The Killing Season (10 page)

‘No. Now I come to think of it she didn’t seem particularly buoyed.’

I nodded.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think the boys have paid her a visit. Obviously Superintendent Dean has given them the impression that my hands are tied.’

‘Aren’t they? Given what the police have said?’

‘Just think of me as Harry Houdini,’ I said and pushed the half-eaten sandwich away.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What I said I would do.’

‘Which is?’

‘Help Helen Middleton, and frighten the boys some more.’

‘And how are you going to do that?

I looked at Amy steadily. ‘Do you really want to know?’

She considered for a moment or two and then smiled a kind of grimace. ‘I guess I probably don’t.’

‘Good guess.’

‘I don’t want you getting into trouble over this, Jack. I asked you as a favour.’

‘Trouble is what I do, Amy.’

She looked at me for another long moment and then laughed. ‘You crack me up, Delaney.’

I gestured to the barmaid. ‘Order me up a bacon sandwich and get me a pint of Guinness, would you, darlin’? And get this young woman a proper drink.’

I LOOKED UP
at the sky. It was clear now, apart from a few long, crimson streaks of cloud. The first time for a long while. There was a freshening wind coming from the sea but nothing like the earlier storms. Maybe they had blown themselves out. The town smelled fresh and clean, and the ozone was almost as invigorating as the Guinness I had just drunk.

I walked up to my car which was parked by The Crown pub on the seafront. A bunch of seagulls were sitting on the promenade wall, eyeing me suspiciously. The seagulls didn’t like it out of season – there were no unwary tourists to pinch chips from.

I climbed into my old Saab and after about the third attempt to start it the engine kicked into life. I pulled out and was about to head up Gun Street and pay a visit to Helen Middleton when Sergeant Coker stepped out in the road and held up his hand in a ‘Halt, who goes there?’ gesture.

I wound down the window and looked across as he leaned in.

‘Your wife told me I might find you at the Lobby. I guess I just missed you.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘She’s got the go-ahead to proceed with the post-mortem. Thought you might like to come with me.’

‘Does Super Susan know about this?’

‘She knows about the autopsy.’

‘But not about me attending?’

‘No.’

‘You think she’s going to like that?’

‘Does this face look bothered?’

I looked at his healthy, ruddy complexion and the amusement in his eyes.

‘I’ll see you there,’ I said.

Kelling Heath Hospital is an old building a few miles from Holt. As you swing down the switchback road from Bodham to Upper Kelling you have to slow down to thirty miles an hour. Not that everyone did. As I said, the normal rules of the Queen’s Highway didn’t seem to apply hereabouts. Maybe something to do with Boadicea. I pulled across the road and turned right and then right again, drove up and managed to find a parking spot in front of the building.

A young nurse told me where to go as I explained why I was there. I thanked him and walked through a couple of corridors down to the old morgue. Kelling Heath Hospital is now a rehabilitation unit for convalescing patients in the main. But it had been a TB sanatorium in the past and therefore housed a small morgue.

I pushed the door open and walked in. Sergeant Coker had beaten me there but, as I had had to stop to refuel the car at the garage on the coast road, I didn’t hold it against him.

Kate was gloved, gowned and masked and a younger woman similarly garbed was standing beside her. A forensic photographer who I recognised from the crime scene on the beach earlier was standing by, ready to record the process, and a forensic assistant was gowned and gloved like Kate and ready to help her.

Neither the sergeant nor I had bothered to gown and mask up. We stood by the door, watching. I hate post-mortems but this was by no means the worst that I had attended. Because the body had been partly mummified in the salty ground there weren’t the usual aromas that went with the procedure. Kate had once told me that smell was particulate and explained what it meant, and I didn’t feel any happier for having the knowledge of it.

‘Just about to begin, Jack,’ she said as I closed the door behind me.

‘You were never here,’ said the sergeant in a stage whisper to me.

‘Certainly not.’

Kate began by removing the cadaver’s gloves, revealing large hands, the flesh on them pale and withered, the bones prominent beneath it. As Kate had surmised there was no band on the man’s wedding finger.

‘There is no sign that he has ever had a wedding ring,’ Kate said, talking towards a microphone that was recording the progress of the post-mortem.

