Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

The DI had been surprised to hear from me, especially when I told him where I was staying. Trask obviously hadn’t mentioned it when they’d spoken earlier, but Lundy didn’t pass any comment beyond an exasperated sigh. He’d be right out, he told me, adding that I should stay put.

I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. The trek across the marsh had taken a lot out of me, and by the time Rachel and I had walked back to the boathouse I felt done in. While she made tea, I put the ice packs I’d frozen earlier into a plastic bag and slipped them into the cool-box with the foot before gratefully sinking on to a chair. I could see Rachel wanted to ask me about it, but she restrained herself. Just as well: I couldn’t have told her anything anyway.

I’d more questions than answers myself.

Lundy arrived sooner than I expected, with a pair of CSIs in tow. He stayed with me while Rachel took them to where we’d found the training shoe. I didn’t offer to go with them, knowing I’d already pushed myself more than I should, and in any case the high tide prevented walking along the creek. Rachel said there was a small road bridge that wasn’t too far from where we’d found the trainer, so they could take their car and go on foot from there. The three of them left, the CSIs taking the cool-box and its contents with them. Lundy barely waited until the door was closed before turning to me.

‘Right, Dr Hunter,’ he’d said, folding thick arms across his chest. ‘Care to tell me what’s been going on?’

Now he let out a long breath. ‘I don’t have to tell you how awkward this is, do I? Emma Derby’s family have been through enough without getting dragged into this.’

‘And if I’d known her husband’s name was Trask I might have made a better job of avoiding them,’ I shot back. ‘OK, I cocked up, I admit it. But what else could I do?’

Lundy pushed his glasses up on his forehead and kneaded the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, what’s done is done. At least we’ve got the foot. You say you’ve got photographs?’

I’d not had a chance to transfer the shots I’d taken at the creek to my laptop, so I found them on my camera and passed it over.

‘I’ll need emails of these,’ Lundy said as he studied the images on the small screen. ‘Doesn’t look like it was severed, does it?’

‘Not from what I saw.’

Although I’d known better than to examine the actual foot, by expanding the photographs on the camera’s screen I’d been able to view it in better detail. The curved sculpture of the talus — the ankle bone — was visible inside the filthy purple sock. Fish, crabs and seabirds had picked clean as much of the soft tissue as they could get to, but a few tattered vestiges still clung to the ankle’s exposed surface. Except for the tiny pitting caused by scavengers, the contoured face of the ankle bone itself was smooth, with no obvious evidence of cuts or splintering. Even from the little I’d seen, I felt certain that the foot had separated naturally when its connective tissues decomposed.

That was all I was certain about.

‘Looks too big to be a woman’s,’ Lundy said, flicking to another photograph. ‘Don’t suppose you saw what size it was?’

‘No, I thought I’d better bag it up and get it in the cool-box. It looked around a ten, but that’s only a guess.’

If that meant anything one way or the other he gave no sign. ‘Any thoughts on how long it might have been in the water?’

‘Not beyond the obvious. Long enough to detach from the leg, so at this time of year let’s say a few weeks. Beyond that I can’t say without examining it.’

‘So roughly the same length of time as the body we found yesterday.’

‘The foot will have been protected inside the shoe, so it could be longer. But possibly, yes.’

‘And there was no sign of the other foot?’ I just looked at him. He sighed. ‘All right, stupid question.’

If there had been I’d have already said so. But the feet and hands wouldn’t have fallen away at the same time. It would be sheer fluke if they’d ended up in the same place.

Lundy flicked back through the photographs to one that showed the entire training shoe. His lips pursed as he studied it.

‘Are you going to say it or shall I?’ I asked.

He smiled. ‘Say what?’

‘From what I’ve heard about him, that doesn’t look like something Leo Villiers would wear.’

‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t. People have all sorts of surprising things tucked away in their wardrobes.’

‘Purple socks?’

‘I grant you, it’s not the sort of thing I’d imagine Villiers wearing, but stranger things happen. We’re still trying to persuade his father to let us see his medical records, so until that happens for all I know he might be colour blind. It’s not as if anyone knew what clothes he had on when he went missing. We weren’t allowed to search his house, so we can’t say what sort of stuff he might have had there.’

‘You weren’t allowed ?’ I asked, surprised. Withholding access to medical records before someone was officially declared dead was one thing, but I couldn’t see how anyone could prevent the police from carrying out a search, no matter who they were. ‘What about when Emma Derby disappeared?’

‘We didn’t have enough evidence to get a warrant.’ He shook his head, annoyed at the memory. ‘His father’s lawyers were all over us. We carried out a cursory search when he was reported missing, to make sure he wasn’t dead in a spare room or something. They couldn’t stop us from doing that. But somebody had obviously been through the place already by then. The housekeeper said she’d tidied it before she realized he’d disappeared, but this had been cleaned top to bottom.’

‘Wasn’t that obstruction?’

Lundy took a new packet of antacids from his pocket and began stripping off the plastic. ‘Nothing we could successfully argue. It wasn’t as if we knew what we were looking for, except perhaps Emma Derby’s body, so we couldn’t accuse anyone of destroying evidence. But the point I was making is that we don’t know enough about Leo Villiers to say he didn’t own cheap trainers and purple socks. If he was planning to blow his brains out with a shotgun he probably wasn’t too bothered about what he had on his feet anyway.’

He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

‘You’re not happy about this either, are you?’ I said.

‘It doesn’t matter what I am.’ He crunched down on two antacids as though taking it out on them. ‘Frankly, I’d rather believe that Villiers Junior had dodgy taste in footwear than the alternative, which is that we’ve got another dead body missing its feet somewhere.’

There was another possibility, but now wasn’t the time to go into that. Besides, I felt sure that Lundy would be aware of it already.

‘Do you know when Frears is planning on examining the foot?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to be there.’

Lundy suddenly seemed uncomfortable. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’

I tried to hide my disappointment. An individual foot might not tell us very much, but I’d assumed the police would want me to take a look anyway. And while I was there I’d thought I could examine the body from the estuary as well. I was still annoyed with myself for missing the post-mortem, and even if I couldn’t add to the pathologist’s findings I’d at least like to know I’d done what I could.

Now I wouldn’t get the chance. ‘So Clarke’s mad at me,’ I said.

Lundy sighed. ‘There are enough complications with this case as it is. The chief doesn’t want any more.’

‘How is letting me examine the foot complicating things?’

‘Well, apart from missing the post-mortem, you’ve ended up being house guest with the family of a missing woman, and taken her sister on a hunt for a misplaced body part. Not bad going for twenty-four hours, is it?’