Soft Summer Blood

by Peter Helton

  Fairfield already regretted having agreed to come. There were only two women on the squad DI Wheeler had assembled for the raid and both of them had to be spending all their spare time in the gym lifting weights and downing protein shakes, and had now disappeared under forty pounds of protective Kevlar and helmets. Fairfield herself was only wearing her stab vest which was enough to make her feel large and ugly.

  From the moment she had joined the operation as an observer, she had felt faintly patronized. DI Wheeler let no opportunity pass to point out that the anti-drug Operation Atrium was the most crucial thing Avon and Somerset did in the city, how it impacted on all other aspects of policing and frankly was the only department worth being in. He could rattle off the statistics of how many convictions they had procured, how much crack and how many guns they had taken off the street and how many cannabis factories they had closed down faster than a press officer with seven cups of coffee inside him. ‘Shame your sergeant isn’t here; he’d have enjoyed this, I’m sure.’

  ‘Still off sick, though I suspect he’s milking it.’ The moment she had said it she regretted the disloyalty and recognized that she had been trying to impress Wheeler all along. They were sitting in Wheeler’s BMW in a leafy street on the edge of Redcliff. It was raining. The weather had broken the night before. The summer temperatures had been replaced by a cool north wind and it had not stopped raining for nearly twenty-four hours. Two units of drug squad, including an armed response unit, were getting into position. DI Wheeler talked in his airline-pilot voice as though drug raids were nothing but tedious routine for him. ‘It’s typical of the premises they’re using more and more now: large suburban houses that no one would suspect. We wouldn’t normally raid a place in the early evening – we prefer the dawn – but we’ve had good intelligence on this and it looks as though a large number of people are on the premises. Initially, we had a tip-off from a neighbour who noted that as soon as the new tenant moved in he installed blinds on every window and they are permanently closed. That’s a good indicator. Last night we sent a car past with infrared equipment and they registered a huge heat plume. On infrared, that house is pulsing with heat, which is a sure sign that they’re running banks of grow lamps in there. We’ve a good chance of scooping up a few people too; we’ve had reports of at least a dozen people arriving over the last hour, in dribs and drabs, hiding under their umbrellas. The door was opened only just wide enough to let them slip inside. I think we can be pretty certain …’ Wheeler’s walkie-talkie crackled. ‘Unit three in position, sir.’ Wheeler turned to Fairfield. ‘Let’s do it, shall we?’ Into the walkie-talkie he said decisively, ‘Go go go!’

  Immediately, the street filled with blue. Officers in protective gear and wearing helmets were approaching the front door in two lines, one burly officer carrying his ‘door knocker’, a heavy ram designed to break down locked doors. When he had reached the door, Fairfield and Wheeler left the car and rushed down the road to the house. Fairfield liked the house and thought it was sacrilege to turn it into a drug factory. After only the second stroke of the ram, the front door splintered open and the officer stood aside to let the press of officers trample across the threshold. Wheeler and Fairfield were last in. The heat inside was remarkable. Officers were bellowing contradictory commands. ‘Armed police! This is a raid!’ ‘Stay where you are!’ ‘Show yourselves!’ There were screams and then sudden silence.

  Fairfield entered the large sitting room, illuminated by the warm glow of oscillating heat lamps. Apart from the overdressed officers, she counted ten people in the room, all middle-aged men and women, holding wine and sherry glasses, sitting or standing in complete astonishment. All of them were completely naked. An unnaturally pink and balding man with a perfectly round pot belly and genitals that made Fairfield think of tinned hotdogs set his wine glass down on the mantelpiece with an audible click. Rightly assuming that the man in the suit was in charge of the fiasco, he marched up to Wheeler, his penis swinging from side to side like the trunk of a charging elephant. He stood very close to the officer and bellowed at him. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Wheeler blushed to the roots of his hair.

  Operation Atrium, it transpired in the overheated discussion that followed, had raided a meeting of the BBNS, the Bristol and Bath Nudist Society, at the house of its chairman, Julian Pinchbeck. Wheeler’s troops shuffled from the house while Wheeler remained to explain on whose authority he had invaded his house and who his superiors were – to whom, on behalf of the entire membership, Pinchbeck would complain in the strongest terms.

