Chapter Two
Le Claire was on his third glass of champagne and starting to enjoy himself. The lights had dimmed, and the subtle background music had given way to more energetic notes. The bank of doors that led onto the wide terrace had been fully opened, and the silky breeze was a welcome relief from the overheated room. The air was heavy with night-scented stock, the dark purple blooms weaving and trailing around and over the edges of their containers.
Sasha was by his side, her face flushed from dancing and, perhaps, the champagne. Her look was coquettish and flirtatious, and he felt closer to her tonight than he had in a long time. It had only been a few weeks since they’d put their pending divorce on hold, and they had been tiptoeing around each other, neither seemingly able to recapture what they once had or move forward to create a new reality. In many ways, it felt as if they were still separated – except they were now talking to each other rather than shouting. The interaction was tentative, discussing their days and even the weather, debating the latest snippets from the local news but never venturing deeper, never touching on what had driven them apart, kept them separated and led them to the brink of divorce.
Tonight was different. He held out his hand, reached for Sasha’s. “Come on, let’s get some fresh air.” He pulled her through the open doors and onto the virtually deserted terrace.
Her smile widened. “Are you trying to lead me astray? And with your parents here.”
He recognised the wicked gleam in her eye and felt his body react. He shook his head and grinned. “Hey, I’m a representative of the law. I can’t be caught in a compromising situation, can I?”
Her smile softened. Her gaze was direct as she spoke. “Then let’s go somewhere else. Come home with me, Jack. Stay with me tonight. It’s about time, don’t you think?”
His pulse quickened, and he reached out for her. Pulling her closer, he held her tight and whispered, “Come on, we’ll call a cab and just tell Mum and Dad we’re leaving.”
A commotion in the gardens below caught his attention. Someone was running through the grounds, and they were shouting. A group of people farther down the terrace were leaning over the balcony. One man had descended the stairs and started running toward the figure. It was a woman.
Instincts kicking in, Le Claire moved away from Sasha and followed the man onto the lawn. The woman collapsed in a heap, and just as Le Claire ran up, he heard the man ask, “What’s wrong? What do you want?”
The woman’s eyes looked past the man and locked on to Le Claire’s. She pointed. “Him, I need him.”
The light from the nearest outdoor light was feeble, but he recognised her voice with its faint accent, and even in the dark, her features slowly became clearer. “Ana, what has happened?”
“My cousin, it’s my cousin. It’s Scott.” Her voice ended on a sob.
“What about your cousin? Where is he?”
He knelt down beside her, gesturing for the other man to move to the side. Ana was kneeling on the grass, her shoulders slumped, her eyes wild. He reached out and gently touched her arm. She stared up at him, pointed to the high wall that enclosed the grassy area. He could just make out an arched opening in the dim light. “The pool house. He’s in the water. I think…I think he’s dead.”
“Jack, what’s going on?”
He looked up and saw Sasha beside him, her eyes wide as she recognised the figure on the ground. “Take Ana inside for me, will you? I won’t be long.” He looked up at the house. “We passed a small sitting room when we first arrived tonight. It’s just off the main hallway. Take Ana there and wait for me.”
It took him mere minutes to jog in the direction pointed out. The swimming pool complex was easy to find, the fluorescent light shone through the glass entrance and called like a beacon. Once inside, he ignored the heat, although he felt his shirt stick to him. He looked directly at the pool and walked round to the far end as his instincts and training kicked in. The body lay face-up in the shallows. The torso was out of the water, lying awkwardly across the topmost steps. He approached the figure, followed procedure and checked for sign of life. Checked again, to be sure, but there was no pulse. The man, Scott, as Ana had called him, was dead. He’d call it in, secure the scene and wait for the officers and CSI to show up. They’d determine cause of death and work out the story behind this man’s last hours, but swimming pools, parties and alcohol rarely mixed without mishap.
