Tuesday's Gone

Four

Karlsson was on his way into the case meeting when he met Commissioner Crawford in the corridor. He was in conversation with a tall young man who was wearing a shiny blue suit and a brightly patterned orange and green tie. He had slightly oversized black-framed glasses. Everything about him, from his strictly parted hair to his pointy green leather shoes, seemed to signal a degree of irony.

‘Mal,’ said the commissioner, ‘have you got a moment?’

Karlsson held up the file he was carrying.

‘Is it that body in Deptford?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure it’s a murder?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Then why are you handling it?’

‘Nobody can make any sense of it,’ said Karlsson. ‘We’re trying to decide what to do.’

The commissioner gave a nervous laugh and turned to the other man. ‘He’s not always like this,’ he said.

The commissioner was expecting some sort of joshing retort from Karlsson but he didn’t get one and there was an awkward silence.

‘This is Jacob Newton,’ said the commissioner. ‘And this is DCI Karlsson, the man I was telling you about. He’s the one who got the Faraday boy back.’

The two men shook hands.

‘Call me Jake,’ said the man.

‘Jake’s going to be around for a few days, looking at procedures, structures, that sort of thing.’

Karlsson was puzzled. ‘Are you from the Met?’

The man smiled, as if Karlsson had said something unintentionally amusing.

‘No, no,’ said the commissioner. ‘Jake’s from McGill Hutton. You know, the management consultancy.’

‘I don’t,’ said Karlsson.

‘It’s always useful to have a fresh pair of eyes. We can all learn lessons, especially in these days of budget reorientation.’

‘You mean “cuts”?’

‘We’re all in this together, Mal.’

There was another silence that lasted just a little too long.

‘They’re waiting for me,’ said Karlsson.

‘Mind if I come along?’ said Newton.

Karlsson looked quizzically at the commissioner.

‘He’s got a free hand,’ said Crawford. ‘Go anywhere, see anything.’ He clapped Karlsson on the back. ‘It’s not as if we’ve got anything to hide, is it? You can show Jake what a lean team you run.’

Karlsson looked at Newton. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Join the tour.’

Yvette Long and Chris Munster were sitting at a desk drinking coffee. Karlsson introduced Newton, who told them to pretend he wasn’t there. They immediately looked ill at ease and self-conscious.

‘Anyone else coming?’ Karlsson asked, and Yvette shook her head.

‘Autopsy’s this afternoon,’ said Karlsson. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if it was a heart attack?’

‘You thought he might have been strangled,’ said Yvette.

‘I can hope, can’t I?’ said Karlsson.

‘It’s the dog I feel sorry for,’ said Munster. ‘These guys, they live in shit, they can’t hold down a job, but they’ve always got a bloody dog.’

‘From the fact that I haven’t heard anything,’ said Karlsson, ‘I’m assuming that the deceased has not been identified as one of the other residents.’

‘All accounted for,’ said Munster. He picked up his notebook. ‘Lisa Bolianis. Aged about forty, I think. Apparent drink problem. I talked to her. Not very coherent. She said she’d seen Michelle Doyce once or twice. Never with anyone else.’ He pulled a face. ‘I don’t get the impression that these housemates are meeting much around the barbecue. Michael Reilly – our dog owner. Got out of prison in November. Three and half years for possession and distribution of a class-A substance. He said he’d nodded to her in the hall. She didn’t care much for his dog. He didn’t see her with anyone either.’ He looked down at his notebook. ‘She collected things. She’d come back with bagfuls of stuff she’d bought or found or whatever.’

‘We saw that in the flat.’

‘Anyone else?’

Munster looked back at his notebook. ‘Metesky. Tony Metesky. I could hardly get him to talk at all. Wouldn’t look at me. He’s clearly got some kind of mental problem. I’ve rung Social Services about him and someone’s meant to ring me back. His room was in a real state, even by the prevailing standards. There are needles on the floor, hundreds of them.’

Karlsson frowned. ‘His?’

Munster shook his head. ‘Cuckooing, I reckon.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Newton. The three officers all glanced at him and he looked embarrassed.

‘Cuckooing,’ said Munster, ‘is when a dealer identifies a vulnerable person and uses his accommodation as a base for activity.’

‘I suppose that Mr Whatever-his-name-is didn’t give you any information about the deceased.’

‘I could hardly get any sense out of him at all.’

‘What kind of place is this?’ asked Yvette.

Munster shut his notebook. ‘I think it’s where they put people when they can’t think what else to do with them.’

‘Who owns the house?’ asked Karlsson. ‘Maybe the dead body is the landlord.’

‘The owner is a woman,’ said Munster. ‘She lives in Spain. I’m going to call her, check she’s actually there. She owns several houses and uses an agent. I’m getting the details.’

‘Where are they all now?’ asked Karlsson.

Munster nodded across at Yvette.

‘Michelle Doyce is back in hospital,’ she said. ‘The others are still there, as far as I know.’

‘Still there?’ said Karlsson. ‘It’s a crime scene.’

‘Not strictly speaking. Until we get the autopsy result, it may just be a matter of failing to register a death and I don’t suppose any court will find Michelle Doyce fit to plead. As for the rest of them, where are they supposed to go? We’ve been ringing the council and we can’t even find a person to talk to about it.’

‘Do they not care that one of their own hostels might be being used as a centre for drug-dealing?’ asked Karlsson.

There was a pause.

‘Well,’ said Yvette, ‘if we could find someone in Social Services and get them down here, what they would probably say is that if we suspect a crime then it’s a matter for us to investigate. Which we probably won’t do.’

Karlsson tried not to catch the eye of Jake Newton. This might not have been the best introduction to police work. ‘So what we’ve got,’ he said, ‘is a woman serving tea and buns to an unidentified naked rotting man, whose only distinguishing feature is the missing finger on his left hand. Could the finger have been removed to get a ring off?’

‘It was the middle finger,’ said Munster. ‘Not the ring finger.’

‘You can have a ring on your middle finger,’ said Karlsson. ‘Who the hell is this guy?’

‘Don got prints off him,’ said Munster. ‘It wasn’t much fun, but they got them. And they didn’t get a match.’

‘So what do we think?’ said Karlsson. ‘Where do we start?’

Munster and Yvette looked at each other. They didn’t say anything.

‘I don’t know what I think,’ said Karlsson, ‘but I know what I hope.’

‘What?’

‘I hope he had a simple heart attack and this crazy woman panicked and didn’t know what to do.’

‘But he was naked,’ said Yvette. ‘And we don’t know who he is.’

‘If he died of a heart attack, it’ll be someone else’s problem.’ He frowned. ‘I wish someone could make sense of what Michelle Doyce is saying.’

As he spoke, a face came into his mind, unsmiling and dark-eyed: Frieda Klein.