Stop Dead (15 page)

Clearing his throat nervously he accosted a station guard at the barrier.

‘I want to report an incident,’ he said and paused, trying to think of the right words.

‘Oh yes? Is it a complaint form you want?’

The guard gazed apathetically at Gideon.

‘No. It’s nothing like that.’

He hesitated.

‘Is it a suspicious package?’ the guard prompted him indifferently.

‘No. There’s a dead body.’

He had the guard’s interest now.

‘A dead person on the train?’

‘No.’

Gideon could hear himself gabbling as he explained.

‘Slow down, mate,’ the guard interrupted him. ‘You’re sure about this?’

‘I’m sure.’

Glancing up he noticed the station clock and realised he was going to be late for his stepfather’s lunch.

‘Look, I’ve got to go –’ he began.

The guard shook his head at Gideon.

‘You’ll have to wait here, mate. The police are going to want to talk to you.’

‘W
here the hell are we going now? It’s not our patch. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell us what’s going on?’

They were sitting on the tube, travelling west to Rayner’s Lane station. Normally Sam was keen to visit crime scenes and busy herself with all the activity associated with a murder investigation, anything that took her away from sitting at a desk entering reports on the system, but today she was cantankerous.

‘I hope this isn’t going to take too long.’

‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ Geraldine replied evenly, ‘but it could be a long day. We’ll just have to see how it goes. We can get off as soon as we’ve done what needs to be done.’

Sam groaned.

‘You know what the job involves. This is nothing new. So what are you complaining about? What’s the problem?’ Geraldine asked her.

The sergeant shrugged.

‘No problem – it’s just that it’s Saturday and I’m supposed to be going out this evening. I wouldn’t mind as a rule, but it’s Sally’s sister’s hen night and I promised I’d be there.’

Geraldine didn’t bother to answer. There was nothing more to say. They both knew what the job demanded of them.

‘I still don’t get why it has to be us,’ Sam broke her sullen silence. ‘It’s not our area, is it?’

‘That’s what makes it so interesting.’

They fell silent again, considering the implications of the summons they had received. Their presence had been requested by the Homicide Assessment team who had been first on the scene. When Sam spoke again, Geraldine was pleased that she was no longer thinking about her plans for the evening.

‘Either the victim is connected to Henshaw, or it’s an identical murder.’

The station was cordoned off. A couple of uniformed constables were turning travellers away at the barrier as Geraldine and Sam crossed to the platform.

‘But how long is it going to be closed?’ a woman was asking as they passed.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t say, madam.’

‘What’s going on? Is it a bomb?’ the shrill voice persisted.

‘Some selfish bastard gone and thrown themselves under a train, more like,’ an irate man said.

‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any information.’

From the top of a stone staircase, Geraldine spotted the luminous yellow high-vis tactical vest of a British Transport Police officer on the platform and nodded at him, holding up her warrant card. He hurried up the stairs to meet them. Flushed with exertion he led them back down the stairs, past several benches and a waiting room, to the far end of the platform where a small metal gate displayed a notice: Passengers must not pass beyond this point. They descended a ramp with rusty railings running down the side of the slope furthest from the track. At the bottom the officer turned sharp right, away from the train track, to where a forensic tent stood on long grass in front of a barbed wire fence bearing a sign: No rubbish to be deposited. Geraldine was glad she wasn’t wearing a skirt as they clambered over rough ground, through nettles and stout brambles that would have torn her tights to shreds and scratched her legs. As it was, thorns nicked her trousers, catching at the fabric.

‘The line’s suspended eastbound,’ the officer explained. ‘The trains are going straight through so you won’t be disturbed.’

‘Not by trains anyway,’ Sam muttered.

On the far side of the tent, the police officer pointed to a break in the wire fence.

‘That’s where the body must have been dragged through – the grass was flattened and the brambles broken, but there’s nothing to indicate who brought it here.’

Beyond a grass verge on the other side of the fence they could make out a narrow track.

‘There’s a car park further along,’ their guide added, following the direction of Geraldine’s gaze. ‘SOCOs are still examining it.’