  By the time DI Wheeler, now covered in sweat from the sauna-like temperatures, stepped back into the rain, he was in time to see Fairfield climb into a cab. She gave a cheerful wave. ‘Thanks for the experience, Keith; I shall cherish it.’

  ‘I texted you several times and never got an answer.’ As soon as he had said it, McLusky knew it was the wrong opening gambit. He could hear Laura’s sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

  ‘I was busy buying a new laptop, setting it up, restoring all my files on it and rewriting an essay that went up in smoke in a house in Cornwall!’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry, but the invitation still stands. Let me take you out for dinner. I’ll bring the umbrella.’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling. You can stop asking me out for dinner for a bit because I’m going on another dig.’

  ‘I could lend you my umbrella.’

  ‘I won’t need your umbrella where I’m going.’

  ‘Where’s the dig?’

  ‘Israel. Six of us wheedled our way on to a Tel Aviv university dig in northern Israel. It’ll be brilliant, it’ll be sunny and the food will be spectacular.’

  ‘Have a good time. When are you back?’

  ‘In three months. Good luck with your case.’

  For a moment he sat frowning at his mobile, then he checked his watch. ‘Bugger.’

  McLusky burst from his office and moved so fast along the corridor on the CID floor that DC Dearlove had to sprint to catch up with him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘What is it, Deedee? I’m late for the autopsy.’

  ‘Pictures you asked for. Been printed.’ He proffered a Manila envelope.

  ‘Ta.’ McLusky stuffed it into a jacket pocket and clattered down the stairs, strode across the foyer and jogged to his car. It wasn’t just that he was late but he was also hoping to burn a handful of calories for his imminent fitness ordeal. The rush hour was over, traffic lights were on his side and he turned into the mortuary car park with a minute to spare. Contrary to custom and despite the drizzle, he parked as far away from the entrance as possible and jogged across the car park, feeling silly and hoping no one he knew was watching.

  In the theatre, Coulthart, his long-suffering assistant and the body of James Fife were all waiting for him. ‘Still raining, Inspector? You should invest in an umbrella.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ McLusky was not in the mood for banter. He sat down and almost immediately stood up again. Impatience and irritability were getting the better of him. All the cures he knew for it – chocolate, smoking, beer and sex – were out of his reach.

  On one of the two screens on the wall behind Coulthart was a photograph of the Nazi dagger, next to an enhanced image of a piece of red cotton. Forensics had found the very faint outline of the dagger on the piece of fabric that had lined the display case at Poulimenos’s office. While exposure to light had bleached the colour of the fabric, where objects had lain on it, it had remained a shade darker. ‘No doubt about the cause of death,’ Coulthart continued. He pointed over his shoulder at the screen. ‘Very little doubt about the provenance of the weapon, either.’

  ‘Yes, we now think it was stolen by the killer.’

  ‘No fingerprints or useful DNA at all on the weapon. Let’s see if I can be of help.’ Coulthart began his examination with the first Y-shaped incision. ‘This man was in dubious shape.’

  McLusky could see the flabby stomach, the pale sk
in, the thin legs. ‘Couch potato?’

  ‘Yes. And I don’t think much of his diet. His internal organs are covered in fat deposits. His liver is borderline. His last meal appears to have been …’

  ‘Eggs, sausages and beans.’

  ‘Correct. The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast. He must have eaten a lot of hearty breakfasts in his time. Ah, now we’re getting to the interesting bit.’ Coulthart was examining the area of the wound from the inside as though he was merely sorting through a kitchen drawer. ‘I saw the photographs taken at the scene – you found the body with the dagger still inside it?’

  ‘Yes, like some film noir murder scene. I’m surprised we haven’t had candlesticks yet. The whole investigation has been a bit like that. Who leaves murder weapons at the scene and knives inside bodies? It’s theatrical stuff.’

  ‘I agree. And whoever delivered this piece of theatrical stuff, as you so eloquently put it, was particularly keen on it. A deliberate display of histrionics.’

