‘Ah, that doesn’t work any more. Airwave radio has GPS. They know exactly where I am.’
‘Then don’t answer it.’
‘There’s always that, I suppose.’
He answered it, scribbled down the unfamiliar street references and promised he was on his way.
‘But what about your supper?’
The sentence had a painful familiarity about it, despite coming from the lips of a half-naked girl he barely knew. Her voice still had the fresh tone of surprise, regret and genuine commiseration it would soon lose. Given time the tone of that same sentence would change first to resignation, then resentment and accusation.
‘Leave me some.’ He stooped to kiss her goodbye. ‘What is it, anyway?’
‘Not telling you now.’ She kissed him, wrapping arms and one leg around him, a hero’s goodbye. ‘Is it at least something important?’
‘It is to someone.’ He took a deep breath, his nostrils filling with the fragrance of her hair, the aroma of her food. He pulled away with twin regrets.
A short necklace of arc lights had already been strung along the riverside. He abandoned his car at the end of a line of police vehicles on the road and stood next to a muddy bicycle by some railings near a large landlocked ship’s anchor. This stretch of water was called the Cumberland Basin, he had learned over the radio, and somewhere close by was something called the Floating Harbour. Here a paved path ran along the basin between the bridges. Now it was busy with officers and crime scene technicians but before their arrival it had to have been deserted at this time of the day and year. Another blank patch on McLusky’s mind-map of the city had been filled in. But ultimately it made no difference where this was. Death loved dark water but had never been choosy. If what had occurred down there turned out to be murder then this dismal stretch of water would forever appear as a stain on the emotional map he carried to navigate the city by. When the stains on the map began to run into each other then it might be time to move on. Or take early retirement.
Flashing his ID to the constable standing guard at the anchor was unnecessary: the PC recognized him from the Easter egg bomb as a sarcastic CID bastard. When he saw McLusky bend over the edge to get a look at a frogman in the water he fervently wished someone would nudge him in.
Most of the activity was concentrated in an area where the body had been pulled from the river. The pathologist was there already, kneeling white-suited by a rectangle of tarpaulin on which rested the body of a woman. It was fully clothed, which was always good news.
McLusky suited up; it gave him time to remember the pathologist’s name before approaching him. ‘Evening, Dr Coulthard.’
‘Inspector …’
The pathologist concentrated his examination on the face and neck of the victim. Here scorch marks were the prominent feature, clearly discernible even under the covering of oily slime. The victim’s right hand was encased in a clear evidence bag, secured at the wrist with a soft tie.
‘Any clues as to the cause of death yet?’
‘Mm? Not really, but my guess is that she drowned.’
‘Then what’s with her face, are those burn marks around her mouth?’
‘They appear to be.’
‘Did that happen before death?’
‘Rest assured, I think we’ll find it did.’
‘Thank the gods for that. I can deal with strange but I hate weird.’ So far McLusky saw no reason why he shouldn’t hand this over to someone else. He was, after all, supposed to concentrate on finding the bomber. Drowned girls didn’t fit the remit. ‘Still, very strange, how do you burn yourself on an empty path next to the water? It wasn’t one of those fire-spitting accidents?’ It was not unheard of that unwise street performers who spat and swallowed fire reached for the petrol when paraffin was unobtainable. The results were invariably disastrous, occasionally fatal.
Coulthard straightened up, shaking his head slowly. ‘No, nothing like that.’
‘So, what, a freak accident?’
‘Almost right, inspector. My guess is accident arranged by a freak.’
McLusky’s mood took a nosedive. He pointed to the victim’s wrapped hand. ‘She picked something up?’
‘Yes. It looks to me like the melted remnants of a mobile phone, fused into her charred skin. The phone must have contained some kind of accelerant, possibly similar to the one used in the powder compact. Once it went off she couldn’t have dropped it if she’d tried. The thing must have burnt instantly with such a fierce heat that it stuck to her hand. My guess is she tried to douse the pain, fell in and drowned. This is definitely another one of yours. Sorry. I could see you were hoping otherwise.’
McLusky straightened up and looked about. ‘What a shit place to die too. I wonder where she found the thing.’ Would the bomber leave it here, where few people came? Why not? But more than likely she had picked up the phone, if that’s what it turned out to be, somewhere else. And they might never know. Unless.
A preliminary search of the area was already under way, the fingertip search would have to wait until daylight. Austin appeared by his side. ‘We got a tentative ID, she was carrying a library card. No photo ID though. Charlene Kernley. We came up with an address near Ashton Gate. I think she was taking a shortcut.’
‘Walking alone after dark … Not that it would have made any difference. How old do we think she was?’
‘No more than sixteen, seventeen.’
‘Who found her?’
Austin pointed to a man in his early thirties, sitting morosely with his back to a bollard under the watchful eye of Constable Pym. ‘This character over there. He flagged down a Traffic unit that happened to be passing. I don’t think he’s happy about having to hang around, though.’
‘Well, that’s just tough. Let’s have a quick chat with him.’
Even when he stood in front of him the man didn’t get up until he addressed him. ‘Do you think we could have a word? I’m Detective Inspector McLusky. And you are?’
‘Reed.’
‘You found the body.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where exactly was the body when you first saw it?’
‘Just there, where they pulled her out. She was sort of floating, face down. Just by the edge.’
‘Did you pull her out?’
‘No, didn’t touch her, I know not to touch dead bodies. I went and found a police car and stopped them. They pulled her out.’
‘Good thinking.’ McLusky turned around, contemplated the group of crime scene technicians near the water’s edge for a few seconds, then turned to Reed again. The man’s boots were muddy, and his hands were a little grimy. His fingernails were positively black. ‘What’s your first name, Mr Reed?’
‘It’s Chris, Christopher. I gave all my details to that policewoman …’ His gaze moved about, trying to spot the officer who had taken his details.
‘Never mind. And what do you do, Chris? You don’t mind if I call you Chris?’
‘Ehm, no, I’m a student.’
‘At the uni? What are you studying?’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I didn’t have anything to do with the girl dying, I just found her. I was just passing. Why are you asking me questions? Is that what you get for helping the police, endless questions?’
This kind of reaction always rang little alarm bells with McLusky. ‘Bear with us, Chris, we’ll have you on your way in no time. So, what were you doing down here?’
Reed shrugged. ‘Just passing, riding my bike.’
‘Right. Is that your bike back there? By the railings?’ It was difficult to make out from here. ‘Do you have lights on your bike?’
‘There’s a dead girl and you ask me about the lights on my bike?’ He made a silent appeal to Austin but got nothing in return but a lizard stare. ‘Okay, no, I don’t have lights, are you going to arrest me for that?’
‘And where were you going?’
‘Home.’
‘Which is?’
‘In Cotham.’
‘And you were coming from where?’