The Flesh Tailor (23 page)

‘What?’

Wesley explained, repeating the story he’d heard from Nuala Johns. Simon Garchard and his medical experiments.

Neil’s eyes lit up. ‘The bones are probably the right age …’

‘Apart from the child.’ Somehow Wesley couldn’t get that boy out of his head.

But Neil hadn’t heard him. ‘If this story about Simon Garchard is true then it stands to reason he’d have hidden the evidence
in his garden.’

‘And there’s more. According to Nuala Johns, Garchard was tried for murder. He was accused of killing one of his maidservants
and dissecting her body.’

‘He probably ran out of corpses when the village constables made the graveyard more secure – or perhaps there was an outbreak
of good health in Tradington and nobody died.’

‘Possibly. Anyway, he was hanged. And I saw something else today that you might find interesting.’ Wesley went on to tell
him about the pictures behind the panelling in Roz Dalcott’s flat.

Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘So they’re the same as the ones at Tailors Court?’

‘Similar but not the same. They’re not as well drawn.’

‘You think they were drawn by someone different?’

Wesley nodded. ‘I’m no art critic but I’d say so.’

‘Who?’

‘Maybe Simon had an assistant.’

‘Every Burke has his Hare.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Tell you what, Wes, we’ve more or less finished at Tailors Court now so it’s back to Exeter to catch up on our post-excavation
reports and what have you.’ He leaned forward. ‘While I’m there, I’ll see what I can find out about Simon Garchard. There’s
bound to be stuff in the archives. I’ll get Annabel to give me a hand.’

Wesley grinned. ‘Thought you might.’

Neil caught on immediately. ‘We’re just good friends.’

‘And I’m the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police,’ Wesley said with a mischievous grin. Annabel and Neil were opposites
– but opposites frequently attract.

He heard the distant ping of the microwave followed by Pam’s voice calling from the kitchen. Dinner was ready.

But before he could satisfy his hunger his mobile phone began to ring.

When he finished the call Neil looked at him enquiringly. ‘Bad news?’

‘Someone doing a bit of night fishing in the Trad has hooked a body. I’ve got to get down there right away and meet Gerry.’

‘Tough,’ said Neil, resuming his seat and making himself comfortable.

Transcript of recording made by Mrs Mabel Cleary (née Fallon) – Home Counties Library Service Living History Project: Reminiscences
of a wartime evacuee.

The German man was a doctor. There was talk that he’d delivered Mrs Bowe’s baby. Mrs Bowe had six already and Mary said that
Mr Bowe was away fighting and there’d be trouble when he got back. I didn’t know what she meant back then but I do now.

I’d never met a German before and at that time I didn’t particularly want to, thank you very much, not after what their bombs
had done to our street in London. But when I fell over and broke my leg while I was helping with the harvest at Gorfleet Farm
– well, I say helping but I expect I was more of a hindrance if the truth be told – and they said they were sending for Dr
Kramer, I was in too much pain to object.

Mary said I made such a fuss but she didn’t know how much it hurt. Then Dr Kramer arrived and took charge and I started to
feel better. He was small with black hair and a little beard and he spoke very good English with a German accent. I knew –
well, everyone knew – that he was staying with Mr Hilton, a retired teacher who wrote books on local history. Dr Kramer had
a son called Otto and rumour had it that they were refugees from the Nazis. Somebody said they were Jewish. Dr Kramer was
nice and he had a sort of twinkle in his eye. And it was a good job he’d come because one doctor in the village had joined
up and the other was well past retirement age and wasn’t well at all. You never think of doctors being ill, do you?

But that wasn’t long before it happened. And I think it was the stories Otto Kramer used to tell us – the ones he’d heard
from Mr Hilton – that started the whole thing off.

Much as Wesley enjoyed Colin Bowman’s genial company, his visits to the pathologist’s place of work were becoming far too
regular for his liking. And the mortuary was the last place he’d choose to visit first thing on a dank Thursday morning.

According to Colin, the body hooked by the unlucky fisherman had been in the water for a week or so and, having suffered the
effects of decomposition and the voracious attentions of various river creatures, it wasn’t in a particularly good state.

