The Sea Detective

by Mark Douglas-Home

  He’d jotted down three possibilities:

  1. The body is not Sandy’s.

  2. It is Sandy’s but he didn’t go into the sea at 72°30′N and 18°03′E. Given the prevailing currents/winds, he must have entered the water south west of Moskenesoy to beach where he did.

  3. If Sandy didn’t go into the sea at 72°30′N and 18°03′E, did Uilleam?

  Then he fell asleep but it must have continued to play on his mind. When the morning sun shone brightly into his apartment, he was conscious of having made two decisions during the night. He would go to Eilean Iasgaich, to see Hector MacKay’s logbook in the museum and to build a stone cairn on one of the island’s two hills, overlooking the ocean. Cal was the last of the Sinclairs. If he didn’t build a memorial to his grandfather on the island of his birth, who would? Who else would right the wrong? After showering, he packed his rucksack – jeans, tee shirts, two jerseys. He texted Kate. ‘Sorry for running out on you last night. Had to sort something. Make it up to you with lunch next week. Cal.’ He deleted ‘Make it up to you with lunch next week’ and sent it. She’d be pissed off, but what could he do? He didn’t want a commitment.

  He checked his inbox. DLG had mailed. ‘Two severed feet found on Shetland, the first on Papa Stour two days ago, the second further south, near Walls, on the Shetland mainland today. Send you more when I get it.’

  Cal replied. ‘Yes, please.’

  He considered for a minute. Perhaps the East Lothian foot had travelled further than he originally thought. The Shetland finds changed things. He’d run some simulations using wind and current data, work out whether all three feet, the two from Shetland and the other from East Lothian, could have followed the same ocean track west of Scotland before arriving at different destinations hundreds of miles apart. If so, they might have started from the same place.

  Right now he had another mystery to solve.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Are these the ones you’re after, Prof?’

  A pathology lab assistant in a white coat held up a sealed see-through plastic bag in each hand. There was a single trainer in each.

  The interruption irritated Professor Tony Maplin, a man of small stature and quick movements. ‘In a minute, in a minute …’ Maplin glowered at the assistant and let his eyes linger disapprovingly on the youth’s pallid face and his lank hair trailing across his dirty collar. He sighed in theatrical exasperation. ‘I’m sorry Detective Inspector, where were we?’

  ‘You were explaining the onset of adipocere.’

  ‘Ah yes. There were signs of it on both feet, as there was on the foot washed ashore in East Lothian. It can happen when bodies are in water for a long time.’

  ‘How long would you say in this case?’

  ‘It’s guesswork I’m afraid. Certainly weeks, more likely months …’

  Maplin’s hands jerked up and down as he spoke and his eyes flashed between David Ryan and the assistant who had adopted a sullen, defiant expression since his ticking off.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake,’ Maplin suddenly exploded. ‘Don’t just stand there Thomas. Put the bags on the table.’

  The assistant did as he was instructed with deliberate slowness and with a roll of his eyes at Ryan.

  ‘I’m sorry Detective Inspector.’ Maplin stared after his departing assistant. ‘I can forgive anything in a place like this except a wilful lack of grace. I refuse to be reminded that we’re dumb animals waiting in line for bodily corruption.’

  There were six other tables in the room, in three rows. Ghostly grey-white corpses lay on the two closest. Ryan grimaced in sympathy with the professor’s outburst. ‘You were saying it could be many months, Professor Maplin.’

  ‘Could even be years …’

  Maplin threw both his hands into the air to make his point about the range of possibilities. ‘Adipocere is a process which involves the fatty layer beneath the skin transforming into a soap-like substance. You might know of it as saponification. Its effect is to inhibit normal decomposition. There are recorded cases of saponified bodies surviving almost intact for years.’

  ‘In this case …?’

  Maplin contorted his face and patted his unruly, wiry hair with both hands. ‘Oh I do hate so much being put on the spot by you people.’

