Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] (4 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mariner.

‘When? How?’ She was so sure that this couldn’t be right.

Knox had taken out a small, black notebook. ‘We were called to a house late last night; thirty-four Clarendon Avenue,’ he said. It was Eddie’s address all right.

‘As yet we’re not looking for anyone else in connection with his death,’ Mariner added.

It was common enough police-speak and it took Anna only a few seconds to catch on to what he meant. ‘You think Eddie killed himself?’ she said.

‘It’s a strong possibility. There was a note.’

‘Where? Can I see it?’

He turned to Knox, who was ineffectively digging around in his pockets. Eventually he produced a folded, crumpled photocopied sheet, which he passed to Anna.

‘Does it look like his writing?’ he asked.

Staring at the print, Anna gave the slightest shrug of her shoulders. There was little that was distinctive about the scrawled block capitals.

‘Your brother seems to have died from a massive drug overdose,’ Mariner went on.

Now Anna knew for certain that they’d got it wrong.

‘That’s nonsense,’ she told them. ‘Eddie didn’t do drugs.’

‘But…’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘I’m not sure exactly,’ Anna hedged.

‘Days ago? Weeks?’ Mariner probed.

‘Weeks, I suppose.’ Suddenly Anna knew what he was getting at and resented the assumption. Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘But I know he wouldn’t have killed himself. It’s absurd.’

‘It would help us if you could make a formal identification, Miss Barham. Do you feel up to it?’

Anna looked from one to the other of them. ‘I will,’ she said, eventually, ‘but I really think you’ve got this horribly wrong.’ She glanced up at the outer office. ‘I’ll have to arrange for my PA to cancel my diary. Could you just wait for a moment?’

‘Of course.’

Anna went out to where Becky sat at her desk, printing off documents.

‘Becky, incredible as this sounds, these policemen think my brother has killed himself. They want me to go with them and identify a body.’ Telling it how it was helped Anna to keep a grip on herself and ride out her friend’s shocked reaction. Then she returned to the office to pick up her bag, feeling the first creeping chill of apprehension as she allowed herself to consider the seriousness of what she’d been asked to do. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

Apart from an ominous creaking and whirring of the lift mechanism, the trio descended to the ground floor in silence while Mariner gave Anna Barham time and space to assimilate what she’d been told. For once, Knox was exercising some discretion too. And thanks to Mariner, he did at least present more like a respectable officer of the law this morning. After they had finished at the station last night, he’d given Knox the spare front door key to his house and ordered him to go and get a shower and borrow a clean uniform from somewhere, before returning. ‘I’m not breaking the news to the relatives with a tramp.’

Mariner had worked this routine a hundred times before and was always prepared for shock and anger, even denial Suicide in particular threw up all kinds of powerful and often unwanted emotions. But this one was especially interesting. He couldn’t work out whether Anna Barham really didn’t believe them, or simply didn’t want to. Or did the lady just protest too much? Mariner hadn’t of course over looked the possibility that Anna Barham could herself be involved. A woman had made the emergency call, and not the brunette, why not her, making her reaction partly an elaborate attempt to cover up for her brother? But somehow he didn’t think so. What would be the point? And her initial surprise had seemed genuine enough.

And there was that newspaper cutting, the list of small ads for personal escort services, leading them in one swift move back to the brunette. Mariner hadn’t changed his view of her and Knox hadn’t appeared to disagree. It was becoming increasingly commonplace for some of the higher-class call girls to supply, and if that was the case it would explain why everything had been left so neat and tidy. A pro would have cleaned up before she left. It could easily have been the way Eddie Barham had planned things, a discreet and distinctly personal service. But even that explanation left one significant outstanding loose end. He was waiting for Anna Barham to come to that.

Hers was an unusual reaction; indignant and affronted, as if they were wasting her time. And she was taking the whole identification procedure surprisingly in her stride, leaving Mariner considering the dubious possibility that she’d done it before. But he knew better than to make any final judgements at this stage, because death is much the same as life. Everybody handles it in his or her own unique way. Shock can do funny things to people. And right now, as Knox manoeuvred them out into the soupy mid-morning traffic of the Hagley Road, Mariner was content to bide his time. They’d know for sure soon enough.

