A Deadly Thaw Read online

  The door eased open, and Charlie marched into the room, his tail upright, a sign he was hungry. To emphasise his deprivation, he jumped on the bed and began to meow at her. Kat looked longingly at the hardback book she’d treated herself to the previous day but thought also of the warm tea that would take the chill off the bedroom. She found her slippers and padded downstairs after the swaying tail of the ecstatic cat.

  In the kitchen, she tipped some dried cat food into the bowl and went to fill the kettle. It was cold, an unusual sign, as invariably Lena would be the first to wake and make a cup of tea to take back to bed. While the cat crunched in satisfaction, Kat made her way back up the stairs to her sister’s room. ‘Lena?’

  Even before she entered, Kat could sense the emptiness behind the door. Lena’s presence could always be felt, but Kat knew she would not find her in the room. The bed was made, the smoothness of the duvet suggesting that care had been taken.

  She moved over to the wardrobe and opened the door. Clothes hung on neat hangers, the trousers together, next to shirts, then woollens. She looked inside the bedside table drawer. Her sister’s passport, still bearing her married name, sat among the jumble of pens and hairgrips. She made her way along the landing to Lena’s studio, the smell of oil paint and turpentine growing in intensity with every step. As usual, she was surprised by how much light entered the room through the windows. It was their parents’ old bedroom. Lena had been adamant that this was the room she wanted for her painting. At the time, not long after their mother died, it had seemed an act of sacrilege to remove the huge marital bed and heavy oak wardrobe. They had given the furniture to a local charity as neither of them could bear to sell it.

  The studio was empty. Kat ran her hands across the brushes and palette boards. It didn’t look like anything had been taken, but she wouldn’t have been able to swear to it. There was a half-finished painting on the easel, one of Lena’s signature flower pictures. This one was of a blue iris against a black background. The flower’s petals were daubed with spots of pink pollen. It was a powerful image, but also nauseating, the bright splashes reminding Kat of blood. She turned away from the picture and went back down to the kitchen to think.

  8

  The man known as Andrew Fisher had been cremated on the twenty-ninth of November 2004, which saved the police having to apply for an exhumation order. This, in Connie’s eyes, was the first blessing of the case. Graveyards gave her the creeps at the best of times, and, deep down, she dreaded the time she would have to attend an exhumation. Once, on a training course, she had confided her fears to another of the attendees. The roaring laughter that her words had produced meant that Connie had never again spoken of her deep-seated fear of the buried dead.

  Of course, Connie knew that procedurally this was, in fact, a disaster. It gave them nothing tangible to test for the victim’s true identity. This meant that the only person who knew the identity of the man for sure was Lena. Which would mean more questioning.

  Connie had got nowhere with Lena the previous day, so Sadler had decided to try himself. Connie would be concentrating on the investigation into the murder of the man found the day before, the man they now believed to be Andrew Fisher. There would be no more mistakes. A visual identification had been made by Sadler. Given Lena’s role in the deception over the first body, she would not be called upon to make an ID. Rather belatedly, in Connie’s view, Andrew’s dental records had been sent to Bill Shields, along with the medical records held by Fisher’s GP. It was to the pathology unit that she was headed.

  Tucked away from the main hospital building, the grey plastic-cased pathology unit looked bleak and uninviting. Given that grieving relatives often had to visit the building to see loved ones, they could have made the building more presentable. Connie thought back to Hale’s End morgue with its lovingly crafted stonework and wondered how the world had changed in such a short period of time.

  ‘You coming in, or are you going to stand there gawping all day?’

  Bill Shields was loitering in the entrance with what looked like a cup of tea in his hands. He was a heavily built man whose clipped accent disguised his Derbyshire roots. He and Connie had hit it off from the start. Her mother had been a pharmacist, and she had grown up amid the accoutrements of the sick.

  ‘I was just wondering where we went wrong. You know, between Hale’s End and this place.’

  Bill Shields shrugged and went back inside. As she followed him, she saw Scott, his assistant, hunched over a computer screen. ‘You looking at dodgy sites again, Scott?’

  He didn’t lift his eyes from the monitor. ‘The dental records are a match. There’s a slight gap between the central incisors. The measurements match an X-ray on the patient’s file, as do the details of dental work. Do you want to take a look, Bill?’

  Bill made a face. ‘I better had, hadn’t I? We don’t want any more mistakes.’

  ‘Hey! It was before my time,’ said Scott.

  He was smirking at Connie, and she resisted the temptation to stick her tongue out at him.

  Bill sat down heavily in the chair. ‘What are you here for anyway? We did the PM this morning. I was going to phone the results through to Sadler.’

  She took the chair opposite him. ‘He’s on his way to interview Andrew Fisher’s wife. He’s going to take her to the station and question her under arrest once we confirm that ID. Can you give me the gist of what you’ve found?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ He pulled a file towards him. ‘Although I’m sure you worked out the cause of death yourself. Massive trauma to the chest cavity as the result of a gunshot wound. What was interesting, however, was that the bullet I extracted didn’t come from a rifle as I expected. It’s what you would assume around here. Given the hunting community.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What was used was a pistol. I haven’t seen that for a long while. Not that easy to get hold of these days. I’m surprised.’ Bill’s eyes flickered.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Connie.

