"In A Dark House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Crombie Deborah)3“WELL, WE’RE NOT likely to get an accurate temperature on this one, are we?” Kate Ling said dryly. She squatted beside the body, balancing on the balls of her feet with an ease that made Kincaid envy her thigh muscles. On anyone else the position would have looked awkward, but the Home Office pathologist even managed to carry off her white crime-scene boiler suit with grace. Kincaid had worked with Kate Ling on a number of cases, and found her not only good at her job but genuinely interested in helping the police with their investigation, a trait not every pathologist exhibited. Some of them seemed to become almost territorial about the bodies in their possession, behaving as if it were a point of pride to reveal as little information as possible. Kate pulled on her thin latex gloves. “Anything to go on here? Witnesses? Missing person connected with the scene?” She probed the corpse gently with a gloved finger. “Nothing so far,” Kincaid told her, with a glance at Farrell for confirmation. “And no identifiers?” “Nothing obvious.” Farrell squatted beside her, his notebook open. “Unless there’s something under the body. We’ll do a grid sift, of course, once you’re finished here.” “Odd.” A tiny crease puckered Kate’s forehead. “I’ve seen clothing literally fused to the skin, but the condition of the body doesn’t indicate that sort of heat. Nor is there any jewelry that I can see.” She lifted what remained of the victim’s left hand, and Kincaid heard a stifled protest from someone in the group. “Some trace of a wedding ring usually survives a fire, even if the digits are completely destroyed.” “Any guess as to the victim’s age?” Kincaid asked. “Hard to say without X-rays and measurements. She seems on the slight side, but the heat can cause shrinkage as well.” “Race?” “The lab analysis will tell us, and I’d rather not speculate in the meantime.” “A homeless person would explain the lack of jewelry,” Cullen suggested. “Someone sheltering from the rain, maybe starting a little fire to keep warm, not realizing the furniture was highly flammable.” “When have you seen a rough sleeper without a bin liner or a shopping trolley full of possessions?” Inspector Bell said dismissively. “And surely someone would have noticed a naked person wandering the streets?” “You’ve a better suggestion?” retorted Cullen. “Any lividity visible?” Kincaid asked, heading off an altercation. He wondered if she was as sharp with her own officers – it was not the best technique for fostering confidence in the ranks. Kate lifted one side of the torso gently. There was a distinct lack of charring on the floorboards beneath the body, but the underside of the corpse still looked dark to Kincaid. “There might be some bruising, yes, but I’ll have to get into the tissue to be sure. And there is something else,” Kate added, lowering the torso and edging her fingertips beneath the head. “It feels like there may be quite a severe fracture to the back of the skull, but there’s no way to tell whether it’s postmortem or antemortem until I can have a look in the lab. The heat alone can cause shattering of the skull.” Kincaid knew that even if the pathologist could verify that the trauma had occurred prior to death, that wouldn’t rule out an accidental injury. His gut instinct, however, told him that this death had not occurred by chance. With that knowledge came the realization that his likelihood of spending the weekend with Gemma and the boys was rapidly evaporating. They had planned a Saturday morning excursion to Portobello Market, weather permitting, with a particular mission in mind. After having shared a bedroom with five-year-old Toby since they’d moved to the Notting Hill house, Kit had asked if he could move into the third bedroom, the room they had meant for the nursery. When Kincaid had started to object, Gemma had stopped him, saying, “That’s fine, Kit. We’ll do it up for you.” “Gemma, are you sure-” Kincaid had begun, but Gemma had stopped him with a shake of her head. “No, it’s all right. Kit needs his own space.” That was true, Kincaid had to admit. Since Kit had turned thirteen at the end of June, he’d been finding it increasingly difficult to share with Toby, and now, with the beginning of the new school term, it was becoming clear that he would need a more private space for his schoolwork. Gemma had gone on brightly, throwing herself into planning and decorating the room, but to Kincaid her enthusiasm seemed brittle. It had been almost a year since her miscarriage, and on the one occasion he’d gingerly brought up the idea of trying again, she’d looked away and changed the subject. It was still too soon, he’d told himself, but now he wondered if her willingness to give up the nursery to Kit meant she’d rejected the idea altogether. The thought struck him with a fierce and unexpected sense of loss. “I think that’s all I can do here,” said Kate Ling, drawing him back to his surroundings. “Let’s bag and tag, and I’ll get to the postmortem as soon as I can.” Kincaid chided himself for letting his attention wander, and as he gazed at the charred remains of the body, he felt a twinge of guilt for his aggravation over the change in his plans, surely a trivial thing when a human life had