“Could he have been killed elsewhere and moved here?” Natasha suggested.
Henry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Possibly, and cannot be excluded until we see the pattern of lividity on his body, though there is quite a lot of blood on the grass around the tree, suggesting he was shot here, plus I see no drag marks on his shoes or trousers that might indicate the body had been moved.”
Henry craned his neck to look past Longstaff, double-checking the points he was making.
“I see no sign of the bullet on the bark of the tree, though,” he added.
“Me neither,” Burman concurred as he closely examined the gnarled bark of the Turkey oak. “SOCOs will continue to search.”
Longstaff extracted the thermometer that he had inserted into Haysbrook’s liver. He stared at it and made mental calculations wordlessly, his round face framed like a nun’s by the forensic suit.
“A rough approximation, assuming last night was not any colder than ten degrees and calculating loss of core temperature at one degree per hour, would put time of death at eight to ten hours ago. Picking up on your last point, Inspector, from what I can see of his post mortem lividity, I would say he died pretty much in the position in which we found him.”
“Suicide?” Natasha ventured.
“Without a note, or a weapon, with an entrance wound smack bang in the middle of his forehead – you try that with your hand holding a pistol,” Henry said.
Natasha strained her wrist around to the front of her head, allowing space to accommodate a weapon. It was very awkward, but just possible.
“In any case, why come out here with a return tube ticket?” Henry said, looking into the distance. “Dr Longstaff will check his hands for gunpowder residue anyway, standard procedure, just to be sure.”
He placed his hands on his hips and looked about the park from the Royal Observatory up on the hill down to the Thames end where Christopher Wren’s imposing white Naval College buildings flanked the great expanse of green. Trees lined every pathway and both The Avenue and Croom’s Hill Road, just beyond the park boundary, would have offered sanctuary for Haysbrook’s killer. Henry’s keen eyes missed little as his gaze flicked from one point of focus to another.
“I’ll see you at the post mortem, Doc, if I may?” Henry said.
“Yes, you’re welcome. Tomorrow morning. King’s College.”
Henry peeled the forensic hood off his head as he and Natasha walked away.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Henry said, glancing at her.
She looked up at him.
“I hear that you’re recently divorced.”
Natasha flushed and looked away momentarily.
“Yes.”
He hesitated, meeting the determined look in her disarming eyes. “All I need to know… is your mind firmly on the job?”
She frowned. “Of course, sir.”
Henry seemed satisfied and smiled warmly while Natasha squirmed.
“Good, because your first task as my new Detective Sergeant is to track down every bit of CCTV footage you can find. Then I want you to come to the post mortem with me. I’m really intrigued to know what’s inside that great big head of his.”
Two
South Bank Genealogy Services
Bevington Street
Bermondsey
London
Henry Webber
Flat 352, Howland Quay
Salter Road
Docklands
Dear Mr Webber,
According to your instructions, we have been researching your lineage using both the information which you provided and our own investigative work. We pride ourselves in being able, in most cases, to trace the ancestry of individuals back at least three to four generations, often considerably more.
Therefore it is most frustrating to report that we have been unable to trace even one generation of your ancestry. We have tried using several variations of your surname ‘Webber’: the English derivatives are ‘Webb’, ‘Webster’ and ‘Weaver’. Though English Webbers can be traced back on these isles to the thirteenth century, we are unable to make any connections in this regard for you. Other variations of Webber include ‘Weber’, ‘Webar’, ‘Webor’ and ‘Webermann’ – which, as you may know, are German in origin.
You had indicated that you believe your childhood days to have been spent around London, with your earliest memory being a visit to Brighton Pier when you were about six years old. Despite this we have been unable to trace your parents, foster parents, or guardians, whose records appear to have been erased. This is most unusual.
The first record we have found of your existence is enrolment in a primary school in Hammersmith under the name ‘Heinrich Weber’, which does lend some weight to the possibility of German origins, as mentioned above. After two terms your name was changed to ‘Henry Webber’, when you were moved to a small and exclusive school in Durham, some two hundred miles north. I don’t mind admitting that we are extremely proud to have uncovered that information, Mr Webber, as your past is more than a little shrouded in mystery.
As you are in possession of a British passport, which was obtained for you when you were only five years old, you will be aware of the formal entries detailing date and place of birth, et cetera. We have tried to trace your records back to your registered birth town but without success. Many births registered between 1935 and 1946 in that area were either destroyed or lost at the end of the war. Even though you were born in 1961, that regional birth registry took some time to recover, making it difficult for us to interpret our failure to locate evidence of your birth and registering parents.
As we are in the business of uncovering people’s ancestral backgrounds, we understand how distressing and unsettling this unsatisfactory outcome must be for you. Please rest assured that we will continue to be on the lookout for clues and, should anything come to light, we will be in contact immediately.
I can only wish you the best of luck in finding what you are looking for.
Yours sincerely,
AR Duckworth (Director)
Henry cast his mind back to Brighton Pier, willing back that distant memory that had become for him one of those awful uncertainties: did he remember it because it was his earliest memory, or simply because it had become ingrained in him as his first memory?
