Fruitful Bodies (34 page)

Y
OUR CLIENT WHAT?’
Detective Sergeant Bridger asked Debbie Trowbridge. ‘I have advised my client that this identity parade contravenes the law and that even if he were to be positively identified, that would be inadmissible. Consequently my client is unhappy. And so am I,’ Debbie Trowbridge said in her official voice, with a barely discernible tremble of anger in it. That was the way this kind of guy got you, by making you so angry you showed it. His body language, which she translated accurately as
I’ve got a cock and you haven’t
, made her so furious that she was in danger of losing the cool professional edge that she had trained herself to add to her voice, which she considered too light for a solicitor. She cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows. By concentrating on the farce for which this idiot was responsible, she could direct her anger where it belonged.

‘The conduct of this identity parade contravenes—Sergeant, are you listening to me?’

Bridger, about to fish in his pockets for cigarettes and matches, was raising a hand in greeting to someone behind her, who had presumably just entered the corridor by the doors at the end. Bridger stood up straighter.

‘Sergeant, I don’t seem to be getting through. I want to see DCI Poole. He’s leading this enquiry, isn’t he?’

‘I am. And good morning, Miss Trowbridge. Are we all set, Bridger? I hope your client’s ready?’

Thank God for a sane person to talk to. Debbie Trowbridge shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’ve been trying to get through to your sergeant here.’ DCI Poole was about to be as appalled as she had been, and it was she who was about to appall him.

‘My client, as you know, has been bailed pending further police enquiries into the murder of his wife. He has met all bail conditions in good faith and cooperated fully, at a time of considerable distress and difficulty for him. He should have returned to Japan last Friday. My client—’

Andrew interrupted indulgently. ‘Yes, yes, yes, understood. I’m not the magistrate, Debbie. What’s your point?’

‘My point,’ Debbie said, shaking her blonded hair and allowing herself to crow, ‘is that this identity parade has been rigged in a way which will put my client in an unfair position. All those taking part in an identity parade, if I may just remind you of your obligations under PACE—’

‘What’s the matter with the parade? Bridger? You’ve had a whole week to set this one up. What’s wrong with it?’ Andrew asked sharply, turning to Bridger.

‘You haven’t seen the line-up yourself, then?’

‘Of course I haven’t. I can’t organise an ID parade when I’m the officer leading the enquiry, you know that.’

‘It was the best I could do. I tried to tell you it’d be impossible,’ Bridger appealed to them, simultaneously defensive and pathetic. ‘You try getting hold of twelve middle-aged Japanese men who’ll cooperate. Most of them didn’t understand what we were asking, even with
the interpreter. The ones that did didn’t want to come in to a police station on a Monday morning, why should they? They’re on holiday. I had to improvise.’ He looked accusingly at Debbie Trowbridge. ‘If you ask me, she’s making too much of it.’

Debbie looked hard at DCI Poole. ‘Six out of the ten men waiting to be in the line-up are English. Your sergeant could only find three other Japanese apart from the suspect. So the other six are wearing eyeliner. Two of them have black wigs on.’

She spoke slowly so as to spin out the effect, but was not enjoying the sight, much as she had hoped to, of Andrew Poole’s effort to control his rage while the fact of Bridger’s idiocy sank in. She returned down the corridor, trying not to make the clack of her heels sound unpleasantly triumphant. Poor Andrew Poole. She admired his control, really. It was not until she was just through the swing doors that she heard his voice shouting something, she could not be sure
exactly
what, but she fancied it was something about not the fucking D’Oyly Carte.

*     *     *

A
NDREW STEPPED
through the doors out of the police station and took a deep breath of air. He had left Inspector Lovesey, the officer in charge of the ID parade, reeling with amazement at Bridger’s crassness. Andrew, knowing him better, was not. Lovesey had been apologetic. He had rather let Bridger get on with it, he conceded to Andrew, who had pointed out that that was always, with Bridger, a mistake. And, he had gone on, the aborted ID parade had been his last and only hope of getting enough evidence to charge the suspect. The only other evidence was
circumstantial, insufficient to charge, and Debbie Trowbridge had not had to point out that if after more than two weeks the enquiry had come up with nothing new then the police could not justifiably claim to have ‘reasonable grounds to suspect’. And without those grounds her client could not be charged and must be released. Professor Takahashi was going back to Japan. And so was Mrs Takahashi. They had released her body for burial and her sister would be arriving the next day to take her home.