Le Claire catalogued the scene in his mind in preparation for the notes he’d dictate into his phone. As was his usual discipline, he focussed on the deceased; the rest of the scene could wait. However, his attention was caught by movement in the water. He sat back on his haunches as he realised what he was looking at. A £50 note was bobbing on the surface. He looked closer, saw another and another. Peering into the depths of the pool, he saw dark shadows, distorted by the depth of the water. Was it more money?
His nerves tingled; he had a dead body and what seemed to be a huge amount of cash floating in the pool. He pulled his phone from his pocket. He didn’t think this would be a case for the duty team. He searched in his phone for the saved number he needed.
#
Detective Sergeant Emily Dewar had been looking forward to her Saturday night ritual. Her shift had finished at 9:00 p.m., and she was exhausted. The white wine was chilled, the takeaway guy had just delivered her chicken curry and she had changed out of her uniform into loose sweatpants and baggy T-shirt. She would be sharing her evening with several favourite TV programmes she had recorded earlier in the week.
She could almost taste the curry and fried rice just from the smell. She poured a generous glass of wine, savoured the aroma. She’d been waiting for this all week and raised the glass to her lips. The ringing of the telephone gave her a jolt, and wine slopped over the rim of the glass, dripping onto her hand. “Damn.”
She saw the caller ID, and all thoughts of a quiet night in disappeared as she quickly answered. “Le Claire, what’s up? I thought you were off gallivanting tonight?”
Her boss’s voice was clipped. “I was. I’m at Honfleur Manor. Get here immediately; we’ll need the CSI team as well, so call Vanguard and tell him to put down whoever he is dating tonight and get to the manor. There’s been an incident.”
“A death?”
“Isn’t it always? A suspected drowning in the swimming pool.”
She knew there was more to this. “Why not call the duty team?”
“Money and dead bodies always make me wonder. I’ll explain when you get here. Hurry up.”
As the phone went dead, she looked longingly at her full glass of wine and, with a sigh, poured it back into the bottle. Maybe tomorrow night.
Chapter Three
Dewar arrived just as Le Claire had finished briefing the CSI team. He held a couple of plastic packages and threw one toward her. “The guys have just set up. Here you go, new outfit for you.”
Dewar rolled her eyes but kept any quip to herself as she unrolled the baggy plastic cover-ups. They suited up in the standard protective issue, slipping on covers for hands and boots. Although their own fingerprints and DNA were on file for elimination purposes, they couldn’t risk contaminating the scene with random evidence. Le Claire could feel sweat on the back of his neck, and Dewar was starting to glow. Gillespie obviously liked his pool house to be kept at Caribbean temperatures. The plastic clothing wasn’t helping.
Le Claire briefly updated her. “The person who found the body knew me and that I was here this evening. She came to find me. Young Hunter arrived minutes before you. Thanks for calling him in. I sent him to the main house to inform the owner that there has been an incident.”
The door opened behind them, and in walked the final team member Le Claire had been waiting for. “Viera, how come you always get the weekend duties?”
Dr David Viera smiled, his white teeth in contrast to his swarthy skin, his dark hair a riot of curls. “I think it’s called getting stuffed ‘
cos you’re single, childless and probably thought to be friendless as well.”
Le Claire took the words for the irony they were. Viera was a young and energetic local GP, and he had signed up for the Force Medical Examiner programme – which meant he got paid a retainer in return for being put on the call register. Le Claire knew he often volunteered to be first on call over the weekends so that married men and fathers could enjoy their family time. Most call-outs were natural causes or accidents, but Le Claire suspected that wasn’t the case this time; at the very least he didn’t think it would be straightforward.
“I have a hunch that we may not be looking at an accident. I checked for sign of life, but it was negative.”
