by Nick Oldham
Within minutes the plane had taxied to the small terminal building.
Donaldson reached up and opened the overhead locker, lifting out his only piece of luggage, a small overnight bag. His stay was to be short, but not sweet.
The heat of the day hit him whilst walking from the plane to the terminal.
Even though it was January, Madeira was much warmer than London. He experienced a very brief reminder that, since being posted to London from Florida, he had seen little sun.
He went straight to Customs, showed his American passport and sailed through.
A dark-faced man with a black moustache and brown, intelligent eyes, approached him.
‘ You are Mr Donaldson, I believe, from the FBI in London,’ the man said. ‘Muito prazer.’
Donaldson nodded. ‘Muito bem, obrigado,’ he replied. It was one of the few Portuguese phrases he knew. He was not familiar with the language, but spoke Spanish well and German fluently. With his knowledge of the former he expected to be able to read menus and road signs, but nothing more complicated.
The two men shook hands formally, no smiles.
‘ I am Detective George Santana. May I welcome you to Madeira on behalf of the police service. Please accept my deep regret that the circumstance of your visit is not more pleasurable.’
Donaldson nodded. They had walked out of the airport. A car drew up to the kerb, driven by a policeman in uniform.
‘ I’d like to see the body as soon as possible.’
Donaldson touched down at one o’clock on Monday afternoon. By that time, Acting Detective Inspector Henry Christie had been at work for seven hours and was beginning to flag. He had only finished Sunday’s tour of duty at 2 a.m. and with less than four hours’ sleep under his belt, his eyes felt like a bucket of grit had been thrown into them.
He rubbed them once more with his knuckles, blinked a few times and ran a hand around his tired face. He stifled a big yawn, but only just.
The evening before, Hughie Dundaven had been booked into the custody system at Blackpool by about eight. He remained compliant in terms of his behaviour but said little and refused to divulge his name and address. He demanded to see a solicitor, which was one of his legal rights.
He had been strip-searched and all his clothing was seized for forensic. He was given a white paper suit — a ‘zoot suit’ as they are fondly called and a pair of slippers to protect his modesty. Nothing in his property gave any indication as to his identity. All he had in his wallet was cash. Six hundred pounds of it.
Non-intimate swabs were taken from his hands. Hair was plucked from his head for DNA sampling — the norm for all prisoners arrested for serious offences.
He refused to sign a consent form to allow his fingerprints to be taken.
By the time this had all been done it was ten o’clock. Dundaven had not yet been interviewed about anything.
The duty solicitor rolled in shortly after this and had a confidential chat.
Henry had appointed a DS and a DC to carry out the initial interview, but the solicitor said his client was not prepared to be interviewed at that time of day. He should be allowed to rest — all prisoners were entitled to a period of uninterrupted rest for eight hours in any twenty-four.
Henry hit the roof. He demanded an interview and got it.
It turned out to be a short one, just to establish why Dundaven had been locked up and to give him an opportunity to give his side of the story. He refused to say a word.
By the time that farce had ended it was midnight.
Dundaven got his wish then. He was led to a cell, where under a rough blanket he slept like a baby.
Henry and his detectives convened in the CID office where, over coffee, they planned next morning’s strategy.
Then he went to the property store where Dave Seymour and the ARV crew had unloaded and listed all the property from the Range Rover.
Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s an awful lot of firepower,’ he said appreciatively, looking at the guns and ammunition which had been laid out and labelled.
‘ Enough for an army,’ agreed Seymour.
Henry helped to list the last few weapons, noting their make and serial numbers, careful to handle them so as not to leave or disturb any fingerprints. The guns all looked new and unused.
The logging of the weapons was completed at 2 a.m.
Just before going home Henry phoned the hospital and asked about the condition of the policewoman, Nina. He was told, ‘Critical.’
He hung up with a tear in his eye. He did not know the girl, but it was the principle of the matter. He’d been involved in other investigations where police officers had been killed. These days the mere thought of it happening could move him to tears. He realised that as he grew older — he would be forty later in the year — he was getting less and less detached. In days gone by, nothing seemed to affect him. For some reason, everything did now.
‘ Turning soft,’ he said, wiping the back of a hand across his nose. He got up and went home.
When his head hit the pillow he could not sleep. He tossed and turned uncomfortably, drifting off occasionally, sweated, and disturbed Kate who, in her sleep, told him to ‘Pack it in.’ Whatever that meant.
Frustrated and knackered he gave up trying to sleep and was back in the office by six, getting his head around how he could cover everything that was happening with the few staff he had.
Two dead bodies: one in the mortuary in Blackpool, one in Preston. Both unidentified.
A cop in ICU, probably going to join them.
And a gorilla with a bullet in his shoulder.
A weekend in the north’s premier holiday resort. Come to Blackpool and get your head blown off or a knife in your guts… or, he went on to think shamefacedly, get kneed in the groin and lose a testicle.
He tried to delete the last one from his list and crossed his fingers mentally. Perhaps it would go away.
The identification of two bodies would only be a matter of being patient and waiting. He would be surprised if they didn’t come back on fingerprints.
