Author: Simon Beckett
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/simon-beckett/page,11,50621-the_restless_dead.html
She stared at me for a few moments. ‘Well, that’s an anticlimax.’
I hoped that was all it was. Just the thought of it made me annoyed at my own stupidity. I’d been standing on the bankside right next to the shoe the previous afternoon, watching it bob around with the other flotsam snagged by the creek’s tide. At the time I’d been too busy worrying about missing the post-mortem to realize what might be staring me in the face.
For all I knew it might be nothing more sinister than an old trainer. But unless I found it I’d never know one way or the other. Rachel was right: I didn’t know the Backwaters the way she did, and if the shoe had drifted off I’d need her help to find it again.
‘So what’s special about it?’ she asked, as we made our way to the section of bank I’d been to yesterday. ‘Or do you just go around collecting old trainers?’
‘Not from choice. There was a case a while back in British Columbia,’ I told her. ‘Shoes were being washed up along a stretch of coastline. A lot of them, about a dozen over five years or so. There were boots and other shoes as well, but it was mainly trainers. And they’d all still got feet inside them.’
Rachel grimaced but didn’t look shocked. ‘Nice. What was it, a serial killer?’
‘That’s what the police thought at first. Or that it might be victims of the Asian tsunami. But it turned out that most of the shoes belonged to people who’d jumped or fallen from a particular bridge in Vancouver. Their bodies got washed out to sea, and …’
‘And the feet fell off.’ Rachel nodded. As a marine biologist she’d know about the effects of water better than most people. ‘How come they didn’t sink?’
‘Because they’d got air-filled rubber soles.’ I paused to wipe my forehead. My body was letting me know I was overdoing it, but we were almost there. ‘The soles kept them afloat, and the shoes stopped scavengers from getting at them. They drifted hundreds of miles before the sea currents washed them up on the same stretch of coast.’
‘And you think this shoe might still have got Leo Villiers’ foot in it?’
I’d been careful to avoid any mention of either Villiers or her sister, but Rachel was no fool. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It could just be an old training shoe someone threw away. But it looked like a man’s size.’
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have jumped to that sort of conclusion: women’s feet could be every bit as large as men’s. But that was rare, and even though I hadn’t taken much notice of it at the time, I could remember the shoe was a sizable one. Unless Emma Derby had abnormally large feet then it wasn’t hers, and I wanted to set Rachel’s mind at ease without being obvious about it.
She saw through my coded comment, though. ‘Don’t worry, my little sister wasn’t the training-shoe type. Emma was a swimmer, but if she’d gone running she’d probably have done even that in high heels.’
There was another note of disapproval in her voice, but I didn’t have time to reflect on any tensions between her and her sister. We’d reached the side of the creek. The water was lower than the last time I’d been here, but the crescent-shaped bite from the sandy bank was otherwise the same. Bits of wood, plastic bottles and other debris floated in it, and I saw the same doll’s head as the day before.
There was no training shoe.
‘Are you sure it was here?’ Rachel asked doubtfully.
‘Certain.’
I looked up and down the muddy water’s edge. Even though I’d known there was only a slim chance that the shoe would still be here, that the fast-moving tide had probably carried it off by now, it was still a bitter disappointment. A wave of fatigue washed through me, and if Rachel hadn’t been there I’d have flopped down on to the cool-box to rest.
‘The tide probably carried it towards the estuary rather than further inland,’ she said, her brow furrowing. ‘There’s a section where the bank’s collapsed down that way. It might have got caught there.’
We didn’t talk as we walked along the creek bank. I was beginning to feel shaky now. The sensible thing to do would be to call it a day, but I’d no intention of doing that. After about ten minutes we reached a section of bank that had crumbled, forming a partial dam. Rachel slowed.
‘This is it,’ she said. ‘If it’s not here it could be anywhere by now.’
My optimism was flagging along with my energy. I was already berating myself for missing what could well have been my only opportunity to examine the shoe when Rachel pointed.
‘What’s that over there?’