Inside the tent, Geraldine gazed down in surprise at a body lying in the glare of bright lights, its face horribly contorted and stained on one side with dark blood from a head wound. The victim was lying on his back with one arm flung upwards as though caught in a vain attempt to ward off his attacker. His head was turned to one side towards the train line, eyes wide open, mouth gaping in a silent cry of protest. Geraldine could only see his face, chest and legs. His torso was concealed behind the kneeling figure of a pathologist who was examining the body, but she could see that his clothes had been cut open.

She turned to a scene of crime officer who was hovering behind her.

‘What’s the story here?’

The officer stepped forward, his eyes peering anxiously at her above his mask.

‘The body’s related to your current case, ma’am. We should have an identity soon –’

Geraldine interrupted him.

‘That’s George Corless.’

‘Who?’

‘George Corless. He’s the business partner of the victim in the case I’m investigating.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m positive. I questioned him only yesterday.’

‘Well, that saves us a bit of time,’ the SOCO replied, suddenly cheering up.

Geraldine felt an unaccustomed sense of revulsion in the presence of death. She had seen bodies of people she had met before they died, family members she had known for years, including her own adopted mother, but this was the first victim of a violent death she had spoken to before they were killed. George had been an ordinary man, the kind of person she might pass in the street every day. He had been offhand with her, guarded in his response to her questions. And now he was about to undergo a post-mortem. Up until now the cadavers she had seen had been no more than dead victims in a case to be investigated, but for the first time she gazed at a corpse recalling his mannerisms, the sound of his voice, the way he had frowned at her. It was unsettling and totally unexpected.

The scene of crime officer’s voice recalled her to the situation.

‘Yes, it’s a good job, you recognising him like that. Saves us a bit of hassle.’

She shook her head, frowning.

‘Am I missing something here? Only I don’t get it. How did you make the connection to the Henshaw case if you didn’t know who you’ve got here?’

It was the scene of crime officer’s turn to look surprised.

‘I thought you knew,’ he said. ‘It’s the pattern of injuries that suggested there might be a link.’

He shifted to one side to allow Geraldine an unobstructed view of the body.

She stepped forward so she could see past the pathologist who hadn’t yet looked up from his work. Corless had a nasty wound on the side of his head, and with a horrible sense of déjà vu she saw that he had also been beaten in the genitals.

‘Oh my God,’ Sam blurted out.

She looked very pale.

‘Now my Saturday night is definitely ruined.’

‘It hasn’t done much for his either,’ Geraldine replied tersely. ‘Oh well, that’s Corless ruled out as a suspect.’

‘Which means the spotlight’s back on young Romeo and his ageing Juliet.’

‘Hey, less of the ageing,’ Geraldine said sharply, but she was smiling.

Sam nodded sheepishly. She had forgotten that Geraldine was getting on for forty herself, hard though that was to believe.

A light rain began to fall, drumming out a soft rhythm on the roof of the tent.

‘Shit,’ the scene of crime officer grumbled. ‘It’s going to be a mud bath out there. And I left my umbrella in the car. Typical.’

They hung around for a while, talking about the crime. They would be able to establish if Corless had arrived by train, in which case they might even be able to see if he had been accompanied there. The high fence between the platform and the waste ground made it more likely that he had arrived by car and made his way down the incline from a footpath that ran behind the waste ground. If that proved to be the case there would be no CCTV film of his arrival and might be few clues about whether he had been carried there post mortem, or had been killed where he had been found. And there might be nothing to indicate who had arrived there with him.

Scene of crime officers were outside examining the area around the deposition site. While Geraldine and Sam were in the tent studying the victim and speculating about what had happened, an officer entered to report that tracks had been discovered which suggested that Corless had walked across the wasteland from the direction of the footpath. It confirmed what they had already suspected.

‘Was he alone?’

‘We’re trying to establish if he was accompanied, but it’s almost impossible to ascertain in all the undergrowth, and now it’s beginning to rain into the bargain. But it’s unlikely there was more than one other person with him. There’s not enough disturbance on the ground to suggest more than two people.’

‘First Henshaw, now Corless,’ Geraldine said. ‘It looks like we need to pay another visit to Mireille. What do you think, Sam? What’s behind it? Is it about money? Or did someone have a grudge against them?’

