Breaking Point (19 page)

Bernie fished the keys out of his pocket and Fletcher snatched them from his hand. ‘Now don't go locking the door on me while I'm gone,' he warned, ‘because I'm going to be staying here for a while. And don't try ringing the filth while I'm out, either, because like I said, if I go down, I'll take you with me.' He opened the door, then paused. ‘Oh, yeah, and make yourself useful while I put the bike away; put the kettle on, or better still, get me a beer and find me something to eat. I haven't had a thing since lunchtime, and I'm bloody starving.'

G
race stood there in the dark, willing herself to stop shaking so she could close the bedroom door quietly. She took a deep breath and used both hands to draw it shut, then made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She closed the door and switched the light on, then stood there for a moment to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding; she could feel it thumping in her chest; hear the pulsing rush of blood inside her head with every beat. Her nightgown felt like a second skin clinging to a body soaked in sweat, one minute hot, the next ice cold.

Grace wrapped her dressing gown around herself, then filled a glass with water and gulped it down. She refilled the glass, then sat down at the table and leaned her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes, waiting for the pounding in her chest to subside.

It was no good. She couldn't go on like this. There had to be another way, she told herself, because what she had been doing wasn't working. Perhaps you
should
tell Neil, the voice of reason said persuasively. Perhaps . . .

No! she told herself firmly. This was something she had to do herself, and she'd long ago decided that Neil was not to know. But how? Her mind began to drift . . . The glimmering of an idea began to form. Perhaps there
was
a way. If only she had the courage! Grace closed her eyes, concentrating hard . . .

It was dark beneath the water, dark and cold and such a long way to the surface and the light. She was trying desperately not to panic, but her arms refused to move; her hands were numb, and her fingers wouldn't work, and she couldn't hold her breath much longer. She kicked out hard and felt a sudden stab of pain . . .

Grace gasped for breath as she opened her eyes. Slumped over, head buried in her arms on the kitchen table, her neck was stiff and her shin was throbbing with pain. She lifted her head to look at the clock, blinking against the light as the nightmare faded.

Ten minutes past
six
? Could that be the
time
?

Grace bent to rub her leg. She must have banged it against the table leg when she'd kicked out in her dream, and it was tender to the touch.

She flopped back in her chair. Thank God it was Saturday. Grace didn't set the alarm on the weekends because that was the only time she and Neil could sleep in. The only time
Neil
could sleep in, she corrected herself; she hadn't had a decent night's sleep for weeks, although she would never admit that to Neil.

Still, she'd better get back to bed in case he woke up and wondered where she was.

Grace was partway up the stairs when she remembered. The alarm
was
set!
Set for six thirty! Neil had set it himself, saying he couldn't afford to take the whole weekend off when there was so much to do. Tregalles would be attending the autopsy of the man they thought might be Doyle, and Sergeant Ormside would be in the office as well. ‘Sorry, Grace,' he'd said, ‘but there really is a lot to do, and I feel I should be there.'

She opened the bedroom door carefully, then slipped into bed. Neil didn't so much as stir as she pulled the covers over herself and snuggled down beside him.

Oh, to be able to sleep like that! she thought jealously as she lay there tense and rigid, waiting for the alarm to ring.

‘There you are, love,' said Shirley Green as she slid a plateful of eggs, bacon, sausages and a large slice of fried bread in front of Gerry Fletcher. ‘You get that down you and things won't look half so bad as they did last night. I don't know what Bernie was thinking about when he said you couldn't stay. Of course you can stay, can't he, Bernie? It will all sort itself out given time. You'll see.'

‘The police want to talk to him about a
murder
, for God's sake!' Bernie protested from the other side of the table. ‘That isn't the sort of thing that gets sorted, Shirl, so the sooner he's out of here the better for all of us. We could both go to gaol if he's found here.'

‘That's not what they said on the telly. They said they believed he could help them with their enquiries. I watched it three times, Bernie, and that's what they said. I thought they could have used a better picture, though. Did you see it, Gerald?'

