Day of the Dead: A Frieda Klein Novel (8)

by Nicci French

  ‘He had a bald head,’ she said. ‘He was hunched over. Probably had a heart attack. It happened to my uncle. He drove straight into a tree. Sudden heart attack. They said he probably didn’t feel a thing.’

  Symons looked down at his notes. Everybody had seen something different. He sighed.

  ‘My name is Adrian Greville and I saw everything,’ said the man with a moustache as thin as string on his upper lip. ‘It was coming straight at me. It missed me by this much.’ He held up a thumb and forefinger to indicate the narrowness of his escape. ‘It went into this old couple. I saw him fly up in the air. I saw his face. I could swear he was looking straight at me. Poor guy.’

  ‘Did you see the driver at all?’

  ‘Completely. He was sitting there gripping the steering wheel. He was smiling. It was no accident. He meant to do it.’

  Some of the witnesses seemed reluctant to leave. They hovered around in groups, talking to each other. One of them, the one in the green jacket, the one who had noticed something odd about the accident, that the car seemed to have been rolling down the hill, sat on the pavement beside the blood-soaked Charlotte Beck. Her little boy sat beside her sucking the lollipop a police officer had given him and the baby slept in its buggy. She looked at the man with a dazed expression. ‘I should go home,’ she said.

  ‘I saw what you did.’

  ‘I just did what anyone would have done.’

  ‘Except no one else did. They’ll probably give you a medal.’

  He stood up and held out his hand to help her from the pavement. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’m Dave. I’ll walk you home. Let me push the buggy.’

  In the shattered space of what had once been Mamma Mia, a group of white-suited scene-of-crime officers lifted the body of a man clear from the car. He was middle-aged, with close-cropped hair, a mole on his right cheek. He was dressed in grey trousers and a grey-and-white checked shirt, trainers, a watch with a metal strap. His skin looked chalky, the eyes opened wide in a stare of fixed surprise.

  They laid him on the stretcher. His arm dangled down and one of the officers lifted it on to his chest.

  ‘There’s not much blood,’ she said.

  As they moved the body away, one of the officers bent down and reached forward, trying to avoid the glass and the jagged metal.

  ‘Got it,’ he said, holding up a wallet.

  Sergeant June McFarlane flicked through the wallet, ignoring the cash, the credit cards. She removed a driving licence. The fuzzy pixelated photograph was clearly of the man in the car.

  ‘Geoffrey Udo Kernan,’ she read aloud. ‘Ten Motherwell Road, RM10 9BB.’ She looked round at Symons. ‘You know where that is? Is that out of London?’

  ‘It’s Romford, I think. Depends what you mean by out of London. Do you want me to arrange for someone to go there?’

  McFarlane shook her head. ‘We’ll go ourselves. Right now.’

  Symons looked doubtful. ‘It’s a long way.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. There are people dead here, people injured. We need to do this ourselves.’

  It was half past three in the afternoon. The sun was already low in the sky. The road was still cordoned off and guarded, police cars and vans stationed across it. But the crowds had gone, the car had been towed away, the glass had been removed. The forensic team were hard at work, taking photographs, measuring skid marks, collecting pieces of ripped metal, following the rules and giving everything an order and a meaning. Mamma Mia was just a jagged hole.

  Meanwhile, McFarlane and Symons were on the North Circular, stuck in traffic. They had checked on the satnav. Symons hadn’t been entirely right. Kernan’s home was more Barking than Romford, but it wasn’t any closer.

  ‘It’s the wrong time of day to be driving,’ said Symons.

  ‘When’s the right time?’ said McFarlane. ‘Maybe about three in the morning.’

  They’d had time to check Kernan’s name on the police computer. Nothing. Symons started talking about the crime scene, about what might have happened, but McFarlane stopped him.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she said, and for the rest of the journey they talked about other things. The drive took over an hour before they turned off the North Circular on to the Barking bypass and off that to Motherwell Drive, a road of post-war pebble-dash, two-up-two-down terraced houses. They sat still in the car.