‘So it’s a woman?’ Gerry said, stating the obvious as he stared down at the discoloured corpse lying on the stainless steel
post mortem table.

‘That much is certain. Five foot two. Longish dark hair, possibly dyed,’ said Colin. He had finished his initial examination
of the corpse and was preparing to make the
Y-shaped incision in the breast. ‘And not in the first flush of youth, I should say.’

‘How old?’

‘Hard to say exactly. I’d say mid-fifties but she could be a little older.’ Colin hesitated. ‘No trace of any clothing. Odd
that she seems to have been naked when she went in.’

‘Very odd,’ said Gerry. ‘Far too cold in November to go skinny dipping.’

Wesley stood back a little, trying to avoid getting too close to the action. The last thing he wanted to do was to faint again
as he did at the first post mortem he’d attended when he’d started at the Met.

‘Mind you, you get these naturist health fanatics, Wes,’ Gerry continued, oblivious to the odour of decay rising from the
body on the table. ‘In their eighties some of them. Nothing they like better than to have to break the ice before they do
a few lengths.’

Wesley smiled. The scenario seemed unlikely. But this woman, whoever she was, must have been naked for a reason. ‘Any sign
of sexual assault, Colin?’

‘No. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Even if a body’s fairly well preserved it’s often difficult to detect that sort
of thing once it’s been in the water a few days.’

‘Perhaps that was the intention.’

‘It’s been known,’ said Colin solemnly.

He worked in silence for a while. Then when he’d finished, he nodded to his assistant to sew the unknown woman back up again.

‘So what’s the verdict, Colin?’

Colin pulled off his surgical gloves. ‘I did notice one thing of interest.’

‘Don’t keep us in suspense,’ said Gerry.

Colin hesitated. ‘There are very faint traces of ink on the torso. Very hard to see because of the immersion in water but
…’

‘Ink? You mean she’d written something on her hand?’

‘No, Gerry. It’s on her back.’ He nodded to his assistant who gently rolled the body onto its side. Colin pointed to the relevant
spot and the two detectives peered to see. The marks were hardly visible after all that time spent in the river but they were
there all right.

‘She can’t have done it herself.’ Colin paused. ‘It rather reminds me of the marks surgeons make before they operate – to
make sure they’re cutting in the correct place.’

Wesley and Gerry looked at each other.

‘So if that’s the case, what operation would you say she was going to have?’ Wesley asked.

Colin thought for a few moments. ‘Something connected with the right kidney, perhaps. Although that’s just a guess: her kidneys
looked healthy enough to me.’

‘If she’s wandered off from a hospital nearby she shouldn’t be hard to trace.’

‘I’ve already made enquiries here,’ said Colin. ‘She’s not one of ours.’

‘What about the cause of death?’

Colin thought for a while, staring at the corpse. ‘I can tell you what she didn’t die of. She didn’t drown.’

‘You’re sure about that?’ said Gerry.

Colin looked a little hurt. ‘Absolutely sure. This poor woman had a massive heart attack. It’s a case of natural causes, gentlemen.
Fancy a cup of tea?’

Mabel Cleary’s daughter, Sandra, alighted from the coach at the waterfront and looked around. In summer
this part of Morbay was teeming with harassed parents and their offspring making for the beach below the concrete promenade
with buckets and spades. But today a solitary dog walker, well wrapped up in quilted coat and woolly hat, had the damp beach
all to herself. The choppy sea was an uninviting sludge grey and the beach shops and kiosks were firmly locked and shuttered.
A week earlier Christmas lights had been strung up along the sea front by the Council and now they drooped forlornly between
the lampposts, doing little to relieve the bleakness of the scene.

Sandra fastened the top button of her beige raincoat and shivered. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d come but she’d felt that
she should be doing something positive. Even if the search was futile, she had to make the effort to look for her mother.

The policeman she’d spoken to over the phone – Nick his name was – had told her about the planned TV appeal. It was a good
idea, Sandra thought as she began to walk towards the station, her wheeled case trailing behind her like an obedient dog.
She was to take the local train to Neston where she’d be met at the station. Sandra, who didn’t know the area at all, had
no idea how far Neston was. In her agitation, she hadn’t even bothered to look it up in the road atlas her husband kept in
his car.

