Dear Departed

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Unusual circumstances?’ she said. And then, ‘I can’t think how you got hold of this. We haven’t sent them out yet. I mean, this isn’t even a finished disc. We’re going back to the studio on Friday to do the mixing.’

  ‘I was hoping that was the case,’ Atherton said. ‘So how many other copies like this were there and who had them?’

  ‘Well, it was just us in the band. Eight of us. Though I don’t know if they made any for the studio people. It’s a small independent studio in Goldhawk Mews,’ she added, looking up at him.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ They must have longed to call themselves Goldhawk Studios, but as that name was already taken, they had gone with Mews Studios, which was a bit like chewing rubber.

  ‘There’s Mike, Mike Ardeel. He owns the studio. And there’s Tony and Phil, the sound engineers.’

  ‘And that’s all? No-one else you can think of who might have had one.’

  ‘No,’ she said; and then, ‘Oh, of course Chattie had one.’

  ‘Chattie?’

  ‘It’s short for Charlotte.’ She smiled. ‘How cool is that? I love it! Chattie Cornfeld. She’s our PR person, and – well, she does all sorts of things for us.’

  ‘Can you describe her to me?’

  ‘She’s not in trouble, is she?’ Marion asked, looking concerned, but only as worried as a speeding fine, perhaps, or a parking ticket. Atherton didn’t speak, only gave her a stolid silence into which to insert her answer. ‘Well,’ said Marion, ‘she’s about my height, short blonde hair – very pretty.’ She looked at him enquiringly, to see if that was enough.

  ‘Does she wear a gold medallion round her neck?’

  Now, belatedly, real worry entered. ‘Yes, it’s a St Anthony medal. She got it in Tuscany last year. She loves it. Why? What’s happened?’ She looked down at the disc in its transparent evidence bag. ‘Why have you got it all wrapped up like this?’

  Atherton said, ‘I’m going to ask you to look at a picture and tell me if you think it’s her.’

  She could tell from the kindly way he said it. ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened? She’s been hurt.’

  Atherton said nothing, only offered her the mugshot. She looked at it for a moment, and then nodded. He saw her throat move as she tried to swallow. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ she managed to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Atherton. He was having to restrain himself from clasping her to the manly booz. She might have some irritating verbal habits, but she was as cute as all-get-out.

  ‘What happened? Was it an accident?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t an accident.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean – she was murdered?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  She had paled, and her lips moved soundlessly a few times before she was able to say, ‘But who did it? Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘I’m afraid from early appearances it seems to have been a random killing.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. She swayed a little, and Atherton put out a hand to catch her elbow, and used it to guide her to a seat. ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘Early this morning. She was attacked while she was out jogging.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. ‘I can’t believe it. Not Chattie.’

  Normally Atherton felt restless while this sort of thing was going on, but this time he waited patiently, allowing her to cope with the shock and disbelief. After a bit he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I need to ask you a few questions about her. You see, as she was out jogging when it happened, there was no form of identification on her, apart from this disc. That’s why we had to come to you. You obviously knew her quite well.’

  She straightened her shoulders to do her duty, though her eyes were still unfocused with shock. ‘Well, yes. She’s been involved with the band practically from the beginning.’

  ‘Is she a musician?’

  ‘Oh, no. Well, she studied music but she doesn’t play. She has this really cool company called Solutions. She does all sorts of office-consultancy services to small businesses, the sort of things they haven’t got the time or the skills to do for themselves. Like, for us she does the PR and advertising, and she advises us about everything, even pensions and what we can claim off tax. She knows everything, honestly. She’s so clever. And she does all the IT stuff. She designed our website, and she found the guy to do the actual build.’

  ‘Was she the one who designed the strapline – the one you have over your doorbell?’