Once Viera was suited up, the three walked past a makeshift barrier made of chairs that acted as a scene demarcation line. The body lay at the far end of the building, to the side of the pool itself. Le Claire and Dewar stood back whilst Viera got on with his job. He hunched down and, following protocol, double-checked for a pulse. His hands, encased in protective gloves, inspected the head, checking inside the mouth and pulling the eyelids back. He turned the head over. “Christ, that’s nasty.” The gash on the back of the head was about two inches long.
“He was found in the water?”
“Yes, I moved the body out of the pool to keep it from floating around.”
“What was the position of the body when you first saw it?”
“Floating by the top steps.”
“Face-up or down?”
“Face-up. Why? Ah.” Le Claire knew he had answered his own question, and Viera quickly agreed with him.
“Yep, you’ve got it.”
Dewar’s voice cut across them. “What? What are you talking about?”
Le Claire gestured toward Viera. “You explain.”
“A body in water, where drowning is the cause of death, will usually float facedown. Not always, but most of the time. We therefore need to check whether he was moved.”
“Which would mean someone else was here?”
“Yes, and that is where it gets challenging. It is very difficult to prove anything other than an accident.”
Le Claire frowned. “In what way?”
“You have to discount any skeletal facial injuries, damage to the neck or larynx. They can naturally occur as the body fights for survival. If a person goes into the water alive and gets into difficulties, then one of the key stages before unconsciousness is struggle. In around one in ten drowning fatalities, the autopsy will reveal bruised and ruptured muscles to the shoulders, chest and neck.”
Dewar’s tone was dry. “Thanks for the medical lesson; let us hope that this was a tragic case of misadventure, then.”
Le Claire pointed at the pool. “But then there is the money.” He picked up a long-handled net from the rack of pool equipment and used it to skim the surface of the water. Lifting it high, he pulled it out and laid the now full net on the tiles. It was packed with £50 notes. Viera let out a long, low whistle. Dewar turned and voiced their thoughts. “Okay, not conclusive that we’re looking at anything other than an accident, but strange indeed.”
One of the CSI team removed himself from his colleagues and approached Le Claire.
“I’m Buchanan. We’ve split the area into squares and have swept for evidence. What I’d like to do now is work my way around the scene and check for latent stains. Do you mind if we put the lights out for a moment? It won’t take long. We’ll cover half the area and then do the remainder when the body has been taken out.”
“No problem, we’ll wait for you to finish.”
They moved to the wall by the entrance. Buchanan and a colleague used handheld sprays to cover the area in a fine film. Any cleaned-up stains, such as blood, left a trace behind. Hidden traces, undetected by the naked eye, that were only visible under blue light when the area had been sprayed with fluorescence. The lights went out. Buchanan used a blue light scanner as he covered the room, inch by inch. Suddenly, he stopped, re-scanned an area, knelt down to look closer and called out, “You better see this.”
Le Claire pushed away from the wall and, squatting down, saw what had drawn the technicians’ attention. The blue light had revealed a long stain that stretched all the way across the tiles to the edge of the pool.
Le Claire’s eyes locked on to Viera’s. “Seems a clear trail. Looks like the body was dragged to the pool, lying on its back. The blood would be from the wound at the back of the head. I don’t believe this death was an accident.”
Viera reached for his phone. “I’ll need to get a Home Office pathologist across from the UK. I better call it in.”
Le Claire was in agreement. “I’ll contact the chief. We’ll need a Major Incident Room set up.”
Dewar asked, “Shall I get on and identify the victim?”
Le Claire shook his head. “No need. He was known to the person who found him, so let’s talk to her first.”
Le Claire beckoned for Dewar to follow him. “Let’s go and speak to the host as well; there’s nothing we can do for this chap now. But first we need to close this party down and find out more about the deceased and what he was doing here.”
#
Le Claire paused outside the closed door. He gave it a quick knock and was relieved when it opened a crack and Sasha peered out.
