Det. Supt Clarke knew the place a little. She had a friend who lived in the Dock whom she occasionally visited. Thames Wharf — the basin behind it where a number of river and canal boats had residential mooring, the remains of what had once been a major London boatyard — and Johnson Island, home to a community of artists, were all linked by a little network of paths and bridges. The existence of all of this was effectively screened from the nearest through road, Brentford High Street, and anyone shopping on the high street or visiting a pub or restaurant — other than perhaps the Brewery Tap, which in any case was very much a local — would be totally unaware of the existence of what was, surely, in the modern world, a most improbable convergence of people and place. If this were indeed a murder, considered Nobby Clarke, then it seemed likely that the perpetrator was someone with local knowledge.
The CSI team, assisted by local police, were scouring the area for any further evidence. A sergeant, probably the officer she had spoken to earlier, Clarke thought, was standing just outside the cordon, still in his unprotected blue uniform.
Dr Fitzwarren, also clad in the compulsory Tyvek suit, was crouched alongside the body. She looked up as Nobby Clarke and DC Springer approached.
Patricia Fitzwarren was relatively young for her job, in her mid-thirties. She was an attractive young woman, but, certainly when she was at work, her somewhat elfin features clearly bore the mark of what she had already seen in her life. She was also pretty acerbic when dealing with police officers, or anyone else who might feasibly hinder her at a crime scene. Nobby thought this sort of attitude was almost obligatory for pathologists. Sometimes she wondered if they were born that way.
‘Good afternoon, Pat,’ said the super.
‘Nothing very good about it for this fella,’ muttered Pat Fitzwarren, swiftly returning her attention to the dead man.
Here we go, thought Nobby.
She had brought with her a print-out of the photograph the Avon and Somerset had circulated of the man they were looking for, and carefully compared it with the dead man lying before her. Sergeant Knott was quite right. This was almost certainly George Grey. He would have to be formally identified, of course, but there wasn’t much doubt. And there was the evidence of the freshly stitched-up stab wounds to add to the obvious visual resemblance.
‘What can you tell me, Pat?’ she asked.
Patricia Fitzwarren stood up and took a step away from the body. ‘It’s more what I can’t tell you, I’m afraid,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’ queried Nobby.
‘Well, I know what you want to know,’ continued the doctor. ‘Did he jump, did he fall, or was he pushed?’
‘Something like that,’ Clarke replied.
‘Ummm. And that’s what I can’t tell you, not at this stage anyway. There are no overt signs of any injury, except the cuts to his shoulder and leg which had clearly been sustained prior to the incident which caused his death and had already received medical attention. No immediate evidence of a bang on the head or anything like that, but I can’t be sure until I get him back to the mortuary. I can’t even tell you whether he was dead or alive when he entered the water. From the look of him I suspect he was alive and that he drowned. But that’s only a guess at this stage. I’ll be able to ascertain that, of course, from whether or not there is water in his lungs when I cut him open.’
Clarke nodded. She had a strong stomach. The picture created of the man before her being sliced and sawn open by the diminutive Dr Fitzwarren did not unduly disturb her. Unlike DI Vogel, she reflected fleetingly and not unaffectionately. Many times, she had seen him turn vaguely green and walk away from a post-mortem examination in order not to throw up over the evidence.
‘What about time of death?’ she asked. ‘Or should I say date of death. Any idea how long he has been in the water? If this is the man Avon and Somerset are looking for, and I am now pretty certain it is, then it can’t have been more than twenty-four hours or thereabouts.’
The pathologist nodded. ‘Certainly not more than twenty-four hours, I wouldn’t think,’ she said. ‘There is no real sign of decomposition yet, but something’s been nibbling at him already. So probably not much less than that.’
Det. Supt. Clarke averted her glance from George Grey’s rather gruesome left eye, thanked the pathologist and stepped back. She wasn’t going to learn much more from this scene, or from standing looking at the dead man. Any secrets he may yet be able to share would, as Dr Fitzwarren had doubtless correctly indicated, not be revealed until the post-mortem operation.
She looked around her again, at the housing complex beyond the lock, the lock itself, its steep drop unprotected by any kind of fencing, and the narrow bridge leading to Catherine Wheel Road. A well-built man wearing a high-vis jacket, the logo of the Canal and River Trust just visible beneath his lifejacket, was now standing next to the sergeant she presumed to be Leon Knott. With Lloyd Springer at her side, Nobby Clarke stepped over the cordon protecting the crime scene and approached the two men.
‘You must be the lock-keeper,’ she said, addressing the man in the high-vis coat.
The man nodded.
‘And Leon Knott?’ she queried, turning to the uniformed sergeant.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Knott. ‘And this is Bill Cox.’
Nobby Clarke noticed that, in spite of his heavy clothing and the coolness of the day, beads of sweat were visible on the lock-keeper’s forehead.
‘Had a bit of a shock, I expect,’ she commented, not unsympathetically.
Bill nodded. ‘It’s the first body I’ve ever found in my lock,’ he said. ‘Or anywhere else, come to that,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
‘How long have you been lock-keeper here?’ asked Clarke.
‘I’ve been doing it for nearly five years now, ever since I retired from BA. Ground staff at Heathrow. I’m a volunteer, of course, they don’t pay us nowadays. One of a team who work in shifts. I’m just lucky I’ve got enough of a pension that I can do it. I love it, being outdoors, watching the river craft pass...’
He paused. ‘Well, most days I do.’
Nobby Clarke nodded her understanding. ‘And do you live locally, Bill?’
‘Yes. Almost on site. Got a flat in the Dock, right on the river, and a little Shetland two-berth moored in the marina. After I retired we sold up the family home in Boston Manor and moved down here. Bit of a dream for me, to tell the truth...’
‘So, you know it well around here then. That pub over there,’ she said, pointing across and beyond the lock. ‘The Brewery Tap isn’t it...?’
‘Yes, it is,’ responded Cox.
‘Good little boozer too,’ interrupted Sergeant Knott. ‘Popular with a lot of people who live in the Dock.’
The sergeant gestured towards the housing estate which sprawled across a triangle of land flanked on each of its three sides by the Grand Union Canal and the River Brent, The Thames, and Syon Park.
‘Bit of a precarious walk home, isn’t it?’ continued Det. Supt. Clarke.
‘Bill thinks a miracle more of ’em who use The Tap as their local don’t end up in the drink around here,’ agreed Knott. ‘And I’m inclined to agree with him. I mean, look at that bridge.’
Nobby Clarke looked. ‘I see what you’re getting at,’ she said. ‘And our friend wasn’t a local. He would have been unfamiliar with the layout here. The steps. The bridge. All of it. And if it was after dark, well, he could easily have fallen in, I suppose. Particularly having just walked out of hospital, and with those wounds. He would have been heavily sedated before they were stitched up too, I reckon.’
‘Yes, but he fell in the lock where the ground is level, and there aren’t any obstacles,’ said Knott.