by CJ Carver
‘He has to make sure he has enough evidence before he can instigate an investigation.’ Lucy remained firmly neutral. This was a small community and she didn’t want to take sides. She could almost see the wicker man burning in the garden below.
‘But he was reluctant.’
‘He said he was going to reconsider.’
‘Reconsider?’ he repeated with a snort of derision. ‘Ha!’
Still looking at her he pulled out a phone. Dialled. He listened a moment then said, ‘Call me back. Immediately.’
There was an odd little pause. Then Lucy said, ‘I was looking at Connor’s computer. Checking his browser history.’
‘Find anything?’
‘Nothing obvious so far. No suicide sites, for example.’
He grunted. ‘Keep on with it, then.’
Lucy turned back to work. She was looking at Connor’s Facebook page, filled with photographs of teenagers drinking, laughing, biking, having fun, when Gordon’s phone rang.
He looked at the display but when he answered he didn’t greet the caller. Just jumped straight in.
‘I hear you’re reconsidering doing an autopsy.’ His tone could have stripped paint.
Shit, she thought. He knew the fiscal.
‘From now, you’re not reconsidering, you’re authorising it.’
Even from where she stood she could hear the tinny squawks of protest from the phone’s speaker but Connor’s grandfather didn’t seem to be hearing them.
‘If Dr Reavey’s got her concerns then they need to be satisfied,’ he snapped. ‘I know she’s English but that doesn’t mean—’
She watched as he took a huge breath and said, ‘Do not interrupt me again.’
Silence.
Holy crap, thought Lucy. Who was this man that he could talk to the fiscal like this?
‘As I was saying, you’re already aware that the English autopsy anyone and everyone, no matter how they have died, but this does not mean that Dr Reavey is wanting it done for no reason. What justification did she give?’
He listened for a bit then said firmly, ‘I want to do it.’
Shit, she thought a second time. He was a medical examiner of some sort.
‘I know he’s my fucking grandson.’ Gordon Baird’s voice hissed. ‘But I’m the most fucking qualified person you know and I don’t want to leave it to some wet-behind-the-ears incompetent imbecile who won’t know their dactylography from their diploid.’
He listened for a few seconds. ‘OK, OK.’ He began nodding. ‘I’ll observe. But give me Elena. She’s the only one who might do a half-decent job.’
Without another word, he hung up and turned to her.
‘He doesn’t like you. He called you interfering, obstructive and self-opinionated.’
‘Ah,’ she said brightly. ‘Those old chestnuts.’
He came and stood in front of her. ‘I don’t know who you are, or why you’re representing Dan, but there’s something about you . . .’
‘There’s something about you too.’ She was beginning to like the old bugger, as obstreperous as he was. ‘But would you mind telling me who you are? I mean I know you’re Connor’s grandfather, but if you’re asking to conduct an autopsy—’
‘I’m a pathologist.’
Lucy blinked. ‘I see.’
‘And Brice Kendrick’ – his eyes gleamed satisfactorily – ‘well, he’s my nephew.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I met your cousin,’ Lucy told Christopher.
‘Which one?’
‘The Procurator Fiscal.’
They were sitting in his VW Polo at the end of his drive. He was staring longingly at the house. She’d spotted him as she’d walked onto the street, and when she’d gone to speak to him he had said defensively, ‘I’m not stalking her, I promise. I just want to see her. See little Dougie.’
‘Any idea why he didn’t deign to tell me or Grace he was related to you when we saw him yesterday?’
Now Christopher turned to face Lucy. His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot.
‘No.’
‘You didn’t tell Dan either.’
‘I didn’t . . . I mean, it honestly didn’t cross my mind. Dan asked me what the fiscal said, so I told him.’
‘Are you close, as cousins? You and Brice?’
‘We’re family,’ he said simply. ‘We used to play together as kids. Dan too when he was up here. But after uni we went our own ways. We only see each other at Christmas and the like.’