Beyond the wall of the station the ordinary-looking mix of people in Bath in summertime trooped past on heavy feet, a disproportionate number weighed down with backpacks and luggage. The pedestrian crossing peeped intermittently, the traffic slowed, people walked, pushed pushchairs, pedalled bikes. Some, like the man edging out the door of Comet with a microwave the size of a large kennel, would be local. Others carried leaflets and cameras, their worn faces betraying the drudgery of European city-hopping. Probably not one of them had wasted, nor would now waste, a single second of their lives worrying about the murder of a thirty-one-year-old Japanese wife, or the husband who killed her.

Still standing on the steps of the station, Andrew yawned. It was tempting, for a moment, to think of spending the rest of the afternoon either drunk, asleep, or both, but he had promised Sara that he would look in on James before he set off with Dan. Despite their having parted yesterday in mutual rage (such a goddam fuss over a stiff shoulder) he would do so. Sighing heavily in a useless attempt to breathe the anger and disappointment out of his body, he set off for the Sulis.

Andrew took the entrance to the clinic almost at a run
and made swiftly across the empty hall for the stairs. It had been Sara’s idea that he should get in and up to James’s room as quickly as possible and so avoid any imperious advice not to disturb the patient, but the hall remained silent. Sister Yvonne and her colleagues must be standing guard over some other ailing inmate, Andrew supposed, and framed the idea in his mind to tell James this as amusingly as he could. But the moment he entered the room he could see that James, who was awake and would have preferred not to be, would be neither receptive to the joke nor capable of laughing. Andrew stifled a gasp. In the space of three days James seemed to have lost half the air in his body. He lay on top of his bed like a half-deflated, greyish container for a human being rather than a person who properly filled his own frame. His breathing was short. In his eyes Andrew saw relief rather than pleasure to see him, and fear. James raised both hands, which were trembling violently. Beneath the covers his legs and torso kicked and jerked.

‘It feels like things are crawling all over me. It’s disgusting. All over. I shut my eyes and I see things, it’s horrible. I haven’t slept.’

‘But—’ Andrew gathered his wits just in time to remember that it would not be a good idea to let James see how alarmed he was. ‘What does the doctor say? Dr Golightly’s seen you, surely?’

James nodded. ‘Didn’t say much. Try to rest. Body needs time. Keep fluids up.’ He closed his eyes. ‘But I feel sick all the time. I can’t control my hands. Can you get Tom? Please get Tom.’

Andrew considered for a moment, and spoke calmly.
‘The first thing I think I should do is get you to a hospital. Don’t you think that’s where you should be?’

‘I told them that, I said I’ve never ever felt this bad. Dr G said highly inadvisable. Yvonne says nursing’s appalling at the RUH, I’m better off here. Dr G doesn’t want—’

‘To hell with what Dr G wants.’ Andrew felt his earlier anger rise up again and this time he directed it, rightly or wrongly he did not care, towards Stephen Golightly. He was too furious to waste time arguing. ‘I think a little direct action is called for. Come on. Get that blanket round you. Now—that’s it. Put your arms round my neck and hang on.’

James breathed thanks, before allowing himself to be wrapped in the blanket and lifted from the bed. On a better day he might have managed some facetious remark about Andrew’s butch arms but he said nothing more, simply hoping he was not too heavy and that he would be able to lie still. On the hazardous way down he hung on and kept his eyes closed, nervous in principle but almost doubting if the experience of landing on the hall floor, having been dropped down five flights of stairs, would in practice make him feel any worse than he did already.

From the window of the treatment room Sister Yvonne saw the large, fluttering white bundle being carted down to the car park, opened her mouth to squawk and closed it again. For there was nobody she could squawk to. Dr Golightly was upstairs seeing Mrs Valentine, Joyce was in her room with her damn dog who, she claimed, was still sick, and the only other people on the premises also had problems of their own. She turned from the window and looked closely at Hilary on the couch.

‘Feeling a bit better, now?’ she asked, with genuine
concern. She had surprised herself by finding that she could actually feel tenderly towards the woman.