He looked at the paltry list of detectives available to him. Not many. Most snaffled for the newsagents job. He shook his head, his brain like cotton wool. The management of resources really does your head in.
‘ Right, get on with it,’ he ordered himself He picked up his pen and began to decide who would do what.
The same DS and DC who had initially interviewed the prisoner could carry on with that investigation, together with Dave Seymour. It was well within the scope of any competent detective: interviews, exhibits, paperwork. All Henry needed to do was guide them, and keep an eye on the wider picture. At least there was a body in the cells, which made it a whole lot easier, even if Chummy was being uncooperative.
Whereas it was less straightforward with the dead girl. They still had to find out who’d done that one.
Henry’s remaining staff consisted of two DCs. Simply not enough to deal with the job. The thought of prostrating himself in front of FB was not appealing — but he was sure that if he pushed, FB would wilt.
He had to.
Blackpool police station was going to be extremely crowded.
The gorilla, Henry decided sadly, would have to wait.
And so would every other minor crime for the foreseeable future. The uniform branch would have to investigate everything that came in.
And that was how he spent his morning.
Administration. Deploying personnel. Wheeling and dealing for extra staff. Ensuring paperwork was done and the necessary circulations made. Pacifying the media, which had descended on Blackpool en masse. What really bugged him was that they were more interested in a wounded gorilla than a policewoman on her deathbed, or a young female on a mortuary slab. He didn’t allow his annoyance to show.
Basically he did all the things that went along with being a police manager — a million miles away from a car chase with crashes, flying bodies, helicopters, Stingers and shotguns.
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He would rather have had his head down, getting into the ribs of that bastard down in the cells, making him talk by using his interview skills. But that was not his job any more. His was to manage, to delegate, to empower. Perhaps he was safer sitting behind a desk. At least it stopped him from getting into trouble.
The ride into Funchal, Madeira’s capital, took thirty minutes. At his request, Donaldson was driven directly to the morgue so he could get the worst part over with soonest: identifying the body of a friend and colleague.
The morgue was bare and functional, but clean. Donaldson was glad about that. It could have been much worse.
The body was on a drawer in the huge fridge.
Santana pulled it out and drew back the harsh white sheet.
Donaldson suppressed a gasp. Not because of any marks of violence or because it had been mashed to a pulp. Neither of those things applied to this body. Rather because he was looking at the face of someone who had been young, vibrant, very much alive not many days before. Someone he and his wife had grown very close to over the last few months.
He sighed, nodded, looked up at Santana. ‘Yes. That’s her.’
It was like a violation of sorts but it had to be done.
Donaldson took hold of the sheet, drew it back and exposed the naked corpse, closing his eyes for a moment to halt the sensation of dizziness.
He had never seen her without clothes before. He never thought he would. He could not deny that, even though she had been a good friend and work colleague, he had occasionally allowed his eyes to drift across her breasts, or down her long slim legs — and speculate. Special Agent Sam Dawber had been beautiful; she also had the personality and brains to go with it. But Donaldson’s admiring looks were only sporadic. He was deeply in love with his wife and other women did not enter the equation.
‘ Sorry, Sam,’ he said softly to her now. ‘Please forgive me.’
He folded the sheet at her ankles.
She looked peaceful in death. Serene. Her skin was more tanned than when alive, but she’d been on Madeira for almost a week and the weather had been exceptionally good. Her back, bottom and backs of her legs were red and mottled where the blood had settled. There was a tinge of blue around her mouth, which was slightly parted.
‘ You say she was found dead in her bath in the hotel room?’ he said to Santana. For some reason the act of speaking made him feel better able to examine her, detaching him from the task. He peered closely at both sides of her neck.
‘ Yes, apparently drowned. She may have been drinking heavily and fallen asleep in a stupor. There were many bottles of spirits in the room. Much of it drunk. Maybe she took her own life?’
Donaldson stopped himself from giving Santana a withering look. At the same time alarm bells sounded in his head.
He nodded and continued the minute examination. He picked up her left hand, opened it out and looked at her nails.
‘ Who found her?’
‘ A chambermaid.’
‘ I want to speak to her.’
He was now peering at a cut and bruise on the hairline on Sam’s left temple, which was only visible when her hair was pulled back.
Santana said, ‘Sure, can be arranged today. Why?’
‘ Routine,’ Donaldson answered with a shrug. ‘All sudden deaths of FBI agents are fully investigated.’
‘ But there are no suspicious circumstances,’ Santana said defensively.
‘ To you, maybe not.’
‘ To any detective.’
‘ Look, George, I don’t mean this as a slur to your professionalism, but I know — knew — this woman: Donaldson bent down and inspected her inner thighs. ‘For a start, she didn’t drink,’ he said, standing up again. ‘When will the autopsy be carried out?’
‘ This afternoon, four o’clock.’
Initially Donaldson had had no intention of staying for it. He changed his mind. ‘I want to be here.’
‘ Why, do you not trust our doctors now?’
‘ She was a friend and colleague, George. I owe her that much, don’t you think?’ He was extremely puzzled and worried by Santana’s frosty reaction.
Santana nodded formally. ‘I apologise.’
