In Deep Water, page 16
‘Have you any idea what speed you were doing back there?’ As she asked the question she looked him over for any signs of serious injury. Blood was pouring down his face. ‘Come on. We need to get you to hospital. Get that head wound checked out. Can you stand? And then, sunshine, you’re nicked.’
The young man nodded. Fletcher hauled him to his feet and started walking him back towards the road. He half collapsed against her car. She shouted over to Carruthers. ‘He’s drugged up to his eyeballs. I don’t think we have to worry about him going anywhere anytime soon. I also think he’s been really lucky. The head wound looks superficial.’ She gestured towards the mangled Audi. ‘How are they?’
‘A man and woman. In their seventies. We’ll need to wait for the paramedics,’ called out Carruthers. ‘I think the driver’s okay but the passenger’s going to have to be cut out. She’s unconscious. It looks serious.’ Carruthers talked to the conscious occupant in the car, keeping his voice low and calm.
In the distance they heard the whine of an ambulance and within moments saw the flashing blue lights of a police car. ‘That’s a good response time. They must have had a unit close by.’ Carruthers brought out his mobile and Fletcher heard him filling McTavish in while keeping an eye on the injured motorists.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting back in Fletcher’s green Beetle, having explained to the officers on the scene who they were and that they were on their way to a suspicious death. She rubbed her neck again.
Carruthers looked at her, concerned. ‘Do you need to get checked over?’
‘I’ll survive. I might have a touch of whiplash though. I’ll take some painkillers. I could always go to the hospital later if needs be.’
‘As long as you’re sure?’
Fletcher tried to nod but even that was painful. She pulled out a blister pack of paracetamol from the side door pocket. Carruthers offered her a bottle of water, which she gratefully accepted.
At least we’re not about to go back out on the RIB boat, she thought. All that bumping along could do my already injured neck some serious damage. In an effort to take her mind off her neck pain she eventually said, ‘I hope those folk in the Audi will be all right.’
‘They’re in safe hands, Andie. We can always check up on them later by giving the hospital a ring.’
Fletcher nodded. Another pain shot through her neck.
‘Are you sure you don’t need to get checked out? You’re obviously in a lot of pain from the way you’re moving.’
‘I’m okay. Painkillers will kick in soon. Anyway, we don’t have time to go to the hospital.’ She started the car’s engine. ‘Oh God, I wonder if we’re going to find it’s the body of the missing fisherman.’
With that she accelerated down the country road leaving the flashing lights of the police car and ambulance receding into the background.
24
Carruthers and Fletcher arrived at Shell Bay and pulled up in a small car park. They both disembarked and brought out their coveralls and nitrile gloves, which they put on.
As Fletcher bent down to pull on her paper shoes Carruthers surveyed the flat stretch of beach. ‘Look.’ His hand shot out. ‘Over there by that cluster of rocks.’
They could see a small group of young men and women in wetsuits. A solitary uniformed female police officer was taking a statement from a young man. In the distance another knot of hushed onlookers were kept back by a couple of uniform police who were busy erecting police tape. Carruthers spotted Dr Mackie kneeling on the wet sand pulling open his medical bag.
‘Mackie’s here. Let’s go.’
The two officers jogged through the dunes and long grasses over the sand down to the rocks. Another crowd of teenagers in wetsuits were crowded round the body.
‘Get right back please. Right away from the body,’ shouted Fletcher. The crowd pulled back, speaking in hushed tones to each other. Three or four of them were soaking wet; hair plastered to still damp faces. One young woman was shivering. An older man passed her a towel. Most likely the instructor. Carruthers surmised they had been the ones who had pulled the body out of the water. He saw the kit they had with them. Kitesurfers.
One woman stood out in the crowd. Carruthers noticed a sharp-faced lady with blonde hair in her late thirties dressed in a dark suit standing in the group of onlookers clutching something that looked like a notebook. He frowned. Her face was familiar. She looked like a reporter. Where had he seen her before? Their eyes locked for a moment before she looked away. He glanced down at the body of the man who had been pulled from the sea. When he looked back at the crowd of onlookers a bit later on she had disappeared.
