Staying Power (6 page)

They were ready, now, the whole team, gowned, booted and mentally braced. Graham turned to her. ‘There's still time to back out, Kate.'

In front of them all.

‘When Robin was killed it wasn't his wife who did the formal identification,' she said. ‘It was me. And you never know, having seen this man recently, I might just spot – Ah!'

Graham followed her eyes. He stepped forward. ‘Morning, Duncan,' he said, shaking hands with the pathologist, a man somewhere in his forties – not being able to see his hair or even hair-line made it difficult to be precise. ‘You know everyone, don't you? Except for Kate Power, Duncan – she's the new detective sergeant in the squad.'

Duncan who?

Smiling her professional, dimple-free smile, Kate offered her hand, which Duncan held on to for a moment too long. His eyes – dark brown – opened a little wider under well-shaped brows. All he said, however, was, ‘Good to meet you, Kate.'

She nodded, said nothing. There was always a lot of loud banter before an autopsy, but flirting in morgue overalls was new to her. At least, she told herself sourly, he had the good taste to do it before cutting into the corpse.

‘You're very quiet – not going to pass out on me, are you?' Duncan asked, holding the door for her. The teasing intimacy in his voice matched the overlong handshake.

‘In my experience it's the particularly macho men that do that,' she said. Which made her wonder: why wasn't Cope insisting on being here?

Her reward – if that was what she'd wanted – was a dazzling smile which revealed dimples to match her own, and a dip of the head, as if he were acknowledging a hit. Then everyone's smiles disappeared under masks.

Cameras busy, attendants started to undress Alan Grafton.

Kate knew how the body would look – she'd looked closely on the faces and necks of several people slowly throttled. But she braced herself to look not just at any corpse but at Alan. How might he have felt about this? His naked body being scrutinised not by the tender eyes of a lover, but by hard, professional eyes, seeking clues not to feelings but to death? There was no more intimate relationship than death, however. She and Alan would never have looked at each other as lovers as closely as she peered at him now. And yet by focusing on details, she could lose sight of the man. Which she must do: she must shut down emotion, open the intellect, however hard it was to do now the theorising was over and she was here in person. Perhaps Graham might have been right.

She dragged her eyes back to the corpse.

The bruising and marks she'd expected, the discoloration, the blood-suffused face and eyes. What she hadn't expected, but what explained the bloodstains she'd seen from the towpath, were the score-marks, much deeper than she'd guessed, across his body and arms: what the pathologist would later define variously as abrasions and lacerations. They ran diagonally across his body, top left to bottom right, like the hoops of red tape she'd worn in infant school sports teams. There were similar ones on the left arm; those on the right were much less deep.

‘So why on earth would he do that to himself?' Duncan asked. ‘Oh, yes – little doubt about it. Something like a kitchen knife – but a very sharp one.'

‘Maybe a Stanley knife, Sir?' Kate put in.

He glanced up at her and nodded. ‘Good idea. Look, you can see the start and end of each slash.' He demonstrated against his own arm and trunk. ‘And he'd have to change hands to do the other arm. The question is, of course, why?'

Which might have been the question Alan himself was asking, frowning over, as Duncan made the incisions in the scalp, pulling the facial skin forward and downward in a last grimace.

It was certainly the question on everyone's lips after all the measuring and recording, opening and probing. Why? They knew the how of strangulation, after a day neither eating nor drinking, of fixing a rope to a parapet over which he'd then clambered to let himself make the final drop. They knew that.

But not why.

‘Are you quite sure it was suicide?' Graham insisted.

Duncan shrugged. ‘Look, you know I didn't find any external or internal marks to indicate that anyone might have man-handled him – dead or alive – to that spot. Your SOCO people have probably got film even now in their cameras of the marks he made on the parapet when he was shinning over. There are probably fibres from his rope on his clothing. That's for the forensic science team to discover.' His shrug said he had done his part.

‘But he had everything to live for,' Kate said.

