3 a.m., Saturday, Colchester General Hospital
Jacqui Lowry stood in silence as her husband consulted with her lover across the dead soldier’s corpse. She assumed a mask of indifference, fighting back the notion that her sin was somehow exposed for all to see by the stark hospital lighting, like invisible ink under ultraviolet light. As Paul explained to her husband the complications that had caused the soldier to go into cardiac arrest, she tried to ignore the way he pushed his soft, wavy blond hair away from his face. This gesture, which she had adored up to now and found part of his boyish charm, seemed affected in the face of her stoic husband of ten years. And the sculpted beard, which she’d always considered a turn-on, looked vaguely effeminate next to Nick’s now-stubbled jaw. She pinched herself. It was guilt that was making her feel this way.
Ever the professional, Nick had taken no notice of her when he entered the room. A polite nod was all she got. He looked tired. She was tired, too. Not for the first time did she reflect that shift work and long hours were the prime causes of all that was wrong with their relationship.
Nick, for reasons best known to himself, picked up the dead man’s hand and examined the fingers, or the fingernails, by the looks of it. Paul edged behind him. Oh, God, please don’t do that! She noticed a sly grin creep across her lover’s face – ever so slight, but it was there. Don’t mock him, please! She was surprised how stung she felt, and scowled sharply. Paul gestured to her that he would back off as Nick lay the soldier’s arm carefully back down, then took both his wife and Paul by surprise by asking Paul, ‘Have you ever been to Castle Park?’
‘No, I’ve never got round to it. I gather it’s quite impressive. The largest Norman keep in Europe, built on the foundations of a Roman temple.’
‘That’s the castle itself. The accident occurred in the grounds – which are Victorian.’ Nick clearly took pleasure in trumping Paul with his superior local knowledge. Jacqui’s skin prickled with discomfort; she prayed she’d not gone red. ‘Anyway, I want to see the other man – Jones.’
‘It’s very late. Can’t it wait until the morning? I’m not sure that—’
‘He’s awake, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s dying for a chat.’ His expression clearly showed that this request was non-negotiable, and it was the doctor’s turn to colour, which he did, brightly.
With a resigned sigh, he brushed past Jacqui and left the room, her husband following.
*
‘I’ll manage from here, thanks.’ Lowry held his hand out towards the doctor’s chest at the door of the patient’s room. The young doctor had been very helpful and, given the time of night, struck Lowry as remarkably spry. In all his time in hospitals he had seldom come across a doctor so alert as this fellow. Not in the daytime, let alone in the middle of the night. ‘Hey, doc, I’m surprised they let you try to grow a beard. Isn’t it a health-and-safety risk?’ Lowry joked just before the doctor left. He was sure the guy had conditioner shit in his hair. He switched on the small table-light and gently prodded the man in the bed.
‘Hey, wake up, sonny Jim.’
‘Wha-what time is it?’
‘Don’t worry about what time it is. You’ve been in bed plenty long enough.’
Lowry rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. The soldier looked at least twenty-two, maybe older, which surprised him. Usually, town-centre punch-ups involved teenagers – boisterous new recruits mouthing off on a payday, annoying the local lads and stealing their girlfriends. Jones was slight but of a firm, wiry build, and he looked vaguely familiar. Was he one of the Beard’s fighters? He knew the dead lad had been.
‘How long have you been stationed here, son?’
‘Six months.’ He blinked rapidly, slowly coming to.
‘Any trouble before?’
Jones struggled to pull himself up in his bed. His arm was bandaged, as was his head. Lowry adjusted the pillows and passed him some water.
‘Thanks. No, no trouble. Clean as a whistle.’ Suddenly, his face lit up. ‘’Ere, you’re Lowry, ain’t you?’
Lowry nodded slightly in acknowledgement.
‘Seen you fight. Pretty tasty. You took the Cup, year before last.’
‘You’re in the Beard’s team?’ He’d be around a bantamweight, so there was no chance their gloves would have come into contact.
Self-conscious in his hospital gown, Jones answered shyly, ‘Yeah, I’ve had a bout or two – not in your league, mate.’
