masts of sunken ships. On the outskirts of Saltford, on the Bath Road, I see a dozen cows huddling on an island of grass surrounded by water. A broken bale of hay is scattered beneath their hooves.
Elsewhere waves of water, mud and debris are trapped against fences, trees and bridges. Thousands of farm animals have drowned and machinery lies abandoned on low ground, caked in mud like tarnished bronze sculptures.
Abernathy has a civilian secretary, a small grey woman whose clothes are more colourful than her personality. She rises grudgingly from her chair and ushers me into his office.
The sergeant, a large, freckled man, is seated at a desk. His sleeves are buttoned down and starched resolutely with a sharp crease running from his wrists to his shoulders.
He speaks in a low rumble. ‘I take it you can write your own statement.’ A foolscap pad is pushed towards me.
I glance down at his desk and notice a dozen manila folders and bundles of photographs. It’s remarkable how much paperwork has been generated in such a short space of time. One of the files is marked ‘Post Mortem’.
‘Do you mind if I take a look?’
Abernathy glances at me like I’m a nosebleed and slides it over.
AVON amp; SOMERSET CORONER
Post-Mortem Report No: DX-56 312
Date and time of death: 28/09/2007. 1707 hours.
The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian female. The irises are brown. The corneas are clear. The pupils are fixed and dilated.
The body is cool to the touch and there is posterior lividity and partial rigidity. There are no tattoos, deformities or amputations. The victim has a linear 5” surgical scar on her abdomen at the bikini line, indicating a prior Caesarean section.
Her right and left earlobes are pierced. Her hair is approximately sixteen inches in length, brown, with a wave. Her teeth are natural and in good condition. Her fingernails are short, neatly rounded with polish present. Pink polish is also present on her toenails.
The abdomen and back show evidence of significant soft tissue abrasions and heavy bruising caused by blunt force trauma. These markings are consistent with an impact such as a fall.
The external and internal genitalia show no evidence of sexual assault or penetration.
The facts have a stark cruelty about them. A human being with a lifetime of experiences is labelled like a piece of furniture in a catalogue. The pathologist has weighed her organs, examined her stomach contents, taken tissue samples and tested her blood. There is no privacy in death.
‘What about the toxicology report?’ I ask.
‘It won’t be ready until Monday,’ he says. ‘You thinking drugs?’
‘It’s possible.’
Abernathy is on the way to saying something and changes his mind. He takes a satellite map from a cardboard tube and unrolls it across his desk. Clifton Suspension Bridge is at the centre, flattened of its perspective until it appears to be lying on top of the water instead of seventy-five metres above it.
‘This is Leigh Woods,’ he says, pointing to an expanse of dark green on the western side of Avon Gorge. ‘At 13.40 on Friday afternoon a man walking his dog on the Ashton Nature Reserve saw a near-naked woman in a yellow raincoat. When he approached her, the woman ran away. She was talking on a mobile and he thought it might be some sort of TV stunt.
‘A second sighting was made at 15.45. A delivery driver for a dry cleaning firm saw a fully naked woman walking along Rownham Hill Road near St Mary’s Road.
‘A CCTV camera on the western approach of the bridge picked her up at 16.02. She must have walked along Bridge Road from Leigh Woods.’
The details are like markers on a timeline, dividing the afternoon into gaps that can’t be accounted for. Two hours and half a mile separated the first and second sightings.
The sergeant flicks through the CCTV images so quickly it appears as if the woman is moving in juddering slow motion. Raindrops have smeared the lens, blurring the edges of each print, but her nakedness couldn’t be sharper.
The final photographs show her body lying on the deck of a flat bottomed boat. Albino white. Tinged with lividity around her buttocks and her flattened breasts. The only discernible colour is the red of her lipstick and the smeared letters on her stomach.
‘Did you recover her mobile?’
‘Lost in the river.’
‘What about her shoes?’
‘Jimmy Choos. Expensive but re-heeled.’
The photographs are tossed aside. The sergeant shows little sympathy for the woman. She is a problem to be solved and he wants an explanation- not for peace of mind or out of professional curiositybut because something about the case disturbs him.
‘The thing I don’t understand,’ he says, without looking up at me, ‘is why did she go walking in the woods? If she wanted to kill herself, why not go straight to the bridge and jump off?’
‘She could have been making up her mind?’
‘Naked?’
He’s right. It does seem bizarre. The same is true of the body art. Suicide is the ultimate act of self loathing, but it’s not usually characterised by public self abuse and humiliation.
My eyes are still scanning the photographs. They come to rest on one of them. I see myself standing on the bridge. The perspective makes it look as though I’m close enough to touch her, to reach out and grab her before she falls.
Abernathy notices the same photograph. Rising from his desk, he walks to the door, opening it before I get to my feet.
‘It was a bad day at the coal face, Professor. We all have them. Make your statement and you can go home.’
The phone on his desk is ringing. I’m still in the doorway as he answers it. I can hear only one side of the conversation.
‘You’re sure? When did she last see her?… OK… And she hasn’t heard from her since? Right… Is she at home now?…
‘Send someone to the house. Pick her up. Make sure they get a photograph. I don’t want a sixteen-year-old identifying a body unless we’re bloody certain it’s her mother.’
My stomach drops. A daughter. Sixteen. Suicide is not a matter of self determination or free will. Someone is always left behind.
4
It takes me ten minutes to walk from the Boat House in Eastville Park to Stapleton Road. Avoiding the industrial estates and the slime-covered canal, I follow the concrete brutality of the M32 flyover.
The plastic shopping bags are cutting into my fingers. I put them down on the footpath and rest. I’m not far from home now. I have my supplies: meals in plastic trays, a six pack of beer, a slice of cheesecake in a plastic triangle- my treats for a Saturday night, purchased from a Paki grocer who keeps a shotgun under his counter, next to the porn magazines in their plastic wrappers.
The narrow streets cut in four directions, flanked by terraces and flat-fronted shops. An off-licence. A bookmakers. The Salvation Army selling second hand clothes. Posters warn against kerb crawling and urinating in public and, I love this one, putting up posters. Nobody takes a blind bit of notice. This is Bristol- city of lies, greed and corrupt politicians. The right hand always knows what the left is doing: robbing it blind. That’s something my dad would say. He’s always accusing people of ripping him off.
The wind and rain have stripped leaves from the trees along Fishponds Road, filling the gutters. A street
