Simon Beckett - The Chemistry of Death

I would get the vet over here, just as soon as I'd called the police. I took out my phone but there was no signal. Reception around Manham was notoriously patchy, which made mobile phones unpredictable at the best of times. I moved further from the paddock and saw the signal bars stutter into life. I was about to dial when I noticed a small, dark shape half-hidden behind a rusting plough. With a tense, oddly certain feeling of what it would be, I went over.

The body of Bess, Sally's Border collie, lay in the dry grass. It looked tiny, its fur dusty and matted. I batted away the flies that left it to inspect my fresher meat and turned away. But not before I'd seen how the dog's head had been almost severed.

The heat seemed suddenly to have intensified. My legs automatically took me back to the Land Rover. I resisted the urge to get in and drive away. Instead, putting it between me and the house, I continued with my call. As I waited for the police to answer I stared at the far green smudge of the woods I'd just come from.

Not again. Not here.

I realized a tinny voice was coming from the phone. I turned away from both the distant wood and the house.

'I want to report a missing person,' I said.

The police inspector was a squat, pugnacious man called Mackenzie. Perhaps a year or two older than me, the first thing I noticed about him were his abnormally large shoulders. The lower part of his body seemed out of proportion in comparison; short legs tapered to absurdly dainty feet. It would have given him the appearance of a cartoon bodybuilder if not for the blurring line of his gut, and a threatening aura of impatience that made it impossible to take him anything less than seriously. I'd waited by the car while Mackenzie and a plain-clothed sergeant had gone to look at the dog. They'd seemed unhurried, almost unconcerned as they strolled over. But the fact that a chief inspector from the Major Investigation Team was here instead of uniformed officers was a sign this was being taken seriously.

He'd come back over to me while the sergeant had gone inside the house to check the rooms. 'So tell me again why you came.'

He smelled of aftershave and sweat, and, faintly, of mint. His sunburned scalp flamed through his thinning red hair, but if he felt any discomfort at standing out in the sun he didn't show it.

'I was near by. I thought I'd call round.'

'Social call, was it?'

'I just wanted to make sure she was all right.'

I wasn't going to bring Linda Yates into it unless I had to. As her doctor I had to suppose she'd told me what she had in confidence, and I didn't think a policeman would put much stock in a dream anyway. I should have known better myself. Except that, irrational or not, Sally wasn't here.

'When was the last time you saw Miss Palmer?' Mackenzie asked.

I thought back. 'Not for a couple of weeks.'

'Can you narrow it down more than that?'

'I remember seeing her in the pub for the summer barbecue about two weeks ago. She was there then.'

'With you?'

'No. But we spoke.' Briefly. Hi, how are you? Fine, see you later. Hardly meaningful, as last words go. If that's what they were, I reminded myself. But I no longer had any doubt.

'And after not seeing her since then you suddenly decided to come round today.'

'I'd just heard a body had been found. I wanted to check that she was all right.'

'What makes you so sure the body is a woman's?'

'I'm not. But I didn't think it would hurt to make sure Sally was

'What's your relationship?'

'Friends, I suppose.'

'Close?'

'Not really.'

'You sleeping with her?'

'No.'

'Been sleeping with her?'

I wanted to tell him to mind his own business. But that's what he was doing. Privacy didn't count for much in these situations, I knew that well enough.

'No.'

He stared at me without saying anything. I looked back at him. After a moment he took a packet of mints from his pocket. As he unhurriedly put one in his mouth I noticed the odd-shaped mole on his neck.

He put the mints back without offering me one. 'So you weren't in a relationship with her? Just good friends, is that it?'

'We knew each other, that's all.'

'But you still felt compelled to come out to see if she was all right. No-one else.'

'She lives out here by herself. It's pretty isolated even by our standards.'

'Why didn't you phone her?'

That stopped me. 'It didn't occur to me.'

'Does she have a mobile?' I told him she did. 'Do you have her number?'

It was in my phone memory. I scrolled to it, knowing what he was going to ask and feeling stupid for not having thought of it myself.

'Shall I ring it?' I offered, before he could say anything.

'Why don't you?'

I could feel him watching me as I waited for the connection to be made. I wondered what I would say if she answered. But I didn't really think she would.

The bedroom window opened in the house. The police sergeant leaned out.

'Sir, there's a phone ringing in a handbag.'

We could hear it faintly from behind him, a tinkling electronic tune. I rang off. In the house the notes stopped. Mackenzie nodded to him. 'All right, it was just us. Carry on.'

The sergeant disappeared. Mackenzie rubbed his chin. 'Doesn't prove anything,' he said.

I didn't answer.

He sighed. 'Christ, this bloody heat.' It was the first sign he'd given that it bothered him. 'Come on, let's get out of the sun.'

We went to stand in the shadow of the house.

'Do you know of any family?' he asked. 'Anyone who might know where Miss Palmer is?'

'Not really. She inherited this place, but as far as I know she doesn't have any more family in the area.'

'How about friends? Apart from yourself.'

There might have been a barb there, but it was difficult to tell. 'She knew people in the village. But I don't know of anyone in particular.'

'Boyfriends?' he asked, watching for my reaction.

'I wouldn't know. Sorry.'

He grunted, looking at his watch.

'So what happens next?' I asked. 'Will you check if the DNA from the body matches a sample from the house?'

He regarded me. 'You seem to know a lot about it.'

I could feel my face reddening. 'Not really.'

I was glad when he didn't pursue it. 'We don't know this is a crime scene yet anyway. We've got a woman who may or may not be missing, that's all. There's nothing to link her to the body that's been found.'

'What about the dog?'

'Could have been killed by another animal.'

'From what I could see the wound in its throat looks like a cut, not a tear. It was made by a sharp edge.'

Again he gave me that appraising look, and I kicked myself for saying too much. I was a doctor now. Nothing else. 'I'll see what the forensic boys say,' he told me. 'But even if it was, she could have killed it herself.'

'You don't really think that.'

He seemed about to retort, then thought better of it. 'No. No, I don't. But I'm not going to jump to conclusions, either.'

The house door opened. The sergeant emerged, giving a shake of his head. 'Nothing. But the lights had been left on in the hallway and lounge.'

Mackenzie nodded, as if that were what he'd expected. He turned to me. 'We'll not keep you any longer, Dr Hunter. Someone'll be around to get your statement. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about this to anyone.'

'Of course not.' I tried not to feel annoyed that he'd even asked. He was turning away, speaking with the sergeant. I started to go, then hesitated.

'Just one thing,' I said. He glanced at me, irritably. 'That mole on your neck. It's probably nothing, but it might not hurt to get it checked out.'

I left them staring after me as I went back to the car.

I drove back to the village feeling numbed. The road cut past Manham Water, the shallow lake or 'broad' that each year lost a little more of itself to the encroaching reedbeds. Its surface was mirror still, fragmented only by a flight of geese that descended onto it. Neither the lake nor the choked creeks and dykes that cut through the marshes to it were navigable, and with no river close to the village Manham was bypassed by the boat and tourist traffic that descended on the rest of the Broads during summer. Although only a few miles separated it from its neighbours, it seemed to belong to a different part of Norfolk, older and less hospitable. Surrounded by woodland, bog-like fens and poorly drained marshland, it was a literal as well as figurative backwater. Apart from the occasional birdwatcher the village was left to itself, sinking further into its isolation like an antisocial old man.