Corpse in Waiting (6 page)

‘And you mustn't think it's anything to do with it but I'm buying a small house.'

She did not turn a hair. ‘You don't have anywhere quiet to work now, do you?'

‘No.'

‘Someone found a head and some poor woman's body in a house in Bath yesterday.'

‘That's the one.'

A little later James Carrick rang. ‘Beaten around the head with some kind of blunt instrument and knocked about generally,' he reported tersely. ‘We've checked the neighbours at the address on the driving licence but no one can remember a woman by the name of Imelda Burnside. It's hardly surprising with such a fluid population. The nephew's address is in this area, at Claverton. He's abroad, New Zealand according to his neighbours, but due back at any time. He'll find me, camping on his doorstep.'

I thanked James, who had no requirement to update me like this, and went into the hall just as Patrick came through the front door.

‘Any luck?' I asked when, as usual, he dumped everything he was carrying either on to the hall table or the floor.

‘No, Alex didn't like any of them. She still wants the one you've set your heart on and is going to put in a higher offer.'

‘What, even though a corpse was found there?'

‘She doesn't seem to care about that.' Patrick gave me a humourless smile and went in the direction of the stairs, saying over his shoulder, ‘May the best woman win.'

FOUR

M
ichael Greenway rang Patrick at seven thirty the next morning and I took the call as he was in the shower.

‘That find of a body in Bath yesterday . . .' he began.

‘No names were mentioned in the papers but it was me who found it,' I interrupted.

‘Why didn't I guess that? Well, we've done our usual trawl through records and it would appear that a woman by the name of Irma, not Imelda, Burnside was known to have lived in Bath for a short while. She is, or was, the girlfriend of a man I'll describe as a crime lord who right now is behind bars. You may know how they're getting messages to their cronies by using code words on Internet chat lines and by utilizing PlayStations. The Prison Service insists that inmates are not permitted to have consoles with Internet access but, believe me, it's happening. Now whether this is the same woman or not I don't know but it's a coincidence and in my experience coincidences sometimes have a habit of delivering the goods.'

‘Did this Irma have a criminal record?'

‘Yes, for handling stolen property and drugs dealing. I was wondering if Patrick wanted a quiet little number when he returns to work next week and without him having to come to London by tracking down any dental records or other stuff on this woman that might be knocking around down there so we can compare them with those of the remains. I'm very keen to keep tabs on sonny boy in the slammer – who is a sort of refugee from the Italian Mafia as someone out there wants to put a bullet between his eyes – as I think he, and others, are planning something big.'

‘What's his name?'

‘Martino Capelli.'

‘We've come across a Capelli before – when we were with D12. Tony Capelli. It'll be somewhere in the records that Patrick gave you but was sort of unofficial because it was James Carrick who stumbled across a case when he was on holiday in Scotland involving Kimberley Devlin, the opera singer, and Patrick gave him a hand. But Capelli has to be a common Italian name.'

Not all the records had been handed over; only those involving ordinary criminals. The sensitive MI5 information, some of it State secrets, is either locked up in a government strongroom or inside Patrick's head.

‘Do you know any more about him?'

‘Only that he was the bona fide agent for several top opera singers and in his spare time endeavoured to import crooks into the UK for profit. Someone cut his throat when he forgot about a family feud and returned to Italy.'

‘Thanks, I'll look into it and see if there's any connection.'

‘And we're back at home, by the way.'

‘Oh, perhaps you'll get Patrick to give me a ring.'

Fortunately, Greenway and James Carrick had met and were on good terms so the former was keen that we did not tread on the latter's toes. In fact it was impressed on Patrick that he should share any gleaned information about the murder victim with Bath CID.

‘I don't have a problem with that,' Patrick said after the two had spoken. ‘I'm a cop now, not a spook.'

I had never heard him describe himself thus and smiled. Then I said, ‘But James might.'

‘I'll tell him I'll treat him to haggis and bashed neeps next Burn's Night.'

‘So what would have been on your agenda today if you weren't starting this job?' I hazarded. ‘More house-hunting with Alexandra?'

‘No, she's really fixed her mind on the place with the corpse.'

‘She'll rip it apart, do it up and then sell it.'

‘Yes, I think that's the general idea.'

‘But—'

‘Look, I don't want to talk about it any more. All right?'

‘No, it's not all right! Just because she was once your girlfriend it doesn't mean I have to treat her like some kind of Holy Grail. She's only going ahead because I've set my heart on it. The woman's a grade one bitch!'

I found myself looking at empty space and when I got downstairs I discovered that Patrick had gone off without having any breakfast.

Later, when the bedlam of getting children ready for school had abated and little ones had been fed and were asleep or otherwise engaged, I sat down at what I still thought of as Elspeth's kitchen table, an historic chunk of oak farmhouse furniture that was far too large to go in their new living quarters, and poured myself a cup of strong coffee. This was worrying. What was the man
on
? Had Alexandra put something in
his
coffee?

With foreboding, I rang the specialist at the clinic at which Patrick had first been treated when he had been heavily drugged during our previous assignment. I got a very sympathetic ear. Indeed, I was told, what had occurred could temporarily affect judgement and could last for as long as a few months. I pointed out that so far Patrick had shown no sign that anything was wrong but it seemed to have been triggered off by the appearance of a woman from his past. It was then gently pointed out to me that it was quite normal for men to have yearnings for their youth when they were in their mid to late forties, and even older, and I should not read anything sinister into it. He finished by saying that if things took a turn for the worse I was to ring him again immediately.

‘Perhaps he took my wanting my own house as some kind of rejection,' I said to the four walls of the kitchen after the call.

