The Unquiet Dead (14 page)

‘The same date he was discovered. Isn’t that strange?’

‘Compared to the lottery, odds of 1 in 365 sound pretty good.’

‘But, ma’am, it wouldn’t have made the news if the body was hidden.’

Listen to yourself
. ‘Just check the date, Niaz. Was there a drowning or not?’

‘I beg your patience while I change the sheet.’ He fiddled with the machine for a while, flicking through local history in the blink of an eye. ‘No.’

‘Okay, try 1988 …’

Jessie waited.

‘No.’

‘Go to 1989.’

‘Yes.’ It was the headline. The main event.

‘Can we get a hard copy?’

‘Better than that, we can get the original. I’ll take the reference number to the desk, it won’t take long.’

Jessie took Niaz’s place at the machine and while waiting began to read:

Tragedy struck Marshall Street Baths last Tuesday, February 23rd. Schoolboy Jonny Romano drowned in the pool after suffering a seizure halfway through completion of a length. It is not clear why the lifeguard on duty, Michael Firth, failed to respond to the sixteen-year-old’s cry for help. The staff of St Barnaby’s Secondary School have claimed that the boy had been particularly boisterous during that afternoon’s lesson and perhaps the lifeguard was under the illusion that Jonny was simply messing around with his friends. It wasn’t until his body slipped under the surface and went still that anyone realised the situation was serious. Finally the lifeguard dived in to rescue Jonny and brought him to the side of the pool where mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was performed.

Sadly, the boy never regained consciousness. Despite prolonged efforts to revive him, he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. A full inquiry is expected to take place into his death. Meanwhile, Marshall Street Baths has been closed and the lifeguard has been taken in for questioning. At present no charges have been made, though there were angry scenes outside the police station as parents of the drowned boy’s friends gathered outside. ‘It could have been my boy,’ said one mother. ‘This was no accident. We want answers.’ The school released the following statement:

‘Everyone is devastated by Jonny’s death. He was a talented and bright student who had no history of seizures or fits of any description.’

The results of the postmortem will be released later today. Meanwhile a vigil outside the baths continues.

Niaz arrived holding the original newspaper and a photocopy of the article.

‘What have you got?’

‘The article, but I don’t think it is anything to do with your man in the morgue.’

‘Don’t be so sure, Niaz. Look at the headline the following week, after the PM –’

Niaz leant over her shoulder. ‘Lifeguard exonerated – drugs blamed.’

‘A routine autopsy revealed the lad was on speed at the time. That means this boy’s death wasn’t an accident. It was manslaughter. Or murder, depending on whose angle you’re looking at it from. If this boy drowned because of the drugs he was taking, I want to know who sold him the drugs. There will be a police file. Find it. Our man in the morgue may not have died on that day, but the date meant something to someone.’

‘You think he might have supplied the boy?’

Jessie thought about the dead man’s teeth and stomach contents. His ‘trendy’ second-hand clothes, his slicked-back hair, the cash in his wallet, the lack of identification.

‘Either he didn’t want to be ID’d or someone else didn’t want him being ID’d. He wasn’t an upstanding member of the community and he had no reason to be in a public swimming pool.’ Then she thought of the scratches. Scratches made by a furious woman – a bereaved mother, perhaps. Then drowned by a grief-stricken father. After he was dead, perhaps they panicked. Killing a person was
not an easy thing to do. Desperate, they might have tried to empty his lungs, pounding on his chest to force out the water and force in the air. But it failed, just as it had in their son’s case. The bruised man died. Mistake or not, it was still murder.

‘Boss,’ said Niaz, ‘look at this –’ The following week’s paper featured a police sketch artist’s impression of a man’s face. ‘They were looking for a man seen frequently on the premises and known to some of the children as Ian.’

‘Ian.’ Jessie peered at the rudimentary drawing. ‘He looks like those men in “wanted” posters in cartoons.’

‘Look at the hair.’

The artist had used a soft lead pencil to indicate thick black hair. It appeared to be slicked back. ‘Every fashion-conscious man with enough hair on his head would have been wearing his hair like that. Look at the picture of Jonny Romano, it’s almost identical. A hairstyle doesn’t mean anything.’

‘But this man went missing,’ said Niaz.

‘Let’s pull up the broadsheets and see if they’ve got a clearer image of him.’

‘We can do better than that,’ said Niaz. ‘The librarian will show us the originals. I took the liberty of asking her to locate them for me.’ Jessie followed her constable along the polished floorboards of the research room. ‘She didn’t seem to think the request was excessive. Look, there she is.’

A slim Asian girl was spreading papers across a vast table. On each pile was a plain piece of A4 with the name of the paper written neatly in black ink:
The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, London Evening Standard
. She looked up and smiled shyly as Niaz approached. Jessie was about to nudge Niaz knowingly, but seeing the strict way in which he held himself, she thought better of it. Niaz was not really the teasing type. Jessie noticed how his large hand tapped the side of his leg. The unflappable PC Ahmet was nervous.

‘I have used the post-it notes to indicate where the story appears,’ said the young woman.

Jessie put out her hand and introduced herself.

‘Asma,’ said the girl quietly. She returned to the piles of paper. ‘It was a big story at the time. Many of the papers were calling for the lifeguard’s head until news of the drugs broke. Then they changed tack and the
Daily Telegraph
offered a reward for any information relating to the missing man.’

‘The man in the picture?’

‘Yes. According to these articles his name was Ian Doyle. He lived in a squat, but by the time police raided the address all evidence of the mysterious man had been subsumed by the vagrant population. The turnover of squatters was high. No one knew, or no one admitted they knew the man in question. He had no job, no paper record, no National Insurance, nothing. It was as if he didn’t exist.’

