A Turbulent Priest (2 page)

“He was dead before he ever went into the water,” said Browne.

Percy did not say they knew that: these people worked better if they thought they were giving you lots of new information. Instead, he raised his eyebrows and said, “How did he die?”

The man opposite them drew a deep breath, waved his arms in the air a little, then changed his mind. “Come into the lab and I’ll show you. My report is full of ‘might haves’ and ‘in all probabilities’, but I think I can show you what happened.” He led the way briskly back whence he had come. Good, thought Percy, an enthusiast. You always got more out of enthusiasts.

Browne drew back the sheet from the head Peach had seen by the stream nine hours earlier. For the first time, he saw the face he had then chosen to leave in decent oblivion. The pathologist, or more likely his assistant, had made a neat job of stitching up the incision made from ear to ear over the top of the head for the post mortem. Someone would still have to identify what was left of this fellow, when they had found out who he was. Peach didn’t envy that person the task.

The eyes were damaged, as he had thought they might be: what was left of the eyelids had been pulled down over the empty sockets. The pathologist lifted the shoulders stiffly sideways before they could dwell upon what creatures had been busy around the mouth. “This chap was given a hell of a clout across the back of his head.” With a silver ball-point, he indicated the white, bloodless scar which Percy had seen in the dark hair earlier. The hair had been shaved away now, to expose the trenching. “Various insect damage to the flesh around the scar, which we should ignore for our purposes. No blood left, owing to the cleansing of last night’s flood. Unfortunately, no wood fibres or other evidence as to what he might have been hit with, for the same reason. The traditional blunt instrument; I’m afraid I can’t say more.”

“Did that kill him?”

“In my opinion, no. It was a hefty blow, enough to render a man insensible, or certainly so dazed that he would not be able to defend himself. But the actual cause of death was almost certainly vagal inhibition — strangulation, if you prefer the layman’s term.” The silver pen moved to the carotid artery in the neck and hovered briefly over the line of a livid crimson-black line around the unnaturally white flesh. Lucy Blake tried to ignore the stitching she could see in the middle of the neck, which she knew was the top point of an incision running from the mark she could see to the pubis beneath the sheet; the cut made to enable the pathologist to remove the chest and abdominal organs en masse. Much better to concentrate on what this breezy, experienced fifty-year-old had to tell them. “This was probably made by a thin nylon rope or a length of wire. Again the water has removed any traces which might have clung to the skin, I’m afraid. But this is what dispatched your man from the land of the living.”

“Could a woman have killed him?”

“Certainly. The blow to the back of the head could have been delivered by a woman, or even a child, with the right implement and the right leverage. After that, he was killed by some sort of ligature round the neck, as you can see. No great strength required for that, especially if he was unconscious or nearly unconscious at the time.”

“You don’t think he was able to put up much of a fight?”

“No, I don’t. He was probably in his forties and reasonably fit, despite a bit of a paunch. Five feet nine and eleven stone eight. But there is no bruising on his hands and arms, and nothing under the nails that would indicate a struggle — you’ll see from my report that I don’t think he was in the water long enough for all such traces to be removed. My guess is that he was hit from behind, then dispatched at leisure. Probably never given a chance to defend himself.”

“How long had he been in the water?”

Browne pursed his lips. “My report will say not more than a day, and that’s what I’d have to stick to in court. Probably it was considerably less than that. There are none of the symptoms of prolonged immersion: no ‘washerwoman’s skin’ or damage by river creatures. There is hypostasis throughout the body, indicating that the corpse has been lying prone on its back for a considerable period. The blood has settled noticeably into the lower back, buttocks and thighs.”

Browne glanced surreptitiously at DS Blake, found her cheeks still reassuringly peach rather than white. “There are certain other areas of damage in the corpse which could only have been achieved whilst it was above ground, I’m afraid. The maggots have been at work. Busy little chaps, maggots; informative, too, in this context. I have passed relevant specimens to our forensic entomologist, although I have a certain amount of expertise in this field myself. As you are probably aware, the degree of development of grubs found within the corpse often enables us to be fix a time of death with reasonable precision.”

