Four Below (6 page)

Coulthart turned his bespectacled gaze on the newcomers. ‘Ah, the beautiful inspector.’ The pathologist was in his late fifties, carried two extra stone in weight around his middle
and had what looked to Fairfield like a suspicious amount of dark and static hair.

She took his fleshy outstretched hand and shook it. ‘If I’m the beautiful inspector, then what does that make DS Sorbie?’

Coulthart gave a perfunctory glance at Sorbie over his rimless glasses. ‘What indeed?’ He released her hand. ‘You are wondering why our paths must cross in these clean yet
somewhat insalubrious surroundings?’

Fairfield felt tempted to say something on the lines of ‘Indeed I do, good doctor.’ She always found Coulthart’s deliberate archaism strangely infectious. ‘Enlighten
me,’ she said instead.

The crime-scene technicians withdrew and made way for them in front of the last cubicle. Inside, the body of the dead man lay collapsed over the toilet bowl, with his head almost behind it. His
jumper and T-shirt were pushed up to his chest, revealing pale, mottled skin. His trousers were hanging loose. The centre of his narrow face, what Fairfield could see of it, had turned an inky
dark; his fingers, too, had turned blue from the effects of lividity. The sleeve of his left arm was pushed up high.

Fairfield leant around to get a better look at the dead man’s face. His eyes were wide open. ‘Is this how you found him?’

‘No, we had to move him a little to take a rectal reading,’ explained Coulthart. ‘He slumped over into the corner a bit more during that.’

‘This is how he was found.’ A crime-scene technician with a blond walrus moustache lifted up a large digital camera and offered her a view of the screen. The body had been in a
kneeling position in front of the toilet bowl. A black zip-up jacket lay on the floor beside him. Some of the paraphernalia of heroin injection could be seen on the floor. The technician zoomed in
on a syringe stuck in the dead man’s arm just below the crook of his elbow. ‘The syringe fell out when he was moved.’ With a nod, he indicated evidence bags on top of his
aluminium case by the sink. ‘Plunger depressed.’

‘It’s a dead junkie.’ Sorbie shrugged. He tried not to let his impatience get the better of him but couldn’t resist adding: ‘Case closed. Especially for him, of
course.’

Fairfield shot him a silencing glance. ‘What’s all that discoloration on his arm?’

‘I can’t tell you yet, though I have suspicions I’m not quite ready to share. I just wanted you here at the beginning in case this turned into anything.’

‘Could it be deliberate overdose?’

‘With the needle still in the arm like that it is always a possibility. He is definitely a long-term drug user, definitely injecting, too. You don’t recognize him as one of your
flock?’

‘I’ve seen a lot of them come and go, but not this one. Jack?’

Sorbie pretended to take a closer look, but his eyes remained unfocused. ‘Nope.’

‘As always, we’ll know the deceased a lot better after the post-mortem.’ Coulthart picked up his briefcase. ‘I’ll do it this afternoon. I’ll see you there, I
hope, Inspector? You may effect the removal of the body with my blessings now.’

Sorbie turned his back on the corpse and waited for the door to close behind Coulthart. ‘Well I do feel blessed. We’re pretty much finished here, aren’t we?’

Fairfield looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose so. Nothing for us to do. Coulthart is always careful with what he says, but this time he’s being downright mysterious. He seems to think
there’s something going on here. Other than the obvious.’

‘Shame they don’t have CCTV in the toilets.’

‘I’m not sure people would feel comfortable with that.’

Sorbie shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t bother me, I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Yes, so you keep telling me, Jack.’

Chapter Five

‘Lies? What kind of lies?’ Austin asked, a little out of breath from trying to keep up with the inspector.

McLusky was walking away from Gooseford Farm towards the road, marching fast in order to return some warmth to his limbs. ‘Are you saying you don’t feel lied to?’

‘I’m a police officer, Liam, I expect to hear nothing but lies. But what’s suspicious about the farmer reporting the accident?’

‘Show you in a minute, when we get closer to the wreck.’

‘The road’s just there; we should be able to see it in a minute.’

‘You’re getting warmer, Jane.’

‘I wish that were true.’

