by James Oswald
Shoved under a stack of forms that are nothing to do with me whatsoever, I dig out something a bit more interesting. Initial pathology report on a dead body pulled from the Thames a few days ago. Not my case, not anyone’s case as far as I’m aware. It’s not the sort of thing we usually deal with, so it’s probably been mislaid by one of the other teams we share this building with. There’s a report number on file though, so I bring up the details on my computer. I could kid myself I’m just looking to see who it should be passed on to, but really I’m just naturally inquisitive. Sipping at the foul-tasting coffee, I start to piece together the story of the last few hours of someone who had an even worse day than me.
Steve Benson was apparently a freelance journalist. There’s links to a few of his articles in major newspapers and magazines, so he must have been quite good at it. A quick look at the dates on his bylines suggests things weren’t going so well for him recently. Still, enough to jump off a bridge into the Thames? That’s what the initial conclusion seems to be. Suicide’s not all that rare, especially in young men.
I tap a couple of keys, bring up the name of the detective who’s prepared the report so far. I’m expecting someone from another unit, so it surprises me to see Detective Constable Dan Penny’s name there. No wonder he’s so grumpy the whole time if he’s getting this sort of thing dumped on him.
With nothing better to do until Professional Standards arrive, I pick up the pathology report and start to read it. I’m not sure why it’s been printed, rather than attached electronically to the case file, but someone’s gone to the trouble. That they’ve then dumped it on my desk along with a load of other stuff is more of the kind of chaotic filing I’m used to in this place. The further I get into the report though, the more I wonder whether this wasn’t put here on purpose, and my foul-tasting coffee goes cold and forgotten as I read on.
Steve Benson’s lungs were filled with water, so he definitely drowned. Indications were he’d not been in the river more than a few hours though, which is a bonus. Get the tide right, and chances are you’ll be swept out into the North Sea, never to be seen again. He was fully clothed when they found him, but his feet were bare. Again, not unusual for a suicide, oddly enough. It’s habit to kick off your shoes before jumping in the sea, apparently. There’s no indication as to whether he wore spectacles, and I click back to one of his articles to see the author photograph just to check. That’s another thing people do, take off their glasses. He’s not wearing them in the only picture I can find, and I reach out for some paper to scribble down a note to check that. Then I remember this isn’t my case. Will never be my case. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
It’s only when I get to the detailed pathology report that I open the pad and start to write. There are some unusual anomalies, faint marks around wrists and ankles that could be ligature marks, bruising around the ribs and thighs suggesting Mr Benson might have been punched and kicked not long before death. A puncture wound in the crook of his left elbow must be from a recent injection, but blood toxicology results have yet to come through.
I look at the page in my exercise pad filling up with notes for beginning an investigation.
Suicide/unlikely
Follow up path. report. More detail on markings. Drugged?
Tortured? Why?
Background – state of mind. What was he working on?
Last known movements
Speak to next of kin/colleagues
‘What’s that you’re working on?’
I look up in surprise. My least favourite detective constable has managed to creep up on me, I’m so absorbed in this new mystery. Then I remember it’s his case.
‘Nothing. Just getting things straight in my head.’ I shut the pad over the pathology report, even though I doubt he’d be able to read my handwriting from that distance. The computer screen’s facing towards me, but I shut down the window anyway.
‘Well, time’s up. PS are here and waiting.’ He sneers at me. ‘I’d wish you good luck, but you don’t deserve it.’
‘You were a junior member of the team for Operation Undertaker, is that not correct, Detective Constable?’
I’m glad now of the interruption that stopped me getting wasted last night. If I thought it was bad being given a dressing-down by DS Bailey, the interview with Chief Inspector Jennifer Williams from Professional Standards is far worse. For one thing, she’s being nice. I’m always suspicious of that. She’s got a young constable with her taking notes. He keeps giving me a look that is half warning, half a little cartoon thought bubble with ‘help’ written in it in very small type. Nobody bothered to introduce him before we got started, which is another reason why Williams’s niceness worries me.
‘Junior as in my rank, or in my input into the operation, ma’am?’ I’ve made an effort to look tidy today, which means I’m uncomfortable in my clothes as well as the whole situation.
‘How would you define your role, then?’ Williams has a smile that’s all teeth and doesn’t reach her eyes.
‘I was first point of contact for Pe— . . . Detective Inspector Copperthwaite while he was undercover. Mostly he’d text me updates, occasionally phone. I was cleared to go to the office if necessary. We’d built an identity for me too should it be needed.’
Williams takes a moment to process this, ticks something off in her own notepad as the unnamed constable writes it all down. It’s quite unnecessary. Everything’s being recorded, after all.
‘What was your relationship with Detective Inspector Copperthwaite?’ Williams keeps her tone flat as she asks the question, but I can see the meaning behind it writ large across the constable’s face. He’s younger than me, early twenties if I’m any good at guessing. He knows how old I am, how old Pete was, and he’s heard the station gossip. Is he shocked? Wondering what Pete had that he could hook a young thing like me? What kind of person I am who’d fuck a senior officer in the hope of an easy promotion? I know nothing about this young constable, not even his name, and yet he’s so certain he knows everything about me.