“So when do you think our Mr X died?”

“You’ll have to wait for the expert’s opinion to confirm that. My report says between one and two weeks, but I’d say from the maggots ten to twelve days. Allowing for the hot weather which preceded yesterday’s downpour.”

“You can be that precise?” said Lucy Blake.

“The experts can. And I think our expert will confirm my opinion in the next twenty-four hours.” Browne spoke with modest pride, like a birdwatcher confident of a sighting. “We couldn’t swear to it in court, of course, but if you want a starting point for your enquiries, I would suggest ten to twelve days ago for the time of death.”

“All right,” said Peach. “You’ve told us how he died. You’ve given us a reasonable idea when. What about where?”

“That we can’t help you with, I’m afraid. You’ll have to search for possible sites and send any materials from them to forensic. We’ve sent his clothes for analysis, of course; sports coat and trousers, shirt, jockey shorts, short summer socks, quite good leather shoes. But I don’t think you’ll get much from any of them: the water will have removed most things which might have been helpful.”

Peach nodded gloomily. There was nothing they could do about it, but when the Press began to bleat about police bafflement, they wouldn’t trouble to report the difficulties they faced. “So he was strangled, not drowned. Presumably someone dumped him in the stream?”

“That would be the normal assumption. This is CID territory rather than pathology, but it seems unlikely to me. If you wanted to dispose of a body, you’d dump it in a major river, like the Ribble or the Hodder, wouldn’t you? Somewhere where it might be swiftly carried away, hopefully out to sea — not a village stream where it might be found quite quickly. And wouldn’t you do it as soon as you’d killed your victim? As I say, this chap wasn’t in the water for very long. It’s unlikely that anyone would have kept a body for ten days and then slung it into the river, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I should have said all that, thought Peach. Still, Browne had been helpful, interested in their problems rather than dourly official. “It’s conceivable, of course, that someone had to wait his opportunity to dispose of the corpse, and saw yesterday’s floods as his chance. We’ll have to bear that possibility in mind, until we can prove otherwise, but it’s not the most likely scenario, I agree.” That was a phrase Tommy Bloody Tucker might have produced, he thought; he’d better watch himself. He looked down at the shape beneath them. Browne had drawn the sheet back over the head, emphasising the anonymity of death. “Our first problem is going to be finding who the poor bugger is. No one’s reported him missing.”

“And I fancy whoever killed him didn’t intend to make it easy for you. We’ll make a cast of the jaws in the next hour or so. The dental records should show you who he is, if no one comes forward to claim him once you break the news of the death.”

Peach nodded, feeling despite himself the familiar rise in excitement at the thought of pitting his wits against an enemy as yet unknown. “Anything useful in the pockets?”

Browne smiled grimly. “That’s what I meant when I said your killer wasn’t making it easy. The pockets have been totally emptied.”

Three

The
body
of
a
man
was
found
near
the
village
of
Bolton
-
by
-
Bowland
last
night
.
Police
say
that
the
corpse
,
which
was
discovered
in
a
swollen
brook
at
the
climax
of
yesterday’s
Bank
Holiday
deluge
,
is
that
of
a
man
of
about
forty
years
of
age
.
They
are
treating
the
death
as
suspicious
.
The
body
has
not
yet
been
identified
,
and
anyone
who
thinks
he
or
she
might
be
able
to
help
in
this
matter
is
asked
to
contact
CID
headquarters
at
Brunton
Police
Station
.”

The announcement came in the Radio Lancashire news bulletin at midday. The murderer heard it only by chance.

It was a chilling moment, fixing the words which had seemed only half-heard vividly in the mind, so that they chimed through the next hour like a clock striking its quarters. The spot mentioned in the radio announcement wasn’t where the corpse had been laid: the image of that prone form, carefully hidden between twigs and brambles in the ditch which had seemed so remote, reared itself vividly before the killer’s eyes, as it had done so often in the last ten days. But that ditch wasn’t far from Bolton-by-Bowland. And surely there couldn’t be two corpses lying so close to each other in such a quiet, rural place?

