A Thoughtful Woman

by K T Findlay

  ‘Does that suggest something hard?' asked Peregrin.

  ‘Probably. Wood would have left fibres, so would leather, plastic, rubber… On the other hand, glass, ceramic, or a hard metal like steel would leave nothing.’

  'Was the gag in place when he was killed?'

  ‘Can't tell. That whole area was under the surface of the liquid at some point.'

  'Okay.' said Peregrin. 'Carry on.'

  ‘Apart from these wrist and ankle marks, there are no other injuries beyond those consistent with coming off a bicycle. So there are no marks of a beating, or other form of assault.'

  'There are the same fine traces of French chalk on his shorts that we found on Holmes, as well as traces of hairy string on his clothes around the waist. Rather than them both being rubber freaks which was my idea when we just had Holmes, I would now postulate that we’re looking at some form of external catheter. Possibly as simple as a bicycle inner tube held in place with string. Maybe there's something kinky about it, but more likely it was simply to avoid him making a mess.'

  'Unlike Holmes, Thomlinson has no pre-ejaculate fluid. Literally none. So in this instance it's highly unlikely that there was a sexual component, at least not from his point of view.'

  'Now, the guts of the matter. He has almost no alcohol in his stomach at all, and his blood alcohol level is zero. So, what little he did drink, he swallowed right at the end. In fact, he had virtually nothing in his stomach at all, so he certainly didn't have dinner last night. I did find evidence of a ham sandwich, and one of those rough tough mueslis in his intestines, which makes it likely that he had at least breakfast and a light lunch.'

  'He does have some alcohol in his lungs, and it's from these samples that we’re fairly sure it's bourbon of some kind. There’s no mixer present, just neat spirit, as it was for Holmes.'

  Peregrin looked bemused. ‘So what you seem to be saying, is that somebody went to the trouble of putting him in the same situation as Holmes, but Thomlinson didn't play ball. He refused to drink?'

  Felicity nodded. 'It's a guess, but it would fit what I'm seeing.'

  'Do you think he was conscious when he was killed?' asked Peregrin.

  'Can't tell for certain but I believe he was, yes.'

  ‘Is it possible for someone to override the body’s survival mechanisms, and not swallow, when drinking is the only possible way to survive? I'm assuming here, that the bourbon at some point got above his nose and he would have had to drink to clear it.'

  'For most of us, no. Our natural instinct is to survive and we tend to do whatever it takes to do that, sort of on the basis that it might turn out all right in the end.'

  'You're talking hope here?'

  'Correct. Like the hope a victim has when they're being forced by a criminal to dig their own grave. In ninety nine percent of all such cases they are going to end up dead in that hole, but they dig in the forlorn hope that they're buying themselves enough time and good will to be in the one percent.’

  'But, you don't think he played ball?'

  'If he was conscious, I know he didn't play ball. The evidence is right there. Hardly anything in the stomach, nothing in the blood and a tiny amount in the lungs. Also, there’s very little sign of stress in the larynx and the rest of his respiratory tract. You know you get a sore throat when you take a really bad cough? That’s because you’re damaging the lining. Thomlinson has no sign of that at all, which makes me suspect he didn’t really cough as such. Put that with everything else and I think his first breath of bourbon caused the larynx to go into spasm.’

  ‘So how could he have avoided coughing?' asked Peregrin.

  ‘The way we normally breathe is to leave some air in the lungs after we exhale. That's quite handy when a bit of gin and tonic goes down the wrong way, because that little bit of air is enough get a cough going and help expel the intruder. It’s possible to breathe out that last little bit, but we have to do it deliberately.'

  Peregrin thought. 'If he was unconscious at the time, wouldn't his body have been breathing normally and so have that last little bit of air at the end of each breath?'

  It was Felicity's turn to think. 'That might depend on just how deep an unconscious state it was. It would have to be very deep to turn off such an autonomous system. Even when you see a deeply unconscious person dying of pneumonia, they still struggle hard to try and take that one last breath. If I had to put money on it, I’d still go for him being conscious and acting very deliberately.’