‘He was my boss. He gave me orders, I carried them out.’
Williams raises an eyebrow, the first readable tic I’ve seen on her face since the interview started. ‘You worked together for a long time. Both of you moved over from the old unit when it was closed down.’
‘As did half of the station, ma’am.’ I hold her gaze. This whole set-up is meant to be intimidating, put me on the defensive, but I am utterly calm. I know I’ve done nothing wrong, but I also don’t care if they try to throw the book at me. What’s the worst that can happen? They can sack me, but I’m not going to jail for this. I’d be there already if they thought I was guilty of anything serious.
‘Look, ma’am. I know what people say about me and Pete. Frankly I expected better from Professional Standards than just listening to the station gossip.’
The smile never falters as Williams ticks off something else in her book. ‘Actually, this interview is only one small part of the investigation into DI Copperthwaite’s death. Station gossip, as you so eloquently put it, is another. There are many strands to unravel before I get to the bottom of this, but one of them is determining whether there was more to your relationship than is professional. That would be a breach of conduct, after all.’
‘Well, you can satisfy yourself on that score. Despite what a lot of ill-informed people might say, Pete and I were just friends.’
Another tick. ‘So you wouldn’t have any reason to blow his cover by making an unscheduled visit to the office where he was working, then.’
I can smell the smoke, see the blood and brains on the wall, the lifeless eyes and that horrible red spot. ‘I’ve told Detective Superintendent Bailey, and it’s in the statement I gave to DCI Bain, which I’m sure you’ve already read. I went to the office because Pete texted me asking me to. The phone records are all there to see. It wasn’t a scheduled visit, but it
wasn’t unprecedented either.’
‘I’m aware of the text. That’s not the unscheduled visit I’m referring to.’ Williams nods to the constable, who slides a sheet of paper from the back of his notebook, unfolds it and passes it to me. It takes me a moment to work out what it is: a list of numbers, dates and times arranged in a grid. A log of entry codes used to open the back door to the office, alongside the names of the officers allocated them. The back door I’d found unlocked and slightly ajar. The last number on the list is horribly familiar, but the date and time make no sense.
‘I don’t understand this. I couldn’t have input that number at that time. I was here, in the office, in a meeting.’
‘That much I know. Detective Superintendent Bailey and half a dozen officers have confirmed as much. Some more grudgingly than others, I’d add.’ Williams speaks in a monotone, her body almost motionless. It’s a very effective technique for putting someone on their guard.
‘So how do you explain it?’ I say. ‘Someone faked the records?’
‘I don’t need to explain it, Detective Constable. You do. Perhaps you could start by telling me who allocated the different entry codes.’
I cast my mind back to the start of the operation, the endless meetings with IT nerds and surveillance geeks. ‘Technical Services set the whole place up. There should be CCTV of the back yard too. Surely you can just look at that to see who used my code.’
‘Do you think I’d be here if it was that simple?’
‘Oh God. You’re joking, right? Someone got to the cameras too?’
‘Detective Constable Fairchild, Professional Standards are not in the habit of making jokes.’ Williams puts her pen down carefully on top of her open notebook, looks me straight in the eye. ‘In many ways it would have been easier if you and Detective Inspector Copperthwaite had been . . . romantically linked. It would have been a disciplinary matter, of course, but nothing more serious than that. You’d be back on active duty by next week. Earlier even. As it is, I can no longer eliminate you from the inquiry into how the operation was so badly compromised. You will remain on indefinite suspension, and I’ve no doubt the team investigating DI Copperthwaite’s death will be wanting to speak to you too.’
9
Chief Inspector Williams’s words echo in my head as I walk down the corridor away from the interview room alone. I can’t blame her for doing her job, but someone’s set me up big time. The story they’re trying to paint’s easy enough to see, me and Pete using the undercover operation to pursue some kind of clandestine affair. Somehow in our passion I forgot to follow protocol, and didn’t lock the back door properly. The gang we’re after found out Pete’s a cop, tortured him for information and then shot him. Really sad, such a good cop, such potential for great things, blah blah blah. Stupid woman for letting her ambition and emotion get the better of her. It certainly explains why everyone in the team’s treating me like I’ve got herpes all of a sudden.
The only problem is that none of it’s true.
So what is true, then? Start treating this like an investigation, Con. Get together as many facts as you can before they either sack you or lock you up. I need to find someone on my side, but how? Everywhere I look I see that same expression of anger. They all think I did it. Maybe not actually pulled the trigger, but as good as.
I’ve always been a bit of a loner, I guess. It maybe doesn’t help that I come from a posh background. Sure, I’ve knocked the corners off my accent, and I can swear with the best of them, but I’ve never really been part of the family. It’s only now that he’s gone, now that he’s the root of the problem, that I realise how much Pete was my only friend here.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t other channels I can use. Police Sergeant Barry Thomas might be a bit of an old-school misogynist bastard with wandering hands and a prickly beard, but he’s also the union rep in the station. If I’m going to be the target of a witch hunt, he’s at least meant to be the one holding the key to the pitchfork shed.