At first, it seemed there would be nothing on the one o’clock television news. Then, halfway through the local news on Granada, it came. There was a picture of the spot where the corpse had been found, with the brook still in swirling spate around the arches of the stone bridge and police tapes which cordoned the place hanging limply in the background. Only two pieces of information were added to the official handout which the local radio had carried an hour earlier. The first was unimportant: the body had been discovered by a man taking his dog for its evening walk at the height of the evening downpour. The second set the murderer’s pulses tingling: police believed that the corpse had been carried to the point of its discovery by the quite exceptional deluge. Much of the surrounding area was under flood waters which were now beginning to subside, and the members of the police team already assembled were now searching for the spot where the body had originally lain.

There was a brief sequence from a hand-held camera of a line of policemen in wellingtons moving in formation along the side of a wood, and the killer knew immediately from the numbers employed that this was being treated as a murder hunt.

The person who was to be the quarry in this search turned off the television as the announcer switched to sport. Quiet, absolute quiet, seemed suddenly necessary. You had to think coolly to keep things clear, and that seemed difficult with the shock of this revelation still throbbing in your head. It was bad luck that the corpse had been discovered like this, so soon. Just as a result of weather no one could have foreseen. The heaviest rain on record, they said. An Act of God, the insurance companies called weather like that, and certainly it had been an almost biblical deluge. But surely God wouldn’t have sent the rains just to reveal the body? The man whose corpse had been hidden in that ditch had got his deserts, that was for sure.

The body might have lain undiscovered for months, even years, without yesterday’s downpour. The man would have been reported as a missing person soon enough — MISPERs the police called them in the crime series on the box — but they wouldn’t have found a body. And without a body, they wouldn’t have known how the man had died. They might even have concluded that he’d gone away somewhere quiet and killed himself: God knows, he’d had enough reason to do something like that.

But as the murderer sat with head in hands and the minutes dragged past, it began to seem not a bad thing after all that the body had revealed itself at this point. Water cleansed things; it might have brought the corpse to light, but it would have removed evidence as well, no doubt. All kinds of tiny, unpreventable things on the skin and the clothing which might have tied the victim to its murderer. And the police wouldn’t find much to help them on what was left of the body; there was nothing in the pockets, nothing at all. The band of tension which had tightened around the killer’s forehead since the news of the discovery gradually eased a little. A few minutes later, the hands were cautiously removed from the temples they had clasped for so long.

There was an interview on the six o’clock news with the man who had taken charge of the case. This time, the murderer recorded the item, then played the tape back three times: there was nothing like being well prepared. This Superintendent Tucker gave the impression that he was used to television. He was urbane, well groomed, courteous to his interviewer’s probings: the kind of man to get the police a good name and give the public confidence. His man-of-the-world smile said that he had been through all this before, that the police would work with due diligence, but you mustn’t expect miracles. These were early days yet, he pointed out. Twice.

The murderer switched the set off and smiled slowly. They knew nothing.

***

Superintendent Tucker, front man and prize wanker (in Percy Peach’s disloyal assessment) was making his television broad-cast.

By six o’clock on that Tuesday evening, the identity of the victim had been established. It was dental records which gave them the information they would otherwise have arrived at by other and more circuitous routes. And without the need for a national trawl: the victim had been a client of a Brunton dentist. Forensic came up with the details very quickly, and within hours a local dental assistant, delighted to be drawn into the melodrama, found a match in her patients’ records. Peach whistled his surprise at the news. “Are you sure? Yes, of course you are. We can’t argue with the evidence of the mouth.” He glanced down at the sheet in his hands, with its account of fillings and extractions. “Bit of a turn-up, though, isn’t it? Has anyone told Wanker Willy upstairs?”