Lowry smiled and took the compliment.
‘Didn’t lay anyone out on New Year’s Eve, though, that’s for sure,’ Lowry said. ‘So, what would you put this mishap down to?’
‘New Year’s celebrations gone a bit far, y’know.’ Speaking with a north Essex burr, the man now seemed more relaxed; a connection had been established. ‘Off duty, this time of year, get a bit carried away with the booze.’
‘Where are you from originally?’
‘Hereabouts. Brightlingsea.’
Lowry didn’t comment. He knew the place to be a small port, east of Colchester, known for its sailing enthusiasts. His silence prompted the wounded soldier to ask for a smoke.
‘Sorry, I just quit. Tell me, wasn’t it a bit early to be that plastered?’ Lowry picked up the chart at the foot of Jones’s bed. He hadn’t been at the scene itself on New Year’s Eve but knew it had occurred at approximately nine p.m. At the time, it was just one among many incidents reported across the town centre, incidents that would continue into the early hours of the morning. He flicked over the page, and saw the admission time of nine thirty p.m.
‘What time did you hit the pub?’
‘When it opened at midday.’
‘Which one, and who were you with?’
Lowry pulled out his notebook and listened to the man’s description of events. Jones, Daley and several others – Lowry noted the names – had kicked off their celebrations in the Bull pub on Crouch Street. The Bull was a cavernous old coaching inn and, significantly for the squaddies, the first cheap pub on the other side of Southway, the carriageway that sliced across the bottom half of the town, with civilians to the north and the main cavalry barracks, the grand red-brick buildings, to the south. Once he was the other side of Southway, a soldier could start to loosen his military shackles. A few pints in the dark, smoky interior of the Bull gave wary young recruits enough Dutch courage to push up Balkerne Hill and on to the town centre, with its Georgian houses, to the hub of the town’s nightlife. In this case, they’d had a few in the Bull, a few more in the narrow halfway house of the Boadicea on Headgate, and then on to the Wagon and Horses, a soldiers’ favourite at the top of North Hill. From there they left their friends and made their way down the length of the high street on their own.
‘Why leave your pals behind in the Wagon and Horses?’
‘They wanted to settle in there for the night and we wanted to get down to the Golden Lion to meet two girls.’
The Golden Lion was an ‘alternative’ pub at the far end of the high street, full of teenagers of all sorts: punks, goths, skinheads and the like. But not soldiers. The Lion was also the nearest pub to the castle.
‘Unusual place for two soldiers to go, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Ordinarily, but I’d been there before I signed up, like. Knew these birds would be there.’
‘You’re now going to tell me that this whole incident was over a couple of punk-rocker girls?’
‘I can’t remember, mate.’
He was lying.
Nevertheless, Lowry said, ‘I want the names of the girls, and descriptions of your pursuers. As best you can.’
‘All right.’ Jones yawned. ‘Lesley Birch, blonde and cute; and her mate Kelly; don’t know her surname.’
‘Addresses?’
Lowry noted them down, both Papillon Road in St Mary’s. Victorian terrace on the other side of Balkern Gate, up from Crouch
Street. The young soldier let out a groan, as though he’d just remembered why he was in hospital.
‘So how did the trouble start?’
‘Can’t remember. Had a few too many beers. We were probably gobby, it being New Year’s Eve an’ all. Locals use any excuse to take a pop at a soldier. And there were only two of us.’
‘How many of them were there?’ Lowry’s pen was poised over his notebook.
‘At least half a dozen. They’d never have the balls to take us on one on one.’ This was said proudly, though the bravado was thin. The soldier’s pale face and red-rimmed eyes betrayed a young man who’d had a nasty shock.
‘So there was a fracas in the Golden Lion and you two scarpered. Why run through the castle grounds?’
‘Thought we’d lose them. Close by, and dark in there, innit?’
‘Too dark, it would seem.’ Lowry bowed his head and closed his notebook.
‘You’re not wrong.’ Jones rubbed his leg and grimaced. ‘How’s me mate, though? Daley? Nobody’s said a word.’
