LITMIR.BIZ

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bones and called it in.’

      ‘And the PC?’

      ‘First bobby on the scene, local boy.’

      ‘His name?’ asked Jessie, getting impatient.

      Fry shrugged. ‘So, is there another body?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have been –’ son-of-a-bitch ‘– misinformed.’ She turned back to face the river, then looked down. ‘So what have we got here, Fry?’

      DC Fry walked over to join her on the river wall. ‘I’m surprised fewer people fall in. This stuff is lethal,’ he said, sliding his foot over the slime.

      ‘Would you mind taking this a little more seriously?’

      ‘Aren’t we just waiting for the undertaker to arrive and scoop this thing up?’

      ‘You been down there?’

      ‘Are you joking? Have you seen that mud?’ Fry yawned.

      ‘You haven’t even been down there?’

      He handed her a small pair of binoculars. ‘I can see from here that it’s a fully decomposed skeleton, no doubt been there for years. Search the records and we’ll probably find it was some drunken fool who fell off a boat New Year’s Eve ten years ago and lost his head to a propeller.’

      Jessie looked at the perfectly formed skeleton, its grey-white bones the same colour as the grey-white sky. ‘Possibly,’ she said. She scanned the bank through the binoculars, across the water and over to the opposite side. A cyclist had stopped among eight tall larches. There was a depot of some kind. No visible signs of activity. To her right was the beginning of the small island known as the Richmond Eyot. The curve in the river restricted any long view of the beach below her feet. She’d have to get down there. She returned her sights to the opposite bank; the cyclist was already moving away. She lowered the binoculars and turned to Fry.

      ‘Then again, possibly not.’

      ‘There’s nothing here for you, ma’am. You can return to the station, I’ll deal with this.’

      ‘No. I will.’ If Mark was going to send her out on false pretences, she was going to call everyone else out on false pretences. ‘Right, got any wellies?’

      ‘No.’

      She looked down at DC Fry’s nice-boy leather lace-ups. ‘Shame.’

      ‘Oh, come on …’

      She took the coffee from Fry’s hand. ‘Cordon off an area around the body. Get that PC to keep an eye on it. I want all entries and exits to the site logged. Get the scenes of crime officers down here now and a pathologist, if you can lay your hands on one. I want them to see the body in situ. After that, you can follow me round and take notes. And tell forensics to bring a video. The tide will be coming back in, we don’t have long.’

      Fry’s frown deepened between his eyebrows. ‘You’re calling in the cavalry for that?’

      ‘This is a suspicious death, it will be treated like a suspicious death.’ He looked as if he thought she might be joking. She glared at him. ‘What are you doing still standing here?’

      ‘How the hell do I get down there? That’s a thirty-foot drop.’

      ‘Men and their inches,’ said Jessie. ‘Always exaggerating.’

      Fry was furious, but Jessie was his superior. No doubt he’d vent his spleen in the pub later, telling everyone what a bitch she was.

      ‘There are some steps in the wall about a hundred yards back.’

      Fry peered over. In some places the water reached the wall. ‘But …’

      ‘Be careful of the run-off channels. We wouldn’t want to lose you to a sudden gush of effluent.’

      ‘You can’t be serious, guv?’

      Jessie narrowed her eyes against the sun’s low-lying sharp reflection. ‘Deadly.’

      Fry flounced off. Mark Ward, that bastard. Well, he picked the wrong girl to start a war with. She’d make him sorry he hadn’t simply put a bucket of water over an open door and been done with it. Jessie got on the phone to the riverboat police, the underwater team and the helicopter unit, then she went over to the first officer on the scene. ‘Hi, I’m Detective Inspector Driver, West End Central CID.’

      ‘PC Niaz Ahmet.’ He was lanky, with heavy hands that flapped like paddles at his sides. His narrow head was perched on a long neck, but his eyes were bright and alert.

      ‘Were there any markings when you got here? Tyre tracks, footprints?’

      ‘Indeterminate number of markings on the path. But the mud was flat as it is now. Except for where the water runs off the bank. Rivulets, I think they’re called.’ Jessie immediately warmed to the man. ‘Definitely no footprints, or tyre tracks down there.’

      ‘Anything resembling a skull?’ asked Jessie.

      ‘Not that I could see. But, like Detective Constable Fry, I haven’t been down there. Didn’t want to disturb the scene.’

      Jessie blew on her hands and rubbed them together. ‘Anything else?’

      ‘No. Few bits of debris, broken bottle, bit of metal pipe, trolley wheel, a dead jellyfish. But no footprints. I noted that especially.’

      ‘Follow me. I want you to take statements from the girls. And anyone else who turns up.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’

      She walked along the footpath to where the rowers still stood, huddled over cold coffee, exhaling clouds of expectant breath. Gold letters adorned the navy-blue tracksuits: CLRC. Jessie introduced herself and began her routine questions.

      

      Jessie climbed the frost-covered grass embankment on the other side of the pathway and peered over the iron railings. The so-called nature reserve looked like a filled-in chalkpit or a disused water reservoir. Steep banks surrounded the rectangular expanse of water. It seemed a desolate place, offering none of the comforts the name suggested. She turned away and walked back down the path after Fry to the stone steps. Like the wall, they were covered in algae. The river’s mucus. Fry was f-ing and blinding as he fought through the mud. It was almost worth the humiliation to see him pick his way like a girl in Jimmy Choos. Jessie took a step down on to the slippery tread. The slightest pressure on her heel and she’d lose what little grip she had. There was nothing to hold on to and the stairs were very steep. If these remains had been brought to the river, they hadn’t come this way. Above her was a canopy of branches, stretching low and wide over her head. There was no lighting on the path above, nothing opposite and no residential buildings for a quarter of a mile. For central London, this was an extraordinarily deserted spot. Perfect. Suspiciously perfect.

      She rounded the wall and saw a tunnel entrance. No run-off channel emerged from the black mouth of the tunnel, but there was a silt fan. Did that mean the tunnel was active, or was the silt backwash from high tide? Jessie pulled a slim black torch out of her rucksack and pointed it into the darkness. Disturbed pigeons flapped past her. On the right was a raised stone walkway. Jessie mounted the slimy steps, stooped to the arc of the airless tunnel, and began to walk uphill away from the daylight. Below her on the gravel and silt floor were the beached whales of the river’s lifeless catch. A shopping trolley. A rusting bicycle frame. Two heavy-duty plastic sacks. There was something that looked like clothing caught under a plank of wood. Jessie jumped off the four-foot ridge and landed squarely on the solid ground. The cloth was a woman’s coat. She slipped on a plastic glove and took hold of the coat, gently tugging it free. She stared into the never-ending darkness ahead of her. Where would such a steep, dry tunnel lead?

      ‘Ma’am,’ shouted Fry. She could make out the silhouette of the lower half of his body at the tunnel entrance. He sounded anxious. ‘Ma’am, what are you doing in there?’

      She

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