water now?"
The detective constable, who, the DCC had been amused to learn, was
named Martin Andrews, nodded, picked up a bowl from amid the shambles
on the floor, filled it from the tap in the sink, and placed it on the
table, beside the body's head. The medical examiner thanked him again,
and took a box of tissues from his case. He soaked a handful in the
bowl, and began to wipe the thick mud from the head and face.
The police officers watched him work in silence for several minutes,
until finally he nodded and glanced up at them. "Yes," he murmured, "I
thought so." He beckoned. "See here." The three moved in, their eyes
following his pointing finger, which drew them to the body's right
temple, between the right eye and the top of the right ear. The skin
was broken and discoloured. They focused on it, each trying not to
look at the rest of the grotesque, puffy, dead face.
Duck pressed the area firmly, his fingers feeling around. "There's
been a severe blow to the head; hard enough to cause a fracture, I'd
say. What I can't say is whether it was sustained before or after the
man went into the water. There's very little blood, but that doesn't
mean anything. Only the pathologist will be able to tell you whether
the injury was sustained pre- or post-mortem. It's over to him now,
I'm afraid."
"Take a look at the wrists," Martin murmured. "Could he have been tied
up?"
The examiner frowned, but did as he had been asked. "It's possible, I
suppose," he said.
"Time of death?" asked Greatorix.
The ME looked distastefully at the victim, and sniffed. "Several days
ago. That's another for the pathologist."
"Okay, doc, fair enough; you can head off now. Give me your statement
tomorrow."
"I will' Dr. Duck glanced at his watch. "If I'm lucky, he grumbled,
"I might even find a partner for later in the day."
They listened as he squelched his way back up the narrow staircase. The
deputy chief patted the body on the shoulder with a gloved hand.
"Inconvenient of you to die," he murmured.
"Identification," said DCS Greatorix, abruptly. "Andrews, don't remove
any of his clothing .. . that'll be done at the mortuary.. . but go
through his pockets."
The young man, who was in his mid-twenties, grimaced. "Could that not
wait, boss?" he asked; it was almost a plea.
"No, it can't. Go on, lad; just think of the day when you'll be able
to order people like you to do the really dirty work." He turned to
Martin. "Fancy a breath of air, sir?"
"Do I ever." They followed in the doctor's footsteps, up the steep
stair and into Miss Bonney's hall. Martin stripped off the
all-covering scene-of-crime tunic and threw it on the floor, beside the
one that the doctor had discarded. "I won't be going down there
again," he said. He looked down at his white shirt, then at his
reflection in a mirror that hung on the wall, above the level of the
flood.
"Your wife's going to be pleased when she sees that shirt, Andy,"
Greatorix chuckled.
"What makes you think she's going to see it? This one's for the bin."
He frowned, suddenly and savagely. "I hate it when they've been in the
water, Rod. It doesn't happen very often with homicides .. . that's
assuming this is ... but I had one in Edinburgh a year or so back. What
a fucking mess he was in; much worse than that guy."
"It's never nice," the DCS said. His new deputy chief glanced at him,
privately feeling self-conscious about being higher in rank than such
an experienced and clearly capable officer. The head of CID was
somewhere in his fifties, and could have been up to twenty years older
than him. Martin knew that he had been a candidate for his job, and
guessed that it was only his age that had told against him. Graham
Morton, the Chief Constable, had made a point of telling him how highly
Greatorix was rated, but he had known that from the grapevine within
the Superintendents' Association.
"I've had a few in my time too," he continued. "They're a bugger to
begin with in terms of what you pull out, and they can get worse. I
just hope young Martin comes up with a name and address, otherwise we
could have a problem. That's quite a big river over there, especially
when it floods, and without an ID we won't have a clue where our guy
went in. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that he didn't
drift upstream. Christ, he needn't necessarily have gone in in our
area at all. I've got a bad feeling about it already, Andy. I know he
was in a state, but even at that, he looked like a bum. He needed a
shave, and his hair looked as if he'd cut it himself... and badly at
that."
"Let's wait for Andrews, then," said the DCS. He led the way out of
the front door and down on to the pavement. There was an ambulance
parked nearby; its rear doors were open and the crew, a man and a
woman, were sitting inside. Two cars were parked alongside; one
belonged to the DCS and the other to the detective constable and his
sergeant, a woman named Joan Dunn, who was sitting with Miss Bonney in
what she called her sewing room, on the upper floor of her home.
