Jigsaw Man (6 page)

There had been two possible identities put forward for what they had believed was
a single body in the burnt-out car. The first was a vagrant who went by the name
of Dodger. Described by those who came across him as being anything between the ages
of fifty and seventy, rumour had it that he was an ex-soldier who had seen action
in the first Gulf war. He had been a regular in the area for a while and had often
been seen at the back of Sainsbury's at night, sitting by the warm air vent from
the bakery. He hadn't been seen since the fire and the first assumption had been
that it was his body in the back of the car. However, they didn't have much to go
on; just an artist's impression of him, which revealed little more than a heavily
bearded face. They needed to find out Dodger's real identity and try to trace any
living relatives to see if they could get a familial DNA match. If he wasn't one
of the four victims, they needed to find him urgently to ascertain if he had seen
anything suspicious on the night the car was set on fire.

The second possible murder victim was a businessman named Richard English, whose
wallet containing driving licence and credit cards had been found on the ground beside
the burnt-out wreck, still just about intact enough to be identifiable. A set of
keys had also been recovered close by, the fob bearing the initial ‘R'. English had
been reported missing two years previously and none of the cards had been used since
that time. English's wife, Lisa, had been briefly interviewed and had given permission
for their young daughter to be swabbed to see if there was a familial link.

‘Can you check to see if any of the body parts have been frozen?' Tartaglia asked
Moran.

‘No problem. I'll get back to you tomorrow, if that's OK.'

‘And we'll need to establish how old the bones are, although something smells pretty
recent.'

‘I'll call in an anthropologist, if you're OK with the cost?'

Tartaglia nodded. ‘Were the bones all cut up in the same way?'

‘Yes. As you'll see when you get the images, they were dismembered quite cleanly
at the joints, using some sort of a serrated blade, probably a hacksaw. There are
also a few traces on some of the bones of a sharp-bladed knife having being used.'

‘A professional job?'

Moran sniffed loudly. ‘Hard to tell. Could just be somebody with basic butchery skills,
or access to the Internet.'

‘And you're saying the arms and legs are female?'

‘That's right. And the hands. I might have picked up the mismatch sooner if it had
been the pelvis or skull. Much easier to spot. The skull and torso belong to two
different males.'

Tartaglia stared at the pieces. Why bother to get hold of four bodies, cut them up
and fit them together somehow to make one. A number of people had access to body
parts or whole bodies: medical students, or mortuary or hospital attendants, for
starters. But without having an idea of the age of the various parts, let alone some
sort of ID for the bodies, it was impossible to know where to start. In the meantime,
how the hell was he going to keep it all quiet?

‘What samples were taken at the post mortem?' he asked. It had been carried out earlier
that day, while he had been busy at the Dillon Hotel.

‘We managed to get a few soft-tissue samples here and there, particularly from around
the tops of the legs and the thighs, but I've also taken samples of bone and some
teeth.'

‘Any news on the DNA sample we sent to the lab from Richard English's daughter?'

‘I've been chasing it. We should hear back by tomorrow.'

‘What about the age profile of the victims, or any other identifying characteristics?'

‘As you know, these things aren't precise, but I'd put victims B and D, the owners
of the torso and legs, in the mid-twenties to mid-forties range, although D is at
the younger end of the spectrum. No sign of cause of death for either. As for victim
A, the owner of the skull, he's older. Looking at the cranial sutures, they're getting
really smooth, so he's got to be post-middle age.
There's a depressed fracture to
the top right-hand side of the skull, indicating a blunt-force injury of some type.
Although it's difficult to say categorically without seeing the rest of the body,
the blow would have been sufficient to cause death on its own. Based on bone density,
victim C, the female, is elderly. As with victims B and D, no sign of cause of death.
I'll send you a full analysis some time tomorrow.'

