‘Alison, that’s the name of this one, isn’t it?’ Professor Baines said to Henry, who nodded. ‘Any others on the go?’ Baines asked hopefully.
Henry shook his head and Baines seemed crestfallen. He had always been intrigued by the twists and turns of Henry’s love life and been devastated when Henry had remarried his long-suffering on-off-on wife/not-wife/wife, but only because it brought Henry’s tasty romantic shenanigans to a crunching halt. He had been pleased for Henry, of course, but he did enjoy a certain vicarious pleasure in Henry’s romps. When Kate had died, although genuinely upset for Henry, Baines held out a hopeful return for the old ways. Unfortunately, when Henry started a new relationship that seemed serious and stable, Baines was gutted.
Henry grinned. ‘She’s fantastic,’ he told Baines.
‘And a landlady! I knew there was a silver lining.’
Henry chuckled and thought pleasant things about Alison Marsh, who he’d met a while back in Kendleton, a quiet village in north Lancashire, where she ran a country pub called the Tawny Owl.
‘Is it serious?’ Baines probed.
‘I hope so,’ Henry admitted. ‘We’ll see.’
The two men had walked the quarter of a mile or so into Lancaster and found a nice cafe on Thurnham Street close to the police station. They served up a Kenyan filter coffee that really hit the spot.
‘The gold filling is what interests you?’ Baines said, bringing the conversation back to a more professional level.
Henry was puzzled for a moment, then said, ‘Now you’re talking about a dead girl.’
‘She’s still unidentified, I believe.’
Henry nodded.
Baines pondered. ‘There is a possibility I could help… there is other dental work in there, too. Older, concrete fillings, but not much left of them. Wasn’t a dental analysis done anyway?’ he asked, referring to the already completed PM.
‘I’m not certain. I know it should have been, but I’m not taking it for granted.’
‘I would’ve thought Professor Broad would have done it… but you never know.’
‘Professor Broad?’
‘Yes, the pathologist who performed the PM on the poor girl.’
‘How did you know he did it?’
‘The stitching… we all do it our own way. Our little signatures, if you like.’
Henry pulled a face. ‘Fancy.’
‘So this is your case, is it?’
‘It wasn’t, but it is now.’
Flynn spent an hour familiarizing himself with the chandlery stock, enjoying every moment of it. For the past five years he had been on a boat virtually every working day, and being on the water was an integral part of his life. Although he skippered a sleek sport-fishing boat, he appreciated all forms of water craft — from the canal boat he’d spent the night on, up to the most luxurious yachts and everything in between. As a consequence he also loved all the bits that held them together and made them work, hence his appreciation of Colin and Diane’s chandlery.
Colin and Diane were retired cops in their fifties and Flynn had met them while he was still in the job. Colin had been a traffic cop and Diane had been involved in child protection. They had become good friends with Flynn and his then wife, Faye, and occasionally went out as couples, with the men talking boats all the time. Back then Colin had restored two canal barges and owned a small power boat, whilst Flynn was merely an enthusiast who helped out when he could.
Colin and Diane retired about the same time and opened the small chandlery in Glasson Dock. Colin continued to refurbish and sell canal boats, one of which was the one Flynn had spent the night aboard. It was due to go up for sale shortly but would be Flynn’s accommodation whilst he stayed in the UK.
Although he could only commit a short time to staying, Flynn hoped it would be enough to help the couple through a tough patch and assess the success or otherwise of Colin’s operation.
If the prognosis was good, Flynn knew the business would continue. If not, it would close without having really got going.
By 11.30 that morning Flynn could probably name every item of stock on the shop floor. What he did not know was how to run the shop or even how to use a till, which is what he needed to learn from Diane before welcoming in customers.
Flynn thought he had plenty of time before Diane came back from the hospital in Lancaster, less than five miles up the road.
Peering out through the front door of the shop he saw that the weather had brightened a touch. The smell of food being cooked at the static caravan wafted across to him, making him suddenly hungry again. A bacon sandwich called. He locked up and walked across, bought the said sandwich and a mug of tea, devouring both on one of the picnic tables in front of the caravan. Then, fortified, he set off for a walk.
His plan was to do maybe twenty minutes along the old railway track, now a public footpath and bridleway that ran parallel to the banks of the Lune all the way up to Lancaster.
Flynn enjoyed the quite desolate views north up the river, still one of the country’s finest salmon and trout rivers.
The tide had ebbed further, exposing treacherous sand, mud and grass banks and water channels as the water level receded.
He walked away from Glasson, bearing left along the footpath, seeing not another soul. He reached the old single track rail bridge at Conder Green, under which the tiny River Conder emptied into the Lune estuary. He paused here, looking inland towards the Stork, a pub by the A588, which he planned to visit at some stage during his stay. Then he turned outwards, looking west across the river.
It was a very wild, untamed location and he liked it very much.
His eyes drew back until he was looking straight down into the muddy water, flowing quite quickly away underneath his feet, like a plug had been yanked from a drain.
Which is when he spotted the body.
TWO
The body floated underneath the bridge, dragged by the fast-retreating tide, along the main channel of the River Conder. Flynn watched it, slightly mesmerized initially, as it rolled gently in the water, limbs moving as though doing some kind of lazy swimming stroke.
At first the body was face down, head under water, but as it emerged fully from below the bridge and the tug of the tide altered, it swished around onto its back. From less than twenty feet above, Flynn saw it was a female, maybe mid-thirties, dressed in a short jacket and black jeans with a cut-off Wellington boot on the left foot, the right foot bare. The skin of the face was tight, white-blue, the features distorted by its time in the water, maybe even starting to rot away now. But the eyes were still there. Open.
With a gush and a slurp of the tide, the body increased speed. The legs seemed to kick, the whole body spun around so it was now heading feet first towards the Lune estuary.
Flynn cursed.
He looked at the geography between himself and the main channel of the Lune. There was every chance the body might lodge in one of the many muddy channels. Also a chance that the tide would suck it out into the Irish Sea, never to be seen again. Or drag it back up on the next tide to be deposited somewhere completely different.
It could go any of those ways.
Flynn ran to the end of the bridge and scuttled down a short set of rusting iron steps onto the harsh grass exposed by the tide fall. It was wet and soft — but not as wet and soft as the sandbanks.
He leapt across two tight channels, by which time the body was even further away. He took two more with the agility of a mountain goat and found himself on a clump of grass next to the main channel of the Conder, about three metres away from the body, just out of reach even stretching. He knew he would have to enter the water if he was going to grab it.
He knew something else, too: This would not be like stepping into the warm Atlantic waters at Amadores beach, Gran Canaria.