Nightmare City (15 page)

He had to.

Blackpool police station was going to be extremely
crowded.

The gorilla, Henry decided sadly, would have to
wait.

And so would every other minor crime for the foreseeable
future. The uniform branch would have to investigate everything
that came in.

And that was how he spent his morning.

Administration. Deploying personnel. Wheeling and dealing for
extra staff. Ensuring paperwork was done and the necessary
circulations made. Pacifying the media, which had descended on
Blackpool
en masse.
What really bugged him was that they were more interested in
a wounded gorilla than a policewoman on her deathbed, or a young
female on a mortuary slab. He didn’t allow his annoyance to
show.

Basically he did all the things that went along with being a
police manager - a million miles away from a car chase with
crashes, flying bodies, helicopters, Stingers and
shotguns.

He would rather have had his head down, getting into the ribs
of that bastard down in the cells, making him talk by using his
interview skills. But that was not his job any more. His was to
manage, to delegate, to empower. Perhaps he was safer sitting
behind a desk. At least it stopped him from getting into
trouble.

The ride into Funchal, Madeira’s capital, took thirty minutes.
At his request, Donaldson was driven directly to the morgue so he
could get the worst part over with soonest: identifying the body of
a friend and colleague.

The morgue was bare and functional, but clean. Donaldson was
glad about that. It could have been much worse.

The body was on a drawer in the huge fridge.

Santana pulled it out and drew back the harsh white
sheet.

Donaldson suppressed a gasp. Not because of any marks of
violence or because it had been mashed to a pulp. Neither of those
things applied to this body. Rather because he was looking at the
face of someone who had been young, vibrant, very much alive not
many days before. Someone he and his wife had grown very close to
over the last few months.

He sighed, nodded, looked up at Santana. ‘Yes. That’s
her.’

It was like a violation of sorts but it had to be
done.

Donaldson took hold of the sheet, drew it back and exposed the
naked corpse, closing his eyes for a moment to halt the sensation
of dizziness.

He had never seen her without clothes before. He never thought
he would. He could not deny that, even though she had been a good
friend and work colleague, he had occasionally allowed his eyes to
drift across her breasts, or down her long slim legs - and
speculate. Special Agent Sam Dawber had been beautiful; she also
had the personality and brains to go with it. But Donaldson’s
admiring looks were only sporadic. He was deeply in love with his
wife and other women did not enter the equation.

‘
Sorry, Sam,’ he said softly to her now. ‘Please forgive
me.’

He folded the sheet at her ankles.

She looked peaceful in death. Serene. Her skin was more tanned
than when alive, but she’d been on Madeira for almost a week and
the weather had been exceptionally good. Her back, bottom and backs
of her legs were red and mottled where the blood had settled. There
was a tinge of blue around her mouth, which was slightly
parted.

‘
You say she was found dead in her bath in the hotel room?’ he
said to Santana. For some reason the act of speaking made him feel
better able to examine her, detaching him from the task. He peered
closely at both sides of her neck.

‘
Yes, apparently drowned. She may have been drinking heavily
and fallen asleep in a stupor. There were many bottles of spirits
in the room. Much of it drunk. Maybe she took her own
life?’

Donaldson stopped himself from giving Santana a withering
look. At the same time alarm bells sounded in his head.

He nodded and continued the minute examination. He picked up
her left hand, opened it out and looked at her nails.

‘
Who found her?’

‘
A chambermaid.’

‘
I want to speak to her.’

He was now peering at a cut and bruise on the hairline on
Sam’s left temple, which was only visible when her hair was pulled
back.

Santana said, ‘Sure, can be arranged today. Why?’

‘
Routine,’ Donaldson answered with a shrug. ‘All sudden deaths
of FBI agents are fully investigated.’

‘
But there are no suspicious circumstances,’ Santana said
defensively.

‘
To you, maybe not.’

‘
To any detective.’

‘
Look, George, I don’t mean this as a slur to your
professionalism, but I know -
knew
- this woman: Donaldson bent down and inspected
her inner thighs. ‘For a start, she didn’t drink,’ he said,
standing up again. ‘When will the autopsy be carried
out?’

‘
This afternoon, four o’clock.’

Initially Donaldson had had no intention of staying for it. He
changed his mind. ‘I want to be here.’

‘
Why, do you not trust our doctors now?’

‘
She was a friend and colleague, George. I owe her that much,
don’t you think?’ He was extremely puzzled and worried by Santana’s
frosty reaction.

Santana nodded formally. ‘I apologise.’

‘
Forget it. When did you say she was found?’

‘
Ten, yesterday morning.’

‘
So there’s a good chance her hotel room will still be
vacant,’ Donaldson said. ‘Can we go and have a look round it? And
could you give me her belongings? I need to take them
back.’

Santana nodded. ‘No problem.’ But behind those two words
Donaldson detected there was - and that he, Donaldson, was becoming
a pain in the ass all of a sudden.

Well, so be it.

The hotel room had been cleaned from top to bottom. New guests
were arriving in the morning. From the crime-scene point of view,
therefore, it had nothing to offer.

Donaldson was very annoyed. ‘This should have been left
untouched until I had the chance to go through it,’ he
said.

‘
It was checked by my people and there was nothing of
interest, and certainly nothing to support your obvious belief that
a crime has been committed here.’ Santana was abrupt. Then his
voice softened. ‘She died by accident and there’s nothing more to
it. No one to blame, no one to arrest. You should accept that, my
friend. Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you
thought.’

Donaldson gave that short shrift.

