‘I might be getting on a bit, Gerry, but I haven’t lost my sense of smell,’ said Colin as he donned a surgical mask.
The pathologist climbed the stairs and Wesley and Gerry followed behind. They waited on the landing while he disappeared into
the room at the end. Ten minutes later he emerged, closing the door behind him and yanking off his mask so that it dangled
around his neck.
‘Because of the state of decomposition, I’m afraid I can’t give a final verdict until I’ve done the post-mortem, and maybe
not even then if I have to wait for toxicology tests and all that.’
‘But you can make an educated guess?’ Gerry said with a hint of impatience.
‘There are some signs that it could be strangulation but, as I say, I can’t know for certain until—’
Gerry slapped the pathologist on the back. ‘Thanks, Colin. That’s all I need to know. Mind if we have a quick shufti?’
‘Be my guest. But watch out for the insect life.’
Wesley watched his boss’s eyes light up with the excitement of the chase. Gerry put a chubby hand on his arm and steered him
towards the scene of all the activity. The door stood open now and Wesley could see the team inside going through their well-choreographed
routine, illuminated by the photographer’s flash bulbs.
As Wesley took a deep breath, he realised that he’d grown accustomed to the smell of death. He let Gerry enter the room first,
hanging back a little, bracing himself for what he was about to see.
Once inside the room, he forced himself to look at the
thing that had once been a woman. She was lying on the bed, hands neatly folded across her chest, face upwards, staring at
the ceiling, mouth gaping. The first thing that struck Wesley was that the victim looked surprised. But then her face was
distorted and bloated so it was hard to tell.
Putrification and maggots had done their grim work and, at first sight it wasn’t obvious how the woman had met her end, but
Colin’s theory of strangulation seemed as likely as any other. She was fully dressed, wearing a very short skirt; too short
perhaps for a woman beyond the age of thirty. Or perhaps she was only in her twenties; given the state of the body, it was
impossible to tell. The thin blouse she wore was low-cut, but you could see worse on any high street. Wesley could see an
embroidered, red push-up bra through the diaphanous black material and he turned away. It somehow seemed disrespectful to
notice something like that. But he knew his wife Pam wouldn’t wear such a bra under a blouse like that. Badly groomed, perhaps.
Or just blatantly sexual.
There was an intricate silver knot ring on the swollen middle finger of the dead woman’s right hand and another delicately
crafted ring with a large red stone on her left little finger. Wesley had seen similar rings, individually designed and hand-made,
in local jewellers and upmarket gift shops, so there was always a chance that they might help in her identification.
‘We’ll need to get this place searched thoroughly,’ said Wesley quietly. ‘We need to find out who she was and what she did
for a living. What do you think of her clothes?’
Gerry snorted. ‘Who do you think I am? Fashion correspondent of the
Tradmouth Echo
?’
‘I meant, do you think she was all dressed up for a date?’
‘Undoubtedly. There’s a man in this somewhere and we need to find him.’
‘Our anonymous caller?’
‘Probably.’ He stared at the woman on the bed. ‘Do you reckon it could be a domestic? She invites her fella round, they have
a row and he ends up strangling her in the bedroom?’
Wesley considered the possibility for a few seconds. ‘You could be right. After all, it’s the oldest story in the book. All
we’ve got to do is find out is who he is and where we can lay our hands on him.’
Gerry sighed. ‘If my theory’s right it shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Our man waited a while before reporting it.’
‘He might have been wrestling with his conscience.’ Gerry spun round and began to stride towards the door. ‘I’m going to have
another word with the neighbours,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘With any luck someone might have been watching through the
net curtains and seen the killer visiting the house.’
Wesley followed him out, glad to get away from the flies and the stench of the grave.
Friday the thirteenth hadn’t been DC Trish Walton’s best day. She had visited the supermarket first thing because supplies
of bread, milk and ready meals in the cottage she shared with DS Rachel Tracey were running perilously low, and when she’d
gone to pay, found that she’d lost her credit card.
