Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

So I told Lundy I’d drive him home. I was glad of the company, and the distraction. I hadn’t heard anything from Rachel. I’d tried calling her again but she still wasn’t picking up. I didn’t want to crowd her, knowing she’d have enough to deal with in the aftermath of Stacey Coker’s murder. Even so, her silence was preying on my mind.

Lundy looked tired when I picked him up outside the hospital entrance. When I asked how it had gone he’d just said, ‘Oh, fine,’ with the air of someone not wanting to talk about it. Instead he’d asked if I’d found out anything else from the remains.

He’d perked up noticeably when I told him about the vomer, and explained how only either a very precise or a very lucky blow could have caused an injury like that.

‘Palm strike?’ I queried.

‘It’s the sort of thing you pick up if you’re taught hand-to-hand combat or some types of martial arts. Instead of breaking your fingers punching someone, you ram the heel of your hand into their face.’ He raised his own hand to demonstrate: palm thrust out, fingers curled back in a vague claw shape. ‘Nasty, but if you want to stop someone getting frisky it’ll do the job. An ex-para showed me when I was in the TA, along with a few other dirty tricks.’

‘You were in the Territorial Army?’

He chuckled. ‘There was less of me back then. You want the third exit at the roundabout.’

Lundy had assured me I wouldn’t need the satnav. He didn’t live far out of my way, but traffic was heavy.

‘So a palm strike could cause an injury like that?’ I asked once I’d negotiated the roundabout.

‘Theoretically, but I’ve never come across it myself. You’re sure someone didn’t just stave it in with a club or something?’

I couldn’t say for sure what the dead man had been hit with, but I doubted it was a weapon of any sort. Although the damage to the lower face made it hard to be certain, anything hard-edged like a brick or hammer would have been more likely to leave depression fractures bearing its shape.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Then if we’re talking bare hands, a palm strike sounds most likely,’ Lundy said. ‘But you’d have to hit someone bloody hard, and at exactly the right angle to manage that. Ordinarily, you’re more likely to wind up with a bloody nose or broken front teeth.’

‘This did more than break his teeth. It looks like the jawbone immediately below his nose actually caved in,’ I told him, slowing as a lorry pulled into my lane without indicating. ‘A lot of the bone from there is missing, and what’s left looks spongier than it should.’

‘Spongier?’

‘It was full of tiny holes, like cinder toffee. Could be a genetic bone defect, or perhaps he’d had some sort of infection in it. Either way, something weakened the structure enough for a palm strike — assuming that’s what it was — to make it collapse and push the vomer up into his brain.’

Lundy nodded thoughtfully. ‘So we’re looking at that as probable cause of death?’

I’d discussed that with Frears, without reaching any conclusion. ‘Hard to say. It’s not a survivable injury, but it doesn’t mean that’s what actually killed him. If I’m right about the fractures, the fall would have been fatal by itself. My guess is the blow to the face came first, followed by the fall, because there’d be no point hitting anyone if they had those sorts of injuries. But I can’t tell you how much time there was between one and the other.’

‘At least it means he was dead or unconscious before someone ground half his face off,’ Lundy said with a grimace. ‘Still, you can see the thinking behind it. You kill someone in a fight, accidentally or otherwise, so you camouflage the evidence behind other injuries. Try to make the death look like a run-in with a boat and destroy any identifying features in one go. Then tangle the body in barbed wire and sink it in a deep section of the Backwaters, hoping if it is found that it’ll look like an accident.’

‘It was never going to work,’ I said. ‘Not once the body was given a proper examination.’

‘No, but you’ve got to hand it to them for trying. Next left here.’

I took the turning he’d indicated. We were into a residential area now, pleasant semi-detached houses with cherry trees lining the grass verges. The pink blossom gave the street a celebratory look, like the setting for a wedding.

Lundy was stroking his moustache, a sign I’d come to recognize meant he was thinking. ‘What else have you been able to find out?’

‘Not much. He was tall, an inch or two over six foot, and between thirty and forty years old. But that’s as much as I can say for now.’

‘Any thoughts on how long the body had been in the water?’

‘Probably several months, but without knowing if it was drifting or submerged on the barbed wire the whole time that’s not much more than a guess.’

‘For the sake of argument let’s assume it was on the barbed wire. How long would you say then?’

I thought for a while before answering. ‘Bearing in mind it’s been winter and then a cold spring, somewhere between six and eight months.’

Lundy nodded. ‘Emma Derby went missing just under seven months ago.’

That fact hadn’t escaped me.

‘Any luck tracing her ex-boyfriend?’ I asked, knowing where this was leading.

‘Not yet. I put someone on to it but then I had to go and have that bloody tube shoved down my throat. I haven’t even had chance to look at this photograph of the motorbike you told me about.’

‘But you’re thinking Villiers might have killed Mark Chapel as well as Emma Derby.’

‘I’m thinking the stars certainly seem to be aligning that way. Obviously, if Chapel turns out to be alive we’re back at square one. But adding Emma Derby’s old boyfriend into the mix could explain a few things. I can’t see Villiers reacting well to having a rival, so you’ve got a potential motive for murder right there. And a palm strike’s the sort of thing he could have picked up from his military background. You don’t have to like playing at soldiers to remember what you’ve been taught.’

He pointed at a house on the other side of the road.

‘This is us. You can pull in by the driveway.’

I drew up to the kerb. Keeping the indicator on, I left the engine running, ready to set off again. The scent of cherry blossom and wet grass drifted into the car when Lundy opened the door, but he didn’t get out.

‘Thanks for the lift. You want to come in for a cuppa? My wife isn’t back yet so I can break out my stash of biscuits without getting shouted at.’

‘No thanks. I’d better get off.’

I didn’t want to intrude into the policeman’s home life, and I thought his wife would want to hear about his hospital visit when she came home. But Lundy stayed where he was.

‘Actually, I’d appreciate it if you did.’ Behind the glasses, the blue eyes were candid. ‘There’s something else I want to have a word about.’

The house wasn’t what I’d expected. It was a post-war semi that had been renovated and extended. The front garden had been turned into a Mediterranean-style patio, while inside was bright and modern, with comfortable but contemporary furniture. I sat in a small conservatory while Lundy busied himself making tea in the adjacent kitchen. He’d waved away my offer of help.

‘They only told me not to drive. I can still operate a kettle.’

He seemed in no hurry to get whatever he had to say off his chest, so I let him get round to it in his own time.

‘How did Coker take the news?’ I asked as he poured boiling water into two mugs.

‘As you’d imagine. I went round to his house to break it to him last night.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about what he’s going to be feeling today.’