Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  Graham paused. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That sounds right. I’ll be getting on then. Luc, you’ll forgive me if I don’t chat to you very much during the investigation? I don’t want anyone suggesting there was contamination.’

  ‘I understand,’ Callanach replied. ‘Very sensible.’

  Graham left without further conversation. Ava walked to a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whisky.

  ‘We shouldn’t,’ Callanach said.

  ‘You’re damned right we shouldn’t,’ Ava said, ‘but we’re going to. I have about a thousand questions for you and this isn’t the right time or place.’ She pushed a measure of single malt into his hand. ‘Down it.’ She ordered. ‘You look like hell, so pull yourself together before you leave this room. If you’re not guilty, you’d best stop acting guilty.’

  ‘I want you to suspend me,’ Callanach said, putting the empty glass down on the desk.

  ‘You’ve been suspended before, back at Interpol. You hadn’t done anything wrong then and look what damage it did to your career. I’ve got your back, Luc, but I need the whole truth.’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ Callanach said.

  ‘So find a version that is,’ she replied, finishing her own drink and replacing the bottle cap. ‘Now go home. I’ve got to head off this impending hurricane with Overbeck, then I’ll join you. We’re going to go through what happened second by second, until there’s no possible space for misinterpretation. None at all.’

  It was a nice idea, Callanach thought. The only problem was that the opposite was true and when Ava found out why he’d been there, even she would start to doubt his innocence. Though that wasn’t what really bothered him. He knew perfectly well he hadn’t killed Bruce Jenson. But someone had. Straight after his visit. Using a cushion he’d touched. Coming through a door he’d kicked. What he wanted to know was who and why.

  Chapter Seven

  4 March

  It was well after 6 p.m. before Ava got away from the station and Edinburgh’s traffic wasn’t letting her go anywhere in a hurry. Fortunately, Detective Superintendent Overbeck had been out of the office all afternoon engaged in a bout of brass-kissing, so Ava wrote her a brief, bland email explaining that Callanach had been at a crime scene immediately before the event and that MIT was screening off that investigation from him. It was intellectually dishonest but technically correct, and that would have to do until Pax Graham and his team found a more appropriate suspect.

  Resting her head on the steering wheel, Ava sat outside Callanach’s apartment wondering what she was doing. She’d spent the night in his arms. Waking up and extricating themselves from one another had been more than just a little awkward, but he was one of her closest friends. She’d stared down death with Callanach at her side more than once, always knowing they wouldn’t hesitate to protect one another.

  But trouble followed him. It had found him at Interpol and seemed reluctant to leave his side now. He’d become the sort of partner most police officers would count as a blessing until she’d been promoted over him, and even then he’d bent the rules as needed to help her out. Whatever it took, she’d do the same for him now.

  Her face was a thumping mess of pain and she suspected the wound on her leg might require a dose of antibiotics in spite of Callanach’s admirable clean-up job, but all she really wanted was paracetamol and another hot bath. Climbing the few steps to Callanach’s front door, reaching out to press the buzzer for his flat, she sighed as her mobile began to ring. Caller ID showed her DS Tripp was on the end of the line.

  The day’s events had wiped her mind blank and right now, she was supposed to be at the pub celebrating two of her team’s promotions. If she took the call, she was going to have to make an excuse. She certainly couldn’t reveal where she actually was and what she was there for. God, it never rained but it dumped an entire fucking ocean on you, she thought, ending the incoming call. She’d have concocted a proper excuse by morning, and there was every chance that both Tripp and Graham’s hangovers would be painful enough that they wouldn’t be talking much anyway.

  Her phone began to ring again before she’d had a chance to put the mobile back in her bag. Ava stared at it. DS Tripp was perhaps the most sensible officer on her crew and when you combined that with his good manners, there was no way he’d call twice in rapid succession simply to remind her about a few swift ones after work. She gritted her teeth and answered, hoping beyond hope that Overbeck hadn’t read her email and was demanding her presence back at the station for an update.

  ‘Turner,’ Ava said. ‘What’s up, Tripp?’

