Detective Chief Inspector MacAdams stood at the edge of a weedy ditch. Below, marbled patches of black dirt, gray mud and bent grass turned to soup from the previous night’s deluge. The town medical examiner, Eric Struthers, stooped to take a closer look at the body.
A man, dark haired, lay face down in the wet earth. No coat. No bag. A bit of a tumbled-over look, as if he’d rolled into position. Not especially remarkable, except for the gash in his skull, visible even from where MacAdams was standing.
Eric blinked up at him. “I’m going to need a hand getting out of here, James,” he said.
MacAdams braced one foot against the gravel and the other on the firmer bank before giving Struthers a good tug. His boots pulled free with a bone-sucking sound.
“Cold and stiff,” he said, scraping mud.
“Meaning?”
“Warm and stiff, three to eight hours. Cold and stiff, eight to thirty-six. I can tell you more after I get him to the lab.” He peeled off his glove and looked to the sky above him. “Weather plays a role. Warm now but was cold and wet last night. But since rigor mortis hasn’t worn off yet, it’s safe to say he hasn’t been here more than twenty-four hours. Maybe even as early as last night.”
“Any chance it was a hit-and-run?” MacAdams asked dubiously. Struthers gave him a plastic smile.
“Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. I’ll know more after we get him under the lights, but in the absence of broken bones, torn clothing or tire marks? I’d say murder.”
Of course. MacAdams turned his attention to the bright horizon; the sun had come up against a cloudless sky, all hint of storm forgotten. The Jekyll Gardens opening was no doubt off to a glorious start.
“Ah-hem, Detective.” Roberta Wilkinson stared at him through her yellow-lamplight glasses and struck the ground with her walking stick for emphasis. “I do have somewhere to be, you know.”
“I’ve taken a statement,” said Detective Sergeant Sheila Green, MacAdams’s partner, waving a notepad over the shorter woman’s gray-white head.
“I’ll get Uniform to drop you at the, ah . . .”
“Jekyll Gardens,” Roberta barked, sniffing the air with a stately my-kin-were-born-to-the-land frown. “Forget it. Came this far. I’ll just walk. Though I take it you’ll be late.”
There was a nearly 100 percent chance that he wouldn’t make it at all, despite being dressed for it. He didn’t say so, and Roberta hadn’t waited for a reply anyway before she started down the road.
“She takes right to roam very seriously,” Green said, slapping her notebook against her left palm. “Started this morning from the Mill, nine o’clock sharp. Took the trail up over the stiles, but apparently part of it was flooded, so she came up this way to the road.”
MacAdams nodded. There were two lanes: one that led directly to Jo’s cottage and the gardens, and one that ran along the walking path.
“She walked right past him. Then called us.”
It had been spotty, a crackling voice cutting in and out, though MacAdams was more surprised by the fact Roberta Wilkinson owned a mobile than that she’d managed to get a signal. He’d been halfway through breakfast.
Green closed the notebook. “Nothing else of use, frankly. Didn’t see anyone, no sign of cars or other walkers, etc. If Roberta hadn’t been along, there’s no telling when we might have found him.”
“It would be a quieter Saturday if she hadn’t,” MacAdams said dryly.
“Sir? I think he might still have ID on him,” a uniformed police officer shouted from the ditch. Three of them were attempting the task of getting the body onto a gurney. The lad picked something up from the ground below.
“Yeah? And an earring. I think?”
“A what?” Green asked—but Struthers nearly leaped back into the ditch.
“Leave it!” he barked. “Leave it, please. It’s evidence and you aren’t even wearing gloves.” He snatched the leather wallet from the officer and bagged it. Then he leaned into the mud once more. “Earring or pendant. Gold.”
“Maybe torn off in a struggle?” MacAdams asked.
“Don’t think so. Delicate little thing.” He pulled it free with tweezers and dropped it into another plastic envelope. “I’ll process everything and call you. You’ll be in your office?”
MacAdams sighed. So it would seem.
* * *
Abington CID hadn’t changed very much in a year, though it was in want of a chief. The old boss, Cora Clapham, had abruptly left the precinct in light of the familial corruption that came to light in their last case. She was now in Southampton, last MacAdams heard. The job opening had been advertised rather aggressively in MacAdams’s direction, but he wasn’t fool enough to take it. Then again, he’d ended up as de facto interim chief without the attendant promotion . . . so perhaps he was a fool, at that.
