Innocent Lies (Reissue) Page 22

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mariner, not without irony. ‘Just do what you can, eh?’

  Mariner and Knox left SOCO to do their work. Battling against the rushing torrent and clutching at the overhanging bushes, they staggered upstream as far as they could get, to where the stream emerged from a tunnel beneath the road.

  Knox looked up towards the parapet, a brick wall topped with waist-high railings. ‘She could have gone in here,’ he said. ‘It would only take a couple of minutes. Stop the car, open the boot and tip her over the edge, she then gets carried downstream.’

  ‘It’s a busy road,’ said Mariner. ‘Late at night would be easier, but you’d still run the risk of someone driving past and seeing.’ Looking up on the other side of the road, he noticed they’d come out opposite St Clare’s retirement home.

  ‘This stream must connect to the reservoir,’ he said.

  Knox foraged in his pocket and produced the rather crumpled map. ‘You’re right, boss. It looks as if we’re just further down from the bridge on the other side of St Clare’s.’ Where Ricky Skeet was killed and where Yasmin had arranged to meet Lewis Everett.

  ‘How does the river progress down to here?’

  Knox traced a finger down the map and Mariner was surprised to see how chewed his fingernail was. ‘It looks as if it must be under the ground, through some kind of tunnel,’ Knox said.

  ‘And above the ground it’s all green, so more of what we can see: rough woodland — and pretty impenetrable at that. And the river doesn’t surface at all?’

  They both studied the map. ‘Doesn’t look like it, boss. The next place it appears on the map is at the spillway next to the reservoir.’ Knox looked up. ‘You think she could have been put in there?’

  ‘It’s where we found her phone.’

  ‘She travelled all this way underground?’ Knox was doubtful.

  ‘Let’s go and have a look. And get hold of someone who knows more about the river.’

  * * *

  Millie had been adamant at the time. She could handle this on her own. The Akrams had got to know her and Shanila, in particular she felt, trusted her. But now she was here, it was different. She’d spent the drive over going through all the different possible strategies for breaking the news; set pieces she’d previously rehearsed only during training. Prepare the way but don’t prolong the agony, use their names and make it personal. She needed none of it. Taking one look at Millie’s face, Shanila knew why she’d come. ‘You’ve found her, haven’t you? Oh God, you’ve found her!’ Before a horrible gut-wrenching wail, that went on as long and as hard as her lungs would allow.

  * * *

  The reservoir had undergone subtle changes since their last visit. Foliage had been beaten flat in places, the tide mark was higher and the rank, sulphurous smell had been replaced by the fresher scent of damp plant-life. Looking more closely they could see that the channel down the middle was moving and a torrent of water gushed noisily down the spillway. On the bridge the damage was clearer. The wooden gates, there to control the flow of water had been cast aside and lay in a jumbled heap at the base of the concrete shelf along with bricks that had broken loose from the mouth of the tunnel.

  ‘It’s flowing pretty fast now,’ said Knox. ‘Fast enough to take a pretty big object with it.’

  ‘But you saw how it was on the day Hewitt brought us here,’ Mariner reminded him. ‘It was barely a trickle because we’d had no rain. It would hardly have carried a feather down with it.’

  ‘But Hewitt also said something about the water collecting and releasing every so often. Maybe the day Yasmin was killed was one of those days. We need to find out more about this.’

  ‘Mister Mariner?’ The elderly gentleman approaching them looked as if he should have been residing with Lily in St Clare’s. He came unsteadily along the path using a stick for support. Once he’d almost reached where they were standing, he proffered a hand. ‘Eric Dwyer,’ he said. ‘One of your colleagues asked me to meet you here. I’m the chairman of the local river conservation group.’ His cheeks were weathered a rosy pink, but much of the rest of his face was obscured by glasses and a pair of extravagant mutton-chop whiskers.

  ‘So you know all about this reservoir,’ said Mariner, shaking the bony hand.

  ‘I dare say I know as much as anyone.’ Eric looked out over the water. ‘It was built at the turn of the century to top up the canal system in times of drought. It’s what’s known as a feeder lake, the water diverting away from and back into the canal.’ He peered over the bridge. ‘My, my, that’s taken a battering.’