been so brutally snuffed out. “Can you rule out self-immolation?” Doug Cullen asked as Ling stood and stripped off her gloves. Farrell answered, “Again, it seems unlikely unless we turn up some trace of clothing or a positive on accelerant. Let’s give the electronic sniffer a try,” he added, removing the bulky hydrocarbon detector from his evidence collection bag and taking Ling’s place beside the body. After running the collection nozzle over the remains and the surrounding charred area, he shook his head. “I’m not getting a reading.” He motioned to Martinelli, who had almost completed the outer circuit of the room. “Jake, try over here, will you?” The others edged out of the way as Martinelli brought the dog over, giving the team room to work. Kincaid found himself standing beside Rose Kearny. The young woman stood with her hands shoved firmly in the pockets of her anorak, her shoulders hunched. “Is this your first body?” he asked quietly. When she glanced at him in surprise, he saw that her eyes were a clear cornflower blue. “How did you know?” He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve seen a lot of coppers at their first crime scene.” She seemed to consider this for a moment, then she looked back at the group surrounding the victim and said thoughtfully, “I’ve pulled people from buildings who I knew weren’t going to make it, tried to revive them. And I’ve worked my share of fatality road traffic accidents. But this is different, somehow. Maybe it’s not having a job to do. In a fire or a rescue, you only have time to think about what you’re going to do next.” “It must have been bad in here.” As Kincaid looked round the ruined space, he realized that water was seeping into his shoes. “The worst I’ve seen,” Rose agreed. “I didn’t realize how fast you could lose it, you know? One minute you’re on top of it, you’re in charge, then the next it all goes to hell.” “Do you want to go back?” he asked, studying her, his curiosity roused by her candor. An unexpected smile lit her face. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. There’s nothing like it.” “No joy,” Martinelli called out, patting the dog, who looked as if she took her failure personally. “If anything was used here, it’s burned up. We’ll keep looking, but if there’s nothing at the seat of the fire, I’m not hopeful.” The station officer appeared in the doorway and signaled to Farrell. “The mortuary van’s here, Chief.” “About time.” Farrell turned to the others. “Let’s move out, let them get on with it. Try to keep to the same track you used coming in.” Kincaid felt an unanticipated shudder of relief as they stepped out onto the pavement again. He realized he’d been tensing his shoulders as if personally preventing the ceiling from collapsing. As the mortuary attendants and the white-suited crime scene specialists conferred with Farrell, he decided he’d grab the opportunity to ring Gemma. It was still raining, a steady and relentless drizzle. Ducking across the street, he sheltered in the doorway of an office building and dialed Gemma’s mobile number. He’d been half expecting her voice mail, but she answered herself, a lift of pleasure in her voice. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until later today. Don’t tell me, you’re off early.” Her tone was half teasing, half hopeful, and he hated having to puncture her mood. “No, sorry, love. Something’s come up. A special request from the guv’nor. It’s a fire in Southwark, with a possible homicide. I’ll fill you in on the details later.” There was a moment’s hesitation before she said, “You’ll be tied up for the weekend, at least. Kit will be disappointed about tomorrow.” “Go to the market without me. It’s better than postponing.” “And tonight?” It was only then that he remembered they’d had plans to take Gemma’s friend Erika out for a meal. “Oh, bugger. You’d better cancel, at least on my part.” Erika Rosenthal was an older woman of whom Gemma had become quite fond, and Kincaid had been promising to meet her for months. “Maybe we can reschedule for next weekend.” “Right. Look, I’ve got to dash,” Gemma said a bit abruptly. “Ring me when you can.” Winnie pushed the bell at the Ufford Street house, then let herself in when she heard Fanny’s voice, knowing it was hard for her to negotiate the front door from the confines of her wheelchair. She stepped directly into the sitting room, marveling, as she always did when she came here, that a woman of Chinese descent would choose to create a room that was more English than the English. Shelves on the pale green walls held pottery jugs filled with dried flowers, 1930s green glassware, clocks, and hand-painted china; the open spaces between shelves were filled with cottage watercolors, crewelwork still lifes, and, in the place of honor above the mantel, a large print of a contemplative black-and-white cat among pots of flowers. The furniture was pine, the squashy settee chintz, and in the back of the room, strategically placed for the view into the tiny garden, was a green velvet chaise longue. Beside the chaise, Fanny sat in her wheelchair, and if her cotton print dress and beaded cardigan seemed accessories to the room, the metal frame of the chair provided a harsh contrast. Her delicate hands were twisted in the cashmere shawl on her lap, the smooth