The Killing Season (9 page)

‘Gives us something to check against the missing-persons register,’ I said.

‘True.’

‘How long do you think he has been in the ground, Doctor Walker?’

‘I’d say anything up to thirty years, maybe longer.’

‘Definitely not recent, then?’

‘Not judging by the decomposition. Again, it is hard to tell – the soil conditions play a large part. This is very salty material here.’

‘Meaning?’ asked Susan Deans.

‘Meaning salt is a preservative,’ I interjected. Behind her Sergeant Coker suppressed a smile as she swivelled her head to glare at me once more.

‘It’s Doctor Walker’s analysis I want to hear, Delaney.’

‘Inspector Delaney is an extremely experienced and senior Metropolitan Police detective, superintendent,’ said Kate, a quiet anger gleaming in her eyes. ‘Why don’t you climb off your high horse and accept help when it is willingly offered?’

‘I—’

The superintendent didn’t get to finish her sentence as Kate carried on. ‘As Jack rightly said, the very high level of salt acts as a preservative in the soil, so I will need some forensic analysis before I can give you any rough approximation of when he was buried.’

Without waiting for a reply, Kate carefully used her hands with painstaking gentleness, moving them over the dead man’s body. She peered down to look at his right wrist and then moved closer, gently lifting the sleeve back a little. There was a glint of metal.

‘Something?’ asked the super.

Kate used a pen to hook the item. ‘A wristwatch. Not an expensive one.’

The watch slid down the corpse’s wrist and rested against the hand. ‘There is a silver inset on the leather strap. With writing on it, but I can’t quite make it out.’ She lifted her hands away and signalled for the photographer to take shots. ‘I can tell you three things for now, though.’

‘Go on,’ prompted Susan Dean.

‘He was not married. At least, he is not wearing a wedding band as far as I can tell. When we get the gloves off we can see if one has been removed – there will be marks, probably.’

‘And the other things?’

‘He was probably not a manual worker.’

‘I gathered that from the suit he was wearing.’

‘People wear suits for all kinds of reason, Susan,’ I said. ‘Weddings, funerals . . . court appearances.’

The superintendent nodded. ‘True.’

Hell. Maybe I was making progress with the woman. Was always only a matter of time. The Delaney charm: like I say, they should put it in a bottle.

‘Mostly they wear them for work, though, inspector,’ she added. ‘And, looking at the fraying around the cuffs and lapels, I would say this wasn’t an occasional suit.’

Kate opened the jacket out. There was a tailor’s label on the inside pocket on the right-hand side. The writing was illegible. ‘It’s a classic-cut design,’ she said. ‘And tailored. So he was probably a professional man. To have a suit tailored isn’t cheap. But the watch doesn’t look like an expensive one.’

‘So we have a professional man, somewhere between thirty or fifty—’

‘Possibly,’ interjected Kate.

‘OK,
possibly
between thirty and fifty. And he could have been in the ground for, what, anywhere from a few months to thirty years?’

‘Could be longer than that. We won’t know until I get the body to the mortuary in Norwich,’ said Kate, watching as the forensic photographers took more shots and video footage.

‘Better make it quick,’ I said as a corner of the marquee came loose, flapping in the wind and letting a spray of freezing rain in. A few uniforms hurried to secure the breach and Kate beckoned to a couple of scene-of-crime officers who came forward with a stretcher.

‘And what was the third thing you can tell us?’

‘His bones have been broken in several places.’

‘As a result of the landslide.’

‘It’s possible. He is close to the cliff edge, or what is now the cliff edge. Most of the debris has fallen beyond him to form the mound outside this marquee.’

‘So what does that tell us?’

‘I have no idea. Just telling you what I can deduce at this stage. I wouldn’t like to speculate on probable causes. Like I say, when I have him on the table . . .’

‘You’ll be able to tell if the broken bones are post-mortem or pre-mortem?’

‘Yes, I will,’ said Kate, watching as the man was delicately manoeuvred onto the stretcher and covered with a waterproof cloth.

‘Why the hell would someone bury a person at the base of a cliff?’ I asked.

If there was an answer in the howling wind and pelting rain it was in a language I didn’t understand.

