Remains to be Seen (11 page)

T
he post-mortem report was a mixture of disappointment and usefulness for the team who eagerly awaited it.

There was still nothing to identify the body. The fire had destroyed all the clothing; even the shoes, so often a clue to identification, had almost entirely fused with what was left of the feet within them. Certain fragments had been sent to forensic, but all that could be said with any certainty was that the shoes had probably been trainers, the most common of all footwear in the Britain of the twenty-first century. There were no rings and no watch. It was quite possible, of course, that these had been removed after death by whoever had placed the body in the old stable block, but too little of the fingers and flesh remained to indicate whether a ring or a watch had been regularly worn by the deceased.

But certain significant facts had nevertheless emerged. The corpse was that of a man in early middle age, most likely in his early forties, in the pathologist's opinion, though he warned that under questioning in court he might have to give a wider age band. If local questioning failed and they had to resort to combing the Missing Persons register in a search for identity, that would be some kind of help. The overwhelming majority of what the police call MISPAs are young people: this information would at least make for a more manageable field.

The man had died between not more than four and not less than two days before the fire. Again this opinion was hedged with the qualifications about the boundaries which could be asserted in a legal situation, but the pathologist had worked with Peach before and was prepared to give an ‘informed opinion' which pinned the time of death down a little more. This man had probably died on the Sunday before the fire. It was not as exact a time of death as the police would have liked, but it was far more precise than Peach and Blake had feared, when they had looked at that blackened shape against the wall of the ruined building.

Most significantly of all, there was an indication of how the man had died. Peach had feared when he saw that gross cinder among the charred remains of the stable block that they might never know how he had met his end, but pathology and forensic medicine make great strides with each passing decade. In the view of the man who had conducted the post-mortem examination, this unknown victim had died from asphyxiation. There was more than that: he had not been manually strangled, but despatched by means of a cord or cable tightened about his neck. No trace of this remained upon the body, and the finger ends and finger nails where they would have looked for signs of a struggle and material from a killer were completely destroyed. But there was enough of the throat and of the lung cavities in the torso for the pathologist to be certain that this is how the man had died.

Murder, then. What they had all suspected from the start was now scientifically confirmed for them.

The bare facts went out on Radio Lancashire at one o'clock. An unknown male body had been discovered in the aftermath of the fire on Wednesday night at Marton Towers. Foul play was suspected. The victim was probably a man in good health at the time of his death, and almost certainly aged between thirty-five and fifty. Police were anxious to speak to relatives or friends of any local person of that age who had disappeared without explanation in the week before the dramatic events of Wednesday evening.

Peach put DC Brendan Murphy beside a phone for the afternoon to deal with the plethora of calls which would inevitably result from this. Wives whose husbands had disappeared with younger models. The bitter spouses of husbands who had disappeared rather than pay the maintenance which had been allotted to their wives and families. Sons who found the increasing pressures of life with an Alzheimer's or physically disabled parent too much on top of a full-time job. The myriad other casualties of stress in what is asserted to be the most advanced state of civilization the world has seen.

Brendan Murphy was both sensitive and patient, the ideal man to deal sympathetically with calls which had to be listened to, but which you knew within ten seconds were going to be a waste of police time. He was also shrewd and intelligent: if the one call in a hundred came through which was vital, he wouldn't miss out on the importance of it.

The radio news item brought a swifter response than Percy Peach had dared to hope for. As it happened, Brendan Murphy's skills of diplomacy were not involved. The woman did not pick up a phone. She came into the town, sought out the raw brick of the huge new police station, and asked for the man in charge of the case.

Murder opens doors more quickly than any other crime. The desk sergeant knew his job, and the woman was ushered into DCI Peach's office within five minutes of her arrival.

Policemen are very good at assessing ages: it is part of their early training, part of the precision about detail which makes for accurate descriptions of suspects and witnesses, and it quickly becomes second nature to them. Peach put this woman at around seventy, or possibly a little younger. She appeared to be very disturbed at the moment, and distress always put years upon people's ages.

