A Deadly Thaw (4 page)

Superintendent Dai Llewellyn shut the office door behind him, feeling old. The meeting had been short and to the point. Orders had been given, and he was long enough in the tooth to know when it was pointless arguing. Some things were negotiable; others weren’t. The problem was that some things were forgivable and some things not, too. He had a horrible feeling that a line had been drawn and that he was on the wrong side of it.

He wanted a drink and thought briefly of the glass of Bushmills that he would have before bed. He desperately wanted to bring that drink forward but old habits are hard to break, and he had come to rely on habit. His eyes fell to the files on his desk. Now he had something else to deal with: the misidentification of a body from 2004. Another old case.

A knock, and his secretary, Margaret, put her head around the door. ‘Fancy a coffee?’

He thought again of the Bushmills. ‘That’d be great.’

‘Are you okay?’ She’d been working with him for ten years. It hadn’t started off well – his inexperience in the superintendent role, her brisk efficiency, which, he later discovered, was hiding the trauma of a messy divorce – but they’d settled into a routine that suited them both.
Routine
, he thought again.
Why is it that I can draw so much comfort from it these days?

There were limits to their relationship. He smiled up at her. ‘Everything’s fine.’

Her eyes dropped to the files on his desk. ‘DI Sadler’s called three times this morning. He wants to see you. He’s gone out to reinterview Lena Gray but he’d like to see you as soon as he gets back.’

Llewellyn picked up the file and opened it. ‘Right.’

The loud knock echoed around the house, waking Kat from her reverie. She looked down, aware that her frayed dressing gown had a large coffee stain down one side. She rebelted the garment to hide the spatter and walked to the front door. Behind the coloured glass she could see the shadow of a figure leaning against the stone arch. She frowned and opened the door, taking in with a glance the tall man with pale hair and blue eyes.

He showed her his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Sadler. It’s Kat, isn’t it? I’m not sure if you remember me from 2004. I wonder if I could have a word with your sister?’

Kat stifled the impulse to shut the door on this man. She felt shabby and dowdy and, although his eyes hadn’t left her face, was sure that he had taken in the state of her undress. ‘She’s not here. Come in while I get changed.’ She took him through to the living room and left him examining the books in the shelves covering the side wall.

Back in her bedroom, she leant against the door and closed her eyes to gather strength. She could hear nothing downstairs, but the silence felt different. A presence within the walls of this too-solid house. She opened a drawer and took out her underwear, surprised to see her hands shaking. She lifted the jeans that she had slung over a chair yesterday and then scrabbled through her wardrobe for a clean jumper. The heap of clothes in the wicker washing basket told her what she needed to do when she had got rid of the policeman.

When she got back to the sitting room, the detective had settled on the sofa. She crossed the room and sat next to him, noting his surprise. ‘Sorry. Sitting opposite you would seem too much like a therapy session.’

He shifted his body towards her. ‘You’re still working as a counsellor then?’

‘It’s an ideal job, really, given everything that happened with Lena. Counselling allowed me to work to my own timetable, which gave me the chance to visit her in prison when I could.’

‘You went often? To the prison, I mean.’

‘Twice a month. I would have gone more but that was the allowance we were given. An hour every two weeks.’

‘Did anyone else visit her? Friends, for example?’

Kat leant forward and dug around on the messy coffee table in front of her. She found a packet of cigarettes with two left inside and lit one, offering the other to Sadler. He made a face and shook his head. ‘Don’t approve of smoking.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, neither do I. The problem is that once I stop, something happens to make me start again. I’d made six months until today.’

‘The cigarettes—?’

‘Lena’s. She started inside. I don’t think there was much to do. Except read and smoke.’

‘And you say she’s not here.’

Kat turned her face away and blew out a stream of smoke, resisting the impulse to cough. Her lungs, unused to the tobacco, were aching in protest. ‘I woke up this morning, and she’d gone. I wake up quite early anyway. It was about half six. She left before then.’

‘What time did you go to bed?’

‘Lena went first – about eleven, I think. I was around midnight.’

‘You still woke up at half six? That’s not much sleep.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. I was awake at quarter past two, then three and again at twenty past four.’ She stole a glance at him.

‘Insomnia?’ Something flickered in his eyes. ‘You have my sympathy.’

Kat stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You too?’

He didn’t answer her. ‘Do you think Lena could have left after you’d gone to bed? Or do you think she left early this morning? If she knows you suffer from insomnia, when are you most likely to be sleeping?’