  ‘Ma’am, you’re needed at 278b Easter Road. There’s a body. I’m on my way there now. Apparently it’s a bit chaotic,’ Tripp said.

  ‘Okay.’ Ava was already pulling her car keys back out of her pocket. ‘Where’s DI Graham?’

  ‘Still at the nursing home working with Scenes of Crime, trying to figure out which other patients, medics and visitors had access to the deceased’s room. I’ve been trying to get in touch with DI Callanach but he’s not responding at the moment.’

  Ava looked up at the window above her and hoped Callanach was okay. He’d had a bad day and as someone who’d been accused of misconduct before, she wasn’t sure how well he was going to handle a second incident.

  ‘I’ll find him,’ Ava said. ‘We’ll both be there shortly.’

  Finally, she got to press the buzzer. Callanach’s answer was simply to allow her access. He was standing holding his flat door open by the time she got to the top of the stairs.

  ‘I’ve made food,’ he said. ‘I assume you haven’t eaten anything since leaving here this morning.’

  ‘Will it keep? We’re wanted at Easter Road. You can drive. My leg hurts like hell.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I can’t go. DI Graham was right. You have to suspend me, Ava. If Overbeck decides you broke protocol this could turn out worse for you than for me, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.’

  ‘Have you written up your statement as I asked?’ Ava demanded.

  ‘Yes, of course, but there are circumstances …’

  ‘And have you taken part in any criminal activity or conspired to commit any crime in relation either to the crime scene or the victim?’ she continued.

  ‘Ava, you know I haven’t …’

  ‘Good. Then suspending you is simply going to create endless gossip and speculation. It’ll go on your record and, frankly, I don’t want to be without my most experienced DI at the moment. Now, someone’s dead and we have a job to do, so let’s go. Also, do you have any more paracetamol?’ she added, softening her tone.

  Callanach smiled at her. ‘Sure,’ he said, disappearing off in the direction of his kitchen and reappearing with pills and a bottle of water.

  They made it in under ten minutes, leaving the car down the road, one side of which had been blocked off as a tent was erected to give some privacy at street level. Easter Road led out of the city towards Leith. The area was suffering a sad decline, and the three-storey housing featured sheets hung in place of curtains and window frames that had lost more paint than remained on them. The flat in question was on the second floor with a shared entrance hall.

  Ava and Callanach donned white suits, shoe covers, gloves and hats, and prepared to enter. A sulphuric, metallic smell gave the situation away from the first-floor landing. The body had been there a while. The weather was so cold that unless the flat had been heated to an extreme, the smell would have taken a while to get so strong.

  Ailsa Lambert appeared at the front door of the flat, talking brusquely to a member of her team and handing over a camera.

  ‘You ready for us to come in and take a look?’ Ava asked her.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Ailsa replied shortly.

  Ava and Callanach shared a brief look. If Ailsa was out of sorts, then whatever was waiting for them had to be bad.

  The bathroom was tiny and the forensics team cleared out to allow them access. Ava stood with her back again
st the window and Callanach spread his legs either side of the toilet so they could both look down into the bath. Tripp appeared in the doorway as they were taking stock.

  ‘Who reported it?’ Ava asked him.

  ‘A neighbour,’ Tripp replied. ‘The smell had been getting worse over two weeks, so he finally called the police.’

  ‘Two weeks?’ Ava hissed. ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Afraid not. I suspect the neighbour might be selling some weed on an informal scale judging by the smell of his own apartment and the fact that while I was talking to him, his mobile rang repeatedly. He’d obviously just cleaned off every surface in his flat but neglected to cover up the scales on the floor in the corner.’

  ‘So he didn’t want the police in here until it got to the stage where the stench was actually affecting his clientele, is that it?’

  ‘Something like that, ma’am,’ Tripp replied. ‘The pathologist confirmed the body’s been here at least two weeks, more likely three. Judging by the photos on the walls, I’d say the deceased is the owner and resident, a Mrs Hawksmith.’