The young constable flinched at such nomenclature, glanced apprehensively towards the door of Peach’s office. “No, sir. Superintendent Tucker said he was not to be disturbed after he’d gone into make-up for the television interview.”

“Good. I’ll tell him myself in due course.” Percy glanced down at the sheet again. “Lovely set of choppers our friend had. Had he been reported missing?”

“No, sir. We checked the MISPERs again on the computer after this came in, but no one had been in to report anything.”

“Hmm. Sad, that. Your mum would soon be in here bleating about you if you went missing, wouldn’t she?”

The young man grinned. “My wife would, sir. Wouldn’t leave it ten days, anyway.”

Peach eyed the young face with disapproval. Married, and scarcely old enough to direct traffic or pinch shoplifters. “Aye, your wife would, for sure. Think you were off rogering a suspect, if you didn’t report every twelve hours, I expect.” Peach had no very high opinion of wives, his views being coloured by an experience which had been terminated eight years ago but was still vivid in his memory. “Has anyone checked why he wasn’t reported missing?”

“Someone’s been round to the home address, sir. Apparently he was on holiday.”

“Holiday? You mean these buggers get holidays? I thought their life was one long holiday!” Percy’s prejudices ran deep, in this case right back to his childhood. “I’ll get round there myself, I think. Only way, if you want a job done properly.” He sighed, theatrically but not unkindly. “Better get off home now, lad. Before that wife of yours reports you missing.”

***

Superintendent Tucker congratulated himself that the interview had gone surprisingly well.

He had slipped out to the hairdresser that morning (nothing as crude as a barber for a man who dealt with the media), in anticipation of a request from the television people. Planning ahead, as he constantly told his staff, was vital in modern police work. His hair would have come out well under the lights, he thought, well groomed but with just that touch of grey at the temples which gave gravitas to his persona. He had rung home, so with luck his wife would have recorded the relevant two minutes — he made the excuse that he wanted to study his technique for future occasions.

Considering that he had had nothing to give them to add to the dramatic news of a body not as yet identified, the exchange with the young female presenter had gone well. He had managed to give her the impression of care and concern without in any way suggesting panic. Of course, unlike that oaf Peach, he respected women, knew how to handle these things. He couldn’t quite see how they could rise to the higher ranks in the police force, but in other walks of life there was no reason why they should not play a full and useful part.

“Ah, thought I might just catch you, sir. Winding down after the rigours of performance, were you?” Tucker’s musings as he put on his coat and prepared for his journey home were rudely shattered by the arrival of DI Peach, meeting him head-on in the doorway of his office.

“Won’t it wait, Peach? I’ve had a trying day already.”

“Yes, sir. Of course it will. Silly of me not to consider the stresses a man like you operates under. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Tucker peered at him suspiciously. It was unlike this bouncing ball of insubordination to be so co-operative. “All right. First thing in the morning, we’ll—”

“It’s just that we have an identification on the victim. I thought you might want to know as soon as possible. Before I briefed the rest of the team. But of course I should have realised…”

Tucker turned heavily, hopelessly, back into his office, slumping into his chair, wanting only to stem the flow of words from that relentlessly bright and energetic voice. “All right, Percy. You’d better tell me. Here and now.”

“Yes, sir. Conscientious to a fault, as usual. Sorry to burden you with it, when I see you were away to a well-earned rest at home.”

“Out with it, Percy. Don’t bugger about!”

A rare departure from his mandarin’s pose into the language of the station. A warning to Percy that even Tucker could be pushed too far. But Peach would make him hop about a bit, even now. “Well, sir, it turns out it isn’t a vagrant, after all.”

“Not a vagrant?” Tucker looked blank for a moment, then remembered his ill-advised conjecture of the morning about the background of this victim. “I see. Well, who the hell is it, then?”

“It’s a Roman Catholic priest, sir. Cause a bit of a furore that will, I shouldn’t wonder, when we get the investigation under way.”

Percy smiled at the wall above his chief’s head in happy anticipation.