Dear Departed

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘I’ll tell you when she got them,’ said Cameron, with an actor’s timing. ‘After death. The cuts on the arms and hands are all post-mortem wounds.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Slider said – but surprise makes you say foolish things.

  ‘Of course,’ Freddie said. ‘They aren’t even very convincing – in the wrong place and at the wrong angles. I’ve seen enough of the real thing to know. So what we have here, old chum, is …?’ He paused invitingly.

  Slider filled in the space. ‘A set-up.’

  ‘Exactement,’ said Freddie. ‘It was only meant to look like a frenzied attack.’

  ‘Someone killed her and tried to made it look like the Park Killer’s work?’

  ‘Not terribly like. It was someone either not very bright or not very au fait with our methods, if they thought it would fool us for more than a few hours.’

  ‘I knew there was something wrong with it from the start,’ Slider said resentfully. ‘The marks on the ground: there were two long grooves going into the bushes, but if you were dragged in still on your feet, there’d be a lot of scuffing and digging as you tried to get a toehold and resist. This looked like the heel-marks of a corpse being dragged.’

  ‘Done afterwards, you think, to add verisimilitude …’

  ‘… to an otherwise unconvincing narrative,’ Slider finished. ‘But if she wasn’t stabbed to death and didn’t bleed to death, what killed her?’

  ‘Well, it is just possible that she died of fright, but it’s a very outside possibility. In an old, frail person it might be plausible, but a fit young person tends to be more tenacious of life. I think, old boy, that we may have to wander down the primrose paths of toxicology,’ Cameron concluded, with a sigh. ‘She looks a little cyanotic to me – wouldn’t you say, Sandra? And the lungs are too dark and show some congestion. I think she may have died of respiratory collapse due to an overdose of a depressant drug.’

  ‘You mean – he poisoned her, and then when she was dead stabbed her for effect?’

  ‘No, only the defence wounds were post-mortem. Certainly the main wound in the back was pre-mortem. Those in front have bled so little they might almost be syn-mortem, if such an expression were allowable. Of course, the killer might well have thought she was dead by then. She was probably so deep down, she was hardly breathing.’

  Slider shook his head at the scenario that was opening up. ‘So what was the poison?’

  ‘Ah, that I can’t tell you,’ said Freddie. ‘I’ll send off a blood sample to the toxicology lab, but you know what they’re like.’

  ‘Yes, four to six weeks to get a result. You’ll have to help me out, Freddie.’

  ‘Well, there are the antidepressant drugs. Many of the tricyclic and tetracyclic drugs have an anticholinergic action that depresses the brainstem, which would lead to respiratory failure, but the trouble there would be that you’d need a pretty high dose. The sedatives, the benzodiazepines, are more likely culprits, and they leave no particular post-mortem appearances – though you might expect convulsions with a severe overdose, and there’s no sign she convulsed. And then,’ he added, with a faintly reluctant air, ‘there are the barbiturates, though they’re harder for the layman to come by. A high dose of one of the short-acting or ultra-short-acting barbiturates like thiopentone or hexobarbitone would produce rapid unconsciousness and death within ten or fifteen minutes.’

  Slider met Cameron’s eyes, and saw in them the memory of an old case of some years back, the Anne-Marie Austin case, where such a drug had been used. It had come at a bad time for Slider and had almost tipped him over into a breakdown, as Cameron knew very well. First another body in the park, now another death by short-acting barbiturate? Was he to be forced to relive his past like a police version of Groundhog Day? On the good side, he’d get to meet Joanna again; on the bad side, he’d keep finding himself still married to Irene. He brought his errant mind back to the problem in hand.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘if you want to poison somebody, you do it privately indoors. Why would you do it out in a public park in broad daylight with all the likelihood of being interrupted? And how do you get someone out jogging in the park to take poison anyway?’

  ‘That,’ said Cameron, ‘I gladly leave to you.’

  He rang Joanna to tell her he was on his way home.

  ‘What do you think about James?’ she asked, as soon as she heard his voice.

  To his credit, he caught on. ‘Do all women do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Think about babies’ names all the time.’