Tartaglia felt suddenly woozy, questions multiplying like flies, answers nowhere
to be seen. Where did Richard English fit in? Was it sheer coincidence that his wallet
had been found at the scene, or was he one of the victims? According to the file,
he was in his late fifties, so not an instant match for either victim A or B, although
as Moran had said, such things weren't precise. Not for the first time that day,
Tartaglia had the uncomfortable feeling of being out of control, nothing making sense.
The charred remains in front of him swam in and out of focus, the stench unbearable.
He needed to get out of there. He looked up at Moran, tried to stifle a yawn and
failed.

‘Anything else I should know?'

Moran shook his head, giving him an appraising look. ‘That's about it for now. I'd
go and get some sleep, Mark. I think you're going to need it.'

Minderedes pulled up outside Tartaglia's house and Tartaglia got out of the car.
As he turned in through the gate and walked up the path, he heard music coming from
inside. He unlocked the front door and let himself into his flat. Music filled the
room from his new Bang & Olufsen system and he recognised the song. ‘Down' by
Jay Sean. Donovan had always liked it but it brought back less than pleasant memories
for him. The last time he had heard it, he'd been with her, in a bar off Shepherd's
Bush, when she had told him she was leaving the Met. ‘I've had
enough. I've just
come to the end of the line. Nothing personal,' she'd said. He could still hear her
words, the song linked to that memory. He wondered if she remembered as well.

She sat curled up on the sofa, legs tucked under her, staring vacantly ahead. Her
bags were still by the front door of the flat, where he had left them a couple of
hours before. Apart from plugging her iPhone into the sound system dock, it didn't
look as though she had moved.

‘Are you hungry?' he asked, taking off his jacket and boots, which were wet from
the rain. He had to repeat himself before he got her attention. She shook her head.
‘Glass of wine?' She looked blearily over at him and he mimed raising a glass to
his lips, then mouthed the word ‘wine'. After a moment, she nodded.

He went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of Barolo from a case his father had
sent him. It was just as well she wasn't hungry as he'd had no time to shop. He had
a quick check in the cupboards and the fridge. Sardines on toast was about as much
as he could cobble together, but that didn't really appeal. Perhaps he should get
a takeaway, maybe Indian, or Thai, or maybe Sushi . . . He ran through the list of
local options in his head, but nothing really grabbed him, and he felt too tired
to wait. Still mulling it over, he took the two glasses of wine back into the sitting
room and handed one to Donovan. She took it from him automatically, barely glancing
up.

He sat down in a chair opposite, put his feet up on the coffee table and lit a cigarette.
She gazed away into a far corner of the room. It was as if he wasn't there. He still
couldn't fathom why she had decided to stay with him. The song that was playing,
something catchy by Taio Cruz, segued into Plan B's ‘She Said', which was more to
his liking. He had decided to let her have his bedroom and he would sleep on the
sofa. Even if he had had the energy to clear out the box room and blow up the air
mattress somebody had lent him, it was cold and uncomfortable. He needed a decent
night of sleep if he was to survive the next day. He had half-hoped to find her already
tucked up in bed by the time he came back from the mortuary. He wanted to be by himself
and let the events of the day gradually fall into place in the peace of his own home.
But that wasn't to be. How was he going to be able to move her into the bedroom so
that he could go to bed? He finished his cigarette and decided that if he was going
to sit there listening to music for a while, he must have something to eat. After
a moment's thought, he took his phone from his jacket pocket, went back into the
kitchen, where it was quieter, and ordered a selection of meze from a Lebanese restaurant
around the corner, plus a couple of beers. Maybe if she saw him eating she would
feel like having something too. They told him they would deliver it to his flat in
fifteen minutes and he loaded a tray with plates and cutlery and went back into the
sitting room.

