Authors: Elena Forbes
He sighed. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Try me. I’m good at complicated.’
Her voice was soothing, her loneliness touching a chord in him. He pictured her lovely soft brown eyes, the kindness of her expression. Maybe he could talk to her. ‘I’ve got to go to work. I can’t let them down.’
‘What about after? I never go to bed until really late.’
‘It will be about one.’
‘That’s OK. This must seem strange, Alex. I mean, you don’t know me from Adam, but I’ve good instincts about people and I’ve learned to trust them. Maybe I can help.’
The warmth in her voice reached out to him. He nodded, tears pricking his eyes. He knew what she was saying and he didn’t find it strange at all. Sometimes there was that connection.
‘I’m a night owl,’ she continued cheerily. ‘It’s so lovely and quiet, it’s my favourite time and there’s going to be a full moon. We can sit outside if you like, and have a drink and a nice old chinwag. I’m sure it will do you the world of good.’
26
For a change, the sky was still light in places when Tartaglia arrived home that night. He parked the Ducati behind the front hedge and let himself in. He picked up a pile of post from the hall floor and went into his flat. It felt like an oven inside. He turned on a couple of lights then spent the next few minutes unlocking and opening all of the windows and the back door. Even so, there wasn’t much of a breeze. He removed his jacket and tie and helped himself to a Peroni from the fridge. He lit a Marlboro and sat down at the kitchen table with the beer, listening to the buzz of music and voices from next door, finding the noise strangely soothing.
Cornish had vetoed the idea of putting Fleming, Wade and Black under surveillance on grounds of cost. He said that it wasn’t clear that the three men were in danger. Steele had seemed surprised at his decision, but if she was annoyed she didn’t show it and had gone back to the conference for the dinner without comment. Meanwhile, Cornish had spoken to his counterpart in Avon and Somerset police. After checking to make sure that no bodies had been found in the lake during the past eighteen years, a thorough search had been authorised. A specialist underwater team would be going out there to start work that night, as soon as the immediate area had been sealed off. According to Tim Wade, he and Logan had dumped the girl’s body some way out in the middle of the lake. Although there was little current to contend with, the lake was apparently both large and quite deep. Based on past experience, Tartaglia expected the operation to take all night at the very least. He had spoken to a DI Graham Roberts in Bristol who had been put in charge of the operation at that end and said he would call if there was any news. So, from Tartaglia’s point of view, there was nothing to be done until morning.
He took a long drag on the cigarette, enjoying the moment. Most detectives, and members of the forensic team, had their pet hates and his was dealing with bodies that had been in water for a while. It wasn’t just the many practical difficulties posed by that type of decomposition, it was what water did to flesh. The visual images and the smell tended to stay with him for a long time after. He had been involved in many searches using dive teams, the most recent having been only a few months before, when the victim of a gangland contract killing had been thrown into the river off Chelsea Bridge. The body had been weighted down and they had had a job finding it and extracting it from the silt at the bottom. Rather than load the body into the boat, they had wrapped it up and attached a rope to one of the man’s wrists to tow him in, but they hadn’t gone far when they discovered that all they were towing was his arm . . .
Tartaglia enjoyed diving in hotter, sunnier climes, where the visibility was good and the water relatively warm. It was something he did for sheer pleasure and interest. In the few hundred or so dives he had done in his spare time since he first started, he had never needed a dry suit and had no intention of ever using one. He had the greatest respect for those that worked in the police dive unit, but he wouldn’t have been capable of doing their job. Casting around for the sludgy remains of a human body in a cold, murky stretch of water, where visibility was zero and it made no difference if it was day or night, was the stuff of nightmares. At least the lake was a relatively confined area, although it wasn’t so deep that the temperature of the water would have halted the natural process of decomposition.
According to Wade, they had wrapped the dead girl in plastic, which they then sealed with tape, but they had done it in a hurry and the package was unlikely to be airtight. Over time, the tape adhesive would degrade, helped by any snails, fish or crabs in the lake, and water would gradually start to seep in. After so long, he doubted whether there would be much left of her other than bone. Wade had told them that her clothing and shoes had been put into a separate bag and thrown into the lake with her but he was less clear as to the precise location. In their panic to get rid of her, they had forgotten about the other bag until they were back near the shore. Wade seemed to think Logan had hurled it away as far as he could towards the middle, somewhere near the boathouse, but he said he wasn’t a hundred per cent sure. No doubt neither of them was thinking clearly at that point.