The city mortuary on Newton Street was housed in an anonymous-looking square Georgian edifice labelled innocuously enough ‘Coroner’s Office’ by the ubiquitous brass plaque. The sign that had always afforded Mariner a darker satisfaction was the red-topped ‘T’ at the entrance to the street, so fittingly declaring the by-way a ‘dead end’.

Within the bowels of the building, in a tastefully and sensitively furnished suite of rooms, Anna Barham did, reluctantly, provide them with a positive identification of her brother.

Afterwards, Mariner carried two beakers of scalding, grey tea from the vending machine to where she sat in what was generally referred to as the recovery lounge. It was a misnomer in most cases, though occasionally relatives managed to regain their outward composure, as Anna Barham seemed to have done. Now faced with the truth, she was clearly shocked, as Mariner would have expected, but still far from being distressed. Instead, she appeared more puzzled and detached as if presented with a conundrum.

‘Are you all right?’ Mariner asked anyway ‘

‘Yes.’ With a brief nod of thanks, she awkwardly relieved him of one of the flimsy, polystyrene cups. ‘Just can’t believe it.’ Mariner took a seat opposite, and her tawny-brown eyes looked directly into his, steady and unblinking. No avoidance, but no trace of any tears either.

She read his thoughts. ‘You must think I’m hard.’

It wasn’t an apology and Mariner only shrugged.

‘Everyone reacts differently in these situations,’ he said.

‘You’ll probably cry your eyes out when you get home.’

Anna Barham smiled weakly. Christ, it was a stunning smile. ‘That’s tactful of you,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think so. Eddie and I weren’t what you’d call close. It isn’t weeks*

but more like months since I last saw him even though we live only a few miles apart. I left home to get married when I was quite young.’ There was diffidence to her admission and from the bare fingers of her left hand Mariner guessed that the marriage hadn’t lasted.

That aside, none of this was beyond the scope of his comprehension. The week-old answer phone message from his mother tweaked at his conscience, but he pushed it away again. He braced himself. ‘Miss Barham, coincidentally i saw your brother earlier yesterday evening in the bar of the Chamberlain Hotel. He was with a woman, about five foot, with long, reddish hair and brown eyes. Do you have any idea who she might be?’ He’d keep his own opinions about the brunette to himself for now.

‘No, I’m sorry. As I said, I’m a bit out of touch.’

He couldn’t resist. ‘Yet you seem very sure that Eddie wasn’t considering taking up a new recreational pursuit.’

She flushed with annoyance. ‘I do know Eddie. We may not have seen each other often, but I know he wouldn’t have done that. He didn’t smoke, he hardly ever drank…’

‘People change. Sometimes pretty dramatically.’

‘Not Eddie. He wasn’t a user,’ she insisted.

‘He doesn’t have to have been. It looks as if it was his first time.’

‘No!’ Again the anger flared.

When the silence stretched to breaking point and she still made no reference to the other item outstanding, Mariner said quietly, ‘There was another man in the house.’

His words had a more dramatic effect than anything he’d said so far and she jumped violently, almost spilling the tea.

‘Jamie! God, of course! I’d completely— Forgotten? Now that was unbelievable. ‘But I don’t understand—he shouldn’t have been there. Not at the weekend. Is he all right?’ She got to finally.

‘Oh he’s fine.’ Involuntarily, Mariner touched his swollen nose and elicited a smirk of understanding from her. ‘Although that skull of his should be classed as an offensive weapon,’ Mariner said. ‘He is—?’

‘My younger brother.’ It was confirmation of what they’d already half guessed from the physical resemblance to the dead man. He was struck by her likeness to her brothers, too. Though smaller and more fragile, she had the same fair hair, tinged with red and cut boyishly short so that it curled into the nape of her neck. They were like peas in a pod, the Barhams. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

‘At the station. We’re waiting for him to come down so that we can talk to him.’

‘Come down?’ Momentarily she was confused, but as realisation dawned, she broke into a humourless laugh. ‘Oh great, now you’re going to try and tell me that Jamie’s on drugs, too.’

‘Miss Barham, Eddie was found with a hypodermic needle sticking out of his arm. There’s not much doubt about the way he died. And we found more syringes in the bathroom…’

‘Yes, probably left over from a time when Jamie used to have seizures,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Afterwards, he needed an injection of Valium to help him calm down and sleep it off.’

