by J.G. Ellis
*
Superintendent Wilson said, “I can’t go public with this, Barbara.”
I blinked, histrionically. “I’m sorry, sir; I didn’t realize my job was to bring you news with which you could comfortably go public.”
He sighed heavily and looked at my report. “Who tied him into the boat?”
“We don’t know that yet. I’m fairly sure he did it himself, though. Probably thought the tableau would make a good subject for an oil painting. Whoever stabbed him and put the placard round his neck deliberately defaced the portrait Adrian wanted to leave of himself.”
“Do we have any idea who might have done that?” he asked. “The placard suggests some measure of premeditation, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed; “it does. I think it must be someone who hated his philosophy and the influence it was having on those around him. I’ve spoken to two people who knew Adrian, and neither seemed surprised at his death, so perhaps he had a stalker.”
“Who walked around with a placard on the off chance. Really? Don’t you think this is getting a bit fanciful? Generation Death: suicide as a life choice in an age of nihilism. Enormous fun for the press, Barbara, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”
“Sir,” I said, exasperated, “you have all the facts I do. Give me an unfanciful explanation.”
Superintendent Wilson folded his hands, tented his forefingers, and appeared to consider the ceiling. The mind-wheels whirred – or glided – round. Finally, he said, “How do we know he committed suicide?”
A good question.
“We don’t,” I said. “Not for certain. We do know – from Raymond’s report – that he died on the boat. He wasn’t killed elsewhere and moved afterwards. If we go with a murder scenario, he would have to have been forced to take the drugs and drink before being tied into the boat and set adrift. That would mean that either the murderer or someone else came along later – after Adrian had died – and stabbed him in the chest. Since the placard covered the stab wound, it’s not unreasonable to assume that this must have been hung round his neck following the stabbing – but perhaps not. Perhaps the placard was already in place, and the stabber simply lifted it in order to inflict the wound. Why, though? Why would anyone do that? Suicide is an assumption, but quite a reasonable one – and one, frankly, to which I subscribe. I believe that Adrian took his own life, arranged the tableau in the boat for posterity, and later had it defaced by someone who stabbed him and hung the placard round his neck. That person almost certainly knew he was already dead, and that he’d planned to take his own life.”
“Sharon Hall?” he said.
Meaning: Who was she? What do we know about her?
“Well,” I said breezily; “on the plus side, sir, there are no telegenic middle-class parents to worry about.”
Sharon Hall had lived on the margins of society and no-one had come to her rescue – I wonder if she ever dreamt that anyone might. She was well-known to the social services and acquainted with the police. She had never known her father and had lived mostly with her alcoholic mother during her primary school years, except for – not infrequent – periods when she was placed in foster care, ostensibly to give her mother space and time to sort herself out. A younger brother had been fostered – and then adopted – when she was five, by which time adoption would have been but a distant hope for her, since potential adopters would have assumed she was troubled or disturbed. Her mother dropped out of the picture when she was eleven; she had died following a drunken swim in the sea at Southend in the early hours of Christmas Day. That left Sharon in the over-extended hands of the social services. She would be placed with foster parents and run away, be brought back and placed with other foster parents, from whom she’d quickly run away again. Finally, she ran away at an age when the authorities stopped being all that interested.
More immediately – and importantly from our point of view – she had an established connection with Adrian Mansfield. We had her mobile phone, and they had exchanged text messages on Tuesday afternoon. Sharon: Dont no what U mean by impowrment, feels like giving up 2 me. He had replied: If you feel like that, don’t do it. It’s not about giving up. It’s about understanding we were forced out of non-existence by ignorance and vanity and made to suffer. We all go back to non-existence anyway – it’s just about choosing when it happens. She had asked: So you’re def going to do it? It’s not hard to imagine that this was an attempt to mitigate her sense of loneliness. He replied: Yes, but what’s that got to do with you? Then Sharon, surely a desperate plea: Can we do it together? He: No, that’s really not a good idea. If it makes you feel better, wait until you hear that I’m dead. It won’t be long.
“You don’t think you’re running a bit of a one-woman show on this investigation, Barbara?”
“Is that a criticism, sir.” I probably sounded a bit testy. “It seems to me that you’re not entirely happy with what I’ve been about – not because of any shortcomings in the investigation, but rather because you don’t much like what it’s uncovered.”
He hmmm-ed. It sounded apologetic, or at least conciliatory. “Hmmm. Yes, to be frank, there’s an element of truth to that, Barbara. You’re as far along as one could reasonably expect you to be at this stage of an investigation, and yet I have nothing positive to report up or out.” Up was his boss, out was – were? – the media.
“Some investigations are like that, sir.” This was, of course, entirely unhelpful. I tried harder. “You could always say it’s a complex investigation that requires careful and sensitive handling; and while we want to be as open with the media and public as possible, we must also be respectful of the private tragedies of those involved.”
“Yes, thank you, Barbara,” he said drily. He was thanking me for the effort not the suggestion. “I’m going to have to tell them that Adrian Mansfield committed suicide. Once I do that, it will cause a media sensation.”
“So what?” I said. “It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.”
“Yes, all right, Barbara.” He sounded pained. Clearly I didn’t understand. “Keep me posted.”
“Of course, sir,” I said, and took my leave – feeling, for some absurd reason, vaguely guilty.