MURDER ON THE OXFORD CANAL Read online

  Yellow police tape had already been set up around the lock, although Hillary wasn’t sure who it was expected to keep at bay. Unless you counted a pair of curious crows, and the ducks.

  Still, the season was getting on. There was bound to be a boat coming along sooner or later.

  And that reminded her.

  ‘Janine?’ She turned to look over her shoulder at her sergeant, who stepped a bit closer. ‘You’d better call up the Rivers Authority — Thames Water, who-the-hell-ever — and warn them that this lock is going to be off-limits for a while. We’ll be having boats backing up sooner or later, I know, but they might have some kind of CB or radio system so they can warn holidaymakers to avoid this area for a few days, if at all possible.’

  Janine nodded. Her eyes were not on her boss but on the progress of the diver.

  Not that he was doing much diving, poor sod. The muddy, greenish-tinged water only seemed to come up to his shoulders. He moved jerkily, as if wading through thick mud. Which he probably was.

  ‘I can feel something metal down here,’ he called up. ‘What’s the betting it’s a shopping trolley?’

  The diver looked impossibly young. Hillary remembered that old chestnut about policemen looking younger the older you got. But this one really did look as if he should be in school. Riotous auburn curls, now tucked under the black rubber hood did nothing to lessen the impression of a boy playing hooky from school. Now there was a frown of concentration on his pale, freckled face as he got nearer the body.

  Hillary tensed. She hoped he wasn’t as much of a novice as he looked. It would be nasty enough down there as it was, without him puking his guts up into the water as well. But she needn’t have worried. The frown was all professional.

  ‘There’s a lot of ground sludge, guv,’ he called up. ‘We might have to dredge. Visibility is practically zero down here, especially with all this churning up I’m having to do.’

  Hillary sighed. ‘Let’s have him out of there first. You never know, the water might clear.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw DC Tommy Lynch grin widely. Yeah, right, she thought, with an answering smile. And she might sprout wings and fly.

  The diver, whose name she hadn’t caught, reached the body and carefully looked all around it before trying to move it, just to make sure it wasn’t caught up anywhere. Hillary nodded in unconscious approval. Finally, sure that the body was free-floating, he carefully and very gently wrapped a gloved hand around one wrist, to prevent post-mortem bruising. Then, with the other hand slipped underneath the belly, he began to slowly, almost courteously, usher the floating body out of the lock, towards the ministrations of the waiting pathologist.

  * * *

  Tommy watched the manoeuvres with interested but uneasy eyes. He’d never liked dealing with death. Not ideal in a man who’d chosen the police force for a career. He watched Hillary Greene keep a slow pace with the progress of the corpse. The sun was giving her hair a glossy sheen, like the kernel of a nut. She looked tired though. There were dark smudges under her big brown eyes.

  Like everyone else, Tommy knew she was being investigated by the D&C department, just because she’d been married to that clown, Ronnie Greene. Everyone back at the Big House was up in arms about it. He wondered what she was doing as senior investigating officer on a case like this. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate.

  He spotted Janine Tyler walking past him, mobile to her ear, and fought back a yawn. He’d been pulling double shifts last week, and he still hadn’t caught up with his rest.

  ‘Lynch, give the doc a hand, will you?’ Hillary said, and Tommy quickly moved off the arm of the lock, where he’d been sitting, and crouched down beside the pathologist. The grass was warm beneath his knees and gave off that crushed-grass smell as he knelt. Like Hillary a few minutes before, he suddenly realised what a glorious day it was.

  The diver slipped, went down on one knee, and automatically closed his mouth to prevent the foul canal water getting in. He righted himself, cursed under his breath, and got his footing back. The corpse, still floating face downwards, waited politely.

  Within a minute, the diver had it at the canal bank. ‘I’ll push, you pull, mate,’ he said unnecessarily to Tommy, who nodded without offence.

  ‘Don’t pull too hard, or grasp too tight. Try and get him under the armpits,’ the pathologist said, also unnecessarily.

  Again, Tommy merely nodded amiably, but he caught Hillary Greene rolling her eyes and felt suddenly buoyant. At least she knew he didn’t need to be taught how to suck eggs.

