One Under

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Impossible?’ Slider asked, unsure now whether he really wanted his doubt to be vindicated.

  ‘Nothing’s impossible, especially if the vehicle’s travelling at speed. But it’s not what I’d expect to see.’

  He carried on, whistling as he went. It was his habit to whistle while cutting. Slider didn’t think he knew he was doing it. After a moment, Slider recognized the tune as ‘Little Deuce Coupe’, and shuddered. He would not want to examine Freddie’s subconscious, he thought.

  ‘Plentiful traces of lubricant in the rectum and vagina,’ Freddie said when they came to that bit. ‘No semen, unfortunately. It looks like recent sexual activity.’

  ‘Rape?’ Slider asked.

  ‘I think probably not,’ said Cameron. ‘Nothing to suggest it wasn’t consensual. There’s some bruising of the vaginal wall but no laceration. No defence injuries, no sign that she was tied down or restrained.’

  ‘What about the injury to the navel?’

  ‘Yes, I’d say some kind of piercing was ripped out, but that could happen during consensual sex too. It’s a pity the pubic area has been waxed. It’s usually a fertile ground for trapping foreign hairs. Ah well, let’s have a rummage about inside, shall we?’

  Cameron stopped whistling when he came to the examination of the brain. The bit Slider liked least was the whine of the electric saw as it took the top off the skull, like a power tool for a boiled egg. The student was swaying a little on his feet, though whether that was from squeamishness or fatigue Slider couldn’t tell. It had been a long session – but informative.

  ‘Well,’ Freddie said at last, ‘you can take your pick as to the cause of death. ‘Transection of the thoracic spine. Crush injuries to the liver. Personally, I’d go with brain damage.’

  ‘From the fractured skull,’ Jason said, eager to show he was still awake. ‘Impact with a motor vehicle going at speed.’

  ‘The back of the skull is certainly fractured, but it’s not the busting of the bone that does the trick, as my friend Chief Inspector Slider here will tell you.’

  ‘Shearing stresses,’ Slider said intelligently.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Freddie. ‘Almost every blow to the head has some rotational component, which causes the layers of brain tissue at different depths to slide over one another, resulting in lesions and ruptured blood vessels.’

  ‘But—’ Slider began.

  ‘Quite,’ said Cameron, flicking him a look. ‘That’s not the case here. What caused the fatal damage here is contrecoup. You see, when a head that’s free to move is struck a heavy blow, the damage usually occurs directly under the point of impact. However, if a head is falling and strikes a rigid surface, the brain tissue is projected away from the blow, and the damage is found at a point diametrically opposite the point of impact. Clear?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Which is what we call contrecoup, from the French. Contra as in opposite—’

  ‘And coup as in ice-cream,’ Slider finished for him. Jason gave him a look. ‘Just a little tension humour.’

  ‘To help create more tension,’ said Freddie. ‘Now, in this case, the blow was to the anterior skull, but the frontal poles are contused and the undersurface of the frontal lobes are lacerated. There’s your contrecoup. Also the thin bone of the anterior fossa is fractured, which, curiously, is caused by the forward momentum of the brain causing a partial vacuum in the fossa for a fraction of a second.’

  Jason nodded intelligently. Slider’s knowledge of anatomy was more basic, but he got the idea. ‘So you’re saying she fell?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably from a considerable height, landing on her back and striking her head against a hard surface, causing death. In my opinion, these injuries are not consistent with impact from a moving vehicle.’

  Now Jason was looking puzzled. ‘So – what does that mean? If she was found face down in a ditch—’

  ‘That’s not where she died,’ Slider concluded sadly. He had the answer to his question now, and he wasn’t glad he had been vindicated. ‘Someone took her body out there and dumped it.’

  Freddie looked at his old friend and said bracingly, ‘She might well have fallen by accident, from a high window or a balcony. She was probably pretty wasted. There was no food in her stomach, but quite a lot of vodka, and who knows what else. I’m going to send off for a tox screen. Partying too hard, drinking, drugging, maybe having rumpy pumpy against the balcony rail and went over. It needn’t be murder.’

  Jason looked impressed at the word. ‘Murder?’ he repeated softly.

  ‘I know,’ said Slider. ‘Thanks, Freddie.’