  ‘I’d prefer not to say. Not at the moment. I’ve sent the bullet off to Ballistics for more information. Let’s wait for their report, shall we? There’s been enough problems with this case already. You don’t need me blundering along with something I’m not confident about.’

  Connie decided to leave it. He clearly wasn’t going to be telling her anything before the report came in. ‘It’s my first shooting, you know. I wonder how you’d get hold of that sort of gun around here. Anything else?’

  Bill shook his head. ‘He was a physically fit, large man. “Well-nourished” is perhaps the best phrase. Like me, I suppose. He had a slightly enlarged liver, probably liked a drop or two every evening but nothing that should have killed him.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘For now. I’ve taken blood samples to send off to the lab. They’ll be about a week, unless you want me to ask them to speed it up. There didn’t seem much point given the clear cause of death.’ Bill shut the file and rubbed his hands on his trousers. ‘Any idea how old I am?’

  Connie started. ‘Bill, I’ve never given it a thought. You’re timeless, I mean . . .’

  She saw him smile and look pleased. ‘I’m fifty-five. I know I look older. I’ve got a good ten years before retirement, and, ideally, I’d like to see them out. No other hobbies to speak of, although my wife keeps nagging me to join her badminton group.’ It was the first Connie had ever heard of his wife. Where was this conversation going?

  He read her thoughts. ‘The thing is, if we misidentified the body in 2004, and it’s certainly looking that way, then it’s a monumental cock-up. They could have my head on a platter.’

  First Sadler and now Bill. Connie felt queasy at the thought of the men in her professional life lining up to take the blame for what appeared to be a genuine mistake in the way that bodies were identified. ‘Look, if you woke up tomorrow and told me that your wife was dead in your bed, I’d take your word for it. That it was her. I mean, you’re the
one who would know her identity. Especially if we initially thought it was a natural death.’

  The pathologist smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Connie. I harbour no malicious thoughts towards Jill. But you know it doesn’t work like that. And Jill may well be seeing more of me around the house. We’ll see. Let’s hope I can ride out the storm.’ He turned back to Scott, who handed him a large pink folder. Bill cast his eyes over the results. ‘At least we’ve got the right bugger this time.’

  9

  Superintendent Dai Llewellyn shut the office door behind him, feeling old. The meeting had been short and to the point. Orders had been given, and he was long enough in the tooth to know when it was pointless arguing. Some things were negotiable; others weren’t. The problem was that some things were forgivable and some things not, too. He had a horrible feeling that a line had been drawn and that he was on the wrong side of it.

  He wanted a drink and thought briefly of the glass of Bushmills that he would have before bed. He desperately wanted to bring that drink forward but old habits are hard to break, and he had come to rely on habit. His eyes fell to the files on his desk. Now he had something else to deal with: the misidentification of a body from 2004. Another old case.

  A knock, and his secretary, Margaret, put her head around the door. ‘Fancy a coffee?’

  He thought again of the Bushmills. ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ She’d been working with him for ten years. It hadn’t started off well – his inexperience in the superintendent role, her brisk efficiency, which, he later discovered, was hiding the trauma of a messy divorce – but they’d settled into a routine that suited them both. Routine, he thought again. Why is it that I can draw so much comfort from it these days?

  There were limits to their relationship. He smiled up at her. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  Her eyes dropped to the files on his desk. ‘DI Sadler’s called three times this morning. He wants to see you. He’s gone out to reinterview Lena Gray but he’d like to see you as soon as he gets back.’

  Llewellyn picked up the file and opened it. ‘Right.’

  10

  The loud knock echoed around the house, waking Kat from her reverie. She looked down, aware that her frayed dressing gown had a large coffee stain down one side. She rebelted the garment to hide the spatter and walked to the front door. Behind the coloured glass she could see the shadow of a figure leaning against the stone arch. She frowned and opened the door, taking in with a glance the tall man with pale hair and blue eyes.

  He showed her his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Sadler. It’s Kat, isn’t it? I’m not sure if you remember me from 2004. I wonder if I could have a word with your sister?’

  Kat stifled the impulse to shut the door on this man. She felt shabby and dowdy and, although his eyes hadn’t left her face, was sure that he had taken in the state of her undress. ‘She’s not here. Come in while I get changed.’ She took him through to the living room and left him examining the books in the shelves covering the side wall.

  Back in her bedroom, she leant against the door and closed her eyes to gather strength. She could hear nothing downstairs, but the silence felt different. A presence within the walls of this too-solid house. She opened a drawer and took out her underwear, surprised to see her hands shaking. She lifted the jeans that she had slung over a chair yesterday and then scrabbled through her wardrobe for a clean jumper. The heap of clothes in the wicker washing basket told her what she needed to do when she had got rid of the policeman.

  When she got back to the sitting room, the detective had settled on the sofa. She crossed the room and sat next to him, noting his surprise. ‘Sorry. Sitting opposite you would seem too much like a therapy session.’

  He shifted his body towards her. ‘You’re still working as a counsellor then?’

