Blood of the Innocents (29 page)

He did consider it, but only for a split second. ‘No. It’s fine. There’s a lot to do.’

‘All right.’

It was one of those occasions when she disappointed him. It had been a tough day and Mariner wanted to share it with someone. He was restless, and for once his own company wasn’t enough, so short of anything better to do, he went back to Granville Lane. After a while Millie returned from the Akrams’ house, looking drained, and by nine thirty only the two of them remained in the incident room.

‘Come on,’ Mariner said, ‘I’ll buy you a curry.’ Then he realised what he’d said.

Millie just laughed. ‘I know a place where you can get the best,’ she said. The place turned out to be her ground floor flat, in Acocks Green.

‘This is fantastic,’ said Mariner as he scooped up rogan josh with a spicy naan that was as light as a feather. He hadn’t eaten all day, and until now hadn’t realised how hungry he was.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ Millie said. ‘I didn’t cook it myself. My mum sends it over now and again. I think it helps to salve her conscience when the rest of the family won’t have anything to do with me. Dad doesn’t know she does it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Long story,’ Millie said.

‘I’ve got time. If you want to, that is.’

‘Why not?’ She dropped her chunk of bread into her dish and sighed. ‘My parents aren’t quite so enlightened as Yasmin’s. They always expected me to be a traditional Pakistani wife. I had to learn to cook and sew - all the usual. But when I got to about Yasmin’s age, I started to realise that there could be more to life than that. I was doing pretty well at school and decided I wanted to go to university. I fancied being a forensic scientist. But my dad has a rather more traditional view of the female role than the Akrams. Within our community the whole
raison d’être
of a woman is to look after her husband and produce lots of healthy children. I would have to do it the hard way. Over a number of years, I saved enough money to start paying my way through college, but a few weeks before I was due to go, Dad got hold of my building society book, confiscated my savings and that was the end of it.’

‘Christ, I had no idea.’

‘Naturally, this led to a massive row with my dad. I called him a lot of things that I shouldn’t have and my family and the rest of the community shunned me. I left home and came to live with a sympathetic auntie in Alum Rock, and this job was the nearest I could get to what I really want to be.’ Partly to conceal her emotion she got up and carried her plate to the kitchen.

Mariner followed her through. ‘Do you still have ambitions for forensics?’ he asked as they stacked dishes in the dishwasher.

‘I don’t know. I like what I do now.’

‘You’re bloody good at it,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘I mean it. You’ve built a great relationship with the family.’

‘Today was horrible, having to tell them.’

‘It was always going to be. It’s one of the bits that doesn’t get any easier.’

‘I keep trying to imagine what they must be going through. Their own child. It must be—’ Her eyes watered and she wiped at them crossly.

Mariner put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You made it as easy for them as you could,’ he said. ‘You supported them. It’s all you can do. You can’t bring her back.’

‘No, but I still wish I could.’

Afterwards, Mariner couldn’t really be sure how it happened. One minute he had his arm around Millie comforting her, the next her lips were fused to his, her tongue, sweet and spicy, probing his mouth. Maybe the curry had aphrodisiacal properties, or perhaps seeing Anna like that had left him gagging for it. Whatever it was it seemed like the most natural thing in the world that he should kiss her back, his hands roaming her shapely body. And by the time her hand slid down to unzip him he was already hard.

They made love urgently, only making it as far as the sofa, Mariner’s trousers shoved down to his thighs. For him it was over in minutes, too soon for Millie, who continued her frenzied pumping on his softening member for what seemed like an eternity, until spasms rocked her and she finally allowed him to withdraw, deflated and sore.

‘Sorry,’ Mariner said. ‘That wasn’t up to much.’

‘No.’ She seemed not to mind. ‘But probably about what you’d expect from a couple of drunks. I’ll call you a cab.’

Thankfully, Mariner made it inside his own front door before his bowels decided to erupt. He awoke the next morning, still half-clothed, mind and body feeling lousy in equal measures. His system clearly wasn’t accustomed to industrial-strength curry and Millie’s mother’s, good though it was at the time, had consigned him to the bathroom for much of the night. He’d a thumping hangover and his dick hurt about as much as his ego. He didn’t think Millie was the type to broadcast details of their pathetic encounter around the station, but you could never really tell with women.