In the panic that followed she’d made several frantic phone calls before finding the card nestling in the dark depths of her
handbag. She’d felt a fool. But she often felt
like that. At least her boyfriend DC Paul Johnson had been sympathetic. She really didn’t know why she wasn’t nicer to him,
but sometimes he reminded her of a faithful dog.
She looked up and when she saw Paul hovering beside her desk, she tried to smile. ‘Anything new?’
‘That suspicious death in Morbay. The boss says it’s probably murder but there’s a chance it could be a domestic.’
‘Let’s hope it turns out to be straightforward then.’ She saw he was frowning, as though there was something on his mind.
She hoped he wasn’t going to go on about their relationship again. She wasn’t in the mood and if DCI Heffernan found out that
they’d brought their personal life into the office, they wouldn’t hear the end of what passed for his cutting wit. ‘Anything
else?’
‘I’ve had a call from … from someone. It’s already been reported to Uniform but …’
‘What is it?’ She knew from the expression on Paul’s face that it was bothering him.
‘A girl’s gone missing. She went out last night and didn’t come home.’
‘A girl? How old?’
‘Eighteen. Just finished her A-levels.’
Trish sighed. For one moment she’d feared he was talking about a missing child … and that was something she didn’t like to
think about. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Sophie Walter. Her mum says she was meeting her boyfriend.’
‘Touch of the Romeo and Juliets then. Her parents are probably panicking. I got up to all sorts when I was that age. Didn’t
you?’
Paul shrugged. She knew he hadn’t had a particularly
adventurous youth, preferring to dedicate himself to athletics. ‘Her parents are worried.’
‘Parents always worry. It’s their job. If they’ve just left school they’ve probably decided to go off somewhere; a music festival
maybe. Has the boy been reported missing too?’
‘Not officially, no. But he isn’t at home and his mother hasn’t been able to contact him.’
‘They’ll turn up when they run out of money and condoms.’
‘Sophie’s parents said she was very secretive about what they were up to.’
‘There you are then. They’ll have been planning this for a while. Nothing to worry about.’
Paul looked unconvinced as he cleared his throat. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Sophie’s my cousin. Her mum’s my mum’s sister. She rang me after she reported Sophie missing. She’s in a bit of a state.’
Trish looked into his eyes. This wasn’t just another missing person; this was family – one of his own. She tried to find the
right words, something that would convey her concern, but her mind went blank and she cursed her own inadequacy. ‘I’m really
sorry,’ she said after a few moments. ‘But you know as well as I do that most kids that age who go missing turn up safe and
sound after a couple of days.’ She knew this was the sort of routine phrase the police used day after day, probably true but
not much real comfort to an anxious relative. ‘I’m sure she’ll be back after the weekend, but if she isn’t we’ll mention it
to the boss, eh.’
‘If you think so.’
Trish turned her head away, wishing, not for the first time, that he wouldn’t leave it up to her to make all the decisions.
Wesley was glad that Colin had agreed to fit the postmortem in at four o’clock that afternoon. The sooner they knew what they
were dealing with, the better.
As the neighbours hadn’t been able to give them a name for the deceased woman, their first port of call was the agency that
dealt with the letting of the house where she was found. The office of Morbay Properties was in the centre of the large resort,
a couple of streets back from the seafront. It was a converted shop with wooden blinds at the windows and the company name
freshly painted on the glass in cream letters, with a stylised blue seagull painted beneath – presumably the company logo.
It looked fairly upmarket, which was only to be expected as the cottage was in a good area and wouldn’t have come cheap. When
they arrived the office was closed for lunch and they had half an hour to kill.
Wesley had almost forgotten that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast but Gerry claimed to be hungry, so, on his suggestion,
they bought fish and chips to eat on the promenade. They were lucky to find a vacant bench because the first week of the school
summer break had brought holidaying families out in force. In spite of a cloudy sky, children ran about with buckets and spades,
their excited cries drowning out the seagulls circling in the eternal hope of a discarded chip or pasty.
Gerry sat in the midst of this scene of mayhem with a beatific smile on his face, popping chips into his mouth one by one.
He looked contented, like a man who wasn’t going to allow a little thing like murder to ruin his pleasures.
