Vital Signs

by Candy Denman

  “Sure, fire away, Doc.” Jayne was her usual helpful self and Callie quickly had the name and contact details of the man who had found the body.

  “He was out beachcombing and found a little more than he bargained for,” Jayne told her.

  That was something of an understatement, Callie thought.

  When she called him, the beachcomber sounded like he had already been drinking and Callie couldn’t blame him, finding the body must have been distressing. It was always hard, even for someone like her, who was used to death.

  “It was just awful,” he told her. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go there again.”

  Callie could sympathise with that.

  “Did you walk there often?” she asked. “Before that evening?”

  “Of course. That’s my bit of beach. Everyone knows that.”

  “Your bit?”

  “For detecting. Pett Level to Fairlight Cove. I’m part of a group of local detectorists, we all have our own areas, so we don’t tread on each other’s toes, so to speak. That was mine. I’ll have to ask if I can change. Perhaps they’ll give me a sandier bit, you find more on sandy bits, generally. Coins and rings and that, and it’s easier going, so you can cover a larger area.”

  Callie had no idea that the people she often saw out on the beaches with their metal detectors were that organised, but it was probably a good thing. She was in favour of anything that reduced conflicts.

  “So, how often do, did, you walk that stretch?”

  “Every day, of course. You’d be amazed at what you can find.”

  Like bodies, she thought, only you didn’t usually need a metal detector to find them.

  “You had walked that stretch of coast the day before?”

  “That’s right. Every day.”

  “And the body wasn’t there then?”

  “No. Of course not.” He sounded suitably scandalised at the suggestion. “I’d have reported it then, if it was.”

  Callie hesitated before asking her next question, she didn’t want to upset the man after all.

  “Are you absolutely sure you would have seen it? Could you have missed it?”

  “Never! I am very thorough! I make sure I cover every inch of the shoreline.”

  Oh dear, she really had upset him.

  Once she had placated the poor man, and assured him that she wasn’t in any way insinuating that he was slipshod, Callie grabbed her jacket and headed down to the seafront, or more specifically, the net huts.

  These tall, black-painted, wooden buildings were the traditional places for fisherman to dry their nets and were a feature of the old town. As she wound her way through the tourists taking photographs and buying fresh fish, Callie looked for Old George, a man who epitomised old Hastings and its fishing industry. He had worked on the boats from a very young age, much younger than was legal even in those days, but now in his eighties, he just sat by his hut, telling stories to anyone who would listen.

  “Hello, George,” Callie said as she sat on a rickety chair beside him. She had come prepared with two cups of takeaway tea, one laced with a liberal amount of sugar. She pretended not to notice when he took the cup and added a slug of brown liquid from a bottle by his side. With all the sugar and alcohol in the cup, it was a wonder he could taste the tea at all.

  After ten minutes or so of polite conversation, asking about his health, his family and allowing him to tell one his interminable stories about the bad old days, Callie got down to business.

  “These bodies washing up on the beach, George.”

  “Terrible thing that. Terrible.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Well, I wanted to know about tides and things like that, and I thought you would be the person who would know best.”

  George always responded well to flattery, particularly from a pretty young woman, Callie knew, and true to form, he was happy to answer her questions.

  “The first body to be found was at Pett Level, on the day the boat capsized.” She told him and then detailed where and when each body had been found.

  “No, that’s not right,” he said, the moment she told him about the body at Fairlight. “That couldn’t happen if he went in the water at the same time as the others. On the night of the storm, the winds were veering and that’s why they ended up at Pett Level, but after that, once the wind died down, the surface water travels east and the wind has been that direction, so it stands to reason, the bodies will too. All of ’em.”

  “Even if this one got caught on something?” Callie queried, but George was adamant, body number nine should not have been found where he was. The prevailing winds and tides meant that it should definitely have been found further to the east.

  Callie felt triumphant, her instincts were right. Body number nine did not fit with the others. Now she just had to convince the police of that fact.

  * * *

  Billy had a standing family commitment in the evening, and Kate was busy with a new man, so Callie thought that the night was going to be a bit of a non-event as well. Still, at least she would be well-rested and prepared for Monday − always a busy day at the surgery.

  As she was already in town, Callie decided to brave the supermarket and do some shopping – always her least favourite chore. It was when she was coming out of the shop, wheeling a trolley full of virtuous fruit and vegetables neatly covering the wine and chocolate underneath in case she bumped into any of her patients, that Callie saw David Morris hurrying out of a convenience store up the road, carton of cigarettes in hand.

  “David!” she called out and he looked up.

  “Afternoon, Doc.” He sketched a wave with the hand holding the cigarettes, realised what he was doing and hastily put the offending articles behind his back. “Gotta go.” He tried to hurry past her but her trolley was blocking his way and she made no effort to move it.

  “I saw you at the beach the other day, when I was seeing to that poor man who had died.”

  David just grunted by way of reply.

  “Terrible, isn’t it?” she pressed him.