Kat was impressed. It was a good question. ‘I never have any trouble getting to sleep. I’m usually dog-tired when I go to bed. It’s just that it doesn’t last. I’m awake after a couple of hours.’

‘So if Lena wanted to leave the house without you knowing, the best time would be between, say, twelve and two a.m.?’

Kat felt a spurt of anger. ‘Yes.’

The exchange seemed to have unsettled Sadler also. He stood up and went over to the far window that looked out onto the lawn. Kat was glad that she had heaved the old mower around for the first cut of the year.

‘I’m not surprised you’re having trouble sleeping. My colleague, DC Childs, tells me you looked shocked when we told your sister that we found the body of her husband yesterday.’ He turned around to face her. ‘It was a surprise, wasn’t it?’

Kat, shockingly, felt like crying. ‘A complete surprise. I just couldn’t believe it.’

‘But you think she did lie? About the man we found dead? You haven’t asked how sure we are that the body we found yesterday is that of Andrew Fisher.’

Kat shrugged and reached for the remaining cigarette. ‘I’m a therapist, and she’s my sister. I’m not bad at reading people. When you came to the house yesterday, whatever Lena may have been feeling, it wasn’t surprise. She knew what your colleague was saying was possible.’

‘Was she unsurprised that we know that the man found dead in her bed in 2004 wasn’t in fact Andrew? Or was she unsurprised that Andrew had now been found dead? Which of these, in your opinion, was she already aware of?’ Again, he knew which questions to ask, and, once more, she was impressed.

He was looking at her with his pale-blue eyes, and Kat found it difficult to meet his gaze. She lit her cigarette, giving herself time to think of a reply.

He looked impatient. ‘Kat. I know this is your sister we’re talking about. Whatever happened in 2004, it’s going to be horrendously complicated to untangle, especially now your sister seems to have gone missing. So I need to ask you. Of course she would have been aware that the man in her bed wasn’t her husband. So I need you to tell me: was she surprised that he had now been found dead?’

Kat’s eyes locked with Sadler’s once more. ‘I’m sorry. With Lena you never can tell.’

Connie left Bill staring at his tea and contemplating the future. As she was leaving the prefabricated building, she heard running footsteps behind her. She turned to see Scott panting towards her.

‘You need to get more exercise.’ She took in his face, decorated with a myriad of silver piercings, and his long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. ‘Do you actually do any?’

‘What’s exercise?’ He grinned at her and then looked down at himself. ‘What do you think?’

‘Did you want something?’

‘It’s hit him harder than you realise, you know. What’s happened.’

Connie quelled the irritation rising in her. ‘I
am
aware of that. I’m not a complete dimwit.’

‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’

She saw his miserable expression and took pity on him. ‘Look. There’s been a huge error made. A body’s been misidentified.’

‘But you said in there, to Bill I mean, that if someone identifies a person in their bed as their spouse, then we take their word for it.’

‘In case of natural causes, yes. Because the next of kin has identified the person, we just do a double-check through birth certificates, NHS numbers and so on. It’s not usually a problem.’

‘So—’

‘Well, that was okay for the first two days, until the post mortem was completed. The problem is that once it was discovered that a crime had been committed, then checks should have been made to confirm the identity of the victim.’

‘Should Bill have done that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But—’

She put up her hand. ‘Look. I can’t tell you any more. I wasn’t doing this job in 2004, and I don’t know what the procedure was.’

‘But you told him in there that it wasn’t his fault.’

Connie rubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘I don’t think it’s his fault initially but something’s gone wrong, and I don’t know what. I was giving what reassurance I could. We’ve been warned by Sadler not to take any notice of the inquiry into how a misidentification was made.’

‘You don’t think it’s relevant to now?’

‘It might be, but that’s what we’ve been told. Bill needs to stop worrying. I suspect there are going to be more culpable people than him. What about Lena Gray’s lawyer, for example? He or she didn’t do their job in relation to identity checks. Can you see? It’s not just about Bill.’

Scott looked unhappy. ‘I’ve worked with him for five years. Ever since I left school. I came here for a lark, to be honest. Someone mentioned there was a job going in the pathology department at the local hospital. It appealed to my goth instincts.’ He caught Connie’s expression. ‘I don’t mean anything weird to do with the dead bodies. I was brought up a Catholic. I’ve got a lot of respect for the dead. I just thought it’d be an interesting place to work.’