  ‘It’s always a strange moment,’ said McFarlane, ‘when you’re about to ring on the door and ruin someone’s life.’

  ‘Maybe he lived alone,’ said Symons. ‘Or maybe nobody’s home.’

  ‘We won’t find out sitting here,’ said McFarlane, and they both got out and walked up the little path. They stopped next to a grey Peugeot hatchback that was parked on the driveway.

  ‘Looks like somebody’s home,’ said McFarlane; she pressed the doorbell and they heard a distant chime. There was the sound of movement and footsteps and then the door opened. The woman was dressed in loose jeans, a white blouse and a turquoise cardigan that June McFarlane noticed had small holes on one sleeve. Moths. But mainly they saw her face, pale and anxious, which made her dark hair seem almost black by contrast.

  ‘Do you know Geoffrey Kernan?’ asked McFarlane, and Symons felt his stomach lurch at what was about to happen.

  ‘He’s my husband,’ she said.

  ‘May we come in?’

  At first they just sat awkwardly in the front room, and watched Mrs Kernan as she cried. McFarlane leaned forward slightly and handed her the tissues she had ready. Symons went into the little kitchen, found a jar of instant coffee and made a mug for each of them, adding several spoons of sugar for Mrs Kernan. McFarlane sat next to the woman and made her drink it.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Mrs Kernan. ‘I can’t believe it. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said McFarlane.

  ‘I thought something had happened. But not this.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why did you think something had happened?’

  ‘I reported him missing.’

  McFarlane looked at Symons with a puzzled expression. ‘I thought you said …’ she began.

  ‘I checked,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t anything.’

  She turned to Mrs Kernan. ‘When did you report this?’

  ‘Three days ago. I went into the police station and said he was missing.’

  ‘Did you make a statement?’

  ‘They weren’t interested. They said he had probably just gone away suddenly. That people do that.’

  ‘So you didn’t make a statement?’

  ‘They just sent me away. They weren’t interested. They said, “Come back in a few days if he still hasn’t come home.” And now … now …’ And she started crying again.

  ‘Mrs Kernan, did you –’

  ‘I knew he wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘I went over to see my sister and when I got back he wasn’t here. I thought he’d gone for a walk or met a friend somewhere. But it got later and later and he wasn’t answering his phone and then he didn’t come back at all. I waited the whole of the next day and then they called from his work and asked why he hadn’t been in touch and then I went to the police.’

  ‘Do you have children?’

  The woman wrapped her arms around her body for comfort. ‘Ned. He’s at university. I have to tell him. It’s his first year. He’s only just started. I didn’t tell him about Geoff going missing. I didn’t want to worry him. And now …’ She dabbed at her face with the tissue. Her eyes looked sore.

  ‘Was he close to his father?’

  ‘They argued a lot. But that’s because they were so like each other.’

  ‘What work did your husband do?’

  ‘He’s in sales.’

  ‘Sales of what?’

  ‘Sanitary supplies. For companies. He drives around a lot.’ She blinked. ‘Drove. It’s the first time I’ve said it like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said McFarl
ane. ‘That’s hard. Is that your car outside?’

  ‘It’s his car. It’s actually the company car.’

  ‘Does he have another? A metallic silver-grey Nissan?’

  ‘No, we only have one.’

  ‘This incident happened in Heath Street, Hampstead. Would your husband have had any business or personal reason to be there?’

  ‘He drove around all the time for his work, all over the country. I don’t know anything special about Hampstead.’

  ‘Maybe he has a business acquaintance there. Or a friend.’

  ‘What do you mean, friend?’

  ‘He might have had an appointment with someone.’

  ‘Not that I know of. What was it that happened?’

  McFarlane gave an account of the crash.

  ‘Did anyone die? I mean, apart from Geoff.’ She took a violent hiccuping breath as she said the name.

