Guilty Waters

by Priscilla Masters

  Matthew followed her gaze. ‘I’m going to do an X-ray,’ he said. ‘It looks to me as though there’s been quite an assault on her face. We’re going to have to rely on underlying tissue and bone to be sure,’ he said, ‘but …’ His voice trailed away and Joanna knew why. Matthew hated to guess or even to make any statement he could not back up with scientific fact. He looked at her and the skin around his eyes crinkled, looking suddenly soft and warm, his eyes a friendly, mossy green. When someone is wearing a face mask over their nose and mouth you can still tell when they are smiling by the movement of paper and eyes. They are your clue.

  She smiled back at him and he bent over the second corpse, repeating the actions of the first.

  It took him a little longer this time and she soon saw why. It was the cranium that was the problem. It was split, pieces pushed into the brain, which Matthew carefully removed using his fingertips and forceps to collect them into a small dish. Joanna looked. Some of the splinters were not of bone. They looked like … wood? She moved back. This girl had not died of drowning. Even she could see that. Again Matthew was quiet as he worked, apart from a few soft observations made into the tape recorder as an aide memoir. This time the mortuary assistant was using a ruler and the photographer was taking numerous pictures from all angles. There were other injuries too. Matthew spent time on the hands and forearms and she watched, fascinated, as he exposed a break in the right wrist, the bones splintering through the skin.

  Unlike her friend, Dorothée had not drowned. Her lungs were clear. Matthew’s concluding words were no surprise to her.

  ‘Dorothée,’ he said, confirming her own observation, ‘did not drown. She was hit repeatedly on and around the head. The marks on her forearms, wrist and hands are defensive wounds. She was fighting her attacker off. Put up a pretty good fight, I’d say.’ There was pity in his voice as he looked down at the body.

  ‘But not quite good enough,’ Joanna said.

  ‘No. Not good enough.’ Joanna stared at him as, momentarily, he seemed to struggle to keep his composure. ‘She lost. She had numerous skull fractures, which probably caused her death. They are extensive. Some of those were done post- mortem, as though her killer wanted to be absolutely sure that she really was dead.’

  ‘Any idea what she was hit with?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t anything sharp. There are no incisions. I would have thought something wide and flat like a shovel.’ Matthew frowned. ‘But that’s metal and in that case I would have expected more contusion around the edges. Maybe some cuts. There is a bit of a clue, though.’ He fished around in the shallow bowl and brought out—

  ‘Is that a splinter of …?’

  ‘Wood,’ he said. ‘So I think something shovel-shaped with a wide edge. Maybe …’ He half turned back towards the table, ‘… possibly – no, probably – made of wood or partially made of wood. There were a few splinters embedded in the skull. So something broad and flat and made of wood.’ He hesitated, his eyes clouding. ‘That’s not all.’

  Joanna waited.

  ‘She was sexually assaulted. Her clothes were torn. Here …’ He crossed the room and showed Joanna the shorts Dorothée had been wearing when found. The button and the zip had been torn apart. Matthew returned to the girl on the slab. ‘There is bruising around her vagina. But no penetration and certainly no ejaculation took place. I’ve taken swabs and samples but I don’t think we’ll get any DNA evidence from that.’ He cleared his throat; a sure sign that he was affected by the procedure and the conjecture. ‘I haven’t found any pubic hair or anything else, for that matter.’

  He was watching her, knowing that she would already be trying to work out the sequence of events.

  And she was. So now she had her scenario. One drowned, the other assaulted. She looked at her husband hopefully. ‘Any idea in what order the girls were killed?’

  ‘I can’t say who died first,’ he said. ‘They’ve both been dead for around ten to twelve weeks.’ He made an attempt to lighten her mood. ‘You know the old adage for working out the time of death,’ he said, smiling now. ‘They died sometime after they were last seen alive and before their bodies were found.’

  She managed the weakest of smiles, which made him apologize.

  ‘Sorry, Jo. Couldn’t resist.’

  ‘We’re bringing the families over from Europe,’ she mused.

