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2024-10-29 19:42:56The day after I returned from Onehouse Island, Maria Ashe, was waiting for me in my outer eight by ten office and I motioned her into the room with the door marked “PRIVATE,” and shut the door behind me.
She was an attractive red-head in her early thirties and she had hired me to find out if her husband was having an affair.
We had first met at the café, Julie’s Place. She had been nervous about hiring me. A newbie. Some could get cold feet. Others had feet of clay. They wanted someone to peek behind the curtains, but they are frightened of what they might find.
She had used the phrase “seeing someone else” which sounded politely courteous coming from her lips. Most spouses tended to voice their mistrust in cruder terms.
&nb
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COUNTER MEASURES 20
Mortuaries were places where the dead stopped being people and turned instead into being bags of meat, offal, blood and bone. I had never been sick at the scene of a crime, but the first few times I had visited a mortuary the contents of my stomach had fairly quickly nearly been rendered up for examination. Eventually, the body bag was brought into the post-mortem room and the corpse of Vasily Kutziyez was laid out on the autopsy table, beneath the hum and glare of powerful halogen lighting. The room was antiseptic with a stinging aroma of chemicals. Voices were kept muffled, not so much out of respect but from a strange kind of fear. The mortuary, after all, was one vast memento mori and what was happening to Vasily Kutziyez’s body would serve to remind each and every one of us that if the body were a temple, then it was possible to loot the temple and scatter its treasures and reveal its preciou
COUNTER MEASURES 21
Professor Stephen Baker took almost another two hours to complete the autopsy after breaking for lunch. He ate a vegetarian curry consisting of organic mushrooms and potato’s, washed down with a slimline tonic at The Grinning Rat, before rejoining us at the Oxmarket Police Station to tell us what he’d had for lunch and of course his findings. “Not all the relevant tests have been completed yet.” He began, as we gathered in DI Silver’s small cramped office. “Time scale?” DI Silver asked abruptly. “A few more days, I’m afraid.” the pathologist replied. “I think you’ll find not only did he drink two bottles of red wine but he also snorted a line of cocaine as well.” &n
COUNTER MEASURES 22
Kimberley moved against me in the dark and put her mouth on the thin skin somewhere just south of my neck. I tightened my arms round her and buried her nose in her clean, sweet-scented hair. It was a shame, I thought hazily, that the act of sex had got so cluttered up with taboos and techniques and therapists and sin and voyeurs and the whole commercial ballyhoo. Two people fitting together in the old design should be a private matter and if you didn’t expect too much, you’d get on better. One was as one was. Even if a girl wanted it, I could never have put on a pretence of being a rough, aggressive bull of a lover, because, I thought sardonically, I would have laughed at myself in the middle and it had been all right, I thought, as it was. “Kimberley,” I said. No reply.
COUNTER MEASURES 27
Charlie barked and Kimberley took her time opening the door. I heard her struggling to make him get back into his basket, but eventually the door opened and she was standing there. She was wearing a bath robe, fresh out of the shower and the light behind her haloed her hair. The corridor of her apartment looked warm and inviting. “You’re early,” she said. “Sorry,” I said as I stepped inside. “What time is the film on?” “Not until a quarter-to-eight.” “Gives me enough time to get ready then,” she said. “Certainly does,” I said, cupping her face in my hands. I pushed my fingertips into her
COUNTER MEASURES 23
I went back to my tiny second-floor suite of offices, sat behind my desk and turned on my laptop computer. I logged on to the internet and checked my e-mails, many of which were junk from various finance firms offering payday loans with extortionate interest well above the norm and details of how to claim back wrongly sold PPI. Nestled amongst the trash were three e-mails from the local Oxmarket solicitors, Hogbin, Marshall and Moruzzi: one confirming my fee for the Ashe case that I had just completed, one asking me to research a local health insurance fraud and the third was to check on the security of a local stables that housed the favourite for the Grand National. I replied to each e-mail separately before entering the Google search engine and typing in ‘Junior Ballroom Dancing Champions’ but this turned up numerous
