‘Could have hit his head on almost anything,’ the doctor remarked.
She looked down at the body again. ‘He can’t have been in the water long judging from his condition, not more than eight or nine hours, I shouldn’t think.’
‘He was floating face-down when he was found, any significance in that?’ asked Rose.
Carmen Brown shrugged. ‘Only that he couldn’t have drowned. A drowned man sinks as his lungs fill with water. Our man must have been dead when he hit the water — but there was never much doubt about that with the wound he’s got in his back.’
‘Why do bodies always seem to float face-down anyway?’ Rose didn’t really know why she asked that. She certainly hadn’t expected to be taken very seriously. But Carmen Brown looked thoughtful.
‘In this case a lot of air was trapped in that coat, I reckon. But you’re right. With men anyway. It’s all to do with the distribution of fatty tissues and the head and feet being the heaviest bits.’
She turned away then, not attempting to explain further. Very scientific, considered Rose. And she was still standing looking down at the body, contemplating the idiosyncrasies of the human form, when Phyllis Jordan called through with the news that Wayne Thompson had not turned up for work that morning. And his next-door neighbour, on the grounds that he was normally seriously disturbed by a noisy Wayne Thompson returning from the pub, was pretty certain he had not returned home that night either. A team was on the way to break the probable bad news to the young man’s mother, and they hoped she would later be prepared to assist in identification.
Detective Inspector Jordan had one final bit of news to impart, and could not completely disguise a quiet note of triumph in her voice as she did so.
‘It won’t astonish you to learn, boss, that Wayne Thompson did a regular moonlight for Avon Escorts. And our Mrs Pattinson was very fond of his services. That Paolo is getting to be quite cooperative. In quite a panic nowadays, he is. We don’t need the thumbscrews at all any more.’
By midday the body of Wayne Thompson, delivered as usual to Southmead Hospital by the Cataldi brothers, had been formally identified by his distraught mother.
In the afternoon Rose — fortified by a particularly large and juicy hamburger, in deference to her perhaps strange tendency to be better able to control her nausea with a full stomach than an empty one — attended the post-mortem examination conducted by Carmen Brown. This was little more than another formality, although the pathologist was able to confirm her earlier prognosis that Thompson had suffered his head injury after death, presumably while falling into the canal. As in the two earlier murders there was no doubt that he had been killed by a single vicious stab wound made by a long and sharp-bladed knife of some kind.
Later, back at Staple Hill, and picking a moment when Peter Mellor was nowhere near to hear her make the call because she knew he would disapprove, Rose phoned Charlie Collins at his mother’s home. She gave only her Christian name.
Rose had had several further meetings with Charlie, some officially at the station and some more informally. She was convinced that Charlie must know something, however inconsequential it might seem and quite possibly without realising it himself, which could just give her the start she needed to unravel the whole affair.
‘I’ll meet you in the bar of the Portway Towers at six o’clock,’ she instructed, and added with a small smile, ‘I’m sure you know it.’
Charlie was wearing a deep-tan jacket over a cream silk shirt and paler tan trousers. The clothes were well cut and classy. As Charlie joined her at a corner table Rose was aware of one or two curious glances from the barman. That wasn’t surprising. It was quite likely that the barman knew exactly who Charlie was and what he did. Charlie, it seemed, had always been a very successful escort — a busy boy.
‘Tell me again, Charlie,’ she encouraged. The young man sighed. She could forgive him, this was after all the umpteenth time she had asked him to relive his meetings with Mrs Pattinson for her, and however much detail she demanded he go into, nothing new or revelatory had so far presented itself.
Mrs Pattinson had just never talked about herself, Charlie told her yet again, and certainly had never revealed to him anything of the other life Rose was sure that she must have.
Charlie was leaning quite close to her now, that silly drink he always ordered, Campari and orange — he wasn’t really a drinker; apart from champagne, he only liked sweet drinks — almost forgotten on the table beside him, reliving his various meetings with Mrs Pattinson.
‘...So that was the first time she asked for a second boy,’ he said, his voice low and husky. ‘And I told you before what she liked us to do, didn’t I? The things she dreamed up...’
Rose had become aware that as their meetings had progressed Charlie’s descriptions of his sexual adventures with Mrs Pattinson had become increasingly more explicit. She had reasoned with herself that any details at all of Charlie’s relationship with the mysterious Airs P were relevant, and might even be crucial. Nonetheless, listening to that resolutely sexy voice describing his carnal adventures could be quite mesmerising on occasions.
Swiftly Rose interrupted him. ‘OK, I’ve heard enough of that,’ she said as sternly as she could manage, although she was aware that her voice sounded almost squeaky in comparison with his.
Charlie smiled. He had a pleasing grin and the most beautifully white and even teeth she had ever seen.
‘Have you?’ he asked, and his eyes were locked on to hers.
‘Behave yourself,’ said Rose lightly.
She was well aware that Sergeant Mellor thought her relationship with Charlie had already become too close, and he might be right, she reflected. She knew she had already gone against procedure in her dealings with him. And certainly it had crossed her mind that were Charlie in a different line of work, and were she not investigating three murders in which he had an involvement, she might just find him rather attractive.
Wryly she considered that in her nick nobody would bat an eyelid if she were a bloke and Charlie were a call girl. Perk of the job, she’d once heard a Bristol vice cop describe a session with a prostitute. Not without some difficulty, she forced herself at least to behave as if she were the one in charge.
‘Right then, young man,’ she said, downing the remains of her half pint of bitter. ‘I’ve got a husband waiting for me at home, and goodness knows who you’ve got.’
‘Me mum,’ responded Charlie with an even wider grin. ‘But I won’t have if she ever gets wind of any of this lot, that’s for sure.’
It was only just after 8.00 p.m., quite early by her standards, when Rose got home. But unfortunately Simon had called Staple Hill soon after she had left at a few minutes before six, and had been told his wife was on her way home. On the strength of that he had begun cooking an early supper for them both, his own speciality pasta dish — penne with spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and slivers of fresh Parmesan.
The remains of it, dried-up and unappetising, just as the fateful lamp chops had been all those weeks earlier, were still in the oven. Simon was not in the best of moods — something she was having to get used to nowadays, she reflected.
‘I’ve told you, I had a meeting with an informant,’ she said for the third time.
‘Well, why didn’t they know at the station then? Why did they think you’d gone home?’
Rose realised she must have disappointed Simon yet again and sympathised with his obvious frustration, but she wished he didn’t get so belligerent when he was upset.