by Iain Cameron
‘The police officer I spoke to said he fell from the deck of a cross-Channel ferry.’
‘It happens more often than you think, Dennis, especially if people are larking around and alcohol or drugs are involved.’
‘He didn’t do drugs and didn’t drink much either, and he’d made the journey hundreds of times, as he accompanied me whenever I went to see suppliers and wholesalers. He knew the dangers of falling over the side, as I’d told him over and over, even from an early age. No, Chris didn’t jump and he didn’t fall, he was pushed. My son was murdered, Inspector Henderson. Murdered for what he knew.’
THREE
Henderson threw his legs out of bed and sat there for a moment trying to clear his head. He couldn’t do this in his old flat in Seven Dials, as the sash windows leaked air and his bedroom in the morning could be bitterly cold, even with the heating on. Dawdling, even with the impediment of the severest hangover, didn’t come as an option.
‘What time is it?’ Rachel said from somewhere beneath the duvet. At least that was what he thought she said, as her voice sounded muffled and croaky.
‘Six-thirty.’
‘What day is it?’
‘Oh, a harder question this time, Ms Jones. Thursday, I think.’
No response. He walked towards the en-suite bathroom, careful to avoid the assorted rubbish scattered over the floor, an aborted attempt at emptying packing cases last night that had ended when Rachel pulled the cork on a bottle of wine.
He switched on the shower, set it hot and stepped inside the steam-filled cubicle. Initially, he’d been reluctant to move in with Rachel, not because he didn’t love her, he did, but being a DI in Major Crime meant at times he would be working a big case. When this happened, all his energies would be focused on the investigation and not her. It had buggered up his marriage to Laura, and he was damn sure he didn’t want the same thing happening again.
What changed his mind was the house. They both liked the idea of living in Kemptown, and one day while out walking they’d seen the three-bedroom mews house in College Place in an estate agent’s window. No way could he or Rachel have afforded it on their own, and while he wouldn’t say it was the main reason they’d moved in together, without doubt it provided the spark that fired up his inertia.
He dressed and headed downstairs. More debris, packing cases, bubble wrap and lots of things he didn’t recognise. He tried to ignore them all and made a pot of tea. He took a cup up to Rachel but all he received in return was a grunt emanating from a mass of untidy hair.
One of the joys of being in this new place was the garden. His old flat was on the top floor of an apartment building, and while it overlooked a communal grassy area, it didn’t offer any privacy. The expanse of greenery at the back this house was small and wouldn’t require giving up half of his weekend to mow and maintain, but big enough for a table and chairs and a few flowers around the edge. This being Brighton in early May, the sun was shining. He carried his bowl of granola, topped with muesli, and a mug of tea out to the table and sat down.
It was a beautiful spot, on an elevated position overlooking the tops of houses lower down the hill. From where he was sitting, he could smell the sea and hear the cawing of the chip-thieving seagulls that were always awake before him, almost drowning out the light chirping of blackbirds and sparrows in the trees and rooftops nearby.
He understood now why arty types liked to settle in this part of Brighton, as it was replete with twee shops, interesting pubs serving real ale, and a variety of good restaurants. To him, that all paled into insignificance against the pleasure of basking in the sun in your own space and listening to the sounds of the city as it stretched and rubbed its eyes from sleep.
He finished breakfast, sat back and shut his eyes. He didn’t feel tired or hung-over, surprising after a late night, a few beers and half a bottle of wine. He was thinking about a question someone had asked him at a party a few nights back, did he think crime novels reflected reality, when he felt a tickle on his face that made him jump. Warm lips smelling of toothpaste enveloped his.
‘Good morning, Detective,’ Rachel said.
‘Good morning to you too.’
She sat down on the chair opposite. With hair brushed and teeth cleaned, she looked her normal self, an inquiring, nosy journalist, eyes alert for the next story, if only the Pooh Bear pyjamas and fluffy pink dressing gown could be ignored.
‘Now we’ve moved in together, can I expect a cup of tea in bed every morning?’
‘Perhaps madam would like some bacon and eggs to go with it?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘Fat chance.’
‘I thought so.’
‘What have you got on today?’
‘Let me think. Yes, I’m going to see the organisers of the Henfield Show. My boss has moved there and thinks the place could do with some publicity. What about you?’
He told her about his meeting the day before with Dennis Fletcher and his suspicion that his son’s death may not have been an accident.
Rachel’s face crumpled. ‘It must be awful, losing an only child.’
‘Horrible. Children are not meant to die before their parents.’
‘So you think there must be something else to his story – otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it?’
‘Now, now, put your pen and notepad away. I didn’t say I found anything suspicious about his death, it was his father that said it.’
‘Is it common, to have grieving parents disputing the cause of death?’
‘No, not often. I’ve known many relatives unable to accept it when someone close to them is killed; maybe this is part of the same thing.’
‘I hope you’ll investigate his claims. You wouldn’t want to leave the poor man heartbroken and accusing you of not taking his allegations seriously.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said standing up and stretching, before leaning over and giving her a goodbye kiss. ‘If I did, journalists like you would be on my case and I would never hear the end of it. See you later.’
