Outside on the street he looked up at the flat, saw her looking out of the window. She appeared to have a wistful look about her as if she wasn’t sure what to do. Turning away, Isaac got into his car and drove to the murder scene.
***
A Sunday morning, the tourist season in full swing, not that the city was ever devoid of visitors, but then that was London. A cosmopolitan melting pot of peoples from all around the world, most making their way on foot or by bus or taxi around the prime sights to visit. To the west of the murder scene, Kensington Palace. To the east, Hyde Park, albeit that officially Hyde Park had been divided into two, the area west of the West Carriage Drive renamed as Kensington Gardens.
As expected, another tourist sight had sprung up, even more popular than the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, even more than Speaker’s Corner where anyone was free to get up on a box and make a speech, regardless of whether it was nonsense or intelligent debate, religious or not. The only rule was that whatever was said, it had to be lawful and not likely to incite violence. Not that it worried some, and most of those who spoke were open to ridicule. A great sport in his younger days, Isaac knew, to come down to Hyde Park, listen to the orators, to heckle some, to silently agree with others. Karl Marx had stood there, so had Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell.
But today was not the time to listen to the speakers or to walk through the park and on to Buckingham Palace. Today was the time to investigate a murder.
At the entrance to the park, Isaac parked his car, pulling off onto the pavement, a uniform standing there to show him where. Bayswater Road was busy and getting busier by the minute. Not far away, Kensington Church Street, the turnoff down to the Churchill Arms, full of Churchillian memorabilia and good beer, a decent restaurant. Larry visited it on a regular basis, Isaac infrequently; no royals in there, though.
‘You’ll have trouble controlling the people in the park,’ Isaac said on his arrival. Larry was already there, although he wasn’t dressed as well as Isaac and it was clear he had had a heavy night. Isaac could see that his inspector was struggling again and that he was starting to put on weight; his complexion was ruddy, and his general physical health was not as good as it should be.
Last time the man had had a drinking problem it had been Isaac who had officially warned him about the issue, Larry’s wife reinforcing the ban on the excessive consumption of alcohol, if he wanted to avoid sleeping downstairs on the sofa.
But Inspector Larry Hill wasn’t the biggest problem that day; it was the body that had been found floating in the reeds at the side of the Serpentine, the recreational lake in Hyde Park, its name due to its snakelike, curving shape.
‘What do we have?’ Isaac said.
Isaac would have said it was scenic there, the statue to Peter Pan at his rear, the water in front of him. A couple of moorhens in the water, a pigeon nearby, hopeful of the crumbs from the sandwich that he had purchased on the way. He thought back to Jenny and her offer of breakfast. He had made the wrong choice, as the sandwich, cheese and ham, was neither fresh nor agreeable, purely filling a place in his stomach. And it was not as if he could do much at the present moment. The area had been secured by the uniforms, and no one could come along the pathway; no doubt a few tourists would be complaining. So far, the crime scene investigators, led by Gordon Windsor, wasn’t on site, and they would be another ten minutes. Then the barriers preventing entry by vehicular traffic onto the pathways had to be dealt with. Isaac remembered when the barriers had been installed: three weeks after a car had mounted the pavement in a shopping mall and mowed down six people, three dying at the scene, another in hospital. It had proved not to be terrorist related, but an elderly man suffering a heart attack, but it had been enough to raise the fear that it could happen again, and the next time, it could be a terrorist. Hyde Park could have been a target, so could Kensington Palace, even an infiltration into the building with heavy weapons, and then…
And now there was a body in the Serpentine, a tranquil lake, boats for hire, swimming down at Lansbury’s Lido, the Peter Pan Christmas Day Race where hardy individuals would swim a one-hundred-yard course in the lake. Isaac had swum it once, and received a medal for competing, though not gold or silver or bronze. He had been a runner in his day, good enough to have been considered championship material, but then an injury, and his running days had come to an end. He had been born in London, although the bitter cold winter days still troubled him, and as he looked at the water, he remembered the intense cold when he had dived in before.
‘We’ve not disturbed the scene any more than we had to,’ one of the uniforms said. ‘We just brought the body ashore. There was a possibility that he was still alive.’
‘Was he?’
‘No. There was a doctor in the park. We asked him to look. An ambulance, standard procedure, had already been called. The doctor checked the body, nothing more.’
‘Any evidence destroyed?’
‘Not by us.’
‘The person who found the body?’
‘A Chinese tourist, no English, although there’s a translator with the party. Talk to her if you want any more, but you’ll not get much. They saw the body, took photos, phoned their friends and family back home, and called us.’
‘In that order?’
