Peter Robinson: All the Colors of Darkness

There was something unnatural about all that morbid activity on such a beautiful day, Annie thought, as if it were merely some sort of exercise or practice run. But a man was dead; that much she knew. Counting her blessings, she realized that they had managed to get this far without reporters or TV cameras showing up.

The kids hadn’t known much. About the only piece of interesting information Winsome had gleaned from them was that when they had first approached the shallows along the riverside path from Eastvale at about one o’clock, just after lunch, one of them had chased another up the slope and there had been no sign of the hanging man. It was three-seventeen when the 999 call had been logged, which gave a window of just over two hours. With any luck, the SOCOs and Dr. Glendenning, the Home Office pathologist, would establish cause of death pretty quickly, and she wouldn’t have to watch her weekend go down the tubes, as she had so many times in the past.

Not that she had any grandiose plans, only house-cleaning, washing, lunch with an old colleague from Harkside Station on Saturday. But over the last couple of months, Annie had started taking more control of her life, and she valued her hours alone. She had cut down on her drinking and started exercising more, even going so far as to join the Eastvale fitness center. She also spent more time on yoga and meditation at home, and she was feeling so much the better for it all.

DI Stefan Nowak slipped off his face mask and goggles, ducked under the tape and walked toward Annie and Winsome over the stepping plates that now marked the common approach path to and from the scene. His pace was unhurried, but then it always was. Annie was glad that he had finally got his promotion to detective inspector and had been appointed crime scene manager. Sometimes the invasion of police work by business terminology made her cynical—it seemed to be all managers, executives and vision statements these days—but she had to admit that a crime scene was a bit like a business in some ways, and it did have to be carefully managed.

Winsome whistled “Who Are You?”

Nowak rolled his eyes and ignored her. “You’re in luck,” he said.

“Suicide?”

“The postmortem should verify our findings, but from what Dr. Burns and I saw, the only wound on his throat was that caused by the rope, and it was in exactly the place you’d expect it to be. Of course, there’s no saying he wasn’t poisoned first, and we’ll certainly ask for a full toxicology report, but there are no visible signs of serious physical trauma to the body other than those that can be related to the hanging. I take it Dr. Glendenning is back on the job?”

“Yes,” said Annie. “He’s back. What about all the blood, if that’s what it was?”

“It was. We’ve taken samples, of course. The only thing is...” Nowak frowned.

“Yes?”

“It could have come from the superficial scratches he got when he climbed the tree—we do have plenty of indication from the ground and the bark that he did that alone, by the way, without the help of a lynch-mob—but there’s rather a lot more blood than I would expect from a few scratches. We can get typing done pretty quickly, even this weekend, but, as you know, DNA and tox screens take quite a bit longer.”

“Soon as you can,” Annie said. “The rope?”

“Cheap nylon washing line, the kind you can buy almost anywhere.”

“And the knot?”

“Perfectly consistent with the kind of knot a potential suicide might tie. Hardly a hangman’s knot. You wouldn’t even have to be a Boy Scout. It was on the left side, by the way, which indicates a left-handed person, and given that he was wearing his wristwatch on his right hand... I’d say all the indications we have here point to a suicide by hanging.”

“Any idea who he was—a name, address?”

“No,” said Nowak. “He didn’t have a wallet with him.”

“Keys?”

“No. It’s my guess that he drove out here and left them in his car, maybe in his jacket. He wouldn’t have had any further use for them, would he?”

“I suppose not,” said Annie. “We’ll have to find out who his next of kin is. Any signs of a suicide note?”

“Not on or near him, no. Again, it’s possible he left something in the car.”

“We’ll check when we find it. I’d also like to know what his movements were this afternoon. As far as we know, he killed himself sometime between one and three. Suicide or not, there are a few gaps we have to try to fill in before we go home. Most of all, we need to know who he was.”

“That’s easy,” said one of SOCOs, a civilian soil expert by the name of Tim Mallory.

Annie hadn’t noticed him come up behind them. “It is?” she asked.

“Sure. I don’t know his second name, but everyone called him Mark.”

“Everyone?”

“At the Eastvale Theatre. That’s where he worked. You know, the restored Georgian theater on Market Street.”

“I know where you mean,” said Annie. For years the local amateur dramatic and operatic societies had put on their Terence Rattigans or Gilbert and Sullivans at the community center and in various church halls around the dale, but the town council, aided by an Arts Council lottery grant and private funding from local businesses, had recently restored an old Georgian theater, which had been used as a carpet warehouse and then left in a state of disrepair for years. For the past year and a half, it had been the center for all thespian endeavors in town, along with the occasional folk- or chamber-music concert. “Are you sure it’s him?” she asked.

“Certain,” said Mallory.

“What did he do there?”

“He had something to do with props and scenery, that sort of thing. Backstage stuff. My wife’s a member of the amateur operatic society,” Mallory added. “That’s how I know.”

“Know anything else about him?”

“Nah, not really.” Mallory flapped his wrist. “Except that he was a bit flamboyant, you might say.”

“He was gay?”

“He didn’t hide it. It’s pretty common knowledge around the place.”

“Know where he lived?”

“No, but one of the theater crowd would.”

“Any family?”

“No idea.”

“I don’t suppose you know what kind of car he drives, do you?” “Sorry.”

“Okay. Thanks.” What Mallory and Nowak had told her should certainly make her job a lot easier. Now she was beginning to believe that she and Winsome might get home before dark. She nudged Winsome. “Come on, let’s get over to the theater,” she said. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

Just then a young PC came trotting up the path, out of breath. “Excuse me, ma’am, but we think we’ve found the car. Want to see it now?”

The car was a dark green Toyota, an even earlier model than Annie’s old purple Astra, and it had definitely seen better days. It stood in the tarmacked parking area beside the caravan site, between the river and the main Swainsdale road. There were only three other cars in the park, which was how the officers had found it so quickly. They couldn’t be certain it belonged to the victim yet, of course, but as soon as Annie saw the jack-in-the-box with its paint peeling off and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand on the backseat, she immediately thought of theatrical props.

And the driver’s door was unlocked, the key in the ignition, which was what had drawn the attention of the uniformed officers. The inside was a mess, but it was only the kind of a mess a person makes in his or her own car, to which Annie could well attest. Maps, petrol receipts, sweet wrappers and CD cases littered the passenger seat. The CDs were mostly opera, Annie noticed, something Banks would have appreciated. In the back, along with the props, were a broken windscreen wiper, an unopened bag of pork scratchings and a roll of cling film. There was also a black zip-up wind cheater.