JACK WAS IN the Accident and Emergency department on the ground floor of Larchborough General Hospital. In order to reach him, Mia had to pass the same set of lifts she’d used to visit her mother in Intensive Care. As she approached the lifts, saw the familiar posters and notices, smelt the coffee at the WI’s dinky little shop, she was overcome by a shattering melancholy.
Her mother’s death had been slow and difficult to watch; the viewing of the corpse hours later so unlike those serene affairs featured in the majority of Hollywood tearjerkers. Barbara’s ravaged face had shown all too clearly the effort involved in leaving this life. That image would haunt Mia forever.
DCI Wells was constantly teasing his DS about her burning quest to champion the underdogs of this world. He called it her ‘Mother Teresa Complex’; said she ought to be in social work, so strong was her desire to help those in need. And it was true; she did empathize with the disadvantaged. Yet for years she’d blatantly disregarded her own mother, left her to the mercy of those paid to care. She’d been wrong to do that. And now it was too late to make it right.
Mia ducked into the nearest lavatory, horrified to feel tears welling in her eyes. A young mother was holding her daughter’s hands under the dryer. When she offered a smile, Mia was unable to return it. She edged into a cubicle and sat there, waiting for them to leave, waiting for her emotions to settle. She couldn’t let Nick see her in pieces. She had to keep on top of the job. It was all she had left.
Mia found him sitting in the A & E reception area, his face crumpled with concern. Nick Ford was one of her least favourite people. Their working relationship was stormy, always had been; it contained far too much animosity for even a hope of them ever gelling now. Nick was an enigma: stunningly gorgeous on the outside, but rancid as hell within. What you saw was most definitely not what you got with him. Even so, the moment she sensed his fear, the moment she saw his boyish relief at the sight of her, Mia felt Mother Teresa jostle for space in her heart.
‘Any news?’ she asked.
‘Not yet.’ He noticed the telltale redness around her eyes. ‘You look like shit.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning away. ‘What happened to Jack?’
Wells had given her a sketchy outline. Nick proceeded to fill in the gaps.
‘… and now they can’t wake him up,’ he finished, his voice cracking.
‘Bastard,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘You’d better have got him.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, stretching the words out. ‘And he’ll get what he fucking deserves. They both will. Joey and Syed picked them up.’
Mia managed a vicious grin. Joey Champion and Syed Shah were huge officers with tempers to match; they made the Incredible Hulk look like Noddy.
Mia sat beside Nick while her gaze took in the large area. God, she hated hospitals: the relentless bustle; those horribly distinctive smells; that feeling of dread hovering over everyone….
‘Been waiting all afternoon?’ she asked.
‘No, I had to get back to court. Only just got here myself.’
Mia gave him an incredulous look. ‘Jack’s been here alone? Why didn’t you phone earlier?’
‘How could I? You were planting your mother.’ He gave her a swift repentant glance. ‘Sorry … Anyway, he’s not on his own. Michelle’s with him.’
‘Good.’
Mia twisted around in the seat, her back towards Nick. For a short while there she’d felt almost at one with him, Jack’s predicament cementing a bond between them. But now they were back to square one. Chalk and cheese. Cat and dog.
Her back still towards him, Mia said, ‘Which room’s he in?’
‘Twelve,’ said Nick.
Wishing she had her warrant card Mia hurried towards the reception desk, pushing aside the long queue as she uttered tepid apologies. The receptionist was on the verge of objecting when Mia offered her name and rank.
‘Any news on DC Jack Turnbull, please, room twelve?’
The girl tapped a few computer keys; a model of frigid efficiency. ‘Not yet, but you can go in if you like. Through that door there,’ she said, pointing.
‘Thanks.’
The door led them into another large area with a number of small rooms on either side. A long nurses’ station filled the centre space. Room twelve was to their left, its door ajar. The detectives hovered outside while a young Indian doctor busily checked Jack’s vital signs.
Michelle – Jack’s wife – was hunched in a moulded plastic chair beside the bed, her features haggard as she scrutinized the doctor’s every move. When she caught sight of the detectives Michelle rushed to greet them.
‘How was the funeral?’ she asked Mia. ‘I thought about you.’
‘Bless you, sweetie, it was OK,’ said Mia, squeezing the girl’s hand. ‘How is he?’
‘Better than we thought, actually.’ The words were aimed at Nick. ‘He’s still unconscious, but it’s not a coma.’ She nodded towards the doctor. ‘That chap’s been brilliant. He says there’s no permanent damage, just bad concussion. It’ll take a while, but Jack should be fine.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Mia. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Michelle shook her head. ‘I’ll have to be going soon. Mum’s got Jamie.’ Jamie was their three-year-old son. ‘Doctor Patel said it’s best to come back tomorrow. They’ll be keeping Jack asleep till then, anyway.’ She motioned towards the room. ‘Want to see him?’