Fifty yards before the lane joined the road on which the BMW had crashed, McLusky jumped the shallow ditch that ran alongside it. He waited for Austin to join him beside the electric fence that
surrounded the meadow, the northern edge of which was formed by the hedge in which the car had ended up. ‘How can you tell whether these things are switched on?’ he asked, putting his
index finger close to the wire.

‘Why? Are we climbing over it?’

‘I thought we might.’

Austin frowned into the mist. ‘There’s no cattle in the field, so I presume it’s not turned on.’

‘After you, then.’

‘Oh, thanks very much.’

‘Go on. Farmers are famously hard up. They’d never run current through it just for the fun of it.’

Austin hesitated for another second, hand hovering, then with the strength of his conviction grasped the top wire. No current. A minute later both of them struggled diagonally towards the hedge,
with the wet grass sketching cold streaks of moisture across their trouser legs. They found themselves directly on the other side of the hedge to where the accident took place, confirmed by the
landmark of the sole tree. Judging by the noise, a tow truck was just arriving.

McLusky rubbed his gloved hands for warmth. ‘What do you see, Jane?’

Austin scratched the tip of his nose. ‘I can see the crashed BMW. Well, I can see the exhaust system and bits of the underside showing through the gap there.’

‘And you can tell it’s a BMW because … you’re an expert in car exhausts?’

‘Erm, no, it’s because I know it’s a BMW.’

‘And so did Farmer Giles back there. Because if I’m not mistaken, he mentioned BMW before either of us did.’

‘I think he did.’

‘Seven o’clock this morning in thick mist with no street lighting and Farmer Murry is turning clairvoyant. He would barely have been able to see the bloody hedge, even on a quad or
tractor with the lights turned on. Let alone spot a square yard of dark car metal in it
and
identify its make from this side. Yet he did want us to know he hadn’t been near the
thing.’

‘You think our Mr Murry saw the crashed car in the lane, had a nosy round the dead man’s luggage and found something he fancied.’

‘It’s a distinct possibility.’

‘Are we going back to have a friendly word about it?’

McLusky sniffed, crossed his arms and blew a white cloud of breath through rounded lips while he thought. ‘We’ll wait for forensics on the car and luggage and the post-mortem
results. Then we might have a better idea what happened here. And then we’ll pay him another visit, order a goose for Christmas and scare several types of shit out of him. Now let’s get
back to your car before we perish out here.’

McLusky worked imaginary brake pedals as Austin drove. The inspector was himself quite happy to risk the odd speeding ticket while remaining utterly convinced that everyone else drove much too
fast. The radio had been quiet, which could only mean that nothing had been found at Leigh Woods. By the time Austin once more parked the Nissan near the Mazda beside the woodland track, McLusky
felt too comfortable to have much enthusiasm for searching the woods.

‘Searching for a dead body is a mug’s game. You feel bored and frustrated while you’re looking, and if you do find something you invariably wish you hadn’t. Especially if
it’s kids. We don’t have any missing children on our books?’

‘Nothing recent.’ A hundred yards ahead Austin could just make out one yellow jacket ghosting in and out of the edge of visibility. ‘Are we joining the troops?’

McLusky felt the persuasive hand of lethargy push him deep into the car seat. He shook it off. ‘Why of course we are, my man,’ he announced with excessive cheer. ‘You try and
stop me.’ He swung himself out of the car and strode off towards the swaying dragon lights among the trees, calling over his shoulder, ‘Why didn’t you try and stop me,
Jane?’

Half an hour later, feeling as though every last bit of warmth had left his body, and with each sentence uttered among them now littered with swear words, McLusky called a halt. ‘Lunch! Go
get some! Two more hours this afternoon is all I’m prepared to give this farce, then we’ll all go back to policing the city.’

He was the first to the cars and the first away. Driving the Mazda was like driving around in a fridge. Never before had the neon-lit cavern that was the Albany Road canteen looked such a
desirable destination.

To say that she liked going to the mortuary might have been overstating it, but the drive out to Flax Bourton wasn’t too unpleasant and the new facilities were a great
improvement on the ones they had replaced. From the outside the mortuary looked like a cottage hospital; inside it looked futuristic. Death in the twenty-first century. Inside it appeared highly
technical, stainless and brightly lit, though the bodies Fairfield tended to see on these tables often arrived here via bloodstained kitchen floors, glass-strewn pavements or in this case the
shopping centre toilets. From this state-of-the-art place of recorded facts and rationality the body would then be moved once more, into the world of ancient beliefs, of procession and candlelit
rituals involving earth or fire.