Now, once the police had found her, the next challenge would be to identify her – if only they knew where to start. They would check all missing person reports for that time in the area, of course, and then – assuming they found a match – they could use dental records, and possibly DNA, to identify her. It would be a slow process. Twenty years ago, record-keeping had been patchy and inconsistent. If she hadn’t been reported missing locally, the chances of finding out who she was greatly diminished. Again he was reminded of Anna Paget’s article and wondered why she hadn’t returned his call.
He heard his mobile ringing from his jacket pocket in the sitting room. Thinking it might be Graham Roberts with some news, he jumped up and rushed to answer it. He was surprised to see Arabella Browne’s name across the screen.
‘Arabella. To what do I owe the pleasure on a Saturday night?’
‘Are you in another bar? I’m not interrupting again, am I?’
‘No, I’m at home.’
‘What’s that awful din?’
‘The neighbours are having a barbeque.’
‘Well, you won’t be getting much sleep. Anyway, I’ve just had a call from someone in Bristol about a body in a lake. I hear it’s one of yours.’
He smiled. ‘That’s right, but isn’t that a bit far off the mark for you?’
‘I get around. I had to go to Cornwall only a few weeks ago. Anyway, apparently there’s been a spate of deaths in the Bristol area and the duty pathologist is tied up. Carolyn Steele gave them my name. Can you fill me in on what you’re expecting to find?’
‘The victim’s a girl, or young woman. She’s been at the bottom of a lake since the early Nineties. Apparently she was wrapped up in some plastic bags, so hopefully there’s something left for you to see. We’ll need to establish age, height, and so on, so we can try and ID her and, if at all possible, we need to find out what happened. It’s not clear at the moment how she died or whether or not it was an accident.’
‘Forgive the stupid question, but if you’re not sure it’s murder, why are you bothering with it?’
‘There’s a link to the last two murder victims.’
‘I see. Have you got a forensic anthropologist lined up?’
‘Not yet. Do you have someone in mind?’
‘Yes. There’s a woman at the university who may be able to help. We’ve worked together before.’
‘It would be useful if she was there at the same time as you examine her.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll give her a call when we finish. Are you going to be visiting the scene, or are you leaving it to the locals?’
‘I’m driving down early in the morning. Sam Donovan’s collecting me. Do you want a lift?’
‘No. I’m at the cottage near Frome. It’s only about half an hour from the lake. I was in the middle of boning and stuffing a chicken for lunch tomorrow when I got the call. Jo and I have some friends coming over, but I guess they’ll have to manage without me. I just hope she won’t overcook it again.’
With that, she rang off.
He finished his beer and cigarette, wondering if it was odd or natural that a woman who cut up bodies for a living was also such a good cook, as he had discovered on a couple of occasions when she had invited him for dinner. Unable to make up his mind, he went into the bedroom where he undressed. Still thinking about the girl in the lake, he took a shower, closing his eyes under the hard jet of water as he ran through again in his mind what Alex Fleming had said and how he had behaved. It still didn’t add up. He had just finished showering, when he heard what sounded like his doorbell. Quickly wrapping a towel around his middle, he went to check and opened the front door to find Anna Paget standing, hand on hip, in the middle of the garden path.
‘May I come in?’ she said, with a smile. She was wearing what looked like a short white slip, thigh length black boots and not a lot else, as far as he could tell.
‘No,’ he said, wondering how she found his address, although any child could probably get it off the internet. There weren’t that many Tartaglias in London. Why had she bothered, was the question. ‘It’s late. What are you doing here?’
‘It’s not that late. It’s not even ten o’clock and I knew you’d still be up.’
‘What is it you want?’
‘Have you read my article?’
‘Your article? What are you talking about?’
‘I dropped a draft copy through the letterbox earlier. Didn’t you find it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it must be there somewhere.’ She peered past him into the dark hall. ‘It was in a plain white envelope. I definitely put it through this door on my way to dinner.’
‘I picked up some post earlier. Maybe it’s in there.’