His gaze went back to the motionless figure still entwined in seaweed. His policing instincts kicked in and the reporter was forgotten. The first thing he noticed was that the body was male and clothed in bright orange oilskins and yellow boots. It had to be Robert Paterson.
The body had been in the water a while. It was bloated and had been badly battered by rocks. Carruthers hated bodies pulled from the sea when the features were so distorted that the body was unrecognisable.
Mackie stood up slowly. His knees creaked and Carruthers could hear him muttering about getting too old.
‘John, what can you tell us?’
‘I was going to say very little at this stage, Jim. Male, late sixties I’m guessing. He’s got a lot of lacerations to his body. Some are quite deep. Likely a fisherman the way he’s dressed. Looking at him I’d say he’s been in the water for at least forty-eight hours.’
Well, that would fit with when Paterson went missing, thought Carruthers. The pathologist moved around the body so he was now standing and leaning over the torso’s top half. ‘However this is interesting–’
Carruthers leant in, excitement mounting.
The old doctor touched the side of the dead man’s face and gently turned it to the side. ‘See this bruising and these cuts?’
Carruthers leant further in. He could see a cut and some swelling on the lips and a further cut and bruising around the face.
Had he been in a fight?
Mackie echoed Carruthers’ thoughts. ‘It’s possible he’s been in a fight in the last few days. Some of the bruising looks older than the rest though.’
‘He’s had more than one altercation?’
‘Because he’s been in the water I can’t say with any certainty but it’s possible.’
Mackie straightened up and stretched. ‘But I’m more interested in these other wounds.’ He pointed to the wounds on the torso.
‘Could they be stab wounds?’ Carruthers asked.
‘A couple are quite deep.’ Mackie had moved round the body again and gave one a prod with his gloved hand. ‘It’s possible but I’d need to do the post-mortem before I could say for sure.’
‘Could one of the puncture wounds have killed him?’
‘Like I said I’ll need to get him back to the mortuary. I don’t want to conjecture at this stage, laddie.’
Fletcher straightened up from her bent-over position and hissed to Carruthers. ‘We need to make a positive ID as soon as possible. From what he’s wearing it’s likely Robert Paterson. Do you want me to call in on Mrs Paterson? I can give her a lift to the mortuary.’
Carruthers thought about it and decided, knowing Robbie Paterson, he needed to do it himself. There was an important question he wanted to ask Mrs Paterson. ‘No, I’ll do it but I’ll need you to give me a lift back to the station so I can pick up my car. And Andie?’ She looked up. ‘When you get back sort things out with Helen, will you? If you two can’t get along it’s not just her it will reflect badly on.’
Carruthers knocked on the Patersons’ door. It was the moment every police officer dreaded. By rights it should be the job of a lower rank but Carruthers always made it his business to get personally involved. Even when he had been a DCI he had still visited the family of the missing or bereaved. He felt he owed it to the victims and their families. And when he actually knew the potential victim, well, it was a no-brainer.
A drawn Mrs Paterson opened the door to the police officer. She looked frailer and smaller than the last time Carruthers had seen her. She blinked a couple of times and shielded her eyes against the bright sun making Carruthers wonder if she had seen the light of day yet. He had noticed that her front curtains were still closed. Either she hadn’t been up long or she had kept them drawn against the prying eyes of the neighbours. Although she was yet to speak she seemed groggy. Perhaps she had taken some sort of sedative.
‘Mrs Paterson, I’m sorry if this isn’t a convenient time to call. The news isn’t good, I’m afraid. Can I come in?’
‘What is it? Have you found my Robbie?’
Carruthers drew in a steadying breath. He didn’t want to delay the reason for his visit a moment longer. ‘The body of a man has been pulled out of the sea over at Shell Bay. We need you to make a formal ID but we think it’s Robbie.’