  ‘And you can tell this how?’

  ‘The victim was killed with a single upwards stab to the heart. But the weapon was then withdrawn and later – I’d say a good half hour later – was returned into the wound, but not quite at the same angle. The second internal injuries are clearly post-mortem.’

  ‘That explains the sequence of events. We thought the woman opened the door and was attacked first. But this looks like the woman arrived while the killer was still there, possibly in the sitting room. He withdrew the dagger, stabbed the woman and returned the dagger to the body of the intended victim. And left the dagger there presumably to cloud the issue. I think our killer went there for one reason only, and that was to get more ammunition for the thirty-eight.’

  The rain had stopped. On the way back to his car his mobile chimed. The text message read: You have missed your 10.30 appointment for your Annual Fitness Test. Please reply to this message to re-schedule. Non-attendance may be a disciplinary matter. For a while he sat in his car, thinking. The thirty-eight was obviously a revolver and new ammunition would be needed after killing Mendenhall, Longmaid and Poulimenos. It suggested only one thing: that the killing was not over yet. He started the engine, pulled at his seat belt, then let go again as he felt the envelope of photographs inside his jacket. He slit open the flap and withdrew the fifty-odd photographs which were held inside a sheet of notepaper. The handwritten sentence on it read: For the attention of DI McLusky. Elliot Kahn had been right: the film stock had had enough time to decay. The images were sharp but the colours were faded like early colour prints from the war years, which gave them an additional nostalgic atmosphere. The first roll of film, twenty-three exposures, was taken in Cornwall; McLusky recognized Rosslyn Crag – how it had looked in happier days. In front of the conservatory, all facing the camera with various degrees of ironic smiles, were Poulimenos, Mendenhall and Longmaid. They were sprawled in deck chairs, all wearing shorts and holding long drinks. There was a female shape behind them inside the conservatory but the figure was out of focus. More pictures of the trio were taken at restaurant tables with the faded blue of a twenty-year-old summer sky behind. There was one photo of Ben Kahn himself, holding a wine glass, looking seriously into the lens. Other pictures were of the Cornish scenery, usually with a sliver of sea showing.

  The second roll of film was of a very different character. All the pictures were taken in interiors, mostly inside a painting studio that he did not recognize. Without exception they were of a blonde girl and she was naked in all of them. Some looked like nude painting poses but many were a great deal more intimate, probably post-coital. McLusky put the age of the girl at no more than fourteen. He stuffed the pictures into the envelope and screeched out of the car park.

  An hour later outside Stanton Drew he bumped his car up the track to Elliot Kahn’s house, tyres splashing mud and rainwater from the potholes. This time the front door was closed but he could hear music inside. Seeing movement behind the kitchen window, he walked over and tapped on a pane. It was Berti who looked up, nodded and pointed towards the front door. She opened it a moment later. This time she was dressed in jeans and T-shirt but McLusky was once more struck by the troubling beauty of the girl. She stepped back to let him in. From somewhere Elliot called, ‘Who is it, Berti?’ and a moment later stepped into the hall himself. ‘It’s you again. Do you have any news?’

  The girl withdrew to somewhere else in the house and McLusky followed Elliot into the kitchen. The kettle was sitting on the stove, singing gently. The music coming from another room was turned low. ‘I have questions.’

  ‘OK.’ He picked up a ceramic coffee pot from beside the stove and looked inside. ‘Looks like coffee in the making – are you having some?’

  McLusky nodded, wondering how best to broach what could turn out to be a traumatic subject for a son who had adored his father and still suffered from not knowing what exactly happened to him and why. Or did Elliot have suspicions he had kept to himself? ‘There’s something I want you to look at.’

  The kettle began to whistle. ‘Oh, yeah? Hang on a sec.’ He busied himself with making coffee, straining it the old-fashioned way into three mugs and adding milk and sugar to one of them. ‘I’ll just take the lamb her coffee.’ While Elliot was out, McLusky searched through the prints for an inoffensive photograph and returned the others to his jacket. Elliot returned. ‘Right, what do you want me to look at? Oh, did you develop the films?’