Wesley, however, picked at his fish, impatient to discover the dead woman’s identity. He felt he owed it to her to give her
a name at least.
‘I thought you were trying to lose weight,’ said Wesley as he watched Gerry screwing up his empty chip paper. The chips had
been good, crisp and hot, but Wesley had been unable to finish them.
‘Fish is health food, Wes. Thought you’d have known that what with your sister being a doctor.’
‘Not when it’s fried in thick batter and served with a generous helping of chips, it isn’t.’ He stood up. It was half past
one now and Morbay Properties should be in business again.
Gerry stretched himself and followed Wesley to the office and this time the blinds were open, giving a glimpse of a cream
and sky-blue interior which matched the sign on the window. When they pushed the door open a bell jangled loudly, denying
them the advantage of surprise.
A plump young woman wearing a cheap, black trouser suit and a bored expression asked if she could help them. When they showed
their warrant cards she raised her eyebrows but her expression didn’t change.
‘We need the details of the tenant of Lister Cottage on St Marks Road,’ said Gerry. ‘I’m sure you know where to lay your hands
on the file,’ he added, leaning forward and favouring her with an encouraging smile that showed the gap between his two front
teeth.
The woman stood up and walked slowly to the filing cabinet, extracted a thin cardboard file and placed it in Gerry’s outstretched
hand.
He handed it to Wesley who put it on the desk and opened it. ‘Her name’s Tessa Trencham,’ he said. He
turned to the woman who was watching them with wary eyes. ‘Have you ever met Ms Trencham? Did she come here to pick up the
keys?’
‘We have a lot of properties on our books. I can’t remember all the tenants.’
‘But do you remember this particular woman?’
‘Why? What’s she done?’
‘She’s dead,’ Gerry said.
The bluntness of his statement seemed to have some effect, because the woman’s bored expression vanished and her hand fluttered
up to her mouth. ‘Oh my God. Why didn’t you say?’
‘What’s going on?’
Wesley turned to see a man standing in what would once have been the door to the rear of the shop. He was dressed in an immaculate
pinstriped suit, snowy shirt and perfectly knotted tie, and he had a thin moustache that reminded Wesley of a wartime spiv.
Somehow he wouldn’t have trusted this man with his life savings.
‘Kris, these men are from the police. They’re asking about the tenant in Lister Cottage on St Marks Road. She’s dead.’ She
almost mouthed the last two words as if uttering them out loud might give them some destructive power to spread death to any
listener.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. If you gentlemen would like to come through into my office.’
Once they were seated, the man who’d introduced himself as Kris Kettering arched his fingers and assumed an expression of
co-operation as Wesley pushed the file across the desk in his direction.
‘What can you tell us about Tessa Trencham?’
‘Nothing much. She took Lister Cottage about three
months ago. I believe she’d moved to Morbay from London and rented a flat here for a while, but she wanted somewhere bigger.
I think she was intending to look around for something to buy. We get hundreds of people like that. We tend to deal with the
middle to top end of the market – no benefit claimants or student lets.’
‘So you actually met her?’
‘Briefly, but I don’t remember much about her. They all blur into one after a while.’
‘Who do?’
‘Tenants. We’re a large agency dealing with a lot of properties. Ms Trencham never made any complaints or needed anything
repairing in the house so I wouldn’t have much cause to remember her.’
‘Can you describe her?’
Kettering frowned, puzzled. ‘Why? If she’s dead haven’t you—?’
‘Just describe her, please, sir.’
Kettering shrugged. ‘As far as I can remember she was dark-haired, average height, quite attractive, probably in her late
thirties. That’s about it. I only met her once when she came to sign the lease and I wasn’t paying much attention. How did
she … ?’
‘We don’t know for certain yet, sir,’ said Wesley. ‘But we’re treating her death as suspicious.’
Kettering nodded solemnly as though he dealt with violent death every day and it hadn’t come as a shock to him.
‘Is there anything else you can tell us? Who provided her references, for instance?’
‘That should be in the file.’ He began to turn over the papers in the cardboard folder and Wesley noticed that his hands were
shaking a little. He pulled out a sheet of paper
and handed it to Wesley. ‘These are the references she provided.’