Fighting for the Dead

by Nick Oldham

  Having gone as far as he had, Flynn thought it only right and proper to finish the job and carry the body up onto dry land, to a point where the emergency services could easily get to her. Not that she needed an ambulance now, but paramedics usually turned out to such incidents and did the job of transporting the corpse to the mortuary. The cops would definitely come, too.

  She was quite light and for a moment Flynn had the horrible thought that her lolling head might drop off as he made his way from grass bank to grass bank, leaping over the narrow channels, so he cradled it in the crook of his arm to stop it flopping about.

  His eyes were drawn to her face, the skin wrinkled from immersion in water. He noticed the remnants of fine white foam and mucus under her nostrils and at the corners of her mouth – one of the few external indications of drowning, though he was no expert in such matters.

  Not so long ago, he guessed, she would have been very good-looking and her long black hair would have been quite spectacular. Now clods of it had fallen out and she had some ugly bald patches on her head.

  ‘What a shame,’ he breathed.

  She was wearing a variety of rings on her fingers that looked expensive, he also noted. Including a wedding band.

  He stumbled up to the side of the road that led to the picnic area he had been planning to walk through, and placed her gently on the grass and exhaled.

  Not that he was out of breath. Five years of playing and landing big game fish, some marlin in the region of 1,000lb, and most heavier than this woman, had made him into a fit, strong guy.

  He shuffled out his mobile phone and tapped out treble-nine, standing by the body as the line connected.

  Her eyes were still wide open, but now they seemed to be staring imploringly at him.

  Henry had mentally switched off.

  Professor Baines, foolishly prompted by Henry, was now on a roll, explaining energetically to the detective about his lifelong obsession with the teeth of dead people.

  ‘Problem was, you see, there was, is, no internationally accepted standard for ante-mortem dental records and there are several hundred types of dental charts used around the world . . . no consistency . . . which is where I came in and then got my gong, as it were,’ he spouted proudly.

  A blank-faced detective superintendent sipped his coffee.

  ‘Symbols and designations were – are – by no means standard, and, of course, the general record-keeping of overworked dentists is pretty appalling too. And some use their own systems anyway . . . so I devised an ID database that cross-checks between all known ways of cataloguing records.’

  Baines went on to triumphantly explain the intricacies of the system he had been researching and devising for over twenty years.

  ‘Still not foolproof, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Human error, bent and lazy dentists and all that. But it’s still pretty good and from my own research and knowledge I’m pretty certain I can already put some geography on what I’ve seen in the girl’s mouth.’

  Henry suddenly perked up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Which could help to pinpoint exactly where she came from. I’d put her as Eastern European, possibly Russian or one of its surrounding states. I’ll do X-rays and take a sample from the fillings, the gold one and the concrete ones, and look at the other dental work in there.’

  ‘Russian?’ Henry queried with arched eyebrows.

  Baines shrugged enigmatically. ‘First guess.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  Henry’s mobile phone rang before he could ask Baines the next question. His ringtone was a jaunty James Blunt number all about sunshine and making love, reflecting his currently happy state of mind.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Christie, how can I help?’

  It was the Force Incident Manager, or FIM, based in the communications room at police headquarters at Hutton, just to the south of Preston. The FIM was the officer who contacted and turned out SIOs. Henry got a lot of calls from that source.

  The FIM, a uniformed inspector, outlined the nature of the incident and asked Henry if he wished to attend.

  He said yes. There was rarely an occasion when Henry refused to have a look at a dead body. He finished the call with an estimated time of arrival and looked across at Baines with a grin. Who better to be having a coffee with at such a time than a Home Office pathologist?

  Henry and the professor made their way back to the mortuary where Henry climbed into his car, a Mercedes coupe, and Baines said he would follow on a short while later when he’d finished in the office. Leaving the mortuary car park, Henry was instantly on the A588 and by turning right and travelling south a few miles he was soon at Conder Green. He slowed and turned off the road in front of the Stork and drew up in the car park at the front of the pub.

  From where he was, he could see activity about a hundred and fifty metres dead ahead at the old railway bridge over the River Conder. There was an ambulance, a marked police car, a couple of other vehicles on the grass verge and a huddle of people.

  Henry went to the boot of his car, where he always kept the bits and bats of paraphernalia that a good detective always carried. This included the water-and-windproof jacket that he hunched into and zipped up. Even in the few moments exposed to the weather here he had shivered at the cold of this bleak location.

  He always preferred to approach the scene of a death on foot if possible. He thought it gave him some sort of psychological insight into what might have happened, although he had no evidence to back this up. Not that he had any reason to suspect that this death was anything more than a tragic accident and his presence at it was simply a procedural thing.

  That said, he never made the assumption that any sudden death was straightforward. He always thought murder, then backtracked from there. A thought process that had been ingrained in him since the year dot – ever since his first-ever lesson about dealing with sudden deaths at the police training centre when he was but a ‘sprog’, the derogatory term used to describe probationer constables.

  And death by drowning was always worth a proper look, even though few such deaths were the result of homicidal foul play, which is why he had been asked to attend. If anything was amiss, he could kick-start the appropriate level of investigation.