  ‘I don’t do it all the time. Anyway, you ought to know.’ He’d had two children with his ex-wife Irene.

  ‘Too long ago,’ he said. ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘Well? What about James?’

  ‘It might not be a boy.’

  ‘Of course it will be. First time out – you want the teapot with the spout, don’t you?’

  ‘If you say so. But James Slider sounds like badly fitting false teeth.’

  She sighed. ‘True.’

  ‘Freddie Cameron’s new grandson is called Seth.’

  ‘Flaming Nora,’ Joanna said. ‘Seth Slider’s even worse.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting it.’

  ‘No votes for anything with an s in it. When will you be home?’

  ‘Before you can say psephologically sesquipedalian.’

  At least he had missed the evening rush hour. Traffic on the Uxbridge Road was down to tolerable levels, mostly people going out for the evening, pottering between traffic light and traffic light, off to the pub, to restaurants, to visit friends, to pick up a takeaway. Real life. None of them had spent the day pondering over a corpse.

  Atherton phoned him with the identification when he was at the East Acton Lane lights. ‘Did your witness give you a next of kin?’ he asked.

  ‘No, she didn’t know. But she’s sure deceased wasn’t married and didn’t live with anyone, and I tried the home telephone number and there was an answering machine on. I tried her mobile number, too, but it was switched off.’

  ‘Odd that she didn’t have it with her,’ Slider said. ‘Young businesspeople are usually wedded to them.’

  ‘Maybe she wanted a bit of peace and quiet,’ Atherton said. ‘Or maybe the killer nicked it. How was the post?’

  ‘Interesting,’ Slider said. He told Atherton Cameron’s findings.

  ‘Oh,’ said Atherton. ‘Well, that’s – interesting.’

  ‘Is that the best you can come up with?’

  ‘I’m trying. It puts a whole new complexion on things. If it wasn’t a random killing, we’re back with the who-saw-her-last and what-enemies-did-she-have routines.’

  ‘Did you get any of that from your Marion Davies type?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, not knowing it was needed. She did say she saw the victim yesterday at around six p.m. and she was all right then. Just about to go out for the evening.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘As I said, I didn’t ask. But I’ve arranged to see her again, so I can ask then.’

  ‘See her again? What for?’

  ‘What for?’ Atherton repeated derisively. ‘She’s a bit of a sort, that’s what for.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Slider. The lights changed and he moved off and turned left down Stanley Gardens, which perhaps prevented him saying something he’d later regret.

  ‘Well, I’ve got the victim’s address, anyway,’ Atherton said. ‘Do you want to look at the house tonight?’

  ‘No. If she lived alone, tomorrow will do. Just put someone on the door. The media are still putting it out as the Park Killer, so the real villain will think he’s getting away with it. And I’m less than five minutes from home.’

  ‘Lucky man.’

  Slider thought he sounded a little wistful, and said, ‘Joanna’s made a casserole. Do you want to—?’

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’ve got a date,’ Atherton said breezily.

  ‘Fine. Well, don’t let me keep
you.’

  He rang off, reflecting that it was just as well Atherton had refused, given that he was not Joanna’s favourite person at the moment. Besides, he really wanted to be alone with her this evening, to enjoy the peace and comfort of her company and whatever was simmering in the slow oven. Plus a bottle of good, hearty red. He wondered who Atherton had a date with, but as he was turning the last corner before home he didn’t wonder very much. There’s no place like home, he thought, because in fact home isn’t a place, it’s people. There is no place, only us. And a bottle of Saint-Joseph.

  Porson was there when Slider arrived in the morning, as if he had never been home. He was stamping about his room like a man looking for a cat to kick. Top-brass meetings at Hammersmith always did nasty things to his blood pressure. Under the harsh neon light of his room his head had a strangely bumpy look, like a bag full of knuckles. Bubbles of frustration trying to escape, perhaps?

  ‘You were off pretty sharpish last night,’ he snapped at Slider.

  ‘I went to the post mortem. Cameron put it on the end of his list.’

  ‘Oh. You could have let me know.’