Out on the Inch, he saw a television crew. "Who are they?" he asked
his colleague.
"Grampian, I think," Greatorix replied. "Yes, I recognise the girl
who's talking to Harry Sharp; she's a reporter."
"They can't know what we're up to here then."
"Not yet; they're probably just filming the clear-up, and Harry won't
make her any the wiser. But sooner or later she'll work out that the
ambulance crew aren't here for a tea-break. Do you want to deal with
her when she does?"
"No. Like I said, this is your show."
"Excuse me, sirs." DC Andrews' voice came from behind them, from the
doorway. The head of CID waved to him to join them.
"I've been through all his pockets," the young officer reported.
"There's not a clue to his identity. There was nothing there but three
pounds seventy-four in his trouser pocket, and this, in the inside
pocket of his jacket." He handed something to Greatorix.
The object was encased in plastic. At first, Andy Martin thought it
was a driving licence, but realised quickly that if it had been it
would have borne a name. He looked closer, and saw that it was a
photograph. "Odd," the chief superintendent muttered. He glanced at
it idly for a few seconds, then handed it to the deputy chief. "Maybe
it's him, in his younger days."
Martin looked at the plastic packet. As he did, some control mechanism
within him made him stifle the gasp that sprang to his lips, and held
him straight when he felt like wobbling. With its covering, the
black-and-white photograph had survived the flood, and was clearly
recognisable. It was that of a young man, dark-haired, tall and
powerfully built, but no more, he guessed, than twenty-one or
twenty-two years old. He was looking solemnly at the camera, and he
wore a dark suit with broad lapels. Martin stared at it in silence,
The deputy chief constable tucked the likeness into the pocket of his
shirt. "I've been promising you all day that I won't interfere, Rod,"
he said, 'and I still mean it. But I think I can help here. With your
permission, I'd like to hold on to this for a day or so. I don't think
this is the man inside, but it could help us find out exactly who he
is."
"If you can do that, sir..." said the chief superintendent.
"Thanks," said Martin. He headed off towards his car. "I'll be in
touch," he called back over his shoulder. "As soon as I can."
Seven.
It takes very little to cause traffic congestion in the centre of
Edinburgh. A major fire alert in the heart of Princes Street is a
recipe for major-league chaos. Maggie Rose was stuck in it for a
while, until she called HQ and had a motorcycle officer locate her and
clear a way for her through the queues.
She had to concentrate as she followed his lead, but still thoughts of
Rufus, and of Mario, forced their way into her mind. She knew that she
had no choice but to give the boy up, and she knew that her husband
realised that also. However, what he did not know was that even if she
could have seen a way to keep him, she would probably still have opted
to hand him over. He was, after all, her father's son; taking him in
had been Mario's idea, not hers, and while she had gone along with it,
it had taken a great effort on her part. The truth was she felt
nothing for the boy.
As for Mario ... the core of her feelings for him had not changed. She
believed that she loved him, even if she could no longer force herself
to do so physically, the act having become completely abhorrent to her.
She had no illusions about the meaning of his overnight absences. At
first he had been 'working late', but recently no excuse had been
offered and no questions asked. Her outburst that morning had been a
mistake that she regretted already. She could guess where he was
spending those missing nights, and with whom, but if that was what it
took to keep them together, she could handle it. She was confident
that he was not going to leave her to move in with his cousin, and if
Paula was prepared to feed his appetites on that basis, well, it was
fair enough by her.
She pushed her musings away as her escort led her into Princes Street.
It was closed off, from Waverley Bridge to the West End, and two
uniformed constables were stationed at the Scott Monument, diverting
traffic past Jenners and up towards St. Andrews Square. Her
motorcyclist, a sergeant, spoke to one of them and she was waved
through without delay. She parked as close to the scene of the
incident as she could, about one hundred yards away, and walked the
rest.
As she approached, she counted four fire appliances parked in the
roadway, outside the pillared entrance to the Royal Scottish Academy,
with another three drawn up in the paved area to the right. At least
two dozen firefighters were milling around, and beyond them a crowd of
spectators were being marshalled by uniformed police. As Rose looked
at the scene, she realised to her surprise that no ladders were
deployed, and no hoses rolled out. She frowned, and looked for signs
of smoke coming from the grey stone building, but she saw none.
