The Unquiet Dead (11 page)

The P. J. Dean ring-tone. ‘It was you!’

‘Me what?’

‘You’ve been following me.’

‘Sorry, wrong stalker. Must be another spurned lover. Who is Bill, by the way?’

Jessie ignored the last question. She didn’t mind too much if he thought there was someone else. ‘How the hell did you find me then?’

‘The desk sergeant is a fan. I had to give her my T-shirt though. Come on, Detective. One dough ball and I’ll let you go.’

‘I really don’t like you,’ she said, melting faster than an ice-cream cone on a hot day.

The door of the limo swung open. ‘Yes, I know, but it’s raining and you look like you need a ride.’

P.J. emerged from the car, his phone still pressed to his ear. The streetlamp provided the international rock star with his own private spotlight. Typical, thought Jessie, resisting the temptation to start walking towards him. Very quickly his hair got wet and stuck in tendrils to his forehead; his worked-on, model-worthy chest glistened in the rain and his jeans hung loosely off his hips. Jessie smiled to herself. Even a lesbian would be hard pushed to resist. She took a step towards the car. Behind him a previously elusive orange light appeared. Jessie didn’t believe in signs, but she recognised good sense when she saw it. She stuck out her hand. The taxi pulled over.

‘Sorry, P.J., you’ll have to find someone else to suck on your dumplings.’ She flipped her phone closed and climbed in. This time no one followed her. This time, she didn’t look back.

Dominic Rivers was a doctor with a penchant for cadavers. Aged twenty-nine, he found his calling late in life. His first calling had been football. Then he broke seventeen bones in his foot, was admitted to hospital and caught a bug that no amounts of antibiotics could cure. The medicine bug. The desire to heal. He never played football again and still walked with a slight limp. He was limping now, as he made his way towards Jessie. She introduced herself. They studied each other. His tanned skin belied his ghoulish pastime and would not have looked out of place on a surfboard. He had large hazel eyes and fawn-coloured hair worn long around his ears. The limp was a curiosity on someone as fit as he was.

‘You look like you were expecting someone else,’ said the young doctor, catching her staring.

‘Sorry, it’s just that you don’t look like your average pathologist.’

‘You don’t look like your average DI.’

‘Compliment accepted,’ said Jessie.

He smiled. ‘I’ve been pawing over your body all night.’

‘Not mine. Legally, I believe he belongs to the country. So it’s the Queen’s body you’ve been pawing over – or, if you’re more of a republican, Blair’s.’

‘I think I’ll go for the former, I like the regal ring of that. Any idea who Betty has on ice down here?’

Behind him were a number of bodies laid out. Only one was uncovered: the man with the leathery skin and hollow eyes. Jessie shivered. Morgues were always too cold.

‘I was hoping you would be able to tell me.’

‘There was no form of identification on his person. No bank card, driver’s licence – nothing. The only thing I did find was a ticket to the pools. Not so much the ticket, but the imprint of its ink on his shirt pocket. However, I can tell you how he died.’

The trainee forensic pathologist pulled the sheet back as far as the dead man’s waist. The skin on his torso was patched with black Dalmatian spots.

He drowned. It was an accident
. ‘It looks like he was beaten to death.’

‘Does, doesn’t it? But this man drowned.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘The ink from the ticket would only have transferred if it had at one point been wet, so I had a look at the guy’s lungs. I found evidence of
waterlogging. The bruises could be the marks of an amateur attempt at resuscitation. Now, look at this –’ He pointed to the wrist. The withered skin had been cut away to reveal the preserved muscle below. ‘This tissue damage implies that the man was tied up at one point, or strung up. Either way, the wrists must have taken a lot of weight to cause this. Were there any chains found with the body?’

‘Chains?’

‘Rope would leave a more regular mark. This is sporadic, something that went in and out. My guess is that these are the imprints of chain links. His feet, however, were tied by rope.’ He ran his finger over the blue skin around the cadaver’s ankles. ‘I take it you didn’t find any rope either?’

‘No.’

‘I think these injuries occurred before he drowned, not as he drowned.’

‘Well, it makes more sense than someone tying him up, throwing him in a pool, then attempting to resuscitate him.’

The doctor shrugged. ‘Unless it was an accident that someone was trying to cover up. When resuscitation failed, whoever was responsible panicked and threw this guy in a hole …’

‘And what about the scratches?’ asked Jessie.

‘That could have happened as the man was drowning, flailing in the water, scratching himself against something or someone. To be honest, the scratches are a mystery. As is the damage to the fingertips, but I’ll do some more work on them.
What I can tell you is that you should have found nothing but a skeleton. This man has been dead for about fifteen years.’

‘So why isn’t he a skeleton?’

The doctor smiled and from beneath the bench produced a jar of brown jelly. Jessie swallowed nervously. ‘Contents of his stomach?’ she hazarded.

‘Very interesting they are too. The preservation of this man was much assisted by what he ate.’ Dominic held up the jar and jiggled it around. ‘Pot Noodle. This man lived off E-numbers and additives. He’s eaten so many preservatives he’d have taken an age to decompose wherever he’d ended up buried.’

Jessie found this more disgusting than the jar.

‘He’s not alone either. We’re all taking longer to decompose these days. Preservatives are toxins that the body cannot always break down, so it stores them in our fat reserves – ergo, we are preserving ourselves. Human pickles, if you like.’

Jessie grimaced. She did not like.

‘But this man was particularly unhealthy, eating processed and tinned food at a time when checks on quality and content were not as rigorous as today. I doubt a fresh vegetable passed his lips. That and the conditions of his impromptu burial resulted in mummification.’

‘The lead pit acting as a sarcophagus?’ said Jessie.

