Dr Ghoshal only a few times, though had gathered pretty much instantaneously that cracking feeble jokes about the contents of his autopsy suite would be strictly verboten.
‘I will make the experience as pleasant as I possibly can then, Dr Flynn.’
‘Thank you.’
Marilyn had admitted, on the walk down the corridor, that the last of Dr Ghoshal’s autopsies he had attended, that of ten-year-old Jodie Trigg, he had excused himself and exited only a few short minutes after he’d entered. He said that he just couldn’t stomach watching that little girl being hacked to pieces, however clinically and dispassionately. He couldn’t recall his excuse, though he knew that Dr Ghoshal would have seen right through it as if through sparkling clean window glass. The weakness of his stomach and of his resolve hadn’t been only because of Jodie’s diminutive age, but also because he blamed himself wholly for her presence on the dissecting table in the first place. If they’d been quicker, made fewer mistakes in the investigation, she would have lived.
‘It’s the first time I’ve ever walked out of an autopsy in my twenty-five-year career in the force,’ he had said, with a slightly embarrassed shrug.
Glancing over at Marilyn now, Jessie saw that his expression was stone, his gaze focused unwaveringly on Hugo Fuller. He looked as if he would very comfortably be able to see this one through. She wished that she could claim the same. She still hadn’t looked directly at either body, had just glimpsed them through the comforting opaqueness of her peripheral vision.
‘Let’s start with Mr Fuller, shall we,’ Dr Ghoshal said.
From the corner of her eye, Jessie saw Marilyn step forward to take up a sentry position by Hugo Fuller’s feet. She forced herself to look at Fuller directly for the first time, at his face, at the pale, naked slackness of his body. Her gaze skipped beyond him, to Claudine. Despite the severity of Fuller’s injuries, the ravaged pits of his eyes, the gouges carving his face, he was easier to look at than his wife. Her corpse was so alabaster pale that Jessie could almost have convinced her brain that Claudine was carved of marble, not made of flesh and bone. But the expression on her face, in death, held a depth of sadness that was heartbreaking. What had Claudine been thinking about when she died? Had she been thinking about the loss of her own life? For some reason, perhaps just a fanciful one, Jessie thought not. Her mind found the photographs lining the mantelpiece – the only photographs – in that depressing mausoleum of a house, of Lupo, Claudine’s baby left behind, no one to care for him or to love him. Had that been her final thought? Jessie was sure that if she had been Claudine, it would have been hers.
Her gaze moved back to Hugo Fuller and she stepped forward as Dr Ghoshal had instructed, taking up a position by Marilyn’s side. Perhaps it was because she knew him to be a shit, suspected him to be responsible for both his own and his wife’s murders, that she didn’t feel as upset as she had expected to.
‘Shall I begin?’ Dr Ghoshal asked.
‘Yes,’ Jessie answered, with only a tiny waver in her voice.
The noise of Dr Ghoshal’s scalpel slicing through Hugo Fuller’s skin was, to Jessie, lions tearing a zebra’s flesh from its bones. The sound of him methodically carving off the top of Hugo Fuller’s skull with the circular reciprocating saw, the sear of a diamond blade through steel, even the low, monotonous hum he was making – ‘his concentration hum’, Marilyn had warned her – like a hive of furious bees. Her stomach felt as if it was filled with bubbling acid that threatened to surge up her throat. She cast her gaze around the white-tiled autopsy suite, until it alighted on a stainless-steel sink behind and to her right. Five strides, a couple of seconds.
‘How did he die?’ Marilyn’s voice pulled her back.
‘Devastating trauma to the brain,’ Dr Ghoshal said.
‘Through one eye?’
‘A single stab wound to the brain can be survivable, DI Simmons,’ he replied, in his perennially prosaic tone.
The man with the nail gun, Jessie thought. And, far more importantly, Callan. She still didn’t know the contents of that letter from his neurologist, still regretted letting her obsession with privacy trump her curiosity.