Fletcher spoke through a mouthful of egg and sausage. ‘No, I bloody didn't,' he growled, ‘and I've told you time and time again, Shirl, I don't like to be called Gerald. I never have liked it from the time I was a kid. It's Gerry!'

‘You'll get the hiccups if you talk with your mouth full,' his sister told him. She set a plate in front of her husband, who looked at it and said, ‘What the hell is this, Shirl?'

‘What's it look like? It's scrambled eggs, that's what it is, Bernie. There's three eggs in that lot, and there's toast.'

‘So where's the bacon and sausages?'

‘Where do you think? If I'd known Gerald – Gerry – was coming, I'd've gone to the shops yesterday, but I didn't know, did I? You said yourself, last night, that he hadn't had much to eat all day yesterday, so I reckon he deserves it. Besides, he's my brother and a guest in this house.'

‘For God's sake, woman, he's not a guest in anybody's house; he's a bloody fugitive from the law, and what you're doing is called aiding and abetting, and you can go to gaol for that, so the sooner he's out of the house the better.'

Fletcher emptied his mouth and jabbed a fork in Bernie's direction. ‘Neither one of us would be in trouble if you'd kept your thieving hands off that camera and kept your gob shut,' he said. ‘It's because of you I'm on the run, so you owe me, Bernie.'

Bernie scowled as he poked at his scrambled eggs. ‘You can't stay here anyway,' he said stubbornly. ‘The police have been round looking for you once already, and they'll be back. They'll expect you to come here.'

‘Then you'll just have to make sure they don't find me, won't you, Bernie? So shut up and let me get on with my breakfast before it goes cold.' He shoved his mug across the table toward his sister. ‘Tea's cold as well,' he complained. ‘Put the kettle on, Shirl, and make another pot. And make sure it comes to the boil this time.'

Tregalles drove with the windows wide open, but even that did little to get rid of the smell. It was in his clothes, his hair, his mouth, his nose, and it wasn't going to go away until he'd showered, scrubbed and cleaned his teeth and changed. He hated autopsies, and he could never understand how anyone could ever get used to it, let alone make a career out of it.

This one had been particularly bad. His spirits had risen when Starkie remarked that the body was in fairly good condition, considering how long it had been in the water. ‘Water's cold this time of year,' he said. ‘Slows things down quite a bit.'

But the sergeant's hopes soon faded. The skin was like slime, peeling off at the touch, and Tregalles had come close to losing his breakfast as the pathologist began to cut and probe. He could sympathize with the poor fisherman who'd first hooked the body in the river. They said he'd been taken to hospital suffering from shock. Tregalles wondered if the man would ever go fishing again.

‘Age would be about right for your man, and he didn't fall into the river accidentally,' Starkie said as he unravelled nylon rope from around the hands, feet and waist. ‘And I doubt very much if he drowned. Forensic will be taking a closer look at it, but it looks to me as if there was a weight attached to the end of this rope, and it came loose. No telling how far he drifted after that. As to how he died, I wouldn't be too surprised to find that this broken neck had something to do with it.

‘Prints are out of the question, of course. Teeth haven't been attended to in years, by the look of them, but if he ever did go to a dentist, they shouldn't have any trouble identifying him.' Starkie had gone on to say that two of the man's fingers had been broken at some time in the past, and his right leg was half an inch shorter than the left due to a poorly set break below the knee.

‘Probably done about eight to ten years ago,' he said, ‘and whoever did it should be shot. I hope to God it wasn't done in this hospital.'

But it was Starkie's next words that had caused Tregalles's heart to sink. The casual tone was gone as the pathologist said, ‘I think you should take a closer look at this, Tregalles. Unless I'm very much mistaken, this man was tortured before someone broke his neck and finished him off.'

Tortured! The last thing Tregalles wanted to do was move closer, but Starkie had insisted. ‘This man was burned,' he told the sergeant. ‘Right through to the bone. It looks to me as if someone used a blowtorch on him. There, see? Scorch marks on the bones.' Starkie straightened up and took off his glasses to face Tregalles across the table.