‘I presume the temperature in the room was even?’

‘Evenly cold, yes.’

‘And dry, it would have to be dry. Even then,’ said Dominic, looking back at the relic on the bench, ‘it’s very freaky.’

‘And you’ve found nothing that can help me ID him?’

‘Well, you can forget about trying to track him through dental records. This man took as much care of his teeth as he did his diet. I doubt he visited a dentist in his life.’

‘Not a rich man, then?’

‘No, not a rich man. I’d guess the clothes are second hand; they have a confusion of fibres on them.’

‘So what would a man who cared little about what he ate, and nothing about dental hygiene, be doing in a public swimming pool? Not taking exercise,’ said Jessie.

‘No. Muscle quality very poor.’

‘What then?’

‘Perhaps he was taken there to be drowned,’ guessed the young medic.

‘You can drown someone in a bucket, you don’t need to pay to go to the swimming pool.’

‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’ said Dominic. ‘All the more strange when you think this guy should be long gone.’

Jessie shivered again.

‘You get used to the cold eventually,’ said Dominic. ‘It’s preferable to the smell, I can tell you.’

Jessie excused herself and turned to leave.

‘How do you feel about meeting me at the end of the day?’

Jessie turned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mix work and –’

‘I meant work. I can’t do anything else now, but I could get you some DNA that you could run through the system. I’ll see what I can find in those scratches. I have to squeeze it in between patients, but if you don’t mind burning the midnight oil, you’re welcome to come back and keep us company.’

Jessie smiled, embarrassed. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be, I’m sure you get asked out all the time.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Oh,’ said Dominic sympathetically.

‘I mean, I do sometimes.’

He shrugged. ‘So, it’s just me then?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Then you would go out for a drink with me if I asked?’

Checkmate. Jessie smiled.

‘Great! It will be nice to talk to someone who isn’t a patient or dead.’ Dominic looked at his watch. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go. I’ll let you know when I’m off duty and we’ll take a closer look at Betty’s body.’ He moved past her and opened the door. He extended his hand to Jessie. ‘Great to meet you,’ he said. Jessie took his hand.

‘What is it that you do, when you’re not down here with these guys?’

‘Gynaecologist,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Jessie unconsciously retrieved her hand.

‘But I’m thinking of changing.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘It’s a great career, but it’s ruining my love life.’

‘Funny that,’ said Jessie. ‘My love life is ruining my career.’

‘Well, you know what they say about opposites?’ He flashed her a smile.

‘Don’t go anywhere near them, they’ll make your life hell?’

He nodded. ‘But being good isn’t fun.’

‘You’re right about that, Doctor.’

Jessie walked into a muted police station. There was a faint whiff of alcohol on the air. She could hear the odd groan from behind closed doors; officers regretting the inevitable lock-in. Others were laughing, dissecting the night before.

Burrows was coming out of her office as she approached. He was very tall, and had a lean but well-exercised figure. He carried himself like an athlete: sure-footed and consistent. There was something of the gentle giant about Burrows. He never raised his voice, he never told filthy sexist jokes, he didn’t swear at people and he treated everyone fairly. He wore his brown hair at a standard army length. His cropped hair could make him appear scary to someone who didn’t know him. He wasn’t at all scary to Jessie.

‘Hey, boss,’ he said. ‘Where did you disappear off to last night?’

‘Home.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘You sound relieved.’

‘I thought you might have got a lead.’

‘Don’t be daft, if I’d had a lead I would have informed you, you know that. I was just knackered, that’s all.’

‘Right. I got your message this morning. PC Ahmet has been going over back issues of newspapers to see if he can find any story relating to a drowning incident. I haven’t heard from him yet. Unfortunately DI Ward can’t spare any manpower because of the Klein case, so I think the poor lad is going to be at it for some time. What do you want me to do? Go and help?’

Jessie beckoned him into her office. She inserted a CD-ROM into her computer and selected an image of a dark-haired girl wearing high-heeled boots and trousers, covered up by a large jumper. She was carrying a duffel bag.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Burrows.

‘You’re probably going to think I’m mad, but I reckon that is Anna Maria Klein.’

Burrows set the image in motion again. ‘Boss, she’s a brunette and she’s wearing cheap clothes.’

‘She looks like a brunette, I agree.’

‘You can’t see her face – she’s wearing huge glasses, a hat and she’s looking at the pavement.’

The girl disappeared from the screen. ‘But look at the boots! I’ve ordered footage from all the cameras in the NCP car park and I’d like you to
go down there and question the waiters in that little café near the baths. Those are the only two places she could have changed without being noticed.’

Burrows looked at her in disbelief.

Jessie played with the computer and located the footage of Anna Maria Klein standing at the crossroads. ‘Let’s see how long it took her to change.’ Together they watched Anna Maria move away, and then waited in real time for the brunette to reappear.

‘You think that Anna Maria ran into a smelly, grotty car park, stripped off her clothes, put on a wig, threw everything into a duffel bag she spirited from nowhere, and then marched back out again and disappeared into the ether?’

‘I think she was wearing some of the gear under her dress and coat – that’s why she appeared bigger that usual. The rest she was carrying in that big bag. All she would have had to do was throw them off, put on the wig and shove everything into the duffel that she’d hidden inside her other bag. Hey Presto, new identity. Quick sprint back to Carnaby Street and young Anna Maria Klein has disappeared. We have a missing teenage girl on our hands and all the hysteria that ensues. For once, all focus is on the daughter of the star.’

‘You think she’s doing this for attention?’

‘Why not? Young girls run away all the time. This is just a trifle more theatrical.’

‘You know what DI Ward would say.’