‘Two stab wounds, however,’ Ghoshal continued. ‘More challenging. And once the instrument was in Mr Fuller’s brain, it was moved around – waggled, for want of a better word. Your man was determined to kill.’
‘What instrument was used?’
‘A knife or skewer perhaps, narrow, thin-bladed, not serrated, driven through each eye socket, into the brain.’
‘Eye socket?’ Marilyn asked. ‘You mean eyeball? Through his eyeballs?’
Dr Ghoshal’s eyes rose fractionally ceiling-wards, enough for both Marilyn and Jessie to clock the movement. ‘Eye sockets, DI Simmons,’ he repeated. ‘The contusions to Mr Fuller’s face, the mutilation to his eyeballs, occurred ante-mortem. I wouldn’t imagine that there was much of his eyeballs left when he was finally put out of his misery with the thin-bladed instrument driven into his brain.’
Marilyn nodded. Jessie took a breath. The bubbling acid was rising up her throat. She gulped, trying unsuccessfully to swallow it down. It would be too humiliating to vomit now. She focused her gaze on the stainless-steel fridge doors across the room, on the three of them in reflection: Dr Ghoshal, a runner bean in his green scrubs, Marilyn, a thin black crow in his suit, she as apparition pale as Fuller’s corpse, even when reflected in steel.
‘Both the mutilation to his eyes and the contusions down his face were caused by the same instrument, I would say,’ Dr Ghoshal continued. ‘And I’m sure that you won’t be surprised to hear that they would have caused very considerable pain.’
‘Torture?’ Marilyn asked.
Dr Ghoshal lifted his narrow shoulders. ‘It would most certainly have been torture for Mr Fuller, though whether torture was the primary motivation is not for me to ascertain.’ His coolly appraising gaze moved from Marilyn to Jessie. ‘What is your theory on the contusions to Mr Fuller’s face and the ante-mortem trauma to his eyeballs, Dr Flynn?’
Jessie forced herself to hold Ghoshal’s gaze, tough given its searching intensity. Was he testing her? Probably.
‘I think that they had two purposes. Firstly, to torture him, cause extreme suffering before his death. But I also believe that they had meaning both for the murderer and for the victim.’
Dr Ghoshal raised an eyebrow. ‘Meaning?’
She nodded, with far more certainty than she felt. ‘My theory …’ she broke off, glancing over at Marilyn, checking in. His face was poker – she was on her own facing Ghoshal. ‘My theory is that the murders are personal and that they are to do with watching.’
‘Watching? Watching what?’ Ghoshal asked.
‘I don’t know. But I do believe Fuller would have known exactly why he was being tortured and why the killer was employing the methods he employed.’
‘Were the contusions done with the thin bladed instrument that was used to kill him?’ Marilyn asked.
Dr Ghoshal shook his head. ‘It’s clear from the pattern of the contusions, which are spaced identically apart from each other, top to bottom, and from their consistent depth, that they were done at the same time, not individually.’
‘With what?’
‘Some type of large, sharp, fork-like instrument, I would suggest,’ Ghoshal said, after a moment. ‘Or—’ he broke off, raising a gloved hand, fingers bent into a claw. He rotated his hand, spreading fingers, moving them closer together. It was the first time since they had entered the room that Jessie had seen him look anything other than entirely unhesitating.
‘Fingernails?’ Marilyn ventured.
Ghoshal sh
ook his head. ‘Human fingernails would be too weak to cause trauma this extensive.’
‘An animal?’ Jessie asked. ‘A dog?’
Dr Ghoshal didn’t answer for a moment. ‘It would have to be a huge dog to inflict contusions this far apart. Also, I don’t believe that a typical dog’s claws would be sharp enough or have enough force to create this depth of trauma.’ He picked up a metal ruler from the tin tray, held it to Fuller’s face. ‘The distance between each contusion is two point eight centimetres. That’s a very big dog. A very big, very strong, very vicious dog.’
