sandhills in packs, squelching knee-high through the swales, forming tribes, alliances sealed in blood but soon reneged on, building camps thatched with dried reeds and cat-tails, whittling spears with gutting knives filched from unsuspecting fathers.
Sometimes they ventured beyond the southern frontier on to the beach, little Edmund Tyler – always Edmund, with his cherub face and see-no-evil eyes – coyly approaching a group of bathers, ‘Watch out for the sand snakes, it’s their feeding hour’, the others flat on their bellies in the beach grass at the top of the dune, howling with laughter as the city people snatched up their belongings and scampered to safety.
One time, venturing further still, into the west, to the Maidstone Club – the playground of the rich – the club itself too closely patrolled to risk an incursion despite the imagined lure of naked female flesh around the swimming pool, striking out across the golf course instead, sticking to cover, the eighth hole – par three, partially blind approach – Conrad racing from the scrub, staying low, scooping up a ball from the edge of the green and dropping it in the hole, not staying to witness the celebration of the hole-in-one, knowing their laughter would give them away and ruin the prank, the unwitting victim still dining out on that magnificent drive from the tee, no doubt.
Conrad smiled, remembering. Then it occurred to him that four of the six boys present that day were now dead.
He banished the memories, pinched the burning end from his cigarette and drove the stub into the sand with his finger.
It was night now, time to go.
Only fifty yards or so separated the wind-trimmed holly tree where he’d been sitting from the sandy bluff, and he could see the lights of the houses glinting through the oaks standing sentinel along the crest.
The moon lit his path as he picked his way across the sandhills and up the slope. He slipped the latch of the gate in the iron fence and stepped into the garden.
The air was cool and moist, rich with earthy scents where the borders had been watered. Somewhere out there in the night a dog barked and another returned its call. A low hum emanated from the small hut that housed the swimming pool’s filtration system.
There were patches of water on the pool’s flagstone surround, and a part-smoked cigarette in an ashtray beside a lounge chair. The cushions bore the moist impression of a person not-so-long gone.
He was right to have waited a while.
He strayed as close to the house as he dared, positioning himself beneath the boughs of a tree at the edge of the lawn. From here he waited and watched, the figures moving behind the windows like marionettes on a nursery stage, until the lights were extinguished. A lone bedroom light was still burning bright behind the curtains when Conrad finally slipped away through the shadows.
He stopped as he passed by the swimming pool.
Crouching down, he dipped his fingers into the water and raised them to his lips.
Seven
‘You’re early,’ said Dr Hobbs, dropping the liver on to the tray of the hanging scales with a loud slap.
‘I just wanted to make sure the paperwork’s in order before the family get here,’ lied Hollis.
‘Five pounds, four ounces,’ said Hobbs, reading off the weight of the organ to his assistant who was taking notes at a table. A sign on the wall read: This is the Place Where Death Rejoices to Teach Those Who Live. The maxim was accompanied by an image of the Grim Reaper standing beside a blackboard, scythe in one hand, stick of chalk in the other.
The cadaver on the autopsy table was that of an elderly woman. Her large breasts, laced with veins, were splayed across her torso, hanging down over her arms so that they gathered on the enameled surface like wax at the base of a candle. There was a gaping Y-shaped hole in her abdomen where Dr Hobbs had been at work.
Hollis’ natural curiosity drove him towards the body, Dr Hobbs evidently intrigued by his lack of squeamishness. ‘Want to hazard a guess at the cause of death?’ he asked.
Hollis glanced at the weighing scales. ‘The shape of the liver, its color, weight …’
‘Its weight?’
‘Almost twice as heavy as it should be.’
Dr Hobbs raised an eyebrow.
‘I don’t know,’ continued Hollis. ‘Liver failure brought on by chronic alcoholism? The contusions on her knees and forehead suggest she collapsed forward on to the ground; the lividity in her face and neck that she lay there for some time.’
Hollis regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth. As a rule, he played his cards close to his chest, finding it far more advantageous to be underestimated by his colleagues and associates. It was a sign of how low he’d sunk that he felt the need to impress the likes of Dr Cornelius Hobbs.
‘Local woman, Anne Hamel, notorious lush,’ confirmed Hobbs, ‘bottle and a half of gin a day. Neighbor found her on the bathroom floor.’ He removed the liver from the scales. ‘I can see you’re something of a dark horse, Hollis. I’m going to have to keep my eye on you.’
Yes, he should have kept his mouth shut.
‘As for the paperwork on your girl,’ continued Hobbs, ‘I can’t complete the Death Certificate or body-release form before identification by next-of-kin. But then I figure you already know that, so you must be here to cast an eye over the autopsy report.’
Hollis shrugged. ‘Just out of curiosity.’
‘Go ahead, it’s on my desk, last office on the right down the hall.’ Hobbs couldn’t resist a parting shot as Hollis left through the swing doors. ‘You’ll let me know if I missed anything.’
The office was small, immaculately tidy, with windows on to the parking lot at the side of the building. There were graduation photos of two youngsters on the desk – gowns and caps, black tassels dangling – instantly recognizable as Hobbs’ son and daughter, something that must have been a source of considerable consternation to the girl.
The autopsy report sat beside the phone, a sheet of ruled paper pinned to the front on which someone, Hobbs presumably, had written in a neat, cursive hand: Lillian Wallace (to be confirmed). Death by Misadventure: death from drowning.
Hollis settled into the chair at the desk and picked up the report. He paused a moment before starting to read. What was he looking for? He wasn’t sure. Maybe he was still grasping at straws. He admonished himself for thinking that way, cleared his head and started again. Discrepancies. Yes, discrepancies between the report and what little he knew of Lillian Wallace and the last hours of her life.
The few scraps he had to work with had been provided by the maid, Rosa, the previous day. After breaking the news, Hollis had sat with her for ten minutes while she tried to choke back the shock and grief, tears pouring down her face.
When her sobbing had subsided, he gently prized his hand free of hers and went and made a cup of tea for her. She joined him in the kitchen, a room larger than the footprint of his whole house, with a cathedral-cold stone floor. They sat at a table and she answered his questions while he took notes in his memo pad.
Lillian Wallace had been twenty-six years old, the youngest child of George and Martha Wallace,