  Peregrin laughed lightly. 'Man, if you're right, the killer must have been absolutely pissed.’ He shook his head in disbelief. 'And out of all your looking around, did you find anything that might help us identify who the killer is, or where he was killed?'

  'Just one thing.' Felicity smiled and held up a sealed plastic bag. 'One red pubic hair, jammed at the bottom of the lower jaw between the gum and the lip. If he'd swallowed a huge amount like Holmes, I'd have been more likely to find it in his stomach.’

  Peregrin stroked his chin. 'A pubic hair in the mouth implies cunnilingus, or fellatio. Have you found any trace of sexual fluids on either man's face, in their mouths, or anywhere else?'

  ‘No. The only traces of sexual fluids we found, were their own, by which of course I mean Holmes.'

  'So, is someone deliberately trying to mislead us do you think?'

  Felicity shrugged. 'If the oral sex took place a significant time before they died, they may well have washed. Holmes’s was caught in his teeth, and firmly at that. Only a vigorous brushing or flossing would have taken it away. Thomlinson's is a bit more troubling. It's possible it was just resting there and not causing any irritation, but it's much more likely that it would have eventually washed away. So with him, we would be looking at a much narrower window of time.’

  ‘Well let’s see. He was working at the furniture shop until just after noon, and according to you probably died somewhere between midnight and two. You reckon he had a sandwich, so adding that to the drive back from Dalton, and getting changed into his cycling clothes, we've probably got between 1 PM and 2 AM where everything happened. But he may have been tied up for a large part of that, given the bruises on his ankles and wrists.' mulled Peregrin.

  Felicity held up her hand. 'Not necessarily. It's possible he just struggled hard for a shorter time.'

  ‘But,' countered Peregrin, 'you said he didn't have any dinner, so…'

  'He was most likely tied up from at least 6 PM to when he was killed.' completed Felicity. 'Which means he had a five hour window in which he could have had a liaison, and had a shower or a bath.'

  'Or not.'

  ◆◆◆

  Thursday dawned cold and clear, something Selina was keenly aware of as she drove along Bleak Road an hour earlier than usual. She’d opened the driver side flap of the Mini's afterthought heater to get her feet warm, but the rest of her still felt cold. Except her ears of course. They were still burning after the telling off she’d got from Emma about raising the flags so late, and she was quite right of course. If Emma hadn’t seen them, she and Alan would have had no alibi at all and then what might have happened?

  Sally’d felt bad at the time and profusely apologised, promising to be more careful in future, but she wasn’t the type to endlessly agonise when things had turned out all right, and they had. Today was a new day and Selina suspected that come daylight the countryside around Throcking would be swarming with police officers looking for Thomlinson's bike, so she wanted to be well out of it before they started.

  Peregrin, Susan, Tony and Eric spent the morning interviewing more people on the person’s of interest list, before meeting up for a late lunch at the Cutty Sark Café just after 2 PM.

  'Well, that's been a complete waste of a day.' said Eric after they’d finished eating.

  'No it hasn't.' chided Susan. 'We've eliminated another dozen people from that list.'

  'Yeah, but we’re still in the dark on pretty much everything.' Eric continued, keen for a grizzle.r />
  'The bike search team hasn't had much success either.' added Tony. 'I called them on the radio just before I came in.'

  Peregrin had a thought. 'I suppose they've been looking for signs of a collision?'

  Tony shook his head. 'Mostly, that's true. But they've also been looking for signs on the edges of the roads that might indicate a crash.'

  'How about that corner where you crashed? After all, it had oil on it.'

  'Not any more.' said Susan. 'I made it safe by sprinkling dirt on it before the tow truck arrived.'

  'How about before you crashed? Did you see any signs of another crash?' persisted Peregrin.

  Tony shook his head again. 'No, but I doubt that we would have anyway. My car made a hell of a mess of the verge. If a push bike had gone off there, the car would have obliterated any trace of it. I do know there wasn't a bike in the ditch, because it would have been embedded in the radiator!'