She strode past the throng and trotted up the entrance steps. There,
in the open doorway, the first person she saw was Chief Superintendent
Manny English, the uniformed commander of her division. "Where's the
fire?" she asked him.
"Out," he replied, curtly. "The staff here fought it successfully with
extinguishers."
"All that lot outside are a bit of overkill, then," said Rose.
"Perhaps that's true, but it's better to look over-cautious in
hindsight than to look negligent."
She made an effort to keep from smiling. Within the force, English had
a reputation for over-caution that bordered on the legendary. "It's
your business," she said, "Manny, yours and the firemaster's, but what
if there's another major incident this afternoon with most of the
appliances here and doing nothing, and the traffic screwed up good and
proper?"
"That's a damn good question, Maggie," said a voice from the side. She
turned to see Senior Fire Officer Matt Grogan, in his white helmet,
bearing down on her and the divisional commander. "Do you have the
gift of second sight?" he continued. "We've just had a call-out from
the Exchange district, up Lothian Road. There's been a major outbreak
in one of the new office blocks up there. It's just round the corner
from the fire station, but of course all our bloody appliances are down
here, aren't they! I need your people to clear the traffic for us,
Manny, and I need them now!"
"Yes, yes, I'll deploy officers at once." English stepped out into
Princes Street, shouting orders to a nearby inspector. Grogan was
about to follow him, when Rose caught his sleeve.
"Hold on a second, Matt," she exclaimed. "What about this incident?"
"It was deliberate, Maggie; no doubt about it. But my boys have
searched the whole place, and found no other surprises. Your man
Steele's through there. He'll bring you up to speed on it. Now I must
go. From the sound of things we've got a real fire up there, unlike
this one."
"Thanks. Good luck." Grogan shouldered his way through the door and
broke into a run; Rose turned and headed up the stairs that led into
the main hall of the Academy.
The big room was split into a number of alcoves, but she had no trouble
locating the scene of the fire; a crowd of people, one or two in
uniform, the rest informally dressed, stood directly ahead of her, all
staring into a booth on the left of the gallery. She could not see
what they were looking at, since a wall blocked her view, but she could
read the shock and distress on their faces.
"Ma'am." She turned, to see Detective Inspector Stevie Steele, as he
stepped out of an alcove on her right. He was tall and good-looking,
in his early thirties, single and something of a heart-throb, she had
heard, although he tended to keep his private life to himself. She
knew that he was a former boyfriend of Paula Viareggio, and there had
been one other dark rumour about an attraction, but Rose had always
thought that he was too smart to risk that.
"Less of the formality, Stevie," she said. "There are no other ranks
around, are there?"
"No. I was in on my own when the shout came in."
"Has there been an arrest?"
"No. It looks as if someone planted an incendiary device on a
timer."
"We'll need back-up then."
"I've got technicians on the way; we're going to need them. I'm
expecting a couple of DCs as well to start taking statements."
"Why, exactly... just what is this?"
"Didn't you see the signs outside?"
"No. I saw Manny English; that was enough."
Steele laughed. "Yes, I decided to keep well out of his way, otherwise
I might have found myself on points duty too. Actually," he said,
'what we have here is an exhibition of religious art. Do you know
anything about the subject?"
"I wouldn't know a Botticelli from a Beryl Cook," she answered,
truthfully.
"You'll find him here," the inspector told her, 'but not her. You'll
also find Titian, and El Greco, and even Dali's Cubist Christ. This is
the RSA's big summer attraction; it pulls together great works, from
various schools, and it's scheduled to run all the way into September.
It's being sponsored by the solicitors, Candela and Finch, to mark
their bicentenary, and also the refurbishment of the Academy building
itself; the opening ceremony was just getting under way when the brown
stuff hit the fan. The people you probably saw outside in the piazza
are their guests.
"The problem is that someone's torched one of the prize exhibits.
That's what they're all staring at over there; I've got the Academy's
security staff standing guard over it, to make sure no one touches it
before Arthur Dorward's lot get here."
"Bloody hell!" Rose exclaimed. "What is it? Not the Botti-what's-it,
I hope."
"No. It's a work called The Holy Trinity, by a modern Chilean artist
called Isobel Vargas. It's what you would call controversial, although
some people have gone further and called it blasphemous."
"Why so?"
"Because the Blessed Trinity are all depicted as female."
"What, you mean Mother, Daughter and Holy Ghostess?"
Thursday Legends Page 5