Brought in Dead. Jack Higgins
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staring down at her, a lump in his throat, aware of a feeling of personal loss.
‘Why?’ he said to himself softly. ‘Why?’
But there was no answer, could never be and as the ambulance turned on the wharf above him he went up the steps slowly, the girl cradled in his arms so that she might have been a child sleeping.
2
Detective Superintendent Bruce Grant, head of the city’s Central Division C.I.D., stood at the window of his office drinking a cup of tea and stared out morosely at the driving rain. He had a slight headache and his liver was acting up again. He was getting old, he decided – old and fat through lack of exercise and the stack of paperwork waiting on his desk didn’t help. He lit a cigarette, his first of the day, sat down and started on the In-tray.
The first report was headed Found Dead – Unidentified. Grant read it through, a slight frown on his face, and pressed the button on his intercom.
‘Is Sergeant Miller in?’
‘I believe he’s in the canteen, sir,’ a neutral voice replied.
‘Get him for me, will you?’
Miller arrived five minutes later, immaculate in a dark blue worsted suit and freshly laundered white shirt. Only the skin that was stretched a little too tightly over the high cheekbones gave any hint of fatigue.
‘I thought you were supposed to be having a rest day?’ Grant said.
‘So did I, but I’m due in court at ten when Macek is formally charged. I’m asking for a ten-day remand. That girl’s going to be in hospital for at least a week.’
Grant tapped the form on his desk. ‘I don’t like the look of this one.’
‘The girl I pulled out of the river?’
‘That’s right. Are you certain there was no identification?’
Miller took an envelope from his pocket and produced a small gold medallion on the end of a slender chain. ‘This was around her neck.’
Grant picked it up. ‘St Christopher.’
‘Have a look on the back.’
The engraving had been executed by an expert: To Joanna from Daddy – 1955. Grant looked up, frowning. ‘And this was all?’
Miller nodded. ‘She was wearing stockings, the usual in underclothes, and a reasonably expensive dress. One rather sinister point. Just beneath the maker’s label there was obviously some sort of name tab. It’s been torn out.’
Grant sighed heavily. ‘Do you think she might have been put in?’
Miller shook his head. ‘Not a chance. There isn’t a mark on her.’
‘Then it doesn’t make sense,’ Grant said. ‘Suicide’s an irrational act at the best of times. Are you asking me to accept that this girl was so cold-blooded about it that she took time off to try to conceal her identity?’
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘Then what about the chain? Why didn’t she get rid of that, too?’
‘When you habitually wear a thing like that you tend to forget about it,’ Miller said. ‘Or maybe it meant a lot to her – especially as she was a Catholic.’
‘That’s another thing – a Catholic committing suicide.’
‘It’s been known.’
‘But not very often. There are times when such things as statistical returns and probability tables have their uses in this work – or didn’t they teach you that at the staff college? What have Missing Persons got to offer?’
‘Nothing yet,’ Miller said. ‘There’s time of course. She looks old enough to have been out all night. Someone could conceivably wait for a day or two before reporting her missing.’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘Do you?’
Grant looked at the form again and shook his head. ‘No, I’d say anything we’re going to find out about this one, we’ll have to dig up for ourselves.’
‘Can I have it?’
Grant nodded. ‘Autopsy isn’t mandatory in these cases but I think I’ll ask the County Coroner to authorise one. You never know what might turn up.’
He reached for the ’phone and Miller went back into the main C.I.D. room and sat down at his desk. There was an hour to fill before his brief court appearance – a good opportunity to get rid of some of the paperwork in his In-tray.
For some reason he found it impossible to concentrate. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, and her face rose out of the darkness to meet him, still that faint look of surprise in the eyes, the lips slightly parted. It was as if she was about to speak, to tell him something but that was impossible.
God, but he was tired. He settled back in his chair and cat-napped, awaking at exactly five minutes to ten feeling curiously refreshed, but when he went downstairs and crossed the square to the county court building, it wasn’t the Macek case he was thinking about.
The City Mortuary was at the back of the Medical School, a large, ugly building in Victorian Gothic with stained glass windows by the entrance. Inside, it was dark and cool with green tiled walls and a strange aseptic smell that was vaguely unpleasant.
Jack Palmer, the Senior Technician, was sitting at his desk in the small glass office at the end of the corridor. He turned and grinned as Miller paused in the doorway.
‘Don’t tell me – let me guess.’
‘Anything for me?’ Miller asked.
‘Old Murray’s handled it himself. Hasn’t had time to make out his report yet, but he’ll be able to tell you what you need to know. He’s cleaning up now.’
Miller peered through the glass wall into the white tiled hall outside the theatre and saw the tall, spare form of the University Professor of Pathology emerge from the theatre, the front of his white gown stained with blood.
‘Can I go in?’
Palmer nodded. ‘Help yourself.’
Professor Murray had removed his gown and was standing at the sluice, washing his hands and arms, when Miller entered. He smiled, speaking with the faint Scots accent of his youth that he had never been able to lose.
‘Hardly the time of year to go swimming, especially in that open sewer we call a river. I trust you’ve been given suitable injections?’
‘If I start feeling ill I’ll call no one but you,’ Miller said, ‘that’s a promise.’
Murray reached for a towel and started to dry his arms. ‘They tell me you don’t know who the girl is?’
‘That’s right. Of course she may be reported missing by someone within the next day or two.’
‘But you don’t think so? May I ask why?’
‘It’s not the usual kind of suicide. The pattern’s all wrong. For one thing, the indications are that she did everything possible to conceal her identity before killing herself.’ He hesitated. ‘There’s no chance that she was dumped, is there? Drugged beforehand or something like that?’
Murray shook his head. ‘Impossible – the eyes were still open. It’s funny you should mention drugs though.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll show you.’
It was cold in the theatre and the heavy antiseptic smell could not wholly smother the sickly-sweet stench of death. Her body lay on the slab in the centre of the room covered with a rubber sheet. Murray raised the edge and lifted the left arm.
‘Take