  On the drive back to Throcking, much to Susan's surprise, Peregrin took a detour into the lanes in the Sky river valley.

  'Where are we going sir?' she asked.

  ‘Following an instinct. I want to have a look at your crash site. It's not that I don't trust you, there's just something niggling in the back of my mind.'

  He parked slightly uphill from Tony's accident site and they both got out. Peregrin looked carefully at the sprinkled dirt on the road. In it he could see the tyre tracks of perhaps a dozen cars which had been down the road since.

  ‘You did a good job. It's no longer slippy at all.’

  'Thank you sir. But that's not really why we’re here, is it?' asked Susan.

  Peregrin smiled. 'I was thinking of something you told me Tony said after the crash, that it wasn't personal. What if it was? Not to Tony I mean, but to Thomlinson?'

  'You mean it was put down specifically to get Thomlinson?'

  'This road doesn't get much traffic. You can see that by the tyre tracks through your clean up.’ said Peregrin, pointing at the dirt on the tarmac. ‘The kind of sick bastards who pour oil just in front of a corner, like to see the results. If it was just a general prank, they'd have done it on a busier road, otherwise they could have beeen waiting a hell of a long time. So, if it really was deliberately put here, perhaps it was meant for somebody specific?’

  'It's a thought.' agreed Susan. 'Where are you going?'

  ‘To see what's on the other side of this hedge.’ said Peregrin as he climbed down into the ditch. ‘There’s a gap here… and what do you know… By God there are times when it's hard not to be smug!'

  Susan goggled at the bike. 'That was amazing! How do you know it's his?'

  He laughed. 'I don't. But what are the odds of it belonging to somebody else?’ He pointed to the warped front wheel. 'It's been in a prang. And look here at the tyre. You see this section has a bit of a sheen on it that the rest doesn’t? I reckon the rider locked their brakes as they hit the oil, hence just that small shiny patch. He came off, and the wheel warped when it went into the ditch.'

  He straightened up. 'The question then is…'

  'Where did he go next?' said Susan.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ◆◆◆

  Selina had had a short but interesting day. Helen had found another potentially regular client, who wanted an ongoing governess style fantasy. The three of them had spent the first hour from nine to ten discussing the client's desires and negotiating boundaries. Then, over the following two hours she watched Helen lay the groundwork for the ongoing relationship and explore where the man's limits really lay.

  'The thing about guys like that,’ Helen explained over lunch, 'is that they usually can't handle what they ask for. So when they come in saying they want this and they want that, you have to take it with a pinch of salt and spend the first session finding out what you can actually do.’

  'And have you decided what we’re going to do?' asked Selina.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I'm thinking about what you said two days ago, about what will happen if we get picked up in the Holmes murder, and the press get wind of it.’

  Helen shrugged. 'We'll have to play that game as the cards fall. For now, I'm just crossing my fingers it won't happen, and it will be business as usual. Having said that though, we've got nobody else today so let's call it quits.'

  ◆◆◆

  Freddy and James had organised themselves into four hour shifts, like sentries, to maintain a round the clock watch on Sally. James was in the middle of a dream where he was rowing a boat in Coveton Bay, looking up at Carol and Terry Walker canoodling at the top of the bluffs. He watched a huge, warm smile bloom across Carol’s face as Terry kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes in sensuous satisfaction as her husband massaged her shoulders, and then he shoved her, hard.

  James exploded out of the bed, landing with his feet spread and his fists up, ready to take on all comers.

  Freddy was staring at him in disbelief. ‘What the hell was that about?’ he demanded. ‘I just tapped your shoulder!’

  James looked about him, still on full alert. It took him a few seconds before he accepted the reality that he was in the bedroom in Little Throcking, not in a rowing boat watching a murder. ‘Sorry.’ he said. ‘Bad dream.’

  A smile of amusement flickered across Freddy’s face. ‘Then it’s just as well I woke you. Time to go. Blondie’s on the move again, probably coming here.’