  “Yeah. Terrible.” He began to move round her, trying to escape, and Callie didn’t think it was just guilt that she had caught him buying cigarettes after a recent dose of bronchitis and a promise to give up smoking. His evasiveness piqued her curiosity.

  “You seemed to be arguing with that councillor chap, what’s his name?” She thought for a moment as Morris didn’t seem inclined to help her. “Claybourne, that’s it. Peter Claybourne. You both seemed rather heated. What was that all about?”

  “Oh, you know, just political differences,” Morris said unconvincingly, before finally managing to scuttle round her trolley and continue on his way towards where he lived.

  Once home, as Callie put her shopping away, she thought about the argument. It had seemed something and nothing at the time, but Morris’s reluctance to discuss it had made her wonder if it was something more. It didn’t ring true that it was about politics, unless it was about fishing. The whole town seemed to get overheated the moment the fishing industry was mentioned, particularly if anyone threw the letters EU or DEFRA into the mix. With so many in the town relying on the sea for their livelihood, it wasn’t surprising, she thought.

  Grabbing her laptop, Callie looked up the council website and searched for the councillor’s name. She was surprised to see just how much information was available to her. She could access his attendance record, record of voting and his register of interests on the site; so she set about looking at all of them. Unfortunately, the information actually included under these headings was relatively sparse. Councillor Claybourne had attended 70% of meetings, and was on a number of committees, including the cabinet and the charity committee. In fact, he seemed more active than a lot of his colleagues. His register of interests, besides listing the amusement arcade as a property owned by his spouse, just listed a number of charities that had him on the board and the church he attended. It was interesting to note that his wife owned the arcad
e but not unusual, it was possibly a tax avoidance thing, Callie thought. There was nothing to suggest why he might have been at loggerheads with David Morris.

  Deciding that there was nothing more of interest on the website, Callie finally gave up. Earlier in the week, she had been craving a weekend with nothing to do, but there was no doubt that she preferred being busy. She yawned. There was nothing else for it, an early night it was.

  Chapter 4

  Next day, after another packed Monday morning surgery, Callie was debating with herself what type of sandwich she would get once her paperwork was finished, when she came across a repeat prescription request from Anna Thompson. The request was for a salbutamol inhaler, or rather for two inhalers. Nothing unusual there as Anna was asthmatic, but Callie seemed to remember having done a similar prescription for her only the week before.

  A quick check of her records showed that Anna had indeed had some inhalers prescribed then, and the week before. In fact, she had got through far more inhalers than she should have for the last few months. Not only that, but Callie saw that there was a note on her records that she was overdue for her asthma clinic review.

  Callie asked the receptionist to contact Anna and request her attendance for review before any further inhalers would be prescribed and nipped out to the bakery to get a hummus sandwich before doing her afternoon visits.

  As always, Callie had the best of intentions to complete her visits and be back in good time for evening surgery, but she was waylaid by a request to see a prisoner at the police station. A driver had been involved in a minor accident and refused to take a breath test at the scene, apparently because he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and couldn’t blow into the device. It was remarkable how quickly he found he could manage it once Callie arrived to take a blood sample. Having been called out unnecessarily, Callie took the opportunity to go up to Miller’s office to see if he had any more news about the boatload of illegal immigrants.

  “What’s up, Doc?” Jeffries asked as soon as she entered the incident room, and then laughed at his own joke. Which was just as well, because no one else had.

  “I think he means, what can we do for you, Dr Hughes?” Miller said.

  It was gratifying to Callie that he did actually seem pleased to see her, well, at least he managed to smile.

  “I was just wondering about the body found at Fairlight? Body nine, the one with the tattoos.”

  “Several of the bodies have had tattoos,” Miller said with a frown.

  “Yes, but this one had a football crest from a British team on his calf.”

  “Not that unusual,” Miller said defensively. “It doesn’t mean that he was British.”

  “No, but it’s possible, isn’t it? Also, the place he was found. It’s all wrong.”

  Miller just raised an eyebrow.

  “I spoke with the man who found the body and it definitely wasn’t there the day before.”

  “So what?” Jeffries said. “He spent more time out at sea, then.”

  “But I spoke to an expert on the prevailing winds and tides.” She hoped she wouldn’t have to admit that her expert was Old George. “He said there was no way the body should have washed up there, he should have been found further to the east.”

  Jeffries laughed at that.

  “How long have you lived here, Doc? Haven’t you learned that strange things happen at sea?” Jeffries was clearly determined not to take her seriously, and it seemed as though Miller agreed, because he said nothing.

  “Have you tried the national missing person database?” Callie blurted out and wished she could have taken that back as soon as she said it. She could almost feel the frostiness of Miller’s response.