  ‘It’s an ideal job, really, given everything that happened with Lena. Counselling allowed me to work to my own timetable, which gave me the chance to visit her in prison when I could.’

  ‘You went often? To the prison, I mean.’

  ‘Twice a month. I would have gone more but that was the allowance we were given. An hour every two weeks.’

  ‘Did anyone else visit her? Friends, for example?’

  Kat leant forward and dug around on the messy coffee table in front of her. She found a packet of cigarettes with two left inside and lit one, offering the other to Sadler. He made a face and shook his head. ‘Don’t approve of smoking.’

  She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, neither do I. The problem is that once I stop, something happens to make me start again. I’d made six months until today.’

  ‘The cigarettes—?’

  ‘Lena’s. She started inside. I don’t think there was much to do. Except read and smoke.’

  ‘And you say she’s not here.’

  Kat turned her face away and blew out a stream of smoke, resisting the impulse to cough. Her lungs, unused to the tobacco, were aching in protest. ‘I woke up this morning, and she’d gone. I wake up quite early anyway. It was about half six. She left before then.’

  ‘What time did you go to bed?’

  ‘Lena went first – about eleven, I think. I was around midnight.’

  ‘You still woke up at half six? That’s not much sleep.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. I was awake at quarter past two, then three and again at twenty past four.’ She stole a glance at him.

  ‘Insomnia?’ Something flickered in his eyes. ‘You have my sympathy.’

  Kat stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You too?’

  He didn’t answer her. ‘Do you think Lena could have left after you’d gone to bed? Or do you think she left early this morning? If she knows you suffer from insomnia, when are you most likely to be sleeping?’

  Kat was impressed. It was a good question. ‘I never have any trouble getting to sleep. I’m usually dog-tired when I go to bed. It’s just that it doesn’t last. I’m awake after a couple of hours.’

  ‘So if Lena wanted to leave the house without you knowing, the best time would be between, say, twelve and two a.m.?’

  Kat felt a spurt of anger. ‘Yes.’

  The exchange seemed to have unsettled Sadler also. He stood up and went over to the far window that looked out onto the lawn. Kat was glad that she had heaved the old mower around for the first cut of the year.

  ‘I’m not surprised you’re having trouble sleeping. My colleague, DC Childs, tells me you looked shocked when we told your sister that we found the body of her husband yesterday.’ He turned around to face her. ‘It was a surprise, wasn’t it?’

  Kat, shockingly, felt like crying. ‘A complete surprise. I just couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘But you think she did lie? About the man we found dead? You haven’t asked how sure we are that the body we found yesterday is that of Andrew Fisher.’

  Kat shrugged and reached for the remaining cigarette. ‘I’m a therapist, and she’s my sister. I’m not bad at reading people. When you came to the house yesterday, whatever Lena may have been feeling, it wasn’t surprise. She knew what your colleague was saying was possible.’

  ‘Was she unsurprised that we know that the man found dead in her bed in 2004 wasn’t in fact Andrew? Or was she unsurprised that Andrew had now been found dead? Which of these, in your opinion, was she already aware of?’ Again, he knew which questions to ask, and, once more, she was impressed.

  He was looking at her with his pale-blue eyes, and Kat found it difficult to meet his gaze. She lit her cigarette, giving herself time to think of a reply.

  He looked impatient. ‘Kat. I know this is your sister we’re talking about. Whatever happened in 2004, it’s going to be horrendously complicated to untangle, especially now your sister seems to have gone missing. So I need to ask you. Of course she would have been aware that the man in her bed wasn’t her husband. So I need you to tell me: was she surprised that he had now been found dead?’

  Kat’s eyes locked with Sadle
r’s once more. ‘I’m sorry. With Lena you never can tell.’

  11

  Connie left Bill staring at his tea and contemplating the future. As she was leaving the prefabricated building, she heard running footsteps behind her. She turned to see Scott panting towards her.

  ‘You need to get more exercise.’ She took in his face, decorated with a myriad of silver piercings, and his long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. ‘Do you actually do any?’

  ‘What’s exercise?’ He grinned at her and then looked down at himself. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Did you want something?’

  ‘It’s hit him harder than you realise, you know. What’s happened.’

  Connie quelled the irritation rising in her. ‘I am aware of that. I’m not a complete dimwit.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’

  She saw his miserable expression and took pity on him. ‘Look. There’s been a huge error made. A body’s been misidentified.’

  ‘But you said in there, to Bill I mean, that if someone identifies a person in their bed as their spouse, then we take their word for it.’

  ‘In case of natural causes, yes. Because the next of kin has identified the person, we just do a double-check through birth certificates, NHS numbers and so on. It’s not usually a problem.’

  ‘So—’

  ‘Well, that was okay for the first two days, until the post mortem was completed. The problem is that once it was discovered that a crime had been committed, then checks should have been made to confirm the identity of the victim.’

  ‘Should Bill have done that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But—’

  She put up her hand. ‘Look. I can’t tell you any more. I wasn’t doing this job in 2004, and I don’t know what the procedure was.’

  ‘But you told him in there that it wasn’t his fault.’