LUNCHTIME.

I was sitting at the bar again, in my usual corner, watching as the rain poured down the steamed-up windows, blurring the view outside into an Impressionist painting. I could just about make out the hazy shapes of people dashing along the street, seeking cover in shops or rushing to get back to their cars.

I was drinking a cup of coffee out of a glass cup. The coffee came from an expensive machine that the landlord seemed extremely pleased with. I didn’t much care for the cup or for the coffee that was in it. It wasn’t as strong as I like it but it was hot, though, and that was the main thing. I’d had enough lukewarm coffee to last me a good while. Times past I’d have slipped a shot or two of brandy in it, warm the inner man. But, like I say, those times were past. At least, I hoped they were. It was just good to be in from the weather. It had by no means been a good start to the day but the heat was working its way back into my bones.

There were a few people in the lounge bar for lunch, but not many. The open log fire that was roaring and crackling away was very welcoming but the town was quiet. Unusually quiet for Sheringham, even out of season. If people didn’t have to venture out of home or office I quite frankly didn’t blame them. Not that there were many offices or office workers in the town. The population of six thousand or so was mainly made up of an older demographic. A lot of retirees. Mind you people did live in the town year round, unlike other places further west – like Blakeney, for example – where most of the property was owned by rich people from London. Bankers and the like who kept a place as an occasional weekend bolt-hole, somewhere they could moor their yacht and chill their champagne. Sheringham might have been a bit of a bucket-and-spade seaside town, but it was a vibrant one with a strong sense of community. It was lived in.

The door to the lounge bar opened and a couple sitting at the window scowled across as the wind blew a light spray of rain in from the street and in their direction. I’m not quite sure what they expected – did they reckon that people should just not walk through the door and go the long way round the pub to come in by the back entrance?

The umbrella that had entered was lowered, revealing its owner: Amy Leigh. She was dressed more soberly than when I’d last seen her, in a matching black skirt and jacket and a smart blouse. Her hair was windswept yet somehow managed to look chic rather than bedraggled. If I hadn’t known her I would have had her down as a ‘Blakeneyite’ type. What we used to call a Sloane Ranger back in the day. But I did know her, and she certainly wasn’t that. She rattled her umbrella, oblivious to the scowls she was receiving from the couple at the window table, propped it against the bar and nodded to me. The man by the window made a big show of rattling the business section of the
Daily Telegraph
and the woman made a clearly audible tutting sound. I looked at them steadily and after a moment they suddenly took a much keener interest in their own affairs. Very wise.

Amy pulled up a stool and sat next to me, gesturing at my coffee glass.

‘Fancy something stronger?’

I shook my head as a tall young girl with red-streaked blonde hair and who weighed about seven stone came out into the bar, holding a plate in her hand. ‘Fifty-eight,’ she shouted out, a tad louder than was necessary considering how many people were in the bar.

‘Bingo,’ I said and smiled.

‘Oh, it’s you, Delaney,’ she said and handed me the plate. ‘Your salad sandwich.’

Amy Leigh cocked an eyebrow at me.

‘I know, Kate’s idea! She thinks I need to lose a few pounds before the wedding. Got me on the Hay Diet.’

‘Which would be?’

‘No proteins with starch-based foods, and vice versa.’

‘In English?’

‘You can’t have potatoes or bread or pasta with meats and eggs and cheeses and fish, et cetera.’

‘You becoming a new man, Jack?’

‘Becoming an old man. I am seriously thinking of buying one of those fisherman’s sweaters, whatever they are called.’

‘A Jersey or a Guernsey, I believe.’

‘Yeah, one of those.’ I leaned over and tapped a bell that hung in the corner with my pen, as there didn’t seem to be any signs of life behind the bar and Amy looked ready for a drink.

‘I’ll have a large soda and lime, please,’ Amy said to the bespectacled youth who had appeared behind the bar and who looked all of sixteen. I was forty-three now – maybe I was getting old.

‘Stick it on my tab, Billy,’ I said. I took a bite of my sandwich and registered my displeasure. ‘Not even any mayonnaise.’

Amy laughed. ‘Salad sandwiches and fisherman’s jumpers. You
are
getting old, Delaney,’ she said.

