The Last Detective Read Free Page B

tiger. Come on, Jack, what have I got to go on?'
    Merlin turned to a cupboard marked poison, unlocked it and took out a bottle of malt whiskey. He poured generous measures into two paper cups and handed one to the Superintendent. 'What have you got to go on? You've got a white female in her early thirties, natural reddish brown hair of shoulder length, five foot seven inches in height and about a hundred and ten pounds in weight, green eyes, pierced ears, a particularly fine set of teeth with a couple of expensive white enamel fillings, varnished fingernails and toenails, a vaccination mark just below the knee and no operation scars, the mark of a wedding ring on the appropriate finger, and, yes, she was sexually experienced. Aren't you going to make notes or something? This is the distillation of twenty years wearing a rubber apron, I'll have you know.'
    'Not pregnant, then?'
    'No. The swelling of the abdomen was due entirely to the putrefactive gases.'
    'Can you say whether she has borne a child?'
    'Unlikely is as much as I'm prepared to say.'
    'How long had she been in the lake?'
    'What sort of weather have we been having? I've been too busy to notice.'
    'Pretty warm the last fortnight.'
    'At least a week, then.' Merlin put up his hands defensively. 'And don't even ask which day she died.' defensively. 'And don't even ask 'Within the last two weeks?'
    'Probably. I suppose you've checked your missing persons?'
    Diamond gave a nod. 'Nobody fits.'
    Merlin beamed. 'You wouldn't have wanted it so easy, would you? This is when your technology is put to the test. All those incredibly expensive computers I keep reading about in Police Review.'
    Diamond allowed him to make his dig and get away with it. He felt he couldn't do otherwise, knowing, as he did, the conditions that Merlin and his colleagues were sometimes obliged to work in: public mortuaries with inadequate space, lighting, ventilation, plumbing and drainage. Mortuary building would never be high on the list of social priorities. Mind, there were points Diamond wouldn't mind making himself about pay and conditions of work in the police, but not to Jack Merlin. So he simply repeated in a tone of disparagement, 'Computers?'
    Merlin grinned. 'You know what I mean. Major Inquiry Systems.'
    'Major Inquiry Systems, my arse. Common sense and door-stepping. That's how we get results.'
    'Apart from the odd tip-off,' said Merlin and added quickly, 'So what will you do about this woman? Issue an artist's impression? A photo wouldn't bear much resemblance to the way she was before she got into the water.'
    'Probably. First I want to collect any evidence that's going.'
    "What sort?'
    'Obviously we're searching for the clothes.'
    'At the scene?'
    Diamond shook his head. 'In this case the scene is unimportant. The body floated there. I gather from what you said that it must originally have sunk to the bottom, and later risen, as they do, unless they're weighted.'
    'Correct.'
    'So it came to the surface and floated with the breeze across the lake, We have to search the perimeter.'
    'How many miles is that?'
    'Ten, near enough.'
    'That represents a lot of cancelled leave, I should think.'
    'It's a sod. But we may get lucky. The lake is popular with anglers and picnickers. I'll be putting out an appeal to the public on TV and radio. If we cart pinpoint the place where the body was put into the water, that will give us a start.'
    Merlin cleared his throat in a way that signalled dissent. 'There's a hefty assumption there.'
    'A deduction,' said Diamond with a glare. 'Come on, what else am I to assume - that this young woman decided to go for a solitary swim when nobody was about, first removing her wedding ring and all her clothes, and then drowned? You'd have to be bloody naive to put this one down to natural causes.' He crushed the cup in his hand and dumped it into a bin.

Chapter Four
    THE MURDER SQUAD WORKED FROM a mobile incident room from Sunday morning onwards. It was a large caravan