Fallen Gods

Six

The medical examiner was not best pleased; his putting stroke had never been better and he had been looking forward for weeks to the summer meeting at Rosemount Golf Club.

He looked up at the two men who stood in the doorway of Miss Bonney's kitchen. "What can I tell you?" he exclaimed. "I can tell you he's bloody dead. That's self-evident. Did you really have to drag me down to this morass to tell you that?"

"I'm sorry, Doctor Duck," said Detective Chief Superintendent Rod Greatorix, the Tayside head of CID. "You know it's the form in a situation like this."

It was untypical for the even-tempered Andy Martin to be irked by the doctor's attitude, but he was. The man had moaned from the moment he had come splashing awkwardly down the stairs. "I've got fifty officers in this street," he snapped at him, suddenly, 'shovelling all sorts of shit. They're getting paid a hell of a lot less than you, so please, spare us your troubles."

The doctor rose to his feet and turned belligerently towards him. "And just who the hell are you, sir?" he demanded. "And who do you think you're talking to?"

"My shoulder-flashes are covered by this scene-of-crime tunic," Martin replied, 'but if you could see them you'd know that I'm the new deputy chief constable. Now I don't care, frankly, whether I get off to a good start with you, but you'd be well advised to start impressing me.

I expect the highest standard of professionalism at crime scenes, and I will not tolerate anything less… from anyone."

"Are you questioning my professional competence?" the man shot back.

Even in the murky cellar, Martin's green eyes seemed to flash, dangerously. "No," he said, evenly and quietly. "I'm telling you to get on with your job."

Dr. Duck looked at him for a few seconds longer, as if he was weighing him up, then he squatted down beside the body once again. The deputy chief and DCS Greatorix backed off and left him to his work.

"Is his name really Duck?" Martin whispered.

"Yes; first name Howard."

"Mmm. In that case I can see why he was golfing today, rather than shooting."

"Gentlemen," the doctor called from the corridor. "I've done as much as I can here; it would be helpful if the body could be moved."

The head of CID looked at Martin, as if for approval. "I know I made the call that this is a suspicious death, but this is your show, Rod," the DCC assured him, answering the unspoken question. "It was wrong of me to go for the ME, but he got under my skin. I won't interfere again."

Greatorix nodded, then spoke quietly to the police photographer, white-clothed like the rest of them. "Okay, doc," he answered, eventually. "We'll lift him out for you." He moved towards the hall, waving to a detective constable to join him.

"Careful," the doctor warned.

"Why?" the DCS asked, warily. "He's not going to fall apart, is he?"

"No, no; not yet, at any rate. But he's waterlogged and so are his clothes. He'll be heavy."

"I'll help," Martin volunteered. "You two take a leg each, I'll manage his shoulders." The detective constable looked at him, doubtfully.

"What's up?" he laughed. "Have you never seen a chief officer lift anything heavier than a pen before?"

"I've never seen one offer to do it, sir," the man replied.

"Well, you have now. I'll take the top end; you guys take the feet."

He considered the massive kitchen table, which looked as if it had been there since the house was built. "We'll plonk him on that."

The fact that the body was lying on its side in a confined space made their task all the more difficult. Martin had trouble easing his hands under its trunk, but eventually he managed, and pulled it clear of the mud. It came free with a great sucking sound; together, the three were able to turn it onto its back and lift it clear of the floor. Rigor mortis had come and gone, so the body was pliable, but the trickiness of their footing meant that they had to inch along, until finally they were able to lay the burden down on the table, face up.

"Thank you, gentlemen," said Dr. Duck. "I wonder if I could have some water now?"

The detective constable, who, the DCC had been amused to learn, was named Martin Andrews, nodded, picked up a bowl from amid the shambles on the floor, filled it from the tap in the sink, and placed it on the table, beside the body's head. The medical examiner thanked him again, and took a box of tissues from his case. He soaked a handful in the bowl, and began to wipe the thick mud from the head and face.

The police officers watched him work in silence for several minutes, until finally he nodded and glanced up at them. "Yes," he murmured, "I thought so." He beckoned. "See here." The three moved in, their eyes following his pointing finger, which drew them to the body's right temple, between the right eye and the top of the right ear. The skin was broken and discoloured. They focused on it, each trying not to look at the rest of the grotesque, puffy, dead face.

Duck pressed the area firmly, his fingers feeling around. "There's been a severe blow to the head; hard enough to cause a fracture, I'd say. What I can't say is whether it was sustained before or after the man went into the water. There's very little blood, but that doesn't mean anything. Only the pathologist will be able to tell you whether the injury was sustained pre- or post-mortem. It's over to him now, I'm afraid."

"Take a look at the wrists," Martin murmured. "Could he have been tied up?"

The examiner frowned, but did as he had been asked. "It's possible, I suppose," he said.

"Time of death?" asked Greatorix.

The ME looked distastefully at the victim, and sniffed. "Several days ago. That's another for the pathologist."

