Once Oakley had made a call to Jeeves, a smoothly run machine went into action. Scene of Crime Officers – SOCOs – arrived, along with photographers and a police surgeon. Wearing overalls, paper shoes, gloves and masks to prevent contaminating any forensic evidence that might be found, Oakley watched the SOCOs open drawers and cupboard doors, but there was nothing to be found that could confirm the identity of the man in the kitchen – if it was a man, of course. They would have to wait for the pathologist to tell them that.
Like Wright, Oakley had seen more than his share of bodies, but dismissed the much-favoured advice of breathing through his mouth. He breathed through his nose, preferring to smell the stench than to taste it. Wright lurked near the door, and Oakley suspected his unprofessional vomiting would not feature in any story he would later tell his cronies.
While he waited for the SOCOs to finish their preliminary work, Oakley pondered what he had seen of the house. It contained basic furniture, kitchen utensils and clean linen, but nothing else. Surely Kovac would have had clothes, toiletries and other personal items – according to Smith, he had intended to stay at the house for three weeks – so where were his belongings? Had they been stolen by whoever had wrapped him in plastic? And if so, why? Oakley sincerely hoped there would be something in the victim’s pockets that would help, because it was clear that the house would have little to tell them.
He peered into the kitchen where the pathologist was kneeling. It was small, with cheap, off-white cupboards and yellow lino, probably chosen in an attempt to brighten what was actually a dismal little room. Underlying the stench of putrification was a sort of mustiness, suggesting the house was damp and underused. There was a stain on the ceiling that told of a leak from the bathroom above. The place was seedy, and he wondered what impression of England its foreign visitors took home with them.
Mr Smith had looked up the name of the rental agency and Oakley had relayed it to Jeeves on the chance that it might be one of the premises protected by an alarm to the police. If so, there would be a key-holder – an employee reachable after hours. Unfortunately, Academic Accommodations had no such contact, and there was little point in leaving a message on an answering machine.
Smith’s house was attached to number nine, so he was the one most likely to have seen or heard anything. Unfortunately, as he and his wife had been on holiday when the murder had taken place – it did not need a pathologist to tell Oakley that the victim had been dead for more than the time since they had returned – they could tell the police nothing about the murder itself. Oakley went to number eleven, which was next door but separated from the murder scene – and the smell – by a small garage. The Greaves family lived there – mother and son. A dark-haired, tired-looking woman opened the door in response to his knock.
‘It isn’t Mrs Smith, is it?’ she asked worriedly, standing aside to let him enter a brightly decorated hallway. ‘I thought she looked peaky when she got back from the airport, and I told her to lie down.’
‘It’s a problem with number nine,’ said Oakley, showing her a warrant card that she barely glanced at. ‘Do you know if anyone’s been staying there recently?’
‘Doctor Kovac,’ replied Mrs Greaves. ‘But he went back to Albania at the end of July. There hasn’t been anyone since, and the lights have been off.’
‘When was the last time you saw lights?’
She looked flustered. ‘I don’t pay much attention to dates. But there haven’t been any for a couple of weeks. Not since Doctor Kovac left.’
‘Did you see him leave? With his suitcases?’
‘Well, no, but he told me he was going at the end of the month, because his family planned to spend August at the seaside in Albania.’
‘Do you have his address in Albania?’
‘No, we only exchanged a few polite words when we saw each other out front. Mister Smith might know it, though. Doctor Kovac liked him – he gave him a sausage. Has something happened to him? Is he a drug smuggler? There’s lots of that going on these days.’
‘Why do you mention drugs?’ asked Oakley. ‘Did Kovac ever cause you to believe that he was involved in anything like that?’
‘No, but it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? Fred West had neighbours who thought he was normal. I read it in the Daily Mail.’
‘We’ve found a body,’ said Oakley, knowing she would soon see it carried out. ‘We think this person died in suspicious circumstances, so anything you can tell us would be very helpful.’
‘Doctor Kovac is dead?’ she cried. ‘Oh, the poor man! He had children. His poor children!’
‘We don’t know who it is yet,’ said Oakley, aiming to calm her by keeping his voice gentle. ‘What can you tell me about the last time you saw Doctor Kovac? Take your time, now. Don’t rush.’
She sank to a frayed red sofa and began to gnaw a fingernail. ‘I think it was about two weeks ago. It was a Monday. Yes! A Monday! July the thirtieth. I know, because Kevin was listening to Clare in the Community on the radio, and that’s on Mondays. I saw Doctor Kovac and called out to him. He told me he was off in the morning, but that he’d be back in December. He was a physicist. Something to do with partings.’
‘A particle physicist?’
‘That sounds right.’ She smiled. ‘You must be clever, to know that. My Kevin would’ve known, too, before his accident. He doesn’t know much now.’
‘Your husband?’
She stared down at her feet. ‘My son. He was in a car crash two years ago and … well, he doesn’t know much these days.’
‘What was Kovac doing?’
‘Throwing stuff in the bin, tidying up. You know, like you do when you’re leaving a place. He was a nice man, very clean. He said he liked our English baths, if you can believe it! He said he liked to fill them right to the top and lie in them.’
‘What about your husband?’ asked Oakley. ‘Would he have noticed anything?’
‘Not unless he could’ve seen down from Middlesborough,’ she said bitterly. ‘We’re divorced, and I haven’t set eyes on him for six years. He doesn’t even visit Kevin.’
‘I’m sorry to keep pressing you, Mrs Greaves, but you may be the only person who can help us. Are you sure you didn’t see Kovac after that Monday?’