  The tip of his tongue curled round the edge of his mouth. ‘Ok, ok, if you want me to put my head on the block …’ He rammed both hands decisively into the pockets of his green tweed jacket.

  ‘Something we can work with, yes.’

  ‘Well, I’d say months, definitely months. The adipocere isn’t as advanced as it might be …’

  Ryan let out a grunt of disappointment

  ‘I can’t help it if you don’t like it Detective Inspector. Really I can’t.’ Maplin’s tone was petulant.

  ‘No, no … You can only do what you can do …’

  Maplin suddenly smirked. ‘Though I have found something you might find interesting Detective Inspector.’ He waited for a prompt.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well the foot from that shoe …’ Maplin lifted up the bag enclosing a trainer with red, orange and green bands round its side, the colours still bright despite its lengthy immersion in sea water. ‘… It belongs to the same body as the foot which beached in East Lothian.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Maplin beamed with pleasure at Ryan’s shock. ‘I’m absolutely certain Detective Inspector. There’s not even a shadow of doubt.’

  ‘But it never occurred to me … the shoe’s different … the other one had a polka dot pattern.’

  ‘Just so, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘So you’re saying the feet match but the trainers don’t?’

  Maplin beamed again, like a teacher proud at unexpected progress in his slowest pupil. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying Detective Inspector.’

  ‘Sure?’

  Maplin arched his eyebrows in practised contempt. Did this pretty boy policeman in his well-cut blue suit, white shirt, stubble and tan doubt him? ‘Of course it’s up to you whether you want to avail yourself of my expertise Detective Inspector though I should imagine you’d want to.’

  Ryan attempted to mollify the professor. ‘No, no, of course … you’ve been very helpful. It was just unexpected that’s all; extremely unexpected.’

  The policeman paused to think. Maplin’s face twitched with pleasure at the effect he’d induced.

  ‘Did someone cut off the feet and put them in odd shoes?’ Ryan was casting around for an explanation.

  ‘No, all three were severed by disarticulation. The ankle separates as part of the routine process of decomposition.’

  ‘How long does it take?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Water temperature, the depth, disturbance … there are a number of variables.’

  ‘Would the feet have disarticulated at the same time?’

  ‘They might, they might not; and even if they did they wouldn’t necessarily float to the surface at the same time. There are, as I say, a number of variables. It’s all in my report.’

  ‘Which you’ll finish …?’

  ‘It’s done Detective Inspector.’ Maplin picked up a brown envelope from the table and handed it to him. Then he gave Ryan the bags one at a time. ‘We’ve done all we can with these.’

  Ryan held them away from his body and Maplin remarked archly, ‘Your nice suit’s quite safe Detective Inspector. All the human material’s been removed.’

  Ten minutes later he was back in his office at Lothian and Borders Police HQ reading the message stuck to the telephone on his desk. ‘Helen Jamieson will assist.’ The writing was Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Reynolds’s familiar scrawl. Ryan swore and crumpled it tight in his fist. His interview for the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency was three weeks away and Reynolds had given him Detective Constable Jamieson when he’d asked for Tessa Rainey.

  ‘Shit.’ Ryan spat the word.

 
His lobbying with Ian Carmichael, the Assistant Chief Constable, had irritated Reynolds and this was his revenge.

  ‘With respect sir,’ Ryan had said standing at the opposite corner of the ACC’s desk from Reynolds. ‘This inquiry is better run from headquarters. The Shetland discoveries have changed the case completely. There’s intense media interest …’

  Reynolds snapped, ‘One day wonder.’

  Ryan ignored him, ‘… and Northern Constabulary has asked us to take the lead on forensics. The shoes will be flown to Edinburgh in any case. It makes sense for the same lab to deal with all the evidence.’

  ‘And for our boys in East Lothian to run it,’ Reynolds insisted, ‘as they have been from the beginning when the first foot turned up.’

