Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

‘Been keeping busy again, Hunter?’

I watched him disappear into the house as well. It was another twenty minutes before Lundy appeared in the doorway, his bulky shape recognizable even before he pulled down his hood and removed his mask. He stopped to speak with the crime scene manager, and I got to my feet by the police car as he came over.

‘You were right. Looks like she was strangled,’ he said without preamble. His face was red and flushed, with deep lines where the mask had dug in.

I’d expected as much from the dead girl’s congested features and bloodshot eyes. ‘How long has she been dead?’

‘Frears thinks between nine and twelve hours.’

That meant she’d been killed some time that afternoon. While I’d been getting jittery about dinner with Rachel, Edgar had been choking the life out of Coker’s daughter.

Lundy unzipped his coveralls and fished inside a pocket for a tissue. He blew his nose noisily before continuing.

‘There are other injuries as well. She got bruising on her head by her right temple, and there’s more on her torso. Probably from the crash rather than here.’

I nodded: she’d have been thrown about as the car had rolled, and the injury to her head was in keeping with her striking it against the door of the car.

‘Does Frears think she was assaulted?’

The big shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘There’s no visible trauma to indicate it, but he won’t know for sure until the post-mortem. For her and her family’s sake I hope not, but you’ve got to assume the intent was there or she’d still be fully clothed.’ Lundy sighed again and shook his head. ‘Tell me again what happened.’

I went through the encounter with Edgar, including his agitated state and what he’d said when Rachel tried to question him. He listened without comment until I’d finished.

‘If Stacey Coker came out of the bend and found Holloway in front of her it’d explain why she went off the road. And if he saw the car headlights in the water he must have been nearby. They wouldn’t have stayed on long.’

‘Holloway?’

‘That’s his name. Edgar Holloway.’ Lundy looked at the floodlit house. ‘This is going to open up a whole new can of worms.’

‘Because of his daughter, you mean?’

His eyebrows climbed. ‘How’d you hear about that?’

I explained how Rachel had told me about the disappearance of Edgar’s young daughter. The DI rubbed his jawline with the back of a hand.

‘Must be what? Twenty-odd years ago now. The Rowan Holloway case was one of the first cases I worked on when I moved here. Caused quite a stir locally. Nine years old, went out one morning in the school holidays and didn’t come back. We never did find out what happened to her, although...’

‘Although...?’

He smiled, wearily. ‘I was about to say although her father was suspected at one point. He was home by himself the day Rowan disappeared, so inevitably he came under scrutiny. I’ll need to dig out the file, but from what I can recall the investigating officers marked him down as an oddball. Reclusive even then, didn’t like mixing with people. His wife worked in a shop in Cruckhaven, and I think he was a naturalist of some kind. Wrote text books for schools, or something like that. Thought nothing of letting their daughter wander off by herself in the Backwaters, so they got a lot of flak when she went missing.’

‘Was Edgar ever charged?’

‘No, there was never any proof, and her teachers thought the girl seemed happy enough at home. He had some sort of breakdown afterwards, as far as I can remember, and the investigation sort of fizzled out after that.’

‘Did his daughter have blond hair?’

‘Now you mention it, she did. But it seems a stretch to think he mistook Stacey Coker for his daughter just because they’d both got hair “like sunshine”, or whatever. Rowan was only nine when she disappeared. She’d be in her thirties now.’

‘I’m not sure Edgar would be capable of rationalizing it like that. And it was dark, so perhaps at first all he saw was the blond hair. That might have been enough for him to pull her out of the creek and bring her back here.’

Lundy dug in his pocket again and produced a packet of antacids. ‘Maybe, but that’s one for the psychiatrists. And if Stacey Coker reminded him of his daughter, it makes what happened in there even worse, wouldn’t you say?’

That unpalatable thought hung between us for a few moments. ‘You said earlier about opening a can of worms,’ I said. ‘You didn’t just mean because of Rowan Holloway, did you?’

‘No.’ He crunched down on a couple of antacids. ‘People are going to be asking now why Holloway was allowed to fall off the radar like he has. Social services are going to have some explaining to do, because he obviously shouldn’t have been left on his own out here. And after this we can’t ignore the possibility that he might be responsible for more than his daughter’s disappearance. This is going to stand the Emma Derby investigation on its head.’

Jesus. I rubbed my eyes, too tired to think straight. ‘You seriously think he could have something to do with that?’

‘God knows. But we’ll need to search every inch of this place. Inside and out.’ He shook his head, considering the shells and pieces of driftwood dotted like markers throughout the overgrown garden. ‘I don’t look forward to that. We’re not going to know if there’s any human remains under there without digging up the whole lot. It was bad enough with the dog’s grave at Villiers’ house, and this place is like a bloody pet cemetery.’

I hadn’t thought about that, but he was right. Aside from the tangle of shrubs and briars that would have to be cleared, the rotting animal carcasses buried here would confuse a cadaver dog.

But the mention of Emma Derby had reminded me of something else. ‘Has Rachel said anything about the motorbike?’

‘Not to me, but I haven’t seen her since she went to give her statement. What motorbike?’

I’d rather Lundy had heard about it from her, but he needed to know. I told him about the photograph of the gleaming Harley-Davidson on the sand dune, and how Emma Derby’s old boyfriend might have made a reappearance.

‘Let me get this straight, she’s only just noticed the sea fort now ?’ he said, frowning.

‘She recognized the bike but thought it must be an old picture. And the fort’s hard to make out. It’s only because you can see it in some of the other beach shots that you can tell what it is.’

I heard myself sounding defensive. Lundy sighed. ‘And she’s no idea when it might have been taken?’

I shook my head, but he wasn’t expecting me to answer. He passed his hand across his face.

‘Wonderful. So what else did she say about this...’

‘Mark Chapel. Only that her sister knew him in London and he used to produce music videos. And he owned a Harley like the one in the photograph.’

‘Like it or the same one?’

‘I don’t know, but I didn’t want to ask too much. She knows we’ve found another body, and I didn’t want her making the connection.’

Lundy looked baffled. ‘Connection? You’ve lost me.’

‘Between the motorbike in the photograph and the biker jacket and boots the body from the creek was wearing.’

Comprehension spread across his face. ‘Christ, I’m getting slow. OK, I’ll need to take a look at the photo myself. And we’ll see what else we can find out about this Mark Chapel character. Might come to nothing, but we need to rule him out, if nothing else.’

He looked past me and straightened, making a visible effort to throw off his fatigue.

‘Here’s the chief.’

I turned and saw Clarke making her way between the parked police vehicles. Her pale trench coat was unbuttoned and flapped around her as she marched towards us. She looked tired and dishevelled, but mainly annoyed as she stopped in front of me.