Chapter 25
‘Victim is male, around twenty-eight to thirty years old. I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you this is homicide,’ Alicja, the pathologist, told DI Harrison and DS Rogers matter-of-factly as she led them through to the post-mortem examination room.
Despite living in the UK for over thirty years, her English still carried a strong Polish accent.
‘We kind of figured that, given the location of the body,’ DS Rogers replied with a half-smile.
‘Hm.’ Alicja’s stony-faced expression gave no clue about whether she’d picked up the hint of sarcasm in DS Rogers’s remark.
Normally, DI Harrison would take pleasure in the exchange; DS Rogers was famed at the station for his ability to mimic the severe Alicja.
However, she’d barely slept a wink last night, waking several times to find her sheets drenched in sweat.
Eventually, she’d given it up as a bad job and got up at around four in the morning, with the result that her headache was still very much present and she was feeling tired and drained today.
As the station’s leading murder detective, with a stellar track record, DI Harrison had seen her fair share of dead bodies over the years, but she was still unprepared for the sight that met her when Alicja pulled back the sheet.
Darren’s body was effectively reduced to a skeleton, with the occasional clump of hair and a few scraps of material that she could just recognise as being remnants of the clothes he was wearing when she and her dad had bundled him into his improvised sarcophagus.
Beside her, DS Rogers recoiled, covering his mouth with his hands.
‘If you are going to vomit, please use a cardboard receptacle from over there,’ Alicja told him unsympathetically, causing DS Harrison to wonder for a moment whether she knew she was the object of his ridicule.
Normally, she’d make a mental note to follow up.
There’s nothing guaranteed to make a detective’s work more difficult than a hostile pathologist. Today, however, any tension between Alicja and DS Rogers was so low on her list of things to worry about that it simply didn’t register.
‘OK,’ Alicja continued, pulling a laser pointer from her lab coat pocket and aiming it at the back of Darren’s skull. ‘There are hairline fractures here, consistent with victim being struck with a blunt object.’
‘Like a hammer?’ DS Rogers asked from his vantage point pretty much as far away from the body as it was possible to be without leaving the room.
‘No,’ Alicja replied dismissively. ‘Hammer would cause a different pattern. This is something wider, like the flat side of a spade. Something like that. Anyway, victim did not die from this.’ She smiled mirthlessly. ‘Very nasty headache. No more.’
‘So what did kill him?’ DI Harrison forced herself to ask.
‘This.’ Alicja moved the pointer to Darren’s neck. ‘Look closely,’ she commanded. ‘Can you see these marks here? Abrasions consistent with knife wounds. Victim has them on both sides. Whoever stabbed him did so many times, with considerable force.’
‘So probably another male?’ DS Rogers asked, evidently trying to score at least some points for deduction.
‘Would have to be very small man,’ Alicja observed. ‘Angle of blade is upward, meaning assailant was shorter than victim. Victim is only one hundred seventy-five centimetres. Attacked by midget, maybe, but more likely that assailant was female.’
‘But you mentioned considerable force.’
Alicja sighed in the way that people do when they have to explain something to an imbecile. ‘Assailant was probably very angry woman, DS Rogers. Angry women are surprisingly strong, you know?’
‘A crime of passion?’ DS Rogers continued, seemingly desperate to redeem himself now.
‘Vot do I know? My job is simply to work out how victim died. Your job is to work out who and why, isn’t it?’
‘Fine.’ DS Rogers was looking distinctly unsettled now. Alicja had definitely wiped the floor with him today. ‘Have you been able to calculate, based on the wounds, roughly how tall the assailant would have been?’
‘Of course. I am scientist. These wounds speak to me as clearly as you do, DS Rogers. Assailant is around one hundred sixty centimetres tall.’
‘What’s that in real money?’
Alicja sighed expressively again. ‘One day, English people will learn to use proper measurements, like grown-ups. Conversion chart is on the wall there.’
DS Rogers crossed to the chart and examined it. ‘Five foot four inches. About your height, Ma’am.’
‘It’s a very common height for women,’ DI Harrison observed testily. ‘I think we’ll need more than that to secure a conviction, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but it’s a start. So far, we know we’re probably looking for a woman, around five foot four and possibly of a similar age to the victim. If it’s a crime of passion, she might have been his wife or lover. Do we have an ID for the victim?’
‘Not yet,’ Alicja replied. ‘Is only matter of time though.’
And so the game began. Piece by piece, the puzzle would start to come together and the net would begin to close. As the senior investigator, DI Claire Harrison was somehow going to have to solve a murder she herself had committed, without implicating herself in the process.
Life was so fucking unfair sometimes.
‘I thought you might like some coffee.’ I look up to see Angus with a slightly anxious expression on his face, carefully setting a cup down on the table. ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’
‘No,’ I tell him, glancing at the countdown timer on my phone. ‘You’ve timed it perfectly, actually.’
‘Great. Do you mind if I bring another cup over and join you?’
