Tuesday, 28 March, 5 p.m.
Alex rang her as the afternoon was drawing to a close. For Martha it had been a peaceful, pleasant day. She had eaten her lunch while still working, to Jericho’s disapproval, but she’d cleared a backlog of form filling and felt the usual satisfaction when you’ve completed a mundane task. She was just wondering what to cook for tea when the phone rang.
Jericho had got used to the fact that though he fended off all the coroner’s calls, somehow DI Alex Randall had become an exception. So when he picked up the phone and recognized the voice he didn’t even ask but put the call straight through.
‘Martha.’ She immediately picked up on the sense of foreboding in the detective’s voice.
‘Alex?’
‘Remember my saying that this felt like the beginning of something …’ He hesitated, not wanting to use too melodramatic a word. ‘That it felt like there was something dark about Gina Marconi’s death?’
‘Yes.’ She wondered what on earth was coming next.
‘There’s been another death …’
Afterwards she would toss those two words around: another death. Why, she would wonder later, was he linking the two together? Even in sparsely populated, generally healthy Shropshire, people died every day. ‘What – another car accident?’
‘No. A young lad. A boy called Patrick Elson jumped off an A5 bridge this morning. We found his schoolbag on the bridge over the dual carriageway.’
‘Another suicide?’
‘It looks like it. A couple driving in the Shrewsbury direction saw him standing on the parapet over the road. They saw him jump and he hit their car …’ He hesitated before adding: ‘And others.’
‘I take it he’s—’
‘Yes, multiple injuries again. The boy’s mother—’
She interrupted. ‘How old?’
‘Twelve.’ He resumed his story. ‘The boy’s mother can’t understand it. He should have been at school. He wasn’t in any trouble. According to his mother he wasn’t depressed or ill. He didn’t take drugs.’
They all say that.
‘So could it have been an accident?’
‘Even if it was, his mother says it would be out of character for him not to be at school and he wasn’t exactly a daredevil sort of boy. If anything, he was a swot.’
‘So what was he doing there in the first place? Why was he there instead of at school?’
‘We don’t know. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Pretty horrendous injuries. Mark says he can fit in the PM in the morning. Mother has identified him.’
‘Right. I’ll need to speak to her and anyone who witnessed the boy on the bridge.’
‘Plenty of those,’ he said, with cynicism, ‘but the main witnesses are the couple who were driving back to Shrewsbury after visiting their daughter. She’d just had a baby, apparently. Anyway they were returning home along the A5. The woman, a Mrs Eileen Tinsley, saw the boy climb up on to the top rung and fling himself off. Those were the words she used.’
‘Fling himself off – like flying?’
‘That’s what she said.’
Twelve years old, she was thinking. Drugs? They made you believe you could fly through the air, even off a bridge over a busy dual carriageway, and come to no harm. ‘We’ll need a full toxicology screen.’
‘Yes.’
She just needed to check on a detail. ‘Could it have been an accident and he fell? Is it possible someone dared him and he either overbalanced or was pushed?’
‘The couple said he was alone. They didn’t see anyone anywhere near him.’ He finished with, ‘Now do you see why I link the two together?’
‘I’m beginning to. I’d better talk to the boy’s mother. Is she in a fit state to …’
‘I think you would be the best person.’ He sounded relieved.