  Yes, indeedy, it was a glorious day.

  * * *

  Janine Tyler turned off her phone and walked towards the scene, as eager as the rest of them to have her first proper look at the body.

  She’d done her time on the beat, of course, and had witnessed no end of burglaries, robberies, arson, assaults of various types, rape, and even, once, a kidnapping (though that had turned out to be a disgruntled dad who’d taken the kid to Lowestoft). But in truth, they didn’t come along all that often. So when one did, an ambitious sergeant made the most of it.

  The pathologist, having examined the corpse’s back, turned it over on the plastic sheeting, and Janine stared down at the face with what she hoped was the proper professional detachment.

  She needn’t have bothered.

  ‘Ugly sod, isn’t he?’ said the pathologist.

  The corpse was indeed, even for a corpse, a very unprepossessing sight. His skin was extremely pock-marked and pitted, which even Janine could tell had nothing to do with the effects of water. Also, a scar ran over his right eyebrow, interrupting its dark shagginess with a pale white line. His hair was dark, as were the sightless eyes, now slightly filmed over. He had an angular face that leaned more towards the ferret than the feline. His teeth were yellow and uneven, reinforcing the rodent look.

  An ugly sod, as Dr Steven Partridge had so aptly put it.

  SOCO had arrived half an hour or so ago, and already the police photographer was snapping off shots. The ground immediately around the lock, especially the grass, had been cordoned off first thing, with the doc, Hillary and all the rest having been careful to keep off it as much as possible. Still, Janine had known straight away that it would be useless. The ground was too hard to take footprints, and besides, the best crime scene of all, as far as SOCO were concerned, would be the boat itself.

  Finding it would have to be DI Greene’s number one priority.

  * * *

  Hillary was thinking much the same thing. She knew that the speed limit on the canal was a whopping four miles an hour (not that she’d even so much as moved the Mollern from her mooring) so she doubted it could have got far.

  In fact, she’d spent the entire morning half-expecting to get a call on her mobile, patched through from the Big House, saying someone had already missed one of their boating party.

  That, or a call from MisPer.

  Now, though, as she looked down at the scarred and ugly face, she wondered if anybody would bother reporting this person as missing. Then she felt guilty — just because he wasn’t exactly a George Clooney lookalike didn’t mean somebody didn’t love him.

  Even so.

  She just felt in her bones that this wasn’t going to be quite as simple as she’d first thought.

  ‘Any ID, Doc?’ she asked, although she knew it was impossible to rush him.

  Steven Partridge grunted and didn’t so much as lift his eyes from his inspection of the corpse’s crotch.

  Hillary sighed, walked to the arm of the lock, which SOCO had long since dusted for prints, brushed some black powder off and sat down.

  ‘Young male, about mid-to-late twenties I’d guess.’ The doc was seemingly talking to nobody in particular, although Janine was the one taking notes. ‘As of now, I’d say — but don’t quote me — that he went into the water sometime between seven and midnight last night.’

  Hillary rubbed the side of her nose with one finger. ‘
Earlier rather than later, I think.’ Noticing several people turn to look at her, she explained. ‘Narrowboats don’t travel well at night. The majority of them aren’t fixed with any kind of headlights, for example, and the canal authorities actively frown on people travelling after dusk.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Steven Partridge said absently. There was something about his tone that caught Hillary’s attention.

  She left the lock and moved back to the canal side, careful not to get in the way of any of the SOCO team. She’d supervised so many crime scenes by now that this was second nature to her.

  She crouched beside the doctor. ‘What?’ she said simply.

  Steven Partridge glanced at her, then away. ‘There seems to be a lot of damage in the lower abdominal region,’ he said, deliberately noncommittal. ‘Of course, it’s hard to say with the jeans still being on. And dark.’

  ‘Propeller damage?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  He moved his gloved hands carefully over the pelvic region, finally dipping into the pockets. It was not easy. The jeans were a tight fit.

  ‘No wallet,’ he said. The body was wearing a once white T-shirt and a black leather jacket. He tried the pockets of the jacket and shook his head.

