River Deep Read Free Page A

Knowing who it was she murmured a soft hello and hername.
    “Evening, Mrs Gunn. Detective Inspector Randall here.” He was invariably formal. Initially. Later on formalities may well be dropped as they worked more closely.
    “Alex,” she responded warmly. “Thank you for ringing.”
    “That’s all right.”
    “I hear you have a bit of a problem.”
    “To say the least. And on such a night. The river’s the highest it’s been since the millennium floods. We never thought we’d get it so bad again so soon. And we’ve got enough to do without this.”
    “Oh yes. Jericho said something about …?”
    “Well, I’m not sure what he’s told you but it looks like a homicide. The strangest incident of my career.” He chuckled. “Poor old Coleman had been detailed to check out Marine Terrace and make sure no one was in the properties. He opens the door, flashes his torch around and spies a body floating face down in the corner. Gave him the shock of his life it did.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    “We got the police surgeon to certify death at the scene. According to him he was long since dead.”
    “Drowned?”
    “She didn’t think so. There was no sign of it. Besides – she thought he’d probably died before the water had flooded the house. She decided it would be a good idea to have Doctor Sullivan take a look at him at the scene and then talk to you before we move him to the mortuary.” It was standard procedure in a case of suspicious death.
    “Did Delyth Fontaine have any idea of cause of death?”
    “Nope. And she didn’t want to disturb the body too much.”
    “And Doctor Sullivan?”
    “He’s just there now. He’ll be speaking to you as soonas he’s come to some conclusion.”
    “Any idea who the dead man is?”
    “No identification on him.”
    “He was clothed?”
    “Yes – in a suit.”
    “But nothing in the pockets?”
    “No.” And that suggested something. He continued, “We’ve got a few lines of enquiry to follow up.”
    Knowing how they worked she could anticipate them. “The property?”
    “That and others.”
    “Perhaps the water washed his wallet out of his pocket.”
    “Maybe.” It was in the policeman’s character to always sound dubious. “We’re making a thorough search of the whole house – including the cellar.”
    “Is it safe?”
    “The water level’s receding at the moment. It’s halfway up the cellar walls but expected to surge again at around midnight. I expect Doctor Sullivan will give you a call when he’s examined the body.”
    “OK, Alex. I’ll maybe see you later. I’ll wait for Doctor Sullivan’s call.” He rang off.
    So not even frozen pizzas tonight then but a trip to a flooded house with a corpse floating inside it. What a job. She leaned back in the chair. What on earth had possessed her to be a coroner, this job which sewed up so neatly the questions of how, when and where a person had died? Even going so far as to pose these questions in her own court.
    A feeling of finality. Skilled as a doctor, married to a lawyer, she had always felt that death was the final untidiness of life. And for many people that untidiness scarred the bereaved. Like the policeman she was anxious for the cause of death to be ascertained as soon as possible. Forthe man, dead as he was, to be restored to his family and to be given a decent, dignified burial.
    But … Given the dramatic emergence of the unidentified man’s body it would not take long for the Press to get hold of the story and put it through a mincing machine. The sooner they could give out factual statements the better. Two things were urgent. Identification and cause of death. Who was he? How had he died and when?
    She spoke to the police surgeon next, an elderly GP called Delyth Fontaine who had been in the job long enough to know it inside out, almost instinctively. She rapped out the details, that she could not give a cause of death, that it was almost certainly suspicious, that the man had been