Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

‘They appear to be.’

‘Did that happen before death?’

‘Rest assured, I think we’ll find it did.’

‘Thank the gods for that. I can deal with strange but I hate weird .’ So far McLusky saw no reason why he shouldn’t hand this over to someone else. He was, after all, supposed to concentrate on finding the bomber. Drowned girls didn’t fit the remit. ‘Still, very strange, how do you burn yourself on an empty path next to the water? It wasn’t one of those fire-spitting accidents?’ It was not unheard of that unwise street performers who spat and swallowed fire reached for the petrol when paraffin was unobtainable. The results were invariably disastrous, occasionally fatal.

Coulthard straightened up, shaking his head slowly. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘So, what, a freak accident?’

‘Almost right, inspector. My guess is accident arranged by a freak.’

McLusky’s mood took a nosedive. He pointed to the victim’s wrapped hand. ‘She picked something up?’

‘Yes. It looks to me like the melted remnants of a mobile phone, fused into her charred skin. The phone must have contained some kind of accelerant, possibly similar to the one used in the powder compact. Once it went off she couldn’t have dropped it if she’d tried. The thing must have burnt instantly with such a fierce heat that it stuck to her hand. My guess is she tried to douse the pain, fell in and drowned. This is definitely another one of yours. Sorry. I could see you were hoping otherwise.’

McLusky straightened up and looked about. ‘What a shit place to die too. I wonder where she found the thing.’ Would the bomber leave it here, where few people came? Why not? But more than likely she had picked up the phone, if that’s what it turned out to be, somewhere else. And they might never know. Unless.

A preliminary search of the area was already under way, the fingertip search would have to wait until daylight. Austin appeared by his side. ‘We got a tentative ID, she was carrying a library card. No photo ID though. Charlene Kernley. We came up with an address near Ashton Gate. I think she was taking a shortcut.’

‘Walking alone after dark … Not that it would have made any difference. How old do we think she was?’

‘No more than sixteen, seventeen.’

‘Who found her?’

Austin pointed to a man in his early thirties, sitting morosely with his back to a bollard under the watchful eye of Constable Pym. ‘This character over there. He flagged down a Traffic unit that happened to be passing. I don’t think he’s happy about having to hang around, though.’

‘Well, that’s just tough. Let’s have a quick chat with him.’

Even when he stood in front of him the man didn’t get up until he addressed him. ‘Do you think we could have a word? I’m Detective Inspector McLusky. And you are?’

‘Reed.’

‘You found the body.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where exactly was the body when you first saw it?’

‘Just there, where they pulled her out. She was sort of floating, face down. Just by the edge.’

‘Did you pull her out?’

‘No, didn’t touch her, I know not to touch dead bodies. I went and found a police car and stopped them. They pulled her out.’

‘Good thinking.’ McLusky turned around, contemplated the group of crime scene technicians near the water’s edge for a few seconds, then turned to Reed again. The man’s boots were muddy, and his hands were a little grimy. His fingernails were positively black. ‘What’s your first name, Mr Reed?’

‘It’s Chris, Christopher. I gave all my details to that policewoman …’ His gaze moved about, trying to spot the officer who had taken his details.

‘Never mind. And what do you do, Chris? You don’t mind if I call you Chris?’

‘Ehm, no, I’m a student.’

‘At the uni? What are you studying?’

‘What’s that got to do with it? I didn’t have anything to do with the girl dying, I just found her. I was just passing. Why are you asking me questions? Is that what you get for helping the police, endless questions?’

This kind of reaction always rang little alarm bells with McLusky. ‘Bear with us, Chris, we’ll have you on your way in no time. So, what were you doing down here?’

Reed shrugged. ‘Just passing, riding my bike.’

‘Right. Is that your bike back there? By the railings?’ It was difficult to make out from here. ‘Do you have lights on your bike?’

‘There’s a dead girl and you ask me about the lights on my bike?’ He made a silent appeal to Austin but got nothing in return but a lizard stare. ‘Okay, no, I don’t have lights, are you going to arrest me for that?’

‘And where were you going?’

‘Home.’

‘Which is?’

‘In Cotham.’

‘And you were coming from where?’

‘Nowhere. Just riding my bike.’

McLusky shot Austin a questioning look. Austin’s eyebrows rose and he took over. ‘Just for fun?’

‘Yes. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’

‘Sure. Only Cotham is quite a ways from here … Chris . And your bike, if I remember rightly, is just an old boneshaker with no gears. It’s pretty dark down here too with no lights and there’s broken glass about.’

McLusky took up the baton again. ‘Okay, Chris, let’s try again. What were you doing here?’

‘Nothing illegal, I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘I would like to believe that, really I would. What did you say you were studying?’

‘Political science.’

‘Not horticulture then.’

‘What?’

‘Your hands, your fingernails, you look like you’ve been gardening or something. You said you didn’t go near the body, how did your hands get that dirty?’

‘I … the chain came off my bike. Now look …’

The body had been pulled out at a spot more or less equidistant from the two bridges, where it would be darkest. ‘So how did you spot the body in the water if you were cycling and had no lights?’

‘I was pushing it at the time. As you said, there’s lots of glass around here.’

‘Okay, you were pushing your bike along this dismal bit of path in the dark for no reason whatsoever, on the wrong side of town, near a row of houses, several of which have recently been burgled.’ He had invented the burglaries but it seemed to pay dividends, Reed became visibly scared.

‘Burglary? What else are you going to accuse me of? First that I have something to do with the dead girl, then burglary. You’re completely mad.’

Behind Reed an elderly man at the cordon started heckling the police and technicians, his hard-edged face a mask of anger in the ghoulish light. ‘I could have told you that would happen. It was only a matter of time. Decent street lighting and constables on the beat is what we need. You lot only turn up when it’s all too late. You’re useless.’

A PC ambled over to have a soothing word with him. McLusky opted for a change of venue. ‘Do you have anything on you that you shouldn’t?’

Reed shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Sure? Okay. Show me your bike.’

Reed didn’t budge. ‘It’s just back there.’

‘Come on then, let’s have a quick look at it.’

‘It’s just an ordinary bicycle.’ Despite his resistance he became the reluctant filling in a CID sandwich as Austin led the way, McLusky following close behind.

‘You see, it’s just an old bike.’ Somehow Reed stood back from it, as if trying to dissociate himself from it.

‘It’s a wreck. Can you open the panniers for us, please.’

Reed’s hands fumbled with the fastener of the first pannier. He opened it and stood back.

‘Fruit. That’s a lot of fruit, Chris. And in bad condition, most of it.’ He picked up an orange, flicking a thumbnail over its mildewed rind.