  Involuntarily they both looked at the bodies on the slabs. The mortuary attendant was doing a good job of putting the girls back together again. Yet …

  ‘It’s out of the question,’ Matthew said. ‘You must dissuade them from viewing them.’ He practically shuddered. ‘Would you want to see a child of yours in this state?’ His face was screwed up in pain. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘No. You’re right.’ She moved towards the door. ‘Well, I suppose that’s it.’

  ‘Sorry, Jo,’ he said. ‘I’d better get on now. I really should get my notes down as quickly as possible, before I forget anything.’ He gave her one of his wide grins and a wink before gently brushing her cheek with his lips. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. Then, green eyes alight, he added, ‘Or much later?’

  She nodded, managed a weak smile in return, and left.

  First she went to Leek station and reported back to CS Gabriel Rush, who listened with what she was now understanding to be his habitual intensity. ‘So Annabelle drowned,’ he said thoughtfully, his bony fingers tapping the desk, ‘and Dorothée …’

  ‘Multiple traumatic head injuries, sir.’ Goodness, she was picking up on Matthew-speak.

  ‘Did Levin have any idea what the weapon used would have been?’

  ‘Only something broad and flat and made of wood. And she’d been sexually assaulted.’

  She picked up on his interest. Sexual assault usually meant …

  ‘No, sir. No ejaculation so no DNA.’

  ‘Aah.’ Rush was thoughtful. ‘And any idea in what order they died?’

  ‘He didn’t know, sir.’

  ‘I didn’t mean Doctor Levin,’ he said, carefully picking out his words like debris from between his teeth. ‘I meant you. Have you any idea in which order they died?’

  She was a little startled. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Have you formed any theory as to the sequence of events?’

  ‘I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it,’ she said, needled into defending herself. ‘I’ve come straight from the mortuary.’ Then, slowly, her brain began to unravel. ‘If Annabelle drowned and the diatoms indicate she drowned in the lake she wasn’t swimming, sir. She was fully dressed.’

  Rush didn’t encourage her with words but with a dip of his chin and a swift, curious glance from under those sandy lashes.

  ‘She must have been in a boat,’ she said, seeing the light as though an electric current was pulsing through her head. ‘And the injury to Dorothée Matthew thinks was done with something flat, probably wooden. An oar or a paddle?’ She didn’t go any further but she was getting nearer. She sensed it.

  ‘Good,’ he said and then, quite abruptly, he changed tack. ‘The girls’ relatives?’

  ‘Both mothers are flying over, together with Monsieur Bellange. DC Alan King is booking them into a hotel in Leek. Then he’ll liaise with them. His French is good and—’

  ‘All right,’ Rush said, suddenly impatient. ‘All right. That’s enough for now. I don’t need all the details. Keep me informed and let me know before your budget hits the stratosphere.’

  As always, the mention of budgets put Joanna into a cold sweat and made her feel that she was overspending before she’d really started. Riding on that was a feeling of guilt that she should have looked harder into the text message which might have solved the case sooner. She should have suspected something. Found the girls weeks ago, et cetera.

  ‘Do you think you have any significant DNA evidence off the clothes?’

  ‘Not from Annabelle’s,’ she said carefully. ‘Not after the immersion in water. Perhaps Dorothée’s, tho
ugh I didn’t see anything obvious. There was a great deal of staining and degradation on both their clothes. They’ve gone to the lab to be looked at but I’m not hugely hopeful. Annabelle was only wearing one shoe, so if we can find the other we might possibly get some idea of where they died but again, I’m not optimistic, sir. Dorothée’s shorts were torn but I didn’t see anything. Anyway, the lab will take a good look.’

  ‘Yes.’ His face tightened with momentary disgust, as though he saw the garments himself. ‘Well. Use the media to its maximum effect. Bit of free advertising, eh?’ His face twisted into an even more bizarre grimace which showed small, neat, predatory teeth. It was only as Joanna left the room that she realized: Rush had been making a joke. Or at least, his idea of a joke.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  As she drove back to Rudyard she began to work out what might have happened. And by the time she reached the turn-off to Rudyard she was beginning to see clearly. Various images were swimming into her brain. First there was a boat. And an oar. Two girls and a man. He tries to have sex with one girl and when she resists he hits her with the oar. The other girl, terrified, swims away. But she can’t swim. She drowns. There had not been a mark on Annabelle. And then the man – or men – panic. He or they continue hitting Dorothée until she too is dead. And now there are two corpses to dispose of.

