“They’re families. Reds are mummies, blues are daddies, and the pinks can be the little children.” She had the slightest lisp, but her diction was remarkably clear for not quite three. This was a child who had spent much time in the company of adults.
“Yes, that sounds a good idea.” Impeccable color-wheel logic, thought Gemma. “Does your mummy let you play with her thread?” she asked, having noted Charlotte’s usage of the present tense.
“I help. I’m her best helper.” The red spools toppled, and Charlotte gathered them up with studied patience. “They shouldn’t run away. That’s naughty. My daddy says families belong together.”
Present tense for Daddy, too. Treading very carefully, but wanting to get an idea of just how much Charlotte understood, Gemma said, “But your daddy’s not here now, is he?”
Charlotte pushed her stacks of spools a bit closer together and shook her head. “No,” she said, as matter-of- factly as if Gemma had asked about the weather. “Daddy’s gone to look for Mummy.”
Weller always felt there was a persistent hum to a hospital. Even in nether regions like the basement, you could sense the unseen activity, a working hive.
Unfair to compare Rashid to a bee, however-there was no mindless industry here, in this room of tile and steel and precision instruments. And there was definitely no smell of honey.
“You getting soft, old man?” said Rashid, glancing up from the table. “You’re looking a bit green.” He’d finished the postmortem on Naz Malik and had sent his assistant off, preferring to do the close himself. He liked, as he had told Weller often enough, the sense of closure. And then he’d flashed his wicked pathologist’s grin at the bad pun.
“Still suffering from the ravages of too much wedding champagne,” Weller said, rubbing his temples. “Cheap stuff, too, although I can’t say I blame the bride’s family, considering everything else they had to shell out.”
“Sorry I couldn’t make it. One of the pathologists on the rota, Dr. Ling, had a family emergency. So duty called and all that. Give Sean my regrets.”
Weller’s son and Rashid were the same age, and had become friends over the years. “You were well out of it, although you might have had a good laugh,” Weller told him. Rashid didn’t drink, and Weller imagined that a hotel ballroom full of thoroughly pissed guests would get a bit wearing after a while if you didn’t share their rather skewed perspective.
His tie felt too tight, even in the cold room. Pulling at the knot, Weller repositioned himself against the tile wall so that Kaleem’s body half blocked his view of the table. “Look, Rashid, I appreciate you moving this one up.” Weller didn’t like to call in favors, but he was feeling less and less comfortable about this case. He’d gone back to Bethnal Green, gone over the notes on the Sandra Gilles case, wondering what he might have missed besides this man Ritchie. Tim Cavendish had had no further information on Ritchie or his club, so Weller had put Sergeant Singh on to a search.
Nothing had come in on Naz Malik. It was too soon to expect any results from the techies, and so far no good citizen had reported seeing Malik in the park last night or yesterday afternoon. Where had Malik been in those hours between the time he left his house in Fournier Street and the time Rashid estimated he had died in the park?
“Interesting, the DI from Notting Hill getting herself involved,” commented Rashid, as if guilty of mind reading.
“Interesting, or interested?” teased Weller. “She’s a looker.”
“She looks
“Ooh, they teach you big words in medical school,” Weller retorted, but he knew Rashid was right. “So, you still convinced this guy didn’t top himself?”
Rashid shot him a look. “We’ll see what comes back on the tox. But I still think he was heavily sedated when he died. And if he was that trashed, how did he get himself to the park and onto the trail? He didn’t take anything when he got there-not unless he had a handful of loose pills in his pocket and swallowed them without liquid. I went through his clothes. No pill bottles, no syringes, and the techs didn’t find a drink or a water bottle near the body.”
“I had the SOCOS bag the rubbish in the bin at the park entrance,” said Weller. “We’ll check it for his prints.”
“Well, I suppose he might have got that far,” Kaleem said, going on with his stitching, “but I think you’re reaching for it. If it was a suicide, why dispose of the evidence?”
“Because he didn’t want his daughter to grow up knowing he’d killed himself?”
“He’d have known the drugs would show up on a tox screen, so what would be the point?” asked Kaleem.
“Maybe he thought we’d assume he dropped dead of a heart attack.”
“You said this guy was a lawyer. Give him a bit of credit.”
Weller tried one more time. “You’re sure he didn’t croak from natural causes?”
“No. He was still breathing when he fell. I found bits of dirt and leaf mold in his nostrils. No sign of stroke or aneurysm. A bit thin, as I said earlier, but not enough to cause him any problems. Other than that, your Mr. Malik was healthy as a horse. Except, of course, for the unfortunate fact that he’s dead.” Rashid finished closing the Y incision with a neat knot. He unfolded a sheet over the body, then stripped off his gloves. “I’ll send you the transcribed copy of my report. And you can have the techs pick up the personal effects. I’ve already sent the hair and fiber I gathered off to the lab.”
He glanced at the evidence bag on the cart by the door and frowned. “Could have sworn I put the phone in first.” There was a slim mobile phone near the top of the bag. Rashid shrugged. “Double shift. Too much coffee, not enough sleep.” He fixed Weller with the penetrating stare he usually reserved for the nonresponsive. “So what’s up with you, old man? It’s more than champagne hangover. Why are you so determined to prove this wasn’t murder?”
Weller straightened up, sighed. “Because if Naz Malik was murdered, I suspect it means I screwed up. Big- time. And that means this case is out of my hands.”
CHAPTER TEN
– Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron, Michael Young,
Another weekend spent finding excuses to come in to work. Worse still, Doug Cullen had even managed to get his guv’nor in on a Sunday afternoon, which hadn’t earned him any scout points. Sitting at his desk in his office at the Yard, Kincaid had pushed the printouts aside, steepled his fingers, given him a look worthy of the chief super, and said, “Just how bored are you, Doug?”
“Don’t know what you mean, guv,” Cullen had said, but he’d colored, knowing full well.
“This report could have waited until tomorrow morning.”
“But I thought if the chief had it first thing…” He’d sounded lame even to himself.
“Get a hobby, Doug. Check out the joys of Facebook or something.” Kincaid stood and stretched. He’d come to the office in T-shirt and jeans, hair rumpled. “I’m going home. And the next time you call me in on a Sunday, it had better be life or death.”
Cullen had stayed for a bit in the empty office, but not even the Yard’s air-conditioning had kept up with the heat of the afternoon. The room was stuffy, and the building had that stale, dregs-of-the-week feel that came with Sunday afternoons. When the janitors came through, he’d switched off the computer and left them to it.
The guv was right, he thought as he rode the stifling tube back to Euston Road. Since his break-up with his ex-girlfriend, she of the hyphenate, Stella Fairchild-Priestly, he’d become a mole. Cullen had always been focused on work-one of the reasons behind the failure of the relationship-but lately he’d become obsessive, and he’d read enough pop psychology to know such single-mindedness wasn’t healthy. Not to mention the fact that he wanted