‘No, I’ll wait till he’s awake,’ Mia said hurriedly. After a day spent with her mother’s coffin and then Tutankhamun, Mia didn’t think she could stomach even a moment with the injured Jack. She’d had enough grief for a while.
‘Do you need a lift?’ she asked Michelle.
‘No, got the car, thanks.’ She nodded again towards Jack. ‘Mind if I go back in?’
‘You carry on. And, don’t worry, Michelle, one of us’ll be here first thing tomorrow to get Jack’s statement. The bastard won’t get away with this.’
As they trudged towards the car park Nick said, ‘The funeral went all right then?’ to cover the awkward silence between them.
Mia nodded and went on to tell him of their surprising find.
Nick gave a brittle laugh. ‘Brilliant … lose one mummy and straight away you find another.’
Mia stopped in her tracks, unable to believe her ears. Surely even Nick wouldn’t stoop to such a tasteless low. She spun around, eager to release all of her pent-up tension on the callous prat. But when she glimpsed the genuine sorrow in his deep brown eyes, Mia’s mouth opened on to nothing but silence.
‘Come here,’ he whispered, spreading his arms wide.
And as Mia felt tears looming once more she was only too happy to oblige.
It was seven p.m. and John Lloyd had decided to call it a day. Cocooned in thick grey overalls, latex gloves and black wellington boots, he’d spent the better part of four hours scraping at the soil around the corpse with a trowel and almost two-thirds of it was now exposed.
The procedure was mind-numbingly slow and required great attention to detail; each newly-revealed portion had to be photographed and reported upon for the benefit of Lloyd’s handheld recorder. All soil removed from the hole was deposited on to a tarpaulin sheet for later inspection by the forensic team.
Conditions inside the tent were far from ideal: heat from the day’s mild weather and Lloyd’s excited breath were causing a chemical reaction to occur within the exposed flesh and a terrible stench fast permeated the steamy air; a stench which kept even the hardened DCI Wells at a safe distance.
Sweat glistened on Lloyd’s forehead as he scrambled from the hole. ‘Knew it was too good to be true,’ he said to Wells.
‘What’s that?’
‘A great chunk of the torso’s decayed.’
‘Thought so, it stinks.’
‘We’ll need it guarded overnight,’ said Lloyd, peeling off his gloves. ‘That might be a stink to you, Paul, but foxes and the like will think it’s yummy.’
‘Good point,’ said Wells, nodding. He took out his notebook, cast Lloyd a hopeful glance. ‘Any first impressions, John?’
‘It’s definitely female,’ he said, looking back towards the tent. ‘Can’t guess at an age yet, but I’ll have a decent stab when she’s back at the lab. She’s fully clothed, and bits of the clothing are in near perfect condition, you’ll be pleased to hear. There’s even some hair still attached to the scalp.’ Lloyd grinned suddenly. ‘Can’t wait to get her cleaned up for a proper look.’
‘When will that be, do you think?’
‘With an early start in the morning, she could be in the lab by lunchtime at the latest.’
‘Better tell my boss the good news,’ said Wells, delving for his mobile phone.
Lloyd raised a hand. ‘See you back at the car park.’
The DCI held his breath as he selected the number for Superintendent Shakespeare. He wasn’t looking forward to the call. Costs for the various aspects of the operation – an overnight guard; the huge forensic involvement; John Lloyd’s bill for retrieving the body, to name but a few – would run high. And Shakespeare was allergic to spending money.
Wells deliberately kept the conversation short, his answers to the super’s nervous questioning succinct. And he was cutting the call as Nick approached, the morose DI beating his legs like a crazed Morris dancer as the trousers to his immaculate suit became a magnet for clinging seed heads.
Wells had had no contact with his team all afternoon and still believed Jack to be in a coma. He hurried towards Nick, struggling to read his implacable expression.
‘How is he?’
‘The coma was a misdiagnosis, sir, but he’s badly concussed. We’ll know more in the morning.’
‘OK. Where’s Mia?’
‘I had to follow her home, make sure she was all right. She got a bit emotional at the hospital.’
Wells let out a harsh breath. ‘I bloody knew she wasn’t up to it.’
At any other time Nick would have agreed, would have made more of Mia’s fragile state than was the truth in order to dent the DCI’s abiding faith in her. But this time, for some obscure reason, he felt compelled to defend her.
‘Mia’s adamant she’ll be in tomorrow, sir, and perhaps it’s for the best. She’ll be better with something to do.’
Wells made no comment, merely ushered Nick towards the tent. ‘Come and see the body,’ he said, stopping short of the actual scene. ‘Better hold your nose, mate. It stinks in there.’
Nick lingered inside the tent just long enough to get a quick glimpse. ‘Jesus,’ was all he said.
The corpse’s babysitter arrived; introduced himself as Police Constable Steve Gardner; told them he was always getting the short straw. Wells offered him a sympathetic smile. It wouldn’t be a pleasant assignment: stuck in the dark between one open grave and a cemetery filled with closed ones. Did the dead walk at night? He’d ask PC Gardner in the morning.