‘But a dog could have done it?’ Jessie pressed. ‘A big dog, as you say? A wolf-dog?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ghoshal said finally, his coolly cynical gaze rising to meet Jessie’s. ‘It’s possible. Not probable, not probable at all, but I suppose that it is possible.’
20
Jane Jones, Hugo Fuller’s secretary, lived in north Chichester, on an estate of modern red-brick terraced houses, all bordered by privet-hedge-trimmed front drives and neat, handkerchief-sized back gardens. Workman had telephoned the offices of Winner Fuller earlier and been told that Hugo Fuller hadn’t turned up for work today, though that wasn’t unusual evidently, as he often had meetings out of the office.
She had also been told that Jane Jones, Fuller’s secretary, was working from home today as she was waiting in for a furniture delivery. The man on the phone had sounded young and ‘cat’s away, mice will play’ delighted that neither the boss nor his wing-lady were in evidence today; he clearly hadn’t connected news reports of a couple brutally murdered in their Sussex country house with Hugo Fuller. Marilyn had, so far, managed to hold back the names of the victims from the journalists who had already picked up on the murders, though he doubted that luck would last until the evening news.
‘Jane Jones drives the same car as you,’ Marilyn said to Workman, indicating the navy-blue 2016-registration Ford Fiesta parked on the tarmac drive. ‘Same make, same colour, same age!’
‘And if Dr Flynn was here she would doubtless draw some conclusions about our shared psychology from that coincidence,’ Workman said with a smile.
Marilyn raised an eyebrow. ‘And she’d be right to. You know that we policemen—’
‘Persons,’ Workman interrupted.
Both eyebrows raised, accompanied by a roll of his eyes. ‘Policepersons don’t believe in coincidences.’
A white, oval ceramic plaque painted with a sprig of bluebells proclaimed that this was number fourteen. Raising his hand, Marilyn knocked on the lilac-painted front door. It was answered with brisk efficiency, within seconds, by a woman of a similar age to Workman, mid-forties, dressed in a pair of slim-legged navy trousers and a white crew-neck jumper. Her medium-brown hair was short, cut into as an efficient style as the manner of her door opening – much like Workman’s own hair and door opening. There was, indeed, something very ‘kindred spirit’ about Hugo Fuller’s secretary; the man had had commendable taste, in secretaries at least, Workman surmised, avoiding the amused glance Marilyn shot her as he held up his warrant card.
‘Detective Inspector Simmons, Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes. And this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Sarah Workman.’
Jane Jones eyeballed them both dispassionately from the doorway. ‘How can I help you, Detective Inspector Simmons?’
‘Could we come in for a moment, please?’
‘If you must.’ She stood back and ushered them into a small, neat sitting room at the front of the house, containing a simple beige leather three-piece suite and a smoked-glass coffee table, the window overlooking the Ford Fiesta and shared patch of grass beyond. Marilyn spoke when they were all seated.
‘I’m sorry to tell you that your boss, Hugo Fuller, was murdered last night.’
If either of them had expected her to expire with shock, they were disappointed. Jane Jones took the news as if Marilyn had informed her that her supermarket delivery was missing a couple of essential items.
‘You don’t look surprised,’ Marilyn said. ‘Or particularly upset.’
Jones lifted her shoulders. ‘Mr Fuller was my boss, not my husband, my brother or son. And I’m sure that it won’t have escaped your notice, even this early in any investigation you might be conducting, that he wasn’t the nicest man.’
‘So, you think he had it coming?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t say that. I mean, really, does anyone have it coming?’
Marilyn didn’t answer, though if he had his response would have been in the affirmative. Though he put equal effort into every murder he dealt with, give or take, he couldn’t say that he was equally surprised when some people became victims. Certain individuals lived in a world where their getting their comeuppance was only a matter of time.
‘Was he murdered at home?’
‘Yes.’
She suppressed a shudder. ‘I never liked that house.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘A couple of times to collect things for work. We didn’t socialize, if that’s what you mean.’