‘I've seen bodies that were charred to the bone after being in a fire,' he said tightly, ‘but this . . .' He paused to draw a deep breath before going on, ‘this was deliberate, and it's enough to make me wonder if we made the right decision when we abolished capital punishment.'

The pathologist looked grim as he put his glasses on again and bent once more to his task. ‘Whoever did this,' he said softly, ‘has no feeling and no conscience, so be warned, Tregalles. I don't know what this case is all about, but I
can
tell you that you are dealing with a very sick individual, and the sooner you can put him away, the better it will be for all concerned.'

Who were these people and what were they up to that they'd felt it necessary to go to such lengths? Tregalles wondered as he left the hospital. And if Doyle had been tortured, had Newman encountered the same fate? Tregalles had never met Mickey Doyle, but he'd built up a picture of the man in his mind, and he couldn't repress a shudder when he thought of what had happened to him.

Assuming, of course, that it
was
Mickey Doyle lying there on the metal slab.

As Starkie had said, proving whether or not the body was that of Doyle shouldn't be hard if the man had ever been to a dentist in recent years, but it might be quicker to talk to Doyle's elderly neighbour and cat-sitter, Mary Turnbull.

Tregalles picked up the phone and thumbed in his home number. He normally avoided making calls when he was on the move, but he was willing to make an exception this time. This was an emergency.

‘Put the coffee on, will you, love?' he said when Audrey answered. ‘I'm on my way home right now, and I'm going to need it. And I hope you haven't got any ladies in for elevenses, because I'm going to be bollock-naked when I come through that kitchen door and go upstairs for a shower.'

It was two o'clock in the afternoon by the time Tregalles arrived back at the office ‘So, how did you get on with Mrs Turnbull?' Ormside asked as Tregalles poured himself his fifth cup of coffee of the day. ‘Is the man they pulled out of the river Mickey Doyle?'

Tregalles nodded. ‘When I asked her if she knew if Doyle had broken any bones in the past, she knew right away that we'd found a body. Poor old dear started to cry. I think she was really fond of him. Anyway, she told me about how he limped because of the way his leg had been set so poorly years ago, and she told me exactly how and when he'd broken his fingers, so I don't think there's any doubt that it's Doyle.

‘I've been on to the local water authority to see if they can give us any idea of where the body might have gone in,' Ormside said, ‘but I'm not holding my breath. They say they'll give it a try, but they don't hold out much hope. The river is high at this time of year, and it's running fast, so there's no telling how far the body drifted down river after the weights came off.'

Tregalles sipped his coffee. He couldn't get the picture of the body in the mortuary out of his mind. ‘Anything on Fletcher?' he asked. ‘Any more phone calls?'

‘Not a peep since that one yesterday morning. And he hasn't called his wife or Bernie Green, at least not directly. But that doesn't mean to say he hasn't been in touch in some other way.'

Tregalles looked at his watch. ‘I think I'll call round on Bernie again before I go home,' he said. ‘You never know, he might let something slip. I see Lyons is here today as well. What's he doing?'

Ormside grunted. ‘Trying to show us how keen he is, I expect,' he said. ‘I told him he wouldn't be paid, but he said he knew that. Why?'

Tregalles shrugged. ‘Thought I might take him with me. Show there's no hard feelings. He's not a bad lad; just needs a bit of ginger up his arse to keep him on his toes, that's all. So, unless you need him . . .?'

Ormside shook his head. ‘Better than having him moping around here,' he said with feeling, ‘so he's all yours.'

Bernie Green opened the door to the length of the safety chain, and peered through the narrow opening. ‘I might have known it was you,' he grumbled, ‘and you can leave off leaning on the bell for a start. What do you want?'

‘Catch you in the middle of something, did we, Bernie?' Tregalles asked. ‘Took you long enough to come to the door. I was thinking something might have happened to you and we might have to break in.'

‘I was in the bog if you must know,' said Bernie. ‘So what
do
you want?'

‘Doing a bit of tidying up, then, were you, Bernie? What were you hiding this time? New camera to replace the one we took off you, was it? Mind if we come in?'