She nodded. ‘But I imagine he left on Tuesday morning. It’s not easy getting Kevin up and dressed, so I never notice much outside, I’m afraid.’
‘Would Kevin?’ asked Oakley hopefully.
‘He’s blind,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It was the glass, you see. From the accident. It went into his eyes.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Mister Smith was going to have a barbecue tomorrow, and he’d invited me and Kevin. He won’t be able to do it now, will he?’
‘It might be best to postpone it.’
‘Kevin was really looking forward to it. He hasn’t been to one since the accident, and—’
She burst into tears, leaving Oakley patting her shoulder in inadequate sympathy.
I heard everything on my radio – Oakley calling for SOCO, photographers, the police surgeon, the works. Wright was quiet, though. I suppose he was looking around the house, satisfying his ghoulish curiosity while Oakley did all the work.
I went to my burglary calls and took down the information, trusting the complainants were giving me all the details I needed because I barely heard what they said. All my attention was on the radio. What had Oakley found? Did he know yet that the body was James Paxton? If not, when would he? Hours? By morning, I was sure. There couldn’t be that many missing men in their late twenties wearing expensive suits.
And then what would I do? Carry on as normal, I told myself. The hardest part had to be the actual killing, and I was way past that. All I had to do was sit tight, act as though the body in Orchard Street was nothing to do with me, and everything would be fine. The only things to worry about were the phone call and the purple stone.
I took a deep breath. I’d already decided that the rock wouldn’t be good for fingerprints, so I should stop fretting about that. And the phone call? That was easy too – time of death was notoriously difficult to pinpoint, and it became harder the longer a person was dead, so no one could prove that I was the last person to speak to him. But what should I say if anyone asked why he’d called me? That it was a wrong number? That I’d been out, and he must’ve got my answer machine?
I decided to go home and think everything out really carefully. I wouldn’t make the mistake I’d made with Colin, when I should have denied that I’d slept with James. I’d be cautious and precise and, if there was any justice in the world, it would work out right. After all, James had been blackmailing me – he was the one who deserved to die. I was not going to do time for him.
The previous winter, a man had been stabbed on Park Street in a brawl between rival football gangs. An incident room had been set up while the squad had tracked down the culprit. The case meant that New Bridewell had recent experience of murder enquiries, and the system that swung into operation was smooth and efficient. Superintendent Taylor was to head a mix of local officers and imported experts. Inevitably, uniform was to help with some of the routine house-to-house enquiries.
The first man Taylor chose was Oakley. He needed competent, meticulous officers, and Oakley was probably the most painstaking detective Taylor had ever met. He wanted Clare Davis, too, and a new man named Dave Merrick, who had valuable computer skills. He took Evans because he and Oakley seemed to work well together.
At seven thirty on Saturday morning, Taylor assembled his team in the basement, which was now the Orchard Street Incident Room. He had already heard it called the Kovac Incident Room, and was quick to correct it – he didn’t want his investigation to start with shaky assumptions.
He looked around at the men and women he had gathered, and nodded his satisfaction. A good mix of young and keen, and older and experienced. Many had worked on the Park Street stabbing, and knew exactly what was expected.
‘I won’t speak for long,’ he began, ‘because we’ve got a lot to do today. I just want to fill you in on a few details. First, we have a body in a house, wrapped in plastic. The cause of death was a single blow to the head. The pathologist has confirmed the death as suspicious. The house was leased short term to overseas scholars and, as far as we know, the last was one Doctor Marko Kovac from Albania.’
He nodded to Oakley, who took up the tale. ‘According to the neighbours, Kovac was due to leave at the end of July, but none of them saw him go. DI Davis and DC Johns will visit Academic Accommodations today, to get a home address for him and to find out who, if anyone, was supposed to move in next. Kovac was in his early thirties, and could be the body in the kitchen. We need to wait for the full post mortem and the DNA results to be sure.’
‘You and DS Evans can look for the murder weapon,’ said Taylor. ‘Start with the P.M. Obviously, you’ll need some idea of what we’re looking for, and the only way to get that is from the pathologist. The rest of you will be on door-to-door enquiries in Orchard Street and at the university. It’s the weekend, so people are more likely to be at home than during the week. We’ve contacted the physics department, and they’ll give us a list of Kovac’s colleagues later today.’
‘So we do think the body is Kovac?’ asked Evans.
‘It’s a working assumption,’ said the superintendent. ‘Unfortunately, lying in a hot room for two weeks – the pathologist’s rough guess – means facial identification is out. As Neel said, we need to wait for DNA and the P.M. However, Dave Merrick can contact Interpol and the Albanian police, so we’ll have a head start if it does turn out to be Kovac. Questions?’
Clare Davis raised her hand. ‘The body was found in the kitchen. Is that room overlooked?’
It was Oakley who answered. ‘There are no curtains on the window, but the garden is enclosed by a five-foot wall that’s difficult to see over from the neighbours on either side – and there’s a garage between number nine and number eleven. The people who live in the house at the back would be able to see into Kovac’s kitchen from their bathroom if their windows weren’t frosted and unopenable.’
‘Were any blunt instruments of suitable size and shape retrieved from the kitchen?’ asked Evans. ‘Rolling pins or a domestic fire extinguisher, for example?’
‘That’s what you and I’ll be doing today. I didn’t see anything obvious last night.’
‘I heard the body was wrapped in bin liners,’ said Merrick, a morose man who’d recently transferred from the Lancashire Police to be closer to his ageing mother. ‘Is that true?’