In the viewing suite, separated from the actual body by glass and therefore spared the smells of the operation, Fairfield nevertheless felt she was as close to it as she could stand. Apart from
the smell, all other aspects of the procedure were enhanced by the technology; the sound, and not just of the pathologist’s voice, was very clear. Details deemed important could be magnified
with the aid of the mobile camera that transmitted live pictures to a large monitor on her right. There was no
I’ll take your word for it, Doc
here. The pathologist frequently moved
the camera or had his assistant do so, to make sure Fairfield didn’t miss any of the gore. The doctor’s commentary, for the record and sometimes off the record, added a touch of
docudrama to the proceedings.

Coulthart had yet to explain why the unfortunate yet utterly predictable death of this junkie should involve CID, and why the post-mortem had been almost instantaneous. Fairfield was about to
press the intercom button to ask that very question when something else engaged her attention. Coulthart had moved the camera to give her a close-up view of the dead man’s left arm. All along
it black and blue bumps and circles formed a hideous chain that made her think of the plague. She pressed the button. ‘What
is
that, Dr Coulthart? I’ve seen plenty of junkies
before, but that’s unusual, surely?’

‘Very little escapes you, Inspector. I was just about to draw your attention to this unusual feature and, in a way, was playing for time. I’m expecting a telephone call …
ah.’ The phone on the wall by the door rang and Coulthart’s assistant went to answer it. ‘This might be it, quick work if it is, but then I impressed on them the urgency of the
matter. I earlier sent several samples off to the lab by courier, and unless the chap fell off his motorcycle or managed to get himself lost in the fog, then this should be it. Excuse me, Detective
Inspector.’

Coulthart took the receiver that the assistant held out to him. He listened, nodded, talked, listened and talked some more, from time to time throwing glances in Fairfield’s direction. She
knew that for him to send samples by motorcycle courier was unusual, and for a forensics lab to respond this quickly something of a miracle. At last the pathologist terminated the call.

‘Okay, enough build-up, Doctor, what have we got there? Tell me it’s not another plague that can be spread by sharing needles.’

‘No, not a plague, though I fear we may see more dead drug-users soon. Tell me, Inspector, what do you know about anthrax?’

‘Anthrax? That’s a poison, isn’t it? Didn’t someone send anthrax through the post in the States a while back?’

‘No, and yes. I must say you disappoint me, Inspector. Anthrax is a
disease
, not a poison, and it is caused by the aptly named bacterium
bacillus anthracis
. But yes, some
deranged American sent some through the post to express his displeasure at this or that. Not that it matters, DI Fairfield. Somehow, in the past few years, a new delusion has begun to affect the
weaker minds, which is that as a means of expressing your displeasure, it is quite acceptable to kill and maim a lot of people you have never met. Because otherwise of course
no one listens
.
People used to stand on soapboxes; now they put ground glass into baby food or send diseases through the post. And there are a lot to choose from, believe me. Anthrax, smallpox, botulism, Ebola,
plague. Not so easy to deliver, plague,’ Coulthart mused, nodding to himself.

‘So our customer died of anthrax?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘Not an overdose?’

‘No. He must have been feeling extremely ill by the time he entered the toilets. He tried to make himself feel better by injecting, but died of respiratory arrest.’

‘So how did he get it?’

‘He almost certainly contracted it from injecting contaminated heroin. He’d have been feeling ill for some time, high fever, trouble breathing. Probably thought he had a bad case of
flu.’

Fairfield felt a shiver going through her. ‘How does heroin get contaminated with anthrax?’

‘That’s a very good question. The same way, I presume, that all the other rubbish gets into heroin. Someone puts it there.’

‘You mean someone laced his heroin with it? That means we’re looking at unlawful killing.’

‘That is for you to decide. But his was no natural death, I can say that much.’

‘But anthrax. I mean, isn’t that going a bit far? If you want to kill a junkie, you stick a knife into him while he’s distracted, which is pretty much all the time.’