  ‘One person died at the scene. There are other casualties, some severe.’

  Mrs Kernan took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.

  ‘Mrs Kernan, I know this is a terrible time. But I need to ask certain questions.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Were there any problems between you and your husband?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Marital problems.’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Your husband must have been away a lot. Was that difficult?’

  ‘Sometimes. We got through it.’

  ‘How were things at work?’

  ‘Fine. The usual. Too many hours, not enough money.’

  ‘Was there anything recently?’

  Mrs Kernan shook her head. Her expression had been dull with grief but she suddenly changed and looked suspicious. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  ‘Do you think he did this to himself?’

  The phone rang and Mrs Kernan got up to answer it. McFarlane took the mugs back into the kitchen and washed them. Looking out of the window, she saw a robin perched on a spade that was sunk into the soil. Beyond that the garden was like a miniature building site, with large paving slabs stacked at the end.

  ‘That was Geoff’s idea,’ said a voice behind her. Mrs Kernan had come into the kitchen. ‘He said it would be nice for having barbecues.’

  ‘Do you have someone who can come and be with you?’

  ‘I could ask my sister.’

  ‘Good.’

  When they were in the car again, they sat in silence for a time.

  ‘I think she was holding something back,’ said Symons. ‘I think they had problems.’

  ‘Everyone has problems,’ said McFarlane.

  ‘But it’s all obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? Good. Explain it to me.’

  ‘Geoffrey Kernan, pressured at work, unhappy in his marriage, he finally cracks. He walks out on his life, spends a couple of days wandering around, deciding what to do about everything. Then he gets in a car and ends it all. Simple.’

  ‘In a car. Not his own car.’

  ‘There’s no law that says you need to use your own car.’

  ‘And in Hampstead, an hour-and-a-half drive away?’

  ‘He wanted a hill.’

  ‘Why does he need a hill? He’s in a car, not a shopping trolley.’ The two officers looked at each other. ‘Well,’ she carried on, ‘it’ll all be solved tomorrow. In the meantime, check the car he was driving.’

  Dr Jane Franklin, consultant pathologist, looked down at the body of Geoffrey Kernan, then across at a group of students, masked and gowned in green.

  ‘Did you read the notes?’

  There was a murmur.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Car accident.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Possible heart attack.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Or stroke. Or suicide.’

  ‘The problem with police reports,’ said Dr Franklin, ‘is that they get in the way of your eyes. Forget what you’ve read. What do you see here?’ She gestured with a scalpel at the ravaged face and forehead. ‘You.’ She pointed at one of the pale-faced students.

  ‘Er … fracture to the –’

  ‘Stop,’ said Dr Franklin sharply. ‘Let me rephrase the question. What don’t you see?’

  There was more murmuring but no actual words.

  ‘Have any of you ever had a head injury? Banged your nose? What do you get?’

  ‘Blood?’ ventured one student, in a quavering voice.

  ‘Yes. Blood. Lots of it. There’s no blood in these wounds at all. Which means?’

  ‘That the heart wasn’t beating.’

  ‘In other words?’

  ‘He was already dead.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But how can a dead person drive a car?’

  ‘We’re pathologists,’ said Dr Franklin. ‘We don’t look at the reports. We look at the body.’

  ‘I checked the registration,’ said Symons. ‘It belongs to a Mr Alexander Christos from Didcot.’

  ‘Is he a friend of Kernan’s?’

  ‘It was a bit complicated. I talked to the local police and they contacted Christos.’

  ‘Give me the uncomplicated version.’

  ‘The car must have been stolen.’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘Christos is on holiday in the Canary Islands. As far as he’s concerned, his car is parked outside his house.’

  McFarlane frowned, irritated. ‘What’s going on here? This toilet salesman goes all the way to Didcot, steals a car, then drives it to Hampstead to kill himself.’

  There was a knock at the door and a young officer appeared. ‘There’s a call for you. It’s Dr Franklin. She wants to talk to you.’