  Probably not murder. But then, Tyler Vance probably wasn’t murdered either. Didn’t make any difference to their deadness. And the sex-plus-death-plus-dumping-the-body made it a coincidence too far. He knew he was going to have to investigate this one, and that it wouldn’t be easy.

  FOUR

  Adams Family Values

  Porson shook his head. ‘It’s not a murder investigation – and God knows we don’t want one. Couldn’t afford it. You’ll have to make do with what you’ve got.’

  ‘Falling from a height could be an accident,’ said Slider, ‘but someone tried to get rid of the body, and that looks suspicious.’

  Porson was irritated. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? You know the financial situation. I’m like bloody Canute sticking his finger in the dyke! Borough Command scrupulizes every penny we spend. I can’t put in for big biccies for something that’s probably nothing. Uxbridge will follow up the Harefield end and ten to one they’ll nail the bugger that dumped the body – if that’s what happened.’

  ‘Doc Cameron’s report will say—’

  ‘Yes, yes, not consistent with blah blah blah. That’s his opinion. You can look into what she was up to, see if there’s any connection with the Vance death, and that’s my best offer.’ He cocked an eye. ‘You’re a chief inspector now, Slider. You’re on the inside. It’s not them and us now, it’s us and us. You know the score.’

  Like Klemperer, Slider agreed silently. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  Porson softened. ‘You’ve got to work within the restraints,’ he said. ‘But I’ll see what I can do about replacing Hollis.’

  Hollis, Slider thought as he trudged away. I keep forgetting and then being reminded.

  Connolly went back to the Adams home, along with a woman constable, Lawrence, on the basis that a uniform sometimes helps to concentrate minds. ‘But don’t make any suggestion that the death was anything other than a traffic accident,’ Slider instructed Connolly. ‘Officially you’re just trying to find out who she might have been with on Saturday night.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Connolly said.

  ‘And be very careful about mentioning Vance. There was nothing in the media at the time, so we don’t want to spark anything off now. Make sure Lawrence understands.’

  ‘I’ll mind her, boss. Don’t worry.’

  The scene was very different when they got to Birdwood House, as they could see even from the yard below. ‘It looks like open house,’ Lawrence said. The front door was ajar and there were people on the balcony, standing around chatting or going in and out.

  ‘Janey, your woman’s having a wake,’ Connolly said. ‘We’d better get up there while there’s anything left to see.’

  It was clear that Mrs Adams, awake, clean and dressed this time, was taking full advantage of being the centre of attention. Neighbours had come round to share in the drama, and it had spread to the rest of the block, so that there were little knots on most balconies with their arms folded, having a good oul’ natter, as Connolly observed to herself. Inside the flat, someone had made an effort at clearing up. All the fast-food containers had gone from the kitchen, and on the counter instead there were packets of biscuits and sausage rolls that visitors had brought, while a small but dedicated team was making relays of tea and handing out mugs.

  The festive atmosphere intensified as you got nearer the heart of it, the si
tting room where Mrs Adams was enthroned on the sofa, nose and eyes red and tissue in hand, alternately weeping and eulogizing her lost child, while her immediate companions plied her with tea and sympathy.

  ‘Would you look at the carry-on of her,’ Connolly muttered to Lawrence. ‘Her kid’s dead and she’s going for an Oscar. Name a’ God, it’d sicken you.’

  At the sight of Connolly and Lawrence, Mrs Adams’s moaning escalated to wailing. ‘My baby! I can’t stand it! My Kaylee’s dead! Oh, who could do such a thing! Oh, I think I’m going out of my mind!’

  This was the cue for several of the hangers-on to give the police stern and disapproving looks, and one of them tried to interpose herself between them and the grieving mother and said, ‘Can’t you leave her alone? You can see the state she’s in!’

  ‘We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs Adams,’ Connolly said, ignoring the stranger. ‘We’d like to take a look at Kaylee’s room, if you don’t mind. There may be some clue there that will help us find who she was with.’

  Increased sobbing. ‘They don’t know! All this time and they still don’t know who killed my baby!’

  Connolly took that for permission and backed out. ‘You circulate, see what you can get from the visitors,’ she told Lawrence. With the prevailing excitement they’d probably be eager to talk. ‘I’ll find the bedroom.’