oval of her face etched with worry. “Thanks for coming,” Fanny said, her voice quavering as Winnie came across and clasped her cold hands. “I didn’t know who else to call.” “Let’s start with some tea, shall we?” said Winnie. “You can tell me everything, then we’ll see what’s to be done.” She went into the kitchen at the rear of the house. Toaster and kettle, along with the necessities for both, were arranged on a low table in front of the window. Although Fanny had had a small bathroom with roll-in shower built off the scullery, she’d told Winnie she refused to have the cabinets and worktops refitted to wheelchair height. Nor had she put in a wheelchair lift for the stairs. To her, both those things had seemed like admissions of defeat. Fanny was determined to walk again, and while Winnie had learned that people often did make at least a partial recovery from Guillain-Barré syndrome, she knew it could be a slow and laborious process. “Is there anything you need doing?” she called out as she put the kettle on to boil. “No. I can manage the basics pretty well on my own,” Fanny answered from the sitting room, her voice steadier. “It’s just the getting out that’s difficult.” As she gathered the tea things, Winnie looked round for anything odd or out of place in the small kitchen, but everything seemed the same as on her previous visits. Carrying the steaming mugs back into the sitting room, she pulled a worn wooden chair up to Fanny’s and sat down. “Let’s go back a bit,” she said. “Was Elaine at home last night?” “Yes. Although she was a bit late getting in from work, but she’s been late several times a week the past few months, and I didn’t think anything of it.” “Was there anything else unusual? Did she seem upset or worried?” Fanny wrapped her hands round the mug and frowned into its depths. “No, no, not really. She made us scrambled eggs on toast for supper, then we watched a bit of telly. She didn’t stay down to watch the ten o’clock news with me, but she made my milky drink before she went up.” “Could she have been feeling unwell?” Winnie asked, remembering her earlier fears. “Not that she said.” Fanny looked up, fear in her dark eyes. “You don’t think… Surely I’d know…” “Why don’t I start by having a look upstairs.” Forcing a reassuring smile, Winnie found a spot on the mantel for her mug and crossed the room to the stairs, which rose from near the front door. She climbed quickly, trying to ignore the dread tingling at the base of her neck. There were three doors in the upstairs corridor. She opened the first door on the right with trepidation, then gave a small sigh of relief. The room, obviously Fanny’s, with its inlaid mahogany bed covered by a lilac quilt, was tidy and had the slightly musty odor of disuse. Winnie closed the door softly and tried the next. It was the bathroom, tidy as well. Both the towels on the rack and the soap in the dish on the sink were dry, and cold air poured in through the partially opened window. An escape route? Winnie wondered, but as she pulled the window closed she saw that it was a straight drop down to the small paved patio outside the scullery. Not unless Elaine had grown wings. That left the third door, the room that faced the front of the house. Winnie knocked softly, then, realizing she was holding her breath, exhaled deliberately and pulled open the door. The room might have been a monk’s cell. The starkness came as an almost physical shock after the cocooning clutter of Fanny’s house. A single bed stood against the wall, its worn white matelasse bedcover reminding Winnie of the one on her parents’ bed when she was a child. An unfinished pine nightstand held a clock and a small lamp – nothing else. The surface of a matching chest of drawers held nothing other than a faint layer of dust. Beside the chest, a straight-backed chair stood awkwardly, like an uninvited guest. No prints or pictures graced the magnolia walls, and there was no mirror. The bed looked as if it had been made hastily, a lack of care that seemed oddly in contrast to the rest of the room. Winnie opened the wardrobe doors. A few hangers hung empty among the neat ranks of skirts, coats, and dresses, but she had no way of knowing whether the bare spaces indicated clothing removed for flight or the ordinary breeding of hangers in cupboards. There were no other signs of packing or of hasty departure. Winnie left the room and descended the stairs more slowly than she’d gone up, wondering what could possibly have happened to Elaine. “She’s not here,” she said when she reached the sitting room and saw Fanny’s anxious face. “And I can’t tell whether or not she’s taken anything away. Are you sure you didn’t hear anything in the night?” “No.” Frowning, Fanny picked at the fringe of the shawl in her lap. “I only remembered sensing something wrong as soon as I woke this morning. It’s odd – I don’t usually sleep quite so soundly. Oh.” She looked up, her eyes widening. “I dreamed I heard a door close.” “It must have been Elaine, as it doesn’t look as though she went out a window, and she can’t have vanished into thin air. Have you any idea what time this was?” “No. I’m sorry. I’m not usually so groggy.” “And you said you rang Elaine’s work and she hadn’t come in? Did they tell you if she’d called?” “No. Only that she wasn’t there. They’re