Callie asked the receptionist to contact Anna and request her attendance for review before any further inhalers would be prescribed and nipped out to the bakery to get a hummus sandwich before doing her afternoon visits.
As always, Callie had the best of intentions to complete her visits and be back in good time for evening surgery, but she was waylaid by a request to see a prisoner at the police station. A driver had been involved in a minor accident and refused to take a breath test at the scene, apparently because he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and couldn’t blow into the device. It was remarkable how quickly he found he could manage it once Callie arrived to take a blood sample. Having been called out unnecessarily, Callie took the opportunity to go up to Miller’s office to see if he had any more news about the boatload of illegal immigrants.
“What’s up, Doc?” Jeffries asked as soon as she entered the incident room, and then laughed at his own joke. Which was just as well, because no one else had.
“I think he means, what can we do for you, Dr Hughes?” Miller said.
It was gratifying to Callie that he did actually seem pleased to see her, well, at least he managed to smile.
“I was just wondering about the body found at Fairlight? Body nine, the one with the tattoos.”
“Several of the bodies have had tattoos,” Miller said with a frown.
“Yes, but this one had a football crest from a British team on his calf.”
“Not that unusual,” Miller said defensively. “It doesn’t mean that he was British.”
“No, but it’s possible, isn’t it? Also, the place he was found. It’s all wrong.”
Miller just raised an eyebrow.
“I spoke with the man who found the body and it definitely wasn’t there the day before.”
“So what?” Jeffries said. “He spent more time out at sea, then.”
“But I spoke to an expert on the prevailing winds and tides.” She hoped she wouldn’t have to admit that her expert was Old George. “He said there was no way the body should have washed up there, he should have been found further to the east.”
Jeffries laughed at that.
“How long have you lived here, Doc? Haven’t you learned that strange things happen at sea?” Jeffries was clearly determined not to take her seriously, and it seemed as though Miller agreed, because he said nothing.
“Have you tried the national missing person database?” Callie blurted out and wished she could have taken that back as soon as she said it. She could almost feel the frostiness of Miller’s response.
“Of course. Funnily enough, we do actually know what we are doing. Nigel’s been in charge of that.” He indicated Nigel Nugent, the go-to member of the team for anything requiring computer skills, who blushed crimson as soon as his name was mentioned. Before Callie could apologise for suggesting he might not have done his job properly, Miller had turned his back and headed into his office, closing the door behind him. Jeffries wasn’t any help. He was grinning at her discomfort and shaking his head in admonishment. He looked as if he was about to wag his finger at her, so she quickly turned to Nigel.
“I take it he wasn’t on there?” she asked.
“N-n-no,” he said, “well, not exactly, anyway.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow and he continued.
“It’s not that straightforward. The missing persons register is very big, goes back years and we don’t know when this person went missing, or where from.”
“But he only died a few days ago.”
“Yes, so we narrowed the search to men reported missing in the last week. From the skeleton and teeth, Dr Iqbal has been able to give us the approximate age of the man – eighteen to twenty-four.” He blushed again, realising that he didn’t need to explain to Callie how pathologists worked out the age of a dead person. “And we have his height, weight and hair colour, but that still gives us over thirty possible mispers in the south east alone. More, if we make it for the country.”
“But the tattoos?” she persisted.
“Don’t match any of them. Not in this country, anyway. We’ve heard back from some of the international databases, but won’t get them all for a few days yet, but it’s not looking good.”
Callie was disappointed.
“I suppose it was too much to hope for an easy identification.”
“I’ve left an alert on the sites in case he hasn’t been reported missing yet.” Nigel seemed eager to please, as usual.
Callie sighed. She realised it was highly likely that her man had not yet been reported missing. If he lived alone, or was out of work, it might take several days, if not weeks for anyone to realise he had gone. There was also the possibility that he would never be reported missing at all. And that was always supposing he wasn’t one of the immigrants from the boat, a premise for which she had no real evidence. Just a gut feeling that this body didn’t fit with the others. Nothing definite that she could use to persuade Miller that she was right.
* * *
Having arrived late for her evening surgery, Callie had not managed to catch up, as no helpful patients had cancelled at the last minute or failed to show. She was running even later by the time she finished, only just managing to leave before the receptionist locked up the building.
Kate was already seated at their favourite table in The Stag when she got there, and was probably already on her second pint.
“Sorry, bit behind today,” Callie said unnecessarily.
Kate had known her long enough to know that she usually was.
“Can I?” Callie pointed to the half-empty glass and Kate