  ‘I understand that these gates were meant to open under pressure.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He went on to describe what Mariner had already surmised.

  ‘How big a release is it when it goes?’ asked Mariner. ‘Enough to carry something big with it, say seven or eight stone in weight?’ He wondered if Dwyer would have any idea what kind of object they were talking about.

  ‘Given the gradient of the incline I’d say easily,’ said Dwyer. ‘I’ve never seen this one in full spate, but I’ve seen other similar mechanisms and they usually flow at about ten cubic feet per second. That’s quite a force.’

  ‘How often would this release occur?’

  ‘At this time of year, as you’d expect, not very often. The drier the weather the longer it takes for the pressure to build. It’d be once a day if you’re lucky.’

  ‘And would there be any way of telling what time of day this has been occurring recently?’ Mariner wanted to know.

  ‘Unfortunately not.’ Dwyer scratched his whiskers. ‘It would depend on the flow into the reservoir, you see.’

  ‘And after heavy rain, such as we had the other night?’

  ‘After heavy rain the water would go straight through, much as it’s doing now. The gates would be permanently open, almost as if the reservoir were just part of the river. The river flows to here from its source in the Waseley Hills right through to Spaghetti Junction. After last night’s storms, by the time it got to this point it would have been torrential, hence the damage. That will take some sorting out.’

  ‘So what’s down there?’ Mariner pointed into the tunnel.

  ‘At this end, a series of valves and valve vaults to control the flow.’

  ‘Would they hinder anything passing through?’

  ‘To a degree. The mechanisms are old, have been there for years and under no particular pressure, but the sudden influx of last night’s rain was clearly enough to break the sluice gates and could have equally damaged or destroyed the valves too.’

  ‘But we’ve had rain like this before. Why would this happen now?’

  ‘Probably because of the work we’ve been doing up stream, clearing all the rubbish and dredging out where the river has got clogged up.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘We obviously did too good a job.’ He looked back over the pool itself. ‘The water hasn’t had such a clear run for years.’

  ‘Sounds like hard work,’ said Mariner.

  ‘It’s not always. We’re quite a sociable group, too.’

  ‘Ever had a guy called Shaun Pryce join you?’

  ‘Shaun Pryce? I don’t remember the name.’ Mariner described Pryce to Dwyer.

  ‘He doesn’t fit our profile. We’re mainly middle-aged, retired folk with too much time on our hands and a concern for the preservation of our city. But that said, people come and go. Occasionally we get more ecologically aware students who come and join us.’

  ‘I wonder if you could let me have a list of your members some time.’

  ‘Consider it done.’ He leaned with both hands on his stick.

  Mariner scanned the wasteland of the reservoir. ‘So your work hadn’t brought you as far as this then?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Not yet. We’re running a bit behind schedule, dependent as we are on volunteers. But we did all the prep work some time ago.’

  ‘What does that involve?’

  ‘Myself and another member com
ing down here with someone from the rivers authority to look at what there is and what needs doing,’ said Dwyer. ‘That’s how I know about the tunnel.’

  ‘When did you come here?’

  ‘It would have been in about March, I suppose. We were being somewhat optimistic as it turns out.’

  ‘And who came with you?’

  ‘Sheila Carr was the other member. It’s interesting because I’m sure that the railings weren’t broken at that time. It’s not something we added to our work list.’

  ‘Well, thanks for coming down here, Mr Dwyer,’ said Mariner. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ And he shook the man’s hand. Watching Eric Dwyer go, Mariner took another look around, noticing anew the break in the timber railings. ‘Lily mentioned that,’ he recalled.

  ‘It’s not recent,’ Knox was examining them. ‘The wood on the inside of the break is weathered too.’

  ‘I think we have to consider the probability that Yasmin was put in the water here,’ Mariner said.

  Knox nodded agreement. ‘But is this where she was killed?’

