‘ She was a friend and colleague, George. I owe her that much, don’t you think?’ He was extremely puzzled and worried by Santana’s frosty reaction.
Santana nodded formally. ‘I apologise.’
‘ Forget it. When did you say she was found?’
‘ Ten, yesterday morning.’
‘ So there’s a good chance her hotel room will still be vacant,’ Donaldson said. ‘Can we go and have a look round it? And could you give me her belongings? I need to take them back.’
Santana nodded. ‘No problem.’ But behind those two words Donaldson detected there was — and that he, Donaldson, was becoming a pain in the ass all of a sudden.
Well, so be it.
The hotel room had been cleaned from top to bottom. New guests were arriving in the morning. From the crime-scene point of view, therefore, it had nothing to offer.
Donaldson was very annoyed. ‘This should have been left untouched until I had the chance to go through it,’ he said.
‘ It was checked by my people and there was nothing of interest, and certainly nothing to support your obvious belief that a crime has been committed here.’ Santana was abrupt. Then his voice softened. ‘She died by accident and there’s nothing more to it. No one to blame, no one to arrest. You should accept that, my friend. Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought.’
Donaldson gave that short shrift.
‘ Can I see your scenes-of-crime photographs?’
Santana’s mouth drew to a tight line.
‘ You haven’t taken any, have you?’ Donaldson said with disbelief.
A short shake of Santana’s head confirmed this.
Donaldson’s eyes closed despairingly. He demanded to speak to the chambermaid.
She understood English well. And had little to offer. Yes, she had found the body in the bath. It had frightened her. She had called the manager who had taken over and informed the police. The brooding presence of Santana hovering over her shoulder did little to help matters. He seemed to intimidate her. Donaldson would have preferred to talk to her alone, but there was little chance of that happening.
The autopsy did not help much either.
Donaldson prepared himself for this stage by buying a compact 35mm camera and two colour films from a shop in Funchal. Hardly ideal, but the best he could do under the circumstances.
While the pathologist waited impatiently, he took photographs of Sam’s body before the knife went in. Once again he felt like an intruder and whilst he did it, his mouth twisted into a grimace of distaste. Had there been another way, or another person to do it, he would happily have handed the task over.
He took several shots of her head, trying to get a good close one of the cuts on the hairline. And shots of her shoulders and thighs, just above the knees where he had seen some slight bruising.
When he was satisfied, the pathologist moved in.
The procedure was carried out competently enough by the doctor who was from the new hospital, Cruz de Carvalho, in Funchal. He was accompanied by an assistant who recorded his observations in writing. The doctor spoke in Portuguese and then translated for Donaldson’s benefit.
Sam’s head injury and the bruising on her body was duly noted and recorded.
At the FBI agent’s insistence the doctor took scrapings from under Sam’s fingernails and bagged them.
Then he placed the dissecting knife in the soft flesh at her throat and sliced easily into the skin. Donaldson turned away. Within moments there was a perfectly straight incision right the way down the middle of her slim body to the pubis.
Donaldson forced himself to watch. He was aware that, if not careful, the last memory he would have of her would be as a hollow cadaver, all organs removed, skull hacked off, brain sliced up on a table.
Eventually the chest cavity was opened, the ribcage removed, the heart and lungs cut out. The lungs were heavy and needed two hands to lift them across to the dissecting table. Here they were sliced open, revealing the foam consistent with drowning. Typical post mortem appearance.
Water was also found in the stomach and trachea.
After two and a half hours’ work the doctor had finished.
He washed off after he’d sewn her roughly back up. Donaldson pestered him with questions.
‘ She drowned,’ the doctor insisted. ‘The head injury you talk about is consistent with banging her head on the edge of a door. It did not kill her, but may possibly have stunned her for a few moments.’
‘ But what about those bruises on her shoulder and legs? Are they consistent with someone grabbing her and holding her down?’
The doctor, ‘Ummed…’ and considered it. He dried his hands. ‘There is that argument, I suppose,’ he concluded, ‘but without supporting evidence…’ He shrugged. ‘She was here on a walking holiday, I believe,’ he continued. ‘These are bruises she could easily have got doing that.’
‘ So what’s your theory?’ Donaldson pumped him.
‘ If she had been drinking’ — here he held up a blood sample taken from her — ‘and this will tell us for sure, then I think she got drunk, staggered into a door, banged her head. This may have sent her dizzy. She had filled a hot bath and when she climbed in, the combination of alcohol, the blow to the head and the hot water made her pass out. She drowned. Misadventure. Accident. Whatever you want to call it.’
‘ But not murder?’
The doctor shook his head.
Santana, who had watched the autopsy and listened to the conversation, cut in at that point. ‘An unfortunate set of circumstances. No mystery as you imply, Karl. No one to blame. Very sad.’
Henry had eaten a rather large meal and was glaring accusingly at his empty plate when a file of papers dropped onto the canteen table in front of him.
The harassed, overweight form of Dave Seymour stood there. Tie askew, top shirt- button open, jacket flapping untidily. His eyes were red raw. He had spent the day interviewing Dundaven. It was 6.30 p.m.
‘ He’s now got some smart-assed solicitor from Manchester acting for him,’ were the first words he said to Henry. ‘Some guy named Pratt of all things. But he isn’t.’
‘ What d’you know about him?’
‘ I phoned the RCS in Bolton and asked them. Just a sec…’ Seymour left Henry and went to the serving hatch where he selected a meal and returned to the table. He sat down opposite. ‘Seems him and his firm are known for representing shite, from criminal dealings to property stuff. Very fuckin’ seedy by all accounts.’ He shovelled a large load of potato pie into his mouth. This didn’t prevent him from continuing to talk. ‘At least he got his client to tell us his name and date of birth.’ Seymour pointed with his knife to the name written on the file.
‘ And what do we know about him?’
‘ Not much yet. We think he’s involved in the drugs scene over in East Lancs, but not much more than that.’ A forkload of mushy peas disappeared down his throat. ‘Think he’s a pretty big player.’
‘ Any pre-cons?’ Henry asked.
‘ Yep, but they don’t tell us much. Petty stuff.’
‘ Terrorist connections? Organised crime?’
‘ Organised maybe. Nothing terrorist.’
‘ And the passenger in the Range Rover — the flying man?’
‘ A lowlife shitbag called McCrory. Junkie. Petty thief. Good shoplifter, as most druggies tend to be. On the periphery ofDundaven’s scene. Bit of a gofer, I’d say.’
‘ And what’s Dundaven’s story?’
Seymour closed his eyes in despair. ‘You wouldn’t fucking believe it. The shitehawk’s trying to wrangle out of it and dump everything on his dead buddy. He says McCrory asked him to drive to Blackpool yesterday, cos he wanted to pick something up. Turns out to be guns — from a man in a pub, would ya credit?’
Henry sniggered. ‘Oh, the ubiquitous man in a pub; we’ll catch the bastard one day.’
‘ Yeah, well, they pick up the guns, so the fairy tale goes… don’t know which pub it was, by the way… and Dundaven is horrified, bless his soul. He says he’s too frightened of McCrory to say anything — him being a real hard case, as he put it. Says McCrory produced two shotguns and blasted Nina and dinged one off at Rik Dean’s car.’