  As one, they all looked down at the woman’s body. Mrs Hawksmith was past middle age but not yet old. Each of her ankles was bound by a cable tie to a tap pipe, below the handle, at the end of the bath, leaving her legs splayed open, slightly bent, and flopped against the sides. Her wrists were bound with handcuffs over her stomach. A deep wound – Ava estimated three inches long – ran across the inner bend of her left elbow with another, shorter one, on the same wrist. Her head lolled against the side nearest them, eyes open, mouth agape, as if she were appealing for help.

  The corpse was bloated, limbs swollen and hard, a dark red colour with brown patches. The putrefaction gases were appalling, even though the doors had been open for some time. She was a large woman but not obese. Her tattoos were visible but not clear through the discolouration of her skin and there were no other obvious wounds. The goriest of tidemarks was a muddy-crimson line around the rim of the tub and the plug remained in place.

  ‘The bath was full when she bled out,’ Ava said. ‘The water must have leaked out slowly in the days that followed. Has anyone found the key to the handcuffs?’ she asked Tripp, leaning over to take a closer look at the cuffs.

  They weren’t police or military issue, nor were they the joke shop sort with the button that could be pressed to spring them open. A key had to be fitted into a central slot to release the wearer, which would have been possible if the key was within grabbing distance.

  ‘No key as yet,’ Tripp said. ‘You can get those sort of cuffs online or in sex shops. They’re bondage-type regalia. Maybe she was tomming.’

  ‘Okay, get asking the neighbours if there were men – or women, for that matter – coming to the flat at odd hours, or if Mrs Hawksmith was coming and going at unusual times. Does she have any previous convictions?’

  ‘Still checking. We don’t have a confirmed date of birth yet. She doesn’t have a passport or driving licence here that we’ve found.’

  ‘Do we know what the cut was made with?’ Ava looked around the tiny bathroom.

  ‘We haven’t found a blade or a weapon,’ Tripp said.

  ‘Really?’ Ava asked. ‘Is there blood anywhere else in the property?’ She tried to peer through the plastic sheeting beneath her feet. ‘Blood on the bathroom floor, even?’

  ‘None,’ Ailsa said, appearing behind Tripp. ‘Excuse me, young man.’

  Tripp moved out of her way to let her stand over the body with a thermometer.

  ‘Decomposition is advanced. Thank goodness it’s not warm enough for the insects to be out in force yet, or this would be an even worse situation. As it is, my estimate of death won’t be terribly precise. I don’t know how long she spent in the water after passing, but I can tell you that her death would not have been immediate. There was little clotting around the wounds, so the water was warm and that kept the blood flowing.’

  ‘How long would she have suffered?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Difficult to say, but this isn’t the deepest of cuts. Keeping the ankles up above the buttocks would have kept the bleed more constant and her heart would have continued beating for possibly four hours, maybe longer. Eventually, her heart would have stopped. She might have gone into shock and died faster. I won’t be able to give you exact figures.’

  ‘Four hours? God Almighty!’ Ava said. ‘She’d have been screaming for help. I can’t believe no one heard her.’

  ‘The window was shut, the walls are thick – the property’s got to be a hundred years old – and there’s every chance people had music on or TVs playing. Or perhaps they were used to the sound of screams coming from this flat,’ Callanach suggested.

  ‘Could she have done this to herself, Ailsa?’ Ava asked.

  ‘She could easily have put the cable ties around her ankle and the taps, then run the bath. Logically, after that, she’d have had to have closed the cuffs around her left hand, made the two incisions on her inner arm, then got her right hand into the cuffs and snapped them shut.’

  ‘Which leaves the question – where’s the blade? Even if she’d thrown it out of the bath, it would still be somewhere in the bathroom,’ Callanach said, looking around. He shifted his body forwards to give himself the flexibility to turn, then opened the toilet lid. ‘One mystery solved. No blade, but the key to the handcuffs is at the bottom of the bowl.’

  ‘Don’t touch the water,’ Ailsa instructed. ‘If someone else was here recently, we might just get some cells from the seat or beneath the rim, possibly information about sexual diseases from any urine left in the bowl.’

  Ava climbed past Ailsa to stare down into the toilet next to Callanach.