not allowed to give out more information than that over the phone.” “Well, that’s the first thing, then,” Winnie said with relief, glad to have a goal. “I’ll go have a word with them. She works at Guy’s?” “Yes, in medical records.” “What about family? Does Elaine have anyone you could ring?” Fanny shook her head and a strand of her fine dark hair came loose from its clip. “No. There’s no one. Her parents are dead and she hasn’t any siblings. That was one of the things that-” She stopped, her eyes filling with tears. “We were both alone.” Winnie knelt by Fanny’s chair and gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re not alone. I’ll help any way I can.” Returning the pressure, Fanny forced a smile. “Thanks. Sorry for being so wet.” “You’re just fine,” Winnie reassured her, then added hesitantly. “Fanny, if we find that Elaine hasn’t been in touch with the hospital, I think we should call the police.” “No!” Fanny jerked her hand free. “Why ever not?” Winnie asked, startled. “But… surely that’s not necessary. If she’s just out for a lark or something, she’d be furious.” “You’re afraid that if she’s all right, she’ll be angry with you? Wouldn’t she understand that you were concerned?” Winnie was beginning to feel there was something very odd here. “Yes, but… you have to understand. Elaine’s a very private person. She doesn’t like… I don’t think… I think we should wait. After all, she did leave of her own accord,” Fanny added, but she looked even more worried. “It does seem that way, but-” Winnie stopped, deciding this was not the time to express her own uneasiness. And hadn’t she heard that the police wouldn’t allow a person to be reported missing until twenty-four hours had passed? She needed advice, and suddenly she knew exactly whom to call. “Look,” she said to Fanny. “Don’t worry. I’ve a much better idea.” There was no point taking her disappointment out on Duncan, Gemma told herself, regretting her hastiness as soon as she’d hung up the phone. She’d sounded a right cow, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had to cancel out of family plans herself, especially in the past few months, but somehow that didn’t make being on the receiving end any easier. She knew the investigation that had lately consumed so much of her time and energy had disturbed her balance, but that was no excuse for acting the harpy. A child had gone missing on her patch, a six-year-old girl, and the current slacking of her workload was due not to a resolution, but to the fact that the case had gone cold. Not only was it the first time Gemma had dealt personally with such a case, but as SIO, she felt responsible for her team’s failure. The parents’ grief and anger had been particularly hard to bear, and she’d not been able to shake off the case outside working hours, something she knew to be essential if one were to survive the job. Her fears for the missing child seemed to have transferred themselves to Toby and Kit, and she found herself worrying whenever they were out of her sight. Which was all the more reason she should take the boys to Portobello on her own, where she’d have both of them under her nose for the day. She’d promised Kit they’d look for an antique specimen cabinet for his room, and having begun the redecorating project, she didn’t dare falter. They’d already framed sets of nineteenth-century botanical and zoological drawings they’d unearthed at one of the market’s print stalls; she’d painted the walls a strong aqua, and set up bookcases and a desk complete with microscope and dissecting instruments. Although Kit had seemed thrilled with the idea of focusing his new room around his scientific interests, Gemma hadn’t neglected a concession to adolescent fashion – she’d covered a portion of one wall with cork squares, ready for his growing collection of music posters. But in spite of Kit’s enthusiastic response to her efforts, she knew that nothing she did could compensate for Duncan’s lack of participation. It shouldn’t matter, she told herself, slamming her desk drawer and pinching her finger in the process. She swore loudly and shook her injured hand, realizing she’d failed to find the pen she’d been rooting for in the drawer when her phone had rung. There was a knock on her office door and Melody Talbot, the PC who often assisted her, looked in. “You all right, boss?” “Just a little accident with the drawer,” Gemma said, embarrassed by her outburst. “What’s up?” she added, as Melody seemed inclined to linger. “It’s the sergeant’s birthday. Some of us were planning to go along to the pub after work, buy him a round or two. Want to come?” Gemma had worked hard to improve her relationship with Sergeant Talley, who had initially resented her posting. It would certainly be politic to join in the festivities, even if only for a few minutes. Could she juggle things with the children, now that she knew Duncan would be late – if he got home at all? “I’ll try-” she began, when her mobile phone rang again. Melody gave her a little wave of acknowledgment and slipped out the door. Assuming it was Duncan ringing her back, Gemma flipped open the phone without checking the ID. “Look, I’m sorry. I was-” “Gemma?” The voice was female and puzzled. “It’s Winnie. I’ve a favor to ask.” |
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