‘So a single man in his late twenties or thirties who has never married,’ I speculated out loud, but quietly, to the red-haired man beside me.

‘Gay?’ said the sergeant.

‘Who knows?’ I shrugged.

‘I am now spraying some alcohol spirit on the white-metal inset on his watch strap,’ said Kate, and proceeded to do as she said. Then, very delicately, she swabbed the metal with what looked like a Q-tip to me but probably had some specialist technical pathology name.

‘Looks to me like the inscription reads: ‘Amor Vincit Omnia.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the ruddy-faced sergeant asked Kate.

‘It’s Latin,’ I answered for her. ‘Love conquers all.’

‘Definitely gay, then,’ said Coker.

He would have laughed but Kate shot him a look that made him think better of it.

It took Kate and her assistant a while to carefully cut off the clothes that the dead man had been wearing. They were bagged and logged. Naked he was pale-skinned and the flesh of his torso was every bit as deteriorated as that of his hands had been. It was as though the skin had simply been stretched over his skeleton. He had a thin, flat wooden crucifix on a chain around his neck. Kate looked closely at the damaged bones, snicked the chain on the crucifix and handed it to a forensics officer for bagging. Then she turned to us.

‘I can’t tell you if these broken bones were pre- or post-mortem. But I can tell you this man was murdered.’

‘How so?’

‘He was stabbed, middle of his chest. Right in the heart.’

‘Can you put a date on when it happened?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Not yet. The soil conditions where he was buried make it very hard to be even approximately accurate. We’ll need lab analysis. And that will take time.’

‘I guess we need to find out who he is,’ I said.

‘Good place to start,’ Kate agreed and turned back to the body on the examination table. ‘John Doe needs a name.’

IT WAS LATE
by the time I got back onto the coast road and headed west out of Sheringham once more.

It hadn’t rained since the late morning, which was some good news for that day at least. I had stayed with the sergeant and watched the rest of the post-mortem. Saw the dead man disassembled bit by bit. What was left of his organs weighed and recorded. His stomach opened. Its contents removed for further analysis.

I regretted breaking my diet and having that bacon sandwich.

I had wound down the window for a minute or so to let the cold air blow over me as I headed for the coast road. But it hadn’t made me feel any better so I had wound it up again and cranked up the heater. The sun was dipping ahead of me nearly into the ocean again, and although it wasn’t raining it was still cold. Bloody cold.

I looked at the sky that was purpling and darkening now, and figured we would have a frost again tonight.

I drove into Helen Middleton’s garden, the three-quarter shingle crunching satisfyingly beneath my wheels. I zipped my jacket up to the top and leaned on the doorbell. I hadn’t phoned her. The lights were on in her bungalow and I could hear classical music playing, but my spider senses were tingling. Something wasn’t right here.

I leaned on the bell once more and was relieved when I heard the sound of the music being lowered. A few moments later the door opened. But it only opened a few inches. A chain had been fitted to the inside.

Helen Middleton peered out. ‘Oh, it’s you, Jack. Can I help you with something?’

‘I just wanted to have a quick word, Helen,’ I said, smiling reassuringly.

‘I am a little bit busy,’

‘It won’t take a minute.’

She hesitated and then closed the door. It opened again a moment later.

‘I see you’ve had a chain fitted.’

‘Well, you can’t be too careful, can you?’

‘I guess not.’

I didn’t think it would be fair to point out that a small security chain like that had no chance of stopping either Bill Collier or his associate if they wanted to get into her house. Wasn’t entirely sure what would, short of a fortified steel door.

I followed Helen into her living room. As neat as ever. The figurines gleaming, the surfaces shiny, a faint hint of polish in the air.

‘I was about to pour myself a small sherry. Can I get you one?’ she asked me.

Not my nip of choice but I nodded. ‘Thank you. That would be very nice.’

‘What part of Ireland are you from?’ she asked as she walked to a cabinet and poured out two measures of sherry into a couple of matching glasses.

‘Cork.’

‘Cork City?’

‘Near it. Ballydehob.’

‘I’ve never been.’

‘Most people have never been to Ballydehob.’

‘I meant to Ireland.’

Helen’s hand had been shaking as she poured the drinks, the neck of the bottle rattling against the rims of the glasses. It wasn’t me she was nervous of. I took a sip of the sherry, which was surprisingly dry. Probably a good one but I had no real framework of reference.