  McLusky held out the photograph. ‘Seen this girl before?’

  Elliot took it and held it into the light. ‘Not like that, I haven’t. That’s Vicky, but—’

  ‘Who’s Vicky?’

  ‘Vics – Victoria Mendenhall. David’s sister. She’s a bit younger than him.’

  McLusky set down his mug of coffee so hard on to the counter that some coffee spilled out. ‘Charles Mendenhall had a daughter? Has a daughter? Is she alive?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve not heard … Wait.’ Elliot frowned at the picture, then at McLusky. ‘This photograph. Is this one of my father’s? From the rolls you took away?’

  McLusky nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He took pictures of her in the nude. When she was a kid.’

  ‘Some of the pictures also show paintings of her in progress. Judging by these pictures, your father painted several nudes of her.’

  ‘Can I see the other photographs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not for any prurient interest …’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that. Tell me about Victoria Mendenhall. Nobody involved in this case mentioned the existence of a daughter.’

  ‘She was pretty wild.’ McLusky did not know whether Elliot was offering it as a kind of explanation. A pause developed during which Elliot nervously flicked at the photo in his hand. ‘Did he sleep with her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ McLusky took the photograph back and returned it to the envelope. ‘I’ll have to go, but I’ll keep you informed of any developments. But first I need a word with your girlfriend.’

  ‘What? Why?’ Elliot’s voice was sharp. ‘Are you going to ask her how old she is?’

  McLusky took no notice. He flicked through files on his mobile while he wandered through the hall towards the softly playing classical music. The young woman was standing by the window cradling her coffee mug against her chest. McLusky, closely shadowed by Elliot, walked up to her. ‘Is your name Lamberti? Is this you?’ He held out his phone with a picture of Fulvia Lamberti from the missing person’s file.

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘We have people looking for you.’

  She shrugged. ‘Then you can stop looking,’ she said. Her Italian accent was soft and seductive.

  ‘Your parents don’t know where you have got to. They are worried about you.’

  ‘I don’t mind that.’

  ‘You stopped going to college. Have you dropped out for good?’

  ‘I am learning more here.’

  ‘Can I inform your father that we have f
ound you?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t give him my address; he’ll only turn up or send people to make trouble.’

  McLusky looked around the room; it was crammed with paintings, sketchbooks, books on artists and art movements. ‘Fair enough. Nice to have met you.’

  On his way back to Bristol he called Elaine Poulimenos, Jennifer Longmaid and Mrs Mohr. While he spoke to them, he struggled not to litter his speech with the swear words that came so readily to his mind.

  In the corridor on the CID floor he stopped DI Fairfield from disappearing into her office. ‘Kat?’

  Fairfield looked at him impatiently, her hand on the door handle. ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘Your student – Fulvia Lamberti? Alive and well. And safe.’

  Fairfield walked towards him like a drunk looking for a fight. ‘How the hell do you know? You’ve seen her?’

  ‘I have, and she’s fine.’ McLusky turned away.

  ‘Wait! Where is she?’

  McLusky stopped. ‘Sorry. She doesn’t want anyone to know.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what the spoilt brat wants. Where is she? Why has she stopped coming to college? What is she up to?’

  ‘She’s painting. And she’s in love, I guess. Look, she’s over eighteen, she can do what she likes.’

  ‘Great. In love and painting. It’s all right for some. I hope you told her what she’s putting her parents through and what lengths we went to in order to check that she’s alive and safe.’

  ‘Yes, I told her all of that,’ McLusky lied, ‘and she’s very contrite.’

  ‘I bloody well hope so.’ Fairfield turned away towards her office. Her homicide case had evaporated into thin air but she felt none the lighter for it.

  McLusky shrugged and continued down the corridor; a moment later he heard Fairfield’s door being slammed so hard he could feel the draught of air at his back.

  In the murder room at Albany Road he fumed at everyone in the room and Austin in particular. ‘Everybody knew about Victoria Mendenhall, everybody knew David Mendenhall had a sister. Why the hell didn’t we?’