The Sleeping and the Dead (2 page)

‘Will you wait here for Mr Carver, Eddie? I’ll see if Ms Blake’s up to a few questions. Mr Duncan, if you wouldn’t mind . . .’

Duncan seemed at first not to have heard. He finished coiling a piece of rope, straightened, then reluctantly set off towards the Centre. Porteous followed.

‘Where do you get your customers from?’

‘That’s hardly relevant to your enquiries, is it? If the body’s as old as you think.’ He stopped in his track so suddenly that Porteous almost walked into him.
‘Sorry, that was rude. Everything I own is sunk into this place. I’m worried. In the summer holidays most of our clients are kids whose parents think it would be good for them to do
more than sit in front of the computer screen all day. At the moment the whole place has been taken over by one school party. We’re starting to attract more adult groups too – companies
looking for a quick fix in corporate bonding.’ He opened double doors into a wood-panelled lobby with a couple of chairs, a payphone and a drinks machine.

‘Helen’s through there, in the common-room. I’ll be in the office if you need me.’

Helen Blake was a large-boned redhead in her early twenties. Her face was still drained of colour, so the scattering of freckles on her nose and cheekbones looked livid and raw. She was
alone.

‘What have you done with all the students?’ He hoped the joky tone would reassure her but she looked up, startled, and some of the coffee she was holding spilled on to her jeans.

‘They’ve got pony-trekking this morning.’

‘Would you normally be with them?’

‘No. I only do water sports.’ She gave a laugh which rattled at the back of her throat. ‘I did try riding once. I got a blister on my bum and the beast bit me.’

‘How long have you been working here?’ He wanted her more relaxed before he started on the difficult questions.

‘This is my first season. I did sports science at university. Canoeing’s my passion. I compete. I’m hoping for an Olympic trial.’ She set the coffee mug on a low table.
Her hand had stopped shaking.

‘Do you like it here?’

‘Yeah it’s OK. Dan Duncan could do with being a bit more laid back, but as he always says, he’s got a lot resting on this place.’

‘Did you have a group with you on the water this morning?’

‘No, thank God. I practise on my own before breakfast every day. One of the perks of the job.’

‘Could you take me through exactly what happened?’

‘I was on my way in.’ The words came in breathless pants. ‘I never take the students close to the old jetty. It would be tempting fate. They’d get stuck or hit one of the
underwater planks and capsize. I suppose I was curious. There seems to be less water in the lake every day and I wanted to see what else might emerge. I didn’t expect a body. It seemed to be
floating not far from the surface. Very white. Hardly human. Not human at all.’ She shivered and pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

‘Could you see the anchor?’

‘Not then. It was covered in silt. I put my blade in to steady the canoe and the movement of the water cleared it long enough for me to see the shape. I came in then. I couldn’t look
any more. Dan called the police. Two men rowed out in one of our dinghies. Perhaps they didn’t believe me. Perhaps they thought I was imagining it. I wish I had been.’

‘They had to check,’ he said gently.

‘What will happen now?’

‘We’re waiting for the forensic team.’

‘I won’t have to see it again, will I?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What I can’t bear,’ she said, ‘is the thought of him out there all this time and none of us realizing. It’s as if nobody missed him. As if nobody cared.’

If it was a he, Porteous thought. As she spoke he saw beyond her, through a long window, to the scene outside. Carver’s Range Rover was pulling into the drive. The pathologist parked it
neatly beside the Centre’s minibus and climbed out. From the back seat he pulled out a pair of rubber waders. They were spotless and shiny, as black as his hair. Porteous hid a small grin
behind his hand.

‘What time will the children be back?’ He didn’t want an audience of sniggering, pointing teenagers.

‘Not until late this afternoon. They’ve taken a picnic.’ She followed his gaze. ‘You’ll be busy. Don’t worry about me. I’m OK.’

Later he, Stout and Carver sat in the Range Rover to compare notes. Carver had with him a silver thermos flask of coffee which he passed around, wiping the cup each time with a
paper handkerchief, like a priest at communion.