‘Wondered when you’d show up here.’
It’s not the sympathetic greeting I’d hoped for, but at least he’s speaking to me. As union rep, Sergeant Thomas has an office, and usually its door is open. I make a show of closing it behind me, but remain standing when he indicates the seat on the wrong side of his desk.
‘What they’re saying about me, about Pete. It’s all lies.’
Thomas leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. ‘Pretty much thought that’s what you’d say. The evidence doesn’t look good though, does it?’
‘What evidence? It’s all circumstantial. Far as I can tell the only thing that points at me is the entry code log on the back door. We didn’t choose those codes ourselves, we were given them. Mine would have been easy for someone to find out if they wanted to.’
‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to worry about, then, have you?’ Thomas unfolds his arms, leans forward as if trying to be comradely. ‘Look, it’s a very serious situation. I know that, you know that. Pete’s . . . Pete was well liked and people are hurting. Give it time, lass. The truth will out and it’ll all blow over.’
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. I can feel a lump tightening in my throat, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. ‘Blow over? For fuck’s sake. Pete’s dead. And what? I’m just supposed to man up and take it on the chin while everyone else works out their grief on me? That’s the sum total of support I can expect from the union, is it? Sold down the river just to keep everyone else happy? Well, fuck that shit.’
Sergeant Thomas is on his feet almost before I’ve stopped shouting, his face red with anger to match my own. ‘You want my advice, Fairchild? Then keep a lid on your martyr complex. I don’t care how shitty you think it is. You’re on suspension, so go home and take it easy. Let the process run its course and don’t go screaming “unfair” like a spoiled rich kid.’
It’s the last barb that tells me I’m on to a loser here. Stupid bloody emotions are making me irrational too, and the last thing I want to do is confirm everyone’s suspicions that I’m just some hysterical woman. I take a deep breath and try to suppress the anger that makes me want to scream and break things.
‘Fine. I’ll do as you say. For now. But there’s some serious shit going on here and if no one else is going to take it seriously, then I will.’
Thomas looks like he’s going to say something else, but right now I don’t want to hear it. I turn away from him, take two steps to the door, yank it open and leave. If he utters any more words at my back, they’re lost to my seething rage.
‘Oh, hello, Con. Thought you were home already.’
Mrs Feltham’s on the stairs again when I get home, still quietly seething at the way I’ve been treated. This time she’s got a well-thumbed paperback book and a big mug of coffee that smells divine. I know she roasts her own beans and makes it using some secret method passed down from mother to daughter over generations. I’d ask her how she does it, but I think she’d feel bad refusing to tell me. Then what she’s just said sinks in.
‘Actually I didn’t think I’d be home for hours yet. What made you think I was here already?’
‘I don’t know. Just felt like there was someone upstairs, you know? Maybe I heard something? Didn’t really think much of it.’
‘No worries, eh?’ I go to step past her, nervous now. Has someone broken in? Did I remember to close all the windows before I left this morning?
‘Oh, thanks for the curry, by the way.’ I’m about to lie and say it was delicious, even though it’s still sitting in my fridge uneaten, but the frown on her face stops me.
‘You don’t eat proper, you gonna waste away, child. Get some meat on them bones or no man’s going to want you.’
I smile, not sure whether Mrs Feltham’s winding me up or not. It’s nice that somebody cares though, even if she’s just the old lady who live
s in the apartment beneath mine. There’s nothing happens in this block and she doesn’t know about it though, which is why her thinking I was home already bothers me. I dart up the stairs before she can say anything more, hurry to my front door. Something’s not right. Well, everything’s not right, but this feels particularly wrong. I pause at the front door, wondering whether I should call for backup, listening as hard as I can for any sound that there’s someone inside. I can hear only the noise of the city, the distant wailing of sirens and a radio blaring sickly pop music out of a nearby open window. The door looks no different to how it has always been: faded blue paint, chipped around the keyhole, scuffed kickplate and scratched handle. I’m being stupid, letting the events of the past few days get the better of my imagination. And how much worse would it look for me if I called this in only to find it was nothing?
It’s cool inside, the air moving in a gentle draft from the open bedroom door across the hall. I remember opening all the windows last night to try and dispel some of the heat, but I was sure I’d closed them all this morning before leaving. Then again, I was distracted by the upcoming interview. Did I forget to go back and close the one in the bedroom? Shutting the front door, I listen again, but the flat doesn’t feel like there’s someone else in here. There’s a lingering scent though. Not a person, but something else I can’t place.
I pick up the big old golf umbrella that lives in the hall, look around without moving. The flat isn’t big, and I can see into the living room: no obvious sign that anyone’s been there. Across the way the kitchen’s as messy as ever; a burglar could probably turn the place over and I’d not notice. If anyone’s hiding behind a door waiting to pounce on me, they’re being very quiet.