The Fire Baby

20

The beam of light from the pillbox gunslit shone out across Black Bank Fen like the lantern beam of a landlocked lighthouse. Dryden had watched from the Capri as first the scene of crime team, and then the pathologist, had picked their way through the edge of Mons Wood towards the box. The interior now, he knew, would be bathed in the super-light of halogen lamps. The body was still in situ, awaiting the medics who sat patiently in the ambulance drawn up on The Breach, its emergency beacon pulsing silently. Humph offered him a malt whiskey and he took it thankfully. His throat was dry with fear, and his guts were still churning.

There was a sharp tap on the near-side window which made them both jump. Inspector Andy Newman’s head appeared: ‘OK. When you’re ready.’ The detective took him under the arm, partly to keep him on the narrow path marked out by the forensic team’s white flags, and partly to hold him up. ‘Just talk me through it, Philip, step by step, OK?’

It was the first time Newman had ever used his first name and he was pathetically grateful for the kindness, and at the same time aware of how visibly he must be radiating anxiety.

‘I met the fox here,’ said Dryden, and Newman gave him an old-fashioned look.

‘Mr Tod, was it? Peter Rabbit not at home?’ Their laughter drew resentful looks from the forensic team combing the woodland. Newman placed a hand on his shoulder to stem the almost hysterical escalation of good humour. ‘A fox, Philip?’

‘No. Yes. Seriously – a fox. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it had blood on its snout.’

A man appeared at Newman’s shoulder in a head-to-foot plastic shell-suit. The policeman did the introductions with exaggerated care: ‘Dr Beaumont – Home Office pathologist – this is Philip Dryden, chief reporter on The Crow, Ely. He found the body, Doc. An hour ago.’

Beaumont had the eyes of the true professional: intelligent, alert, even excited, but certainly inured to death by the sight of a thousand corpses before his thirtieth birthday. ‘Mr Dryden is right, inspector. There are clear signs of animal activity around, on, and to some extent in the body.’

Newman refused to ask the obvious question.

‘Most of those injuries being inflicted after death,’ finished Dr Beaumont, a smile suggesting itself through his eyes. ‘Shall we?’ he added, turning back towards the pillbox as though he was ushering forward dinner guests.

A scene of crime tent had been erected over the entrance to the pillbox, and here Newman and Dryden donned blue plastic suits. Then Dr Beaumont led them into the pillbox. The most striking feature of the victim’s body was the tautness of the limbs. The chain which linked the manacled hand to the wall was still taking the full weight of the corpse. It was as if death had struck at the exact moment the victim had stretched out to the edge of physical endurance.

‘Cut the chain,’ said Beaumont, and a scene of crime officer stepped forward with bolt cutters. Beaumont put an arm under the corpse’s chest and took the weight. ‘OK – now.’

The chain sheered and bounded back to the wall while the torso of the corpse slumped forward the last two inches to the straw floor.

Beaumont got close to the victim’s face, still unseen and tucked beneath the shoulders, and examined it with a pencil torch and a forensic scalpel. He filled several plastic bags with minute traces of hair, blood and skin.

Newman walked across the floor between two white chalk lines until he got to the shelf under the gunslit. ‘And this was like this? Empty?’ he said, tapping the glass with a ballpoint.

‘Yup,’ said Dryden, wishing he could drink some water now.

‘Let’s turn him over,’ said Beaumont, and the room suddenly filled with the forensic team. They flipped the corpse over and he lay, awkwardly, like a crab with his limbs raised.

It was the owner of the Ritz. His mouth was stretched open in a frozen scream, the eyes tinged pink with broken blood-vessels. The skin was caked in what looked like salt, with a rim of rime around the thin, blotched lips. The nose had been destroyed by a violent blow which had folded the cartilage back into the skull.

‘I think we can assume that death was unnatural,’ said Beaumont, scribbling notes.

Dryden knelt and examined the face. ‘What are those?’

They directed one of the halogen lamps on to the face. On each cheek and across the chin were a series of livid puncture marks, with blue bruising around each.

Beaumont didn’t answer but used a gloved finger to slightly massage the skin.

Newman lifted the chain which had secured the victim to the wall, using the ballpoint looped through one of the heavy iron links. The manacle contained a single lock and was smeared with blood and skin tissue where the man had lunged forward towards the glass and injured his wrist. The other end was looped through an iron ring in the wall and secured with a simple padlock.

‘That’s interesting,’ said Newman, turning the pencil torch on the manacle. A line of script had been stencilled into the metal.

Dryden shrugged. ‘An African language? Indian? Arabic? It’s not European, that’s clear.’

The ambulance team arrived with a bright neon-yellow body bag.

Dryden waited outside, watching the stars turn above, while the corpse was removed.

‘Any sign of the killer?’ he asked Newman, as they walked back to the Capri.

Newman shook his head. ‘There are some tyre marks further down the drove. Looks like a four-wheel drive. You can’t remember anything about him at all? The bloke who bowled you over.’

Dryden shrugged.

Beaumont came out, peeling off the white surgical gloves he had worn to examine the body.

‘The punctures in his face; any idea?’ said Dryden.

The pathologist consulted his notes. He held out his right hand: ‘Three puncture marks on the left cheek.’ He held out his left hand: ‘Four on the right.’ He stepped forward and held Dryden’s face in a grip with his fingertips, gently applying pressure. ‘My guess is someone held him like this, and then went on applying the force. Some of the nails dug in. The thumbs raised bigger welts, to the centre, the fingers less so, trailing off towards the neck.’

Dryden looked into Beaumont’s eyes. He could see the irises widening as they accommodated the drop in light level outside the pillbox.

‘Then he hit him?’ said Dryden.

Beaumont nodded, releasing his grip. ‘Yes. Hard. Some of the cartilage has been forced back into the brain.’

‘Did it kill him?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so. I think he died of thirst.’