  ‘Do you like it?’ She was brightening as she talked, the fact of the death slipping out of her mind with the ease of self-defence. Humankind cannot bear too much reality. Unconsciously she slipped into the present tense again. ‘She’s really brilliant at things like that. I mean, words are really her thing. It was her that thought up our name, Baroque Solid. I mean, cool, or what? Because that’s what jazz fans used to say about really cool jazz in the old days, in the fifties or whatever. They used to say it was “solid”. So it’s a kind of cute name, don’t you think?’

  Atherton did think, had thought a long time back, and rather wished that this divine creature had some of the dear departed’s skill with words. ‘Was she actually at the recording session on Monday?’ he asked.

  ‘She wouldn’t have missed it. It was her idea. She set it up and booked the studio and everything. She was going to do all the PR for it, and she’d already worked out the list of people to send the demo disc to. I dropped the band copy round to her yesterday evening so that she could listen to it before the mixing session on Friday. We couldn’t have that without her. She was always our best critic.’ Reality came back and smacked her round the ear. Her lips trembled. ‘But she won’t be there now, will she? I can’t believe she’s dead. I only saw her yesterday.’

  ‘You saw her yesterday?’ Atherton asked. ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘Well, I picked up the copies of the disc from the studio at about six o’clock and took one round to her house straight away, because she lives nearest. Then I dropped the boys’ and Trish’s off, and brought the others back here for Joni and Tab and me.’

  ‘You actually saw her when you called at her house?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, she’d just got in. She was still in the hall in her business suit sorting the mail when I rang the bell, hadn’t even put her briefcase away. We had a bit of a chat but she seemed in a hurry, and she said she had to get changed to go out, so I said, “See you on Friday,” and that was that.’

  ‘So you left at what time?’

  ‘Half past six, maybe. I wasn’t there long.’

  ‘And did you see her later? Or speak to her?’

  ‘Well, no.’ There were tears in her eyes now.

  ‘Do you know where she was going that evening?’

  ‘No, she didn’t say and I didn’t ask. She seemed a bit – well, preoccupied.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ Atherton said. He had asked out of habit. If she was the victim of a random killing it didn’t matter where she had been or with whom. ‘Well, you’ve been very helpful in identifying her for us. It’s saved us a lot of time. And now I wonder if you could give me her address?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said, rather hopelessly, and then pulled herself together. ‘I’ve got one of her invoices here. She worked from home.’

  Across the top of the invoice in large, heavy, raised type was the name ‘SOLUTIONS’ in caps. Under it in slightly smaller caps it said, ‘OFFICE CONSULTANCY FOR SMALL BUSINESS AND SELF-EMPLOYED’. And under that, in yet smaller type, in italics, upper and lower, ‘PR and IT Solutions and Much More’.

  The address was Wingate Road, a two-minute walk, if that, from the park gates.

  Marion Davies showed him out, and at the door he turned back and said, ‘By the way, just one more question.’

  ‘Yes?’ She raised her large, tear-polished eyes to him.

  ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

  CHAPTER THREE
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  Pas de Lieu, Rhône, Que Nous

  Slider always felt that Freddie Cameron, the forensic pathologist, was out of place against the backdrop of the mortuary of a modern steel-glass-and-concrete hospital. There was something quintessentially old-fashioned and gentlemanly about him, with his good suit, bow-tie and polished brogues (he always changed from black shoes to brown at the beginning of Henley week). He belonged with Victorian architecture and solid values. He was marble, not corian; leather, not plastic; solid mahogany, not veneered furniture board.

  He was also looking seriously overworked. His eyes were red-rimmed and dark-bagged.

  ‘Been making a night of it?’ Slider enquired politely.

  ‘You might say. Hannah had her baby last night – or, rather, early this morning – and since Andy’s abroad, Martha and I stayed with her all through. It was a harrowing experience, I can tell you.’

  ‘Why couldn’t Andy get leave?’ Freddie’s son-in-law was a high-earning oil-rig engineer.