  “Of course. Funnily enough, we do actually know what we are doing. Nigel’s been in charge of that.” He indicated Nigel Nugent, the go-to member of the team for anything requiring computer skills, who blushed crimson as soon as his name was mentioned. Before Callie could apologise for suggesting he might not have done his job properly, Miller had turned his back and headed into his office, closing the door behind him. Jeffries wasn’t any help. He was grinning at her discomfort and shaking his head in admonishment. He looked as if he was about to wag his finger at her, so she quickly turned to Nigel.

  “I take it he wasn’t on there?” she asked.

  “N-n-no,” he said, “well, not exactly, anyway.”

  She raised a questioning eyebrow and he continued.

  “It’s not that straightforward. The missing persons register is very big, goes back years and we don’t know when this person went missing, or where from.”

  “But he only died a few days ago.”

  “Yes, so we narrowed the search to men reported missing in the last week. From the skeleton and teeth, Dr Iqbal has been able to give us the approximate age of the man – eighteen to twenty-four.” He blushed again, realising that he didn’t need to explain to Callie how pathologists worked out the age of a dead person. “And we have his height, weight and hair colour, but that still gives us over thirty possible mispers in the south east alone. More, if we make it for the country.”

  “But the tattoos?” she persisted.

  “Don’t match any of them. Not in this country, anyway. We’ve heard back from some of the international databases, but won’t get them all for a few days yet, but it’s not looking good.”

  Callie was disappointed.

  “I suppose it was too much to hope for an easy identification.”

  “I’ve left an alert on the sites in case he hasn’t been reported missing yet.” Nigel seemed eager to please, as usual.

  Callie sighed. She realised it was highly likely that her man had not yet been reported missing. If he lived alone, or was out of work, it might take several days, if not weeks for anyone to realise he had gone. There was also the possibility that he would never be reported missing at all. And that was always supposing he wasn’t one of the immigrants from the boat, a premise for which she had no real evidence. Just a gut feeling that this body didn’t fit with the others. Nothing definite that she could use to persuade Miller that she was right.

  * * *

  Having arrived late for her evening surgery, Callie had not managed to catch up, as no helpful patients had cancelled at the last minute or failed to show. She was running even later by the time she finished, only just managing to leave before the receptionist locked up the building.

  Kate was already seated at their favourite table in The Stag when she got there, and was probably already on her second pint.

  “Sorry, bit behind today,” Callie said unnecessarily.

  Kate had known her long enough to know that she usually was.

  “Can I?” Callie pointed to the half-empty glass and Kate nodded.

  “Always.”

  They stayed inside the pub as the evening was cool, Callie sipping her Pinot Grigio, the one cube of ice slowly melting in it, as Kate drank her beer somewhat faster, with a packet of crisps as an accompaniment. There was no need for small talk after their many years of friendship and Callie launched right into what was on her mind: the body on the beach below Fairlight.

  “I can’t help thinking that maybe he doesn’t fit in with the others.”

  “You have a whole bunch of bodies being washed up, he’s one more, what makes you think he doesn’t fit?”

  “Well, for a start, he was found further west, against the prevailing tide.”

  “I thought one was found at Pett Level early on, and that was where they think the survivors made it to shore?”

  “Yes, but that was on the first day, or night. The bodies were then washed up progressively to the west.”

  “But he was caught in the rocks, he could have been there since the first day and just not been found. That’s what you told me.”

  Kate’s law training made her the ideal person to bounce ideas off of, there was nothing she liked more than acting as devil’s advocate when Callie was exploring one of her more outlandish t
heories and Callie knew that if she could convince Kate, then there was a chance she was right.

  “True, but that was me looking for reasons why he wasn’t further west. I spoke to the man who found the body. He walks the beach every day and is insistent that it wasn’t there before.”

  “Perhaps, he got caught in a different current.”

  “And I spoke to Old George, the fisherman. He said not. He said the body could not have washed up where it did if it had been with the others in the boat.”

  “Ah. Old George.”

  Kate wasn’t going to be easy to convince.

  “Yes, and then there’s the tattoos.”

  “I agree, that’s different, and more convincing for a landlubber like me, but it could still fit with him being on the boat. Did any others have tattoos?”

  “Yes, one or two, but of Arabic writing, probably extracts from the Koran.”

  “Okay. Does Billy agree that the body belonged to an IC6 male?”

  Kate’s experience in criminal law meant that she was as knowledgeable as Callie about the codes the police use to identify probable ethnicity when describing a person. IC6 covered West Asian and North African ethnicity.

  “Possibly. You know as well as I do that the coding is very subjective and simply relies on skin colouring. He could easily be mixed race or even South Asian.”

  “With bodies washing up all over the place, from a known source, there seems very little to convince me that this one particular body is different.”

  “I know. But he could be.”

  “Could be what, though?”

  “He could be one of the smugglers, or have nothing to do with the boat at all.”

  “What do they say about not thinking of zebras when horses are more likely?”

  “That doesn’t mean zebras don’t exist.”

  Kate sighed; it was clear her friend was not going to give up.

  “So now you need to get some proof.”

  “Yes.” Callie was silent for a moment before admitting, “I’m just not quite sure where from.”