Like a lot of families, Lucy thought.
‘Does Dan know Brice now?’
He blinked. ‘I don’t think so.’
Silence.
‘Will she take me back do you think?’ Desperation stood out in every feature. ‘I don’t love Jasmine. Not at all. It was a moment of madness. And it wasn’t as if I enjoyed it either. The sex, I mean. I thought I would, I thought it would be exciting, wild, different, but it was . . . ordinary.’
Lucy kept quiet.
‘I’m such a fool,’ he added. ‘Just because Sam and I had drifted . . . Hadn’t made love in . . . a long time, I thought I deserved some attention, some affection. God, how insufferable, how arrogant of me.’
‘How did it start?’
‘We went for a drink. That’s all. But then we went for another and another. We had dinner . . . She was so interesting. She had so much to say . . . and it was nice to talk about my work with someone who could see what I hoped to achieve. It was refreshing . . . incredibly stimulating, to be with someone who understood me, understood how my mind works, someone who listened. We laughed a lot too, about work things that . . .’
He looked ashamed for a moment and Lucy filled in the gap. Work things that Sam would never understand.
‘She’s nothing like Sam,’ he admitted.
A classic tale of adultery. Like most men, Christopher thought he could get away with an affair – did all men think their wives were stupid? – but then Sam found out.
‘How?’ Lucy asked.
‘A friend of hers saw me leaving Jasmine’s flat one evening when I said I was working late in the lab. She told Sam . . . When I got home later . . . Oh, God it was awful.’ He put a hand over his eyes. ‘Sam was so hurt . . . I’ve never seen her cry like that. I tried to tell her it wasn’t because I didn’t love her anymore, that it was a work thing . . . A period of madness . . . But she wouldn’t listen.’
‘What about Jasmine?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How did she react when your affair came out? Did she want you to move in with her?’
Christopher’s face contracted in surprise. ‘Good God, no. Jasmine made it quite clear she liked her independence. It was what attracted me in the first place. Her free spirit. No clinging, nothing ordinary or boring. No washing up or mowing the lawn . . .’
Lucy had heard it all before and tried not to yawn.
‘I still love Sam.’ Christopher’s voice was fierce. ‘I’ve never stopped loving her. Jasmine was . . . a diversion. A crazy mistake. But Sam doesn’t see it like that.’ He turned a desperate gaze on to Lucy. ‘What am I supposed to do? I can’t lose her. I can’t.’
‘Give her time.’ It was an old adage but one that Lucy depended on regularly. Time sometimes gave people the emotional space they needed, especially after an acknowledged affair, but she wasn’t sure time was going to help much considering their son had just died.
‘The one thing I don’t have,’ he gritted, ‘is fucking time.’
To her astonishment he leaped out of the car and began striding up the drive to his house, his shoulders set, his footsteps hard and angry. For a moment she was tempted to go after him, find out what had made him snap like that – because he’s just lost his son, you idiot – but since she was eternally nosy and alone in his car, she quickly opened the glovebox, had a look. A baby’s dummy, a pink mini umbrella and a coral lipstick told her this used to be his wife
’s car. Lucy continued her search, keeping an eye on the street in case Christopher returned. She’d just checked the car’s rubbish compartment (two Crunchy wrappers, several tissues and a dried-out apple core) when she spotted a small, black plastic device tucked above the car bonnet release.
She hadn’t honestly believed she would find something and for a moment she thought she was imagining things. Checking outside again – still no Christopher – she wriggled closer.
Well, bugger me, she thought.
It was a spy bug. She knew what they looked like thanks to Dan giving her two on a previous case. Switching her phone to silent – she didn’t want to tip off the listener – she took several photographs of it. Sat back in her seat.
Was it a case of a jealous spouse keeping tabs on their partner? Or was it someone else?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Christopher’s anger had evaporated by the time he reached his front door. It wasn’t like him to snap and he hoped Lucy would forgive him. He liked the young police woman, her energy and enthusiasm. He liked Grace too, and he wondered what Dan’s other friends were like. His father always said you could judge a man by his friends.
