Skeletons

by Robert Innes

  “Either way, he should be dead,” Patil added.

  “Exactly,” Blake replied, pulling up the next photograph. “Now, his wife, Angela Coopland, was also in the car. She was pulled out, alive, before the car exploded with nothing more than cuts, bruises and a broken arm. Angela has said that in the days that followed, she thinks that she saw her husband, alive and well, but she was under the influence of pain killers in hospital and shock from the car crash. Mixed in with the fact that her husband had been mentally abusing her for years, it could be argued that she was just experiencing some level of aftershock. A week after the crash, Patrick is buried. But on the day of the funeral, after he is apparently buried, he returns to the Coopland’s home and tries to strangle his wife. I was personally witness to this, and when Coopland was disturbed, he jumped out of the window, disappeared, and has not been seen since.”

  “We’ve had officers looking for Coopland since that day, but we’ve found nothing,” Mattison said, vaguely looking at his notes.

  “And then,” continued Blake, “we dig up the coffin of Patrick Coopland to discover just who in the hell was being buried if it wasn’t him and lo and behold, we find his wife, Angela.” He stuck the photo of Angela’s body up on the board and stared at it for a few moments. His initial shock of discovering her body felt no less raw than it had on the night of her murder. “She’d been beaten to death, a few wounds on the back of her head consistent with being hit with a heavy, blunt instrument.”

  “Quite a puzzle,” Angel said, from the doorway of his office. “And what conclusions have we come to so far?”

  “Very bloody little by the sound of things,” Gardiner replied.

  “Thank you for that incredibly helpful comment, Sergeant Gardiner,” Angel replied. “DS Harte?”

  Blake stared at the board, hoping something would jump out at him. “Actually, for once, I’m inclined to agree with Michael, Sir. The only piece of new information we’ve had since Angela’s death is from David Penn. He was an assistant at the undertakers, and he had also been enjoying some extra job perks with Angela.”

  “An affair?” Angel clarified. “So, could Penn have had something to do with either of the deaths?”

  “It’s possible,” conceded Blake. “He, along with Angela, had been working on Patrick’s body in the days leading up to the funeral doing, well, undertaker type things. We only have their word that Patrick was there at all.”

  “But pretty much all of Harmschapel saw the man in that car die,” Patil said. “We were all there. I mean, come on, Sir, your boyfriend was one of the ones who pulled Angela out. He saw Patrick behind the wheel, unconscious, maybe even already dead. There’s no way he could have got out without anybody seeing him.”

  Blake sighed and nodded. He almost wished Harrison had not been present at the incident. At least then he would have had a less reliable witness to verify that everything about the situation was impossible.

  “Can I ask a stupid question?” Mattison asked, after they had all been staring at the photos for a few moments.

  “Better than anybody in the station,” Gardiner quipped.

  “Shut up, Michael,” Blake told him. “Go on, Matti.”

  “Do we know for sure that the body in that car was Patrick Coopland?” Mattison said, slowly starting to look more awake as his brain started to tick over. “I mean, let’s be clear. There is no possible way that anybody can survive what the man in that car apparently went through. Huge crash, explosion, it’s not happening.”

  Blake frowned. “Go on.”

  “It sounds dumb in my head,” Mattison said cautiously, “but is there any possibility that Patrick Coopland could have had a twin?”

  There was a long silence in the room. Mattison glanced around him, embarrassed. “Sorry, I knew it was a dumb idea.”

  “Matti,” Blake murmured as he stared at the picture of Coopland. “You might be on to something.”

  Mattison looked surprised. “Really?”

  “I don’t know,” Blake said quietly, his brain whirring. “Could he have had a twin brother?”

  “Angela would surely have known that though,” Patil argued. “She said that she saw her husband. Surely, a wife would be able to tell the difference between her husband and his twin brother?”

  “Maybe she didn’t know?” Mattison suggested.

  Blake’s mouth fell open. “That’s it!” he cried. “Jekyll and Hyde!”

  “Say again?” Gardiner replied.

  “Both Angela and David Penn said that Patrick Coopland’s personality flip-flopped!” Blake said, his heart starting to hammer in his chest. “He went from the perfect husband to this cruel nasty man who made her feel worthless. That was what they both said. What if they were two different people?”

  “Oh my God,” Patil gasped. “Do you think that could be it?”

  “If one of them died in that car crash, that means that his twin brother was still around,” Blake continued, trying to succinctly verbalise all the thoughts now running through his head. “She could have seen him standing in the crowd after the car crashed, she could have seen him standing at the end of her bed when she was in hospital, because it wasn’t the same man who she thought had died in the crash! Why the hell didn’t I see this sooner? Matti, you’re a genius!”

  Mattison smirked at Gardiner. “Not bad for the stupidest question asker in the station.”

  “It’s all very nice in theory,” Gardiner replied sharply. “We haven’t got a scrap of evidence to prove it though.”

  “That’s because we weren’t looking for it in the right place,” Blake said. “David Penn had the right idea. We need to go back to that undertakers and find ourselves some proof. Then, if we find it, we need to find the brother of Patrick Coopland.”