‘In my experience, if what you are living for fails, then you might as well die. Right, ladies and gentlemen, as a precaution I shall wait until all those samples have been checked before issuing my final report but you shall have the preliminary one in the morning.'

Dismissed, they started to troop out, Kate in their midst. But just as she was about to speak to Harvey, Duncan called her back.

‘I couldn't help but be intrigued by what you were saying,' he said. ‘No doubt all your colleagues know why he should have wanted to live, but it was, of course, news to me.' He looked down at his hands. ‘Could you give me ten minutes to scrub and maybe we could take the smell of this business from our nostrils with a cup of coffee.'

From the corner of her eye she could see Harvey's neck stiffen. ‘I've an idea we may have to take a rain check on that – there'll be a meeting back at work,' she said.

‘Could I have a phone number – in case anything comes up?' he pursued, all dimples and twinkling eyes.

OK, he'd asked for it. She flashed her dimples, too. ‘The same number as DCI Harvey,' she said. And then, for the hell of it, for the
irony
of it – for how often did a woman get asked by one man to join him for a coffee when he was still red with the blood of the last one – she grinned. And added her extension number.

Jesus, that she should find such a thing funny! But she did. She'd had the giggles over far less funny things after other post mortems: post anatomy-lesson hysterics, one sergeant had called them. Better than bottling it all up, he'd said. And she was sure he was right. Look at the others now, either so grim-faced it might have been their own father eviscerated there on the slab or so jolly it might have been an end-of-term treat.

Harvey looked ostentatiously at his watch as she hurried up. ‘I think there's time to talk this through before we wrap it up for the inquest,' he said. ‘Will you drive or shall I?'

As she picked her way through the traffic and inched into the last space, she knew she had to say something. That she couldn't trust the path's findings? That she had this instinct throbbing away? A combination of the two. When and how to tell Graham she wasn't sure. Maybe if they all sat down over a coffee, not just the two of them, it would come out naturally. In fact, the more she thought of it, the more she was convinced that it had to be in public: if he shot down her suggestion in private, there was no way she could float it again. It might be better to ask someone else to put the question, the request, whatever it could be called.

‘Cup of tea?' he asked, opening his door as if assuming the answer would be yes.

‘I'd like a quick wash, first, if you don't mind. The smell of the place seems to get into every pore, doesn't it?'

‘Isn't there a line in some play about the perfumes of Arabia?' he smiled.

‘Isn't that from the play it's bad luck to quote?'

‘No such thing as bad luck,' he said. ‘We make our fortunes or misfortunes.' The smile was completely gone, his face so bitter that she almost cried out.

Instead, she said slowly, ‘I wonder what Alan Grafton did to bring his misfortune. He was telling me all the precautions he'd taken, all the plans he had for the future. And then—'

‘We'll have to prepare a report for the coroner,' he said at last. ‘And you want to be the one that does it, don't you? Don't you think it's a hell of a risk, Kate, to grub around the life of someone you knew?'

‘He's dead. He was kind to me when he was alive.'

‘You don't owe him that sort of interest just because he gave you a sweetie!'

‘Someone's got to do it.'

‘I don't like it. I really don't like it.'

‘Tell you what, Gaffer: sleep on it.' She smiled the professional smile, then blazed at him with the full force of the dimples as he hesitated.

‘OK. I'll think about it. We'll talk about it in the morning when we allocate tasks. And it depends on the size of everyone's in-tray, not just yours. So don't start thinking you've got to stay up half the night to clear it just so that you can persuade me.'

In the same quiet pub she'd taken Fatima to, Colin brought over a couple of halves, and tossed a film-wrapped sandwich at her. ‘You look done in. Mind you, you deserve to. He'd have let you off the p.m. if you'd asked. And rightly too.'

She shook her head. ‘I didn't even need to ask. He wanted me to stay away. Doesn't want me on the case at all. It's me that's driving him.'

‘You're a fool, then,' he said without heat.

‘Thanks. OK, you may be right. But I already know what Grafton had been up to – I'd only have to go over all the stuff he told me with whoever was investigating.'

‘True. Anyway, you seem to be able to wrap him round your little finger.'