‘What didn’t you like about it?’
‘The isolation mainly. And though it was grand, they didn’t have great taste; or I suppose I should say, he didn’t have great taste. It was all his taste of course.’
‘Of course?’
Jones arched an eyebrow. ‘Hugo quite unequivocally wore the trousers.’
‘In what way?’
‘In every way, Detective Inspector Simmons. Work, home, marriage, taste, you name it. I don’t think that Claudine got a look in, poor love. How is she, by the way? Is she holding up OK?’
‘I’m afraid that Claudine Fuller was also murdered.’
Jones’ hand flew to her mouth. For the first time since they had entered her home, she looked shocked and genuinely sorry. ‘Oh, God, no. You didn’t say.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Marilyn said. ‘I should have mentioned that at the beginning. It was a double murder. They were found dead in the early hours of this morning, in the swimming pool complex attached to their house.’
‘I’m so sorry. Poor poor Claudine. I hope it wasn’t too dreadful for—’ She broke off. ‘What a stupid thing to say. Of course it must have been dreadful.’ She met Marilyn’s gaze. ‘Do you have any idea who killed them?’
He shook his head. ‘We’re at a very early stage in the investigation, Mrs—’
‘Miss.’
‘Miss Jones, and we don’t have any leads at the moment. We were hoping that you could help us with that.’
She nodded. ‘Of course. Whatever you need.’
‘Thank you.’ Marilyn leant forward, steepling his fingers. ‘Can you tell us about Hugo Fuller’s business?’
‘His business was buying up ground rents to leasehold properties. The revenue came from the tenants’ ground rent payments.’
‘We’ve done a little research, Miss Jones. He didn’t have a great reputation for being a fair and generous landlord.’
Jane Jones’ mouth tightened. ‘It’s business, Detective Inspector Simmons.’
‘But there’s business and there’s business, isn’t there Miss Jones?’
‘That’s very cryptic.’
‘Hugo Fuller’s business was buying up freeholds and ramping up the ground rent by hundreds or thousands of per cent, wasn’t it? And if families couldn’t pay, they were kicked out of their properties, made homeless.’
‘No one is truly homeless in this country, Detective Inspector. The council has a legal responsibility to house everyone.’
‘Didn’t you have any moral objection to what you were doing – working for a business like that, a man like that?’ Workman cut in.
Jones shrugged. ‘He paid my salary on time and he was a decent boss.’
Workman raised an eyebrow. ‘Decent?’
‘He was never nasty to me, if that’s what you’re asking. And he never pretended to be anything he wasn’t.’ She smiled, a cynical, slightly bitter smile. ‘He was a “does wh
at it says on the tin” kind of man.’
‘What about the people he was screwing?’ Marilyn asked. ‘I can’t imagine that they shared your view regarding Hugo Fuller’s decency.’
A raised eyebrow, accompanying another cynical smile. ‘Do you mean metaphorically or physically screwing, Detective Inspector?’
21
Bethwine Close was a somnolent cul-de-sac of ten, small, two-storey detached chalet-style houses bordering farmland on the southern edge of Chichester, all of which Jessie imagined would be occupied by retirees. All but one. Climbing out of her Mini, she stood for a moment, letting the breeze funnelling off the fields swirl around her, chilling her skin, temporarily lifting some of the weariness the past thirty-six hours had coated her in.
She could hear the hum of cars on the A27 a few hundred metres to the north, which from this distance sounded like the flow of water in a nearby stream, and the odd rustle – from an animal? – cutting across the latent hum. Apart from that, there was no other sound: the glow of television screens was visible from behind closed curtains in a couple of the bungalows, but no accompanying voices from televisions or occupants, no shouts or sudden shrieks of laughter. It was an odd place for a family to live and Jessie wondered if Allan Parker had chosen this mute backwater entirely deliberately, an attempt to shelter Robbie from the cruelties of other children – at home at least – by surrounding him with adults.