  Although Blake had never been in the slightest bit unnerved by the undertakers in the way that Mattison had, even he had to admit that it looked a lot less foreboding in the light of day. When they all arrived, Blake turned to Mattison, Patil and Gardiner.

  “Right, remember what we’re looking for. We need proof for Mattison’s theory before we can go any further.”

  “I bet we don’t find any,” Gardiner said dismissively. “I knew Patrick for a number of years and I never had any indication that he wasn’t who he said he was.”

  “Let’s just wait and see, shall we?” Blake replied as they walked around the back of the building. “We can’t discount anything until we…”

  His voice trailed off as they arrived at the back entrance. The back door was wide open.

  “Who was the last out of here last night?” Blake asked, frowning.

  “David Penn would have been,” Mattison told him.

  “Why wouldn’t he have locked the door behind him?” Blake asked. He stepped inside the house cautiously. “Hello?” he called. There was no reply. “Be on your guard,” he murmured to the others.

  “Watch out for the bodies, Mattison,” Gardiner said as they walked in.

  “Shut it,” hissed Mattison.

  “The pair of you shut it,” Blake told them. “We’ll start in the mortuary. I think those fridges need looking over again.”

  He heard Mattison groan as they made their way through the waiting area and towards the door leading to the corridor.

  “Why was that door open?” Blake wondered aloud as they made their way towards the mortuary. “I can’t see David Penn leaving it open for just anyone to walk into.”

  “He seemed pretty devastated when he found out about Angela,” Patil reminded him. “Maybe his head wasn’t with it.”

  The mortuary looked very similar to how it had done the last time they were here. The room still had an unfriendly chilling vibe about it and the low humming emanating from where the bodies were kept gave an even more sinister undertone to their surroundings.

  “What are we even looking for?” Gardiner asked as he looked around. “What are we supposed to find in here to prove that Patrick was a twin?”

  �
�Use your imagination, Michael,” Blake said as he looked around. “There’s got to be something to tell us what’s been going on.”

  “Sir,” Mattison said nervously. “Wasn’t one of those fridge things open yesterday?”

  Blake turned to look at the silver doors lined up on the walls. The empty one labelled ‘Patrick Coopland’ had been closed.

  “Maybe David closed it?” Patil suggested, shrugging.

  Blake stared at the door. He had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “So, he closes an empty body compartment but leaves the back door wide open?”

  He put his hand on the door and carefully pulled it open. A pair of black shoes were poking out.

  “Oh my God,” Mattison murmured. “That was definitely empty yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Blake replied grimly. He glanced at the other officers, then took hold of the large handle protruding from the end of the tray the bodies were laid on. He pulled it out and the body inside slid towards them.

  “Oh, no,” Patil whispered.

  Blake sighed as he stared at the body. “I guess we better call Sharon,” he said quietly as the dead and cold eyes of David Penn stared back up at him.

  “It’s the same as Angela from what I can tell,” Sharon told him as she looked down at David’s body. “Beaten on the back of the head. I’d say this one was more frenzied though. If you look here…” she gently moved David’s head to the side to expose the wounds at the back of his skull. “You can see some really deep wounds. To make this level of indentation in his cranium, you’re talking a severe whack from behind. From initial examinations, I’d say that this wound, the deepest one at the top, was the one that killed him. I would even estimate that this was the first one and the rest were applied after he died. They’re at a slightly different angle, so my guess would be the first one sent him straight to the ground and then the killer kept hitting him once he was down.”

  Blake shook his head in disbelief. “Time of death?”

  “I would say about twelve hours or so,” Sharon replied briskly. “The level of blood clotting has been affected by being put in the fridge, however so that’s just an estimate.”

  “Twelve hours?” Patil repeated, glancing at her watch. “That’s when we were speaking to him though.”

  “That witness report,” Blake murmured. “Obviously they did see Patrick Coopland around the building last night. Maybe he was here the whole time.”

  “If he didn’t know about the affair,” Patil suggested, “that could have pushed him to it.”

  “Sir,” Mattison called from the stairs.

  Blake looked down at David’s body again and sighed, then went out to the corridor to Mattison.

  “Upstairs is ransacked. You know the study room we were in last night?”

  Blake followed him upstairs and to the room where they had found David the night before. As Mattison had described, the entire room was a mess. Documents had been thrown everywhere, furniture had been pushed aside and as Blake looked closer at the floor, he could see a dark red stain on the carpet.

  “Blood,” Mattison said.

  “He was killed up here and then taken down to the mortuary,” Blake said. “I’m not even sure his killer went to all that much trouble to hide their work. Go tell Sharon about the blood, Matti.”

  “Okay, Sir.”

  Once Blake was alone, he knelt down and looked through the papers that were on the floor. They did not appear to be especially interesting; bank statements, body certificates, and invoices were all he could really find, and he did not think that any of this had anything to do with money. Then, he glanced up at one of the open filing cabinets. Its contents were in just as much of a mess as the rest of the room, but when he started rifling through them, he pulled out what looked like a work diary.

