Born in a Burial Gown (17 page)

As well as a being a solid detective, he was also an excellent profiler with an uncanny knack for looking at crime scenes and knowing whether motivations were driven by anger, revenge or sex. He was rarely wrong. Alan Vaughn just thought about things a little differently to everyone else.

Just another oddbod in a team of oddbods.
Fluke admired them all.

‘What about the cosmetic surgery lead, boss?’ Skelton asked. ‘Do you want me to follow that up?’

‘No, I’ll do it straight after I’ve been to Watts,’ he said. ‘No point everyone going into Carlisle. You stay here, keep HOLMES up to date and coordinate the intel as it comes in. I want to know everything in real time.’

With the major tasks allocated, Fluke walked back to his office to check his emails.

There was nothing on his system that needed his urgent attention. He leaned back in his chair and stared out of the window. The weather was changing. The light was poorer than it had been that morning. Rain was on its way. Fluke didn’t mind. His office view encompassed fields and sheep. He liked the rain. It gave the landscape a mystical quality.

Without realising he had, he’d removed the card from his wallet the card Skelton had given him. He’d been shuffling it between his fingers like a Vegas dealer. He stopped and studied it.

2.3 – 8.7 – 92

It wasn’t on the Internet. Fluke knew if it had been, Jiao-long would have found it. Or if it was on and he hadn’t found it, then it wasn’t meant to be found. He was good, but there were some closed systems he couldn’t access.

Instinctively, Fluke thought it would be something normal rather than something exotic. Something obvious. Something that made you cry out, ‘of course’.

2.3 – 8.7 – 92

The key to it all? Or just random numbers that were going to cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds in police hours as they tried to track them down?

Fluke stared at them again. Were they familiar? He thought they might be, but had no idea why. He thought the most likely result was a password to something online and if it was, they may never find out. He took one last look, but they stubbornly refused to reveal their secrets. A noise outside, getting louder, told him that Towler was on his way.

Time to go and get some coffee.

John Watt & Son had been selling coffee in one form or other in Carlisle for over one hundred and fifty years. Starting off as general grocers in 1865, they traded for nearly 130 years until the challenge of out-of-town supermarkets forced them to change to tea and coffee specialists. They were more recently known for stocking coffees and teas that were simply not available anywhere else in the county. They had a small café in the shop and Fluke often stayed for a piece of cake and a chat with the owner if he had time.

The journey from HQ took less than half an hour. Towler double-parked on Bank Street, walked over to a traffic warden, who was just starting the street, and explained who they were. The man didn’t seem to want to get into an argument and Towler was soon back.

‘Sorted,’ he said.

It was a strange street. There were half a dozen high street banks, half a dozen charity shops and a pet shop. In Fluke’s experience charity shops and banks never normally rubbed shoulders together. It was a contradiction. The poor and the organisations that made them poor.

And right in the middle was Watts.

Fluke and Towler entered.

The smell hit Fluke immediately. The scent of exotic coffee beans, acrid espressos and cinnamon lattes mingling to create a heady bouquet that made his mouth water.

The bank of jarred beans behind the counter told you everything you needed to know about Watts. Over a hundred varieties, enough to tempt the fussiest connoisseur. Beans from Brazil, Vietnam, Peru and Ethiopia. A United Nations of coffee growers. The day’s special offer was from Costa Rica. The big glass jar sat on the top of the rich mahogany counter next to the till and a selection of fresh cakes under a glass cloche.

The huge grinder whirred as another customer had their beans freshly prepared, ready to be taken home and enjoyed later. Fluke hadn’t bought a bag of Watts coffee since he’d moved and he vowed to stock up before he left.

Fluke didn’t recognize the woman serving behind the counter.

‘Hello, Avison. We were wondering if it’d be you who’d turn up,’ said a cheerful voice from his left.

Fluke turned to see where the voice came from. A middle-aged woman was in the café section, serving a group of office workers. They were all wearing the same name badge; civil servants by the look of things. They looked glad to be out of their office. He knew she’d worked here for years but wasn’t the owner. She seemed to know every customer by name and was never so busy she couldn’t stop and chat.

‘Hello, Barbara. How are you? Was it uniform you spoke to earlier?’ Fluke asked.