‘Black plastic sheeting,’ corrected Taylor. ‘The body was rolled in it, like Cleopatra in a carpet. Perhaps it was a prelude to taking it somewhere and dumping it. Any more questions?’
Dave Merrick raised his hand again. ‘Did Barry Wright throw up all over the crime scene?’
The room erupted with a chorus of noises – derisive laughter, expressions of disgust and gratuitous requests for more detailed information.
‘Come on, man,’ said Taylor irritably. ‘That sort of thing isn’t going to help.’
Merrick looked indignant. ‘I wasn’t trying to be funny, sir. I want to know whether samples were sent to FSS – the vomit might have been the killer’s.’
From anyone else, the remark would have been made to make sure word of Wright’s mishap spread around the station, but Merrick was too dour for malice. The tale had seeped out via the SOCOs, who had fallen foul of the obnoxious sergeant before and had been delighted with the opportunity to hit back. But Taylor did not want trouble between Wright and the murder squad. He dealt with the question briskly.
‘Of course. However, I doubt it will lead anywhere, so I advise you to put it out of your minds. Any more questions?’
‘What if the body isn’t Kovac?’ asked DC Johns. ‘What if he really did go back to Albania and this is someone else? How do we proceed then?’
‘It’s possible that Academic Accommodations leased the house to someone after Kovac,’ said Oakley. ‘We need to find out before we start to speculate.’
‘Right,’ said Taylor loudly, cutting across the buzz of speculation that followed. ‘Thank you, lads and lasses. All I ask is that you keep up the paperwork. Give it to Dave, who’ll be running HOLMES 2 – the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. However, remember: crap in, crap out. It won’t help us unless we help it. And be careful of the anonymous rubbish.’
‘Sir?’ asked Merrick, bemused.
‘Unsigned letters, anonymous phone calls or mysterious emails,’ elaborated Taylor. ‘I don’t like them, and I don’t want us wasting time on them. If anyone has good information they can damn well tell us about it upfront, not skulk behind a veil of secrecy.’
‘I don’t think we should ignore them altogether, sir,’ said Davis uneasily. ‘Sometimes such tip-offs give us our best leads.’
‘Ask West Yorkshire Police what they think of anonymous tips,’ said Taylor harshly. ‘The hoaxer who made those “Geordie accent” tapes left the Yorkshire Ripper free to kill again. If the tip is genuine then whoever gives it should have the guts to put his name to it.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, go out and catch me a murderer.’
‘What was all that about?’ asked Merrick after Taylor had left. ‘I thought we were supposed to take any information seriously.’
‘Taylor was caught out badly by a hoaxer once,’ said Oakley, ‘and he’s been wary of anonymous tip-offs ever since. He has a point: there are a lot of people who like to see us waste time and resources.’
‘And others who get pleasure from seeing us blunder along in the direction they point us,’ added Davis. ‘I suppose it gives them a sense of power.’
‘So we ignore these tip-offs?’ asked Merrick.
‘Yes, if they’re delivered by a youthful voice with a lot of sniggering in the background,’ said Oakley eventually. ‘No, if it sounds like someone genuinely afraid to give his or her name.’
‘Who knows?’ asked Davis with a shrug. ‘If this investigation starts to flounder – and it might, considering that we have a victim who no one’s missed for two weeks – then anonymous tip-offs might be a godsend.’
‘I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Orchard Street murder,’ said Wright as he briefed his shift that morning. ‘The victim’s some foreign geezer named Marko Kovac, who had his head smashed in. Very nasty. Obviously, we’ve got a lunatic on the loose, so I imagine there’ll be plenty of overtime for those who want it.’
I listened in disbelief. Kovac? Who the hell was he? What had happened to James? Had they gone to a different house, and there’d been two murders in Orchard Street? Or had they just got it wrong? I was confused, but forced myself to listen.
‘It was horrible,’ Wright was saying, shaking his head. ‘One of the worst cases I’ve come across – blood all over the floor, trailing under the sink …’
‘The sink?’ I blurted. What was this? James had died in the sitting room. There was no sink in the sitting room, and there hadn’t been any blood, either.
Wright smiled, pleased someone was giving him an opportunity to elaborate. ‘The stiff was in the kitchen, wrapped in black plastic. Well, you can imagine what the heat and black plastic do to a stiff.’
What was going on? Black plastic? I hadn’t done anything with black plastic! Had someone come along and tried to clear up after me? But why? And what was I going to do? Tell Superintendent Taylor that the crime scene wasn’t the one the killer had left? Or was I right with my first thought – that this was a murder in a different house?
‘I heard someone was sick,’ Paul Franklin said innocently.
‘Bloody Oakley!’ muttered Wright venomously.
‘Oakley was sick?’ asked Franklin, startled. ‘I thought it was—’
‘What number in Orchard Street?’ I blurted, loudly enough for people to turn and look at me. I hastened to explain. ‘I walk to work that way, and—’
‘Then go and suck up to Oakley by telling him so,’ snarled Wright unpleasantly. ‘He wants a uniform to guard the house, so you can tell him you’re it. I’m sure we can manage without our graduate today.’
‘Bastard,’ I heard Paul whisper behind me. ‘Ignore him, Helen. He’s just riled because it was him who threw up over the crime scene, so he’s taking it out on you.’
I didn’t give a toss about Wright’s gastric inadequacies, or, for once, the fact that he always took his bad temper out on me. I just wanted to find out what the hell was going on with my murder.
Oakley was at the post mortem, so DI Davis took Anderson to guard the crime scene. Feeling a certain empathy with a fellow female officer, she asked how Anderson liked the job, but Anderson wasn’t particularly forthcoming. Davis had seen her around the station, and had been with her during the Noble operation, but this was their first real conversation.