  ‘I left a message on your voice-mail, sir.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Porson again. ‘I always forget about that bloody thing. Whatever happened to a piece of paper on your desk?’

  Before he could think of anything else to complain about, Slider told him of the discoveries of the day before. His pacing slowed as he listened.

  ‘Not bad for a start,’ he said grudgingly, when Slider had finished. And then, ‘Good thought of Atherton’s to get the ID that way. He’s a smart lad.’ That was not always a compliment in the Job, but this time Porson meant it.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider. ‘I presume we’ll be keeping the ID under wraps for the time being?’

  ‘Until we’ve informed the next of kin, at any rate.’

  ‘Also,’ Slider added, ‘it might help us to let the villain think we’ve bought the Park Killer scenario?’

  Porson frowned. ‘Yes, that’s a bit of a queer thing, isn’t it, what Cameron’s saying?’

  ‘Of course,’ Slider said, ‘we don’t know whether the drugging was meant to kill her, or only subdue her so she’d be easier to stab.’

  Porson pondered. ‘Doesn’t make much difference, does it? Whoever gave her the drug was the killer, one way or the other. But you’re sure in your own mind it wasn’t the Park Killer?’

  ‘It isn’t his MO,’ Slider said. As far as we can be sure from only two previous cases.’

  ‘Right. He could have changed his pattern, I suppose.’

  ‘But I think it’s unlikely. The stab wounds were mostly superficial and not given with any force.’

  ‘Not a frenzied attack, then.’

  ‘No, sir. A slow and deliberate attack.’

  ‘Well,’ said Porson, gripping and bending a plastic ruler between his large hands, ‘that’s good news in its way.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I hate a serial.’

  ‘We all do, laddie, we all do. But what I meant was, while I was over at Hammersmith yesterday, I took the chance to have a talk with Mr Palfreyman about this.’ Palfreyman was head of the Homicide Advice Team, the demigod with the power to say who would investigate any particular murder. ‘As we know, the SCG’s lost most of its men and they’re struggling under a backlash of work. So there wasn’t much chance of them taking on the case. On the other hand, Mr Palfreyman wasn’t happy about leaving us to pedal our own Canute, so his idea was to form a new temporary dedicated Park Killer squad with some of us and some of Ealing’s boys and girls, under his own personal regis.’

  Slider looked his horror at the idea. Porson was so moved at the thought of it that he bent the ruler too far and one end slipped from his grasp. It flew whirling across the room like a rogue helicopter blade, hit the wall and fell with a clatter. Porson hardly flinched.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘so it’s not bad at all if we can tell him convincively that it wasn’t the Park Killer, you see.’

  Slider saw. The special squad was a mind-watering idea, and given that it was Palfreyman’s brainchild, which he had presumably seen as a path to glory, he wasn’t going to be happy about giving it up.

  ‘I’m satisfied in my own mind it wasn’t,’ he said firmly.

  ‘So am I,’ said Porson. ‘The Park Killer’s a stab-and-go raging nutter. He’s not going to pussyfoot about with narcrotics, hang about having a fag while he waits for his victim to lie down for a kip. You can’t teach an old leopard new stripes. So I think you can take it as read that we’ll be keeping this one at home, Slider. I’ll say what needs to be said to Mr Palfreyman.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said. And, ‘Thank you.’

  Porson raised his eyebrows, and his deeply sunken eyes took the opportunity to flash fire. ‘I don’t know what you’re thanking me for. You don’t know yet what sort of a case this is going to be. It could turn out to be a sticker, and all eyes are going to be on you now to pull the chestnuts out of the fan in double-quick time.’

  ‘All eyes’ meaning Mr Palfreyman’s, Slider thought. Well, he’d been threatened with top-brass disapproval all his career. ‘I can live with that, sir,’ he said. ‘By the way, did you have a chance to ask about extra help?’

  ‘Yes, I did. They’re sending someone over this morning who’s been on a roving brief, so they’re more or less spare.’

  ‘Roving brief?’

  ‘Some diversity programme follow-up survey,’ Porson said, with an absolute absence of expression. These were dangerous waters, Watson.

  ‘Oh,’ said Slider.