There was something in me that prevented me from ringing the agents and calling the whole thing off. An independent streak? Bloody-mindedness? But if Alexandra had put in a higher offer and the vendors had come to their senses I might have already lost it anyway.

I was still sitting there, agonizing, when my phone rang.

‘I'm at the nick,' Patrick's voice said. ‘D'you want to join us?'

‘You have the car but I think there's a bus in a couple of hours' time,' I replied, not about to be anybody's right now.

‘I'm sure Mother'll lend you hers.'

‘I happen to know that she needs it to go shopping, your father's off to a meeting of some kind and Carrie'll be using hers to take Vicki, plus Mark of course, to Toddlers' Club in Wellow.'

‘Then call a taxi and charge it to expenses.'

‘I'm not optimistic – all the local ones are on school runs at this time of the morning.'

I distinctly heard Carrick say something in the background.

‘OK, James is sending a car for you,' Patrick reported briskly. ‘See you later.'

Why did I get the distinct impression that it had been James's idea I should join the team?

‘We have no idea if it's the same woman but I'd like you to take a look at this,' the DCI said, pushing a photograph across his desk in my direction. And then to Patrick, ‘I'll be delighted if you'll dig around the district for dental records and so forth. It'll save us work and it's imperative we discover who this woman really was. If you get the dental records we'll know straight away.'

I gazed at the picture. It was a mugshot of Irma Burnside provided by the Criminal Records Bureau. She had brown eyes and dark wavy hair just short of shoulder-length, the jaw square and determined-looking. The accompanying notes indicated that now she would be thirty-eight years of age, was five feet four inches in height and of medium build. There were no birthmarks or scars.

Was this the woman whose head I had found in the cupboard? The hair was similar but I had felt no frisson of horror upon first seeing this photograph.

‘So far, there's no trace of her around here now,' Carrick said to me.

‘Where did she come from originally?' I asked. ‘Was Bath a bolt-hole?'

‘Bath is often a bolt-hole,' he answered with a rueful grin. ‘Yes, lover-boy Capelli was based in Romford, Essex and that's where she'd been in trouble with the law. She served eight months for supplying drugs having been given a suspended sentence two years earlier for handling stolen property.'

‘She might have gone back there.'

‘You don't think she's the dead woman then?'

‘I'm not sure. Commander Greenway has an idea that Martino Capelli is planning something from inside prison. She could be involved, acting for him on the outside.'

‘He's Tony Capelli's cousin,' Patrick said. ‘Mike rang me a few minutes ago.'

I did not comment on that particular gangster further. As well as Carrick, Joanna, his one-time sergeant, had been involved at a time before they were married and Joanna had been shot and seriously wounded by Capelli's henchman, Luigi. Patrick, acquiring a sniper's rifle, had ensured that he had not fired again. I had not been present.

‘You can use my office,' Carrick said, rising to his feet. ‘I have to go out.'

‘Strange though to change your name from Irma to Imelda,' I murmured to myself, still looking at the mugshot. ‘They could be sisters.'

‘Or sisters-in-law if one married the other's brother,' Patrick said. He had already found a phone book. ‘Dentists, loads of 'em.'

‘I'm going to take another look at the crime scene,' James said to me. ‘D'you want to see if your famous intuition comes up with anything?'

Alexandra Nightingale was arguing with the constable on duty outside the house, her hired car and a police van parked nearby.

‘What's going on?' Carrick asked.

‘This lady—' the man began.

Alexandra butted in with, ‘This will shortly be my house and I demand to be allowed inside.'

‘The property is a crime scene, madam,' Carrick told her, having introduced himself. ‘I can't believe that you're not aware of that.'

She caught sight of me. ‘You! Sticking your nose in again?'

It occurred to me that she had been drinking. I said nothing and neither did Carrick, just regarded her steadily until she got the message and departed, violently slamming the door of her car and then, with a blare on her horn, swerving to miss a cyclist, just, whom she had not previously noticed.

‘She's over the limit,' I said helpfully.

‘I think you're right,' James said and found his mobile. ‘That's
her
?' he enquired, having given Traffic the car's registration number.

‘Too right.'

All was quiet within the house. Motes of dust were floating, moving serenely with the air currents in thin beams of sunlight that were finding their way between the leaves of the plants growing across the living rooms' windows. The big spider in the grate came out to investigate our vibrations and then shot back in again as I walked closer to the fireplace. I resolved that it, or more likely she, would not die when the place was renovated. It deserved to live.

But then I had to remind myself that it wasn't my house. Alexandra would get it.

‘Was any evidence found in the garden other than the stuff that had been buried?' I called across to Carrick, who had gone into the other front room.

‘No.'

‘Not even anything that might suggest she was killed out there?'

‘Nothing. But don't forget, quite a lot of time's gone by since the crime was committed.'

‘Has any soil been taken away for testing?'

‘I understand a few samples were taken. But where do you start?'

‘There's a patch of herbs growing almost obscenely well close to the back door where it hasn't been dug over.'

Across the hallway, our eyes met.

‘Really?'

‘Haven't you heard the old but true story about the mortuary that had huge and wonderful tomatoes for sale?'

‘No,' he replied. ‘Are you saying what I think you're saying?'

‘Yes, blood. Blood and bone fertilizer. One of the best.'

Without another word he went out to his car, found an evidence bag and gloves and went into the garden, reappearing almost immediately. ‘You'll have to show me.'

Ye gods, didn't the man know what rampant golden marjoram, mint and thyme looked like?

To prevent any contamination from tools Carrick dug down with his gloved hands, having hauled out some long grass, while I held the bag open. The earth was dark and rich-looking here.

‘This could have been where the head was severed,' he said, eyeing our surroundings when the sample was safely in the bag. ‘None of the neighbours could have seen a thing with all the trees.'