Dead at First Sight

15 Wednesday 26 September

Glenn Branson, Norman Potting, Velvet Wilde and DC Kevin Hall crowded around Roy Grace in his office, looking at sets of photographs printed from the email sent by Detective Kullen of the Munich LKA.

The first photograph was of two women in evening gowns and looking very glamorous, one in a white outfit, with fair hair, the other in red, with dark hair.

‘Marcel said the woman in the white dress is the victim,’ Grace told them.

The next photographs were grim. Each was professionally taken from a different angle by a Crime Scene Photographer. The first group were taken in the street showing the victim in situ. One was a wide-angle shot showing the whole scene, the others were all close-ups. The subject, a blonde-haired woman in her forties, dressed only in shorts and a blood-stained T-shirt, was impaled on railings. Blood, the colour of oil, pooled all around her. Congealed blood masked her chin, like a beard.

The second set was taken in the mortuary. One was a close-up inside the dead woman’s mouth, showing the blackened stump of her severed tongue.

Grace glanced at their blanched faces and was reminded of the comment of a senior officer some years back: Wearing a uniform does not protect you from trauma.

For one of the few moments in all the years Grace had worked with Potting, the DS was silent.

Wilde’s face was ashen. Kevin Hall was silent, too.

‘Not pretty,’ Branson commented.

‘Cutting off her tongue has to be symbolic, don’t you think, chief?’ Potting said.

‘A warning not to talk, perhaps, Norman?’ Grace replied. ‘Could be.’

Kevin Hall, who had begun his career as a bookseller before joining the police, suddenly spoke. ‘Gottit!’ he said loudly, then looked around apologetically. ‘Can’t remember who wrote it, boss, but it might apply here. Something like, “A cutting word is worse than a bowstring. A cut may heal but a cut of the tongue does not.”’

Norman Potting pulled out a long slim black object from his pocket and vaped, several times in succession, blowing the steam at the ceiling. Then he tapped the device on the table.

Grace looked at him, about to chide him, then let it go. Looking at these images was making him crave a smoke himself. ‘For sure there’s some symbolism going on here. Maybe some kind of a warning to others. My understanding is this lady is the one to whom Johnny Fordwater had handed over his life savings — at least the one he thought he was handing them over to. The one he believed to be called “Ingrid Ostermann”, who we now know to be the Munich victim Lena Welch, who in addition to having her identity taken was also being scammed herself.’

Potting looked at the date and time printed on the first set of photographs. ‘Chief, these were taken at around 10.30 Monday night. At that time DC Wilde and I were interviewing Major Fordwater at Gatwick Airport. Which would give him a pretty good alibi, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yep, I guess it would,’ Grace replied.

‘How much do we know about what happened, sir?’ DC Wilde asked, looking at the photographs again, clearly uncomfortable with the images. ‘What was her cause of death?’

‘We might know more after the postmortem,’ Grace replied. ‘The LKA are concerned by a comment from a neighbour, who saw a man in her corridor, approaching Lena Welch’s apartment, shortly before she was found dead. Apparently this woman has given a good description — including his red shoes — and the Crime Scene Manager there is working with her on an identikit.’

‘Chief, as I said, Fordwater might be a former soldier, and could just about go to the toilet unaided, but I don’t think he’d be capable of killing anyone these days, and certainly not in Munich on Monday. Unless of course he’s a time traveller.’

Potting looked again at Velvet Wilde. Again, she nodded in agreement.

‘I think we can rule time travel out, Norman.’

‘I’m with you on that one, chief.’