Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘Delaney!’ said the super.

‘Susan, always a pleasure,’ I replied.

‘Henry Hill says I am to speak to you.’

‘Regarding?’

‘The cost of baked bloody beans. What do you think!’ she asked rhetorically and pointed over to the cliff edge.

‘Well, I can tell you all about the cliff composition, the chalk base, et cetera. It’s all to do with the start of the ice age and the glacial migration,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Something to do with the plasticine era,’ I continued, suppressing a smile. ‘Which made a kind of layer cake of the cliff’s substructure, apparently. But I can’t tell you why such a large chunk fell. Apparently it happens sometimes. A metre a year in some cases where there’s gradual erosion, but occasionally there is a bit of a landslide. My geological friend down on the beach there,’ I said, pointing at Martin Lewis, ‘agrees that a lightning strike might have caused a bit of an explosion, if you will, causing a shearing of the varied fabric of the cliff that resulted in the toppling forward of that bit thus separated.’

‘Are you deliberately trying to be obtuse?’

‘Not at all. It’s not my area of expertise. But I’m just trying to do my job, Susan. Like everyone else.’

‘It’s “superintendent” or “ma’am” to you, Delaney.’

I smiled and shook my head tolerantly. ‘You can’t have it both ways,’ I said. ‘If I am not on the force you can’t expect me to jump to heel like an obedient dog. If I am a member of the public I deserve just as much respect and courtesy as anyone else,’ I said and flashed her another smile for good measure. I wasn’t having the best of mornings so far, so I took what small comforts I could to brighten my day.

‘I don’t have time for this bullshit, Delaney. Some of us have proper work to do.’ She glared at me as she said the word ‘proper’, and looked ready to spit. ‘I’ll leave you to deal with this,’ she said to the man who had come over with her and then she walked off. Letting the world know just how extremely busy she was as she did so with head held high and a purposeful stride. She almost managed it if her heel hadn’t snagged a little on the rough grass and she nearly tripped over. Like I say, small moments, small comforts.

The man held his hand out. ‘Nicholas Dudley,’ he said.

‘Jack Delaney.’ I shook his hand.

‘Health and Safety consultant to the district council. We have some issues here that we need to go through.’

‘Right,’ I said, my heart sinking as he pulled out a folder.

‘First of all we need to erect appropriate barriers to safeguard the public.’

‘Sure.’

‘And we need to close this club down until we have a proper geological survey and report.’

I looked up at the dark clouds that were massing ominously in the sky as the wind lashed the sea into a frenzy of dancing white horses. I felt the cold permeating through to my bones, finished my styrofoam cup of coffee, and looked at Dudley. ‘Are you fucking serious?’ I asked.

‘One hundred per cent serious. I know a lot of people think health-and-safety regulations are just so much red tape and needless bureaucracy. But we are dealing with people’s lives, Mr Delaney. People’s lives! And we take that very seriously. Very seriously indeed.’

‘Do you really think people are going to want to go out and play golf in this weather? Nobody is that mad, even in North Norfolk!’

‘It’s not about madness, it’s about regulations. It’s about securing the safety of the public. This club will be closed until further notice. Furthermore, I have a checklist that I need to go through with you. It will probably take a couple of hours, and the geological specialist will be consulting with me later in the day, so we will need to evaluate matters again after he has reported, too.’

I was beginning to understand why Henry Hill had passed this particular buck to me, and why the bustling superintendent had had a wry smile on her perfectly lipsticked lips as she had strode away.

‘Why don’t we go inside and go through it?’

‘No, no. I need to assess the area before then. Health and Safety is a field operation first and foremost, Mr Delaney. Sure, there is a lot of paperwork involved. But we as a profession are very far from desk jockeys. Very far indeed.’

I could feel myself losing the will to live with every passing second that I spent in Dudley’s company. I was relieved to see Henry Hill running up the short hill to where we were stood. Until I saw the expression on his face, that was.

‘Don’t worry about him now, Jack,’ he said breathlessly.

‘Now hold on a minute-’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ I cut across the health-and-safety officer, interrupting him before he got into full flow again.

‘They’ve found a dead body.’

The wind was picking up by the second as we stood on the beach. An excoriating wind. I decided it was time to go home and get my overcoat: the leather jacket alone just wasn’t cutting it in this climate.

Maybe I was just getting old.

Fortunately, Henry Hill came across and handed me a Puffa-style coat that would fit over my own. It was warm and cut the wind-chill factor significantly. Gratefully, I slipped my hands into a pair of gloves that he’d also brought and bent down to look at the body. Or, rather, at the hand that was protruding from the fall of soil and clay.

A uniformed sergeant was standing with us, a couple of constables in the background.

‘This is a bit outside of our bailiwick, sir,’ said the sergeant, a beefy florid-faced man in his forties with thinning reddish hair and friendly green eyes.

‘You don’t have to call me “sir”,’ I replied. ‘I’m on sabbatical and, as your super has pointed out, not on her team.’

‘I’ll call you “sir” all the same, if that’s OK?’ he replied. ‘We all know who you are. We read the newspapers and watch the news even out here in the sticks.’

‘Newspapers exaggerate.’

‘Sometimes. But I was on the force when you found the girl in the boot all those years ago and then again last year, when you repeated the trick.’

‘Right place, right time is all.’

‘You make your own luck in my opinion. Certainly in this job. And don’t pay the super any mind. She doesn’t like hot rods from the Met coming up. Puts her nose out of joint. She thinks that you all reckon you’re something special. You in particular, with all that media coverage.’

I stood up again and held my hand out. ‘Well, you know who I am,’ I said, prompting him.

‘Sergeant Coker — pleased to meet you,’ he responded. ‘Harry Coker.’

He was about my height but built on grander lines. His grip was very firm. His ruddy portliness belied a great deal of strength — there was a lot of muscle underneath his bulk.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked.

I looked down at the protruding hand again. We were on the beach close to the cliff face, the lifeless hand reaching up through the debris like the scene from Carrie , only this hand looked male to me. It was a big hand. Gloved. Part of the wrist was showing, discoloured and emaciated.

‘Looks male to me. Maybe attached to a body, hard to tell until SOCO can clear the area. Do you have a forensic unit?’

The sergeant laughed and shook his head. ‘No. Like I say, this is outside our normal remit. Dead bodies don’t tend to show up a lot in these parts. We have to call in specialist units from South Norwich.’

‘Well, he looks like a big man, judging by the hand size, although his emaciated wrist indicates malnourishment. Apart from that, and the discolouration, not much I can add.’