I looked around the room. There was no sign of the dog. The music playing was calming, soothing.

‘Where’s Bruno?’ I asked.

She flinched a little. ‘In my bedroom. Having a nap.’

Bruno started barking. ‘Sounds like he might have woken up,’ I said and produced a soft dog toy in the shape of a blue octopus from my pocket. ‘I brought him a little present.’

‘That’s kind of you. Hang on, I’ll fetch him.’

There was moisture in her eyes as she left hurriedly and I heard her put the chain back on the front door. I guess I could tell what the Brothers Grim had threatened Helen Middleton with and I didn’t find my dislike of them lessening any.

She came back, holding the dog in her arms, and looked at me for a moment or two before speaking.

‘I don’t want you doing anything that will bring harm to him.’

‘I won’t do that, I promise,’ I said.

‘I am an old lady. He is the only thing that I have left. Apart from my house and my work.’

‘I understand, Helen. The innocent have the right not to be afraid, especially in their own homes.’

‘I can’t help being afraid. But they should not be allowed to get away with this. I realise that now.’

‘I took the wrong approach with them. I thought the threat of the law would be enough. But I of all people should know that sometimes it isn’t.’

‘I don’t wish you to be getting into any further trouble. I understand the police have reprimanded you.’

‘I can take care of myself.’

Helen nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think you can.’

‘You just take care of Bruno,’ I said and handed him the toy. He held it between his teeth and it set his tail whipping again.

‘Thank you, Jack,’ she said.

‘It’s just a little toy,’ I replied. ‘It didn’t cost much.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the toy.’

‘I know.’

OUR HOUSE WAS
built in the mid-nineteenth century.

A fisherman’s cottage in brick and flint. There was a small front garden, with steps leading up to the front door bisecting it. Shingled areas on both sides, with plants and seaside ephemera: a few lobster pots, a small anchor, an olive tree that Kate’s cousin had planted in a large half-barrel. Coastal kitsch. But it worked and it was a million miles from my old place in Kentish Town.

I was standing in the farmhouse-style kitchen, looking out onto the pergola and the patio that stretched down to the garden proper. It was half-covered and in the summer and early autumn I had barbecued there while Kate cradled our baby Jade and sat with Siobhan on a bench and watched me. Looking out at the darkness now it seemed a long time ago. But the night was filled with stars. One of the best things about being away from the city was the night sky. You could actually see the stars when the sky was clear. Millions of them.

‘Penny for them?’ Kate asked.

‘I’ll give you a kiss instead,’ I said and made good on my promise.

‘Nice.’

‘I know.’

‘What are you going to do about Helen Middleton?’

‘Probably best you don’t know.’

‘I’m going up to bed to read,’ she said and kissed me again. ‘And Siobhan said to remind you that you promised to read her a story, or make one up like you usually do.’

‘OK.’

‘And please, Jack. Nothing about drugs or dead hookers or violent crime.’

‘OK.’

‘I mean it. You haven’t had her English teacher asking me where she gets some of the stories from when she has to write a holiday essay. Her “What I did last summer” piece nearly had them calling social services.’

Kate went through the door that led from the kitchen to a narrow, steep, typically Norfolk stairway. I waited for a few moments, heard her talking to Siobhan and then pulled out my mobile phone and punched the button on a speed-dial contact.

‘Is that yourself, Jack?’

I smiled. The familiar voice bringing memories flooding back.

I was nine years old and walking back from school alone. My best friend Rory had been off sick with measles and I was forbidden to visit him. That suited me just fine. I had seen kids with the measles right enough and could do without them myself, thank you very much. I’d catch up with Rory when he was well and uncontaged, or whatever it was they called it. Like me, my mate Rory was big for his age. Everyone said when he grew up he’d either be a policeman or a professional wrestler. It was their joke. What Rory wanted to do when he grew up was be a carpenter like his da. Heck, his ma always joked, sure enough he could just pick the trees out of the ground, he’d have no need for lumberjacks and saws for his raw materials. Rory took it in good humour, he knew his da bought his wood from the trade store in Bantry mainly, but he humoured his mother. You had to keep the women on your side.