Donovan still hadn't moved, although she seemed to have drunk some wine, which was
a good sign. He sat down again, leant back heavily into the cushion of the chair
and put his feet back up on the table, his thoughts turning automatically to the
next day's work. There was the team briefing in the office at seven, after which
he and Minderedes were due to drive over to the car park in Lambeth where the burnt-out
Panda had been found. The priority was to find the homeless man known as Dodger,
who might have witnessed what had happened. After that, they were due to interview
Richard English's wife, Lisa. As the music changed to Adele's ‘Someone Like You',
he glanced over at Donovan. Her expression had changed and he saw tears flood her
eyes and stream down her cheeks. She put her glass on the coffee table and covered
her head with her arms, her body shaking.

He waited a moment, then, wondering what was the best thing to do, got up, crossed
the room and sat down beside her. Without thinking, he put an arm around her and
pulled her to him. She felt as rigid as a block of stone, but he continued to hold
her, stroking her, trying to soothe her, until he felt a gradual, almost grudging
release of tension. After a few minutes, her shoulders stopped shaking and she pulled
back and looked up at him.

‘Sorry. This song . . . Makes me think of Claire.'

‘It's fine. Don't worry. Shall I put something else on?'

She nodded and he got up and took her iPhone off the dock. He went and got his phone
and sat down again beside her, tabbing through until he found a playlist of old stuff
he'd put together to help him wind down late at night. He quickly checked the songs.
It probably wasn't her cup of tea, knowing her and Claire's taste in music, but at
least it wouldn't have any painful associations. His phone synched with the speakers,
he pressed play and Moby's ‘18' filled the room.

‘I keep thinking . . .' she said, after a few moments. ‘I keep thinking “why”. I
mean, why Claire?' She spoke quietly, her words a little slurred, and he could only
just make out what she said over the music.

He didn't know what to reply. It was the question that everybody asked who had lost
someone. There was usually no good answer.

‘I need to know why,' she continued. ‘Everything I did before . . . with work . .
.'

‘I know how difficult this is for you. But we don't know why yet.'

‘What happened? What was she doing in that hotel? Did you see her? Please . . .'

Again he tried to blot out the images of Claire from that morning, as though somehow
there was a risk that Donovan
could telepathically see them too. He held his fingers
to her mouth. ‘No, Sam. You know I can't tell you.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I can't. And it's best you don't know.'

She shook her head. ‘Steele said . . .' Tears welled again in her eyes as she stared
at him. ‘She said Claire'd been strangled.'

He nodded.

‘In a hotel room.'

He nodded again, wondering how much she had been told, although he was sure Steele
had kept it to the bare minimum. Even though Donovan was a former colleague and friend,
in her current state there was little point revealing more than was absolutely necessary.

‘She asked why Claire was there, like she was . . . she sort of implied she was .
. .'

‘An escort?'

She nodded.

‘It's an obvious question, as you know. It has to be asked.' Steele had put the same
question to him: was there was any chance that, either for kicks or money, Claire
Donovan had visited a stranger in his hotel room. He had told her that, based on
what he knew of Claire, plus the fact that she had booked the room with her own credit
card, made it seem highly unlikely. ‘She knows Claire was a successful lawyer,' he
continued. ‘She didn't need the money and I made it clear that it couldn't possibly
be that, so don't worry on that score.'

She frowned. ‘But why was Claire there, in a man's room? Who
is
he? I mean she must've
. . .' The words tumbled out haphazardly, as though she was talking to herself and
didn't expect an answer.

‘We don't know who he is or why she was there.'

‘She must've known him, trusted him. She . . . Was she—' She stopped and looked up
at him again.
Raped.
That was what she wanted to ask, but he wasn't going to fill
in the gaps for her and raise further questions, nor would he lie. He needed to stop
the flow.

‘We need to wait for the post-mortem.'

‘You saw her. What did she look like? Did she suffer?'

‘Please, Sam. Don't.'

She shook her head. ‘Don't ask. I know. Sorry. It's got to be someone she knew.'

‘It looks that way.'

‘Not a stranger.' She turned to him. ‘Tell me what
you
think? Please.'