 

When the phone rang, he really hoped it wasn’t Anna. It wasn’t. It was Mark Russell. ‘I thought you’d want to know, sir, we’ve got another body.’

Somehow Mariner dragged himself under the shower. Every time he moved his head, pain jangled round it like the vibrations in a bell. Forcing down coffee and painkillers, he put on his sunglasses against the agonising glare of sunlight and got a taxi to Granville Lane, where he saw that his own car had miraculously materialised in the station car park. The movement of the journey in had made him feel queasy again, but somehow he managed to stagger upstairs, roll down the blinds in his office and make it to his desk, where Mark Russell came to brief him on the latest discovery.

‘She was found a little way downstream from where Yasmin was found.’ Russell was saying, but Mariner was momentarily distracted by Millie walking into the bull pen. She smiled a brief ‘good morning’ to them both through the glass partition, but her face gave nothing away.

‘Sir?’ Russell said.

‘I’m listening.’

‘She was found by Ben: a liver and white springer spaniel who’s apparently a keen swimmer. His owner, a Mr Lovell, took him to the park this morning as usual, and Ben had what I s’pose you’d call a “swamp day”. Mr Lovell had to go looking for him, and that was when he saw the woman’s body, caught on an old bit of fencing that runs alongside the stream. Yesterday, that part of the park would have been completely under water but the flooding has subsided overnight.’

‘And what do we know about her?’ Mariner forced himself to concentrate.

‘Not much yet. She’s an older woman: late forties or fifties. The pathologist at the scene said she’s been in the water a lot longer than Yasmin: could be weeks or even months. She’s got similar kinds of bruising, though.’

‘So she could have been released at the same time, when the mechanism disintegrated.’

‘It’s likely. They think there won’t be much in the way of forensics, thanks to decomposition, but we’ve got a pair of earrings that may help in identification, and there was a large splinter of wood caught in her cardigan.’

‘From the bridge?’ Mariner thought of the railings.

‘SOCO are down there now.’

‘Do we know how she died?’

‘Her skull has been smashed, but Croghan seemed to think that may have happened when she felt into the water.’

Mariner fought down a wave of nausea. ‘Any ID?’

‘Not yet. Tony Knox is going through the missing persons.’

‘OK, let me know when you find anything.’

 

The best solution to avoid throwing up, Mariner found, was to remain as inactive as possible. There were things to do but, for once, he’d let the answers come to him. He got Russell to bring him some water, then began sifting through the messages that had accumulated on his desk. He didn’t trust himself to return any of the three calls from Anna and consigned the yellow message slips to the bin. The next was from a Sahira Masud. Mariner couldn’t place the name, not even in connection with Yasmin Akram, so began sifting through the thousands of names on file in his head, in an attempt to attach meaning to this one. In the end he had to pick up the telephone to find out.

‘I live next door but one to your mother,’ Mrs Masud reminded him, patiently. ‘I’m afraid she’s had a slight stroke.’

The words had more of an impact than Mariner could ever have imagined, temporarily displacing his own fragility. As the contact between himself and his mother had dwindled over a number of years, Mariner had always thought that he would be quite detached from any such news. He’d been wrong. Now he felt bad that he hadn’t returned her calls. Was that what she’d been ringing about, to tell him she wasn’t feeling well? ‘Will she be all right?’ he asked, with far more anxiety in his voice than he would have expected.

‘She’s fine.’ Mrs Masud was instantly reassuring. ‘But they’ve taken her into Warwick Hospital to keep an eye on her overnight. You might want to—’

‘Yes. Thanks for letting me know.’ Any decisions about visiting her he would make himself, after weighing up whether it was likely to make her worse or better.

‘She’s on ward eight.’

‘Thanks.’ Mariner looked up to see Millie standing in the doorway, swinging his car keys. She came and laid them on his desk, all the time studying his face, which Mariner guessed was probably an interesting shade of grey.