A small bush had fallen into the creek when the bank collapsed. The tangle of dead branches was draped with grasses and weeds, and now I saw something pale had snagged there as well.
Floating on its side was a training shoe.
‘Is that it?’ There was excitement in Rachel’s voice.
‘I think so.’
Unless there were two of them, which was possible but not likely. When we drew closer I could see that it was a right shoe. It was only a few feet from the side, caught on the straggly branches with its sole facing towards us. If I’d got my waders on I could have easily retrieved it, but I wasn’t going to paddle out in my boots. I set down the cool-box and carefully stepped on to the crumbled bank. My boots sank into the sandy mud as I tried to snag the shoe with the oar blade. It splashed into the water a few inches short. I leaned further out.
‘Here, grab hold.’
Rachel offered her hand. It was warm and dry when I took it, her grip strong as she pulled backwards to counterbalance me. I reached out with the oar and missed again, but only just. Next time the blade caught the trainer, knocking it clear of the branches and nearer the side.
I nudged the shoe closer, then used the oar to steer it through the water towards me. Rachel let go of my hand, and I tried not to notice the sudden absence of warmth against my skin.
‘I hate to rain on your parade, but that doesn’t look like something Leo Villiers would be seen dead in,’ she said.
I’d been thinking the same thing myself. Beneath its coating of mud, the training shoe looked cheap and chunky, designed with high street fashion rather than sport in mind. It didn’t fit my image of Villiers, a man who bought bespoke outdoor clothes from his tailors in St James’s and had a custom-built shotgun worth a small fortune.
‘Is that a purple sock?’ Rachel asked, leaning over my shoulder for a better look. ‘Definitely not Leo Villiers’.’
She was right. Although I’d known all along it was probably nothing, I felt a sense of anticlimax take what little energy I had left. I was about to let the shoe drift away again when I realized a discarded shoe wouldn’t still have a sock in it. And then I noticed something else.
The sodden laces were still tied.
‘You might want to move away,’ I warned. But it was too late. The trainer had turned in the water as I’d nudged it closer, presenting its open top towards us.
Nestling inside the training shoe, and half hidden by the lurid sock, was the pale bone and gristle of an ankle.
10
‘YOU SHOULD HAVE called me.’
Lundy sounded more reproachful than annoyed. We stood in the kitchen area of the boathouse, mugs of untouched tea cooling on the worktop. He was dressed more smartly than before, and I wondered if my call had interrupted his own bank holiday plans.
‘And what would you have said?’ I asked wearily. ‘For all I knew it was just some old trainer. I only went to set my mind at rest. And there wasn’t enough time before the next high tide to organize a search anyway.’
That earned a grudging sniff. ‘Pity you didn’t think to take a look when you saw it yesterday.’
Tell me about it. Once I’d seen what the training shoe contained, I’d been faced with a tough choice. Although I was loath to handle it myself – that was a CSI’s job – the tide was flooding back into the creek at an alarming rate. If I didn’t move it soon the water would, and I didn’t want to risk losing it again.
So, after taking photographs, I’d use
d a bin-liner to pick up the shoe, then reversed the plastic bag so it was wrapped inside. There was no mobile service out there, and it wasn’t until we were back at the boathouse that I could phone Lundy.
The DI had been surprised to hear from me, especially when I told him where I was staying. Trask obviously hadn’t mentioned it when they’d spoken earlier, but Lundy didn’t pass any comment beyond an exasperated sigh. He’d be right out, he told me, adding that I should stay put.
I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. The trek across the marsh had taken a lot out of me, and by the time Rachel and I had walked back to the boathouse I felt done in. While she made tea, I put the ice packs I’d frozen earlier into a plastic bag and slipped them into the cool-box with the foot before gratefully sinking on to a chair. I could see Rachel wanted to ask me about it, but she restrained herself. Just as well: I couldn’t have told her anything anyway.
I’d more questions than answers myself.
