Dead in the Water (12 page)

Mullen considered this. The fact was that Speight didn’t look anxious any more. He looked scared shitless. “Keys?” Mullen held out his hand, took the electronic key from Speight and then allowed him to sink into the driver’s seat. Mullen stood and waited, wedging the door wide open with his body and ready to move fast if Speight did anything unexpectedly stupid.

“Rohypnol,” he whispered at last.

“What?”

“It’s a date-rape drug.”

“I know that.”

“Janice had it in her bloodstream.”

“Are you saying she had been raped?”

“No. Not at all. Obviously when I discovered the drug in her system, I checked. There was no sign of recent sexual activity at all.”

“Was there alcohol in her system?” Mullen’s mind was starting to go to places where he really didn’t want it to. But he had to ask.

“Not a lot. Maybe a large glass of wine.”

“But enough to make her extremely unsteady when combined with rohypnol?” You didn’t have to be a forensic pathologist to know that alcohol and rohypnol were a devastating mix.

He nodded.

“Anything else?”

Speight twitched; his left shoulder moved up and down as if controlled by a puppeteer’s string. He licked his lips. “The . . . er . . . the photos on your phone?” Clearly he didn’t expect Mullen to stick to his word.

But Mullen had to live with himself. Deception and lying might sometimes be necessary, but that didn’t mean he felt good doing them. Without a word he bent down and deleted them one by one, right in front of Speight.

“Thank you.”

Mullen handed him his key and for a few moments their eyes met and held.

“Actually . . .” There was a long pause as Speight assembled his thoughts. Mullen waited, barely daring to breathe. “Actually, there’s something else I want to tell you—”

“Have a good evening, Charles!” Speight turned guiltily. A man in sunglasses was standing by a red VW convertible halfway across the car park. Speight waved from his seat and then watched until the car had disappeared from view. Only then did he turn back to Mullen, as if he was afraid the man might somehow overhear what he was about to say.

“Chris had rohypnol in his system too.”

The comment came as a shot of electricity arcing across Mullen’s system. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Both brain and tongue had tripped their fuse switches.

But Speight didn’t need any prompting to say more. Now that he had started, he had to get it finished.

“You see,” he continued, “there wasn’t actually that much alcohol in Chris’s system. Enough to get him tipsy, but hardly a roaring-drunk amount. At the time I thought it was a little odd that he should fall into the river and drown. But given his lifestyle . . .” Speight ground to a halt.

Mullen felt a surge of anger. “Because he was a homeless rough sleeper, what did it matter? Right?” Mullen’s decibel count was rising dramatically. “Chris wasn’t important enough for you to look any closer into his death.” He felt like grabbing Speight by the lapels and shaking him till his prejudices rattled.

Speight swallowed; his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously in his throat. But he carried on determinedly with his account. “Like anyone, I have to prioritise what I do and don’t do. But the fact is that when I had examined Janice’s body and realised that there was both alcohol and rohypnol in her, it got me thinking again about Chris. So I took some hairs from his head and found traces of exactly the same type of rohypnol in it too.”

“So when you met Dorkin the other night—”

“I told him what I had discovered. He was furious and started asking me what sort of pathologist I was to have missed it in the first place. He started making insinuations about my competence, which I didn’t take kindly to. I take great pride in my work, but in the circumstances there had been no good reason to check for rohypnol in Chris. So I pointed out to him that the fact that I had revisited my findings on Chris and thereby located the drug in him was actually a mark of my extreme competence.”

“And what did Dorkin say?”

Speight wiped his forehead again. “He was damned rude. So I just walked out. I don’t have to put up with stuff like that from people like Dorkin.”

Mullen nodded as if he agreed. But actually he didn’t. As far as he was concerned, Dorkin had every right to throw a tantrum at Speight. The pathologist seemed to him to have been seriously at fault. End of discussion.

“All of this is off the record. Dorkin won’t like it if he discovers that I’ve been talking out of school.”

Mullen smiled at the expression. Out of school. How old school was that! But he saw no reason to make life difficult for Speight. Nor indeed did he want to draw Dorkin’s attention to his own investigations. “Sure,” he said. “But I’ve just one more question if that’s OK?”

Speight exhaled. “If you must.”

“If you didn’t initially look for rohypnol in Chris, why did you do so in Janice?”

Speight scratched at his neck as he considered this. “Well, Dorkin told me he had a witness who had seen Janice walking rather unsteadily over Magdalen Bridge. So when I discovered that there wasn’t enough alcohol in her system to justify such unsteadiness, I looked around for other reasons.”

“Thanks.” Mullen stepped back and finally allowed Speight to shut his door. The pathologist needed no further prompting and within seconds he was exiting the car park as if the hounds of hell were on his tail. Mullen watched him go and wondered. He wasn’t sure he trusted Speight, but his story did pretty much hang together. As for what he had said about rohypnol; that really was a game-changer.

* * *

The departure of Speight coincided with the return of Mullen’s headache. It had been nagging away gently throughout his long wait in the car, but now it had gained momentum and was banging away like a steam hammer. Mullen was also extremely thirsty, the consequence of having only half a small bottle of water to drink in the simmering heat. His back was complaining too, so he stopped at the Co-op in Wootton to pick up a half-litre bottle of water and some Paracetamol, plus a frozen pizza because he really couldn’t face cooking anything more complicated that evening. He took three tablets, drained the bottle of water and then headed for Boars Hill.

But when he arrived back at the Cedars, he did not find the peace he craved. There were two cars pulled up in his drive. The red Punto he recognised, but the silver Rav 4 he didn’t. There was no sign of the occupants. He eased himself out of his vehicle and extricated the pizza from the back seat and the empty plastic bottle from the floor.