“Gridley’s making coffee,” said Detective Constable Tommy Andrews when they made it back to the station. Kate Gridley was better at coffee than most. Almost a promotional capability, something to remember when it was time to consider a second sergeant.
“Good, could use some.” MacAdams tossed his coat over a chair.
“You, eh, had other plans, I thought?”
“It’s a village fete,” MacAdams said, as if this explained the freshly ironed light gray slacks and rather more festive than usual tie. “Bit like May Day.”
Green only shrugged, sat backward on a swivel chair. “Today isn’t May Day—and you didn’t answer my question, boss.”
“Yes,” MacAdams said, demurring to his attire. “I had other plans. And now, I have a murder investigation. Shall we?”
Kate Gridley had reappeared from the kitchenette; by far the most tech savvy of the bunch, she already had several search engines running and ready, and still managed to start coffee. MacAdams seized his chance for a moment of silence—and a coffee mug. Then he opened his messaging app. The last one had been from Jo, reminding him of the opening time. MacAdams scrolled to the chat window, thought better of it and returned the phone to his pocket. He had at least three reasons for this. One: a (completely unlikely) hope that he could make it to Jo—rather, the gardens—before festivities were over. Two: the dead body in Struthers’s forensic lab, and three—
“Boss!” Green leaned through the doorway. “ID from Struthers. Driver’s license and credit cards.”
“I guess that means it wasn’t a robbery,” MacAdams sighed. He pulled the glass pot before it was finished, leaving drips to hiss on the hot plate as he poured a slug of black. “All right, let’s meet our victim.”
Gridley responded by taking a rubber band from her wrist and pulling back shoulder-length hair—her way of settling in for the long haul.
“Murder is murdery,” Andrews said, sitting down beside her. “What are his details?”
MacAdams reached into the bag for the trifold wallet. Inside was a folded twenty-pound note, three credit cards and a driver’s license. Predictably, he didn’t recognize the name. His eyes jumped down to the license number and location: 06 03 1962 Belfast.
“Ireland,” MacAdams said. “Issued in 2019.”
“So not a current address?” Green asked.
“We’ll find out. We can run these credit cards, too. See what he’s been up to in the last twenty-four hours.”
He cleaned off the whiteboard and wrote out the deceased’s name and age at the top. Then, he left them to it and returned to his office to hunt up a current photograph.
The man proved surprisingly easy to find. Despite the address listed on the dated license, his name popped up repeatedly alongside a firm in Newcastle: Hammersmith, just like the London train line. The company website listed three contacts, an executive named Stanley Burnhope and two agents—one of whom matched the license photo. The man’s hair was not yet grizzled, with an incongruity that suggested hair dye. Strong jaw, gaunt face, wide-set eyes, slightly hooded, hawkish nose. Not unattractive, but not striking. The sort you could lose in a crowd.
“Heya, boss.” Green leaned against his door frame, muscular arms crossed, signature eyebrow-raise. “It’s almost noon. You could definitely still get to the garden opening.”
“Sheila,” MacAdams said, taking the still-warm printout by the corner. “You put off your honeymoon with Rachel for a money-laundering case.”
“And Covid. Remember?”
“All the same.”
“Not all the same,” she insisted, turning her severe chin toward Andrews and Gridley. “Bet you two would like a lunch brought back, right? You know Tula does meat pies.”
“And sausage rolls,” Andrews suggested.
“And cakes,” Gridley agreed, waving from behind her computer.
“Right. And I want curried chips. Extra curry.” Green gave him a toothy smile of appreciation. “You would be doing us all a favor.”
MacAdams did not, as a rule, outwardly express much emotion. Genetic predisposition, probably, as his father’s face showed about as much feeling as a cricket bat. He did, however, have the uncomfortable sense that his team mistook the local fete for a date he was not having. And the room seemed a trifle warm, if he were honest.
“We have a lot of legwork to do,” he said firmly. “The first few hours after a crime can make or break an investigation, so no—I’m not running up a take-away order to Jekyll Gardens.”
“Actually,” Gridley interrupted, holding up one finger. “I think you had better go, boss. I just found the last transaction on his credit card, and you aren’t going to like this one bit.”
MacAdams leaned over her shoulder to view the wide-screen monitor. The charge, made late on Friday, hadn’t even cleared yet. It remained gray, pending, from a Ronan Foley to the account of one Josephine Jones, Netherleigh Cottage.