Coroner’s Officer Michelle Websdale, the CSI video photographer James Gartrell, as well as Cleo and her assistant, Darren, all stood in attendance, whilst the Home Office pathologist proceeded at his normal pedestrian pace through his examination and dissection of each of her internal organs, pausing frequently to dictate notes into a recorder he kept on a shelf on the far side of the room.
Something else made the DI smirk, more gallows humour. The knowledge that husband and wife were both in Sussex mortuaries right now. Victim and offender. Corin Belling was in one of the fridges in Haywards Heath mortuary. His postmortem would be done by Theobald after he completed this one.
A family affair!
He stepped out of the room, not wanting anyone to see the grin on his face, walked through to the tiny office and switched on the kettle to make himself a cup of coffee. But, actually, after his sombre time in the tiny flat while Theobald carried out his inch-by-inch examination of Lorna’s body, and now this long, slow process, he was starting to feel elated. What a golden opportunity had fallen into his lap. His very first murder as a deputy SIO, and every chance it could be wrapped up in the next twenty-four hours, giving him the kudos, thanks to Roy having to be away.
The fingerprints on the beer cans already put Corin Belling at the scene. The DNA results on the cigarette butts in the flat should be back imminently, and hopefully they would add further confirmation of Belling, a chain-smoker, being there.
He unscrewed the lid of the coffee jar and spooned two heaped teaspoons into the mug, then poured in the milk — something his Swedish wife, Lena, had taught him. It stopped the boiling water from scorching the grounds, and made it taste more like percolated coffee.
Just as he picked up the kettle, his phone rang. It was Roy Grace.
‘Boss!’ he said. ‘How’s it going in Munich?’
‘Just about to go and meet my son,’ he replied. ‘What’s the latest?’
‘Theobald is hard at work, we should be finished sometime before the start of the next ice age.’
‘DNA on those butts back yet?’
‘No, I’m about to chase the lab.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No, boss, we’re good. Just wondering if we need to hold a press briefing, but at the moment it looks such an open-and-shut case I don’t know if there’s any point. Shall I wait until you come back?’
‘Unless there are any unexpected developments, yes.’
‘OK — and — er — boss — I’m sorry for what happened yesterday afternoon — you know — sorry for you — but I really think that Corin Belling running, then giving you a smack in the face, says it all. He’s just a piece of shit — sorry — let me rephrase that — he’s now several pieces of shit!’
Roy Grace laughed. ‘Let’s hope when they start putting him back together they don’t find a bit left over — like I always used to do as a kid putting together model aircraft.’
‘I’ll make sure of it.’
Grace smiled.
‘Good luck today, Roy. Tough call.’
There was a long silence. Then a very distant and faint, ‘Yes.’
Batchelor ended the call and poured the water into his coffee, stirred it and noticed how much his hand was shaking. He hadn’t had any breakfast, he remembered. He’d climbed out of bed feeling totally shattered, made himself a double Nespresso, then showered, shaved, dressed and driven straight here. He removed the lid of the biscuit tin, munched a couple of shortbread biscuits, and then carried his mug through to the postmortem room.
As he entered, he felt a change in the atmosphere. The short and stocky pathologist was staring at him with his beady, nut-brown eyes, the only feature of his face currently visible.
‘Detective Inspector Batchelor,’ he said, holding up a glass vial with an air almost of triumph. ‘I have found something that may be significant.’
32
Friday 22 April
Guy Batchelor stared at Frazer Theobald. ‘What?’
‘The presence of semen.’
‘So she’s a sailor?’
Theobald looked at Guy Batchelor strangely. Humour had never been a part of the pathologist’s canon of talents. Most people, when thinking about it, realized they had never even seen Dr Frazer Theobald smile. ‘Sailor?’ he quizzed.
‘Sorry, just a bad joke. Semen. Sea men.’
The pathologist continued to stare at him, without getting it. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
Batchelor noticed the creases around Gartrell’s and Websdale’s eyes. They were both grinning.
‘It’s OK. What can you tell us about it — are you able to say how recently she had intercourse before she died?’
Theobald lowered his mask, revealing almost in full his Groucho Marx moustache. With his diminutive frame, all he needed was a large cigar to complete the look, Batchelor thought, struggling to keep that thought to himself.
‘Without laboratory examination, I can’t tell you how fresh it is, but I would estimate that sexual intercourse had occurred within the last forty-eight hours. From the briefing you gave me, I understood this unfortunate lady was renting the flat she was found in as some kind of a bolthole — to get away from her abusive husband. I would hardly consider the presence of semen to be a surprise. You told me earlier that her husband’s fingerprints were found in this apartment, indicating his knowledge of it. It is reasonable to assume that he had sex with her, consensually or otherwise. Unless of course she was having an affair. DNA will establish this one way or another.’
‘I’ll get it fast-tracked,’ Batchelor said.
Theobald carried on, while the DI made notes on his pad, intending to update Roy Grace in a short while and ask him how he wanted him to handle the investigation from here.
Something bothered him a lot about the semen. Sure, to the Home Office pathologist the presence of it in the woman’s vagina, given the circumstance of her relationship with her abusive, dominating husband, was entirely plausible. But not to Guy Batchelor.
It told him a very different story.
Had she met a lover there? Had sex with him? The DNA result, which could be back in twenty-four hours, with luck, might provide an answer.
If it came back with a match to the husband, and his DNA was found on the beer cans which had been sent to the lab following the fingerprint identification, then it would be case closed.
But if not?
He hoped so much it would turn out to be the husband. To have solved this before Roy Grace had even returned from Germany would make him look very good.
But a feeling he could not explain told him that this wasn’t the whole picture.
33
Friday 22 April
Nothing, in all his life, had prepared Roy Grace for this moment. He’d dealt with horrific crime scenes, including a father who had murdered his baby son, a beautiful young woman murdered for a snuff movie, and a decent young doctor’s charred remains found on a golf course.
Little shocked him any more.
Little scared him.
But right now, just before midday, as Marcel Kullen pulled up his white VW Sirocco outside the Lipperts’ elegant modern villa in the Gräfelfing district of west Munich, he was shaking. Before leaving England he had debated what to wear. Both Cleo and his style guru, Glenn Branson, had texted him advising him to go casual. Glenn had urged him to look cool, adding with his usual dry humour that he didn’t want his son’s first impression of him to be a dull old fart — he’d find that out soon enough...
So, with Kullen wishing him luck, he removed the chewing gum from his mouth, climbed out of the car dressed in leather jacket over a black T-shirt, jeans and boots, and shut the door behind him. As he walked up to the house he realized he was still shaking, aware Bruno’s eyes might already be on him, watching from behind one of the windows. It felt like a blender had been switched on inside his stomach. But at least his pounding head was calming down.