‘I’ll come over,’ she said. ‘We can go in the back.’

After they’d settled in the small office, she answered. ‘Yes, it was me initially. I’ve seen the poor girl a few times but it was Kath who saw her last.’

‘I’ll need to speak to Kath as well,’ Fluke said.

‘She’s gone home, Avison,’ she said. ‘She was a bit upset.’

‘I’m sorry, Barbara, I really am. But we’ll need to speak to her today, it’s very important.’

‘I made sure she wrote everything down, though,’ Barbara added triumphantly, pointing at a piece of paper.

Fluke felt a surge of excitement.
Excellent.

 
She’d need to be interviewed later but all he wanted was something to get Jiao-long started.

‘Right, we’ll get onto that in a minute.’ From his conference folder, Fluke produced a photo of the victim’s face taken at the post-mortem, and put it upside down on the table. ‘Barbara, I want to show you a picture and it’s quite upsetting. But I’d like you to look at it nonetheless.’

She smiled. ‘I was a nurse for twenty years, Avison. If you need to show me a picture of a dead body, go right ahead.’

A sense of relief flooded through him. Getting someone to actually look at the photo had never been a given. He turned over the picture. A glossy photo of the victim’s face, ghostly white under the post-mortem lights, stared up at them both. ‘This woman shops here?’ he said.

Barbara took a pair of reading glasses from her cardigan pocket and picked up the photo. She didn’t appear fazed as she stared at it. ‘Well, not anymore she doesn’t judging by this, but yes, she did. Nice girl, quiet,’ she replied.

Fluke was prepared to accept that as a positive sighting. He had a place for Jiao-long to start. ‘We don’t yet know who she is. Is there anything you can help us with? How long as she shopped with you?’

‘Not long, a couple of months, maybe. But she was in every week.’

‘Can you remember anything about her?’

‘Not really, she didn’t stick out. Always paid cash. Always bought a three-bean blend. One hundred fifty grams of South American Mountain for flavour, One-fifty of Sumatran for strength and two hundred grams of Costa Rican for depth. Always the same, even when we had specials on. Always the same amount, a five-hundred-gram bag. Never had the beans ground in-store. I assume she had her own grinder. Most of our regulars do.’

Score one for Lucy
, Fluke thought. She hadn’t got a thing wrong yet. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know when she was here last, would you?’

‘Last Thursday, ten past twelve.’

Fluke looked at her open-mouthed, wondering if she was winding him up.

She laughed at his expression. ‘We checked the till roll. Kath served her. The reason we know is because she only served two people that morning. The rest of the time she was doing the tables. More fun you see, you get to talk with the locals. She hates the till. But if we’re jammed, she’ll help out. She remembers her because she’s never made her blend before. It’s all written down here.’

Fluke read Kath’s statement. It was written on Watts’s stationery. Attached was a photocopy of the receipt as well as a description of what the victim had been wearing. ‘This is excellent, Barbara,’ Fluke said. ‘She seems to have a real eye for detail.’

‘Yes, well. Kath’s a bit of a clotheshorse. If it had been me on the till you wouldn’t have got this much detail. I wouldn’t know my Prada from my Primark.’

‘You’ve no idea how helpful this is going to be,’ Fluke said, gratefully. He passed the statement over to Towler. ‘Seems Kath remembered what she was wearing as well,’ Fluke said.

 ‘She didn’t speak to her?’ Towler asked.

‘No, no one ever did. She always seemed to come when it was busy, around lunchtime. People rushing in and out.’

Fluke and Towler exchanged glances. Another way of making sure she wasn’t noticed. Another indicator she’d been hiding from someone.

‘Matt, can you give Longy a bell and let him know what she was wearing, along with the date and time,’ Fluke asked. Towler left to make the call. ‘That’ll save us hours of work, Barbara.’

While he waited for Towler to come back, he looked at the photo again. A pretty woman, no more than a girl really. A life snuffed out for reasons he hadn’t even started to unravel yet. Towler returned.

‘All done. He’s gonna give us a live update.’

Fluke turned to Barbara. ‘Thanks again for all this. You won’t believe how much help you’ve been.’