‘And head-butting people is a normal part of his behaviour, is it?’ Mariner persisted. ‘We found him hiding in a cupboard under the stairs and when we let him out, he went crazy.’ Her reluctance was understandable and nothing new. ‘Look,’ he went on patiently, trying to help her out.

‘You don’t have to pretend to me, I’ve had years of experience of users.’

‘And what’s your experience of autism, Inspector?’

‘Autism?’ It came at him from out of left field.

‘Jamie isn’t on drugs, he’s autistic. He freaked out because he was frightened. He didn’t know you. It’s that simple. If he was shut in a cupboard he would have been terrified. He’s always been afraid of the dark.’ Her voice carried a triumphant ring.

It took Mariner a few seconds to fully digest what she’d said, but gradually it began to add up. The kid’s raw terror, his apparent total lack of understanding of anything they’d said to him, the peculiar mannerisms. ‘Autistic. Christ,’ he said at last. ‘That’s why we couldn’t find any tracks.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Inspector, but Jamie won’t be “coming down” from anywhere. That’s the way he is all the time.’

‘We’re going to need to talk to him,’ Mariner reiterated eventually.

‘You can talk away,’ she said, with obvious amusement ‘Jamie will completely ignore you. His understanding of spoken language is virtually non-existent, and the only things he says are words and phrases that he’s learned, mainly from the TV. He just echoes what he hears.’

‘Echoes?’ It was out before he could stop himself Mariner groaned inwardly. This was worse than he’d thought. The video camera had proved a nil return there was no tape loaded, so finding Jamie Barham had been the next best thing. They were banking on him as a key witness. Mariner had felt confident that however stoned he might have been, he would be able to confirm at least some of the events of the previous evening. ‘Maybe if you talked to Jamie?’ he suggested, hopefully.

‘Me?’ Another wry laugh. ‘You must be joking. Eddie’s the one you need.’

‘We will have to interview Jamie, and the sooner the better. It will help if you can be there. And then you can take him home.’

‘Home?’

‘He’s not under arrest. We only held him for his own safety until after questioning. He’s free to go at any time.’

‘But not with me!’ And for the first time she seemed truly appalled. ‘I’m flying to Milan in a few days. I can’t look after him.’

‘So is there someone else we can contact?’

‘I don’t know. He goes into respite care at the weekends but the rest of the time…’ Her shoulders sagged as suddenly the fight went out of her and finally the tears looked as if they might come. ‘With Eddie gone there’s nobody. God, what a mess.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘My parents are dead.’

So she could have been through this before. Shit. Nice work, Mariner.

From the mortuary it was a twenty-minute drive to Operational Command Unit 2, Granville Lane Police Station, where Jamie Barham was being held. The station was Monday-morning busy, nonetheless allowing the desk sergeant the opportunity to call out cheerily as they passed, ‘That bloke you brought in last night has been creating havoc in the cells, sir.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Trying to crack his head open on the walls, mainly Draper’s had him brought up here for his own safety.’

Andy Draper, the station’s Forensic Medical Examine would be overseeing Jamie Barham’s detention.

‘Where is he?’ asked Mariner.

‘Observation Room Four. We’re keeping an eye on him. Draper says he can’t find any traces of drug use either He’s just your average nutcase.’

‘Cheers.’ Mariner flashed Anna an apologetic smile. So far, locking up Jamie Barham had been nothing more than a misunderstanding and he’d been hoping they could keep it that way. ‘Through here.’

Moving swiftly on, Mariner led the way through a maze of brightly lit corridors until they reached a door, which he pushed open, standing back to allow her in.

The room itself was empty but the entire width of one wall was panelled with glass and on the other side of it was Jamie Barham. Mariner immediately sensed Anna’s unease.

Wearing only underpants and a single sock Jamie paced restlessly around the perimeter of the room, stopping now and then at some random spot to spread the fingers of both hands on the wall, laying his cheek in between, as if listening for something on the other side. The wild, agitated appearance his matted and spiky hair gave him was compounded by the deep graze on his forehead, which had streaked blood down one side of his face and on to his pale wiry body. Here and there terracotta coloured prints adorned the stark white walls of the room; decorative stencilling gone grotesquely wrong. But even in that condition Jamie Barham was strikingly handsome with the sort of intense good looks that stared insolently from arty monochrome aftershave ads.