What would that say about him? His closest friend had to be Dan, who he’d known since he was a toddler. He was pretty close to Sophie too, having advised her on countless occasions over her chaotic love life – thank God she’d married Nick – but the last time he’d seen Gustav had been at Sophie’s wedding ten years ago. He had other friends, of course, but when the estate had to be sold a lot of them vanished.
Fair-weather friends, his father told him. Friends who were only interested in the shooting and fishing parties, and not in them as people.
Not Sam, though. They’d been going out for a year when his father made the announcement: Glenallen has to go. Sam said it was a shame because she loved the place too, but life was about more than living in a big house with endless guests. He had to agree with her on that point. He’d loved his home deeply, being able to fish practically from his bedroom, to walk five minutes and hear nothing but grouse cackling in the heather, but the guests he could take or leave.
It was the quietness he missed the most. He worked best in that endless highland silence. He supposed he would have liked to have inherited Glenallen not just for the sports but because he felt free there. His mother had understood. When they didn’t have guests, she’d fish every day, irrespective of the weather. She died just eight months after they moved into the little lodge at the end of the drive. Of a broken heart, they all thought, but nobody said so.
He flinched when the front door suddenly opened. He hadn’t expected Sam to answer.
‘Hi,’ he said. He suddenly felt devastatingly, appallingly awkward.
‘Hi.’
Her face was swollen from crying. Pain hovered like a miasma around her. She was trembling. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms but he didn’t dare.
‘What do you want?’
‘To see if you’re all right.’ Be normal, he told himself. Then all will be normal.
‘How can I be?’
He saw she’d put the lights on in the sitting room, which weakly illuminated the corridor behind her. Familiar objects, like the three-legged stand where they hung hats and coats, and the console table with the ceramic lamp they’d bought in France. Just standing there on the outside, looking in, made his knees feel weak. How had it come to this? His purpose in life had always been to provide and support his family, love them and protect them as well as give the children the best chance in life.
Had he got lost in his work somewhere along the way? He’d set up the Environmental Research Centre specifically to help people less fortunate than himself. He wanted to prevent starvation caused by population growth and feed the next generation for free. He didn’t know where it came from, his altruism, but talking to Jasmine – who had known real poverty in China – he wondered if it was because he’d come from such a privileged background and felt the need to redress some kind of balance. Whatever it was, it had driven him into another woman’s arms and had cost him what he’d once thought unassailable: his family.
‘You can’t be OK,’ he admitted. ‘Any more than I can.’
She looked at the ground, twisting her hands together. When she spoke it was almost a whisper. ‘Do you really think he did it because I asked him to babysit?’
‘Of course not!’ He was shocked.
‘It’s what everyone’s saying . . .’
‘He didn’t commit suicide. And if he did, it wouldn’t be over something like that. You know that, deep down. He was a happy boy. He was incredibly excited about going to the bike championships, remember? He was looking forward.’
Sam turned her head away. ‘I don’t know anything anymore.’
His heart felt as though it was clenched in a vice. He made to move towards her but she held up a hand.
‘When you feel your world shatter, you instinctively reach for something solid to hold on to, and when it’s no longer there you feel cut loose, desperately adrift . . .’
‘I am your anchor,’ he told her fiercely.
‘What about that woman?’
He hadn’t done anything about Jasmine but now it seemed ridiculously clear. ‘I’ll ask her to leave.’
For the first time Sam met his eyes. ‘I thought she was invaluable to your project.’
‘Not at the expense of my family.’
She knew he meant it and gave a nod. For the first time he felt some hope that they might make it through this mess, together and not apart.
When he heard footsteps behind him he turned to see Lucy approaching.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but I just need to ask you a question. Would that be OK?’
‘Of course,’ he replied and at the same time as Sam nodded.