Lundy arrived sooner than I expected, with a pair of CSIs in tow. He stayed with me while Rachel took them to where we’d found the training shoe. I didn’t offer to go with them, knowing I’d already pushed myself more than I should, and in any case the high tide prevented walking along the creek. Rachel said there was a small road bridge that wasn’t too far from where we’d found the trainer, so they could take their car and go on foot from there. The three of them left, the CSIs taking the cool-box and its contents with them. Lundy barely waited until the door was closed before turning to me.
‘Right, Dr Hunter,’ he’d said, folding thick arms across his chest. ‘Care to tell me what’s been going on?’
Now he let out a long breath. ‘I don’t have to tell you how awkward this is, do I? Emma Derby’s family have been through enough without getting dragged into this.’
‘And if I’d known her husband’s name was Trask I might have made a better job of avoiding them,’ I shot back. ‘OK, I cocked up, I admit it. But what else could I do?’
Lundy pushed his glasses up on his forehead and kneaded the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, what’s done is done. At least we’ve got the foot. You say you’ve got photographs?’
I’d not had a chance to transfer the shots I’d taken at the creek to my laptop, so I found them on my camera and passed it over.
‘I’ll need emails of these,’ Lundy said as he studied the images on the small screen. ‘Doesn’t look like it was severed, does it?’
‘Not from what I saw.’
Although I’d known better than to examine the actual foot, by expanding the photographs on the camera’s screen I’d been able to view it in better detail. The curved sculpture of the talus – the ankle bone – was visible inside the filthy purple sock. Fish, crabs and seabirds had picked clean as much of the soft tissue as they could get to, but a few tattered vestiges still clung to the ankle’s exposed surface. Except for the tiny pitting caused by scavengers, the contoured face of the ankle bone itself was smooth, with no obvious evidence of cuts or splintering. Even from the little I’d seen, I felt certain that the foot had separated naturally when its connective tissues decomposed.
That was all I was certain about.
‘Looks too big to be a woman’s,’ Lundy said, flicking to another photograph. ‘Don’t suppose you saw what size it was?’
‘No, I thought I’d better bag it up and get it in the cool-box. It looked around a ten, but that’s only a guess.’
If that meant anything one way or the other he gave no sign. ‘Any thoughts on how long it might have been in the water?’
‘Not beyond the obvious. Long enough to detach from the leg, so at this time of year let’s say a few weeks. Beyond that I can’t say without examining it.’
‘So roughly the same length of time as the body we found yesterday.’
‘The foot will have been protected inside the shoe, so it could be longer. But possibly, yes.’
‘And there was no sign of the other foot?’ I just looked at him. He sighed. ‘All right, stupid question.’
If there had been I’d have already said so. But the feet and hands wouldn’t have fallen away at the same time. It would be sheer fluke if they’d ended up in the same place.
Lundy flicked back through the photographs to one that showed the entire training shoe. His lips pursed as he studied it.
‘Are you going to say it or shall I?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘Say what?’
‘From what I’ve heard about him, that doesn’t look like something Leo Villiers would wear.’
‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t. People have all sorts of surprising things tucked away in their wardrobes.’
‘Purple socks?’
‘I grant you, it’s not the sort of thing I’d imagine Villiers wearing, but stranger things happen. We’re still trying to persuade his father to let us see his medical records, so until that happens for all I know he might be colour blind. It’s not as if anyone knew what clothes he had on when he went missing. We weren’t allowed to search his house, so we can’t say what sort of stuff he might have had there.’
‘You weren’t allowed?’ I asked, surprised. Withholding access to medical records before someone was officially declared dead was one thing, but I couldn’t see how anyone could prevent the police from carrying out a search, no matter who they were. ‘What about when Emma Derby disappeared?’
‘We didn’t have enough evidence to get a warrant.’ He shook his head, annoyed at the memory. ‘His father’s lawyers were all over us. We carried out a cursory search when he was reported missing, to make sure he wasn’t dead in a spare room or something. They couldn’t stop us from doing that. But somebody had obviously been through the place already by then. The housekeeper said she’d tidied it before she realized he’d disappeared, but this had been cleaned top to bottom.’