What he could recollect was the warm sun on his face, the pebbled beach underfoot, laughter, happiness in the company of adults whose faces and identities he could no longer recall. A mother figure, no, not clearly. A father figure, again no. Ice cream, yes, he recalled ice cream, dripping down his hands beside the twinkling bells and organ music of brightly lit fairground rides on the pier, stretching out, it seemed to him, an awfully long way into the sea. He almost imagined he could smell candy floss and something smoky, rubbery.
Then, something unpleasant happened. He could see two men, smiling, jovial. He remembered them holding hands, approaching him and offering a napkin to wipe the ice cream that dripped off his elbow on to his knees and sandaled feet. They seemed friendly, kind, yet he recalled the adults who were with him yelling at them and chasing them away, then pulling the ice cream off him roughly and telling him how bad those men were.
Men do not hold hands, he was told.
He did not understand. He wanted his ice cream back. What had he done? What had the two friendly men done?
Three
Henry delegated the LSE enquiries to Natasha while he spent the afternoon at Scotland Yard attending strategic planning meetings for the security of the forthcoming London Olympics. Finished by five, he managed to make the monthly Mensa Club meeting at Marylebone, before arriving home at his Docklands flat at seven.
To his surprise, when he opened the door, the lights were on and both the sound of Katie Melua and the smell of Thai green curry warmed his senses. On the coffee table a laptop, displaying its screen saver, awaited further attention beside an empty mug and loose papers strewn untidily across the glass s
urface.
“I hope it’s you in here, George,” Henry said as he removed his jacket and loosened the red tie, draping them casually over the back of a suede recliner that faced a wall-mounted plasma screen TV.
The flat was minimally furnished with suede leather furniture on biscuit-coloured carpeting, box-shaped reclaimed oak tables and reproduction canvas-print Andy Warhol on the walls. A slender woman wrapped in a black bath towel emerged barefoot from the passage, drying her short, dark hair with another black towel.
“Hello, lover, I’m home!” George said, enormous smile across her square face. The cropped hair looked masculine but suited her shapely facial structure perfectly. “Who else would it be? Natasha?” she teased.
Henry embraced her warmly. She stood on tip-toe to bury her head into his shoulder and dig her fingertips into his back.
“I didn’t expect you back yet,” he said.
“Well, I’m here and I’m only wearing a towel,” she whispered into his ear, a sparkle dancing in her hazelnut eyes. The towel fell to the carpeted floor between them.
He gazed into her inviting eyes, alive, almost like gemstones.
“How are your headaches?” George asked, touching his temple.
“Even if I had one now, I wouldn’t let on.”
They reached the bedroom in a few hasty strides and devoured each other hungrily, making love with a passion that demanded a period of recuperation. Lying side by side beneath a single sheet drawn up only as far as their waists, Henry and George nibbled on wasabi-coated nuts and sipped chilled Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc. Henry ate his nuts with a teaspoon, never touching the food.
“How was Afghanistan?” he asked.
George was silent for a moment, pushing the same wasabi nut around in her mouth with her tongue.
“Words cannot describe the wretchedness of it. I have over a thousand photographs on my laptop. They reveal more than any words could ever hope to do.”
“Show me?”
She shook her head.
“I need time away from it, time with you,” she said, turning towards him and hugging him tightly.
He smiled and placed his hand on hers.
“You could have called to chat,” he said.
She met his eyes and they looked deep into each other.
“So could you.”
Unspoken words filled the silence as their gaze drifted apart. Henry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I see you got a letter from the genealogy services,” George said eventually.
“Did you read it?” Henry shot a look at her.
“Would you not want me to?”
He looked away, unsure how to react.
“It’s addressed to you. Of course I wouldn’t,” George said.
Henry relaxed, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t know what the big deal is. In any case,” she hesitated, “the envelope was empty.”
“You…” Henry began, lifting a pillow to strike at George playfully.
“Come on, I’m starving,” she said, whipping back the sheet and taking evasive action.
“Do I smell your famous Thai curry?” Henry sniffed the air.
He climbed out of the bed, pulling a red and navy striped dressing-gown around himself and ruffled his hands through his profusion of hair such that it stood up even more, making him resemble Beethoven on a particularly windy day.
They ate eagerly, George wrapped in a white dressing-gown. She watched with curiosity as he handled the roti, a kind of paratha bread, with his knife and fork, turning it, buttering it, and placing portions in his mouth using only the cutlery. Though she was accustomed to his eating habits, his reluctance to touch his food always intrigued her.
“Why do you never handle food with your fingers?” she asked.
Henry shrugged as he picked up another roti with his knife and fork.
“Why do you eat with your fingers?”
“Everyone eats bread with their fingers,” she replied.
“Everyone?”