COUNTER MEASURES 24
Standing at the window, I stretched and gazed at the view outside my apartment. Clear winter skies and snow covered Suffolk fields. I could see the grey buildings of Oxmarket expanding out before me, but the bright sunlight turned the tired old fishing community into a quaint picture postcard seaside village. The winter made living in Oxmarket worthwhile and tourists didn’t visit at this time of the year, so it felt like I had the place to myself, a private view of a bygone age. Yet, it had character. My mind flashed back to the London rush, the wrestle onto the underground and I smiled at the memory of the north-easterly sea breeze ruffling through my hair the night before when I had walked hand in hand with Kimberley and her dog Charlie, along the beach in the darkness. I heard a noise behind me, the shuffle of small feet in my slippers. I didn’t need to look round. I felt sleepy lips brush my neck as Kimberley wrapped her arms a
COUNTER MEASURES 25
The Waggoner’s’ Rest was mid-evening quiet. I was seated in the back room with a pint of Gunner’s Daughter and the latest edition of the Oxmarket Chronicle when DI Silver arrived. He asked me if I wanted a refill. “Have I ever been known to refuse?” He retreated and returned with a couple of pints of the same. “What do you make of the Fuentes case?” He asked me, raising the glass and taking a gulp, exhaling noisily afterwards. “Interesting to say the least,” I said. “Especially the suicide note. Why didn’t she sign it Monique, or at the very least Mother?” “Yes, that was odd,” the Detective Inspector agreed.
COUNTER MEASURES 26
Anna Mitchell surprised me. She was smart and attractive in her dark blue trouser suit, with blonde hair and a pale complexion; she stood out from the rest of the customers in The Old Cannon Brewery. A group of young men at the bar tracked her when she appeared, but they turned away as she sat down opposite me at the table near the window that overlooked Oxmarket Tye’s snow-covered cobbled market square. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Handful,” she said, although there was a frost to her tone. “Thank you,” I said, “may I get you a drink?” “A Prosecco would be lovely.” I walked to the bar and ordered a glass of Prosecco and a pint of Calvors 3.8. On my return, Anna Mitchell thanked me with a con
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COUNTER MEASURES 32
DI Silver put money in the machine and got out two coffees. “White, no sugar.” I took the coffee with one hand. In the other I held a polythene laundry-bag, inside which was my shirt. “Do you want to tell me what happened then, John?” He sat down next to me. I sipped the coffee, it tasted awful. “Professor Stephen Baker lured Cairo Nickolls, Robert Trefoil and Bernard Catterall to his house, drugged them and then systematically cut them up.” “Jesus,” DI Silver exclaimed. “What did he drug them with?” “Chloroform.” I replied. “It’s vapour depresses the central nervous system of a patient, allowing the Professor to cut them up without them even knowing.” “But why?” “He wanted justice for the murder of Jenny Davies.” I replied. “As pathologist on the case he provided the evidence for the Crown Prosecution Service solicitor, a certain Gerard Forlin. It should have been an open and shut
COUNTER MEASURES 31
I found a deserted corner in the Waggoner’s Rest while DI Silver ordered a pint of Wellington Bomber for himself and a pint of Calvors 3.8 for me. He had already sipped his drink on the way over to the table and when he sat down he wiped away a white moustache of froth from his upper lip with the back of his hand. Suddenly, a scuffle broke out at the bar, apparently over a woman. A glass fell to the floor, followed by a hush in the bar. Then everyone seemed to calm down a little. One man was led outside by his supporters in the argument. Another remained slumped against the bar, muttering to a woman beside him. “Where’s Robert Trefoil?” I asked, referring to the landlord. “Today is his day off,” DI Silver replied. &ld
COUNTER MEASURES 30
A sandstone arch marked the entrance to Oxmarket Woods. The narrow access road, flanked by trees, lead to a small car park, a dead end. This was where I met DI Silver; his car was parked amongst the fallen leaves. Thirty yards from the car park was a signpost pointing out several walking trails. The red trail takes an hour and covered approximately two miles. The purple trail is shorter but it took in an Iron Age fort. Fallen leaves were piled like snowdrifts along the ditches and the breeze had shaken droplets from the branches. This was ancient woodland and I could smell the damp earth, rotting boles and mould: a cavalcade of smells. Occasionally, between the trees I glimpsed a railing fence that marked the boundary. Above and beyond it there were roofs of houses. &n
