Deborah Crombie - In A Dark House

They had been polar opposites from the beginning of their relationship, first attracted by their differences, then, as time went on, just as fiercely repelled. If she’d teased him at first, saying he’d bluffed his way through medical school, he’d thought there was some part of her that had admired his recklessness. Later, she had seen that quality only as a character defect to be mended.

What she had never understood was that his failings were also his strengths, interwoven with an intuitive understanding and an ability to make quick decisions, and it was these qualities that had made him a success at emergency medicine.

When they’d closed down the Accident and Emergency at Guy’s, his loyalty to the hospital had kept him on in Minor Trauma, but days spent dealing with flu and broken fingers, with objects inappropriately placed in body orifices, had quickly soured. He missed the adrenaline rush, the sense of flow that came only in a crisis, when time seemed to telescope in on itself. Glancing up, he caught a glimpse of himself in the bureau mirror, his face lean and tired, with new lines about the mouth.

Work was only a small part of the discontent he’d felt lately – it was nothing compared with the gaping hole left in his life by the absence of his daughter since he and Laura had separated. He looked down at the suitcase, at the few things Harriet had accumulated on her weekends in his dreary rented flat on Borough High Street, and felt the familiar despair.

For a moment, his courage failed him. But no, he had gone too far, and he knew Laura too well. He knew about her increasing involvement with the women’s shelter, and he knew that the agency made it possible for women to disappear with their children. And he’d known, when she’d threatened him on Sunday, what it was she meant to do.

Well, she’d lost her chance, he thought, his resolve returning. Hadn’t it occurred to her that two could play at that game, and that he had the advantage? There was no place easier to vanish into with a child than Eastern Europe, and he had family in Czechoslovakia who would help him. A change of name, a new set of papers, a job in a backwater town where doctors were desperately needed, all easily accomplished. He and Harriet would start a new life together, and nothing would separate them again.

The hospital would be in a crunch for a bit, no doubt, losing him without notice, but there were other doctors who could bandage cuts and prescribe antibiotics.

It was Harriet that mattered, and he had Harriet safely tucked away – he hadn’t dared wait until later in the day to pick her up. Once he’d set things in motion, he’d been driven by a mounting sense of urgency. Now, all that remained was a trip to the bank, and Harriet’s passport. The passport meant he had to get into Laura’s flat, and he had to do it when he could guarantee no one would be home.

Nor could he take Harriet with him, as he hadn’t yet told her what he meant to do, so he’d been forced to call on the one person he felt he could trust to take Harriet for a few hours. He’d arranged to meet them at London Bridge Station at noon, and then he’d tell Harriet he had a surprise planned for her, an adventure. The truth could wait until they were across the Channel, away from England and all the misery of the past months. He would tell her when he felt the time was right, and he smiled at the thought that from now on, as far as his daughter was concerned, only his decisions mattered.

“WELL, WE’RE NOT likely to get an accurate temperature on this one, are we?” Kate Ling said dryly. She squatted beside the body, balancing on the balls of her feet with an ease that made Kincaid envy her thigh muscles. On anyone else the position would have looked awkward, but the Home Office pathologist even managed to carry off her white crime-scene boiler suit with grace.

Kincaid had worked with Kate Ling on a number of cases, and found her not only good at her job but genuinely interested in helping the police with their investigation, a trait not every pathologist exhibited. Some of them seemed to become almost territorial about the bodies in their possession, behaving as if it were a point of pride to reveal as little information as possible.

Kate pulled on her thin latex gloves. “Anything to go on here? Witnesses? Missing person connected with the scene?” She probed the corpse gently with a gloved finger.

“Nothing so far,” Kincaid told her, with a glance at Farrell for confirmation.

“And no identifiers?”

“Nothing obvious.” Farrell squatted beside her, his notebook open. “Unless there’s something under the body. We’ll do a grid sift, of course, once you’re finished here.”

“Odd.” A tiny crease puckered Kate’s forehead. “I’ve seen clothing literally fused to the skin, but the condition of the body doesn’t indicate that sort of heat. Nor is there any jewelry that I can see.” She lifted what remained of the victim’s left hand, and Kincaid heard a stifled protest from someone in the group. “Some trace of a wedding ring usually survives a fire, even if the digits are completely destroyed.”

“Any guess as to the victim’s age?” Kincaid asked.

“Hard to say without X-rays and measurements. She seems on the slight side, but the heat can cause shrinkage as well.”

“Race?”

“The lab analysis will tell us, and I’d rather not speculate in the meantime.”

“A homeless person would explain the lack of jewelry,” Cullen suggested. “Someone sheltering from the rain, maybe starting a little fire to keep warm, not realizing the furniture was highly flammable.”

“When have you seen a rough sleeper without a bin liner or a shopping trolley full of possessions?” Inspector Bell said dismissively. “And surely someone would have noticed a naked person wandering the streets?”

“You’ve a better suggestion?” retorted Cullen.

“Any lividity visible?” Kincaid asked, heading off an altercation. He wondered if she was as sharp with her own officers – it was not the best technique for fostering confidence in the ranks.

Kate lifted one side of the torso gently. There was a distinct lack of charring on the floorboards beneath the body, but the underside of the corpse still looked dark to Kincaid. “There might be some bruising, yes, but I’ll have to get into the tissue to be sure. And there is something else,” Kate added, lowering the torso and edging her fingertips beneath the head. “It feels like there may be quite a severe fracture to the back of the skull, but there’s no way to tell whether it’s postmortem or antemortem until I can have a look in the lab. The heat alone can cause shattering of the skull.”

Kincaid knew that even if the pathologist could verify that the trauma had occurred prior to death, that wouldn’t rule out an accidental injury. His gut instinct, however, told him that this death had not occurred by chance.

With that knowledge came the realization that his likelihood of spending the weekend with Gemma and the boys was rapidly evaporating. They had planned a Saturday morning excursion to Portobello Market, weather permitting, with a particular mission in mind.

After having shared a bedroom with five-year-old Toby since they’d moved to the Notting Hill house, Kit had asked if he could move into the third bedroom, the room they had meant for the nursery. When Kincaid had started to object, Gemma had stopped him, saying, “That’s fine, Kit. We’ll do it up for you.”

“Gemma, are you sure-” Kincaid had begun, but Gemma had stopped him with a shake of her head. “No, it’s all right. Kit needs his own space.”