‘More than you’ve had hot dinners, my son. Your husband’s been involved in a car crash… Your wife’s been involved in an accident… Your son fell off his motor bike… We’ve found a body in the river and we think it may be…’
‘Will you tell them?’
‘Yeah. You can do it next time.’
‘Yes, who is it?’ asked a woman’s voice from behind the door of number 28.
‘Police. Could you open the door, please, madam?’
‘Do you have identification?’
Lennon pushed his warrant card through the letterbox and the door was opened. A small woman with white hair corralled in a hairnet stood there in her nightclothes. ‘It’s Johnny,’ she said. ‘He’s had an accident, hasn’t he? Oh my God, is he…?’
‘No, it’s not Johnny, madam. Do you think we could come inside? Is your husband awake?’
With both the Danbys sitting on the couch in the living room and the two constables facing them, the news of Ann’s death was broken to them. The fact that it was suicide seemed to come as an even bigger shock than her death.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Mr Danby. ‘Ann had everything to live for. She was doing so well in her job and up for promotion yet again. Why on earth would she do such a thing?’
‘When did you last see your daughter, sir?’
Mr Danby turned to his wife, who was sitting with head bowed and a handkerchief pressed to her face. ‘I suppose about two weeks ago. She came to lunch. She seemed absolutely fine. But you spoke to her on the phone the other night, didn’t you, Alison?’
She nodded mutely, then after a pause said, ‘She thought she was getting flu and might have to stay off work. She didn’t like doing that; she was always so conscientious.’
‘Your daughter wasn’t married?’
‘No, she was very much a career woman, Officer,’ said Mr Danby.
‘No boyfriends?’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ snapped Mrs Danby.
Lennon held up his hands in apology and said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just trying to establish if there was anyone who might have seen your daughter in the last two or three days, someone who could throw more light on why she felt driven to take her own life.’
‘No one.’
‘A close female friend, perhaps?’
A look of anger flitted across Mrs Danby’s face as she thought she saw an implicit suggestion in the question, but it faded and she responded with a curt shake of the head before covering her nose and mouth again with her handkerchief. Her shoulders started shaking with silent sobs.
Mr Danby cleared his throat twice before managing to whisper, ‘You’ll want me to identify her?’
‘Yes, please, sir, when you feel up to it.’
‘I’m not sure about the procedure in such cases…’
‘There will have to be a post mortem, sir. After that the body will be released to you. You can go ahead and make arrangements pending the issue of a death certificate.’
‘Thank you, Officer.’
‘I don’t want them defiling Ann,’ Mrs Danby blurted out. ‘Leave my baby alone!’ She broke into uncontrollable sobs, and her husband put his arm round her and tried to comfort her. ‘Make them leave her alone, Charles. I don’t want them… doing things to her.’
Both policemen moved uncomfortably in their chairs as her raw grief reached them. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Lennon. ‘It’s mandatory in such cases.’
Mr Danby nodded his understanding and suggested with his eyes that they should leave.
‘Christ, that was awful,’ said Clark as they drove off.
‘It couldn’t be anything else,’ replied Lennon.
‘What a night. What a bloody awful night.’
‘You’ll have worse.’
‘That poor woman. It was as if we just destroyed her life.’
‘We didn’t. We were just the messengers, disinterested parties in other people’s lives. We tiptoe in and then we tiptoe out again — and then we forget.’
‘Forget? How can you possi-’
‘You do because you’re not involved personally and there’s no alternative. Either you learn to forget or you get out of the job double quick. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘Come on, I’ll buy you a bacon roll.’
Ann Danby was third on forensic pathologist Peter Saxby’s list the following morning. ‘So what have we here?’ he asked in his usual imperious manner as the mortuary technician transferred the body from the fridge transporter trolley to the PM table. The head hit the metal table with a bang and Saxby snarled, ‘Must you be so bloody clumsy, man?’
The technician mumbled an apology and melted into the background.
Saxby read from the file he was holding. ‘Ann Danby, white Caucasian female, thirty-three, believed to have overdosed on malt whisky and barbiturates. No suspicious circumstances as far as our boys in blue are concerned. Not exactly Silent Witness material, is it? Unless, of course, we find a Malaysian kris up her arse and two kilos of heroin in her peritoneal cavity, eh?’
The technician smiled dutifully. He didn’t like Saxby. He found him crude and insensitive but tried to make excuses for his behaviour, as befitted a soldier of the Salvation Army, something Saxby was unaware of. He waited while the pathologist made an external appraisal of the body and spoke his findings into the microphone that hung above the table. When Saxby had finished, the technician realigned the instrument tray at the head of the table and stood by as the pathologist made the first incision, a long, sweeping cut from throat to groin.
‘Well, no heroin,’ muttered Saxby when he had opened up the body to expose the internal organs. ‘But a hell of a lot of blood. She’s been bleeding internally from…’ He paused while he made a closer examination. ‘Just about every-bloody-where. Christ, are you sure this is the right body?’
‘Her toe tag says “Ann Danby”, and she was the only woman in the fridge,’ replied the technician. ‘Looks about the right age, too.’
‘Yes, thank you for your forensic input,’ snapped Saxby.
The technician said nothing and kept his eyes fixed on the table.
‘Jesus, she was leaking like a sieve. This wasn’t caused by whisky or bloody sleeping pills. Let me see those admission notes again.’ Saxby snatched them, smearing them with bloody mucus from his gloves in the process. ‘No mention of illness. Shit, I don’t think I like this…’
‘What d’you think was wrong with her?’ asked the technician. Normally he wouldn’t have dared ask, but the apprehension in Saxby’s face gave him the impetus.
‘I don’t know,’ murmured Saxby. He seemed mesmerised by the insides of the corpse. ‘I’ve read about this but I’ve never actually come across it. I think she may well have been suffering from haemorrhagic fever.’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’
There was a long pause before Saxby said, ‘Suffice to say, the last thing on earth you would want to do to such a case is perform a PM on it.’
‘It’s dangerous, then?’
‘Bloody lethal,’ whispered Saxby, turning pale. ‘What have I done?’
‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked the technician.
Saxby shook his head slowly and said, ‘No, but I can’t think of anything else it could be.’
‘So where do we go from here then?’ The technician was still calm, in spite of what he was hearing. He had his faith to thank for that. He knew God was on his side.
Saxby came out of his trance and started snapping out instructions. ‘We need a body bag. I’ll give you a hand getting her into it, then wash down the entire place in disinfectant. When you’ve finished, dump all your clothes in the steriliser bin and shower for at least ten minutes.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to talk to the police first and then Public Health.’
Saxby locked the door to stop anyone coming in, and went to the phone. ‘I need to talk to the officers who discovered Miss Ann Danby’s body last night… Even if they are off duty… Then wake them up… Yes, it is urgent.’ Saxby hung up and waited. Six minutes later the phone rang and he snatched it up. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Constable Lennon, but this is most important. Did anything last night give you reason to think that Miss Danby had been ill recently?’