Down into Darkness (7 page)

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ARTHUR JAMES FITTS

(1933–2003)

WHO LOVED THE VIEW FROM THIS SPOT

The current occupant of the bench was unlikely to be enjoying the view, because he was dead, his head lowered, eyes staring at the ground where a sizeable pool of his own blood had soaked into the dry ruts of the path. His chinos were stiff with it. His shirt-front carried a dark red bib. His shoes were crusted. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled back to the elbow, and his forearms carried what, at first, looked like tattoos. A closer look revealed that they were two words written in black marker pen:

‘Two in one day,' Stella said. She was talking about Barry or Gary.

‘Only one of them yours,' Harriman observed.

Stella looked at him. ‘It's not the paperwork, for Christ's sake, it's the body count. I'm not a pathologist – one's enough for me. Do we know who he is?'

‘Leonard Pigeon.'

‘What?'

Harriman flapped his arms to simulate flight. ‘Pigeon. ID in his wallet: credit cards and so on.'

‘He still had his wallet –'

‘He did; no cash in it, though.'

Leonard Pigeon was leaning back, well down on the slats of the bench, knees out, as if he had been taking the sun and fallen asleep. Harriman walked to behind the bench and pointed. A cord had been used to tie Leonard's belt to the lowest slat in the backrest; a second cord was round his neck to keep his head and torso in position, though the fact that his chin was on his chest made it impossible to see this from directly in front, and the rest was hidden by his shirt collar.

Forensics officers, dressed from head to toe in white, were active on all sides, gathering, assessing, bagging, some inside the tent, some operating in a wider area that had been taped off. Little bands of walkers gathered at the boundaries, asking when they could continue. It was just the Thames towpath, but some wore hiking boots and carried rucksacks with rugged logos; uniformed officers pointed them back the way they'd come.

‘Mobile phone?' Stella asked.

‘Oh, yeah, sure.'

‘Use ICE?'

‘Two entries: one a landline, no reply, no answerphone; the other a mobile, apparently switched off, no personal message. Sue Chapman's doing a trace. Shouldn't be long.'

ICE had been established after 9/11, after the Tsunami, after the London bombings:
I
n
C
ase of
E
mergency, entered on to your mobile phone with a contact number; the whole world anticipating the worst.

There were flies feasting off the drying pool of Leonard Pigeon's blood and swarming round his chin; flies and a small contingent of wasps, those sharky little meat-eaters. The
video man had been and gone, but the stills photographer was popping a few shots, sending flashgun glare off the walls of the tent. Stella stepped out, taking Harriman with her.

‘Who called it in?'

‘A couple… they were out for a walk. There's a small problem.'

‘Go on.'

‘He should have been at work, and she's married to someone else.'

‘They want us to be discreet.'

‘They do.'

‘Where are they?'

‘Gave a statement, left contact numbers, went their separate ways.'

‘Have them come into the nick. It's none of our business. Called it in when?'

‘Hour and a half ago? More like two hours.'

‘
What?
'

‘The locals were doing it, Boss. Then someone noticed they weren't tattoos on his arms and made the connection.'

The scene-of-crime doctor was leaning up against a tree and making notes. Stella went across and asked him the one question he wouldn't want to answer.

‘It would be a guess, you know that.' He was a tall man in his early thirties, his long, thin face peppered with black stubble. His name was Larsen.

‘A guess will do.'

‘The pathologist will give you an accurate reading: insect infestation, blood pooling, you know… I can only do rectal temperature minus ambient temperature blah-blah.'

‘So blah-blah.'

‘Somewhere between four and six hours don't,' he added seamlessly, ‘quote me.'

‘He's been dead six hours?'

‘Could be, I'm not prepared to… you know… outside limit.'

‘Is it possible that he was killed elsewhere and moved later?' She already knew the answer but wanted it from an expert.

‘God, no. Once you're dead, the heart stops pumping: ergo, no blood loss.' He flipped a hand towards the scene-of-crime tent. ‘You only have to look – blood all over the place.'