Soon the bottle of Picpoul was exhausted. Henry spoke of the cases he’d been involved with, the seedy murders in London’s underworld, developments surrounding security for the Olympics, and as always, affairs at the Mensa Club. She talked about the incessant loss of life, the hopelessness and the damage in Afghanistan, the orphans and the lost generation that was growing. It made Henry sad, but not for the same reasons as George. Afghanistan saddened him because it took George away from him.
“Why don’t you take a break from it for a while?” he suggested. “We could go back to France again for a few weeks, like we did last year.”
George leaned back and folded her arms across her chest, keeping her eyes on Henry’s face.
“It’s what I do, Henry. I chase the story, like you exercise that great big brain of yours.”
He was silent for a moment, knowing full well what this meant.
“How long this time?”
“A few days,” she said softly, almost apologetically.
Henry made a pained face.
“I don’t like you being in Afghanistan.”
“I’m not going back there.”
He raised his eyebrows enquiringly.
“It’ll be either Libya or Egypt this time,” she said. “The Arab spring, as they’re calling it, is an opportunity I cannot miss, Henry.” Slowly, a little smile crept across her face. “But I don’t leave until Saturday.”
Henry knew he would never change her mind. He had tried before, he had failed before.
“Well, we’d better make the most of our time then.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said.
He extended a hand to stroke her cheek and, taking it in both her hands, she kissed it, then led him back to the bedroom.
Four
Custom dictated that the Sergeant drove and the DCI reclined, so Natasha struggled through the traffic while Henry sat in the passenger seat and listened to the story about Professor Haysbrook from her visit to the LSE.
Natasha was wearing a summery linen dress in emerald green that crept halfway up her shapely thighs as she drove.
“They were, of course, horrified to hear about his death, lots of tears and emotion. I got the feeling that he was a well liked and respected staff member. He is, or was, a senior lecturer in macro economics at LSE and a government adviser to the Exchequer. By all accounts, a very intelligent man.”
The car stopped at traffic lights and Natasha switched her gaze from the road to meet Henry’s eyes.
“You would probably have understood him,” she said with a naughty smile.
“When did he leave the campus? Was he alone?” Henry said, understanding the inference, but ignoring it.
The lights changed and Natasha accelerated sharply.
“He worked late, was still there when his secretary left for home and nobody saw him leaving. Campus security helpfully came up with the CCTV which times his departure, alone, at 9.35pm.”
She turned the car into a small courtyard flanked by dingy grey stucco buildings and a sign that read ‘Mortuary Parking’.
“He took the underground?”
Natasha turned off the engine.
“From Covent Garden, which is odd, as both Holborn and Chancery Lane stations are closer to the LSE.”
“He might have met someone.”
“His killer?”
Henry nodded.
“We should check through Covent Garden CCTV to see if Haysbrook met anyone on the tube.”
“O.K” Natasha undid her seatbelt.
“Did you check his appointments?” Henry asked.
“Nothing for Monday or Tuesday night, but for last night it simply said ‘MC 5pm’.”
Henry stared out of the window and sighed before opening his door and jumping energetically out of the car.
“Let’s see what Dr Longstaff found at autopsy.”
They moved towards a solid blue steel door marked ‘Staff Entrance’ and
Natasha pressed the call button on an adjacent wall-mounted keypad.
“How did you know about the Turkish oak tree?” she said as they waited.
Henry smiled.
“You’d be amazed what we discuss at the Mensa Club. Of course, I am forbidden to divulge any of it to you.”
“Bunch of…”
“That’s it!” he said suddenly. “I went to Mensa Club last night at five. Haysbrook is probably a member, too.”
“What?” Natasha pressed the call button again.
“MC 5pm – the appointment in Haysbrook’s diary. I should probably have recognised his face. ”
“You’re guessing, Henry. It could mean anything.”
“Do you not think a professor of macro economics could be a member of Mensa?”
Natasha blew a raspberry and shook her head. After identifying themselves over the intercom, the steel door opened and they entered the building. The atmosphere inside changed immediately as the cool, cloying vapours of air freshener and formaldehyde enveloped them like a thick fog.
They clipped their way down a dimly lit tiled corridor. On the ceiling, one mesh-covered light shone brightly, the second was not lit and the third flickered incessantly. A pale green door on the left with a large central pane of privacy glass, cracked down the centre, brought their walk to an end beneath a sign stating: ‘Mortuary – Staff Only’.
Henry turned the handle and they entered a cold, expansive area, brightly lit by about a dozen fluorescent tubes. A small huddle of people dressed in green surgical scrubs and white gumboots, gathered around a stainless steel dissecting table on which a naked cadaver was being explored, parted slightly to reveal Longstaff’s balding head. The smell of stale, dead humans and air freshener was overpowering.
“Inspector!” Longstaff peered over the stooped heads of his two protégés. “Come and join us,” he said loudly.
Henry and Natasha drew closer. Though Henry had been to mortuaries many times before, it never failed to unsettle him.
Standing beside the stainless steel table, upon which running water mixed with streaks of blood swirled around the cadaver, he saw that the body was that of the victim from Greenwich Park.
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