‘ Forget it. When did you say she was found?’
‘ Ten, yesterday morning.’
‘ So there’s a good chance her hotel room will still be vacant,’ Donaldson said. ‘Can we go and have a look round it? And could you give me her belongings? I need to take them back.’
Santana nodded. ‘No problem.’ But behind those two words Donaldson detected there was — and that he, Donaldson, was becoming a pain in the ass all of a sudden.
Well, so be it.
The hotel room had been cleaned from top to bottom. New guests were arriving in the morning. From the crime-scene point of view, therefore, it had nothing to offer.
Donaldson was very annoyed. ‘This should have been left untouched until I had the chance to go through it,’ he said.
‘ It was checked by my people and there was nothing of interest, and certainly nothing to support your obvious belief that a crime has been committed here.’ Santana was abrupt. Then his voice softened. ‘She died by accident and there’s nothing more to it. No one to blame, no one to arrest. You should accept that, my friend. Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought.’
Donaldson gave that short shrift.
‘ Can I see your scenes-of-crime photographs?’
Santana’s mouth drew to a tight line.
‘ You haven’t taken any, have you?’ Donaldson said with disbelief.
A short shake of Santana’s head confirmed this.
Donaldson’s eyes closed despairingly. He demanded to speak to the chambermaid.
She understood English well. And had little to offer. Yes, she had found the body in the bath. It had frightened her. She had called the manager who had taken over and informed the police. The brooding presence of Santana hovering over her shoulder did little to help matters. He seemed to intimidate her. Donaldson would have preferred to talk to her alone, but there was little chance of that happening.
The autopsy did not help much either.
Donaldson prepared himself for this stage by buying a compact 35mm camera and two colour films from a shop in Funchal. Hardly ideal, but the best he could do under the circumstances.
While the pathologist waited impatiently, he took photographs of Sam’s body before the knife went in. Once again he felt like an intruder and whilst he did it, his mouth twisted into a grimace of distaste. Had there been another way, or another person to do it, he would happily have handed the task over.
He took several shots of her head, trying to get a good close one of the cuts on the hairline. And shots of her shoulders and thighs, just above the knees where he had seen some slight bruising.
When he was satisfied, the pathologist moved in.
The procedure was carried out competently enough by the doctor who was from the new hospital, Cruz de Carvalho, in Funchal. He was accompanied by an assistant who recorded his observations in writing. The doctor spoke in Portuguese and then translated for Donaldson’s benefit.
Sam’s head injury and the bruising on her body was duly noted and recorded.
At the FBI agent’s insistence the doctor took scrapings from under Sam’s fingernails and bagged them.
Then he placed the dissecting knife in the soft flesh at her throat and sliced easily into the skin. Donaldson turned away. Within moments there was a perfectly straight incision right the way down the middle of her slim body to the pubis.
Donaldson forced himself to watch. He was aware that, if not careful, the last memory he would have of her would be as a hollow cadaver, all organs removed, skull hacked off, brain sliced up on a table.
Eventually the chest cavity was opened, the ribcage removed, the heart and lungs cut out. The lungs were heavy and needed two hands to lift them across to the dissecting table. Here they were sliced open, revealing the foam consis
tent with drowning. Typical post mortem appearance.
Water was also found in the stomach and trachea.
After two and a half hours’ work the doctor had finished.
He washed off after he’d sewn her roughly back up. Donaldson pestered him with questions.
‘ She drowned,’ the doctor insisted. ‘The head injury you talk about is consistent with banging her head on the edge of a door. It did not kill her, but may possibly have stunned her for a few moments.’
‘ But what about those bruises on her shoulder and legs? Are they consistent with someone grabbing her and holding her down?’
The doctor, ‘Ummed…’ and considered it. He dried his hands. ‘There is that argument, I suppose,’ he concluded, ‘but without supporting evidence…’ He shrugged. ‘She was here on a walking holiday, I believe,’ he continued. ‘These are bruises she could easily have got doing that.’
‘ So what’s your theory?’ Donaldson pumped him.
‘ If she had been drinking’ — here he held up a blood sample taken from her — ‘and this will tell us for sure, then I think she got drunk, staggered into a door, banged her head. This may have sent her dizzy. She had filled a hot bath and when she climbed in, the combination of alcohol, the blow to the head and the hot water made her pass out. She drowned. Misadventure. Accident. Whatever you want to call it.’
‘ But not murder?’
The doctor shook his head.
Santana, who had watched the autopsy and listened to the conversation, cut in at that point. ‘An unfortunate set of circumstances. No mystery as you imply, Karl. No one to blame. Very sad.’
Henry had eaten a rather large meal and was glaring accusingly at his empty plate when a file of papers dropped onto the canteen table in front of him.
The harassed, overweight form of Dave Seymour stood there. Tie askew, top shirt- button open, jacket flapping untidily. His eyes were red raw. He had spent the day interviewing Dundaven. It was 6.30 p.m.
‘ He’s now got some smart-assed solicitor from Manchester acting for him,’ were the first words he said to Henry. ‘Some guy named Pratt of all things. But he isn’t.’