The Tooth Tattoo(42)

‘Any traces of the killer?’

‘You’re an optimist. What do you expect – another hair? We’ll examine everything we’ve got under the microscope and let you know, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Ninety percent of it is going to be rubbish blown across the park.’

‘When do you reckon to finish?’

‘In a couple of hours if people stop asking damn-fool questions.’

Diamond left him to it. To Paul Gilbert, he said, ‘You wouldn’t think we’re his paymasters, would you, cocky bastard? He’s not going to get work from anyone else.’

‘He seems to know what he’s talking about,’ Gilbert said.

‘He could say it in a more civil way. Now, I’d like your opinion. Come with me.’ They left the crime scene and moved some distance from the press people. ‘It’s a park, right? You can’t drive straight through it.’

‘You might with a four-by-four.’

‘The tyre tracks would be a giveaway. I haven’t seen any. And you wouldn’t get any kind of four-wheeled vehicle along the towpath. If you wanted to drop a body into the Avon, how would you get it here?’

‘Carry it, I suppose.’

‘Where from?’

‘Your transport.’

He tried picturing someone burdened with a corpse, stumbling the hundred yards or more from where the road ended. ‘You’d need to be strong.’

‘She was quite small, guv.’

‘True. But it would be easier with some kind of barrow.’

‘A supermarket trolley?’

‘Maybe, if there was one handy. And this would be done by night, I imagine. Anyway, the killer got her to the bank and dragged her down the last bit, leaving the heels trailing.’

‘You’d need to, just to make sure of your footing,’ Gilbert said. ‘It can’t be easy pitching a body into the river.’

‘But still a good method of disposal. People are going to assume she fell in, or jumped. It’s unlikely any of the killer’s DNA will be recovered, even if some was transferred. And he’s buying time. Worth the extra effort, wouldn’t you say?’


They checked with the sub-aqua team before leaving. Nothing of interest had yet been found. Visibility was a problem and so was the force of the current. A few days of rain had brought extra water off the hills and may well have contributed to the freeing of the corpse from whatever had trapped it. Several days of searching beckoned and the team didn’t hold out much hope of more discoveries.

‘We got a few unfriendly looks, I thought,’ Diamond said as Gilbert drove them back along Green Park Road. ‘They volunteer for this work. It gets them out of the office. What do they expect? Diving for pennies in the hot baths?’


His mood improved in the incident room. The excitement was obvious.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We’ve got a name. That’s what’s happened, guv,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Already? Someone recognised the computer image?’

‘No,’ said Halliwell. ‘That’s just confusing everyone. The embassy delivered.’





11





‘Have you ever done the towpath walk, Mel?’ Mrs. Carlyle asked while cooking his breakfast.

‘The what?’ He was never in the mood for small talk at this time of day and certainly not with his prying landlady.

‘The towpath, by the river. You can go for miles. When I was younger, it was the romantic thing to do – if you had someone with you, of course. Mind you, the scenery loses its charm as you go on. Too many factories.’

‘I expect so.’

‘These eggs are ready now. I’ll pop them on the plate with the bacon and tomato. You did say no to fried bread? It’s a pity Tippi isn’t down yet or I could have cooked hers at the same time. She used to be an early riser. Ever since you arrived she’s taken to lying in bed of a morning.’

He didn’t want to talk about Tippi’s sleep pattern, especially with her mother. He leaned back and allowed Mrs. Carlyle to put the plate in front of him.

She didn’t go away. ‘I think she doesn’t want you to see her before she gets her face on.’

He shrugged. ‘Thanks for this.’

And still she hovered over him. ‘The reason I mentioned the towpath is because of something in the paper this morning. A poor young girl was pulled out of the river a few days ago and they seem to think she was murdered. They’re appealing for witnesses who saw anything suspicious down at Green Park in the past eight weeks. She was Japanese.’

‘Yes?’ Spoken in a monotone, to emphasise his lack of interest.

‘They know she was put in the river at Green Park because they found her iPod. And this is the part that will interest you. All the music on it was classical, like you play.’