COUNTER MEASURES 29
“What were you arguing with Mr Gannaway about last night?” I asked Craig Osborne brusquely. “Look, Mr whatever your name is, please don’t waste my time, I have very urgent business to attend to in London.” “And you’ll have some very important questions to attend to down the police station,” DI Silver bellowed, “if you don’t answer Mr Handful.” I suddenly saw fear in Osborne’s eyes. “We were arguing about something he had stolen from Miss Bellagamba,” he said quietly. “Which was?” “An Anthonie Van Borsom oil painting.” “Pricey,” I exclaimed. &
COUNTER MEASURES 28
At low tide Kimberley and I walked along the beach to Oxham, the next coastal village on from Oxmarket. It was a grey morning. The mist still lingering inland, but at the edge of the sea, the air was cold and clear. It was hard going, walking along pebble and rocks encrusted with tiny, sharp mussel shells. Eventually, we sat down for breakfast at the Inn by the Sea where the bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but passable and boiling hot. “I don’t know,” I said, stretching myself backward. “I believe I could manage another egg and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What about you, darling?” Kimberley shook her head vigorously. “Good God, no,” she exclaimed, patting her perfectly flat stomach. “I’m absolutely stuffed.”
COUNTER MEASURES 26
Anna Mitchell surprised me. She was smart and attractive in her dark blue trouser suit, with blonde hair and a pale complexion; she stood out from the rest of the customers in The Old Cannon Brewery. A group of young men at the bar tracked her when she appeared, but they turned away as she sat down opposite me at the table near the window that overlooked Oxmarket Tye’s snow-covered cobbled market square. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Handful,” she said, although there was a frost to her tone. “Thank you,” I said, “may I get you a drink?” “A Prosecco would be lovely.” I walked to the bar and ordered a glass of Prosecco and a pint of Calvors 3.8. On my return, Anna Mitchell thanked me with a con
COUNTER MEASURES 25
The Waggoner’s’ Rest was mid-evening quiet. I was seated in the back room with a pint of Gunner’s Daughter and the latest edition of the Oxmarket Chronicle when DI Silver arrived. He asked me if I wanted a refill. “Have I ever been known to refuse?” He retreated and returned with a couple of pints of the same. “What do you make of the Fuentes case?” He asked me, raising the glass and taking a gulp, exhaling noisily afterwards. “Interesting to say the least,” I said. “Especially the suicide note. Why didn’t she sign it Monique, or at the very least Mother?” “Yes, that was odd,” the Detective Inspector agreed.
COUNTER MEASURES 24
Standing at the window, I stretched and gazed at the view outside my apartment. Clear winter skies and snow covered Suffolk fields. I could see the grey buildings of Oxmarket expanding out before me, but the bright sunlight turned the tired old fishing community into a quaint picture postcard seaside village. The winter made living in Oxmarket worthwhile and tourists didn’t visit at this time of the year, so it felt like I had the place to myself, a private view of a bygone age. Yet, it had character. My mind flashed back to the London rush, the wrestle onto the underground and I smiled at the memory of the north-easterly sea breeze ruffling through my hair the night before when I had walked hand in hand with Kimberley and her dog Charlie, along the beach in the darkness. I heard a noise behind me, the shuffle of small feet in my slippers. I didn’t need to look round. I felt sleepy lips brush my neck as Kimberley wrapped her arms a
COUNTER MEASURES 23
I went back to my tiny second-floor suite of offices, sat behind my desk and turned on my laptop computer. I logged on to the internet and checked my e-mails, many of which were junk from various finance firms offering payday loans with extortionate interest well above the norm and details of how to claim back wrongly sold PPI. Nestled amongst the trash were three e-mails from the local Oxmarket solicitors, Hogbin, Marshall and Moruzzi: one confirming my fee for the Ashe case that I had just completed, one asking me to research a local health insurance fraud and the third was to check on the security of a local stables that housed the favourite for the Grand National. I replied to each e-mail separately before entering the Google search engine and typing in ‘Junior Ballroom Dancing Champions’ but this turned up numerous