‘And is it?’ She wouldn’t fancy it. Connie didn’t like the dead at all. The smell and the waxen bodies repulsed her.

‘I suppose. There’s a lot of admin, to be honest, and also, although Bill would never admit it, a lot of down time. That’s how I’ve got to know him. In the quiet periods between the autopsies we chat and drink a lot of tea.’

‘About what?’ Connie was genuinely curious. She’d been privy to the tea and conversation too. But, now she thought of it, the chat had been desultory, and she doubted if she could remember a single topic that they had discussed in any depth.

Scott looked downcast. ‘We talk about life. And the past. What it was like in the old days when forensics were in the early stages. He was, I mean is, interesting. He loves his job. Cares about the process and the way things are done. Which is why he’s so gutted that he got things wrong.’

Connie flopped down on the wall next to Scott and fumbled in her bag. She screwed the lid onto the base of her electronic cigarette and gave a deep puff. Scott looked at her with amusement. ‘It’s hardly Lauren Bacall in
The Big Sleep
.’

Connie snorted. ‘This is hardly LA. Look, Bill’s one of the good guys. He needs to ride this one out. I’m going to give you the benefit of something I’ve learnt since I became a copper. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve developed this theory. I’ve tested it in other cases, and I think it’s going to hold up in this one too.’ She looked at him and was surprised to see he was eager to hear what she was going to say next. She took a deep breath. ‘When someone, like Lena, wants to deceive you – I mean, really deceive you – there’s absolutely nothing you can do. It takes a fluke or complete luck to catch them out. I’ve seen it time and time again, and the simple fact is, Lena Gray wanted us to think that the man she found dead in her bed was her husband, and it would have taken a mind-reader to have worked out what she was up to.’

She saw that Scott was looking relieved. He should be. Because she was damned if she was going to stand by while Sadler and Bill took the blame for the deceit being pulled by Lena Gray. ‘Look, let me give you my mobile. What’s your number?’

He rattled it off, and she typed it into her phone. ‘This is mine. Call me if you think Bill is getting seriously stressed about this case. He needs to know we’re with him on this.’

‘Will do.’ Scott was looking at her in amusement and, unless she was mistaken, with a familiar glint in his eye.

She decide to ignore the expression. ‘Can you give me directions for the quickest way back to Hale’s End Mortuary? I only just managed to find it yesterday. I want to take another look at the place where the real Andrew Fisher’s body was found.’

Even with the dead man’s body gone, Hale’s End was a grim place. Connie could smell rotting foliage that was out of place in the spring sharpness. Five crime-scene investigators were still combing the area for clues, and, as she ducked under the tape, she shouted at one of them: ‘Anything interesting?’

He shook his head but walked over to her. ‘There are footprints everywhere. Considering how bloody difficult this place is to find, it seems half of Bampton has walked down here at some point. Well, maybe not half, but I’ve counted at least twenty different feet at the front of the building. I’m about to go around the back now.’

Connie could feel her phone vibrating in her bag. By the time she retrieved it, it had clicked off. She looked at the ID. Sadler. When she tried to call him back, he was engaged. Damn, he was probably calling Palmer. Her competitive instincts kicked in, and she dialled Palmer’s mobile. He was engaged too. Subduing the urge to get back in her car and drive down to the station to see what Sadler wanted, she walked up to the stone building and peeped inside.

The crime-scene investigators had finished with the interior. Stepping into the space, Connie was assailed with a pressure in her ears. She walked over to the stone slab where Andrew Fisher had been found. Why murder him here? Was Hale’s End just a place to lure the victim to his death, or was there a more deep-seated reason for killing a man considered by everyone to be dead in a place for the deceased?

Her mobile vibrated again.

‘It’s Palmer. Where are you? Sadler’s been trying to get hold of you.’

Connie dropped her bag in irritation, which made her jump. She grabbed it and walked out of the mortuary. ‘Well, he clearly found
you
. What’s the problem?’

‘Lena Gray’s gone missing. Sadler’s just been around to the house to interview her. The only person there is her sister Kat, who claims that Lena must have left in the middle of the night. Sadler says her story rings true.’

‘Does she have any idea where she might have gone?’

‘Apparently not. Sadler wants us back at the station pronto. This case is becoming a can of worms. First he has to see Llewellyn. Let’s hope by the time we get back it’s still Sadler we’re reporting to.’