  CHAPTER 23

  Arriving at the Newton Street mortuary later that afternoon, Mariner’s stomach began to bubble gently. Outside the temperature had soared again, a signal that the storms had been just a blip on the meteorological radar.

  ‘Lucky for us that they happened at all,’ remarked pathologist Stuart Croghan. ‘Or Yasmin’s body might have remained hidden.’

  This wasn’t the first child murder Mariner had worked on, but contrary to popular belief, the average detective rarely deals with murder cases, whatever the age of the victim. The experience was guaranteed to be traumatic. Croghan had been working non-stop since the body had been brought in a couple of hours ago and already the file on Yasmin Akram was building up with detailed notes. Much of this information would be saved for the inquest, so Croghan confined himself to the salient points, knowing exactly what would be of practical use to Mariner now.

  ‘Death was by asphyxiation,’ Croghan told him. ‘She was strangled with some kind of ligature, probably wire. There’s no apparent discolouration or abrasion in the ligature wound so it was a clean or treated wire.’ He indicated where the thin, red groove could be seen.

  ‘Plastic coated?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘Could be. It was quite soft, around a twenty-eight gauge — about 3mm thick. You can tell that from the shape and depth of the groove.’

  ‘Some kind of electrical wire perhaps?’ Mariner was hopeful.

  ‘It’s possible but I couldn’t be certain.’

  ‘But not an accident then.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Croghan confirmed. ‘She was already dead when she went into the water. There are diatoms in the throat area but not in the bloodstream, heart or lungs.’ Meaning she hadn’t inhaled water. The microscopic algae were always a giveaway.

  ‘Decomposition is patchy though, which is unusual, not in keeping with being totally submerged throughout. Different parts of the body seem to have decomposed at different rates.’ Croghan pointed out a couple of areas.

  ‘Consistent with spending a few days in a drainage tunnel with an irregular through-flow?’ Mariner speculated.

  ‘That would probably do it, yes.’

  ‘How long had she been exposed to the water?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d say several days. The decomposition pattern is going to make it hard to pinpoint the time of death very accurately. We’ll analyse stomach contents but there’s a limit to what that can tell us, too.’

  ‘But we’re looking at her being killed roughly when?’

  ‘It’s more than a week ago.’

  Mariner gave Croghan a look that said ‘Thanks for nothing.’

  ‘I did warn you,’ the pathologist said.

  ‘Anything else that would help?’ asked Knox.

  ‘Quite a bit of post-mortem bruising that would imply that she had a rough journey after she was put in the water.’ Yasmin progressing through that underground tunnel.

  ‘Any sign of a sexual assault?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘No physical signs as far as I can see. And from the internal I’d have said that she wasn’t sexually active. However she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Curious.’

  Croghan was right, that was curious.

  * * *

  ‘So Lewis’s message could have been confirming their meeting,’ said Millie. She looked shattered after her visit to the Akrams, but had insisted on being present for the debrief. They’d gathered again in Mariner’s office — it was becoming a regular club meeting. ‘Yasmin disappeared at around the time Lewis left. He could have done it before he went. Perhaps he wanted her to go with him and she refused.’

  ‘And the missing underwear would mean some kind of sexual activity, or the start of it,’ Knox added.

  ‘But as Croghan said, this doesn’t look like a spur of the moment thing. It smacks of premeditation. I can’t imagine that Lewis would set out to kill Yasmin.’

  ‘No. It would have to be someone who just happened to have about their person a piece of electrical wire,’ put in Knox. ‘Like Shaun Pryce.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what Ricky saw,’ said Millie. ‘Someone assaulting and killing Yasmin.’

  ‘So why didn’t the killer tip him over the bridge too?’

  There were still so many questions. ‘I should go and talk to Yasmin’s parents,’ said Mariner. ‘They’ll want to know what comes next.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, sir.’

  * * *

  The smiling face of Yasmin Akram beamed at Mariner from where the photo sat at the centre of the shrine for family and friends to pay their respects in the sitting room where Millie and Mariner had been shunted to wait. Bypassing the huddle of people on the pavement outside, they’d been shown directly into the cool, formal room. It was lavishly furnished, spotlessly clean and, Mariner guessed, rarely used.