  It wasn’t hard to find in a two-bedroomed flat. It was slightly bigger than the mother’s, about fifteen feet by twelve, and had the same cheap beige carpet and off-white walls, both much marked and worn. There were two single divan beds, one down either side, with a dressing table and mirror between the heads. At the foot of one bed was a wicker chair painted mauve by an amateur hand. Against the short wall by the door was a narrow Ikea wardrobe and beside it a matching three-drawer chest. Surprisingly, for such a small space, it was relatively tidy. Both beds had been made – at least, the duvets had been pulled up and straightened – and though there was a heap of clothes on the chair, and belongings cluttered the tops of both dressing table and chest, nothing had been left on the floor, and there were no empty plates or food detritus anywhere.

  The bed under the window didn’t have much wall space, but it was decorated with Disney princesses and mermaids, so Connolly assumed that was Julienne’s. On the opposite wall, above the other bed, was a poster, old and creased and slightly torn at one corner, of One Direction, with a lipstick kiss imprinted on the face of Harry Styles. Long loved, but now forgotten? Or perhaps the love had been bequeathed to the next generation.

  On the dressing table there were some half-used, crusty bottles of nail varnish in rather Goth colours, a sticky near-empty tube of foundation, a grubby zipper bag containing a few tired and used-up cosmetics, a brush clogged with hair and a set of eyelash curlers with one handle broken off. There were several well-thumbed copies of Bliss magazine (headline stories ‘I KISSED BRITNEY SPEARS’ and ‘I WIPED MY BUM ON A SOCK!’ – o tempora! O mores!) and some Julienne-sized knickers and socks, clean, that had not been put away. On the top of the chest were more ten-year-old’s clothes, a drawing pad covered in princesses and a muddle of felt-tip pens, dolls, much-abused tweenie storybooks, bits of ribbon, hair ties, screwed-up tissues. The wardrobe was crammed with clothes, cheap, shabby, and many clearly Julienne’s.

  A sense of being watched made Connolly turn. Julienne had oozed quietly up to the door and was leaning against the frame there, her face set in an expression of mixed boredom and misery that said nothing was any good any more and it never would be again. She was wearing the same pink pedal pushers but with an outsize grey jumper pulled down vampishly to expose one bony shoulder, and today she was definitely wearing lipstick, though it didn’t seem to have cheered her up.

  ‘Hello,’ Connolly said in a friendly way.

  Julienne shrugged. Then she said, ‘Is that lady policeman with you?’

  ‘That’s my friend Jilly,’ Connolly said. ‘She’s all right.’

  Julienne said listlessly, ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Hoping to find something that’ll tell us where your sister was on Saturday night.’

  ‘She don’t keep her nice stuff here,’ Julienne said. ‘Mum keeps nicking it. She sells it to buy coke and stuff.’

  Connolly wanted to encourage her. ‘So this is your room now?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s hers too, but she’s not here much, not now.’ Evidently the past tense was not registering with the child yet. Kaylee was away, but would come back.

  ‘I expect you miss her.’

  ‘She comes back to see if we’re all right,’ Julienne said, as if Connolly had criticized her.

  ‘She buys you things? Gives you money?’ Connolly asked. A nod. ‘I expect it was her bought that nice telly. Ah, she’s a good sister, so she is.’

  There was a faint lightening of the gloom. ‘You don’t arf talk funny,’ Julienne said.

  ‘If you went to Dublin, they’d think you talked funny,’ said Connolly. She could see the idea intrigued the child. While interest was sparked, she went on quickly. ‘So where was Kaylee keeping her stuff?’

  Julienne opened her mouth to answer, then frowned. ‘You’re the filth,’ she said. ‘I’m not s’posed to tell you stuff.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Me mum. She said if I told you stuff you’d get the social in and they’d take me away.’

  ‘Ah, that’s a different class o’ police she’s talking about. We’re not that sort. We’re here to try and help find out what happened to your sister. We’re the good guys, see?’