In part, their justification in moving to Kemptown and taking on such a large mortgage was that they would be closer to Hollingbury where they both worked. At the time, Henderson was based at Sussex House, and a few streets away Rachel worked at The Brighton Argus. The Argus was still there, but Sussex House was now closed, a victim of budget cuts introduced by the Government to help meet their deficit targets. They could have pulled out of the move to Kemptown, but by then they both loved the house.
His team were now located in Malling House in Lewes, a myriad of buildings tucked behind a Grade 1 listed Queen Anne building that served as Sussex Police Headquarters. His people were in a refurbished area, a more spacious working environment than Sussex House, where peeling paintwork and damaged walls were starting to make it look its age. The downside of the move was it brought them closer to the top brass, as the Chief Constable and all his ACC’s were based there.
This morning he headed along Lewes Road in the general direction of Malling House, but before getting there, turned into Woodvale Crematorium, the home of Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. He parked the car at the rear of the Mortuary, a place exuding the air of a domestic bungalow, reinforced by the view over terraced houses in nearby Gladstone Place.
If the building looked normal, even suburban on the outside, what went on inside was far from it. Any death deemed violent, unnatural, occurring in state custody, or if the cause of death was unknown, ended up in here at the end of the pathologist’s razor-sharp scalpel.
Most people who were regular viewers of police dramas and CSI-type television programmes were aware that one of a pathologist’s jobs was to remove a victim’s organs, examine and weigh them, but Henderson suspected few people knew why. It looked to be an academic exercise, the results published in dusty journals and only read by a few fellow scientists, but the truth was more prosaic.
The month before, Henderson was responsible for investigating the case of
a woman strangled to death during a vigorous sex session with her boyfriend. He was questioned and after admitting his part in killing her, was arrested and charged with manslaughter. A few days later, an examination of the heart during the post-mortem, revealed a congenital defect and it was this that had killed her, not the scarf tightened around her neck by her boyfriend to increase her sexual pleasure. He was subsequently released and would face no further charges.
Henderson rang the bell and mortuary assistant Marie Starling let him inside. She was a small, intense woman with bright red hair and various metal piercings on her face. While Henderson had never seen her in normal clothes, he suspected her arms and legs would be covered in tattoos.
He donned a pair of clean overalls and hat and walked into the brightly lit area where the head pathologist, Grafton Rawlings, had his back to him, leaning over a bench and writing notes.
‘Hello Angus,’ he said, without turning round, ‘I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’
‘No problem.’
Six metal tables were laid out, all scrubbed clean and sanitised, ready to receive the day’s unfortunate visitors. Dotted around were whiteboards to note the findings of any post-mortem for all to see, but they too had been wiped. The expanse of grey metal, the white tiling on the walls, the pristine clean floor, gave it the look of a hospital operating theatre, but there could be no mistaking the smell; a variety of disinfectants trying without much success to mask the scent of death.
‘Right Angus, I’m finished,’ Rawlings said as he signed something with a flourish. The pathologist was thirty-eight with a mop of black hair hidden beneath his cap, a dark, tanned face from being called out in all weathers and being a keen sea angler, and the spiky growth of a man who would have to attack his face with a razor three times a day to look clean-shaven.
‘How did the house move go?’
‘Very well I have to say, nothing’s broken. Mind you, it’s not all unpacked.’
‘My wife and I moved house four years ago, and there’s stuff out in the garage, untouched and still in the mover’s original boxes.’
‘There’s hope for me yet. When we’re settled, you and Serena must come round for dinner.’
‘I’d like that. Give me a shout when you’re ready to receive visitors.’
‘Sure.’
‘You said on the phone you wanted to take a look at Chris Fletcher?’
‘Yes. Have you completed the P-M?’
‘I finished it last night. Do you want to see him?’
‘If I could.’
Rawlings nodded at Marie, standing behind Henderson. She walked to the bank of four drawers lining the wall, looking like a giant’s filing cabinet, and opened it. Inside, the corpse of Chris Fletcher. With a care and delicacy belying her rough looks, she transferred the body from the drawer to one of the scrubbed benches.
Dennis Fletcher had told the DI that his son was twenty-seven, and this was apparent from his trendy haircut, unblemished teeth and the pile of modern clothes, tagged with his name, lying to one side. The Police Constable who handled the case had found the lad’s wallet in his jacket pocket, hence the speed of identification, a job made many times more difficult if he had spent longer in the water.
With the report in one hand and pencil in the other, Rawlings pointed out the key items of interest.
‘Classic drowning scenario, would you say?’ Henderson asked when the pathologist had finished speaking.
‘I would. His lungs were filled with water, there was water in his pleural cavities, diatoms in his tissues. I have no doubt he drowned. I understand he was crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven and hearing this only confirms my belief that the victim must have fallen overboard.’
‘The one question I have, is did he jump or was he pushed?’
‘I wondered why you were taking such an interest in this particular one. Your question may be answered, or at least narrowed down, if your enquiries reveal the victim exhibited suicidal tendencies and eye witnesses saw him climbing a rail.’
‘True. Is there anything else you’ve spotted that I should be aware of? I can tell you haven’t told me everything.’