‘
Can I see your scenes-of-crime photographs?’

Santana’s mouth drew to a tight line.

‘
You haven’t taken any, have you?’ Donaldson said with
disbelief.

A short shake of Santana’s head confirmed this.

Donaldson’s eyes closed despairingly. He demanded to speak to
the chambermaid.

She understood English well. And had little to offer. Yes, she
had found the body in the bath. It had frightened her. She had
called the manager who had taken over and informed the police. The
brooding presence of Santana hovering over her shoulder did little
to help matters. He seemed to intimidate her. Donaldson would have
preferred to talk to her alone, but there was little chance of that
happening.

The autopsy did not help much either.

Donaldson prepared himself for this stage by buying a compact
35mm camera and two colour films from a shop in Funchal. Hardly
ideal, but the best he could do under the circumstances.

While the pathologist waited impatiently, he took photographs
of Sam’s body before the knife went in. Once again he felt like an
intruder and whilst he did it, his mouth twisted into a grimace of
distaste. Had there been another way, or another person to do it,
he would happily have handed the task over.

He took several shots of her head, trying to get a good close
one of the cuts on the hairline. And shots of her shoulders and
thighs, just above the knees where he had seen some slight
bruising.

When he was satisfied, the pathologist moved in.

The procedure was carried out competently enough by the doctor
who was from the new hospital, Cruz de Carvalho, in Funchal. He was
accompanied by an assistant who recorded his observations in
writing. The doctor spoke in Portuguese and then translated for
Donaldson’s benefit.

Sam’s head injury and the bruising on her body was duly noted
and recorded.

At the FBI agent’s insistence the doctor took scrapings from
under Sam’s fingernails and bagged them.

Then he placed the dissecting knife in the soft flesh at her
throat and sliced easily into the skin. Donaldson turned away.
Within moments there was a perfectly straight incision right the
way down the middle of her slim body to the pubis.

Donaldson forced himself to watch. He was aware that, if not
careful, the last memory he would have of her would be as a hollow
cadaver, all organs removed, skull hacked off, brain sliced up on a
table.

Eventually the chest cavity was opened, the ribcage removed,
the heart and lungs cut out. The lungs were heavy and needed two
hands to lift them across to the dissecting table. Here they were
sliced open, revealing the foam consistent with drowning. Typical
post mortem appearance.

Water was also found in the stomach and trachea.

After two and a half hours’ work the doctor had
finished.

He washed off after he’d sewn her roughly back up. Donaldson
pestered him with questions.

‘
She drowned,’ the doctor insisted. ‘The head injury you talk
about is consistent with banging her head on the edge of a door. It
did not kill her, but may possibly have stunned her for a few
moments.’

‘
But what about those bruises on her shoulder and legs? Are
they consistent with someone grabbing her and holding her
down?’

The doctor, ‘Ummed . . .’ and considered it. He dried his
hands. ‘There is that argument, I suppose,’ he concluded, ‘but
without supporting evidence. . .’ He shrugged. ‘She was here on a
walking holiday, I believe,’ he continued. ‘These are bruises she
could easily have got doing that.’

‘
So what’s your theory?’ Donaldson pumped him.

‘
If she had been drinking’ - here he held up a blood sample
taken from her - ‘and this will tell us for sure, then I think she
got drunk, staggered into a door, banged her head. This may have
sent her dizzy. She had filled a hot bath and when she climbed in,
the combination of alcohol, the blow to the head and the hot water
made her pass out. She drowned. Misadventure. Accident. Whatever
you want to call it.’

‘
But not murder?’

The doctor shook his head.

Santana, who had watched the autopsy and listened to the
conversation, cut in at that point. ‘An unfortunate set of
circumstances. No mystery as you imply, Karl. No one to blame. Very
sad.’

Henry had eaten a rather large meal and was glaring accusingly
at his empty plate when a file of papers dropped onto the canteen
table in front of him.

The harassed, overweight form of Dave Seymour stood there. Tie
askew, top shirt- button open, jacket flapping untidily. His eyes
were red raw. He had spent the day interviewing Dundaven. It was
6.30 p.m.

‘
He’s now got some smart-assed solicitor from Manchester
acting for him,’ were the first words he said to Henry. ‘Some guy
named Pratt of all things. But he isn’t.’

‘
What d’you know about him?’

‘
I phoned the RCS in Bolton and asked them. Just a sec ...’
Seymour left Henry and went to the serving hatch where he selected
a meal and returned to the table. He sat down opposite. ‘Seems him
and his firm are known for representing shite, from criminal
dealings to property stuff. Very fuckin’ seedy by all accounts.’ He
shovelled a large load of potato pie into his mouth. This didn’t
prevent him from continuing to talk. ‘At least he got his client to
tell us his name and date of birth.’ Seymour pointed with his knife
to the name written on the file.

‘
And what do we know about him?’

‘
Not much yet. We think he’s involved in the drugs scene over
in East Lancs, but not much more than that.’ A forkload of mushy
peas disappeared down his throat. ‘Think he’s a pretty big
player.’

‘
Any pre-cons?’ Henry asked.

‘
Yep, but they don’t tell us much. Petty stuff.’

‘
Terrorist connections? Organised crime?’

‘
Organised maybe. Nothing terrorist.’

‘
And the passenger in the Range Rover - the flying
man?’

‘
A lowlife shitbag called McCrory. Junkie. Petty thief. Good
shoplifter, as most druggies tend to be. On the periphery
ofDundaven’s scene. Bit of a gofer, I’d say.’

‘
And what’s Dundaven’s story?’