‘That’s a heck of a grudge,’ the sergeant replied, glancing at the victims’ injuries and shuddering. ‘Who would do that?’

They stood in silence for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, observing the body. Then Geraldine turned to the sergeant.

‘We’ll go to the restaurant this afternoon, after we’ve spoken to the witness who found Corless. We might as well speak to him now, while we’re here and it’s still fresh in his mind.’

Sam nodded.

‘Like you said, it’s going to be a long day.’

S
am glanced at her watch and cast a pleading look at Geraldine who gazed pointedly at her own watch.

‘Is that the time?’ Geraldine asked, raising her eyebrows with a show of surprise. ‘I thought it was much later than that.’

‘But it’s already three!’ Sam wailed. ‘I wanted to be away by five.’

‘Did you say you’re going out this evening?’

‘Well –’ Sam hesitated. ‘It’s just that it’s Saturday night, and technically I’m not on duty this evening, and I’m supposed to be going out and I’ve still got to get home and change and I really need to wash my hair and if I don’t get going soon I’m going to be late and it’s a hen night and I promised her I’d be there and if I let her down again she’s going to go mental … ’

Geraldine gave the sergeant a sympathetic smile.

‘Let’s crack on then, shall we, and see if we can get done in time? You speak to the guard who called us and I’ll question Gideon Grey.’

The witness who had reported the body was sitting in the dingy station office, sipping tea from a stained mug. He was around thirty, casual yet smart in dark jeans, a shirt and jacket. He looked up when Geraldine entered, and launched into an agitated complaint before she had even introduced herself.

‘I’ve been kept here, virtually a prisoner, for over an hour.’

‘I’m sorry sir, but we’ve come from Hendon. I’m Detective Inspector –’

‘I don’t care who the hell you are or if you’ve come from bloody Timbuktu, I’m supposed to be at a family party and all this has been –’

He broke off, his voice suddenly unsteady, eyeing the warrant card she was holding up.

‘I’m sorry sir, but you are aware this is a murder enquiry, and we really would like to take a statement from you. Your name is Gideon Grey?’

Gideon shrugged, no longer concealing his shock behind a smokescreen of anger.

‘Look, I’m sorry, really, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’ve no idea who the old stiff is. I’ve never seen him before in my life and – I wish I never had seen him, I can tell you that for nothing.’

He heaved a sigh that shook his shoulders.

‘I’m sorry he’s dead and all that, but this has got nothing to do with me, it just happened to be me that saw him. When the train stopped I was sitting right opposite him or I’d never even have noticed him. He wasn’t exactly conspicuous out there. He could have been there for days for all I know. Shit, I shouldn’t even have been on that train. It’s only because the Met line isn’t working that I used the Piccadilly line at all today. I knew I should’ve stayed at home.’

He paused to take a sip of his tea and screwed up his face.

‘This is disgusting.’

‘Mr Grey, can you tell me exactly what happened?’

He shrugged, tapping the toe of a scuffed shoe on the dusty floor.

‘There’s not much to tell.’

His expression sombre, he described how he had been startled on catching sight of the dead man’s face staring at him through the train window.

‘It scared the shit out of me, I can tell you. I mean, I didn’t really take it in, not at first. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to see when you’re just sitting on a train, minding your own business. Some stiff, right outside your window, in broad daylight. But the train wasn’t moving, and there he was, right enough, dead as a doornail.’

Geraldine glanced up from her notebook.

‘You knew straight away that he was dead then?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘How what?’

‘How could you be sure he was dead?’

‘It was kind of obvious, really. You didn’t need a medical degree to know that.’

He paused, remembering.

‘It was the flies,’ he explained, and shivered. ‘It was gross. There were all these flies buzzing around him – those big fat bluebottles, you know? – and his eyes were open. He was just lying there, staring, without blinking. I tried to see exactly what had happened to him and I thought I made out blood on the side of his head, but it wasn’t that easy to see what was what, in all the weeds and stuff. But I knew he was dead alright. No one lies that still, with their eyes open, and all those flies.’