  But who? And when? Rudyard Lake was busy from early morning to late night, particularly in shorts and T-shirt weather. The scenario she had imagined, an attempted rape and a girl drowning, would surely have attracted attention? The lake wasn’t that big. Even at the far end, surely someone would have noticed?

  The image in her mind was quickly replaced by reality. Drawn up on the shore of the lake were small rowing boats and the sign, ‘For Hire, £5 an hour’ on a board leaning up against an upturned boat. Sitting on the upturned boat was the disgruntled boat-hire man, Keith Armitage, his eyes boiling in resentment at his lack of earnings on such promising weather. Beside the boats was a rack of wooden oars, upright as trees. Was the murder weapon amongst them?

  She could see it all in her mind’s eye, but she still couldn’t make sense of it. There were still pieces of the jigsaw missing.

  She parked her car next to the other police vehicles. Korpanski was watching her from the window of the briefing room. She filled him in on the results of the pos-mortem and then pooled her ideas with his. Like her, he could not make sense of events.

  She called a briefing right away. She needed the officers to understand it all. She always hoped that one of them would come up with an idea. She watched their faces, grim and determined, and searched for a spark when one of them had an idea. But this time, no. They looked to her for an explanation and she had none. They dispersed.

  Then things went into overdrive. The area around the boats down to the shore was cordoned off and the craft and paddles subjected to scrutiny. At least now they had a focus. A nucleus for their activity.

  DC King had gone to meet the family members at Manchester airport. Joanna would have to speak to them later and discourage them from viewing the girls. In the meantime …

  She looked across the water, sullen and stormy today, in a sulk – perhaps for the part it had played in the tragedy. She let her gaze slide over it, swim beneath it and finally surface. What secrets were hidden down there? Not the bodies, but was there something else down there apart from the pathetic, sodden red purse? Was there something down there which would lead them to the killer? Who was he? How had he done it? Was her theory right? What was his motive? Was it simply sexual lust? Had rape been his reason for taking the girls out on the lake? Hiding the bodies was the easy part to understand. Killers hide bodies in the hope of evading discovery.

  Keith Armitage got up from the boat and walked towards them, scowling. ‘How long are you going to be here?’

  ‘As long as it takes, Mr Armitage.’

  Like many police officers, she had little sympathy for the people caught up in the investigation of a crime. Her focus and pity was all for the victims and their families.

  Armitage lost his temper then. ‘How am I supposed to make a livin’ ’ere with you lot buzzin’ around like bees round a honey pot?’

  ‘That isn’t my concern, Mr Armitage,’ Joanna said, her eyes narrowing. He had a nasty temper. He also had access to boats – and oars. Something in her mind clicked. Was his temper nasty enough to murder? Armitage’s gaze wandered resentfully around the white-suited figures as he blew out an angry breath. ‘I’m not going to be able to do much business with them lot hanging around,’ he said grumpily. ‘So I may as well …’ He stomped back off to his perch on the boat and regarded the scene with frank hostility, every now and then clearing his throat with an angry rasp or lighting another cigarette.

  Joanna watched him for a minute or two, pondering, then went to find Korpanski. He was directing the operations with all the panache of a Hollywood movie mogul organizing a crowd scene, pointing people in various directions. She watched him for a minute. Mike Korpanski was enjoying himself. She approached him. ‘Can I have a word?’

  They headed back to the studio they’d been using as a briefing room over the coffee shop. Joanna indicated the boat owner through the window. ‘What do you make of him, Mike?’

  ‘Pretty bloody cross.’

  ‘Mmm. Shall we get him in and have a chat?’

  Mike went to get him. Through the window Joanna saw Armitage glance up then throw his cigarette away and follow the sergeant.

  His mood had improved. While his resentment hadn’t exactly melted away, he did look resigned to spending a while ‘helping the police with their enquiries’.