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth but Carruthers could see the look of resignation in her eyes as if she had already been preparing herself for the worst possible news.
‘The description you gave us of what your husband was last wearing matches with the clothes of the deceased.’
The woman nodded slowly. ‘I’ll get my house keys.’
‘There’s one other thing.’ Of course if Paterson had fought with someone on his boat the day of his death his wife wouldn’t know about it but there was the possibility of the old bruising to consider. ‘Had your husband been in a fight recently?’
As the significance of the policeman’s words sank in Mrs Paterson dropped her eyes and nodded.
‘Do you know who he had the fight with or what it was about?’
‘He wouldn’t say. He told me it was unimportant and to let it go.’
Why would he say that? It clearly was important. ‘So you have no idea at all?’
‘I didn’t pursue it.’
Carruthers wasn’t aware that Robert Paterson was a habitual scrapper. Remembering the cut above Dewar’s eye, he was now more convinced it had been sustained in a fight with Paterson. But whether he had or not, it now left him in no doubt that the body pulled from Shell Bay was that of the missing fisherman. ‘Is there someone who can come with you? Even if it turns out not to be your husband it’s always good to have a bit of support.’
‘I’d sooner be on my own.’ Mrs Paterson’s answer confirmed what Carruthers had already suspected; that since losing her only son it was likely she had, for the most part, shut herself off from the outside world.
He helped seat the fisherman’s wife in his car feeling a little embarrassed that it was so dirty. He couldn’t remember the last time he had given it a clean out and before she sat down he had to clear several dirty polystyrene cups and an old cloth and bottle of water off the seat. He tossed them into the back.
After a journey in which Mrs Paterson sat in silence they pulled up at the mortuary. Carruthers parked up and helped Mrs Paterson out of the car.
‘Are you ready? They’ve done their best but please be aware that the body has been in the sea.’ It crossed his mind that for the second time in five years the woman was about to undergo an ordeal no living person should ever have to go through.
‘I know what the sea can do to a body. I’ve lived by the sea all my life.’ Of course Mrs Paterson had lost her father to the sea too. Carruthers couldn’t imagine the sort of stress the families of fishermen went through. Every time fishermen set out in their boats could be the last time their families saw them. No wonder fishermen were often superstitious.
The police officer gave the nod to Dr Mackie who carefully pulled away the sheet from the older man’s face. The sea hadn’t been kind to Robert Paterson.
Mrs Paterson closed her eyes tightly as if to wrench the image from them. She balled her hand into a fist and rammed it into her mouth.
‘Is that the body of your husband, Mrs Paterson?’
All the woman could do was nod. Carruthers saw fresh tears pricking the woman’s eyes. He wondered how she’d cope having lost both her son and now her husband.
Carruthers put his arm round Mrs Paterson and the older woman allowed him to pull her into a gentle embrace.
25
‘As you know, Jim, when a body drowns the lungs fill up with water and act like a sponge.’
Carruthers stood on the other side of the body to Dr Mackie. Both men wore lab coats and goggles while Mackie conducted the post-mortem.
‘Is that what killed him? He drowned?’ The police officer peered over the cadaver as he spoke.
Mackie frowned. ‘Not so quick, laddie. I’ll be able to tell you in a wee while. Hold your horses. As you know not everybody that’s pulled from the water will have drowned. You know that as well as I do. During the post-mortem I’ll also be looking for signs of ante-mortem injury as well as pathological evidence of natural disease.’
Carruthers immediately thought of the man’s heart condition and the possibility that he might have been in a fight. ‘He had heart disease. I visited his GP practice.’ Well, that much was true.
Mackie turned to Carruthers pointedly. ‘Do you want to conduct this post-mortem, laddie, or shall I?’
Carruthers stood red-faced for a few moments. ‘Can you at least tell how long he’s been in the water?’ What I want to know is did he die around the time our warden was murdered?