‘Okay,' Stella said. ‘Cause of death…'

Larsen shrugged. ‘Asphyxiation, shock, either or both. Deep transverse incision severing the jugular vein and the carotid artery while also doing severe damage to the trachea and the thyroid cartilage.'

Stella remembered Collier reading from the doctor's notes on Barry or Gary: death was all terminology in the end.

‘Any thoughts about how?'

‘Again, you'll get more from pathology – from forensics too, I expect. I think it's a fair bet that the killer approached him from behind, took him by surprise. It's a single cut, very deep, and the victim has no defensive wounds, so I'd say there was an element of surprise. Came up from behind, pulled the guy's head back, by his hair or with a hand under the chin, quick, hard swipe of the knife. Whoever cut this man's throat,' Larsen observed, ‘made a good job of it.'

‘Can you make a
bad
job of it?'

‘Certainly. I've seen a few tentative tracheotomies – a paramedic or junior A & E doctor who couldn't get up the nerve. This guy got it right.' He shrugged. ‘If you see what I mean.'

‘Specialist knowledge?' Stella asked.

‘I don't think he was particularly skilled,' Larsen said. ‘Not necessarily, anyway. Just very vigorous.'

‘He was
vigorous
?' The word sounded strange to Stella – oddly inappropriate.

‘Yeah,' Larsen nodded. ‘Any more vigorous and he'd have taken the guy's head clean off.'

A pleasure boat was chugging downstream, being paced by a pair of herons. The tourists were dressed for summer in spring and glad of the breeze. A PA system yapped at them, information overload from a bored girl who had seen it, and said it, hundreds of times before.

The sun was high and hot, the river flat, the towpath silent. A sudden rustle in the undergrowth close to the edge of the path was a rat, drawn by the scent of blood. Harriman stamped his foot at it.

‘He might have been dead for six hours,' Stella said, ‘and he died here. When was it called in – two hours ago?'

‘Max.'

‘And no one noticed?'

They went back inside the scene-of-crime tent and looked again at Leonard Pigeon. His posture said ‘sleeping', but the blood was loud.

‘The bench is set back,' Harriman said. ‘Some are right on the edge overlooking the water, some are just a foot or two from the path, but others are well back under the trees and this is one of them.'

Stella cast a glance to the brush at the back of the bench, all thick-leaved and in its summer green.

Came up from behind, pulled the guy's head back, by his hair
…

‘Even so… surely someone would have seen him.'

‘People walk without looking left or right,' Harriman said. ‘They're locked up inside themselves.' Then, as if to explain, ‘It's London.'

‘Yes, you're right.' Stella nodded acknowledgement, a woman more locked up inside herself than most.

*

In fact, Harriman had been partly right. It was a weekday, the towpath wasn't busy, the bench was under the trees and in shade… A few people had passed Leonard Pigeon without noticing anything, lost in thought, or looking towards the river, or just keeping themselves to themselves. Several bikers had hammered past intent on speed averages, or too winded for peripheral vision to be a factor. But there must have been one or two… two or three… who had looked and seen and passed on quickly. A dog, eager for the blood, having to be called away or pulled away. Someone noticing the flies. Another drawn by the strange stillness of the man on the bench.

Three or four, perhaps. Maybe more.

It was London.

The towpath lovers were called Leah and Steve. They arrived at the
AMIP-5
squad room together, though they had travelled there from different directions. Sue Chapman found some chairs and sited them in a corridor. The lovers sat there holding hands and waiting for a couple of interview rooms to fall vacant in the admin. building. Steve glanced at his watch from time to time, lifting his left hand; it was the hand Leah was holding and she didn't let go: when Steve checked the time, both their arms came up, as though they were acknowledging cheers from an audience.

Maxine sat down with Leah.

The interview room was basic pine furniture and off-white walls, everything pale just as Leah was pale. Her bottle-blonde hair fell to her shoulders, and she wore a delicate pink lipstick.

She said, ‘Is this like the doctor or the priest?'