Davis was a pleasant woman in her forties, who had reached her exulted rank without becoming bitter, angry or jaded. She had three teenage daughters who kept her feet firmly on the ground, and a large yellow dog that demanded daily walks, which kept her fit while also letting her mind wander to aspects of life unrelated to criminal investigations.
She glanced at the quiet, unassuming woman next to her and tried again. Oakley, whose judgement she respected, liked Anderson, so she clearly had something to offer.
‘I heard you passed your sergeant’s exams.’ Anderson smiled politely, but still didn’t speak, so Davis continued. ‘You’ve been in the job for, what, five or six years? How come you’re not on the graduate entry scheme?’
‘I didn’t want to be in charge of situations I’d no experience of,’ replied Anderson in a way that suggested it wasn’t the first time she had fielded that particular question. ‘It’s better to work your way up through the ranks on merit, not because you’ve got a degree.’
Davis nodded approvingly. ‘So why has Barry Wright got it in for you?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I was born a woman and I went to university,’ replied Anderson. ‘That’s all.’
‘You don’t have to put up with his crap, you know. You can do something about it.’
‘I don’t want to be branded as a whiner. Besides, he’d deny any accusations I made and things would be worse than ever. He’s been in the job for twenty years, so I don’t see my word being taken over his.’
‘Perhaps,’ conceded Davis. ‘But you shouldn’t let him get away with it if it bothers you.’
‘It doesn’t,’ said Anderson defiantly and a little unsteadily, so that Davis knew that it did. ‘And who knows? Maybe I’ll apply for a transfer soon. Anything going in CID?’ She gave the DI a quick smile, to let her know the question wasn’t serious.
Davis laughed. ‘Well, you’ll come with plenty of experience at guarding crime scenes,’ she said, pulling up outside the house that was surrounded by fluttering blue and white tape, and where marked and unmarked police cars deprived the residents of their usual parking spots.
‘It’s number nine,’ said Anderson in a low voice.
‘That’s right,’ said Davis, climbing out of the car. ‘Number nine.’
I couldn’t believe it! It was the same house. I recognized the unkempt garden and the unruly hedge. And, of course, there was the number. James had invited me to number nine, and I had murdered him in number nine.
I forced myself to get out of the car and walk up the short path to the door, remembering the last time I’d made that trip. It’d been dark then. It was light now, with the golden sun of August beginning to blaze.
The front door was open, like a sinister black slit that led to hell. DI Davis went in through it while I hovered in the garden, not sure what to do. I’d been trained to keep off crime scenes, and warned countless times about evidence lost under curious feet. My instincts were contradictory – to run inside and try to find out what was going on, or to race away from the garden, Bristol and my life in general while I still could. Then Davis beckoned.
‘If you’re going to join CID, you should take the opportunity to get a bit of experience of the way major crimes are investigated,’ she said. ‘SOCO worked all night, and they’re just finishing. Put these on and don’t touch anything. You don’t want to do a Wright.’
‘A Wright?’ I asked stupidly, taking the paper shoe-covers and gloves she handed me.
‘Contaminating the crime scene,’ she elaborated. I smiled, because she expected me to.
I put the elasticized covers over my feet and donned gloves that were too big. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to walk through the door, but I did it, even though my heart was hammering so hard I thought it would explode. Once I was in, though, I found myself relaxing a little. It was so different from the last time I’d been there – now it was light, full of people and business-like voices – that it almost seemed like another place. It occurred to me that leaving a fingerprint here and there might not be a bad idea – it would be assumed that I’d ‘done a Wright’, and any other trace evidence they found from me would be discounted. I decided to consider it. After all, I was going to be there all day.
Davis went down the hall to the kitchen where the SOCOs were packing up. I could hear them speaking quietly, as though out of respect for the dead. Fortunately, I knew the dead wasn’t still there. He was at the mortuary, being pared open with the pathologist’s knives. When would they discover it was James, and not the Albanian academic? I anticipated it would not be long now.
I didn’t follow Davis to the kitchen, but stopped at the sitting room and took a couple of steps inside. Yes, there was the nasty beige carpet, and the scruffy sofas and chairs. And there on the floor was the fluff that James had been picking up when I’d hit him. I looked around, seeking signs that a man had died there. There was nothing, not even an indentation in the carpet or a stain from the saliva that had dripped from James’ mouth. There was no rock either, although I wasn’t sure whether or not this was a good thing.
When I’d hit James – as far as I could recall – there was a soggy crack, like an egg dropping on a stone floor, only heavier, deeper and louder. Perhaps an ostrich egg might make the right kind of noise, with its thicker shell and greater contents. But there hadn’t been any blood, because my blow hadn’t split James’ skin. Wright had claimed there’d been blood everywhere. What was right: his observations or my memories?
I rubbed my pounding head. And how had the body gone from the sitting room into the kitchen? Had I done that, in the moments immediately after the murder, when I’d been dazed and frightened? And had I then blotted it from my mind? Had I rolled the body in plastic, intending to return later and get rid of it? If so, my fingerprints would be all over it.
I looked at the mantelpiece, which was grey, white and silver from fingerprint dust. The rocks were still there, sitting in a line, and a police photographer was taking snaps of them. I noticed an ominous gap where one was obviously missing.
‘In here, Helen.’