‘Really,’ he said in the prissy voice which made some of Porteous’s colleagues want to thump him. ‘It’s most interesting. I’ve read about it of course, but
this is the first time I’ve seen it.’

‘Seen what?’ Porteous had come across Carver when he was working in the city and was prepared to be patient with him. The man was a good pathologist and he could usually be persuaded
to commit himself. Porteous would put up with a lot for that.

‘Adipocere. That’s what it’s called. It’s caused by saponification. Literally the making of soap. The effect of water on the body fat. One of the first pathologists to
describe it said it’s as if the corpse is encased in mutton suet. Remarkably apt as I’m sure you’ll agree. Sometimes the adipocere preserves the internal organs. I won’t be
able to tell you that, of course, until the post-mortem. I’ll do that as soon as I can. This afternoon if it can be arranged. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my colleagues
didn’t want to be present.’ He took a fastidious sip of his coffee. ‘Really, I can hardly wait.’

Porteous lived in a barn as big as a church, which had been converted into three flats. He had the top floor to himself. Exposed rafters stretched to a sloping roof. There were
two long windows, a view over farmland. Occasionally, if the light was right, he could see the glint of the lake in the distance, like a child’s imagined glimpse of the sea. One wall was
exposed stone, the others plastered and whitewashed. On these he hung the paintings he collected. He always went to the fine-art students’ finals exhibition at the university in the city.
Usually he saw something he liked.

It was early evening. Porteous didn’t believe in unnecessary overtime. It messed up his budgets, and tasks which could normally be fitted into the working day expanded, became more
complicated, to fit the time allowed. Tonight, despite the body in the lake, he sent his team home at the usual time. There was nothing they could do until they had identification. Besides, he
wanted them calm and reasonable in the morning. He hated the frantic, febrile atmosphere which sometimes enveloped a murder case. Rational judgement was lost. It was as if there was something
heroic about the obsession with one victim, one perpetrator, about the lack of sleep, the passion stoked by alcohol. He had, however, brought work home with him. He had carried six large box files
up the open stairs. They contained the flimsy copies of missing-person reports between 1968 and 1985. The last five of the years which were of interest to him, 1986–1990, had been
computerized, and he would check those in the morning.

He had attended Carver’s post-mortem. As the pathologist had suggested, there was quite an audience. The little man had played up to them, preening himself, throwing out scientific jokes
and puns which meant little to Porteous but raised a titter amongst his colleagues.

Porteous had taken notes in impeccable shorthand, following Carver’s commentary exactly. The pathologist had performed like a music-hall magician, and there was likely to be as much
information in the suggestion, the conjecture, the surprise discovery as in the completed official report. Porteous set his notes on the painted table which stood under one of the windows and went
to the tiny kitchen to make a pot of tea. He liked Earl Grey, weak with a slice of lemon. He poured a dribble, was satisfied that it was ready and filled the cup. Then he returned to his notes and
translated them in his head.

Carver had confirmed that the body had been in the water for at least ten years. The victim was a young male, aged between sixteen and twenty-five. He was five feet ten inches tall and, despite
the adipocere, which usually occurred only when the victim had considerable body fat, he was of slender build. Carver had been excited by that fact, had thought it might warrant a note in a
scientific journal. Enough of the organs, protected by the hard white layer of adipocere, remained for Carver to give a cause of death. The young man had been stabbed. By a knife with a short but
unusually wide blade. A dagger of some sort. He had been stabbed in the back. A sharp upward movement into the heart. Either the perpetrator had known what he was doing or he had been very lucky.
At this Carver had looked at his friends and grinned.

‘Very exotic, gentlemen, very theatrical, as I’m sure you’ll agree, for our small town in the hills.’

The body had been tied to the anchor by a piece of nylon rope, which had been looped around the waist. The young man had been clothed, though most of the garments had rotted and only tatters
remained. The scraps had been retained and the forensic team was examining them. He had been wearing boots made of a soft leather or suede. Around his wrist was a plaited leather bracelet, which
looked home-made. Perhaps from a bootlace.