  ‘Looks like the right key to me. Small round barrel, ornate bow at the top. It’s obviously not meant for a door.’

  ‘Everyone out of here, please,’ Ailsa ordered. ‘I’ll need to get my team in to retrieve that and take samples.’

  They left one by one, regrouping in the small lounge, where photos of cats and the late Mrs Hawksmith hung on the walls.

  ‘Ailsa,’ Ava said when the pathologist had finished giving instructions to her crew, ‘is there anything she could have done to stop the bleeding? You said the victim probably had hours rather than minutes.’

  ‘If she’d had her legs free, she could have pulled the plug chain with her toes and the bleeding would have stopped sooner, if she’d thought of that. The problem is that using her stomach muscles to sit up and fiddle with the taps and chain would have made her heart pump faster and the bleed rate would have increased. She would also have been scared, panicky, not made good decisions. It’s possible she thought her screams would be heard, or perhaps she was expecting a visitor who might have helped. Tripp, how was the flat secured when police first attended?’

  ‘Locked, but the chain wasn’t across. Didn’t require much effort to bash it open, ma’am. It’s an old door.’

  ‘Right, we’ll let you get on, Ailsa,’ Ava said. ‘Looks like we’ll be seeing you again in the morning. Could you have a preliminary assessment by 11 a.m.?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Ailsa said, stripping off her gloves and stepping forwards to press gentle fingers into Ava’s forehead around the lump. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Tripp,’ Ava said. ‘I want officers canvassing the neighbourhood tonight, not tomorrow. And I want every bit of information on Mrs Hawksmith we can get. Focus on next of kin. It looks like she lived here alone, but there must be someone who’ll want to be notified. I want a briefing ready for the squad by 1 p.m. tomorrow. You can go.’

  Tripp disappeared out of the flat, looking happy to be away from Ailsa’s disapproving glare.

  ‘Are you going to answer me or should I guess?’

  ‘Slipped at Tantallon, bumped myself. No big deal. I’m still standing,’ Ava said, taking off her gloves and unzipping her overalls.

  ‘You’re limping more than standing. If you fell and bumped your head, how did you hurt your leg?’

&nbs
p; ‘The leg is actually hurting a bit.’

  Ava tried a brief grin. Ailsa didn’t return it.

  ‘Let me see,’ Ailsa ordered. ‘Come on, in the bedroom.’

  ‘Ailsa, this is a crime scene, I can’t just …’

  ‘Bedroom, now,’ Ailsa snapped. ‘I’ve got better things to do than to argue with a stubborn girl who takes too many risks. Now move.’

  Ava did as she was told, in part because Ailsa was an old friend of her mother’s and generational correctness was an involuntary response, but also because her leg really was hurting and having someone qualified take a look at it felt like a good call. It was clear from Ailsa’s sharp intake of breath that Ava’s self-diagnosis was right.

  ‘Is your tetanus shot up to date?’ Ailsa asked.

  ‘Ummm, should be. I’m sure I’d have been notified if it needed updating,’ Ava murmured.

  ‘You need antibiotics, straight away, strong ones.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you can …’

  ‘I’m a pathologist, Ava. We’ve had this discussion before. I might have stitched you up in the past, but there’s no reason for me to carry a prescription pad. And forget making an appointment with your doctor for next week sometime. You’ll have to go to accident and emergency.’

  ‘I’ve actually got quite a lot going on. Is there another option?’

  ‘There is!’ Ailsa replied brightly. ‘You can decide not to do as I say, and get an infection that at best will result in you needing time off work and at worst will require surgical intervention.’ She waited until Ava had done her jeans up again then called Callanach in. ‘Luc, she’s to go directly to the hospital. A & E. Prescription for antibiotics that you’ll have to collect immediately thereafter. Do not let her drive, or change her mind, or fail to take the antibiotics. Who put the Steri-Strips on?’

  ‘Callanach,’ Ava told him. ‘Don’t be too hard on him. I thought he did a great job.’

  ‘He did his best with a wound that should have been treated by a doctor immediately. You could have come to me when it happened as an alternative. You’ve done that before. Why not this time?’