‘You said you wanted to see it as soon as possible,’ she said a little sharply. ‘And there are some things I need your help with in return. You also left a message saying you wanted to talk to me. I’ve just been to see a friend who lives nearby and thought we could kill two birds with one stone.’ She made it seem the most natural thing in the world, as though he was the one being unreasonable. ‘Now may I come in?’
He hesitated. He didn’t like her arriving on his doorstep unannounced and he didn’t like the idea of her being in his flat. But he needed to speak to her and short of making her wait outside in the front garden while he got dressed, he couldn’t think what else to do.
‘You can come in while I put some clothes on. Then we can go for a quick drink around the corner and discuss things there.’
‘Are you sure you want to discuss it all in public?’ She gave him a sceptical look as she brushed past him and went into the sitting room.
She had a point, but he still didn’t feel comfortable with her there. He followed her inside and closed the door.
‘Nice place,’ she said, gazing around. ‘Do you live here on your own?’
Ignoring her, he picked up the pile of post he had left on one of the chairs and leafed through it until he found an A4 envelope with the words BY HAND scrawled in one corner.
‘Is this it?’
‘That’s the one.’
He tore it open and pulled out some typed sheets of paper headed ‘Joe Logan article – draft.’ As he quickly scanned it, he noticed that she had highlighted some of the paragraphs in the margin with fluorescent pen and marked them with a question mark. She had also scribbled in biro ‘need more info’ next to them. From what he could tell at a quick glance, they were to do with Logan’s murder. The name ‘Paul Khan’ was written at the bottom of one of the pages with another question mark. He wondered how she had made the connection and how much she knew. Cursing the leakiness of the department, he glanced up at her. She had already made herself comfortable in the middle of the sofa, legs crossed, arms loosely extended along the back. The fabric of her dress clung to her like a second skin. She was watching him with an amused expression on her pretty face. In different circumstances he would have been only too happy for her to be there. In different circumstances, who knew what might have happened . . . But for now, he wanted her out of his flat as quickly as possible.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ she asked.
‘No. As I said, I thought we’d go out.’
‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you.’
‘No, you’re not. I doubt whether it even crossed your mind.’
She smiled. ‘Is it awkward my being here? Do I make you uncomfortable? Is that it?’
‘I don’t mix business and pleasure. This is my home. You shouldn’t have come.’
‘I’m sorry. I work from home, so I don’t get the distinction.’
He frowned. ‘Well, you should. I remember your saying you didn’t want Joe Logan in your flat because he was to do with your work.’
‘That was different.’
‘In what way?’
She shrugged. ‘Let’s say the situation was a little tricky. He wanted to blur the boundaries and I wanted to preserve them.’
‘Then you’ll understand why I want to go out.’
She looked surprised, as though nobody had ever spoken to her that way. Before she could say anything, he left the room. He dressed hurriedly, pulling on an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt and trainers, the first things that came to hand. He didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. As far as he remembered, there was nothing lying about to do with the case, but he didn’t want her nosing around.
Back in the sitting room, he was relieved to see that she was sitting exactly where he had left her.
‘Please may I have a drink? I really don’t want to go into all of this in some crowded bar with God only knows who listening. If you don’t like my being here, we can go back to my place. It’s not that far away and I trust you. You’re a policeman, after all. I’m sure you wouldn’t try and take advantage of the situation.’ She gave him a pointed look.
He stared at her, bemused. Was that what she really thought? Being a policeman had nothing to do with it. Turning up at his flat at that hour, dressed like that . . . What man wouldn’t be tempted? But the situation was an awkward one. However much he’d like to, he had no intention of taking advantage of anything. He had a good mind to tell her that they would do it another time, in a neutral location, but he would be in Bristol for all of the following day at least and he wanted to hear what she had to say in case it had any bearing on things.
‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘We can stay here, but I can’t talk long. I have an early start tomorrow. What can I get you?’
‘A glass of wine will do.’
‘I thought you didn’t drink alcohol.’
‘Occasionally, when I want to unwind.’
‘You’re not here to unwind.’
She smiled. ‘I’m sorry. An unfortunate figure of speech. This is work, I know. I’m just tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.’
‘White or red?’
‘I don’t mind. Whatever’s easiest.’
Wondering if it was a mistake allowing her to stay even for a short time, he went into the kitchen, opened a bottle of Gavi di Gavi from the fridge and poured a couple of glasses. Back in the sitting room, he handed her a glass, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite.