‘The anchors.’
‘Right. You’ll take it to the lab?’
‘Of course. But you must allow that the house owner would have handled it on a number of occasions. If we find any trace of his DNA, that doesn’t mean he’s guilty. And of course the women who found the body will have left some of their skin tissue on the fabric. It’s not so simple as it might appear.’
‘Nothing ever is.’
She went back to the house and questioned Jo for ten minutes. Little came out of it except the repeated insistence that Jake was innocent and should be released. At such times Hen despaired of her own sex.
Back in the garden she checked with the searchers and shook her head when she saw the result: a few rusty nails and the plastic cap from a tube of sunscreen. She watched the body being stretchered away to the mortuary van. The most pressing need was to identify the victim. But how? The face was too far gone to use in a photo appeal. The woman hadn’t been wearing a ring, or jewellery. The pink swimming costume looked like a standard garment unlikely to yield much.
She pondered the possible events leading up to the murder. The woman was most unlikely to have arrived at the house in a swimming costume. Logic suggested she’d changed out of her day clothes in the house. None had been found, but that was surely because the killer disposed of them, just as he’d disposed of Meredith Sentinel’s clothes the night he’d murdered her on Selsey beach. He’d realise they would help with identification.
If the latest victim had been persuaded to change for a swim she must have trusted her killer. You don’t get into a private pool with a stranger. She must have known him and come to the house. Who else could her host have been but Denis Cartwright? He’d got into the water with her and drowned her.
No.
Something was wrong here. Cartwright had been missing for almost two weeks. This body had been in the water for a much shorter interval-two to five days, the pathologist had estimated.
Was Cartwright alive, then? Had he returned to the house with this woman, persuaded her to join him for a swim, and drowned her?
Any other scenario was too far fetched. The killer pretends he owns the house and pool and makes elaborate arrangements to fool the woman into visiting? No chance.
Hold on, she thought. I’m assuming too much here. Kibblewhite spoke of immersion, but refused to say the woman had drowned, or anyone had drowned her. Did she die accidentally? A sudden heart attack while in the water?
Were other people present? A swimming party? Drinks, larking about, and she hits her head on the stone surround and nobody notices until it’s too late?
Whichever elaborate story you dream up, you’re faced with the fact that the woman’s death was concealed. Nobody pulls a cover across a small private pool without noticing a body in the water. It was a hidden crime, hidden with the expectation that nothing would be found until next year when the weather was warm enough for swimming.
The bottom line was this: Cartwright’s pool, in Cartwright’s garden, and Cartwright was missing.
TWENTY-ONE
The manhunt was stepped up.
Cartwright was no longer just a missing person. The official line, that he was wanted for questioning in connection with the deaths of three women, was sent out with a ‘not for publication’ note that he was believed to be a psychopath likely to kill again.
Hen’s morning started at the mortuary. She’d never been squeamish about attending autopsies. It was the tough-talking men-bless their little cotton socks-who were liable to faint as soon as the pathologist picked up the scalpel. Even so, this one was a severe test, definitely a face mask and tic tac occasion. The well-prepared Dr Kibblewhite had brought two cans of air freshener and they were put to good use from the start.
To put everyone at ease while cutting away the pink swimsuit, he talked with affection about one of Dr Quincy’s television episodes. ‘You didn’t see the dissection. Never did in those days. The only bits of the body you saw were the feet or the face. All very wholesome. So I can’t say for certain if Quincy would have destroyed a perfectly good costume as I’m doing here, but, if you think about it, even if I removed it without damage I doubt if anyone would wear it.’ He cut off the label and handed it to Hen. Speedo was so common a make that it was almost no help at all.
Photos had to be taken at each stage, prolonging the operation. Kibblewhite stressed that drowning is difficult, if not impossible, to diagnose at post mortem when the body is no longer fresh. No question that water was in the lungs and would be sent for analysis with the other samples, but he doubted if he could state the cause of death even when the results came back. And with the sodden skin deteriorating and no other injuries apparent, he could find no external evidence that the woman’s demise had been homicidal.
Neither were there any useful clues to identity. No scars. She was aged about fifty, give or take five years, and she looked after her hair and nails, like a million other women. Two of the fingernails on the right hand were torn, but Kibblewhite said it would not be wise to read too much into that. They may have been damaged when the body was taken from the pool. ‘They go soft, you see.’
‘My lads lifted her out,’ Hen said. ‘I was watching them.’
‘So was I. It’s so easily done.’
‘I notice you just tugged out some hair at the roots.’
‘Deliberately. Another indication of the amount of time she spent in the water,’ Kibblewhite told her. ‘The hair loosens.’
‘Are you sticking with your estimate of two to five days?’
‘I am.’
‘You can’t be more precise than that?’
‘Too many variables.’
‘That hair you just removed. If you bag some up for me, I’ll ask for an immediate DNA test.’
‘You’re an optimist.’
‘I’m sure Quincy would take the trouble,’ she said, unable to resist the dig.
‘Quincy didn’t know about DNA.’ He used tweezers to put some hairs into an evidence bag and handed it to her. ‘Don’t forget to label it.’
The dissection was more productive, or so Kibblewhite claimed. He went so far as to mention the word ‘drowning’ as a possibility after finding froth in the main air passages and over-distension of the lungs. Only after he’d seen the results of lab tests would he know if he could say more.
Hen came away thinking she could have been better employed at the nick. Outside, the rain was belting down again. She sprinted through the puddles to her car. When she got there she swore mildly. The SAVE TUFTY umbrella was still on the back seat, neatly furled. She ran all the way back and returned the precious souvenir to its owner as he came out of the door.
‘But you’re drenched,’ Kibblewhite said. ‘Why didn’t you use it?’
There was better news when she got back to the incident room. Cartwright’s red Peugeot Estate had been found near the boatyard at Dell Quay. The registration had been checked with Swansea and the car transported to Chichester for forensic examination.
‘Hey, that’s the first good thing I’ve heard today. There’s sure to be evidence inside.’
‘Remember who we’re dealing with, guv. His middle names are spick and span,’ Paddy Murphy told her. ‘It’s as clean as a Buckingham Palace loo.’
Hen tried to stay upbeat. ‘We’ll get something back from the Motor Investigation Unit, if it’s only grit from his shoes. It’s safe to assume, then, that he put to sea.’
‘Well, his boat hasn’t been found.’
‘What sort is it?’
‘Quite modest. A twelve-metre yacht called Nonpareil.’
‘Called what?’
‘Did I say it wrong? It’s written on the board over there. Gary says it’s a printing term, a typeface.’