‘My pleasure, Avison. Now can I get you something while you’re here?’

Fluke looked round at the huge amount of coffee they stocked. Millions of beans, waiting to be ground, waiting for their oils to be released and for hot water to be added. A custom the same the world over. A custom older than Carlisle.

‘I’ll tell you what, Barbara. Make me up a bag of her blend can you?’

‘Of course. I’ll grind it right up for you.’

‘Don’t, I’ll take a grinder as well.’

Find out how the victim lived and you’ll find out how they died.

Agreeing to meet first thing, Towler parked up at the hospital. They were in Fluke’s car. Towler lived in Carlisle so would walk home.

Fluke walked through the huge revolving doors into the open-plan foyer. The clack of keyboards, the squeal of wheelchairs and the low voices of staff, patients and visitors combined into a cacophony of sensory confusion.

As he headed towards Oncology, Fluke was reminded how much it looked like an airport departure lounge. It was huge. It had opened to criticism that it took up too much valuable space and when it transpired that ward corridors were so narrow that two beds couldn’t pass, the criticism appeared justified.

‘Is she in?’ he asked the nurse on the reception.

‘I’ll call her, Mr Fluke. Take a seat,’ she replied.

Fluke elected to stand. While he was waiting, he took the business card out of his wallet and stared at it. Willing the numbers to change, to make sense. He even tried squinting his eyes, tried to look through it as though it were a magic eye picture. Nothing. But the nagging feeling persisted. They looked familiar.

‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’ Doctor Cooper asked, entering the reception area.

She looked tired but then she always did. Fluke’s job carried a huge responsibility, but in between the major cases, he at least had some respite. A chance to recharge the mental batteries. Consultants didn’t have that luxury.

‘I need your help,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ she said cautiously. ‘Am I going to like this?’

‘It’s nothing bad, I promise you. I just want your advice on this case. Maybe a name I can call.’

‘We’d better go to my office.’

‘Thanks, Doctor Cooper.’

‘Look, this is ridiculous, Avison. Will you please call me Leah. We’ve known each other long enough now.’

‘Okay,’ he said carefully. Fluke was one of those people who would happily call a nurse by their first name but would insist on the deferential approach when conversing with doctors. He didn’t know why that was. He certainly didn’t do it for any other profession.

He followed her into her office and took a seat.

‘Okay. What’s it about?’ she asked.

‘This is going to be a bit left field, but what do you know about cosmetic surgery?’

She looked nonplussed and stared at him for a few seconds. ‘Nothing, of course. I’m not a surgeon. I’m certainly not a cosmetic surgeon. There aren’t any clinics in Cumbria.’

‘That much I already knew. I just want the basics. Where someone would go to get some surgery done? How long it takes? Would it be possible to get multiple procedures done at once? How long to heal, that sort of thing?’

‘Is this something to do with that woman they found on Tuesday?’

He paused before deciding she deserved to have some background. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At the PM on Tuesday afternoon, Henry found extensive cosmetic surgery. Bit of an enigma. Very high quality but it made no sense. Medically speaking.’

‘Oh. Go on, why?’ she said, her medical curiosity obviously piqued.

‘She didn’t need it for one thing.’ Fluke held his hand up, knowing she was going to launch into something about how men had no right to decide what women did to their bodies. ‘No, all the changes she made detracted from her looks rather than enhancing them.’

She folded her arms. ‘Says you.’

Fluke didn’t have the time or the inclination to get into an argument. ‘Says me, says Henry and says Lucy.’ He was going to add Towler’s name to the list but decided against it. Although he had a young daughter, Towler knew even less about women than he did. He’d once been dumped for toilet texting.

‘Who’s Lucy?’ she said unexpectedly.

‘The bug lady,’ he said, without thinking.

She said nothing. Continued to stare at him with her arms folded and her lips pursed.

‘An entomologist. A PhD working with Henry for a few weeks. She’s been a big help, actually.’

‘You have a theory about the cosmetic surgery?’ she said, changing direction.

‘She was altering the way she looked for a reason. We think she was hiding.’

Leah leaned forward. ‘Were there any other supporting factors?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘Her hair was dyed. Platinum blonde to brown.’