  He had only been given sparse details.

  The FIM had told him that it was more than likely the body in the water was that of Jennifer Sunderland. She had been missing from her home for three days and it was thought she might have fallen into the River Lune, close to where she lived – further upriver in the village of Halton. The night she had disappeared had been stormy, the river high and running fast from heavy rainfall up in the hills, and if she had gone in she could easily have been swept away out to sea and never seen again.

  The day after the disappearance the police had organized searches at ground level along the banks of the Lune accessible by foot, and with the force helicopter, but to no avail.

  But the currents of the Lune estuary are unpredictable as well as dangerous. Henry had known of people being washed away and never seen again, others who had been half-drowned but survived, and others whose bodies had been deposited on sandbanks one day later, or ten days later. Sometimes they were in good condition – if dead and drowned could be described as good – others rotted away, chewed by fish and in a terrible state.

  There were no set rules. The river and the sea made the running. In places like this, nature was the boss.

  Up to the body being found, the disappearance of Jennifer Sunderland had been treated as an urgent but run-of-the-mill ‘missing from home’ enquiry, run by the local uniformed section and overseen by the detective inspector at Lancaster section.

  There was every chance it would be wound up in the same way, with the uniforms supervising the post-mortem and all contact with the coroner. Not a job for FMIT.

  Henry hoped it would pan out this way: just a tragedy, but not one he needed to be concerned about.

  He locked his car and started to walk towar
ds the scene. As he came off the car park another car pulled off the main road and parked alongside his Mercedes. He did a quick check to see it wasn’t too close to his pride and joy and irritably wondered why the driver hadn’t stopped somewhere else in the virtually empty car park. Other than that, he didn’t really give it much heed, other than to notice it was a big high-spec Range Rover with two men on board. He assumed they were going to the Stork, which was open for morning coffee.

  The DI from Lancaster detached himself from the huddle of cops and paramedics and met Henry halfway. His name was Ralph Barlow.

  ‘Boss,’ the DI said, obviously knowing Henry, who knew every detective of rank in the county. The two men shook hands. ‘Nothing here for you, I’m afraid,’ the DI went on. He was a very experienced detective, mid-forties. He and Henry had crossed paths a few times, but Henry didn’t know much about him, other than he tended to grate a little and there were various unconfirmed rumours about his gambling habits. He was a brittle, self-opinionated man who Henry tried not to dislike. That said, he was a sound detective. ‘I actually told the FIM not to bother you. I’m quite capable of dealing with a drowning,’ he said grumpily.

  ‘Well, he did, but I’m here now . . . so I’ll just go through the motions.’ Henry understood the DI’s point of view. No doubt he was eminently capable.

  ‘Whatever,’ Barlow muttered.

  ‘What’ve we got, then? I know the general scenario.’

  ‘Aye, well, looks like she went in the water three days ago and turned up today.’

  ‘Yeah, got that much, Ralph. Did she fall or was she pushed?’

  Henry watched Barlow’s mind tick this over for a second before saying, ‘Husband said she was a bit depressed, but not necessarily suicidal. No talk of ending her life.’

  ‘So who is she?’

  ‘Jennifer Sunderland . . . wife of Harry Sunderland?’ Barlow said this as if Henry should connect the dots. Instead he just looked blank. ‘Harry Sunderland, local, but big businessman? Haulage, property . . . you name it.’

  ‘As in Sunderland Transport?’ Henry guessed.

  ‘One and the same.’

  ‘Ahh.’ Henry had seen their lorries all over the place. Not as numerous as a company like Eddie Stobart, but still quite noticeable. And with a big international operation. Henry hadn’t made the connection, but there wasn’t any reason why he should have done. He wasn’t local to this area. ‘You’ve seen the husband, then?’

  ‘Yeah, when she went missing. She . . . er . . . went out in the rain, never came back.’

  ‘You happy about that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Barlow said shirtily.

  ‘No reason. Just a question I’d ask of any detective, Ralph, and expect them not to get uptight about it . . . So what’s the crack here?’ Henry gestured to the hive of activity.

  ‘Guy out for a stroll spots the body swishing about in the tide and drags her out.’

  ‘And we’re sure it’s Mrs Sunderland?’

  ‘Oh, yeah . . . I knew her,’ Barlow said, then stopped himself.

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘Well, only in passing. Seen her with hubby at one or two golf-club shindigs, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  ‘Yeah, they have quite a high profile around here,’ Barlow explained smoothly. ‘Charities, businesses and all that shit, y’know . . . Hey, thinking about it,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘you’ll know the guy who dragged her out of the water. I don’t know him, but he’s an ex-cop.’

  By the time Barlow had said this, they were almost at the scene and Henry could see a half-covered body on the ground, feet sticking out, one with a Wellington boot on it. He had also spotted the biggest man in the group. His heart lurched slightly.

  ‘He’s the fella that was involved in all that stuff up in Kendleton a while back. The stuff you were involved in, too.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Henry said. ‘I know him.’