He took one look at her and ordered tea, without asking his visitor whether she wanted it. She was too full of emotion to engage in any of the social preliminaries of conversation. She said abruptly, ‘It's this body you've found. The one it talked about on the radio at lunchtime. I think it might be my Neil. Please God it isn't, but I think it might be.'

Peach gave her his understanding, sympathetic smile: the one in his considerable range which the criminal fraternity of the area never saw. ‘Please God it isn't, as you say, but you've done the right thing to come in here straight away, Mrs …?'

‘Simmons. Brenda Simmons. And my son is Neil. And in good health, as it said in the news. And he's forty-three. Well within the range you specified on the radio.'

‘I see. Well, you'd be surprised how many men in that age range have disappeared in the last week, Mrs Simmons. I have an officer who's been taking calls all afternoon about them. What makes you think that your missing son is the man we're trying to identify? Were you expecting to see him at some time during the last five days?'

‘No. He never comes home.' She stopped abruptly, wondering if she was correct still to be speaking in the present tense, and with that thought the fingers of her right hand flew suddenly to her mouth. ‘It's Norman, you see. He doesn't get on with Norman.'

‘Your partner?'

She looked at him as if she did not quite comprehend the word. ‘My husband. My second husband. Not Neil's dad. The two of them have never got on. I've tried to make them like each other, but they never have, and there it is.' It came out with scarcely a breath between the phrases, as if she had somehow to apologize for her part in this common modern phenomenon. When he thought she had finished, she added bleakly, ‘He won't come into the house at all, now, Neil. Not as long as Norman's there, he says.' She put both hands up to the hair at the sides of her head and felt around it carefully, as if she felt she could bring these two feuding men back together by maintaining the neatness of her coiffure.

Peach said, ‘But you were expecting Neil to contact you in some way.' His heart was already sinking: she hadn't even been expecting to see her son during the important days. The tea had arrived. He poured her a cup, tried not to look at his watch as precious minutes slipped away.

‘He phones me. Every Saturday or Sunday night, when he knows Norman is down at the snooker club. Failing that, some time on Monday. He never misses. He's a good son to me, really, though he's never stopped missing his dad. That's why he can't stand Norman, you see. But Norman's good to me – I can never make Neil see that.'

A forty-three-year-old man who'd omitted to ring his mother. It wasn't promising; Percy thought sadly of his own failings in such matters. He said, ‘He's probably just been busy, Mrs Simmons. Have you tried to contact him yourself since Sunday?'

‘I've tried, yes. He has one of those mobile things. But he hasn't answered me. It's ringing out of order.' She sipped her tea absently; her features twisted into a small, involuntary moue of distaste at its strength. Then, as if aware of the need for manners even at this time of suffering, she said, ‘It's nice and hot, though.'

Peach sighed and pulled his pad towards him. ‘I'll record your son as missing, Mrs Simmons. Get him put on our computer with the others. You'll let us know when he makes contact with you again, won't you? It's Neil, isn't it?'

‘Neil Cartwright. He kept his father's name when I married again.' That simple fact suddenly brought her close to the tears she had restrained. She said, ‘He had a good job at the Towers, you know. He worked hard, but he liked it up there.'

Peach was irritated. With himself, not with this confused and distressed woman: it was he who was at fault for not eliciting this important fact much earlier. He tried not to sound too eager as he said, ‘Your son worked at Marton Towers?'

‘Yes, didn't I tell you? He's a skilled carpenter. Does other things in the house as well; he even helps in the kitchen when it's necessary. But he's become more interested in gardening and outdoor things – he's been given responsibility for the estate at Marton Towers now. He's been there for the last four years.'

‘He lives on the site?' Peach was careful to keep to the present tense, but he had a feeling that he had found their victim.