  ‘Only one body,’ Porson went on, ‘but it’s better than nothing.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Slider. He hoped it would prove so. Some young go-getter who’d stepped straight from Hendon into a political-statistical job might well prove to be more of a liability than otherwise.

  ‘So we have a whole new game on, boys and girls,’ Slider addressed the troops, who were slumped over their tables in attitudes that would have made a chiropractor weep. Hollis was removing relevant stuff, now become irrelevant, about the Park Killer from the whiteboard. Atherton was writing up his report on the information he’d got from Marion Davies. Swilley was in a corner talking quietly to the coroner’s officer, a new man who’d never met her before, who looked as though he couldn’t believe his luck and was right about that. McLaren was bracing himself for the rigours of the day by eating Toast Topper straight from the tin with a plastic spoon, using his left hand to alternate mouthfuls from a small box of microwave chips. Slider wished he could get rid of that microwave oven, but its use was probably guaranteed under the Geneva Convention, not to say EU employment law.

  He continued. ‘It’s back to basics, find out everything we can about deceased, who had a grudge against her, who had a reason to kill her.’

  ‘It still could be a random killing, though, couldn’t it?’ Mackay called.

  ‘It could,’ Slider said fairly, ‘but I think it’s unlikely.’

  ‘Only, it’s a funny sort of way to off someone if you know them,’ he persisted. ‘I mean, if you wanted to poison them, you’d put something in their food or drink at home, wouldn’t you? Where you could make sure she was dead, and clear up after yourself, without being interrupted.’

  McLaren did a hasty swallow that would have challenged a boa constrictor and said, ‘Yeah, I’m with Andy on that, guv. Most likely to me is that it’s a copy-cat Park Killer, only he’s not got the balls just to grab and stab, he’s got to drug her first.’ He looked round defensively. ‘Well, I can see that. That makes sense.’

  ‘Only to you and a moron,’ said Swilley, who had sent her disappointed swain away and rejoined the group. ‘Honestly, Maurice, if brains were money you’d need a mortgage for a cup of tea. How’s a complete stranger clutching a big knife going to get her to swallow drugs while she’s out jogging and then hang around until she feels sleepy?’

  ‘Well, whoever did it’s got to get ov
er that problem,’ Mackay said.

  ‘Yeah, why’s she going to do that for anyone?’ McLaren put in resentfully.

  ‘Guv, do we know how the drug was administered?’ Hollis asked, like a breath of sanity.

  ‘Doc Cameron says for the quickest reaction it should have been injected. I left him going over the skin with a magnifying glass. If it was administered orally, it would take quicker effect in liquid than solid form. Something may emerge from the stomach contents.’

  ‘God, I hope not,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Maybe the murderer put something in her water-bottle,’ said Mackay.

  ‘He’d have had to have access to her house to do that,’ Slider said. ‘But we’ll have the contents checked anyway.’

  ‘How quickly would it take effect?’ Swilley asked.

  ‘We won’t know that until we know what it was and how it was given. But for the method to work at all it would have to be pretty quick. Meanwhile, whether it was a murder by someone who had a grudge against her—’

  ‘Or whether we go with the dim bulbs’ theory,’ Swilley inserted under her breath.

  ‘—or it was a random killing,’ Slider went on, ‘much of the work is still the same. We carry on searching for a weapon, for blood marks, for clothing. Get her telephone statements and check all the numbers she rang, see if there was anything untoward going on. Ask the neighbours about any comings and goings or people hanging about. Follow up anything on the statements we’ve already taken. Start doorstepping the street, anyone who overlooks the park, the shops along Paddenswick Road, the streets on the other side of the park too.’

  ‘What about the pub, guv?’ Mackay asked.

  This was the Wellington, which years ago had been called the George and Two Dragons, because it was run by a little man called George Benson who was henpecked by both his wife and mother-in-law. It was on Paddenswick Road and opposite the park railings, hardly more than a few yards from the park gate.

  ‘Yes, good point. Someone had better call in there today.’

  ‘I could go. I know the landlord pretty well,’ Mackay said.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And there’s a different crowd in at night from lunch-time,’ Mackay added quickly.