‘Yes, in pretty good shape. No drugs or alcohol. He was carrying a little more fat than might have been good for him, but that’s hardly unusual for a guy his age.’
They both looked at the body in solemn silence. Swift noticed amongst the bruising and burn scarring on the dead man’s left upper arm was a faint BCG vaccination scar, a precaution from years before, which somehow made the body seem more vulnerable and pitiful than all the damage it had sustained just before death.
Blake stroked the dead man’s cheek; Swift had noted before how tenderly she touched bodies once her necessarily brutal examinations had been completed. ‘He was having an early morning walk,’ she said softly. ‘I wonder what he was thinking. Those last thoughts just seconds before the final heartbeat.’
Swift had a sudden thought of his late wife. What had she been thinking just before the train she was travelling in lurched off the rails? Before her heart gave its last beat? ‘You treat your bodies with more consideration than some people give the living,’ he told Blake, dryly.
She smiled an acknowledgement. ‘I’m going to pull the sheet down further so you can see the main site of the burns,’ she said. Slowly and gently she moved her hands. ‘We’ve removed all the remnants of clothing and tested for traces of accelerant, blood samples have gone off for analysis and the body has been X-rayed for signs of gunshot wounds.’
‘And?’
‘As I said, there were no significant internal injuries. And all the other tests were negative, apart from the presence of an accelerant, which was brandy.’
Swift looked at the baked, cracked skin of the dead man’s body and thighs.
‘It seems likely that his sweatshirt and jeans were soaked in brandy and then set alight. The worst area of burning was on the chest, which is why the skin looks charred. The human body keeps on burning for some time after the fire goes out because of its subcutaneous fat.’ She glanced across to him. ‘Sorry, I’m probably telling you things you don’t need or want to know.’
Swift had to admit to himself that he was now feeling queasy.
‘However,’ Blake continued, ‘as you can see, the head and lower arms and legs have been less exposed to heat and that’s why the skin is still pink.’
Swift forced himself to look carefully. Yes, the skin was pink, but disfigured with horrific mottling and blisters. He thought that he had seen enough. Moreover, in the midst of this observation and discussion of heat and fire, he was beginning to be affected by the coldness of the room. ‘Can we talk some more in your office?’ he asked Blake.
Back in the warmth of her office, safe from crushed, blackened cadavers, Swift was able to take a little pleasure in the hot, black coffee she prepared for him.
She made a steeple of her fingers and tapped it against her lips. ‘If he had come in without the burns, I suppose the question would have been, did he fall or was he pushed?’
‘Would you be prepared to make any comments at this stage?’ Swift asked.
‘It’s hard to say when I haven’t been to the spot from which he fell. But we might be able to tell you more when the forensic team have examined his clothes. There are certainly no identifiable traces on the body which we could test for DNA regarding a second person having touched him. But the burning and the smoke have complicated the issue. On the other hand, the cause of death was the direct result of the fall. If he had simply been set alight with the contents of a flask of brandy he would probably have survived with ready and appropriate care.’
Swift heard the doubt in her voice. ‘I have been to the spot,’ he said, ‘and my current thinking is that he was most likely to have been pushed.’ He gave her a brief run-down of his visit to the crag with Bernard Morrison.
‘But the report from our SOCO team states that there was no useful evidence found at the site,’ he continued. ‘The place from which he fell is a narrow footpath which skirts around the highest reaches of the crag. It’s a well-trodden earth path, which was dry on the morning of the incident, so that it would be unlikely to show up any useful impressions of footprints. Also, on public paths, footprints and any signs of a scuffle are easily destroyed by the walkers who come next.’
Blake nodded agreement.
They sat in silence for a few moments.
‘And we still have no ID,’ Swift said.
‘We might just have something to help you with the ID when the report on the clothes comes back from forensics,’ she said to him. ‘And we could check dental records, take impressions and send them round to local dentists.’
‘Have you a head-shot of our mystery man I could have for the file?’ he asked.