‘Questions, questions. You know as well as I that it is notoriously difficult to determine how long a body has been in the water. Temperature is likely to be the most important factor governing decompositional changes.’ He looked Carruthers squarely in the face. ‘I’ve told you this before: patience is not one of your strong points. I’ll repeat my question. Do you want me to conduct this post-mortem or not? If you’re going to barrage me with questions, I’ll insist that you wait outside.’
Carruthers fell silent. He had to remember that this was Dr Mackie’s domain and he was a mere visitor. The man had his own procedure to follow and he needed to be respectful of that. And he certainly didn’t want to be thrown out in the middle of the post-mortem.
He had to agree with the ageing pathologist, though, about his own lack of patience. Mind you, the older man had not been tasked with investigating two suspicious deaths. All Mackie had to do was conduct the post-mortem and write up his report. In that moment Carruthers almost envied John Mackie the simplicity of his job.
Mackie cleared his throat. ‘I’m surprised he floated so quickly. In cold water like ours here in Scotland the bacterial action that causes a body to float with gas may be slowed down so that the body stays on the seabed. Cold water also encourages the formation of adipocere. This is a waxy, soapy substance to you, formed from the fat in the body that partially protects the body against decomposition.’
Carruthers felt a momentary stab of frustration. He just wanted to know what had killed the fisherman.
‘Unfortunately, estimating time of death for a victim who has been pulled from the sea is notoriously difficult. All I can tell you at the moment is that it’s less than a week. At the end of the first week detachment of skin becomes likely.’ He held up one of the fisherman’s hands. ‘The skin is still on the digits.’ He looked up once more at the policeman.
Well, that we already know. Paterson had been alive and well, on Monday. Perhaps not well but definitely very much alive.
Carruthers stared at the bearded face of the local fisherman and felt a great sadness in his heart.
When Mackie looked up at Carruthers there was compassion in his eyes. This time his voice was gentler. ‘I hear you knew him?’
Carruthers nodded. ‘He lived in Anstruther.’
‘Yet found at Shell Bay. It’s got an interesting history. In the 1940s there was a Polish Rifle Brigade sent there to defend the North-East Fife coastline.’
‘I didn’t know about that,’ said Carruthers, wondering where Paterson’s body could have gone overboard. How much had the boat drifted and how far had the tide taken the fisherman? These were important questions that needed answers.
Mackie leant over the corpse once again. ‘Fishing is a dangerous job, Jim. As a pathologist I’ve sadly seen a fair few fishermen in my time. Do you remember a case a few years ago? Elderly fisherman fell overboard and got tangled in his own net? That was a case of drowning. One of mine. Desperately sad.’
Carruthers didn’t remember it. It had most likely been before he had moved back to Scotland.
‘No froth was present in the airways of your man here, unlike my previous fisherman. This one’s got a lot of deep lacerations and a bash to the head. Of course it may have been done by the rocks. But as you know he’s also got some discolouration to the face that I don’t think has necessarily been caused by the body being in the water–’ Mackie touched the side of the man’s face gently.
Carruthers leaned further over the corpse. ‘You mean the bruising. You thought he may have been in a fight?’ he asked, eagerly. ‘Do you still think that?’
Mackie nodded. ‘I think it’s highly likely, Jim. I definitely think these wounds could be the hallmark of him having been in a fight. And a recent one at that.’
He needed to talk to Frank Dewar again. And urgently.
‘Unless you want to stay for all the gory bits I suggest you go and get a strong cup of black coffee and come back in forty-five minutes. I’ll have more information for you by then.’ Mackie picked up a saw as Carruthers turned away.
Carruthers who didn’t actually enjoy being present at a post-mortem, let alone the post-mortem of someone he knew, could never stay once the pathologist picked up the saw. He gratefully left the examination room and went and got himself a black coffee in the canteen. He sat at a table with his hands clasped round the cup blowing on it until it was cool enough to drink. There were a few tables occupied with staff members in small groups of two and three. Just as he put the cup to his lips the swing doors opened and in walked Jodie Pettigrew.