‘Wasn’t that obstruction?’
Lundy took a new packet of antacids from his pocket and began stripping off the plastic. ‘Nothing we could successfully argue. It wasn’t as if we knew what we were looking for, except perhaps Emma Derby’s body, so we couldn’t accuse anyone of destroying evidence. But the point I was making is that we don’t know enough about Leo Villiers to say he didn’t own cheap trainers and purple socks. If he was planning to blow his brains out with a shotgun he probably wasn’t too bothered about what he had on his feet anyway.’
He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.
‘You’re not happy about this either, are you?’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter what I am.’ He crunched down on two antacids as though taking it out on them. ‘Frankly, I’d rather believe that Villiers Junior had dodgy taste in footwear than the alternative, which is that we’ve got another dead body missing its feet somewhere.’
There was another possibility, but now wasn’t the time to go into that. Besides, I felt sure that Lundy would be aware of it already.
‘Do you know when Frears is planning on examining the foot?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to be there.’
Lundy suddenly seemed uncomfortable. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’
I tried to hide my disappointment. An individual foot might not tell us very much, but I’d assumed the police would want me to take a look anyway. And while I was there I’d thought I could examine the body from the estuary as well. I was still annoyed with myself for missing the post-mortem, and even if I couldn’t add to the pathologist’s findings I’d at least like to know I’d done what I could.
Now I wouldn’t get the chance. ‘So Clarke’s mad at me,’ I said.
Lundy sighed. ‘There are enough complications with this case as it is. The chief doesn’t want any more.’
‘How is letting me examine the foot complicating things?’
‘Well, apart from missing the post-mortem, you’ve ended up being house guest with the family of a missing woman, and taken her sister on a hunt for a misplaced body part. Not bad going for twenty-four hours, is it?’
Put like that it didn’t sound good, but we both knew that wasn’t a fair picture. ‘Aside from the fact that I didn’t know who they were, you’d already told me I was off the investigation before I even thought about renting this place.’
‘I know. And we wouldn’t have found the foot if not for you, I’m not disputing that. But the chief’s decided, so …’ He spread his hands. ‘I dare say she’ll come round once she’s calmed down. There’ll be other investigations in future. The best thing you can do now is keep a low profile.’
If my profile was any lower it wouldn’t exist. But Lundy was right, and antagonizing his SIO wasn’t going to help.
The DI took a drink of tea, closing the subject. ‘So how much longer are you planning on staying?’ he asked, setting down his mug.
‘Only until my car’s ready.’ I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Was that a hint?’
He chuckled. ‘No, I’m just making polite chit-chat. To be honest, I’m surprised Trask let you stay here in the first place. Has he tried to discuss the case at all?’
Now we were getting to it. ‘No, and I made it clear I wasn’t going to talk about it.’
‘He did ask about it, then?’
‘Wouldn’t you if it was your wife?’
I hadn’t meant to snap. Recovering the foot had left me feeling irritable as well as washed out, but Lundy didn’t seem offended.
‘Fair enough, but I’m not convinced that wasn’t part of the reason he’s been so obliging. You know this boathouse was Emma Derby’s pet project? And getting his son to fix your car as well. Sounds like a bit of a charm offensive to me. Perhaps he reckons it can’t hurt to have a friendly police consultant on his side.’
I didn’t think ‘charm’ really applied to Trask’s manner. ‘That’s not the impression I got. If anything he seemed reluctant to let me stay, so I doubt he’ll be sorry to see me go.’
‘I dare say, but I wonder if he’d have been so amenable if you weren’t involved in the police inquiry.’
‘He didn’t know about that when he towed me out of the creek,’ I said. But I also remembered how I’d thought the Land Rover wasn’t going to stop, how its driver seemed to deliberate before coming back. And the offer of a tow to Creek House was only made after Trask found out why I was there. Even then he’d seemed torn. ‘It sounds as though you don’t like him much.’