Davis was calling. I reluctantly left the sitting room and made my way to what everyone thought was the scene of the real crime. My legs felt as heavy as lead, and I could smell the stench of decay, even though the body had gone. It hung in the air, like mist, penetrating and polluting everything. I could taste it, feel it scorching my nostrils. I knew it would be seared into my memory forever.
When I reached the kitchen I remembered the characterless little room with its white chip-board cupboards and its cheap yellow vinyl. There was a small table at one end, with two folding chairs, and the sink was under the window. On the floor near the sink was a long, dark stain, which was a blackish-plum colour, yellow-gold at the edges. It didn’t look like blood. Was that what Wright had seen? Had it come from James’ shattered head? Or had it oozed from his ears or his mouth as he was moved? I looked closer. It looked sticky, and was set at the edges, like blood mixed with lemonade and left to dry. There were clots of something dark in the middle.
‘Bodies leak after death,’ explained a SOCO, mistaking my horrified perusal for professional interest. ‘Tissues, like the brain, begin to liquefy and gasses cause the intestines to swell. It’s like a volcano, with pressure building up, and it’s got to come out somewhere, so it does – through various orifices, which I’m sure you don’t need me to list.’
‘No,’ I agreed fervently. ‘So, it’s not blood?’
‘The blow that killed him didn’t break the skin, so there wasn’t any blood for us to find, more’s the pity.’
‘Is it?’ I asked nervously.
‘Oh, yes.’ The man was enjoying sharing the secrets of his horrible trade. ‘When a victim is hit and the wound bleeds, you get what we call splatter marks. These droplets – which can sometimes be very fine, and other times a real fountain – make distinctive patterns when they land, so we can tell where a victim was killed, how hard he was hit and even the order the blows came in. But we can’t do that here.’ He sounded disappointed.
‘What can you tell?’ I asked, trying to sound coolly professional.
‘It’s hard to say at this stage.’ The SOCO began to pack small bottles into a bag. ‘There are fingerprints all over the place, but that’s to be expected in a kitchen. We’ll run them all through the computer to see how many belonged to Kovac … to the victim, and see what we’re left with. Since this house is rented to lots of people for short periods, eliminating them and identifying a culprit is going to be a nightmare.’
‘What else, besides fingerprints?’ I asked numbly. There was no point trying to contaminate the scene if all the relevant surfaces had already been dusted.
‘We’ve found fibres from what will probably turn out to be clothes. We’ve got cutlery, glasses and cups to test for saliva – DNA, you know. We’ve taken swabs from every available surface. You name it, we’ve done it. With a murder, we can’t be too careful.’
‘True,’ agreed Davis, who had been listening as she looked around the room. ‘And you lot can do wonders with it all these days. We’re placing a good deal of hope on what you find.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ said the SOCO proudly. ‘It’s not easy to commit murder in the twenty-first century, you know. We can now solve crimes that would have been impossible a decade ago.’ He gave me a conspiratorial grin. ‘We’ll get this bastard. I don’t have any doubts on that score.’
I felt as though I was about to do a Wright.
A post mortem was never a pleasant thing to witness, and one on a body that should have been buried or cremated days before was worse than most. Evans chewed gum in an attempt to combat the stench, but Oakley had visions of molecules of corruption drifting in the air and becoming caught in it. The notion of anything from the corpse entering his mouth was something he didn’t like to dwell on. He wore a surgical mask and breathed through his nose as shallowly as possible.
The pathologist was Ben Grossman. Due to retire soon, he was a genial man whom the police liked, as he didn’t patronize them or try to distress them with gruesome procedures. He had worked in the mortuary used by New Bridewell for as long as Oakley could remember.
The post-mortem room had recently been refurbished, and boasted gleaming white walls and a hard grey floor with drains, so it could be hosed down at the end of the day. Custom-built lights, a camera and microphones hung from the ceiling, and there were three metal trolleys, each of which held a body; more were stored in large metal drawers in an adjoining room. Stripped of clothes, the Orchard Street corpse was a dark, blackish colour with hints of green. Its stomach was vastly distended, and its lower limbs swollen from the fluids that had pooled there.
‘Neel!’ cried Grossman, eyes crinkling in a grin that was hidden behind his mask. ‘And Mark Butterworth, is it?’
‘Graham Evans,’ corrected Oakley, uncomfortably aware that Grossman had performed the post mortem on his friend. How could he have forgotten? Or had he just seen so many bodies that one blurred into another?
‘Welcome, welcome,’ said Grossman genially. He switched on the spotlights and rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant, so don’t feel obliged to stay. Most will be irrelevant to you, and you can watch the DVD later if necessary. I’ll do the head first. That’s presumably what you’re most interested in. Do you have a name yet?’
‘No,’ replied Oakley, still discomfited by the mention of Mark.
‘He’s probably Marko Kovac,’ countered Evans. ‘He was a visiting scholar at the university.’
‘Marko Kovac?’ asked Grossman, startled. ‘Not the Albanian particle physicist?’
Oakley frowned. ‘You know him?’
‘I met him, certainly. I teach anatomy at the university, as you know, and attend the occasional science faculty bash. I met him at one last year.’
‘Last year?’ asked Oakley. ‘Not more recently?’
‘Christmas. I remember, because I’d never met an Albanian before and I asked how they celebrate the holidays. He was Catholic, and I couldn’t decide which of the traditions he described were basic Christian and which were specifically Albanian. That’s what happens when a Jew asks questions about Christmas! I should stick to things I know.’
‘He was religious then?’
‘Not overtly. That was our only discussion, although he told me he visited the physics department a couple of times a year. Dear, oh, dear. Is this him?’ He cocked his head and looked long and hard at the body.