  Concisely, Joanna explained exactly who she was and what they were doing there. She described to him the manner of the girls’ deaths. ‘So you see, Mr Armitage,’ she continued smoothly, ‘we’re very anxious to know who did this. And we feel it probable that the assault on the girls happened when they were in a boat.’ She watched his eyes narrow. He looked puzzled. Still angry, but also confused.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he said, resentment still boiling in his voice. ‘What are you saying? What exactly are you suggesting? You think I had …’ Behind the bluster Joanna read an element of fright. This guy, whatever he might appear, was nervous. ‘Are you thinking I had something to do with it?’

  ‘We’re suggesting nothing of the sort, Mr Armitage,’ she said, making a mental note to look into the guy’s past. There was something he was uneasy about. But then killers often acted in an unpredictable way.

  She pressed on. ‘Do you remember two French girls hiring a boat back in July?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, blustering again. ‘How can you expect me to remember that far back? It’s ages ago. Have you any idea how many people hire my boats out? Sometimes I’ve twenty or more out at the same time. That’s hordes of people.’ And then, quite cleverly, he picked up on the very obstacle that was bothering Joanna. ‘How the heck do you think nobody saw anything?’

  She couldn’t answer that one. So she moved on, flipping the photographs on to the table. ‘These girls,’ she said, watching for his reaction very carefully. ‘They’re very attractive, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Armitage said uncomfortably. ‘Yeah. I suppose they are. Quite.’ He leaned forward in his chair to emphasize his next point. ‘If they’re your sort.’

  ‘So do you remember them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think … No.’ He frowned. Then his face cleared. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘Hang on. Were they wearing shorts? Nice legs?’ He appeared unabashed.

  ‘You know what?’ The light Joanna had been searching for had switched on in his face. I did see them,’ he said and pointed towards the officers. ‘They were having ice creams,’ he said, ‘and sitting over there. They were wearing shorts.’

  ‘Who were they with?’

  Armitage looked puzzled. ‘They weren’t with anyone,’ he said. ‘They were on their own. They weren’t talking to any
one. They were simply looking out across the water, eating ice cream.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  She had nothing to hold Armitage for, and yet she didn’t want to let him go either. But she had no right to detain him and so reluctantly she released him and watched him through the window as he crossed the car park with thumping, heavy steps and returned to his perch on the top of one of his beloved boats, throwing a hostile glance back in their direction.

  Mike was downstairs, still directing operations. ‘The three French parents have arrived,’ he said. ‘They want to talk to you.’ His dark eyes rested on her. ‘As senior investigating officer …’ he said, unmistakably dumping the responsibility on her.

  ‘OK.’ She felt her shoulders slump. This was an unenviable job but Mike was right. As SIO it was her responsibility.

  ‘There is one thing that’s been unearthed,’ he said, like her, looking out of the window at Armitage’s rigidly resentful form. ‘Five years ago there was a charge against him of raping a young woman. He worked as a taxi driver then and was taking her home. She was fairly drunk and said that when she came to in the back of the cab he was on top of her.’

  Joanna frowned. ‘She was on her own?’

  ‘Yeah. The allegations were later dropped.’ Korpanski shifted so he faced the lake rather than her. ‘The cab company obviously wouldn’t employ him after that, and that was when he started this boat business. He’s done well,’ he added. ‘Giving sailing lessons, boat hire. Seasonal stuff through the winter – he serves mulled wine and mince pies and stuff, and organizes a Christmas Fair. He’s quite enterprising. Probably did him a favour not being able to be a taxi driver any more.’

  ‘Yeah. I see,’ Joanna said, and knew that theoretically she did now have enough to detain him. But … She went outside just as DC Alan King turned up.

  He was to act as translator – if needed. They had commandeered the small wildlife centre as a private interview room. Joanna shook hands with them each in turn. Madame Bellange looked straight at her, saying nothing but she was in tight control. Armand Bellange was a small, neat man, with quick dark eyes black as currants. He looked shaken. He too shook hands and stood back. Renée Caron appeared the most upset. She held a small cotton handkerchief to her eyes which were reddened and a little swollen. She sniffed. They all sat down.