“How’s Ana’s cousin?” Her voice was soft and low. He shook his head, and she stood back and motioned for him to enter. He heard her greet Dewar, and then she spoke to him, “Jack, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be outside if you need me. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
The door shut with a metallic click, and Le Claire considered the weeping figure huddled on the sofa. Ana was a pretty girl. She must be twenty-four or so but looked about eighteen to him. She was a wreck tonight. Her long fair hair was escaping from some sort of updo. She was pale, and her tears had made her mascara and liner run, turning her into a smudged mess. Her blue eyes were dull and vacant, her lips bloodless.
She stared at Le Claire, seemingly unseeing for a moment, and then jumped to her feet. “How is he, how is Scott?” Her voice was anxious, and her eyes even more so. He did what he had to, spoke the familiar words, without hesitation or pause. “I’m sorry to let you know that your cousin is dead, Ana.”
“No. No, that can’t be true. We’re having dinner tomorrow night. He can’t be.”
She let out an anguished sob, her breath hitching. She was trying to control herself, but, as he knew, that often made it worse.
“I have to ask, did you touch Scott? Did you turn him over?”
“I didn’t turn him over, but I did pull him clear of the water a bit.”
Yet more corroboration that this was no accident. “Thank you. I need to know about Scott. What was his surname, and did you know he was coming here this evening?”
“Hamlyn, his name is Scott Hamlyn. He knew I was working at this party tonight. I told him, but he never mentioned that he was going to be here. I spoke to him yesterday when we organised meeting for dinner tomorrow night.”
“You say he’s your cousin. Was he Polish?”
“No, he’s as Jersey as they come. My mum’s originally from the island. Scott’s mother, Sarah, is my aunt. She is my late mother’s sister.”
A piece clicked into place. The few times he met Ana, he had wondered where she had learned English; her accent was only slightly discernible, and she used colloquialisms with ease. Mystery solved.
“Was Scott married?”
“No, he has a girlfriend though. I’ve only met her a couple of times. We were meant to be having dinner tomorrow night. Scott is really into her.”
He noticed how she shifted from present to past tense when she spoke of her cousin. It would take time for her to accept that he was gone.
“I’ll have to notify Scott’s parents. Would you like to come with us? It may give your aunt some comfort.”
Ana’s brittle laugh struck a discordant
note. “My aunt wouldn’t be comforted by my presence; the exact opposite, in fact.”
“The two of you don’t get on?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how it started, but my mum and aunt became estranged. There had been no communication between them in years. My mum met my dad when she was at university in England. They lived in London, and I was born there, but they moved back to Poland when I was tiny.”
“How did you come to the island? You’ve worked for my father for about six months, haven’t you?”
“About that. I went to university in London and then went home. My parents died in a car crash several years ago. It seemed too much of a coincidence when my best friend from school said she was moving to Jersey. I came with her. I’d hoped to get to know my mother’s family better, but I only see Scott.”
There was bad blood in this family, and Le Claire didn’t need to bring more trouble to the deceased’s mother. “We will be classing Scott’s death as suspicious until we know more. Can I ask you to keep all of this quiet until I speak to his parents?”
Ana’s eyes were wet with unshed tears, her expression solemn. “For sure. My aunt will see bogeymen in corners once she knows I found Scott.”
“Stay here, we’ll get someone to take you home.”
Chapter Four
Aidan Gillespie looked dazed. He was a well-built man in his late forties; of average height, he had a carefully styled shock of salt-and-pepper hair. His skin was lightly tanned, which made his bright blue eyes even more striking. Le Claire had only met Gillespie this evening, but he had already formed an impression of him as a fastidious man from his neatly manicured nails to the expensive cut of his dinner suit. A man whose face was now flushed, his bow tie askew and his suit jacket wrinkled as he sat slumped in one of the winged armchairs that flanked his desk. His voice was hoarse. “The young officer you sent to speak to me said there had been an incident – a death. Who was it? What happened?”
“A Mr Scott Hamlyn was found dead in the pool house.”
Blood Ties: Obsession, secrets, desire and murder (A Jack Le Claire Mystery) Page 2