  Hillary sighed. No easy ID, then. No witnesses, unless one counted the woman walking her dog. Great.

  She got to her feet, feeling her knees twinge ominously. Ignoring her discomfort, she walked a few steps away. ‘Right, Janine, you’d better get back to the village and do some door-stepping. Not that you’ll find too many people home at this time of day, so you’ll have to come back tonight. The usual.’

  Janine nodded and walked away. Hillary watched her go. She wondered what the pretty blonde got out of her job, then thought about why she herself had joined the force. Then she wondered why the hell Ronnie ever had. Unless it had been with the express purpose of hooking up with an illegal animal-parts smuggler and making a fortune. She wouldn’t have put it past him.

  ‘Ma’am?’ The voice, a gentle prompting, came from Tommy Lynch.

  ‘You’d better take a walk along the towpath. Let’s see . . . say the boat came through as early as seven . . . four miles per hour, say it did eight before it moored. And this morning, say, whoever,’ she nodded towards the corpse, ‘for some reason hadn’t been missed, and the boat’s done another few hours’ travelling. Say the boat could be twenty miles away max. The lock was opened downstream, so head north first. Walk down the towpath for a couple of miles and talk to everyone on any moored boat you can find. You’re looking for anything unusual, a loud party on one of the boats, a boat going by after dark, any talk of a holidaymaker who’s gone home early or in a huff. The usual.’

  Tommy nodded and grinned happily. ‘Ma’am.’

  * * *

  Hillary talked to the dog walker, Mrs Millaker, again, this time describing the corpse. Photographs might be a bit too grisly to inflict on the general public, she quickly decided. But the dog walker didn’t recognise the description as that of anyone who lived locally.

  Somehow Hillary wasn’t surprised. Nothing was ever that easy. At least, not for her it wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 3

  Frank Ross shook his head at the proffered smoke. ‘No thanks.’ Then he watched Sergeant Curtis Smith put away the pack with a twinge of regret. Like all public buildings there was a strict “No Smoking” policy at the Big House, and he’d have liked to indulge the chance to break the rules.

  But not with the Yorkie Bars. Not even Frank was up for that.

  ‘So, DS Ross,’ the younger one began, leaning forward and ostensibly perusing the notes in front of him, ‘We’ve been told that if anyone was close to Ronnie Greene, it was you. Is that right?’

  Inspector Paul Danvers lifted his pale blue eyes from the file, and raised one blond eyebrow.

  Prat, Frank thought. Typical of what the force was coming to. Smith was older, and probably knew more about coppering than this blond fairy ever would, but who was the mere sergeant, and who was the high-flyer? No doubt Danvers was putting in his time at D&C as a career boost before being shifted into something much sweeter. Buttering up the brass, showing he could do a nasty job if necessary. That he could be counted on to be unpopular and still come through.

  Still, he’d learn.

  Frank smiled. ‘Sure, I knew Ronnie Greene well enough. We went through training college together. Walked the same beat for a while. Then, when we got out of uniform and he got his DI, me and him handled a lot of cases together. He had a good arrest record. But I s’pose you already know that. Right, sir?’ He gave another smile, and a passing nod at the file on the table.

  He knew they didn’t give a sod about Ronnie’s arrest and conviction rate.

  ‘Yes.’ DI Danvers’s voice was smooth as butter. Goes with the colour of his hair, Frank thought, with an inward snort. Bet he’s the sort who goes to the gym twice a week too. Different now from when Frank was his age. Then, just being a copper kept you fit. You got boxing lessons from the street gangs, and sprinting practice from the nimble young burglars who’d leg it as soon as they heard the whistle. But he doubted if old butter-face Danvers ever did anything more energetic than pull his chair out from behind his desk.

  Idly he reached up and scratched his ear.

  ‘So you must have been surprised when the allegations about Ronnie’s dealings with these illegal animal traders came up.’

  Frank shrugged his podgy shoulders and held up his hands in a mock-defensive gesture. He looked like a shocked Winnie the Pooh — a few stone overweight with thinning grey hair, a round pink face and deceptively innocent blue eyes. ‘Could have knocked me over with a feather.’