She went to her filing cabinet, unlocked it and pulled a drawer out. ‘There,’ she said, handing him a white A4 envelope. ‘Hope that might give you a lead.’
Swift smiled at her words of encouragement. ‘One last thing,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘Time of death? You mentioned earlier that our man was out for an early morning walk.’
‘Indeed I did.’ She consulted her draft report. ‘Yes, time of death estimated somewhere between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. on the day he was found. Sorry I can’t be more precise than that. Owing to the burning, I was restricted in the areas of the body I could use to make an estimate of body temperature at the time of death.’
‘That’ll do fine,’ Swift said, interested to note that her calculation and Bertrand Morrison’s whilst not entirely consistent, did show some points of agreement. He thought Morrison had done rather well, given that his guess had been made solely on the basis of reasoning and common sense, with no help from measuring instruments and science. ‘Thanks for all this, Tanya.’
‘A pleasure,’ she said, grinning.
‘It’s good to know that some people get true job satisfaction’ he commented dryly.
‘Oh, yeah, I do love my job,’ Blake agreed. ‘After all, not many professionals get to work with such docile clients.’
Swift gave a small grimace and left without delay.
On returning to his monastic cell of an office, he switched on his computer and keyed in notes on his interviews with Bertrand Morrison and Tanya Blake.
When that was done he sat for a time in front of the screen, running through the text, picking out the salient points.
Dead man found in woodland area at base of a crag – area well used by walkers, bikers etc
No ID. Nothing in pockets except cash
Likely that death caused by fall from high point of crag
Clothes set alight after death – burns mainly to torso area
? one perpetrator or two
He considered his next course of action. The primary consideration was the dead man’s ID, but he would probably have to await the report from the forensic team before he could move on with that one.
He looked once again at the photograph of the dead man’s face. If he could only put a name to it then he and Cat could get cracking on Monday morning.
Frustration bit into him. He’d planned to spend the weekend painting his sitting room and repairing to the local pub for refreshment in the evening. And he could still do that, but he knew the issue about the dead man’s identity would needle him. He’d checked the missing person lists but there were no matches there.
He tapped his fingers lightly against the black and white photograph for a few moments. He glanced at his watch. It was 4.30, a time when many workers would be tidying their tools and clearing their desks ready for the weekend ahead. But he knew someone who would most likely still be at their desk. Someone who searched and dug for information as eagerly as a squirrel seeks nuts.
He slipped on his jacket and picked up his car keys.
Craig sat across the table from his allocated probation officer. The room in which they were meeting was small and rather dark, having only one narrow window. The walls were beige and had only one picture on them, that of a line of trees in a wood. Craig decided that when he had a place of his own he would paint the walls in a bright colour, maybe yellow.
Yes, yellow would be good. Like the yolk of an egg – he liked eggs. And he’d put up pictures of people doing things; making stuff, cooking stew and baking pies.
The probationer was called Brian Norwood. He was something of a disappointment to Craig, being a man in his fifties with a weary manner, as though he was really too tired to think up anything that would take the edge off Craig’s terrified sense of being swamped by confusion and fear as regards the outside world.
They talked about Craig’s being temporarily booked into a nearby bedsit. They talked of Craig’s chances of getting a job. Or rather Brian Norwood talked and Craig listened. Norwood consulted the thin pile of typed pages on his desk. There was a job going at an abattoir, something at a meat packing plant.
‘Not very good wages,’ Brian Norwood said. ‘But it’s a start.’
Craig could think of nothing worse for a released murderer than working with dead bodies. He looked at Norwood and said, ‘All right then.’ He was fagged out: he had no fight in him. The walk from his bedsit to the office had been so scary he had taken to counting his footsteps to try to steady himself down. The amount of open space between the cars and the buses, the sky and the ground, were frighteningly big. Everything was so far away he felt dizzy, as if there was nothing to cling to. He’d been in prison for eight years. Eight years when he had never been more than twenty feet away from a wall. The exercise yard had been just a narrow strip, and the high walls had protected him from the wind. Out here on the pavement it swirled around his face, jabbing and sharp, whipping his hair into his eyes. When a bus passed by he felt it might suddenly veer towards him, crushing him under its massive wheels. And who would be sorry to see him go. Him … a murdering bastard.