As she waited on the freezing platform for the train, she delved into her roomy canvas shopping bag. It was still there –
the transcript of the tapes Mabel had made for the local library. The reminiscences project. But as far as Sandra could tell,
there was no clue to her whereabouts in what she thought of as her mother’s ramblings. And there was no mention of anyone
called Pat so far.

But Pat had summoned her down here to the south west. And Pat was a bit of a mystery.

Nick Tarnaby was leaving the incident room just as Wesley and Gerry returned. ‘Everything OK, Nick?’ Wesley said to his disappearing
back.

Tarnaby stopped and turned. ‘Yes, sir. I’m just off to meet Mabel Cleary’s daughter at the station.’

Wesley let him go, wondering whether it might have been better to assign someone more sympathetic to the task. But Nick was
the only officer free at that moment so there was little choice.

Gerry had marched on ahead and Wesley joined him at his desk. He could see the pictures of James Dalcott on the notice board,
photographed in life and death. Near these photographs were details of everyone they’d interviewed during the investigation
along with Gerry’s scribbled comments – some rather libellous, Wesley thought. But then nobody but the investigation team
was likely to see them.

At the other end of the huge board were photographs of the child’s bones together with the rotting wooden car, the coin and
the snake belt buckle found in the grave. Since Neil had confirmed that the other bones found at Tailors Court weren’t CID’s
problem, their images had been removed. Mabel Cleary’s picture wasn’t up there yet and Wesley hoped it never would be. He
hoped that Mrs Cleary would be found alive and well.

Gerry looked round. ‘I’d better say a few words about our corpse in the river. We’re doing a check on all hospitals and clinics
in the area to see whether they’re missing any patients.’

Wesley nodded. It was the only place to start. He
glanced at the notice board again. Soon the unknown woman would join the others in the gruesome picture gallery, unless they
could discover her identity soon and eliminate the possibility that her heart attack had been brought about by some sort of
foul play.

Gerry gathered the troops to bring them up to date and, as everyone was returning to their tasks, the phone on Wesley’s desk
began to ring.

When he recited his name a familiar voice answered. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ it said tantalisingly with a hint of coquettishness.
‘It’s something I’d rather not say over the phone so how about lunch?’

‘Hello, Nuala. What kind of information are you talking about?’ He had no time to play flirtatious games even if he’d wanted
to.

‘Something good. Something you’ll be interested in.’

‘Why don’t you come to the station?’

‘You need to eat, don’t you? I’ll see you at twelve-thirty in the Star – that’s the one in Neston by the river. Don’t be late.’

Before Wesley could protest, she put the phone down. He closed his eyes and whispered a couple of expletives. He felt angry
with Nuala Johns for being so presumptuous and angry with himself for allowing her to get away with it. Most men would have
relished the prospect of lunch with an attractive woman, but Wesley suspected that it might turn out to be a time-wasting
ordeal. However, he decided to grit his teeth and meet her as arranged.

He spent the next hour or so sifting through paperwork, trying to get the various cases straight in his head. They seemed
to have become entangled somehow: James Dalcott’s shooting and the discovery of the child’s bones at
Tailors Court. The only connection he could think of so far was tenuous to say the least – the fact that the gruesome wall
paintings in Roz Dalcott’s flat were similar to the ones at Tailors Court. But he knew that even such nebulous links sometimes
turned out to be significant.

When twelve-fifteen arrived he put his coat on. He saw Rachel Tracey watching him.

‘Where are you off to?’ She liked to keep tabs on the comings and goings.

‘I’m having lunch with a beautiful woman,’ he said. Sometimes Rachel was so earnest that he couldn’t resist a spot of teasing.

‘Do I know her?’ she said quickly.

He gave Rachel an enigmatic smile and carried on. ‘Nick Tarnaby’s on his way to pick up Mabel Cleary’s daughter from the station.’

‘Yes, I know. She’s booked a room at the Star so he’s taking her there first before bringing her here.’

Wesley was on the point of telling Rachel that he was lunching at the Star. But some mischievous imp inside him was enjoying
the thought of her frustrated curiosity so he stayed silent.