  They grabbed a hot drink and some toast before setting out on their walk. They got their timing almost perfect, arriving at the bottom of their street just in time to see Helen and Selina disappearing around the café corner. Knowing both women were at Miss Helen’s business premises, the men took a detour up Cob Lane to see if they could get a look at Selina’s Mini.

  ‘I tell you, there must be a trick to it.’ said James for the fourth time that morning. ‘She’s not strong enough to manhandle someone like Holmes in and out of something like that.’

  Freddy just let it flow over him, as he usually did when his colleague got fixated on something. It was sometimes better to let him have his head on these occasions, rather than argue about possible alternatives. On this occasion, he was glad of his reticence.

  James had opened the Mini’s driver door in less than thirty seconds and was first in to take a peek. He withdrew his head just ten seconds later. ‘You need to see this.’ he whispered.

  Freddy shot him a quizzical look before ducking his head. Ten seconds later he was out as well. ‘I see what you mean!’ Then Freddy eased himself carefully into the driver’s seat, without adjusting anything, and pulled the lever by the roof.

  James stepped to the rear to examine the now wide open back doors. ‘Amazing! Try and close them… Now open again… Brilliant. What are those things on the sides of the floor? Oh wow…’

  They played for another five minutes before carefully putting everything back as it had been, and returning to their walk.

  ‘Well, she’s not just a gifted amateur.’ suggested Freddy. ‘Whoever put that little lot together for her knew what he was doing.’

  James glared ahead. ‘Now are you convinced?’

  Freddy smiled. ‘About her doing something to Terry? No –’

  James cut him off. ‘There is no way an amateur would have a car like that built to kill a clever dick lawyer and a bent cop, no way in hell! This was a professional job, and Terry’s the only one of the three worth the effort.’

  Freddy pursed his lips briefly. ‘I have something to tell you. The phone got connected this morning and I called Base just before I woke you. The number plates on that Mini belong to a couple living on the other side of Wesser Bech, a small rural holding.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So… the owners bought that car just two years ago, after Terry disappeared, and before that it was a primary school teacher’s runabout in Shrewsbury.’ said Freddy calmly. ‘Whatever it was modified for, it wasn’t Terry.’

  James flexed his fingers meaningfully. ‘Why don’t we
go and visit these people this afternoon and ask them why they’re letting a killer borrow their car?’

  Freddy did his best to keep the smile of his face. ‘Because they’re in Italy. I reckon she’s nicked it and they don’t know it’s gone. But the important thing is there can’t be a link between Terry and that car. The timing’s wrong.’

  At the end of their walk, Freddy attempted to instil a degree of good cheer into his colleague by buying him morning tea in the Cutty Sark café, where they could keep a weather eye on Miss Helen’s studio. Several games of chess accompanied by numerous cups of coffee provided a good enough reason for them to remain there until the café could serve them lunch. When Selina left the studio, Freddy and James ordered their dessert before leisurely returning home to spend the rest of the day watching Sally do her paintings.

  That night, when they were sure Sally had gone to bed and Little Throcking likewise, they used lock picks to break into Miss Helen’s studio. After three hours going over the place with a fine tooth comb and putting everything back exactly as they found it, the only thing they came away with was an increased respect for the ingenuity of the human race.

  ‘I’d say Holmes and Thomlinson got off lightly given what I saw tonight.’ said Freddy in awed tones as James made the tea once they were back at home.

  James plonked his tea onto the kitchen table. ‘Perhaps,’ he said thoughtfully, thinking back to the amount of bloodied paper towels they’d found in the rubbish bin, ‘she just doesn’t want to make a mess? That’s the only thing I can think of…’

  Freddy, remembering some of the clamps and other toys hanging on the walls and locked in their display cabinets, had another suggestion. ‘Possibly, but there were loads of things in there that would hurt without making a mess. There’s something else going on here, something that we’re not getting…’

  16 Now that’s a bit different

  ‘Did you know Thomlinson well Miss Wills?’ asked Peregrin.