Most of the SOCOs had already left for the day, but a few were still busy. They needed to get that huge mound of earth safely back to the forensics laboratory and were transferring it into smaller, more manageable containers because it was a fair trek to the car park and their waiting van.
As the unlucky constable settled himself in his foldaway seat – lunch box and thermos at the ready, paperback novel, battery torch, and iPod beside them – Wells and Nick started the walk to their cars. But they’d hardly taken a few steps when a member of the forensics team called to the DCI, urging him to stop. The man hurried towards them, holding up a digital camera as though it were a trophy.
‘Have a look at this,’ he said to Wells, thrusting the camera towards him.
The DCI found himself staring at a picture of the corpse’s decaying abdomen: a grisly mix of dirt-ingrained greens, yellows, and cloudy white – Mother Nature was clearly from the Abstract stable of artists.
‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’ Wells asked.
The scientist drew his index finger along a specific point on the small screen. ‘See those bones?’
Wells wasn’t sure that he could. Forensic detail, as far as he was concerned, should be meted out on a ‘need to know’ basis. His job was to track the murderer, not acquaint himself with the intricacies of putrefaction; he left that to the experts. Therefore he was woefully poor at deciphering the various components of a forensic snapshot.
He offered the camera to Nick. ‘See anything?’
‘No, sir.’
Wells turned to the scientist. ‘OK, we give up.’
‘It’s hard to see, I’ll admit,’ he said, taking the camera, his finger once again outlining the portion of interest. ‘See those tiny bones? They shouldn’t be there. I reckon they’re part of a foetus. I reckon there’re two dead bodies in that hole, Chief Inspector.’
‘That car park’s full again. Even the police are using it now. For church use only, the sign says. Can’t they read? I’m sick of it. Rehearsals start in less than an hour. Well, they’ll just have to move. Shall I go and tell them, darling?’
That verbal barrage came from Kate Fisher – vicar’s wife, stage director of St Matthew’s theatre group, and the driving force (to her mind) on all of the church committees – as she burst into her husband’s office like a whirlwind, flicking on lights as she flew around, filling the intimate space with more shadow than illumination.
When no answer was forthcoming Kate glanced at the vicar and found him slumped at his desk, forlorn face cupped in left hand, eyes focusing on nothing.
‘Darling, what’s the matter?’
Tugged out of his deep meditation by the sudden intrusion, Reverend Fisher sat back heavily and turned dull eyes on his wife. He said nothing. Dread swept over Kate as she sank into the visitor’s chair before his desk.
‘Charlie, has something happened?’
‘We’ve found a body.’
Kate gave an incredulous laugh. ‘You’ve what?’
‘We’ve found a body,’ said Fisher, his voice rising. ‘We’ve found a dead body.’
‘All right, go and tell them to shift their cars. And while you’re at it ask how the murder investigation’s coming along.’
Eyes wide, a hand over her mouth, Kate said, ‘They think it’s murder?’
The vicar gave a cynical huff. ‘She’s hardly likely to have dug a hole and thrown herself in.’
‘It’s a woman?’
Fisher ran a hand across his beard. ‘How the hell should I know?’
‘Where is she?’
‘In Noah Bailey’s plot. I’ve told the family the funeral’s cancelled. Didn’t say why. Said we’d be making other arrangements to suit them. They’re not happy.’
‘Let Frank deal with them, darling. It’s about time he earned his keep.’
She was referring to Frank Lessing, their verger. Lessing, a devotee of St Matthew’s for over thirty years, was an indispensible fountain of local knowledge and the possessor of such a joyous disposition that even the most obstreperous of parishioners could be instantly browbeaten into submission by his beatific smile.
Charlie Fisher saw him as a Godsend and Kate hated the fact. She was the powerhouse behind her husband’s ecclesiastical career, not some pompous and overbearing old bachelor with too much time on his hands and thoughts well above his station.
‘Frank’s busy,’ said Fisher. ‘I’ve sent him to help at the crime scene.’
‘But that’s your job,’ Kate said with a sharp tut-tut of displeasure. ‘You shouldn’t let him steal your thunder all the time, darling. I do keep telling you.’
‘And I keep telling you to mind your own business.’
Kate held up her hands in a placating gesture and sat back. There followed a moment of quiet contemplation and then she suddenly brightened. ‘I think somebody needs a drink,’ she said in a sing-song voice.
Humming softly, Kate retrieved a brandy bottle and glass from the walnut cabinet behind her husband’s desk and poured a large measure. ‘There, darling, that’ll do you good,’ she said, placing the glass before him.
Fisher glared at her. ‘Don’t pretend you actually care about me … darling.’
Biting back a bitter response, fixing a conciliatory smile to her lips, Kate returned to her seat. ‘Please, Charlie … not here.’
Fisher gave her another withering glance. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Well, you can say a prayer for that poor woman,’ Kate said, reaching for the telephone receiver, ‘while I tell everybody rehearsals are cancelled.’