  Julienne looked as if she didn’t quite buy that, but she was still leaning against the door frame, which proved she was receptive – or perhaps just lonely. Either way, Connolly primed her with a neutral question to keep her moving. ‘Is it you doing the tidying up?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum messes everything up. Kaylee said we don’t have to live like that, so she started making the lounge nice, an’ in here. I try and do a bit. But Mum don’t care, and that Jaf just drops stuff everywhere.’

  ‘So where does Kaylee keep her stuff now?’ Connolly asked again, but casually.

  This time the answer came easily. ‘Round Deenie’s, I ’spect. She’s her best mate. That’s where she went Sat’dy. I reckon she sleeps there an’ all, when she don’t come back here.’

  ‘Isn’t it nice to have the bedroom to yourself?’

  ‘I s’pose.’ Another shrug, which sent the shoulder of the jumper slipping further towards the elbow. She hauled it up a bit and went on, her lower lip trembling slightly. ‘I got no one to talk to. Mum’s out all the time, or when she’s here, she’s out of it. I wish Kaylee’d come back.’

  Connolly reined in pity. ‘So, this Deenie’s her best mate. Where does she live?’

  ‘Round the corner. Kaylee says soon as she’s sixteen she’s getting out. She’s getting a place of her own, and then she says I can go and live with her. Mum wouldn’t care.’ It was said as a matter of fact, without bitterness. ‘She’s making good money now, Kaylee, and she says she’ll get me in on it when I’m old enough. I wish I was older. I hate being a kid.’

  ‘What’s she making good money at?’ Connolly asked.

  ‘She never said,’ Julienne answered indifferently. ‘I think she keeps the money up Deenie’s an’ all. It’s not here, anyway. She used to keep some in a box under the bed but Mum found it and her and Jaz done it all.’

  ‘I thought his name was Jaf?’

  ‘Jaz was the one before. I think they’re brothers.’ She stopped and yawned hugely, reminding Connolly of a kitten that any moment would simply pass out into sleep.

  ‘So whereabouts does Deenie live?’ she asked. Julienne shrugged, her eyes heavy. ‘It’s important, pet. You said round the corner – d’you mean the flats?’

  ‘Nah, one of them houses, across the road.’ She gestured with her head. Then she yawned again.

  ‘You look as though you need a kip,’ Connolly said. ‘Why don’t you get on your bed and re
ad a book – you might drop off.’

  ‘Mum might need me,’ Julienne said.

  ‘She’s got plenty of people with her just now,’ Connolly said.

  Lawrence worked the visitors, who were mostly only too happy to talk about the terrible tragedy. But none of them knew anything useful. The general opinion was, not withstanding their current sympathy for her as a bereaved mother, that Mrs Adams was a terrible parent, and her carryings-on were shocking. Kaylee had been a little monster and it had been touch and go whether she’d be taken into care, but they hadn’t seen much of her recently. They had always predicted she’d come to a sticky end, and now they were vindicated, though of course you wouldn’t wish that end on anyone, knocked down and the bloke didn’t even have the decency to stop. Hit-and-runners should be strung up. And, said a minority group – though they might have been articulating a more general opinion – being killed the way she was had probably saved Kaylee from getting into worse trouble. It was Julienne they felt sorry for.

  ‘Not sorry enough to do anything about it,’ Lawrence remarked as they walked down the stairs again. ‘Did you notice not one of them spoke to the kid, or offered her a cuppa tea. Someone could have taken her into their house while all this is going on. And how come the kid hasn’t got any friends? School’s been out half an hour and not one kid has shown up at the door.’

  ‘Maybe they feel intimidated by the crowd,’ Connolly said. They emerged into the yard, which was empty. In her day, it would have been full of kids playing out, but kids didn’t do that any more. They’d be indoors, watching telly or playing computer games. Would it killya to get out a skippin’ rope or a feckin’ ball once? She addressed the missing hordes. Sure God you’ve got all your lives to be grown-ups.

  ‘So,’ said Lawrence, ‘who’s this Deenie person?’

  Lawrence went back to the station. Connelly called it in and reported, and Gascoyne got the O’Hares’ address for her from the Vance file. They lived in Collingbourne Road, a slip of a terrace parallel with Bloemfontein Road and slotted in between it and Ormiston Grove like a makeweight in a box of chocolates. Connolly decided to go straight round there. There was still an hour before end of shift, and the girl Deenie ought to be home from school by now.