‘Not today. He's in a weird mood. Foul one minute, kind the next. Marginalises me when he should be introducing me to someone. I don't know where I stand with him.' She shook her head. ‘Poor bugger. Mrs H must be giving him a hard time.'

‘When is she not?' Colin sipped his beer reflectively. ‘Mind you, if he's like this at home, what sort of life would it be for her?'

Before she could reply, a bulky figure loomed over their table.

‘Hi, Gaffer!' Colin sounded more welcoming than she felt. A dose of Cope was surely the last thing either of them wanted.

‘You needn't sound so bloody cheerful. Hell, why not? End of another day, isn't it?' He perched on an inadequate stool, slopping some of his pint, and mopping with a beer mat. ‘You OK, Kate? You didn't tell me you knew the guy that topped himself.'

‘I don't think I actually stopped long enough to have a conversation with anyone, Gaffer. In fact, I think this is the first time my bum's touched base today.'

‘Better have another sandwich, then.' He pushed away and headed for the bar.

They exchanged a raising of eyebrows.

Colin finished his half before speaking. ‘“Kate”, eh? How did you get into his good books?'

‘Worrying, isn't it?'

Before they could speculate, Cope was back, three glasses on a tray. ‘They'll bring some sarnies in a minute. Knew the stiff and watched them slice him open. You've got guts, young Kate, I'll say that for you.'

‘I haven't closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep yet,' she said.

He stared at her.

‘Oh, it's one thing telling your head it'll be all right, isn't it? And another finding out later. No, I didn't pass out or spew or anything. I was too busy wondering how he came to have those knife cuts all over his body. The path. reckoned he'd done them himself.'

‘Sounds like he was pretty angry,' Cope said.

‘Angry?'

‘They say suicide's the ultimate act of anger,' Colin agreed. ‘What else could they be, anyway?'

Kate shook her head. ‘I suppose I thought – I don't know. He was wearing a very smart jumper – it was as if he'd been trying to destroy that. Or, to fit my theory, someone else had wanted to destroy the jumper, and didn't mind if he got hurt in the process. And I'd have liked this other person to have dragged him, kicking and screaming, to his death. Except, of course, there's no evidence at all on his body of anyone's violence except his own. The whole thing's quite consistent with a not very efficient suicide.'

‘So why are you hooked on the idea of murder?' Cope said. ‘Ah!' He stopped as the barmaid brought a plate of sandwiches. ‘Thanks, love! You'll be bringing the chips?' He pushed the plate into the middle of the table. ‘Cheese and salad. You never know with you young kids: you might have been veggies.'

Kate smiled. ‘Certainly not a day for rare meat.'

‘My dad was one of eight,' Cope said. ‘The other seven – all older – were girls. Well, my gran decided to keep a few hens – quite a tough old bird herself, my gran. Had to be, with my grandad drinking himself to death. Anyway, guess whose job it was to kill these birds when they'd stopped laying. Even though he'd be no more than seven and had raised them from chicks. “Just cut their heads off,” Gran said, handing him the chopper. And of course the bloody things didn't stop running round … No, my dad wouldn't eat chicken for years. Well into his forties, he'd be. I remember the rows about it with my mum. Still, there you go.' He plunged his teeth into a sandwich. ‘Thanks, love,' he added, as the barmaid produced the chips, a huge plateful.

They smelt good. Kate decied it was an act of duty to stop him eating the lot, and helped herself, liberally. The more food in her stomach, the better she felt. But Cope was eating very sparingly.

‘Funny thing, murder,' he said at last. ‘There aren't many that people get away with. But there are some clever buggers around, no doubt about that.'

Kate looked at him.

‘And these scientist guys don't always get it right. In fact,' he added, pausing to drink, ‘sometimes they make a right balls up. If there happened to be a meeting tomorrow, and if anyone happened to ask my opinion, I'd say we should poke around a bit more before we come to any hasty decisions about what we should tell the coroner.' He nodded, and took another draught. ‘Despite what those above might say.'