  ‘The baby’s three weeks early. He’s on his way now, but he was in some God-forsaken backwater of Kazakhstan, and it’ll take him twenty-four hours to get home.’ He sighed a profoundly weary sigh. ‘I’m at the age when I need my zeds. To be fair, Martha did say at one point I should go home and leave it to her, but I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Slider knew that Hannah was Freddie’s favourite daughter.

  Cameron met his eyes. ‘It looked a bit touch-and-go at one point,’ he said, and the starkness of his expression underlined the English understatement of the words.

  ‘She’s all right now?’

  ‘Both all right. Another boy. They’re going to call it Seth, poor little blighter. Mind you, if it had been a girl it would have been Daisy. Where do they get these names from? So I left Martha there at about half past six this morning, dashed home for a shower and a shave and was out doing my list at half past eight. It never seems to get any shorter. I could do without extras from you, thank you very much.’

  ‘Sorry. Not my idea of fun either,’ said Slider. ‘It was good of you to fit me in.’

  ‘Oh, I’d sooner get it out of the way. Don’t want to be like a proctologist and get behind in my work.’

  ‘Is this your last?’

  ‘Yes, thank God. I might be home by nine with a bit of luck. I laugh at a mere twelve-hour day.’

  The morgue attendants came in with the trolley and Cameron received the park corpse with the air of a long-haul passenger facing the fourth airline meal of the flight. ‘What is it with you and parks anyway, dear boy?’ he enquired of Slider. ‘Some kind of symbiotic relationship?’

  ‘I could do without it,’ Slider said. ‘And I hate a serial.’

  ‘The Park Killer must have read what a good job you did on the Baxter case,’ said Cameron. ‘Deep down, they all want to be caught, you know. Subconscious desire for a father’s discipline.’

  ‘Are you qualified to practise psychiatry?’ Slider asked coldly.

  ‘Not me, old bean. I’m a corpse-cutter from way back. Got an ID on this one?’

  ‘Atherton’s working on it as we speak.’

  ‘Good. I hate to think of a pretty young thing like this going unclaimed.’ He stared a moment at the face. ‘When you think what went into the making of this work of art, it makes me mad as hell that someone could destroy it so lightly. I think that’s why I became a forensic pathologist.’

  ‘You told me it was because dead men don’t sue,’ Slider objected.

  ‘There is that,’ Freddie agreed. ‘Well, let’s see what we’ve got.’

  The TV image of the lonely pathologist toiling away in solitude was the stuff of fiction. What with Cameron’s assistants, his students, the morgue attendants, the identifying officer, the photographer, the evidence officer, the investigating officer, his bagman, old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, there was always a crowd around the table. With the new tables that constantly drew the fluids away from underneath, there was little or no smell. But Freddie handed round the Trebors out of old habit. With so many onlookers, the miasma of peppermint could have felled a horse.

  Cameron pressed the recording pedal under the table with his foot whenever he murmured his commentary; in between he whistled softly, a habit he had developed in the early days to distract him from distress. The ‘Songs for Swingin’ Carvers’ selection today was ‘April in Paris’.

  ‘Subject is female, aged about twenty-eight or -nine, height five feet six, well nourished, appears fit and well muscled, no apparent signs of disease or drug dependency.’

  McLaren, as evidence officer, received the clothes as they were removed and examined, and bagged them. Cameron examined the T-shirt, bent to look at the wounds, and at last said to Slider, ‘Tell me, old chum, was there anything that struck you as odd about our friend here?’

  ‘I did think there wasn’t as much blood as I’d have expected,’ Slider said tentatively.

  ‘Give that man a coconut. For a frenzied attack …’ Everyone says it, Slider thought resignedly ‘… there doesn’t seem to be very much damage. One, two three, four, five wounds in front and one in the back, but all except one are quite superficial. You see here, and here, the blade has hardly penetrated at all. This is the only deep wound, this one in the back. You can see from the pattern of flow on the skin and the T-shirt that most of the blood comes from here.’