  He frowned as he examined it. It had all the usual work appointment reminders for meetings and the like that he would have expected, but there were also pages and pages of detailed information about different people. He turned the page and read through one:

  ‘Thursday, 15th February.

  13:30: Meeting with Simon Watson re burying of his wife, Barbara. She died of cancer (compartment 2). In the last meeting, he explained how he was going straight to his sisters from here to tell them the news. Maybe enquire how this went. His sister is called Rosemary, she lives in Clackton. Simon is tall with greying hair, dresses smartly, very deep voice.

  Barbara worked as a cashier at a bank for fifteen years before retiring.

  Interested in the mahogany class 2 coffin and was making noises about gold handles.

  14:45: Meeting with Jerry about accounts. His son had a job interview for an IT company based in America on Tuesday. Enquire, be interested. We had a slight disagreement about the election, maybe smooth over, check all is well between us. All as it was last time other than that.’

  Blake continued reading through the diary. It almost seemed as if Patrick was trying to remind himself about the people he was meeting, but then he came across another entry a few pages on.

  ‘Wednesday, 21st March.

  Argument with Angela re client request for Joanne Retford. Angela insists family wanted her dressed in Sunday best. See red book.’

  “Red book?” muttered Blake. He rummaged through the filing cabinet but could not find any other diaries or books. Then, his eyes landed on the desk on the side of the room and the small drawers along the side of it, the first one of which had a lock on it. He placed the black diary down and tried to pull open the drawer, but it was still locked.

  He picked up a large metal ruler from a stationary pot on the desk and jammed it into the top of the drawer then pulled until the drawer finally opened. The only items inside were a small red book and a picture frame.

  As Blake pulled them out and began to read through the book, his eyes widened.

  ‘Tuesday, 31st March.

  Went to Clackton with Angela. She wanted her hair done for Mary and John’s wedding ceremony. She will be in a sulk today because you told her that Pelo’s prices were too extortionate. Don’t give in like you did with the dress. Consistency is key, and you should know that by now.

  Wednesday 1st April

  BIG argument today about David. I still suspect there is something going on. I lost my temper with him later on and grabbed him by the lapels. I’m sorry, I just lost it with him. We sort of ironed things out, but he’s clearly still pissed off, so you must be too.’

  Friday 3rd April

  Angela talked about Annie, made noises about wanting to sort things out with her. I said she was best of out of it, but she remains insistent. Don’t let her call her. It’ll only result in them arguing again.’

  As Blake continued reading through the book, he shook his head in disbelief. All the entries were written in two different types of handwriting, all of them informing the reader about specific conversations that the writer had had with people that day, descriptions of new meetings but most of all, there was detailed entries about Angela and conversations that had been had with her. Most interestingly of all, there were in-depth instructions about how the reader should react the next time they saw certain people.

  He then turned to the picture frame. It was an old, faded picture of who he assumed was Patrick Coopland smiling with a woman that Blake had never seen before. It was certainly the happiest Blake had ever seen the man look. The picture suggested the two in the photograph were a couple, the picture having been taken near a large lake, perhaps on a holiday the two of them had taken.

  When Sharon walked in, followed by Patil, Blake snapped the book shut.

  “Apparently, there’s blood in here?” Sharon asked him.

  Blake nodded and pointed to the stain on the carpet then held out the book to Patil. “I think we’ve just found our twin proof. Patrick Coopland has been living a double life for years. Angela was married to two people without even realising it.”

  “And one was a lot nicer than the other,” Patil sa
id, looking amazed at the content of the book. “Look at this: ‘I’ve sorted out the disagreement with Angela re what you said about her new outfit for the fete. I’m serious Patrick, stop this. I’m sick of having to pretend to be the same person who made her cry all the time.’ Wow. No wonder she was a mess.”

  “One of them treated her well, the other was cruel,” Blake said, nodding. “All while running this business.”

  “One of them is referred to as Colin,” Patil said holding the book up. “Colin, we can’t afford the lakes in June, so stop telling Angela that we can. I’ve looked at the records and it’s impossible.’ So, Patrick was the nasty one?”

  “Certainly looks like it,” Blake replied, nodding. “And he suspected the affair with David Penn. If he was here last night, then he got his confirmation.”

  Patil looked thoroughly confused. “Hang on. Who died in that car crash then? Patrick or Colin?”

  Blake scratched the back of his head. “Well, I would say that it was probably Colin, but the conversation I overheard at the supermarket didn’t sound like it was coming from the nicer of the two. But if Patrick was the one giving her all this abuse over the years and he was the one that died, why would Colin try to throttle her to death?”

  “Sounds like two steps forwards and three steps back to me,” Sharon said as she examined the blood on the carpet. “Blake, I’m not entirely convinced this blood is all that new. It seems too dry to me.”

  Blake put the red book in his pocket and looked down at her. “You don’t think that blood is David’s?”