Chain of Evidence

46

Ellen stared at the body. The blood, bone chips and brain matter had slid down the wall here and there, and were beginning to dry. A couple of flies had got into the house. The left side of van Alphen’s skull had taken the brunt of the shot: massive damage that still left enough of the face intact to confirm identity. Scobie Sutton was sketching the scene in his notebook. Like Ellen, and the crime scene technicians, he wore disposable overshoes.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Kellock, grim-faced in the doorway.

They were friends, thought Ellen, and now he was to inform the super.

‘Who found him?’

‘I did. Went looking for him, as I said I would, and recognised his car.’

‘What do you suppose he was doing here?’

Kellock shrugged. ‘Doing his own thing.’

‘Doing his own thing, and look where it got him. Do we know who lives here?’

‘I looked through the bills,’ Kellock said, indicating a shallow fruit bowl piled with papers, unopened envelopes, spare keys, a hair tie and a half packet of potato chips sealed with a clothes peg. Every house in the land has a receptacle like that, Ellen thought.

‘And?’

‘Rosemary McIntyre.’

Ellen cast back in her mind. ‘The name doesn’t mean anything. Does it mean anything to you?’

‘No. I called it in and they ran it through the computer. Solicitation, twelve years ago.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

When Kellock had left, Ellen looked for a calendar or diary but found nothing. Then the pathologist arrived and she watched him examine the body. She realised that her mouth was dry and she wasn’t feeling her customary remoteness. She was well aware that the job had desensitised her. That was necessary. She was quite able to attend an autopsy and cold-bloodedly note the angle of a knife wound or gunshot, knowing that that information might catch a suspect out in a lie (‘He tripped and fell on my knife’), but right now her eyes were pricking with tears. Van Alphen was a fellow police officer. She blinked and looked keenly at Scobie Sutton. ‘Your first dead copper?’ she murmured.

‘Yes.’

‘Upsetting.’

‘I regret every violent death, Ellen.’

Sometimes he could sound like a churchman or a politician. ‘Come off it, Scobe.’

‘He was a nasty piece of work.’

‘He didn’t always follow regulations,’ Ellen conceded.

‘He and Kellock shot Nick Jarrett in cold blood,’ Scobie said, ‘and more or less warned me not to investigate too hard.’

Ellen blinked. There were spots of colour on her colleague’s gaunt cheeks, his stick-like figure inclined toward her, draped in his habitual dark, outmoded suit. She backed up a step. The technicians and the pathologist were looking on interestedly but hadn’t heard the outburst.

‘All right, settle down,’ she murmured. ‘There’s an estranged wife and daughter, I believe?’

Scobie wiped his mouth. ‘I sent someone to inform them.’

‘Thank you.’

They stood for a while, watching the pathologist, who finally released the body. The local funeral director took charge then, overseeing as the body was loaded onto a gurney and taken out to a waiting hearse for transfer to the morgue. The pathologist sighed and pulled off his latex gloves with a couple of snaps.

‘Time of death, doc?’ Ellen asked.

‘Time of death. It’s always time of death with you people.’

‘Well?’

‘Last night. Late evening. I can’t be more specific than that.’

‘Thanks,’ Ellen said. She paused, then muttered to Scobie, ‘I want you to bring Laurie Jarrett in for questioning. Meanwhile I’ll see if I can find Van’s witness.’

‘If he exists,’ said Scobie heatedly. ‘Van Alphen was probably trying to divert attention away from the Jarrett shooting. Trying to make himself look good.’

‘Even so.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

Ellen cocked her head. Was he hoping to find a diary or journal in which van Alphen described the true circumstances of the Jarrett shooting? Before she could reply, a voice called from the front of the house, a woman’s cigarettes-and-whisky voice, full of outrage. ‘What are you lot doin’ here? I live here, you bastard, take your hands off me.’

They heard her pounding through the house. She burst in on them, shouting, ‘You got a warrant?’

Then she spotted the gore, and went white, rocking on her feet. Ellen guided her back to the sitting room at the front of the house. The newcomer was about forty, dressed in high heels, a black, short-sleeved beaded top, a knee-length tan skirt and dark stockings. Thick, dirty-blonde hair. Plenty of gold on her slim fingers. Slim legs and ankles, Ellen noticed, but a bit heftier around the bum and chest. A good-looking woman, a woman who liked the nightlife.

‘Rosemary McIntyre?’

‘Who wants to know? Was someone hurt? What’s going on?’

Ellen introduced herself and then Scobie. ‘First, can you tell us where you were last night?’

Not so belligerent now, Rosemary McIntyre gazed about her sitting room, which was dominated by a home entertainment unit, huge white leather armchairs facing it. There were a couple of pewter photo frames and very little else. ‘Out,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘I work up in the city.’

‘Where?’

Rosemary McIntyre folded her arms stubbornly. ‘Siren Call.’

‘The brothel?’

‘Legal brothel.’

‘I’m not making judgements. Were you there all evening?’

‘Since six yesterday afternoon. I’m exhausted, and come home to this.’

Ellen didn’t doubt that her alibi would check out. ‘Does the name Sergeant van Alphen mean anything to you?’

“Course it does.’

Ellen regarded her for a moment. ‘That’s his blood on your floor and wall.’

Rosemary McIntyre screwed up her face tightly, then relaxed it, breathed out, looking bewildered. ‘Don’t know anything about that. I mean, what was he doing here?’

‘Well, you’re the one who says his name means something to you.’

‘Well, duh.’

‘Explain, please. Are you having a relationship with Sergeant van Alphen?’

The woman flushed angrily. ‘Are you having a go at me? Are you? Fucking bitch.’

‘No, I am not having a go at you. I’m trying to piece together what happened here.’

‘Van Alphen,’ said Rosemary McIntyre heavily, ‘is one of the bastards that shot Nick.’

‘You knew Nick Jarrett?’

‘He’s my second cousin,’ said Rosemary McIntyre, as if Ellen and the whole world should have known that.