  ‘Perhaps he couldn’t get near enough,’ Slider said, but immediately thought of the objection to that. The Park Killer had to be quick. His victim had to be grabbed, overpowered and killed within seconds. He couldn’t afford a lot of dancing about and light wounding, with her screaming her head off and passers-by coming to investigate.

  ‘Another thing,’ Cameron said. ‘Look at the way the blood has run from this wound in the back. Look at the flow pattern. What does it tell you?’

  Slider saw it now. The lines of blood ran from the wound sideways around the victim’s ribs towards the front. ‘She was lying down.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So he knocked her down first and stabbed her when she was prone?’

  ‘Cowardly,’ Freddie acknowledged.

  After the wounds had been photographed, Cameron took a blood sample from the femoral artery, and then began his delicate butchery, laying open the body from chin to pubic bone. Slider found an excuse to turn his head away at the first stroke of the scalpel. From this morning’s sweet domesticity to the ugliness and stupidity of murder was too large a stride all at once. This young body and pretty face had so recently housed a hopeful life that he didn’t like to see it mutilated, even though it was now surplus to requirements. Once the first cut had been made, however, experience and professionalism took over. Laid open, it was not a person any more. He was always all right once the first cut had been made.

  ‘You see,’ Cameron said to Slider, ‘even the one deep wound doesn’t touch any of the important organs. I wouldn’t have thought it would be a fatal blow.’

  ‘You mean she bled to death? Or died of shock?’

  Cameron shook his head doubtfully. ‘It wasn’t exsanguination. And shock? Unless there’s any congenital heart defect …’

  He removed the heart to a separate table and cut it open carefully. A nice, clean, healthy heart – just what you’d hope for in a young jogger. No sign of disease. No infarction. Let’s have a look at the brain.’

  It was the part Slider disliked most. He hummed inside his head as Cameron deployed the electric saw, breathing shallowly not to smell the barbecue reek of burning bone. Cameron removed the top of the skull, then ligated and lifted out the brain, which he sliced like a large, pallid loaf. ‘No sign of anything here. I’ll take a section to examine under the microscope, but it all looks nice and normal. I think we can rule out heart disease or stroke.’

  ‘So what killed her, then?’

  Cameron turned a frank if rather bistred gaze on him. ‘You tell me, chum.’

  ‘Only if you hand over your pay packet.’
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  ‘Fat chance,’ Freddie grinned. A forensic pathologist earned about three times what a detective inspector did. ‘All right, then, let’s see. She didn’t put up much of a struggle. No broken fingernails, no skin or blood under them – she didn’t scratch her assailant. Also – now, look here. Sandra, do you mind if I borrow your body for a moment?’

  His assistant, used to these demonstrations, stood back from the table and waited. He walked behind her, put his left arm round her shoulders and positioned his left hand in front of her mouth, but without actually touching it, of course. ‘I grab my victim from behind, covering her mouth to stop her screaming. Probably use my right hand, like this, to get her by the upper arm. And I drag her backwards by her arm and jaw—’

  ‘Into the bushes, right,’ Slider finished for him.

  ‘But,’ Cameron said, ‘there’s no bruising to the face or arms. No bruising anywhere on the body.’

  ‘Well, that’s – odd,’ said Slider.

  ‘There’s more. Thank you, Sandra.’ Freddie released her and continued. ‘I knock her down without leaving a mark. Well, I suppose that’s possible, if I caught her off-balance, or simply threw her down. I stab her in the back – the first wound, deep, but not disabling. But she doesn’t scrabble away from me on hands and knees, or try to get up, she just lies there.’

  ‘Too shocked, too frightened to move?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Freddie allowed, though without great belief.

  ‘Then he turned her over with his foot – or with the help of his foot,’ Slider said, ‘and stabbed her in the front.’

  ‘Very lightly,’ Freddie amended. ‘Restrained, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Not much like the Park Killer on his other outings.’

  ‘And when did she get the defence wounds on her arms and hands?’ said Cameron. Sandra was about to speak but he silenced her with a glance.

  Slider thought. ‘I can’t work it out.’