Which meant he probably didn’t, thought Jessie.
Not as Ian Doyle anyway. There were several reasons a man would change his name. None of them good. ‘You’ve done all this very quickly,’ she said, impressed.

Asma looked worried for a moment.

‘I could see that the police officer had a big job on his hands. I know my way around these papers. As soon as he gave me the local piece, I knew where to look for the rest. I was only trying to help. It is my job.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted,’ said Jessie. ‘Ever thought about becoming a police officer?’

Asma shook her head nervously, but she smiled as she did so.

‘Pity, we don’t have enough resourceful people on the Force.’

‘I like the library,’ said Asma. Jessie didn’t blame her. Quiet intellects were usually not racist, bullying misogynists. She opened a copy of the
Guardian
where Asma had earmarked the page. The paper had turned the sketch into a photofit image. The face of the unknown man stared back at her from a mismatch of other people’s features. Wolverine eyes, a large nose, a sneering mouth, stubble. Every schoolchild’s image of a bad man. A description of his clothes was more helpful. The paper claimed he was last seen on the day of Jonny Romano’s death by many of the boy’s friends. He had been wearing baggy trousers and winklepickers. She pointed the paragraph out to Niaz, who nodded solemnly. ‘So he did die that day.’

‘Not necessarily. He was on the run, he was homeless, he had no possessions therefore no change of clothes. And don’t forget, like the hair, everyone else was wearing similar-styled clothes. It doesn’t mean Ian Doyle is our body in the baths.’

‘But it is getting more likely.’

Jessie nodded in agreement.

‘Would you like me to copy each relevant article and place it in a folder? It would be ready in, say, three-quarters of an hour,’ said the librarian.

‘That would be great.’

‘If you give me a bit longer, I can cross-reference the story.’

‘Sorry, I don’t quite understand,’ said Jessie.

‘It is a way of discovering whether the story spawned other articles. Editorials. Other revelations of, let’s say, the dead boy’s family. And at what point the story went cold, and whether it was ever picked up again, years later, following a new discovery.’

‘Look at this, boss –’ Niaz held up an article from the
Evening Standard
and began to quote from it: ‘“I don’t care where he is, he can’t hide forever, I’ll find him and, when I do, God help me, I’ll kill him.’” Niaz looked up. ‘The words of an enraged father.’

‘Or a very clever double bluff. What is the date of the article?’

‘March 1st.’

‘If you’re right, the man we’re calling Ian Doyle was dead by then. It is possible he never left Marshall Street Baths.’

Asma’s eyes widened. Jessie withdrew with Niaz. ‘When you are through with this, dig up everything you can about Jonny Romano and his family. Let’s find out if the father was a violent man and where he lives now. Somewhere in that lot will be the name of the police officer in charge. If he’s still alive, I want to talk to him. If not, get me someone who served under him.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Niaz.

‘If Doyle was killed on the premises – which is fairly likely, considering he drowned – whoever killed him would have had no option but to hide his body then and there. Did the killer stumble upon the boiler room by accident, or had someone shown them to the disused slurry pits?’ A scenario played itself in Jessie’s head. A boy slowly sinks to the bottom of the pool and suddenly everyone panics, alarm bells ring, children run screaming from the baths; emergency services are quick to respond, but the boy dies. Ian Doyle lurks somewhere in the building. Hearing the rising commotion, he plans a quick exit but is foiled by the swarm of people down the central stairwell. He’s slippery, he knows the back passages and the back stairs. Unable to leave unnoticed, he disappears into the basement to hide until everyone has gone. Perhaps he chooses the boiler room … No, the lights would have been too bright. So he goes down one more floor to the old boiler room. What a perfect place to hide. An old coal store. Now all he has to do is
wait it out. But someone finds him. Someone with access to chains strong enough to hold him in place.

I’ve worked here all my life
.

Jessie suddenly turned towards the door.

He drowned. It was an accident
.

‘Where are you going?’ Niaz asked worriedly.

‘The caretaker at Marshall Street Baths – he knows all about this.’

‘Be careful,’ said Niaz.

‘He’s an old man.’

‘He doesn’t worry me.’

‘What does?’

‘The rain.’

‘Don’t worry, Niaz, I had an electrician go down there first thing with a back-up generator, and I’ve got a torch. That place isn’t going to catch me again.’ She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. ‘All right, all right, I’ll get Burrows to meet me there. He’s in the area.’

‘That would quieten my beating heart,’ said Niaz, fanning his dark fingers over his crisp white shirt. Jessie looked over to Asma, busy sorting through the complex filing system. ‘I don’t think my safety is the reason for your beating heart.’

Niaz slowly put a finger to his lips.

‘Your secret is safe with me,’ said Jessie, winking, before hurrying out of the library.

Jessie expected to find the doors to Marshall Street Baths unlocked, but not unguarded. The rain had
driven the press away. Old bones, old story. She stepped inside.

‘Hello?’

Her voice rang out in the empty foyer.

‘Mark? Fry?’

Jessie opened the door to the pool-room. Water gushed down the wall. The stagnant pool had deepened.

‘Don!’

No answer came except the faint echo of her own voice off the stone walls.

‘Godamnit! Anyone could walk in here.’ She turned back to the foyer, closed the main door, then pushed through the doors that led to the underground levels until she again found herself standing at the end of the corridor that led to the top of the stone steps. Once more she experienced a strange desire to turn and run. The lights were on but she wasn’t taking any chances. She removed her torch from her bag and set the bag down on the top step. A strange and musty smell rose up the stairs to greet her. A damp, fetid smell. Jessie peered down the stairwell. The doors moved open and closed in a dull, repetitive motion. Every time they opened, dirty brown water flushed through the gap. The boiler room was flooding. Jessie heard a strange high-pitched screech from inside.

‘Is anyone in there?’