Maxine smiled, though not to reassure. ‘It's confidential, unless a reason is found for it not to be.'

‘I'm married. Steve isn't my husband.'

‘Yes, you mentioned it to the scene-of-crime officer.'

‘So, I tell you what happened, and then –'

‘Possibility of coroner's court. We'll let you know.'

‘On my mobile.'

‘It comes as a summons from the coroner's office.'

Leah was silent for a while: inventing tactics, perhaps. Finally, she said, ‘It was our bench.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Our bench: the place where we usually sit. That's how we happened to see him. When I looked across, there was someone sitting on our bench. It was him.'

‘You realized he was dead –'

‘After a second or two. The way he was sitting so still. Then I saw the blood; or Steve did.'

That was Leah's story; all she had to tell. They went through the business of who had called the police (Steve), whether they had seen anything of significance (no), whether they had touched the body (no), what would happen if Leah's husband should learn of her relationship with Steve (mayhem).

Leah said, ‘It's complicated.'

Maxine was reading through Leah's statement. Without looking up, she said, ‘I expect it is.'

‘It's a matter of timing.'

Maxine said, ‘Look –'

‘It's serious, me and Steve. A serious thing. He has to go abroad for a while. I could tell Nick, but then what would I do while Steve's away?' She spoke about Nick as if Maxine knew him.

Maxine said, ‘Look, it's none of my business. I just have to get a statement, you know?'

‘I'm explaining –'

‘You don't have to.'

‘When Steve gets back, things will happen then. It'll all be above board. We've been to look at flats.'

Maxine said, ‘We'll be in touch.'

Leah stood up. She was tall and slim-hipped and pretty in an etiolated kind of way. She said, ‘If he hadn't been on our bench, we'd never have seen him. There might have been a dead body on every other bench we passed for all I know. Why did he have to be on our bench?'

Maxine countersigned the record of statement, then dated and timed it. More paper.

She said, ‘Yes. Selfish bastard.'

Frank Silano sat down with Steve.

Someone had put a fan in the room, and it whirred very gently in the background while they spoke. Silano heard it as a flight of birds. Steve gave his age as thirty-two and his occupation as garden designer. He was unmarried, and his address wasn't permanent just now since he was about to go to America. Californian gardens, he told Silano, afforded a high cash yield. He spoke of sun and dollars and one hell of a lifestyle. When he'd finished with California, he told the same story as Leah: the walk, the bench they always sat on…

‘She's married,' he said, ‘which makes things a bit complicated, yeah? Just a bit tricky.'

Silano didn't think for a moment that Leah and Steve had killed Leonard Pigeon, but he was a meticulous cop, and he liked to get everything down. He asked about the affair. Steve was all man-to-man on that; all fuck-and-tell. It had been going on for about four months and had started when Steve was landscaping Leah and Nick's garden: two thirds of an acre, Richmond waterside, two-point-four million. Now they met during the day, when Leah's husband was at work: a couple of times a week at Steve's impermanent address. Leah lived for those two days, and Steve knew it, though he didn't say as much to Frank Silano.

‘If you're freelance,' Steve observed, ‘you can organize your time.'

Silano passed the statement across for Steve to sign and mentioned the possibility of an appearance in the coroner's court.

‘I go to the States in a couple of weeks.'

Silano shrugged. ‘Leave an address – you might have to come back.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘But these things take time. Maybe you'll have finished the job over there by the time you're needed.'

Steve shook his head. ‘No,' he said, ‘look, I'm not planning to come back.'

It went round the squad room as ‘story of the day'.

John Delaney was getting a taste for it: the mid-morning champagne, the big airy houses, the BritArt, the spare Maserati. It wasn't his lifestyle, of course, but it was definitely that of the people he was interviewing, and now and then, just for a few minutes, he was allowed to get a share.

If the champagne was being opened, he drank a glass. He strolled through libraries and snooker rooms while waiting for his interviewee. He climbed regal staircases. He noted those spot-paintings (everyone had them) and compared them one with another. If the interview transferred from town to country, he was nought to sixty in a blur.