Perhaps Mrs Simmons picked up a little of the excitement he felt. ‘You think it's my Neil, don't you?'

‘It's far too early to say that, Mrs Simmons. We shall have to check things out. As soon as we know anything at all, someone will be in touch with you.'

She finished her tea, put the cup and saucer carefully back on to the tray on Peach's desk, and said awkwardly, ‘There are things to do, aren't there? Things to confirm whether this is Neil or not.'

He realized that she was referring to the formal identification of a body, thought again of that blackened cinder with all the flesh burned away from it, resisted a shudder and realized that the only acceptable identification here must be by a DNA match. ‘One of my female officers will take what we call a DNA saliva sample from you, Mrs Simmons. It's quite painless, and will only take a few seconds.'

If she understood the reason for this, she gave no sign of it. He led her unresisting to the little room at the end of the CID section which they had optimistically dubbed the lab and left her as he had promised with a young DC, assuring her as he left that she would be the first to know when the corpse proved not to be that of her son.

But when he got back to his office he found that he had written the name NEIL CARTWRIGHT in capitals upon his pad.

‘There's nothing like a murder to get the sexual juices running freely. It's a well-known police fact, that.'

Lucy Blake could say nothing for at least half a minute because of the strength of her lover's embrace and the enthusiasm of his kiss. When she was allowed up for air, she said breathlessly, ‘I haven't noticed that your hormones need any encouragement, Percy Peach.'

‘Exciting word, that. Hormones, I mean. Reminds me of a joke which ran round the station in my early days. “When the whore moans, you know that you're—”'

‘We don't wish to know that, CDI Peach! Kindly leave the stage!' She detached herself from what seemed like multiple tentacles with a skill which came from much practice. ‘This room needs decorating.'

‘Now you're beginning to talk like a wife, not a fiancée.' He stared glumly at the offending decor. ‘I'll get round to it, one of these days. I don't seem to have much time, since you arrived, with your full and varied sexual activities.'

‘I'm going into that freezing kitchen of yours to make some coffee. Just bear that devotion in mind, next time you're thinking of excluding me from a police raid.'

‘Complain to your mum, if you're still moaning about that. See what she thinks of me keeping you out of the trenches.'

Lucy, who knew exactly how appreciative her mother would be of any protection offered to her beloved daughter, decided to let it go. She'd made her point, and she knew she wasn't actually being fair. The snatch of those dangerous men at Marton Towers had been far more suited to strong and aggressive males than to what she liked to think of as her subtler strengths. She brought in the coffee, then was unwise enough to let Percy see her glancing at the time on his mantelpiece clock.

Her fiancé said delightedly, ‘You're thinking of an early night, aren't you? And quite right, too! We shall need all our strength tomorrow for another long day. I'll just sip my coffee slowly, and brace myself for my partner's complex sexual demands.' He stared dreamily through the steam of his beverage at the wall which had so recently given her offence.

‘There's nothing complex about my demands. All I really need now is a good night's—'

Percy's finger was suddenly firmly upon her lips, preventing further speech. ‘Don't let that coarse word sully your beautiful mouth, my darling. Or at least save it for the warm darkness beneath the bedclothes. I'm a broadminded man, but a bit of a traditionalist in these things, and I don't mind admitting to you that some of your—'

‘I was going to say a good night's
sleep
, you wozzock!' said Lucy, flinging away his hand and trying hard not to laugh: the last thing this man needed was encouragement.

‘And that is what you shall have, my dear! And so shall I! A man of my advanced years will need several hours of unbroken rest after the prodigious sexual performance which you are about to demand from me.' He downed his coffee and let out a long, histrionic sigh of anticipatory pleasure.

Lucy decided to ignore this. ‘I'm going to get to bed before you. I don't want to have to endure your hideous gasps and grunts whilst I undress in your frozen bedroom. I can't see why you can't just bleed that radiator to get it working properly and cut out the shivers.'