  ‘So Ronnie never mentioned to you that he had a Jaguar XJS in a lock-up in Headington? You never went with him on all those weekend junkets of his to Paris, or the little side trips to Amsterdam?’

  Frank grinned. Amsterdam. What a place that was. And the red-light district . . . ‘Sorry, I like to go to Benidorm for my holidays. And then only once a year, like.’

  ‘Right,’ said Paul Danvers dryly.

  ‘So you never questioned his Patek Philippe watch, or all that gold jewellery he used to wear?’ put in Curtis Smith.

  Frank snorted. ‘Give me a break. Ronnie didn’t wear no gold jewellery when he was working.’ His pink face flushed even redder. ‘And it wasn’t as if I was ever in his house, was it, when he wasn’t working? I never saw him in his glad rags, did I?’

  For a second, Paul couldn’t understand the anger. But it was definitely there, flashing at the back of those bright little piggy eyes. Then he remembered overhearing something in the line at the police canteen yesterday lunchtime, and mentally nodded.

  Frank Ross was homophobic.

  In fact, in his youth, Frank Ross had been disciplined for homophobia. So he was very sensitive when it came to discussing men’s jewellery. And male friendships. Too sensitive?

  He wouldn’t be the first closet gay copper to vent his feelings in open homophobia.

  Interesting, but not relevant. It was all too clear that Ronnie Greene had been a rampant heterosexual for this line of enquiry to be worth pursuing. It wasn’t likely Ronnie Greene would have given money to Frank Ross, for instance, unless as straight partners. He grinned inwardly. In the business sense, that was.

  ‘So he never mentioned friends over in the Orient? No laughing references to Charlie Chan?’

  Frank casually reached up and scratched his chin. ‘Nope. Besides, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if he had, would I? I didn’t even know there was much money to be had in animal trading till all this came out. First thing I’d have thought of was drugs. If anybody had mentioned bent coppers, I mean,’ he added hastily. ‘Well, you do, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, come off it,’ Curtis snorted, getting just a touch belligerent now, according to plan. ‘Don’t tell me that nowadays even the lowliest flatfoot doesn’t know about stuff like that. What with wildlife documentaries on the tel
ly beefing on about the ivory trade, and all the money to be had supplying China with traditional Chinese medicine. Bear bile is worth far more than its weight in gold. Or weight in diamonds, if it comes to that. If you really had no idea about the millions to be had in smuggling tiger penises, rhino horn or suchlike, you’d not be very much use to any bugger, would you?’

  Frank flushed, and an ugly look came into his piggy eyes. ‘Look, mate, I deal with crackheads in Blackbird Leys, yeah? Pickpockets in the shopping arcades. Your regular burglars, your gang bangers, your domestics. I don’t know nothing about bear bile. So sue me.’

  Paul Danvers smiled. ‘Oh, you never know, Frank. We might just end up doing that.’

  Frank Ross leant back and grinned. ‘Do I look scared?’

  * * *

  Hillary wanted to shrug off her jacket, it was getting so warm, but she ignored the impulse. She could feel the sweat start to prick on her forehead, though, and headed for the shade.

  The SOCOs were winding up, and the doc and the victim had long since departed for their appointment at the mortuary and pathology department at the John Radcliffe. Though who knew how long it would be before their corpse got his turn on the table. Hillary wondered if she should leave a constable on duty at the lock, but it seemed somehow absurd. By now even the ducks and the moorhen had taken themselves off, although the diver was still unhappily checking out the bottom of the lock. If a boat came through and disturbed any potential evidence after he’d finished, it wouldn’t look good. But then what evidence was there if the diver found nothing?

  Oh, hell, life was too short (and the force too short-staffed) to worry about an almost certain death by misadventure. ‘When the diver’s finished, you can leave,’ she said to the last remaining uniform, who looked at her and nodded with no especial pleasure.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Not that she could blame him. It would have been a cushy billet, stretched out in the sun on a day like this, with nothing more arduous to do than question any boaties that came along. Beat office work, break-ins or RTAs, any day of the week.