‘We don’t know,’ said Oakley. ‘Is it?’
‘Grossman shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m not very good with faces, and you’ll appreciate that this one is somewhat changed. You’ll have to get me a photo to match to his skull. It could be him: it’s the right sort of build, age, hair colour. Eyes have gone, of course, so they won’t help.’
‘What was he like?’
Grossman considered, pulling absently on the mask that covered his mouth. ‘A little arrogant, but that happens when you’re good at what you do. Good looking, long eyelashes. I remember those.’ He peered at the body. ‘I’ll have a dig around later, once I’ve cleared the maggots out, and see if I can find any.’
Evans left the room.
‘Was he popular with his colleagues?’
‘He seemed a pretty normal sort of fellow to me. Talked about his wife and children, and went on about his work at the university in Tirana and how the Balkan conflicts had affected it. But people at the university will tell you this. I should be telling you about his injuries.’
There was only one: a savage blow to the top of the head that had severely compressed the brain. Grossman peeled back the skin to reveal radiating cracks from a central dent, like craters created by asteroids in deserts. Fragments of bone had been driven into the brain, further compounding the damage. Everything else seemed normal, and Grossman could detect no sign of a struggle.
‘Can you tell whether the blow was administered left-handed or right-handed?’ asked Oakley.
‘Haven’t a clue. It might have been done two-handed for all I know. However, there was a lot of anger or power behind it. Death would’ve come fairly quickly.’
‘You mean he lived for a while afterwards?’
‘Oh, yes. In fact, had he been taken straight to a hospital he might even still be with us. He would never have walked or talked again, of course, but he might still be breathing.’
‘Can you describe the murder weapon?’
‘Something large and fairly heavy. Not a metal bar or a baseball bat. Something wider and with a flatter surface.’
‘Such as what?’ Oakley racked his brain for something that matched that description in the house. ‘A saucepan? He appears to have died in the kitchen.’
‘Possibly, but the bruising is deeper in some places than in others. A very dented saucepan would fit the description. I’ve taken swabs, so we can see if there’s any residue from the weapon, but don’t hold your breath. If it was metal we won’t find anything.’
‘A blow of such force raises two questions in my mind,’ mused Oakley. ‘First, does it suggest a man rather than a woman? And second, why wasn’t there any bleeding? I thought scalps bled easily.’
‘They do. However, it’s not unusual for the first blow in a bludgeoning to break bones but not skin. I often say the first strike is free, and it’s the rest that cause the spatter that gives us our clues. But our killer was happy with one. Perhaps it was an accident.’
‘An accident?’ asked Oakley warily. ‘How?’
‘He got in the way of some strange sport with dented skillets?’ suggested Grossman flippantly. ‘Regardless, that’s for you to find out.’
‘And the force of the blow?’ asked Oakley, unamused. ‘You said there was a lot of anger or power behind it.’
‘Considerable force was used. But there are some very powerful ladies around these days, so I wouldn’t like to speculate whether you’re looking for a male or a female culprit.’
‘But if you had to choose?’
‘A man, but I’ll deny it if you bring it up in court. It’s based on good old-fashioned prejudice that men commit more violent crimes than the fairer sex. But look at the victim’s skull. It’s quite delicate for a man – not abnormal, but it’s certainly thinner than yours would be. If the killer had delivered this sort of blow to you, he’d need to follow it up with another to make sure you were dead.’
‘Would the culprit know this?’ wondered Oakley.
‘I doubt it. Most killers don’t give their victims a physical examination before launching murderous attacks. It was probably luck – for the killer, I mean. Certainly not for the victim.’
‘Lord!’ muttered Oakley. The post mortem was throwing out more questions than solutions.
‘When you bring me a body in this state, you reduce the chance of getting definitive answers,’ said Grossman. ‘For example, I can’t tell whether it was bundled up in the plastic straight away or later. I’ll need to call in an insect specialist, too. He might be able to give you a more accurate time of death. My guess – which won’t go in my report – is the week between Saturday the twenty-eighth of July and Saturday the fourth of August.’
‘Kovac was alive on the thirtieth of July because he spoke to his neighbour. That was two weeks ago.’ Oakley sighed. ‘Of course, this may not be him. Kovac might be the killer.’
‘Unfortunately for you, DNA will only give you a name if you’ve got a sample to match it to. Kovac almost certainly won’t be in the criminal database here, and I doubt the Albanian police have access to such modern technology. You’ll have to resort to old-fashion identification methods, like dental records. Or perhaps they’ll have his fingerprints on file – academics are still regarded with suspicion there, so you may be in luck.’
‘Are his clothes Albanian?’
‘No, they all have British labels. But lots of Eastern Europeans treat themselves to Western clothes, so you can’t read anything into that.’
‘Perhaps that’s why we didn’t find a suitcase in the house,’ said Oakley gloomily. ‘The culprit wanted his fashionable clothes.’
‘Last year we had a woman who was killed for the four pounds in her handbag,’ Grossman pointed out sombrely. ‘A suitcase of clothes is an improvement on that.’
When he had finished at the mortuary, Oakley drove to the university. A technician there had phoned New Bridewell to say that he was the one who worked more with Kovac than anyone else, and Oakley wanted to interview him personally. Ron Yates, a tall, cadaverous man in his forties, took him to a spotlessly clean chamber and laid his hand lovingly on a console. Thick cables trailed from it and it looked expensive.
‘An SEM with an attached ICPMS,’ he said fondly.
‘Very nice,’ said Oakley. He’d been good at physics at school, and read popular science books, but the humming monstrosity that stood before him looked altogether too complex for his meagre level of understanding.
