‘There was vomit found in her throat,’ Helen continued, sparing Alex none of the grim details. ‘Vomiting is common in cases of drowning, usually occurring soon before loss of consciousness. It seems in this case that the vomit was trapped. It was likely her mouth had been blocked with something, meaning she drowned through inhalation of water through her nose.’
Alex looked down at the table, her eyes fixing on the cool length of steel that ran beneath the young woman’s body. Once again, she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at the greying skin of the body that had once been a living being, young and beautiful.
‘Her body didn’t sink,’ she said, thinking out loud.
Helen shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t have resurfaced that quickly. Given the temperature, that would have taken longer than a week. She was probably visible the duration she was there. Not many people passing this time of year, obviously.’
Lola Evans had sunk to the bottom of the River Taff, resurfacing when the effects of the water had begun to bloat her body. She had been in the water for anything from ten to fourteen days and obvious attempts had been made to keep her body submerged. It didn’t seem logical that the killer’s efforts to hide his crime would be better first time around than the second. Either he had panicked when he’d put Sarah Taylor in the lake, or—
‘The bags.’
Helen looked at her questioningly.
‘The bags on her wrist weren’t broken, were they?’
Helen gestured to the worktop that lined the left side of the lab. ‘They’re over there. All intact.’
Lola’s body had been weighed down by the plastic carrier bags tethered to the ropes at her wrists. The bags had been ripped and torn: maybe by the force of the water that had swept her downstream; maybe by whatever had been placed into the bag to hold her body under. Perhaps by both. Either way, they had been little more than scraps of plastic by the time her body had resurfaced.
Alex glanced back at Sarah Taylor’s corpse. What if those bags hadn’t been used to weigh her down, to keep her submerged?
What if they were merely a sign?
It’s me again.
I was here.
Alex allowed her focus to linger on the body of Sarah Taylor.
Whatever happened next, she couldn’t let yet another woman to fall victim to the killer.
Chapter Forty-Five
Clive Beckett’s son was a handsome man in his thirties. He was dressed in a suit, having come straight from work. Alex had already found out that he worked in a bank and that he was married, with a newborn baby who he cited as the reason for his permanent sleep-starved state. He sat opposite Alex and drank an Americano in record speed, getting up and leaving her while he went to the café’s counter to order a second.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised, as he returned and sat back down. ‘I’m all over the place today.’
‘You wanted to speak to me about your father,’ she prompted.
At the mention of the man, Martin Beckett’s expression altered. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘Not yet. We’ve spoken with one of his colleagues. We’re waiting for your father to get back to us.’
‘Right. Good luck with that.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Martin Beckett gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Doesn’t really put himself out for other people. He’ll get round to it in his own time, when it suits him.’
The animosity Martin felt towards his father was in no way subtle. Alex wondered whether any information he had would be reliable.
‘Why do you want to speak with him?’
‘Routine, that’s all. I’m afraid I can’t say too much. While a case is ongoing, everything is confidential, I’m afraid.’
‘Of course. Sorry.’ Martin sat forward in his seat and looked across to the counter as though checking that his coffee was on its way. ‘Something’s happened at the pub though, hasn’t it? A few people have mentioned the police cordon. A young woman’s body was found there, wasn’t it? Was it that missing woman who’s been on the news? There are all sorts of rumours flying about.’
Alex’s thoughts flitted once more to DC Lane. How many more rumours would be circulating in the aftermath of the paper’s actions? One of the duties of the police was to reassure the public. Scandal, in whatever form, was unlikely to help them achieve that. Though none of this was directly Chloe’s fault, she knew that blame would inevitably be placed at her door.
She hadn’t yet had a chance to speak with Chloe, though she knew that Superintendent Blake had temporarily suspended her from duties. Alex realised he’d had little choice, yet the knowledge hadn’t been enough to suppress the anger she felt. There were too many questions that needed to be answered; there were too many things that needed to be explained. Until she knew the facts Alex wasn’t prepared to assume the worst. Chloe deserved a chance to tell her side of the story.
Alex’s lip curled in response to Martin’s comment, and he raised a hand in apology.
‘Sorry. I get it. I’m not supposed to ask. The place has been empty for years though, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Issues with the freehold?’
‘My father’s given up on it. Tried to fight the authorities, but stopped trying in the end. He doesn’t need the money – it became more a matter of principle, I think. He’s a man who doesn’t like to lose. It’s a listed building, you see, so there’s no knocking it down and no converting it. Stupid really. Gets to stand there empty. Not that anyone would want it, I wouldn’t have thought.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, not the nicest history.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, there was a death there, years ago. Woman who lived in the flat above the pub. You know about this, do you?’
Alex’s face made it obvious that she knew little of the pub’s history. Over his second coffee, Martin Beckett filled her in on some of the details. He told Alex that his family had never lived in the pub, but had had a house on the outskirts of Cardiff, in Lisvane, as DC Mason had already found out. His father had rented out the flat above the pub. The woman who had lived there had drowned in the bathtub – an accident whilst she was drunk.
Alex wracked her brain for a memory of the case, but she couldn’t recall one. She would look into it later.
‘That woman split my family apart.’
Alex sat back in her chair, studying Martin curiously. She said nothing, allowing him to continue.
‘Mind you, if she hadn’t, someone else would have. My father – he probably won’t tell you this bit when you speak to him, if you get to speak to him – he had a bit of a problem with keeping it in his pants, shall we say. He was sleeping with the woman who lived in the flat. Seems that’s how she kept up with her rent.’
Alex tried to guess at Martin’s age, working out how long ago all this had taken place.
‘Your mother found out?’
‘I think she might have known for a while, but she stayed with him for me.’