out her ID as she ducked under the tape, she saw that his eyes were gray as well, the color of flint and about as friendly.
“Not my team,” he said. “You must be James, then.”
She nodded. “Inspector Weller. What’s going on here?”
Weller stepped aside to allow a white-suited crime scene tech to pass, and Gemma saw that there was a crime scene van among the marked cars in the street. He gave her an assessing stare and she wished she’d worn something more professional than jeans, tank top, and sandals. “How about you tell me what you knew about Naz Malik?”
“Did you meet Naz Malik at any time?”
“No,” Gemma said sharply, not liking the feeling of being interrogated. “I’d never heard of him until yesterday. Why-”
“Seen a photo?”
Gemma thought about the house on Fournier Street, empty, and the family photos pinned to Sandra Gilles’s corkboard. “Yes. Yesterday, when I went to the house.”
Weller frowned at the cars in the street, seeming barely to hear her. She saw the glint of pale stubble on his jaw, the crinkled pouches of skin beneath his eyes. “Still waiting on the damned pathologist,” he muttered, then looked back at her, including her in the scowl. “Suppose you’d better have a look, then. I could use a second ID.”
He turned and started along the path. It was a gentle incline, lined by blooming shrubs and a brick wall to the right. After a few yards it forked, and Weller followed the left-hand branch.
The paved walkway narrowed slightly. The vegetation thickened, trees arched overhead, and along the left- hand side primitive-looking waist-high wooden slats provided a barrier. Gemma could see nothing but green ahead and behind. The spot felt as isolated as if it had been plucked out of the heart of the city and set down in alien countryside. An apt metaphor, she thought as the path twisted and she saw the cluster of white-suited SOCOs, looking like space invaders bent over a prize.
But it was a broken section of fencing they were examining, she saw as she drew closer, and the ground beyond. A white-suited photographer moved in an awkward squat, increasing the surreal quality of the scene.
And then she was near enough to see the object of their activity-in the undergrowth beyond the broken fence lay a man’s body, facedown, his limbs splayed, like the extrusions on a jigsaw piece.
The techs moved back when they saw Weller. Eyeing Gemma again, critically, he pulled paper boots and gloves from one of his jacket pockets. While she put them on he said, a little more conversationally, “Early morning jogger. Noticed the broken section of fence, then the shoe.” He pointed. “When she realized the shoe was attached to a leg, she waded in to investigate. Ballsy of her, but likely buggered up my crime scene.”
Recognizing the proprietary tone-she had used it often enough herself-Gemma glanced at him as she finished snapping on the gloves. “You said second ID. You were the first?”
Weller nodded. “Interviewed him a dozen times over his wife’s disappearance.”
“What happened? How did he-”
“Why don’t you tell
Gemma wasn’t sure if this was a challenge or if Weller genuinely wanted her opinion. Looking back at the body, she felt her own reluctance. This seemed uncomfortably personal, but putting it off wasn’t going to make it any better. The day was warming fast and the flies were gathering-would have been gathering since daybreak-and the smell would ripen quickly in the heat. Her hands had already begun to sweat in the gloves.
She eased through the gap in the fence and crouched, trying to resist brushing at the flies as she cataloged the details. “Clean, well-groomed, male,” she observed. “A little thin, but not obviously malnourished. The clothes match the description given by Naz Malik’s nanny-tan trousers and a casual polo shirt.” Only his right hand and arm were visible. The left was tucked beneath his body. “There are a few minor scratches on the backs of his hand, consistent with contact with the undergrowth.” She bent closer, this time giving in to the impulse to swat at a fly, looking carefully at the back of the victim’s dark hair, and at the leaf litter round the edges of the body. “No obvious signs of trauma, or of blood seeping from a wound we can’t see. No smell of alcohol.” She looked up at Weller. “ID?”
“Wallet was accessible, in his back pocket,” he answered.
Carefully, Gemma moved round to the other side. From what she could see, the victim’s profile certainly matched the photos she’d seen of Naz Malik. But something was missing-She looked at the crime scene techs. “Anyone turn up his glasses?”
“No, not a trace,” said a plump woman who wore oversize glasses herself.
“And was the body positioned exactly like this? Nose down in the soil?”
“Said we were waiting for the bloody pathologist, didn’t I?” Weller sounded tired as well as irritated. “Of course we didn’t move him. And fortunately the jogger had more sense than most.”
“Was he already dead when he fell, then?” Gemma was asking herself as much as Weller.
“Either that or too incapacitated to move. Drugs, maybe,” Weller speculated.
“He didn’t do drugs,” Gemma protested. “Not according to my friend. Maybe he was ill-”
“And just managed to break the fence while having a heart attack?” Weller didn’t bother to moderate his sarcasm.
“You can’t know-”
“I suspect you are both theorizing in the absence of fact.” The voice that interrupted Gemma was clipped, precise, and made Weller jump.
Glancing up, Gemma saw that a man had come up behind Weller. He was Asian, thirtyish, with skin slightly darker than Naz Malik’s. His short jet-black hair was gelled into spikes, and he wore frayed jeans and a black T- shirt that said
“Good God, man,” said Weller. “You want to give me a heart attack?”
“Maybe you should get your hearing aid checked, Inspector.” The man opened his kit and pulled on gloves.
“And you, Rashid-you decide to have a lie-in this morning, or what? We’ve been waiting more than an hour.”
“I had another case, in Poplar, and unfortunately, levitating across London is not on my list of accomplishments.” The pathologist gave Gemma a speculative look, and she realized that his eyes were not the expected brown but a dark gray-green. “You have a new colleague, Inspector?”
Gemma stood, lurching awkwardly on the uneven ground, and spoke before Weller could reply. “Gemma James. Detective inspector, Notting Hill.”
“Bit off your patch,” said the pathologist, looking interested.
Weller didn’t offer an explanation. “Inspector James, this is Dr. Rashid Kaleem, esteemed Home Office pathologist and local wiseass.”
There were a dozen or so accredited Home Office pathologists practicing in Greater London and the southeast, many of whom Gemma had met in the course of her work both at the Yard and at Notting Hill. But if Kaleem were new to the service, he and Weller appeared to have an established relationship, and in spite of the banter it seemed friendly enough.
Gemma made way for Kaleem, trying to retrace exactly her steps back to the path.
Kaleem worked efficiently, snapping photos with his own digital camera, murmuring observations into a pocket recorder as he conducted his external examination. He then eased up the tail of Naz Malik’s polo shirt to insert his temperature probe, and Gemma looked away from the sight of Malik’s exposed back. It was somehow worse than blood or a wound, that expanse of smooth, bare skin.
A shaft of sunlight penetrated the trees, burning Gemma’s bare shoulder, and she realized she had forgotten to put on sunscreen. Shifting position slightly, she watched as Kaleem took more close-ups of Malik’s head. Then, without asking for help, he gently turned the body over.
“Lividity is fixed,” he said. “I don’t think he was moved. What time was he last seen yesterday?”
When Weller looked at Gemma, she answered, “He left his house around two yesterday afternoon. That’s the