‘It’s a powerful microscope that can analyse materials at the molecular level,’ explained Yates. ‘I’ve made modifications that make this one the best in the country – perhaps in the world. Doctor Kovac comes here to use it – always in the vacations, as it tends to be less busy then. He’s been doing some pretty interesting work.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘Looking at the chemical structures of the particles comprising specific agents.’ Yates sounded impressed. ‘Some of his findings are revolutionary, and may have a major impact on nanotechnology.’
‘What’s Kovac like?’ asked Oakley, changing the subject before he became too lost.
‘Nice,’ replied Yates, ‘but edgy. He was in Skopje when the war broke out in Macedonia a decade ago, and the experience shook him. He worries about his family when he’s here. He’s always showing me pictures of them.’
‘Could he be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?’ asked Oakley, thinking that Kovac wouldn’t be the first person so scarred by war that he perpetrated his own horrors to compensate.
‘He might – his stories certainly scared the shit out of me. But he’s not violent.’ Yates gave a sad smile. ‘He’d never hurt anyone, and I really hope it’s not his body you found.’
Oakley left the university to give evidence for the remand hearing of the louts who’d set the M Shed alight. The prosecution wanted them imprisoned until the trial, and the defence was making a routine objection. Oakley fretted while he waited, aware that he had far more important things to be doing. But the ponderous wheel of justice hurried for no man, not even on a Saturday, and he could do nothing except pace with increasing exasperation.
As expected, it was decided that Nick King and his mates should be kept in the juvenile detention centre until their case could be heard. Oakley was just leaving when someone stepped out to intercept him. It was Michael Yorke.
‘I’d have thought you’d stay away from places like this,’ remarked Oakley.
‘I was hoping to catch Robert Brotherton,’ replied Yorke. ‘He’s looking after Billy while Paxton’s on holiday.’
‘I don’t suppose you know where?’ asked Oakley. ‘His mother’s concerned about him.’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ said Michael. ‘His disappearance when my brother needs him is inconvenient. I don’t suppose the police persuaded him to take off, did they?’
‘I only wish we had that kind of power,’ sighed Oakley. ‘Perhaps he realized that the case isn’t as straightforward as he hoped, and buggered off before he could make a fool of himself.’ Or before he could make an enemy of Yorke, he thought.
Michael still smiled, but his eyes were hostile. ‘I wouldn’t like to learn that the police had anything to do with it. Neither would my brother.’
Oakley met his gaze. ‘I think we’d better end this conversation now, before I feel obliged to arrest you for threatening behaviour.’
Michael backed away, raising his hands in the air. ‘See you in court.’
Oakley stared after him thoughtfully. It was the second time the Yorkes had suggested the police had something to do with Paxton’s odd disappearance. What was going on?
It was a scorching hot day, the sort when everyone should be at the beach or relaxing with friends. I certainly shouldn’t have been standing guard at the house where James had died, trying to find a spot that was in the shade so I wouldn’t fry.
DI Davis had left when the SOCO had finished his lecture, and the forensics team had gone shortly after that, locking the door behind them. They had really known their business, and it showed that it’s getting harder and harder to get away with murder these days. But I was going to be the exception. There were certainly some unsolved murders and James’ was going to be one of them. They didn’t even know who he was, and the Kovac thing would lead them off in entirely the wrong direction.
But what about the black plastic? I’d been confused and frightened after the murder. Could my horror really have caused me to blank out what I’d done? I closed my eyes and replayed it yet again. I recalled staring at James for some time, watching him breathe. Then I’d started for the door, but had gone back to make sure there were no witnesses. I shuddered. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had found someone.
‘Are you all right?’ Inspector Oakley’s voice pulled me so suddenly from my musings that I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. ‘I thought you might like this. It’s hot out here.’
He gave me an ice cream, chocolate-covered with nuts on the outside. I grinned weakly, trying to look grateful, while wondering how I was going to eat the thing without throwing up. Part of what was making me feel sick was the smell of Oakley himself. I’d been a police officer long enough to recognize the rank stench that clung to him. He’d been at James’ post mortem.
‘Nothing’s happening here,’ I said, pulling off the wrapper and trying to think of something other than James lying naked on a steel table. I could throw the lolly away when Oakley had gone. It would melt, and no one would know. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him I didn’t want it, but I certainly couldn’t eat the thing. ‘SOCO left a couple hours ago.’
‘And you drew the short straw and got to stand guard. I wondered who’d land that job. I should’ve known. How long are you here for?’
‘Rest of the shift, as far as I know. I don’t mind.’
‘Well, I do,’ Oakley said irritably. ‘I don’t want dehydrated officers fainting and letting the murderer get into the house. Or the press. I’ll make sure you have a break, even if I can’t get you out of a second stint.’
I started to tell him that I didn’t want one – that I’d rather be alone with my thoughts than taking burglary reports or arresting smirking juvenile shoplifters at the shopping centre, but he opened the door and went in without listening. He called over his shoulder that I should finish my ice cream before following, indicating that he wanted me to join him there. I estimated the time it would take me to eat it before flinging it in the hedge and stepping inside.
He was in the hall with his hands in his pockets. It was hot enough that anyone wearing a jacket would roast, so he was in shirt sleeves. It was a white shirt, nicely ironed, and he’d loosened his blue tie. He looked cool and relaxed. I noticed for the first time that there was silver in his black hair, and that his teeth always looked so white because his skin was a lovely golden colour. I hoped it would be him who arrested me if the affair turned out badly. Or Clare Davis. Either would be kind and fair.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, when he just continued to stand there.
