Peter Turnbull: Deep Cover

Two men stood at the edge of a stand of shrubs on Hampstead Heath at the edge of Ken Wood. The recent fall of snow had, for the most part, covered the body beside which the two men stood. Wind sliced across the Heath, carrying with it a fine drizzle from a low, grey sky. The men shivered. One pulled his coat collar up against the rain. The other stamped his feet to improve the circulation. It was early afternoon, yet lights burned in the offices and homes in London, surrounding the Heath with a shimmering ring of yellow and white light.

‘Strange place to lie down and die.’ ‘Mongoose Charlie’ cleared his throat and spat the yellow phlegm into the crisp snow beside him. ‘Strange old place.’

‘Saved us a job though.’ Sydney Pilcher blew into his hands. ‘Saved us a right job.’ Pilcher then turned and walked across the snow in a slow, deliberate manner, retracing his steps back towards Spaniards Road.

‘Mongoose Charlie’ remained by the corpse for a few seconds. Then he turned and followed Pilcher. ‘You’re right, boss,’ he said softly, ‘he saved us a right old job.’

It was ‘that’ winter. It was caused, the meteorologists announced, by a high-pressure cell that was stationary over Iceland and had thus allowed the arctic weather to sweep south and over the entire United Kingdom with a substantial blanket of snow and ice, especially black ice. It was further reported that the winter was the coldest winter for twenty years, and it came at a price. There was an endless stream of walking wounded who inundated the accident and emergency departments of the country’s hospitals, mainly suffering from fractures caused by slipping while walking on the unseen ice or from slow impact car accidents, but accidents that were sufficiently serious to cause non-fatal injuries. All of which had to be treated. There were also the inevitable fatalities, some very tragic, like the young man found floating in the pool of a water fountain dressed only in a tee shirt and denim jeans, who had died of drowning brought on by hypothermia and alcohol excess. Other incidents had an amusing quality, such as the one wherein two youths had driven their car far along the surface of an iced-over canal until, inevitably, they had encountered a patch of thinner ice and their car had plunged into three feet of water. Then had come the thaw, and, when it came, it brought with it its own unique set of problems: flooded homes in the main, and the discovery of bodies of people who had been reported missing at the height of the snowy weather. The body of a man called Michael Dalkeith being one such.

Michael Dalkeith’s body was discovered lying face down in the mud by a dog walker who was immediately touched by the spectacle; the poignancy reached her, deeply so. The woman noticed that the man wore clothing which was wholly inadequate for the weather. She saw a battered and torn wax-coated jacket, she saw denim jeans, which she knew from experience offered no protection against the cold, especially when aggravated by wind chill, and further aggravated, in this case, by the fact that they were clearly old, faded and threadbare, and which had ridden up his left leg to reveal that the wretched man was without thermal underwear and wore only short cotton socks and running shoes. Clothing suited only to warm, autumnal evenings, so thought the dog walker. He did not even have gloves upon his hands. The deceased had black hair and grimy looking skin, and he appeared to the woman to be a lowlife, most likely a street beggar, she thought, though he seemed to be older than most beggars she was used to seeing. But no one, not anyone, deserved this; dying alone in a snowstorm on the Heath, such a short distance from some of the most valuable houses in London, surrounded by wealth and warmth.

The woman slipped the lead round the neck of her King Charles spaniel and led him gently away from the body. She surveyed the scene before her as she walked to Spaniards Road; evergreen foliage had emerged with the thaw and a clear blue sky overlooked London, although the wind still blew keenly from the east. At Spaniards Road the dog walker halted and addressed a young man in a duffel coat who was about to enter the park, asking him whether he possessed ‘One of those damn mobile things? You know those little boxes that people hold to their ear and ruin everyone’s railway journeys?’

The man grinned at the woman’s indignation and took out a mobile phone from his jacket pocket. ‘One of these?’ he asked.

‘Yes. . loathsome things. Phone the police, can you?’

‘Yes,’ the man replied, a curious note having entered his voice, ‘I can. Why should I?’

‘Well, do so. Why? Because there’s a body over there.’ The woman turned and pointed towards Ken Wood.

‘Can you show me?’ the man asked.

‘I’d rather you call the police. I don’t like indulging ghoulish behaviour.’

‘I am one.’

‘A ghoul!’

The man smiled. ‘No, I am a police officer, off duty, but then a policeman is never off duty, not officially. Just show me, please.’ The wind tugged at the man’s hair.

Upon being shown the body, the police officer dialled 999 and gave his location and reason for calling. He took note of the dog walker’s name and address and then remained in attendance.

So much, he thought, for his first day off in many, many weeks. There is no justice in life and there’s no rest for the wicked. There just isn’t.

The white-haired man sat back in the deep, leather-covered armchair and pulled strongly on a large Havana cigar, and then exhaled, blowing neat smoke circles as he did so. ‘Well, now we know where the little toerag went and he won’t be doing us no harm. Pity though, I wanted him to have a slap or two, but at least he’s gone, that’s the main thing.’

The woman smiled but remained silent and glanced out of the tall rear windows of the house on to the back lawn and the woods beyond, as the sun exploited a gap in the cloud cover and shone down through the drizzle, creating what she called ‘damp sunshine’.

‘See, toerags like that toerag, they’re not up to much. . they don’t count for much, they never amount to much. . but it’s toerags like that little toerag that know where all the bodies are buried, and it’s that which makes them dangerous. But now we know where he went: he went for a walk on Hampstead Heath and then he went for a kip in the snow.’

‘Neat.’ The woman returned her gaze to the man and did so adoringly. ‘That’s neat. I am pleased with you.’

Five minutes after he made the phone call, the off-duty police officer heard the siren of the approaching police vehicle, and, as the white car with its blue lights flashing approached him, he raised his hand. The car stopped beside him and two young uniformed constables got out of the vehicle.

‘Deceased person in the shrubs.’ The man showed his ID.

‘Yes, sir,’ the driver replied.

‘This isn’t my patch. . I am off duty, allegedly. Come, I’ll show you.’ He replaced his ID in his jacket pocket and, with the two constables walking immediately behind him, led the way up the slippery grassy slope to the edge of Ken Wood and showed them the corpse. ‘It’s clammy to the touch,’ he explained. ‘I’m no medical man but he is dead alright. The snow must have preserved the flesh to some extent. Found by a dog walker. I have her details for you. It’s your pigeon now but I can’t see any suggestion of suspicious circumstances. Looks like a down-and-out who went to sleep in the snow. . but like I said, it’s your pigeon.’

‘We’re finding a few like him, sir, once the snow melts it’s the same each winter.’