At this Porteous stopped for a moment and took a sip of tea. He had been a child in the seventies. His only brother had been ten years older, and Porteous pictured him preparing to go out for
the night. He saw him quite clearly, standing in front of the mirror in his parents’ room, the only long mirror in the house. He was wearing wide trousers, desert boots, a fringed suede
jacket. Around his neck was a leather thong threaded with wooden beads. The victim’s bracelet suggested to Porteous the fashion of the seventies. The end of flower power. Not punk or the new
romantics. He made a note and continued.

There had been some dental work. Carver announced this as if they should be grateful to him. Which Porteous certainly was. After all this time it held the best chance of positive identification.
There had not been extensive work on the teeth – one extraction and two small fillings – but a record of the mouth, perhaps even an X-ray would have been taken. There was no guarantee
that the dentist was still in business or that the records had been kept but at least it provided an avenue of investigation. Porteous thought it would give his team something to do the following
day. He liked to keep them busy.

He leant back in his chair and emptied the pot into his wide blue cup – part of the tea service which had been a present to himself when he moved into the barn. He stretched with
satisfaction. This was why he had joined the police. Not to save the world. Not to race around the countryside in fast cars or strut the city streets in a uniform. But to bring order, to solve
problems, to understand.

He set the post-mortem notes to one side and pulled the first box file towards him, savouring a moment of anticipation before opening it. This was what he loved, this precise and meticulous
sorting of facts. He had never understood why his colleagues thought such work tedious.

Each report was a minor human tragedy, baldly told, given a dignity because the facts were unembellished. He sorted them first into gender and age, rejecting the menopausal women with
depression, the elderly wanderers from care homes, the occasional heart-breaking ten-year-old who had gone to a friend’s house to play and never returned. Still he was left with a mountain of
paper. The majority of missing-person reports was for young males. They’d left home after problems at school, a row with parents, or in search of a more exciting life. He knew that many would
have returned or got in touch. The relatives, simply relieved that the panic was over, would never have thought to inform the police.

He became engrossed in the task and couldn’t let it go. He had planned just to sort through the paperwork but began phoning the contact numbers for relatives. Inevitably some had moved or
died, but Cranford was the sort of town where people knew one another. Other phone numbers were given, alternative names suggested. The people wanted to talk. Porteous listened patiently to tales
of lads who’d been scallies as youngsters but who’d gone on to do well for themselves, who’d taken university degrees, settled down, had families. The worst calls were when boys
were still missing and no contact had ever been made. Porteous heard the flurry of hope in elderly voices.

‘Does this mean there’s some news?’

‘No, no,’ he said gently. ‘Just checking old files.’

Some had heard about the discovery of the body in the lake on local radio and put two and two together.

‘But that can’t be our Alan,’ one said. ‘He could swim like a fish.’

He stopped when the light faded and it was too dark to read the scrawled names and numbers on the copy paper. He had reached 1980. If nothing came of the names he had set to one side he would
check the files for 1980–1990, but he thought he had gone far enough. He had a picture of the victim in his head. A boy who was a teenager in the early seventies just after the lake had been
flooded; who wore desert boots and a leather bootlace bracelet; who had been stabbed in the back.

He stood up and pressed the light switch. The room was lit by spots fixed to the ceiling beams. They shone through the rafters, throwing shadows on to the stripped wooden floor. He was hungry.
He loved to cook; the process of peeling and chopping relaxed him. But today he wanted something quick and simple. He filled a stainless-steel pan with water for spaghetti and sweated garlic and
red chilli in olive oil then covered the lot with freshly sliced Parmesan. He ate as if he hadn’t seen food for days, shovelling it in with a spoon and a fork. He was sitting at the table
where he’d been working and he looked out through the uncovered window at the lights which were all that remained of the roads and the farmhouses. Later he poured himself a glass of wine.

He liked to go to bed early but tonight found it impossible to let the investigation go. He thought he was as bad as the macho colleagues who bragged of their nights without sleep in pursuit of
their prey. Still with his glass in his hand he read through his shortlist of candidates again, hoping to pick up on some minute detail which would point him to the man he was looking for.