His toe hit a raised paving stone and he stumbled. He righted himself and stood very still for a moment, staring at the ground and wondering if he could bring himself to take even one more step. People walked past, not seeing the pain in his head, nor the fear in his gut.
‘So, will you give one of these jobs a try?’ Brian Norwood said, tapping his fingers on the papers in front of him.
‘I’ll have a think about it,’ Craig muttered.
‘Good man.’ Norwood said. ‘You can let me know next week.’
Craig stared at him.
‘You’re just out on licence,’ Norwood explained. ‘You’ve done your sentence and you’re a free man, but we need to keep a check on you to make sure everything’s going well.’
‘Right.’ Craig grasped the fingers of one hand in the other and twisted the joints so hard they hurt. He wondered about mentioning to Norwood that he was set on finding an old friend who might be able to help him. Maybe let him stay at their house for a bit. He glanced at Norwood’s fed-up-looking face and kept his thoughts to himself.
Later on, he joined a queue at a bus stop. He wanted to ask the woman in front if the bus was going northwards, but every time he opened his mouth panic rose up in his chest. She was just an ordinary woman, not very tall, big arse on her, greasy hair. She started fiddling around in her bag and then her purse dropped out on to the ground. He bent to pick it up for her. He saw the bus coming, slowing down for the stop. ‘Here,’ he said, handing the purse over.
‘Thanks,’ she said, giving him a smile.
‘Is it going north?’ he asked in a rush, his voice coming out far too loud. ‘The bus?’
She thought for a few moments. ‘It’s going to Otley,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s north.’
‘Thanks.’ He couldn’t believe he’d asked, just casual and normal. Couldn’t believe she’d given him an answer, nice and friendly and easy. As if he was just an ordinary chap.
Swift observed Georgie Tyson’s get-up as she got up from her desk to greet him. As usual, she was wearing black leather; not her usual biker’s leathers but a bomber jacket paired with a short, tight skirt. Her heavy black bikers’ boots completed the retro beatnik look, helped along with some bright pink tights and her spiky hair, currently black, streaked with burgundy.
‘Hi, there!’ she called out as he raised his hand in a welcoming wave from the doorway.
A few minutes later they were sitting on either side of the desk, hot coffee and biscuits on the desk top. Events seemed to drive on quickly when Georgie was around. Swift had known her for a couple of years. She was an ambitious newshound, hungry for advancement and the big time in journalism.
‘How’s the Yorkshire Echo?’ Swift asked.
‘Still nicely afloat and not able to do without me yet.’ Georgie crunched hungrily on a chocolate biscuit and took another one.
‘And you’ve been promoted to an office of your own,’ he commented.
‘Uh huh, and a column of my own. Don’t you read the papers, DCI Swift?’
‘It has been known,’ he admitted. ‘What sort of column?’
‘Basically, it’s all about me being on a bad-tempered rant and pulling people to bits. You know, writing about footballers’ taste in casual clothes, and actors who speak at political rallies in support of causes they know fuck-all about.’
‘Sounds just right for your talents,’ Swift observed.
‘Mmm, sometimes even I am a touch shame-faced about what I write, but the public seem to lap it up. And articulating the nation’s annoyances pays a lot better than reporting on grubby dealings in the local council and so forth. And I’ve been able to buy my own place. I’m as chuffed with it as a little kid with a Wendy House.’ She eyed him like a hawk considering its next swoop. ‘So what can I do you for, Chief Inspector?’
‘The body on the Fellbeck Crag,’ he said.
‘Ah, yes. Your press officer’s being very cagey about that.’ She didn’t sound really interested. ‘Some drunk staggering about and bumping his head on some inconvenient boulder, I’d have thought. All we know is that it’s a man. Do you know who he is?’
‘No,’ said Swift. ‘But I just thought you might.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Me! Nah. I don’t get out enough. Always got my nose to the grindstone.’