  ‘With all due respect,’ Ryan paused for effect. ‘There’s the potential scope of the investigation to consider. God knows where it’s going to lead or how many more feet will turn up, or where …’ Ryan glanced at his senior officer and Reynolds scowled back. ‘… It’s a big coordination job and there are dangers … the media … at a sensitive time for all the Scottish police forces.’

  Reynolds’s already florid face turned scarlet with a rush of anger. Ryan was outmanoeuvring him, using the forthcoming review of Scotland’s police forces to put the wind up the ACC.

  ‘Wouldn’t we all sleep easier if it was run from here?’ Carmichael addressed his question to Reynolds but before he could answer, the ACC continued, ‘I know I would, what with the politicians breathing down our necks. The review on the structure and funding of the Scottish police has its first public meeting in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks. We don’t want any avoidable mistakes do we Jim?’

  Reynolds shrugged. His argument was lost. ‘I wouldn’t push my personal interest over whatever’s best for the force, of course Ian.’

  It was a barb intended for Ryan.

  ‘Well that’s settled then. Good.’ Carmichael clapped his hands together oblivious of the tension between the two officers. ‘Who will assist you?’ he said to Ryan.

  ‘I haven’t given it any thought sir, though the new Detective Constable, Tessa Rainey, is bright and could do with the experience. She’s worked on missing persons before.’

  By now Reynolds was moving to the door. ‘I’ll find you someone good David. No worries on that score.’ He’d gone before Ryan could reply.

  Detective Constable Helen Jamieson was Reynolds settling the score. Reynolds knew Ryan didn’t like her.

  Ryan clamped his fist around the crumpled message. How was he going to impress the SCDEA selection board if he had to work in tandem with Jamieson on such a high profile inquiry? His last case had made it big in the media but tackling organised crime or drug rackets it wasn’t. Ryan had an unsettling feeling it wouldn’t cut ice with his interview panel either, particularly if any of them had heard about the prosecution’s struggle to find anyone prepared to lodge a formal complaint against McGill or even turn up in court. Arresting an eco-warrior for spending his evenings doing a bit of guerrilla gardening wasn’t exactly crime-busting on the SCDEA scale of things. It had even caused a joke or two at headquarters. The one that still rankled with him was a snide shot by a detective on secondment from the Strathclyde force. ‘That guy,’ he said referring to Cal McGill ‘should be locked up in a greenhouse and the key thrown away.’

  The other officers around the canteen table tried to conceal their amusement but Ryan caught their disappearing smirks. Screw you, he thought, resolving to gatecrash another case to sway the SCDEA selection panel. ‘The mystery of the severed feet’, as the media described it, was the only realistic prospect for him. It was developing quickly and it was playing big on the BBC and ITN national news bulletins, not to mention the international networks. Ryan liked the thought of his face appearing on the ten o’clock news in the sitting rooms of his SCDEA interviewers for the next few days.

  He’d jotted down a media plan. There’d be daily press conferences and briefings with selected crime correspondents, or editors if they wanted it. Of course, he’d make himself available for television. He’d do whatever it took. After a media blitz who would remember the McGill case, or his involvement in it, or that it wouldn’t end in a prosecution (thanks to spineless politicians refusing to appear as Crown witnesses)? Now Jamieson would be a constant reminder of it, to him if to nobody else. He threw the crumpled message against the wall.

  At that moment Jamieson put her head round his door.

  ‘Mr Reynolds said you wanted me sir.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He said you’d asked for me specially.’ Jamieson sounded doubtful. And pigs will fly.

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  She picked up the discarded Post-it.

  ‘Put it in the bin, Jamieson.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Sit down Jamieson.’

  ‘Let me guess sir – we’re on the trail of a gang who’ve been taking unauthorised cuttings from botanical gardens.’ Jamieson seemed startled and flustered all at the same moment. Oh my God I’ve said it out loud. ‘Sorry sir,’ she stuttered.

  Jamieson had seen contempt on Ryan’s face before but never like this. His eyes became hooded and his neck muscles tensed so tightly his head began to quiver.

