A Traitor to Memory

“Shut that bitch up,” he barked. “Kill her if you have to.” And he went on his way.

At the moment, the crime scene action was being dominated by the forensic pathologist, who beneath a makeshift shelter of polythene sheets was wearing a bizarre combination of tweeds, wellingtons, and up-market Patagonia rain wear. He was just completing his preliminary examination of the body, and Leach got enough of a look to see they were dealing with either a cross-dresser or a female of indeterminate age, badly mangled. Facial bones were crushed; blood seeped from the hole where an ear had once been; raw skin on the head marked the areas where hair had been ripped from the scalp; the head hung at a natural angle but with a highly unnatural twist. It was just the thing to have to look upon when one was already light-headed with fever.

The pathologist—Dr. Olav Grotsin—slapped his hands on his thighs and pushed himself to his feet. He snapped off his latex gloves, tossed them to an assistant, and saw Leach where the DCI stood, attempting to ignore his own ill health and assessing what could be assessed from his position of less than four feet from the corpse.

“You look like hell,” Grotsin said to Leach.

“What've we got?”

“Female. One hour dead when I got here. Two at the most.”

“You're sure?”

“About what? The time or the sex?”

“The sex.”

“She's got breasts on her. Old but there. As for the rest, I don't like cutting off their knickers in the street. You can wait till the morning on that, I presume.”

“What happened?”

“Hit-and-run. Internal injuries. I'd venture to guess she's ruptured everything that could be ruptured.”

Leach said, “Shit,” and stepped past Grotsin to squat by the body. It lay a scant few inches from the driver's door of the Calibra, on its side with its back to the street. One arm was twisted behind it, and the legs were tucked beneath the Vauxhall's chassis. The Vauxhall itself was unblemished, Leach noted, which hardly surprised him. He couldn't see a driver hotly seeking a parking space and running over someone lying in the street in order to get it. He looked for tyre marks on the body and on the dark raincoat she wore.

“Her arm's dislocated,” Grotsin was saying behind him. “Both legs are broken. And we've got a bit of candy floss as well. Turn her head and you'll see it.”

“The rain didn't wash it off?”

“Head was protected under the car.”

Protected was an odd choice of word, Leach thought. The poor sow was dead, whoever she was. Pink froth from her lungs may well have indicated that she didn't die instantly, but that was not much help to them and no help at all to the hapless victim. Unless, of course, someone had come upon her while she still lived and managed to catch a few critical words as she lay dying in the street.

Leach got to his feet and said, “Who phoned it in?”

“Right over there, sir.” It was Grotsin's assistant who replied, and she nodded across the street where for the first time Leach saw that a Porsche Boxter was double-parked with its hazard lights blinking. Two police constables were guarding this vehicle at either end, and just beyond them a middle-aged man in a trench coat stood beneath a striped umbrella and anxiously alternated his gaze from the Porsche to the broken body that lay some yards behind it.

Leach went over to examine the sports car. It would be a short night's work if the driver, the vehicle, and the victim were forming a neat little triad here on the street, but even as he approached the car, Leach knew that this would not be likely. Grotsin would hardly have used the words hit-and-run if only the first term applied.

Still, Leach walked round the Boxter carefully. He squatted in front of it and examined its front end and its body. He went from there to the tyres and checked each of these. He lowered himself to the rain-washed pavement and scrutinised the Porsche's undercarriage. And when he was done, he ordered the car impounded for the crime team's analysis.

“Oh, I say. That can't be necessary” was the complaint made by Mr. Trench Coat. “I stopped, didn't I? As soon as I saw … And I reported it. Surely you can see that—”

“It's routine.” Leach joined the man as a PC was offering him a cup of coffee. “You'll have the car back quick enough. What's your name?”

“Pitchley,” the man said. “J. W. Pitchley. But see here, this is an expensive car, and I see no reason … Good God, if I'd hit her, the car would show the signs.”

“So you know it's a woman?”

Pitchley looked flustered. “I suppose I thought … I did go over to it … to her. After I rang triple nine. I got out of the car and went to see if there was anything I could do. She might have been alive.”

“But she wasn't?”