  Flynn decided he’d had enough questions from the two keen young PCs now. Their eager enquiries were beginning to annoy him and because the weather was getting colder as a sharp wind increased from the west and zipped around, he was getting very cold. His trainers and jeans were soaking, as was the front of his jacket where he’d carried the dead woman. And this was all a bit of a problem because he hadn’t brought a change of footwear or jeans with him from Gran Canaria. Having travelled very light, not expecting to have to wade knee-deep in unpleasant, cold, muddy water and recover bodies, he’d thought that one pair of jeans would be enough to sustain him for at least a week.

  At the very least, he needed to warm up.

  ‘Look, guys,’ he said, holding up his hands, ‘I’ve done my duty, you’ve got my current address, my mobile number and my details. I need to get out of these clothes, otherwise I’ll contract hypothermia and you’ll have another death on your hands. If you want to come to the chandlery about three this aft, I’ll happily give you a written statement . . . but first, change of clothing . . . somehow,’ he added wistfully and eased his way past the bobbies.

  As he walked by the rear of the ambulance that had turned up, he caught the eye of a female paramedic and she smiled at him pleasantly. But then he glanced sideways, right into Henry Christie’s face.

  Henry smiled grimly – very much the opposite of the paramedic. ‘Mr Flynn,’ he said, ‘we meet once more . . .’

  Flynn emerged from the gents’ toilet, having spent a few minutes directing the hot-air flow from a wall-mounted hand drier downwards onto his jeans legs and socks. He had to perform a precarious dance/balancing act, lifting up one leg, then the other, in an effort to dry himself off. He had little success and came out carrying his trainers and socks and walked barefoot across the bar to where Henry Christie was sitting at a table by the roaring fire.

  At Henry’s insistence they had retired to the Stork for a chat and a warm.

  Flynn plonked himself opposite Henry and dropped his sodden trainers on the hearth with a splat. He laid his equally wet socks on the mesh of the fire guard. They started to steam immediately.

  Henry had bought each of them a coffee and Flynn took a sip of his, grateful for the warmth.

  The two men eyed each other suspiciously. Their pasts were intertwined. Flynn blamed Henry for hastening his departure from the police, a grudge he had borne for quite a few years, until he worked out that his own perception was skewed by the whole sorry affair. It had really been his own paranoia that had been his downfall. Flynn had also been involved in the blood-soaked scenario at Kendleton – through no fault of his own – and, more recently, had furnished Henry with some details he had stumbled across regarding terrorist activity in the UK.

  Henry, for his part, had suspected that Flynn had helped himself to a share of a million pounds of drug-dealer’s money in a police raid that had gone spectacularly wrong. Since then, he’d come to believe it had actually been Flynn’s then partner who’d snaffled the money and disappeared and Flynn hadn’t seen a penny of it.

  That didn’t make them friends, though, and they rarely saw eye-to-eye willingly, and tended to grate one another when they met up, which was fortunately not regularly.

  ‘Good coffee,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Henry glanced past Flynn’s shoulder and clocked the two men he’d seen arrive on the car park earlier in the Range Rover. They were tucking into an all-day breakfast, as he’d guessed they would. The sight of the food made Henry feel very empty.

  Bringing his eyes back to Flynn, Henry said, ‘What brings you back to these parts?’

  ‘A friend in need.’

  Henry arched his eyebrows. ‘Do you have a collection of people who need you to help them out?’

  Flynn grinned. ‘Believe it or not, I still have a few friends, and if they need help, I’ll try and give it.’

  ‘You’re a real trooper,’ Henry said sarcastically.

  Flynn glared at the detective, feeling a reddening of the neck. ‘I’m a
ssuming all you’ll need from me is a statement?’ he said coldly. ‘All I did was drag a body out of the drink, after all. I presume this’ – he indicated the coffee – ‘is just a social brew between mates and not an interrogation.’

  ‘Suppose so. And to say thanks for doing what you did. Good stuff,’ Henry conceded.

  ‘Anybody would have.’

  ‘No they wouldn’t.’

  ‘So what’s the poor woman’s story?’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Not sure. So far it’s just a uniformed issue, not CID. Might stay that way, but I’ll have a look at the circumstances leading up to her going missing. It could just be one of those things, a fatal slip.’

  Flynn took a long drink of the coffee and set down the mug. ‘I really need to get dried out properly, maybe even go into Lancaster for some new gear.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Henry volunteered.

  ‘You’re a real trooper.’

  Henry cracked a smile. ‘Touché.’

  ‘But a lift back into Glasson would be helpful. I’ll take it from there.’

  Flynn watched Henry drive away, leaving him standing outside the chandlery. He had a tight expression on his face as he thought about Henry, then dismissed him from his mind and let himself into the shop. Although he’d considered going into the city for some new togs, he’d realized there was no need because the chandlery had a fair selection of clothing that would do just fine. It wouldn’t exactly be his favourite Keith Richards T-shirt and baggy three-quarter-length pants, but it would have to suffice.

  He selected a shirt, trousers, socks and a pair of stout shoes that he packed into a large carrier bag. He thought his best course of action would be to get back to the canal boat, work out the heating system for himself, have his second shower of the day, then get changed. He would get lunch at the cafe on the other side of the sea lock – fish and chips – and get back to the chandlery to meet Diane for more induction as arranged.