Swift took out the photograph Tanya Blake had given him and laid it on the desk in front of Georgie.
Her body stilled. ‘Good God … that’s Christian Hartwell.’ She stared across at Swift, and he could tell that she was truly upset.
He was fairly unnerved himself. It had just been a shot in the dark to talk to Georgie Tyson. He had expected no more than a few ideas, possible leads. But this was something else.
‘He’s … he was … a journalist. He’s been the top writer on our sports section for the past four or five years. God! I can’t believe this. What happened to him?’
Swift gave a small smile. ‘That is what I’m trying to find out.’
‘Do you think he’s been the victim of dirty work at the crossroads?’ Georgie asked, pulling herself back into professional mode. ‘Murder? Assassination? It happens to journalists all the time.’
‘Your words, not mine,’ Swift said, ‘so don’t think you’ll get away with going to press and putting your words in my mouth.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re far too nice a guy to play dirty tricks on.’
‘And you are far too kind,’ he said. ‘Listen Georgie, I want to know more about Christian Hartwell, and if you’ll keep quiet now, there are likely to be some goodies later. And, of course, if you don’t keep quiet I’ll be in the mire, and most definitely sent out to grass … in which case you’ll get nothing. I give you my word as a decent guy.’
‘Yeah. Fair dos, as my old granddad used to say. OK, Christian Hartwell, let’s see. He joined the Echo around five years ago. He’d worked for local papers all over the place before that, and also done a spell of volunteer work in East Nepal and other places in the back arse of Africa. Which just shows he’d got a lot of guts. He was rather handsome in those days, solid, but not fat. He had really lovely dark eyes; you noticed his eyes because he was the kind of guy who really looked at people. And he had lovely thick brown hair.’ She looked again at the photograph and gave
a grimace of dismay.
‘It sounds as though you had rather a fancy for him,’ Swift commented.
‘Does it?’ She slanted a sly glance at him.
‘OK, then. Did you have an affair with him?’
‘Hey! That’s off limits.’
‘Fair enough … I apologize.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I didn’t ever hop into bed with him. He’d had a steady girlfriend for a year or so before he joined our team. He told me that they’d been planning to get married, but she got killed in an accident. They were at a barbecue at some posh house with a swimming pool. She jumped off the diving board and it was faulty, not fixed properly. Her head was split open when she got hit by it, and that was that. What bloody awful bad luck. I think after that he was a bit wary of getting in deep with anyone else.’ She stopped, chastened by her unthinking pun. ‘Sorry.
‘He always struck me as, kind of, rootless,’ she continued. ‘He didn’t seem to have any family, which I used to consider was rather cool and made him gloriously free. But thinking it over, I’m not so sure.’
‘What was he like at his job?’
‘Well, I can only offer my own opinion,’ she pointed out. ‘But, in my book, he was almost too talented for our rag. He wrote some great articles based on his experiences in Africa. I mean, he’d witnessed some terrible brutality, women who were raped and murdered, children who were mutilated, whole villages set on fire. If you’ve witnessed those kind of scenes up close it inevitably shows through in your writing, and with Christian the power and pathos of what he had witnessed simply shone through in every line. The trouble was the readers could only take so much of it, and I think it got to be the same for him. In time, he got offered the sports section, strictly on the understanding that he left the misery issues behind and became more upbeat.’
‘And did he succeed on the sports page?’
‘Yeah. He had that canny ability to turn his hand to different styles of writing.’ She helped herself to another biscuit, and munched as she cogitated further. ‘His sports reporting was biting and witty and lots of fun,’ she said, ‘and it generated quite a bit of fan mail. I think that’s probably what sparked off the idea of trying his hand at writing a novel. We used to tease him about it, of course. A very high proportion of journalists aspire to write a novel, but not nearly as high a proportion actually get around to it. However for the ones who do, the pickings can be pretty good, and so we were all both pleased and as jealous as hell when he got his advance cheque. Christian was tickled absolutely pink about the whole thing; it really perked him up a lot.’
The Killing Club Page 4