“Ah! There you are.” Becca Baines’ voice boomed out. She and Rose Wilby appeared from around the back of the house and advanced towards him. “About time too. We’re dying of thirst and pretty blooming hungry. But at least we had a chance to talk about you behind your back.”

She laughed and pecked him on the cheek. It was, Mullen supposed, her way of telling Rose to ‘Hands off!’

“Well, nice to see you both,’ he said, though that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe one of them, just to show him a bit of sympathy, but both of them, without warning? Apart from anything else and based on the little he knew of them, he wasn’t at all sure they would hit it off. Besides, standing there with a pizza in one hand and a plastic bottle in the other, he felt as if he had been caught with his trousers down, the archetypical man incapable of cooking anything more advanced than something straight out of the freezer.

“Sorry, this isn’t very fair of us turning up without warning.” Rose Wilby’s approach was altogether more polite and sympathetic. She patted him briefly on the forearm.

Becca laughed. It was the sort of laugh the word ‘fruity’ was designed for. Mullen shivered with lust. It was no wonder that men like Paul — and he — were drawn to her. “Two women on his doorstep!” Becca was squealing now. “He probably reckons he’s died and gone to heaven.”

Mullen tossed his house keys to her. “Let yourselves in. I just need to water the tomatoes. I could do with a cup of tea,” he added. “But there’s some white wine in the fridge if you want it." And he headed round the back of the house in search of a few moments of peace.

As he began to fill the watering can from the rain butt by the greenhouse, he became aware that Rose Wilby had followed him. She stood silently a couple of metres away, watching. Only when the can was full and he was turning the tap off did she speak.

“Are you and Becca an item?”

“No.” He tried to sound very firm.

“I got the impression from her that you were.”

“Well we definitely are not. I barely know her. And I’ve certainly not slept with her.”

“Would you like to?”

“Jesus!” The watering can was overflowing. He turned the tap off. “Sorry! That probably offends you.”

“Don’t worry. It’s none of my business anyway.”

Mullen didn’t reply. Instead he went inside the greenhouse and watered round the grow bags. His headache had abated a bit, but that was all. He really did just want some peace and quiet on his own. Apart from anything else, he needed to think.

“Actually,” she said as he left the protection of the greenhouse, “I’ve no intention of spoiling your evening with Becca. I just want to say what I’ve got to say and then I’ll be gone.”

She moved away to the shelter of the wall, into the shade and — more pertinently Mullen thought — out of sight of Becca who was singing ostentatiously in the kitchen. “We can’t pay you any more money. So as far I am concerned, the job is complete.”

Mullen looked at her, trying to read her. “I’m not expecting any more money, not at the moment.”

“People have gone cool. They think it was a waste of their money when the police are free and much better resourced that you can be on your own. They blame Janice for persuading them to take you on. They say she was soft on you, which was the reason she was so keen to hire you.”

“I got the impression you were pretty keen to hire me too.”

She didn’t deny it. She didn’t say anything, but Mullen had already worked out that lying wasn’t something she would readily resort to.

He pressed on. “I’m making progress you know.”

She shrugged. “Even so.” She turned and started walking away. Mullen followed her to her car.

He let her get in. “I thought you wanted to know the truth?”

“What is truth? It’s not going to make a difference, is it? Whether you find out exactly what happened or not, he’ll remain dead.”

“Did you love him, Rose?” It was the obvious question and he already knew the answer to it because why else would she have tears in her eyes?

But she wouldn’t admit it with words. She leant over and opened a large leather bag that was lying on the passenger seat. She pulled a book out and handed it over to him. “I promised to lend this to you,” she said. “I would like it back, but only when you’ve read it. Come round and we can talk about it and I’ll even cook you a frozen pizza.”

Mullen took the book —
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
— and felt a pang of something, a mixture of regret for himself and pity for her. He knew that he ought to ask her to stay. But instead he stepped back, closed the car door and watched her depart. Then he went inside to look for Becca Baines.

* * *

“You certainly know how to give a girl a good time.”

Becca Baines and Mullen were sharing the pizza he had bought, accompanied by some rather tired-looking salad and a tin of mixed beans. He was drinking tea, while she had taken him at his word and opened some white wine.

“Rose didn’t seem very happy.” Becca was clearly determined to chat.

Mullen would have preferred to eat in silence, but he guessed he would have to say something. “Maybe not.”

“I think she fancies you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“She does.”

Mullen stuffed a piece of pizza in his mouth.

“Would you like me to stay over tonight?”

Mullen looked across at her. “No.”

She raised her eyes archly. “Well that’s me told.”

“I’ve only met you twice.”

“And I’ve only put you to bed once.” She drained the last of her wine and filled her glass again. “I just hope I don’t get breathalysed on the way home.”

Mullen shrugged and caved in. “You can use a spare bed if you want. But you’ll have to make it up yourself.”

She smiled and took another sip. “So gracious you are, Mr Mullen.”

Mullen reached over and poured himself half a glass. He doubted it would do him any good as far as his (temporarily muted) headache was concerned, but he didn’t see why she should drink the whole bottle. Besides she almost certainly wasn’t going to like what he was about to ask her. He took a swig and swallowed. “Are you still seeing Paul Atkinson?”

“Would you be jealous if I was?”

Mullen swore and placed his glass on the table with great care. Part of him wanted to hurl it across the room to show her his frustration. Why did she have to turn everything into a joke? “It’s not about me,” he snapped. “Janice is dead. She asked me to help her and now she is dead. So I will ask the question again and hope for a sensible answer. Are you still seeing Paul Atkinson? Because if you are, then you must be a lot more stupid than you look.”