‘As long as you don’t start on about us getting back together again.’
‘No.’ He smiles ruefully. ‘That ship has sailed. I get it.’
‘Slightly unfortunate analogy,’ I can’t help pointing out.
‘You’re right, sorry.’
‘Stop apologising for everything!’
He holds up his hands in surrender. ‘Sorry for being sorry. Back in a moment.’
I watch him as he heads back towards the terrace, where the coffee and pastries have been laid out.
For a moment, I feel sorry for him. Despite everything, I do still care for him and I don’t like being the reason for his evident unhappiness.
But, I remind myself fiercely, nothing has actually changed.
He may say he wants to come back and give it another try, but that look that flashed across his face when I challenged him told me that he definitely has a problem with me earning more than him and, if he can’t even admit that, we’re just going to end up back in the same place.
‘I also brought you one of Cara’s delicious-looking pastries,’ Angus tells me when he returns, setting down a plate in front of me. ‘Do you know, if it wasn’t for the fact that everybody else here seems to hate me, I’d be loving this. It’s such a beautiful place, and the food is superb.’
‘I don’t think anyone hates you.’
He laughs. ‘Nice try, but it’s obvious that the snotty woman absolutely loathes me, and you’ve made it perfectly clear you’d rather I was a million miles away. The others seem broadly indifferent, I’ll grant you, but the overall mood is hostile.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about Gina,’ I reassure him. ‘Despite her going on about you not being a writer, I think her main beef is actually that you’re connected to me. If you think she’s anti you, that’s nothing compared to the way she feels about me.’
‘What have you done?’ He smiles. ‘Apart from telling her to fuck off, of course.’
‘I have no idea. According to Lynette, her sister, she hates me because I’m already published, but I can’t believe anyone would be that petty.’
‘Sometimes other people’s success can be hard to swallow,’ he observes.
‘Are you speaking generally, or from personal experience?’ I ask. Maybe he’ll open up and be truthful this time.
There’s a long pause while he takes a mouthful of his pastry, and I do the same. It’s soft, buttery and very moreish, but I find I’m not enjoying it as much as I normally do. I’m waiting to hear what he has to say, and I have the distinct impression I’m not going to like it.
‘Personal experience,’ he admits eventually.
‘Look, Laura. I know I said the money didn’t matter earlier, but that wasn’t strictly true.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely delighted that your career took off in the way that it did.
If anyone deserves to be a roaring success, you do.
But it did leave me feeling a bit left behind sometimes, if I’m honest.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it put you in a different league from me, don’t you see?
If you fancied going out for dinner, you’d just book a table for us in that fancy restaurant at The Mermaid hotel.
I’d have to save for weeks to be able to afford to take you there.
It felt… unbalanced somehow and it made me feel inadequate, because I couldn’t keep up. ’
‘Oh, Angus. I’m so sorry. I never meant to make you feel that way. I guess I just wanted to share, and it never occurred to me until Liv brought it up.’
‘What did she say?’ he asks, his voice a little sharp.
‘Pretty much exactly what you’ve just said. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue.’
‘Of course you didn’t. It’s one of the many things I love about you. I totally get that this is a “me” problem – the therapist made that clear.’
‘I still can’t believe you saw a therapist.’
‘Me neither. Anyway, have you had any more thoughts about Finn and what you’re going to do?’
‘No, and I’m not talking to you about Finn. That’s just too weird. What’s next for you, do you think? Back to Glasgow?’
‘Bloody hell, no. I think I’ll contact the cruise line when I get back. They were pretty happy with me, so I don’t think I’ll have any trouble getting more work from them. Are you sure I can’t see Meg before I go?’
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t. She was so unhappy when you left the first time. Weeks went by before she stopped hanging round the door and whining at the time when you’d normally get home. I know she’d be delighted to see you, but she’s just starting to settle and I don’t want to set her back.’
‘I understand. Perhaps you can tell her you saw me and that I send her all my love.’
‘I’ll certainly do that.’
He drains his cup and stands. ‘Right. I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘To be honest, I didn’t expect things to go this way, so it didn’t occur to me to book flexible flights, which means I’m stuck here for the duration.
I’ve got the hire car though, so maybe I’ll do some sightseeing.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to be in your face all the time. I’ll see you later, yeah?’
‘Yeah, OK.’
I’m surprised to notice how relieved I am when he walks away.
I’m glad that he’s got the message and has stopped trying to persuade me to go back to him, and I feel more at ease in his company than I was expecting, but him being here is still a distraction I definitely don’t need.
The fact that his presence has riled Gina up even more is also not particularly helpful, although she’s been keeping her distance since our contretemps yesterday.
Is it too much to hope that maybe she’s got the message as well?
And then, of course, there’s Finn. I still don’t have a clue what, if anything, to do about him. I haven’t heard any more from him, not that I was expecting to, but he’s definitely got under my skin and, the more I think about it, the more I feel there’s unfinished business there.