Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller. James Nally
fingernails were undamaged and there were no marks on her forearms, the sort of defensive injuries that you’d expect if a victim had fought for her life. In other words, when the time came, she must have been restrained and strangled from behind, quickly and cleanly, which will provide some small comfort to her family.’
We both need a drink after that. But Edwina’s not finished.
‘Now here’s an odd thing. The changes to Julie’s flesh show she’s been dead for about two days. That makes it impossible for me to determine if she’d been raped or sexually assaulted. But the insects in her body suggest she’s been exposed to air for a lot less time, I’d say between twelve and twenty-four hours.
‘There was also something really striking and bizarre about her appearance.’
She squints at her drink, as if still trying to make sense of it herself.
‘She was completely bald.’
‘How?’
She shuffles in her seat, theory still percolating. ‘For several hours after she died, her body must have been stored in some sort of sealed container which kept the flies and insects out. If he wrapped her in a sheet or towels and this place got very hot, her hair must have stuck to the bloody sheets or towels. When he unwrapped her, it came away from her head.’
‘Or he shaved her?’
‘No. Its ripped out at the root.’
‘God, her poor family, having to see that …’
She smiles. ‘You’re a sensitive old soul, Donal. I’ve instructed the mortuary to prepare a hairpiece.’
She takes a bigger swig than me this time.
‘Other things of note, no food in her stomach, which suggests she hadn’t eaten for at least eight hours prior to her death. And the sheet she came wrapped in today bears a laundry mark – MA 143 – so if you chaps can find the origin of that laundry mark, you may find her killer.’
She takes a final gulp as I consider how to even word my only question.
‘We had a tip-off,’ I lie, because the truth might get me sectioned. After all, I’m basing this on last night’s bonkers visions of Julie. ‘Look, I won’t bore you with the details, Edwina, but there’s been a suggestion that an axe is involved in Julie’s murder, somehow.’
She frowns and I visualise my question grinding through her red-hot brain engines. She shakes her head finally. ‘I’ve only ever known Triad gangsters to use an axe. Or Irish travellers, I’m sorry to say. How exactly is an axe involved in this?’
‘Truthfully, I’ve no idea. I just thought I’d better mention it.’
She shakes her head some more. ‘None of Julie Draper’s injuries could’ve been inflicted with an axe.’
‘Well, thanks so much for taking the trouble to find me, Edwina. I’m really touched,’ I say. ‘If I can ever buy you a drink back …’
‘Well, I’m frequently alone in London on Sunday evenings, when all my pals are doing family things. You can treat me to a convivial supper some time.’
‘I’d love that,’ I blurt, not giving myself time to fluster or dither or ruin the moment.
She gets to her feet, and I wonder what the hell I should do if she presents herself for an embrace. My finishing school didn’t cover that.
‘Well, it’ll make a nice change from Antiques Roadshow,’ I say, standing up.
‘Not for you, it won’t.’
She smiles and lingers there, eyes glinting. Is this some sort of cue for me to move in?
‘See you soon then, Donal,’ she smiles, searching my eyes.
What should I do?
She turns to leave, then, Columbo-style, spins at the door.
‘There is one case you might want to check out, from five or six years back, still unsolved. A bailiff named Nathan Barry.’
She lifts her open palm to the left side of her face and starts karate-chopping her cheek. I try not to look alarmed or confused.
‘Axed in the face. Really nasty. That’s the only one I know of. Worth checking out.’
Pyecombe, East Sussex
Thursday, June 16, 1994; 20.00
I set off home whiskey-bleak, intent on avoiding Zoe until the morning. At least I can count on the combined ineptitude of Southern Rail and London buses on that score. I’ll be lucky to make it home by midnight.
The trouble is, I know exactly how it will play out. At first, she’ll greet news of my dismissal from the Kidnap Squad with stoic, purse-lipped disappointment. She’ll get busy with something to avoid me – ironing, sticking labels onto Matt’s clothes, that damned dishwasher – humming in that way that makes me want to strangle her. Every now and then, she’ll stop suddenly to stare sadly into space, and sigh.
All the while, her forensic brain will be feverishly constructing the case for the prosecution. She can’t help herself. Soon the questions start. Did Crossley specifically say x? Did you consider all other options before you did y? She’ll shift, gradually, until it becomes clear that she’s entirely on Crossley’s side, albeit in her infuriatingly factual, reasonable and logical way. Indeed, her devout commitment to be ‘totally fair’ to all parties involved is what makes me apoplectic.
‘Why can’t you just take my side and support me, for once?’ I’ll snap.
And then she’ll launch her trusty cruise missile; the ‘shock and awe’ hate bomb that obliterates every penis over a radius of one square mile.
‘I just thought we’d be living closer to Mum. By now.’
Her mother, Sylvia, takes care of Matthew while we work. That’s his name when he’s over there, after she declared Matt ‘too communal garden’. For all her snobbery, Sylvia’s ability to mangle common phrases is her unwitting Achilles heel. Just last week, she complained that her new spectacles were impairing her ‘profiterole vision’.
Late last year, Zoe found ‘the perfect flat’ for the three of us in Crouch End, just two streets from her family home. Perfect, that is, if I’d been on a DC’s salary. I pointed out that we couldn’t afford it. Her parents offered ‘to help’ until I got my promotion. I refused – out of bullish, old-fashioned and foolish male pride, of course – forcing us to not so much downsize as capsize from cosy Crouch End to grungy Green Lanes, Haringey; home of the Turkish heroin trade, leering Albanian/Kosovan cigarette hawkers and heaving 24/7 traffic.
She’s never got over it, especially now that each working day is bookended by the Matt drop-off/pick-up, a tedious forty-minute walk to where we should be living. It’s as if I’ve failed in some fundamental, primeval, manly obligation that can never be reconciled. Postcode emasculation.
At least the grocers of Green Lanes never close. Hangover incoming, I snaffle two bottles of rancid Transylvanian Shiraz and shuffle home for my nightly ‘couched grape’ solo session.
I unlock the front door, quickly check on Zoe and Matt – both out cold – then open bottle one. As the cork pops my mind snags on my mother-in-law Sylvia’s cutting observation. ‘Failed relationship’ … why does that rankle so? Is it the non-attribution of responsibility – blame – as if our status as a couple is so doomed that Zoe and I are powerless to save it? Or is it the shock realisation that, were we to split up, our incompatibility will be judged by the world at large