‘It’s a bit of an odd one, I’m afraid.’ Lucy directed her attention to Sam, but Christopher could feel her attentiveness embrace him too.
‘I know you had your difficulties before Connor died . . . but I was wondering if you were ever tempted to bug Christopher’s car? I mean the Polo . . . to check up on him?’
‘What?’
‘I just wondered, that’s all.’
‘Well, no.’ Sam looked bewildered. ‘Why?’
Lucy looked at Christopher. He knew his expression was perfectly blank because he had no idea what this was all about. Police statistics on spousal surveillance? The fallout from infidelity?
‘Sorry to have bothered you.’ Lucy looked between them, shifting from foot to foot. ‘Look, I don’t often get personal but of all the couples I’ve seen going through an appalling patch . . . well, you need each other now, and who else can support and understand what you’re going through? I know I’m not an expert, but . . .’ She suddenly looked embarrassed. ‘I’ll be off then.’
Christopher watched her walk down the path. He was thinking again what good friends Dan had when Sam touched his arm.
‘She’s right, you know. Do you want to come in?’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Twenty-five past two in the afternoon and Grace was thanking God she hadn’t had lunch. She wasn’t great with autopsies. She wasn’t bad enough that she threw up, but she wrestled with the process and always had.
She hadn’t wanted to attend but Lucy had insisted. I’d go if I could, she’d told her. But since I can’t, we have to have one of the team there. The team being her, Lucy and Dan.
Elena Crofton, the pathologist Gordon Baird had insisted upon, was inspecting a messy wound on Connor’s thigh. She was concentrating, she told Grace, on finding any wounds or injuries that would not have been caused by a fall into a ravine. She’d already weighed and measured the body, and collected scrapings from beneath his fingernails. She’d taken swabs for possible DNA analysis, and saliva samples as well as residues of dried blood, which had all been stored for later analysis.
They both looked around when the door opened
and closed. Gordon Baird.
‘Elena,’ he said.
‘Sir,’ she responded. Her posture had straightened as though she was a foot soldier in the presence of a superior officer.
He looked at Grace in sharp enquiry. ‘What are you doing here?’
They’d met when she first started at Duncaid Surgery. He’d come in specially to meet her and he’d grilled her as relentlessly as any medical board about her qualifications and particular skills for the job. Not wanting to alienate a local – a big man at that – on her first day, she’d taken it on the chin but inside she’d been simmering at his intrusive, God-like attitude.
‘I asked for the autopsy,’ she replied evenly.
He didn’t respond. Simply went to the body. Elena stepped back, her head bowed slightly, her body language deferent. He looked down at his grandson. His face lengthened and Grace felt herself soften at his obvious sorrow, but when he turned back his sadness had vanished beneath a professional cloak.
‘What have you found?’ he asked Elena briskly.
‘I’m not sure about this wound.’ She pointed at the bloody mess on the boy’s right thigh. ‘His jeans are ripped at the same point, but whether it was from the fall, I’m not sure.’
Gordon withdrew a pair of spectacles from his lab coat and put them on. Then he pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves. Studied the wound. ‘His jeans?’
She brought over a clear plastic bag and pulled them out. He studied them at length frowning. ‘I see what you mean. The tears aren’t necessarily consistent with a fall upon the rocks. They could have been done with a knife.’
He returned to inspect Connor’s right thigh. ‘I want you to concentrate on this area. I think someone could have made this mess in order to cover something else up. What else?’
‘There’s lividity on his arm. I think he was moved after death.’
A tension came over him. ‘Show me.’
Elena lifted Connor’s arm to allow the old pathologist to have a look. He studied it a while. Then he straightened up. ‘The lividity isn’t what bothers me,’ he added, his expression troubled. ‘It’s the wound on his thigh that does. You’ll be taking samples of bodily fluids? Samples of the contents of the stomach and intestines? Oh, and remove the liver and weigh it, please.’