Hilary, lying white-faced, began to cry again and tried to sit up.

‘Oh, dear, dear, dear,’ Yvonne said, settling her back down. ‘Don’t try to move yet. Just you lie there, dear, till Ivan gets back. You’re going to be fine. No pain, is there? No? Now remember, that’s a very good sign.’ She smiled a smile of professional optimism. ‘Spotting’s terribly common in the first few weeks, remember. It’s usually nothing to worry about at all. I know it’s upsetting, of course you’re worried, but staying calm’s the best thing you can do for Baby. Isn’t it?’

The door opened and Ivan entered, carrying a cup and saucer. The sight of his face, as white as Hilary’s and scarcely less frightened, brought a lump to Yvonne’s throat. He must want that baby as desperately as Hilary did. She squeezed her crossed fingers in her uniform pocket, begging some imagined, consultant-like deity, the great Obstetrician in the Sky, that Hilary’s unexpected slight show of blood should not be the start of a miscarriage. Please make it all right for them, poor things.

‘Has it stopped?’ Ivan asked anxiously. ‘There’s no more, is there?’

Hilary shook her head. ‘It’s only the bit I saw when I went to the loo.’

‘And it’s bright red, not thick and dark,’ Yvonne said comfortably. ‘That’s another good sign. And when you’re feeling better, we’ll ring your midwife. I expect she’ll want to check you over.’

Hilary managed a weak smile to Ivan as he handed her
the cup of tea. He sat gingerly on the side of the couch and stroked her hair.

‘Poor Hil. Poor, poor Hilly. You mustn’t be frightened. You’ve had a dreadful shock, but it’s going to be all right. I
know
it will.’ Ivan’s eyes were glowing with love and confidence. Hilary sipped her tea and mustered her strength. If Ivan could overcome his own fear in order to reassure her, then she must do the same for him. She smiled.

‘It will, pet. I’m sure it will. Baby’s going to be fine, aren’t you?’ she said, addressing her belly in a cooing tone. Ivan placed a hand on her stomach tenderly and she covered it with her own and let it rest there, feeling her love pulsing like a pleasant sort of ache into him, through his hand and down into the wet cave under her skin where the baby lay.

Sister Yvonne had been a nurse too long to feel any medical shyness but she averted her eyes from them and turned again to the window. She was past all the wanting babies business, now. Babies hadn’t been an option for her and Chris but hey (as Chris would say), they had so much else going for them. They had each other, a nice house, good jobs and good friends. Eleven years now. Nobody got absolutely everything they wanted in this life, she thought, sighing and turning back from the window. And right this minute she had better concentrate on what to do next. Ivan and Hilary had better stay together here, which meant that she and Joyce would have to oversee the catering girls and the preparation of supper, though she was willing to bet that Joyce would either refuse to leave her dog, or not be in her room. Where did that woman go? She could, Yvonne supposed, manage by herself if necessary. There weren’t all that many to feed now, after all. She
had already thought better of going up to Dr Golightly, who was still with Mrs Valentine, to tell him of James’s departure. The doctor had enough to worry about already, because quite apart from the possible miscarriage of his grandchild, Mrs Valentine was really not at all well. In fact, Sister Yvonne did not like the look of her at all.

Y
UKO
M
ATANO PLACED
the lilies on the floor by the door to the Ladies and stood quietly with her head bowed. Andrew waited behind her, appalled at her dignity, appalled too that the poignancy of the gesture had to compete with the squalor of its setting. There could be no comfort in Mrs Takahashi’s meeting her end here. Her eyes had not rested on anything beautiful in the seconds before her killer took her forever beyond beauty. She had died in a dirty corridor outside a lav, and there was nothing in that fact that could elevate it to the status of a place of pilgrimage. Only the love of a sister inspired to leave lilies did that. Andrew’s eyes filled with tears.

Mrs Matano turned and signalled that she was ready to leave. They were walking back towards Manvers Street, the formalities over, when Andrew glanced down at her and saw that tears were running silently down her face. Not caring if he was meant to or not, he took her elbow and steered her into the coffee place in the Podium. When they were sitting down with cups of espresso Mrs Matano smiled and apologised. Andrew saw how tired she was. His shame at not being able to report that her sister’s killer had been charged left him almost unable to say anything at all.