‘I have to tell you I was out on the Sheringham cliffs at six o’clock this morning, and there were brass monkeys running around desperate to find a welder.’

‘I heard about that. They found a dead body.’

‘Yes. Know of any large men gone missing from the area over the last thirty years or thereabouts?’

‘Well, no. Not really, not off the top of my head, Jack. What about the police – don’t they have a missing-persons register?’

‘They do and they’ll be checking it. Unlikely they will update me on any progress, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘Superintendent Susan Dean doesn’t have me at the top of her favourite-people list.’

‘Nor me.’

‘Why not?’

‘I do a lot of pro-bono work. And legal aid – represent people who can’t afford private counsel. If I didn’t get some of the people off who she has put through the system, even before the CPS are involved . . .’ She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. ‘Then maybe her crime-solving figures and statistics would be higher. She’s a very political kind of policewoman.’

‘I know the sort.’

‘And she knows your sort, Delaney. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t warmed to you.’

‘And what sort is that?’

‘The sort who is more interested in “nicking wrong un’s” than he is in collecting badges.’ Her Ray Winstone impersonation was about as convincing as if I had attempted to do Katherine Hepburn. I smiled anyway.

‘Maybe I am too lazy, and too old, and too opposed to paperwork to be a political animal.’

‘Yeah, and maybe you just like kicking doors in and busting heads.’

‘If it gets the job done.’

Amy laughed again. ‘You don’t fool me, Jack. You do well in your job because you are a lot smarter than you like to let people think you are.’

‘You’ll have to write that down and I’ll see if I can work out what it means later.’

‘I’ll speak to my uncle,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘He may know of some missing people from that time.’

‘I’d be grateful.’

‘Why the interest?’

‘I think the guy was murdered and he was found on property that I am a security consultant for.’

‘Not at the time he was murdered, you weren’t. If he was murdered at all, that is. Is there any word on the autopsy?’

‘Not yet – the body has been taken to the morgue at Kelling Hospital. Didn’t want to risk transporting it too far, given its condition. And Kate is waiting to be given the go-ahead to do the preliminary work.’

Amy looked surprised. ‘Kate’s going to be doing it?’

‘Probably. Seems Norwich is a bit tied up for a day or so.’

‘He’s waited this long.’ She took another sip of her drink. ‘Shouldn’t think a couple of days’ or so wait more will matter in the grand scheme of things.’

‘Probably not, but I get the sense that Superintendent Susan Dean wants to steal a march. Bust the case, as it were, before more dazzling urbanites from the city come up and steal her thunder.’

She looked at me critically. ‘And is that perhaps why you are taking so keen an interest? Looking mayhap to steal her thunder with your own dazzling big-city skills.’

I looked back at her impassively. ‘I just like to solve a mystery.’

‘Sure you do. Anyway, I hoped to catch you here, and the mobile-phone signal is down . . . again.’

‘I know.’

‘I understand you spoke to Helen yesterday and had a word with her builders?’

‘That I did.’

‘It seems to have worked.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, a little surprised.

‘She phoned me late this morning. On the landline, obviously! Said she’d come to an arrangement with the builders and they were going to finish the job for a lot less than they had said before.’

‘Which builders?’

‘The original ones. You obviously got your message across.’

‘I kicked his ladder away and punched his mate a few times about as hard as I could. Don’t think I made much of a dent in either one’s confidence.’

Amy looked at me, puzzled. I outlined to her how the meeting had gone down and filled her in on Superintendent Susan Dean’s take on the situation.

‘They’ve made an official complaint?’

‘No. Not quite. But she made it clear that she would throw the book at me if I hassled them any more.’

‘Nice.’ The young solicitor compressed her lips in distaste.

‘I might have flashed a warrant card and implied I was on the job around here, mind you,’ I offered by way of explanation for the super’s irritation.

‘So why the volte-face, then? Why would they backtrack on what they said?’

‘How did Helen Middleton sound to you?’

Amy Leigh considered it for a minute. ‘On reflection, not as happy as she should have done. She did say to thank you for what you’d done, but not to proceed with any further actions. She was happy to proceed under the new terms.’

‘But she didn’t sound it?’