  ‘Are you serious about your career?’ he said eventually.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Well act like it Jamieson.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Mr Reynolds thought you should assist me …’ which was Ryan’s acid way of putting her back in her place.

  ‘I see sir.’

  ‘He thinks you can help me with this investigation into the severed feet that have washed up in East Lothian and Shetland.’ Ryan made sure the emphasis was on the first word of the sentence: ‘he’.

  Jamieson flinched. Her expression deadened.

  ‘What was it you wanted me to do sir?’

  ‘Find out everything you can about the shoes.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Don’t screw up Jamieson.’

  He threw the two bags containing the trainers towards her and dismissed her with a backward flip of his right hand.

  ‘Oh right, sir …’

  Jamieson picked up the bags. ‘They don’t match sir.’

  ‘Yes, Jamieson, very observant.’

  ‘I meant neither of them matches the trainer washed up in East Lothian. Two left feet, one right foot … and three bodies.’

  Ryan thought: ‘Two bodies, Jamieson. Two bodies.’ But he didn’t want her blabbing it and the story getting out before he was ready.

  ‘Jamieson, your job is to discover something I don’t already know. So go away and find it.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Six hours and forty minutes later Jamieson returned to the detectives’ room. She was hungry and her legs were sore from pounding pavements tracking down Nike nerds as she now called them. These were (male and/or spotty) shoe shop assistants fluent in the design quirks of every Nike trainer manufactured since Adam Ant was a boy. She slumped at her desk. DC Tessa Rainey looked up and flicked her hair. ‘Tired out?’

  ‘Bushed.’

  Rainey said, ‘Big turn out wasn’t it?’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘For the press conference …’

  ‘What press conference?’

  ‘Ryan’s – about the feet. He let me sit in on it.’

  Jamieson tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Yeah … listen I need to make a quick call.’ She keyed in her home number and clicked on to the BBC website. There was a picture of Ryan looking man-about-town suave. ‘Police reveal DNA match for severed feet found hundreds of miles apart.’ She called up the story and read it.

  Two left feet, one right foot and two bodies.

  When she went to Ryan’s office for the second time that day it was 6.55pm and he was lying back in his chair waiting for Channel 4 News.

  ‘They match sir?’ Jamieson let him know she was put out.

  Ryan ga
ve her a long-suffering look. ‘What Jamieson?’

  ‘They match, sir: two of the feet. They belong to each other.’

  ‘Yes Jamieson.’

  ‘Two left feet, one right foot … and two bodies; not three bodies as I’d said.’

  ‘Looks like it Jamieson …’

  ‘But the shoes don’t sir.’

  ‘What Jamieson?’

  ‘Match sir. They don’t match.’

  ‘Yes Jamieson, very observant.’

  ‘But sir …’

  The Channel 4 News jingle began playing. Ryan held up his hand to silence her and turned up the volume.

  ‘Not now Jamieson. Come back in ten minutes.’

  It was the lead story, as it had been on the BBC and ITN early evening news bulletins. ‘A bizarre new twist in the mystery of the severed feet which have washed up on Scottish coasts …’ the presenter lifted his eyes to the camera. ‘Police reveal a foot found in Shetland matches the one discovered last week on a beach in East Lothian.’ The screen flashed to Ryan at a table behind a bank of microphones, DC Rainey standing to one side of him. The camera angle was different to that of the BBC and ITN and less flattering. It made him look rather lantern-jawed. Ryan jotted down ‘Channel 4 camera – better position’ on a notepad. The page was covered with other observations for his debrief with the force’s director of communications at 8.30 the next morning.

  Jamieson knocked and put her head round the door. ‘Is this a convenient time sir?’

  ‘This had better be good Jamieson.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  She took some steps towards him before stopping.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Well sir, the trainers are all varieties of the same make, Nike Air Max. The left shoe from East Lothian is an Air Max 360, the 2006 model.’ She looked at her notebook. ‘The right shoe found in Shetland contained the matching foot?’