‘Trying to get a feel for the place. I couldn’t do it last night. First, Wright was all over it, telling me how to catch the killer, then SOCO was here. Now it’s empty, it feels different.’
‘How?’ I asked suspiciously. Did he think he was going to catch me by trying to imagine what had happened?
‘Well, for a start, I can hear next-door’s television. That means the walls are thin, and if our victim was killed after an argument, the neighbours might have heard something.’
‘But the ones at number seven were away,’ I pointed out, repeating what I’d heard during the morning. ‘They only got back yesterday.’
‘True. But a screaming row would’ve been heard all down the street, even with the windows closed. It’s a quiet road. There isn’t much traffic, and there don’t seem to be any noisy kids, even though it’s the school holidays. So, I don’t think he was killed after a fight – well, not a loud one, anyway. I suppose there are always the quiet, menacing ones to consider.’
Was my last discussion with James a quiet, menacing one? I supposed it was. Neither of us had raised a voice. It had all been normal volume, very controlled, very dignified. All the menace had come from him, of course. None was mine, until the rock came into play. I wondered again where it was. Had I got rid of it? Or did I have someone else to thank for that – the person who had wrapped James in plastic?
Then a blinding realization came to me. I hadn’t done that – one of Yorke’s friends had. He’d come to see if James had managed to get the false statement put in the court file, found James dead and decided to get rid of the body, lest the crime was traced back to his boss. I suddenly remembered the statement lying on the sofa where James had tossed it. It wasn’t there now, and I was certain SOCO hadn’t found it, because someone would have said so. I felt dizzy with relief. I wasn’t losing my mind after all. Someone had been in the house between me and the police.
But was I right to be relieved? After all, Yorke wouldn’t be pleased that someone had killed his crooked lawyer, and he was a dangerous man. Yet twelve days had passed since the murder, and I’d been careful to ensure that no one had seen me near the house that night. I knew I hadn’t been followed, so I was probably safe. Wasn’t I?
‘We don’t have a precise time of death,’ Oakley was saying, ‘and we don’t know whether our victim was killed here. Enquiries in the street haven’t gone well. How can they, if we don’t know what dates we’re talking about?’
‘You have a rough idea,’ I said, able to be consoling now. ‘You know Kovac was last seen on Monday, July the thirtieth, when he told the neighbour at number eleven that he was leaving the next morning. If he didn’t leave that Tuesday, it must have been because he was dead. Therefore, he died sometime between that Monday evening and the next day – probably the first half of the day, as no one leaves to go on a long journey late at night.’
And I knew Kovac had gone by the Tuesday evening, because he certainly wasn’t there when I arrived. Obviously, James had waited until the Albanian had left before using the house. I was quite pleased with myself. If I managed to make Oakley believe the killing occurred on Monday or early Tuesday, he wouldn’t be looking for an alibi from me on Tuesday night.
‘I know there’s a body of opinion that thinks we’ve got a dead Albanian on our hands, but I’m not placing any bets. It might be someone else.’
Damn him! ‘A tramp?’ I suggested, trying not to sound too hopeful.
‘Not wearing a nice suit and good leather shoes.’
‘And there was no identification on the body?’ I asked. ‘No wallet or mobile?’
The mobile, of course, was my biggest worry.
‘I wish,’ said Oakley. He walked into the kitchen and stood still again, hands in his pockets as he looked around slowly. Then he donned a pair of gloves and began to open various drawers and cabinets.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.
‘The murder weapon. It’s got to be something heavy with a flattish bottom, perhaps like a heavily dented skillet.’
I joined in the search, grateful that he was so wrong. I suppose he thought James had been killed in the kitchen, and was hung up on the idea that the murder weapon had to be some kind of cooking utensil. I realized then that when the police have little to go on, things like where the body was found start to take on unwarranted significance. I could see how easy it would be to lead an investigation astray by over-interpreting, or drawing the wrong conclusions. If I were ever involved in another, I’d know what mistakes not to make.
I’d heard Oakley was tenacious, and now I saw it for myself. He examined every utensil in the kitchen, working methodically from left to right. When he finished there, he moved to the sitting room, where his eyes immediately lit on the stones that adorned the mantelpiece.
‘Ha!’ he muttered, as he took one down and turned it over in his hands. ‘Something heavy and irregular that won’t leave splinters or fibres.’ He turned to me, his eyes gleaming. ‘I think we’ve found our murder weapon.’
‘That?’ I tried to make myself sound dubious. ‘It wouldn’t be heavy enough.’
‘Not this one, perhaps.’ He was already picking up the others one by one. The gap where my stone had sat didn’t escape his attention. He stared at it for a long time, before moving to the one next to it. When he finished, he turned to look at me. ‘Perhaps the killer took it with him.’
He was half right. The killer hadn’t taken it – that I knew for a fact – but Yorke’s men might have done, along with James’ wallet and mobile. What had they been thinking? Had they imagined that there might be something on the rock that would associate them with the murder? Had James been alive when they’d arrived, so they’d finished him off, lest his arrival in a hospital raised awkward questions? Still, the absence of the murder weapon was a great weight off my mind.
‘Perhaps it rolled under the chairs,’ I suggested, trying to sound helpful.
He regarded me doubtfully – we both knew that SOCO would have looked already, but he obligingly got down on all fours and lifted the seat cover to peer underneath. I knelt, too, and raised the skirt of the sofa, confident nothing would be there. I was almost sick when I saw my purple rock, complete with a couple of James’ hairs still stuck to it.