  Dr Franklin met McFarlane at the door to the examination room. ‘Are you comfortable seeing the body?’ she said.

  ‘I was there at the scene.’

  ‘Even so. Some people find it difficult when they’ve been cut open. I want to show you something.’ She led McFarlane across to one of the slabs and pulled back the sheet. ‘Have a look at this.’ She was pointing with the tip of her scalpel to the incision in the middle of the dead man’s neck. ‘See that?’

  ‘The hyoid,’ added her assistant, looking at the delicate bone in the shape of a horseshoe. ‘It’s broken.’

  ‘So what? He was in a car crash. Lots of things must have been broken. I’ve heard about the hyoid bone. It’s an indicator of strangulation. But it’s not a hundred per cent accurate.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s accurate the way we need it to be.’

  ‘What does that mean?

  ‘Strangulation breaks the hyoid bone in about a third of cases. But when the hyoid bone is broken, it always means strangulation.’

  ‘But he was in a car crash.’

  ‘That’s the other thing. He was already dead.’

  ‘You just said that,’ said McFarlane. ‘From the strangulation.’

  ‘No, I mean really dead. So that the severe facial injuries, here and here–’ she pointed at the crushed skull, the caved-in cheekbone – ‘didn’t bleed.’

  ‘So Kernan didn’t die at the scene.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have a time of death?’

  ‘Do you know what I hate?’

  ‘Lots of things, probably.’

  ‘Yes. But what I really hate is when people have watched crime shows on TV and expect me to say that the victim died at two thirty-two in the morning two days ago.’

  ‘I don’t get to watch much TV. And I’m a police officer so I know those things are fiction.’

  ‘Good. So, do you know where Kernan died?’

  ‘Not as yet.’

  ‘Do you know where his body was kept?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know the ambient temperature? The humidity?’

  ‘I get the point. But could it have been two or three days before?’

  Dr Franklin wrinkled her
brow. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘It could have been two or three days. It could also have been longer. Much longer. Or shorter. But it couldn’t have been less than several hours before the incident.’

  ‘I see,’ said McFarlane, who didn’t.

  ‘If this was TV, the pathologist would now go out and interview witnesses and solve the case herself.’

  ‘I wish you would.’

  Darren Symons blew his nose and wiped his eyes, then put a throat lozenge into his mouth. The day had gone on too long. The horrible excitement it had delivered had leaked away and now he just wanted to go home, order a takeaway, watch some TV, go to bed.

  ‘I’ve got one question,’ he said.

  ‘Just one?’ said McFarlane.

  ‘It’s quite long, though. How did a salesman from Barking go missing for several days, get murdered and end up in a car out of control down Heath Street? Or maybe I mean why.’

  ‘The good news is we don’t need to find out. It’s become a murder investigation, way above our pay grade. Someone else has to deal with Geoffrey Kernan now.’

  THREE

  Simon Tearle, visiting senior lecturer in criminology at Guildhall College, University of London, poured two mugs of coffee from his cafetière. To one he added a teaspoon of honey, to the other a splash of half-fat milk. He took them over to his desk. When he told his students that his door was always open to them, he hoped they wouldn’t take him literally. But Lola Hayes had taken him literally and he handed her the white coffee. This was the day when he had a few minutes alone, where he could do anything he wanted. He could go online, do the crossword, stand in the window and look out on Russell Square. Tantalizingly, he could glimpse the square behind Lola’s head, the golden leaves of the plane trees.

  Tearle sipped at his coffee and looked at his student. Lola Hayes’s face was round, pale, freckled, with large grey-green eyes. Her hair was soft and brown. She seemed to have no hard edges anywhere. She examined his office with an eager interest, as if she was fascinated by his choice of pictures on the wall, the objects on his desk.

  ‘So?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your coming to see me. Is something the matter?’

  ‘My mind’s a complete blank,’ she said.

  ‘About what? About why you’re here?’