Lowry chose not to break the news of his friend’s death: that could wait. The lad looked shattered and needed rest. If this lad wasn’t lying – of course he had seen who had chased him – Lowry was not fit to be a policeman, but this policeman was knackered. It could wait.
‘We’ll come to see you in the morning. You get some sleep.’
-5-
7 a.m., Saturday, Great Tey village, eight miles west of Colchester
Jacqui Lowry slipped silently into the warm house. She flicked on the kitchen light. Pushkin stirred in the cat basket on top of the fridge freezer. Running a cracked fingernail across the kitchen worktop as a pan slowly warmed on the hob for hot chocolate, she played back the scene from a few hours earlier with Nick and Paul. Bizarrely, it reminded her of when she’d first met Nick, twelve years ago at the hospital, then a good-looking, fit, young detective in a sharp suit. Yes, he’d been immaculate even in the small hours as he hovered over a teenager close to death from suspected poisoning. He stood out, with his sharp dress sense, still fixed in the mod style of the 1960s while everyone else was embracing the flamboyant, hairy 1970s. He was striking, clean and well groomed, with the handsome face to match, but it was his tenderness towards the fifteen-year-old girl that had won her heart. It was what she craved for herself, and she wanted Nick then with every fibre of her body. He was oblivious to her, concerned only with the girl’s recovery, which only inflamed her desire. He was still by the teenager’s bedside when she finished her shift, but she had felt compelled to slip him her phone number as she left the ward. They went on their first date two nights later, to the nearby Hospital Arms, after she’d finished a late shift. At closing time, Nick walked her the short distance to her parents’ house in Lexden, where, at the foot of the garden path, he delivered a heart-stopping kiss, both passionate and tender.
Jacqui poured the milk from the frothing pan and sighed. Nick still wore the mod suits and button-down shirts, but now they just looked out of place and old-fashioned; outmoded symbols of another time and place. The passion and tenderness were equally remote – at least between the two of them.
Upstairs in the bathroom she placed the mug of hot chocolate on the side of the basin and ran the bath. The hot water would take a good minute to feed through. Looking in the mirror, she removed her make-up to reveal the same tired eyes that greeted her after every shift. And, once again, the same as every morning and evening, she wondered why she still did it. As a young staff nurse in her twenties, she had vowed never to end up the way she was now. As a trainee, she had observed the older nurses and witnessed how shiftwork took its toll; most were constantly too tired to do anything about their slipping figures and unhealthy lifestyles – too tired even to care. She pitied them and resolved never to let the same thing happen to her. But then she met Nick Lowry and forgot her concerns for a while. And so the years passed by, they had a son and settled into comfortable dullness. Until, that is, a young intern made a pass at her two years ago. She thought nothing of it to start with and ignored his advances, but then she looked in the mirror and realized she’d become that middle-aged staff nurse she’d always scorned. So she thought: What the hell.
*
Lowry rolled over in bed. He heard the plug being pulled out of the bath and the water gurgling down. Not for the first time did he think it odd that Jacqui had taken to having a bath before she got into bed. Gone were the days when she’d jump straight in and nuzzle up to him after a shift, freshening up when she woke, at around midday. Maybe it was a dig at him because he’d promised to fit a shower and hadn’t? The hot-water pipes in the roof made a hell of noise, enough to wake him. Maybe that was what she wanted. The red LCD display flashed at him from on top of the bedside cabinet with the unwelcome news that it was gone seven. The headless corpse had floated across his subconscious for most of the four hours he’d been in bed. As was often the way, while a visceral scene from one case imposed itself upon him he’d be trying to second-guess another – in this instance, how it was that two soldiers could have been inside the castle grounds at nine o’clock when the gates were locked at six.
Nowadays, Jacqui would sometimes sleep in the spare room if he was still in bed when she came home, especially at the weekend. He heard her pad out of the bathroom and pass on down the hall. He’d need to get up soon and put a call in to the desk sergeant; he wanted to link up with the WPC who’d been first on the scene at Castle Park. No doubt they could arrange with the groundsman to give them access before the park opened to the public.