‘I was saving the best for last,’ Rawlings said, his face deadpan.
He tilted the dead boy’s head and with his pencil parted his hair.
‘How did he get that?’ Henderson said, a strong element of surprise in his voice.
‘He could have hit something on the side of the ship on the way down, but I think it unlikely as these sorts of vessels, to my knowledge, don’t have much in the way of extraneous equipment.’
‘You’re right as it would affect streamlining and get knocked off the next time the ferry tried to dock.’
‘I next surmised he might have struck something in the water, but when I analysed the wound I couldn’t find traces of algae or any marine organism that might be expected to transfer from an object which had been in the water for some time.’
‘Still, he could have smacked his head on a bulkhead and, feeling dazed, fell overboard, or maybe he had been in a fight.’
‘Possibly, although not likely given the position of the wound at the back of the head and the depth of the indentation, but Angus, that’s for you to decide. Take a look at this, it might help you make a decision.’
Rawlings reached down and lifted an arm, and there, faint against the alabaster-coloured skin, Henderson could see bruises, the shape indicative of a gripping hand. ‘It’s the same on the other arm,’ the pathologist said.
Henderson drove to Malling House, deep in thought. The death of Chris Fletcher was bothering him. His purpose in coming to the Mortuary had been to tell Dennis Fletcher that his fears were unfounded; his son’s death, no matter how tragic it might be, was an accident. However, what he saw of Chris’s head injury and the bruises to his arms had convinced him otherwise. The difficulty now was persuading his boss to allow him to investigate.
FOUR
The sprawl of greater Bordeaux receded into the background as Harvey Miller crossed the Dordogne River and headed towards the town of Blaye. It was perhaps too grand a term to call many of the houses he passed ‘châteaux’, as the French chose to do, since they were often no more than ordinary detached farmhouses with a vineyard, but it didn’t stop him feeling envious.
Former journalist, now private investigator, Harvey Miller came from Philadelphia. While he admired the soaring skyscrapers of New York, Chicago and of his home town, there was something quaint about the simplicity of life here, as if he had been transported to a bygone age. Lying on the passenger seat of the Peugeot hire car, possessing an engine with less power than his ride-on lawn cutter at home, was a map of Bordeaux. Inside the glove box, copies of articles printed from the internet and from magazines about wine fraud.
His backer on this job, a Philly financier by the name of Robert Wilson, made a fortune trading bonds, and in his spare time focussed some of the passion he reserved for making money, on wine. He not only spent large amounts of money buying wine, he had converted the basement of his Washington Square mansion into a gigantic wine cellar. With deep pockets and a willingness to spend, Wilson didn’t drink wines from the local wine shop or cases he’d sourced on the internet, but only the finest wines around. Even for everyday consumption, he thought nothing of drinking bottles costing over one hundred bucks a throw. Harvey Miller hadn’t even tasted a fifty-buck wine, but some of the stuff they served in the wine bars around Bordeaux wasn’t bad at all.
About a year back, Wilson became suspicious that some of the wines in his collection, ranging from well-known French châteaux and venerated Italian producers to the new, coveted wines of California, didn’t match the description on the label. Sure, Wilson told him, he expected some of the wines from sixty or seventy years ago to be corked or taste like old socks, as he didn’t know how well they had been stored. But for them to taste like a ten-buck wine from the convenience store on the corner; no way.
Miller had been away from the States for
over a month, first to the Barolo region of Italy and now to Bordeaux. He was armed with no more than rumours garnered from the web, law enforcement agencies and limited PI investigations about the likely sources of those fakes. They didn’t go as far as to name particular producers, as nothing had been proved, but he knew now the areas he should concentrate his energies on.
He hadn’t been making much progress with his tried and tested method of following vineyard workers into bars and engaging them in conversation, but a week back, persistence received its reward. A Brit called Chris Fletcher had told him about strange goings on at the place where he worked, and Miller was heading there right now.
He reached Château Osanne half an hour later, following a delightful drive past vineyard after vineyard with regimented lines of vines. The concentration of vineyard properties in this part of Aquitaine known as Cars reminded him of California, but here the properties were smaller and missing the marketing hype, openness and tasting opportunities so beloved of his compatriots.
He drove along the front of the property, marvelling at the opulence. He had never seen anything like it except at the very biggest châteaux, yet this minor league team had a high metal fence set atop a three-foot wall running all around the place. He stopped at the main entrance, further progress blocked by two locked ornate gates.
The two vineyards he had visited a few days back to try and find out something about the château where Chris Fletcher worked were both small, family affairs. Even though both were involved in the production of wine, their properties looked more like farms than vineyards, with geese and goats in the yard, and old tractors lying rusting in barns.
Château Osanne was on a different level. The house was large with an expanse of light-coloured gravel covering the area where a garden should have been. It had an impressive oak front door flanked by two Greek-style pillars, tall sash windows and high-ceilinged rooms with glittering chandeliers. To the left of the house, a triple wooden garage and to the right and behind an old stone well, the edge of a large warehouse. It reeked of money and in his business, following the money wasn’t such a bad thing to do.