  The house was busy, yet in here an eerie silence reigned. If the body were not still being held at the mortuary, they would, Millie told him, be looking into an open coffin. A knock on the door preceded Amira, her dark mourning clothes emphasising the paleness of her skin. Millie got up and gave her a hug. ‘How’s your mum bearing up?’

  ‘She’s okay. Dad’s taking care of her.’ Her face crumpled. ‘All this is my fault,’ Amira said. ‘If I hadn’t encouraged her—’

  ‘That’s not true, Amira,’ said Millie firmly. ‘Someone else did this. They are responsible. You just wanted what was best for Yasmin.’

  ‘I’ve let them all down.’ With a shudder Amira burst into tears and while Millie attempted to console her Mariner was suddenly struck by the inappropriateness of his presence here. Their intrusion on the family’s grief, bringing the constant reminder of unnatural death was the most repulsive aspect of the job. He got up suddenly. ‘I’ll come back another time,’ he said.

  * * *

  Millie chose to stay and when Mariner drove away he found himself close to Anna’s house. Suddenly he was aware that he’d been letting down a number of people too. The Akrams he could do little about for now, but he could make amends with Anna. He took a chance and stopped by, but was disconcerted to see an unfamiliar car on the drive. Draped across the parcel shelf was a green sweat shirt bearing the embroidered Manor Park logo. Parking up he walked round to the side of the house from where he could smell the charcoal fumes from a barbecue and hear the sound of music and laughing, as if a party was in full swing. The voices sounded predominantly male.

  The first person Mariner saw, when he opened the side gate, was Jamie, typically detached from the group pacing the edge of the lawn, head down, muttering to himself and wringing the hem of his polo shirt in his hands. He was wearing shorts; something that a few months ago he wouldn’t even have countenanced. Good old Manor Park. At the far end of the patio, nearest the kitchen door, Anna stood leaning against the picnic table, wine glass in hand and deep in conversation with a man who lounged on a garden chair directly in front of her, his back to Marin
er. Anna wore a scrap of a vest and a denim skirt short enough to offer strong competition to the Kingsmead girls. Her face was open and smiling and her attention focused one hundred percent on her guest, whose gaze would have been at about the level of her smooth lightly-tanned thighs. No prizes for guessing where his mind would be.

  ‘Any more drinks out there?’ called another man’s voice from the kitchen, someone else clearly at home.

  Sickened, Mariner turned to go, but he was too late. Without even seeming to glance in his direction, Jamie had seen him.

  ‘Spectre man,’ he said loudly.

  In those early days when Anna had addressed him as ‘Inspector Mariner’ Jamie had found it impossible to get his mouth around it and spectre man was the closest he could get. Highly appropriate today when Mariner felt just that: the spectre appearing at the feast.

  ‘Hi, Jamie,’ he said.

  Anna immediately looked up and Mariner tried to read her face. Surprise certainly, but anything else? Hard to tell. She left her guest and came over. Big smile but no kiss — maybe he was giving off the wrong signals, or maybe not. ‘Hi. We weren’t expecting you. Coming in?’

  We? ‘You’ve got visitors.’

  ‘That’s okay. Come and join us. You can meet Simon and—’

  ‘I’m not much in a party mood,’ said Mariner. ‘We found Yasmin Akram.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about it on the news. I’m sorry.’ She touched his arm. ‘Why don’t you stay anyway and have a drink?’

  He did consider it, but only for a split second. ‘No. It’s fine. There’s a lot to do.’

  ‘All right.’

  It was one of those occasions when she disappointed him. It had been a difficult day and Mariner wanted to share it with someone. For once his own company wasn’t enough, so for want of anything better to do he went back to Granville Lane. After a while Millie returned from the Akrams’, looking drained, and by nine thirty only the two of them remained in the incident room.

  ‘Come on,’ Mariner said. ‘I’ll buy you a curry.’ Then he realised what he’d said.

  Millie just laughed. ‘I know a place where you can get the best,’ she said.