‘Everything OK, sir?’ she asked.

Mariner nodded and instantly regretted it. ‘Look, about last night,’ he said. ‘I was pretty pissed.’

She returned a wan smile. ‘You and me both, sir. To be honest I can’t remember much about it. Probably best forgotten.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ Mariner was weak with relief.

‘In my job I move around a lot,’ she went on. ‘I try to bag an Inspector at every OCU I’m assigned to. You did enough.’ Mariner gaped at her. ‘Joke,’ she said, deadpan, before walking away.

 

Tony Knox was next in line. The bacon sandwich in his fist nearly had Mariner reaching for the bin, but he was oblivious to Mariner’s state. Then again, he didn’t look all that hot himself. His shirt was creased and slightly grimy and he didn’t appear to have had time for a shave today.

‘We’ve got a possible match on the body, boss. Barbara Kincaid. IC 1 female, aged forty-four, reported missing back in March from an address on Banbury Road.’

‘That’s what? About half a mile from the reservoir?’

‘The other side of the station. According to the husband’s statement at the time, she’d been suffering mental health problems: depression. She left the house sometime late one night and didn’t come back. The description of what she was wearing on the day she disappeared matches clothing on the body, and we’ve asked him to come in and identify some jewellery she was wearing.’

‘Russell said something about a splinter of wood?’

‘Yeah. It’s a possible match with the wooden railings of the reservoir bridge.’

‘So she went in at the same place Yasmin did.’

‘It looks like it.’

‘She could have been the one who leaned on them and broke them. It wouldn’t have taken much. They were pretty well rotten through. What do you think?’

‘Either that or she threw herself in, got tangled up in the drainage mechanism. It’s a bit desperate though.’

‘Desperate feelings lead you to do desperate things. Let me know when identity’s confirmed.’

 

The final straw was Fiske, who hovered in the doorway, distinctly reticent, and Mariner was soon to find out why. ‘The Skeet family have made a complaint,’ he said.

‘About what?’

‘About the way the disappearance of their son was handled, that it wasn’t given enough of a priority. How far do you think they’d take it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is Colleen Skeet the vindictive type?’

If it hadn’t required the effort of standing up, Mariner would have been tempted to walk over and punch his smarmy face. ‘Colleen Skeet isn’t any “type”, sir. As I seem to remember it was thinking of her family as a “type” that got us into trouble. Right now, she’s a woman grieving for her son. I couldn’t begin to understand what’s going on in her head.’

‘I thought you said you knew her.’

‘I know Colleen, sir. I know very little about those who might have any influence over her, especially at a time like this.’

‘Will you talk to her?’

‘I’m not sure that that’s a very good idea.’

‘I do hope that as a fellow officer I will be able to count on your support, Inspector.’

Not a request, just a statement. That was a hard one. Mariner felt not a shred of fellowship for the man.

Fiske had given Mariner the nudge he needed though, and by mid-afternoon, having exhausted all the paperwork he could reasonably do at this time, and starting to feel halfway human again, he ran out of options. He hadn’t had the guts to face Colleen directly since Ricky’s death. Now was as good a time as any, and from there, he could go over to see his mother. Moving very carefully, Mariner picked up his jacket and keys and walked out to his car.

He went to pass through an exit door at the same moment as someone else, being escorted from the building by Mark Russell.

‘I’m sorry.’ To avoid a collision the other man stepped back, exactly mirroring Mariner’s action.

‘After you.’ Mariner found himself looking into a vaguely familiar face, but there was no reciprocal recognition and he dismissed it. It happened all the time in this job, as a consequence of meeting so many people. Then, crossing the car park, it came to him. He went back to reception.

‘That man who just left. What was he doing here with Russell?’ he asked Ella.

‘I think he’s the guy who came in to identify his wife’s jewellery. The second body that was found. Poor bloke.’

‘Can I use the phone?’ Mariner called up to Russell. ‘The body found today, I thought her name was Kincaid.’

‘Ms,’ said Russell. ‘She kept her maiden name when she got married.’ He told Mariner her married name.