But not just yet. He’d had a night troubled with strange dreams of floating corpses, and now craved a few minutes of peaceful shut-eye until it was time to get up.
8.05 a.m., The Strood
It was gradually growing light. The mist showed signs of lifting across the marshes as a greyish-crimson light streaked across from the east, but it was bitterly cold. The uniform sergeant had been given clear instructions by Lowry and was barking orders through the icy damp at the huddle of officers looming by the Danger When Tide Covers Footway sign. Kenton, leaning against a Panda car and reduced to the position of observer, felt redundant. Sergeant Barnes’s voice carried across the mudflats, disturbing birds who were chattering energetically somewhere in the gloom. The assembled officers split into two groups, and half a dozen men in greatcoats set off precariously along the mainland sea wall, dodging the mudpans hidden by sedge grass, while another six moved to tackle the sea wall on the island itself.
Sergeant Barnes walked stiffly towards the Panda car, which was parked up on the curb. Kenton moved to greet him by the railing.
‘Like a needle in a haystack,’ Barnes said, rubbing his hands together briskly.
Kenton looked out across the channel and observed a tea-colour trickle flowing through the mud banks. The tide must be on the way in now, he reasoned, given the hour.
‘Not sure what your gaffer expects us to find out there,’ the sergeant continued. ‘A head ain’t going to be sitting waiting for us on those mudflats.’
‘We won’t know until we look,’ Kenton said, having little idea himself. He only knew that Lowry wanted evidence to support the theory that the body had washed in with the tide, so as to rule out it having been deliberately dumped where it was found.
‘And looking is mainly what we’re doing – through binoculars from the shore. That mud out there is waist deep.’
‘How long do we have?’
‘High tide’s not for a good few hours, but it fills quick. If there’s anything lying on that mud, now’s the time to see it.’ The sergeant’s helmet strap looked painfully tight, and his face, red with exposure to the elements, had a tortured expression. His fulsome moustache looked stiff with cold.
‘Righto. I may as well lend a hand.’
‘No need, detective, this is just routine. A job for Uniform.’
‘Non
sense – I’m an extra pair of legs.’ He’d overheard members of Uniform describe him as soft. When he’d asked Lowry why this was, the inspector had replied it was because he ‘speaks nicely’.
‘Have you got binoculars?’
Kenton shook his head.
‘Then there’s not much point; you’ll only tread the same path. This really is a job for Uniform.’
The sergeant clearly didn’t want Kenton under his feet, but Lowry had been keen for him get out and learn more about the terrain. How could he ever graduate from being the new boy if he was unable to participate? Training courses had taken up much of his time at Queen Street, and he was keen to put his knowledge into practice. But there wasn’t much he could do; he was outranked.
After forty-five minutes in the cold, which passed like an eternity, a Green Flash tennis shoe was found in the reeds. It matched the one shoe found on the corpse’s feet.
8.25 a.m., Lexden, West Colchester
Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred! Sparks jumped upright from his press-up position on the deep-pile bedroom carpet and banged his chest aggressively, producing a stentorian cough.
‘Darling, must you do that?’ came a sleepy reproof from underneath the quilt.
‘It’s Lane’s rotten cheroots from last night,’ he said over his shoulder, reaching into the mahogany chest of drawers for a clean vest. ‘Never hands out the Cubans,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not to me, anyhow – too tight-fisted.’
‘Whatever it is you’re doing on the floor – it shakes the bed so.’ Antonia’s luxurious blonde mane was all that was visible to indicate her presence in the bed. ‘It is the weekend.’
‘Press-ups, Antonia. They’re called press-ups. One hundred every morning.’ He flexed his biceps in the full-length mirror. Not bad for fifty-four, he thought to himself. ‘Until those cowboys have removed their gubbins from the basement, you’ll have to grin and bear it.’ He lifted the covers to reveal his fiancée’s white, fleshy behind and gripped it firmly. ‘And once the gym is ready, you could do a lot worse than give it a try.’