"Okay, doc, fair enough; you can head off now. Give me your statement tomorrow."

"I will' Dr. Duck glanced at his watch. "If I'm lucky, he grumbled, "I might even find a partner for later in the day."

They listened as he squelched his way back up the narrow staircase. The deputy chief patted the body on the shoulder with a gloved hand.

"Inconvenient of you to die," he murmured.

"Identification," said DCS Greatorix, abruptly. "Andrews, don't remove any of his clothing… that'll be done at the mortuary… but go through his pockets."

The young man, who was in his mid-twenties, grimaced. "Could that not wait, boss?" he asked; it was almost a plea.

"No, it can't. Go on, lad; just think of the day when you'll be able to order people like you to do the really dirty work." He turned to

Martin. "Fancy a breath of air, sir?"

"Do I ever." They followed in the doctor's footsteps, up the steep stair and into Miss Bonney's hall. Martin stripped off the all-covering scene-of-crime tunic and threw it on the floor, beside the one that the doctor had discarded. "I won't be going down there again," he said. He looked down at his white shirt, then at his reflection in a mirror that hung on the wall, above the level of the flood.

"Your wife's going to be pleased when she sees that shirt, Andy,"

Greatorix chuckled.

"What makes you think she's going to see it? This one's for the bin."

He frowned, suddenly and savagely. "I hate it when they've been in the water, Rod. It doesn't happen very often with homicides… that's assuming this is… but I had one in Edinburgh a year or so back. What a fucking mess he was in; much worse than that guy."

"It's never nice," the DCS said. His new deputy chief glanced at him, privately feeling self-conscious about being higher in rank than such an experienced and clearly capable officer. The head of CID was somewhere in his fifties, and could have been up to twenty years older than him. Martin knew that he had been a candidate for his job, and guessed that it was only his age that had told against him. Graham Morton, the Chief Constable, had made a point of telling him how highly

Greatorix was rated, but he had known that from the grapevine within the Superintendents' Association.

"I've had a few in my time too," he continued. "They're a bugger to begin with in terms of what you pull out, and they can get worse.

I just hope young Martin comes up with a name and address, otherwise we could have a problem. That's quite a big river over there, especially when it floods, and without an ID we won't have a clue where our guy went in. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that he didn't drift upstream. Christ, he needn't necessarily have gone in in our area at all. I've got a bad feeling about it already, Andy. I know he was in a state, but even at that, he looked like a bum. He needed a shave, and his hair looked as if he'd cut it himself… and badly at that."

"Let's wait for Andrews, then," said the DCS. He led the way out of the front door and down on to the pavement. There was an ambulance parked nearby; its rear doors were open and the crew, a man and a woman, were sitting inside. Two cars were parked alongside; one belonged to the DCS and the other to the detective constable and his sergeant, a woman named Joan Dunn, who was sitting with Miss Bonney in what she called her sewing room, on the upper floor of her home.

Out on the Inch, he saw a television crew. "Who are they?" he asked his colleague.

"Grampian, I think," Greatorix replied. "Yes, I recognise the girl who's talking to Harry Sharp; she's a reporter."

"They can't know what we're up to here then."

"Not yet; they're probably just filming the clear-up, and Harry won't make her any the wiser. But sooner or later she'll work out that the ambulance crew aren't here for a tea-break. Do you want to deal with her when she does?"

"No. Like I said, this is your show."

"Excuse me, sirs." DC Andrews' voice came from behind them, from the doorway. The head of CID waved to him to join them.

"I've been through all his pockets," the young officer reported.

"There's not a clue to his identity. There was nothing there but three pounds seventy-four in his trouser pocket, and this, in the inside pocket of his jacket." He handed something to Greatorix.

The object was encased in plastic. At first, Andy Martin thought it was a driving licence, but realised quickly that if it had been it would have borne a name. He looked closer, and saw that it was a photograph. "Odd," the chief superintendent muttered. He glanced at it idly for a few seconds, then handed it to the deputy chief. "Maybe it's him, in his younger days."

Martin looked at the plastic packet. As he did, some control mechanism within him made him stifle the gasp that sprang to his lips, and held him straight when he felt like wobbling. With its covering, the black-and-white photograph had survived the flood, and was clearly recognisable. It was that of a young man, dark-haired, tall and powerfully built, but no more, he guessed, than twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He was looking solemnly at the camera, and he wore a dark suit with broad lapels. Martin stared at it in silence, until he realised that the other two were staring at him.

The deputy chief constable tucked the likeness into the pocket of his shirt. "I've been promising you all day that I won't interfere, Rod," he said, 'and I still mean it. But I think I can help here. With your permission, I'd like to hold on to this for a day or so. I don't think this is the man inside, but it could help us find out exactly who he is."

"If you can do that, sir…" said the chief superintendent.

"Thanks," said Martin. He headed off towards his car. "I'll be in touch," he called back over his shoulder. "As soon as I can."