The Sleeping and the Dead Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART TWO

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Prologue

  She had the lake to herself. She wasn’t given to fancies, but on a morning like this she knew the water was what she was born for. The water, then her and the canoe. Like they were one creature, one of the strange animals out of the myths they’d had to read when they were at school. But she wasn’t half horse. She was half boat.

  The spray deck was fastened so tightly round her waist that every movement she made with her upper body was reflected in the canoe, and if she capsized her legs would stay quite dry. Not that there was any chance of that today. The sun was already burning off the last of the mist and the lake was flat. There were mirror images of mountains all the way up the valley. The blades of her paddle sliced sharply through the water, pushing her back towards the shore.

  The water level must have dropped again because the row of staithes, which had only recently appeared running out from the beach, seemed more prominent. She turned the canoe towards them, partly out of curiosity, partly to put off the moment of her return to the school. The figure floated just under the surface, moving gently. From a distance she’d thought it a piece of polythene. She tilted the paddle so one blade was submerged and pushed against the pressure of the water to stop the canoe. Still interested. Not scared. Waiting for the silt to clear. Then she found she was shaking and held on to the wooden post with her free hand to steady herself. It was as if she’d stumbled into a bad horror movie. The corpse swaying below her was white, like a wax, witchcraft effigy.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Peter Porteous walked to work. It was still a novelty. He liked it all, the overgrown hedges, birdsong, cow muck not dog muck on the road. Having made the decision to walk, he walked every day. Whatever the weather. Even in this heat. He was a man of routine. On the edge of the town he went into the newsagent’s by the bridge to buy the Independent. He checked the time on the church clock. In the office he would drink a mug of decaffeinated coffee and begin to sift through the overnight reports before meeting his team at the ten o’clock briefing. And at the briefing he knew there would be nothing to cause anxiety. Cranford was a small town. The team covered a huge geographical area, but there was seldom the sense of being swamped by uncontrollable events which he had experienced in his previous post. That was why he had transferred to Cranford and that was why he would enjoy it. He knew colleagues who functioned better under pressure but he hated panic and chaos. Stress scared him. He had designed his working life to avoid it.

  He was waiting for the kettle to boil for his coffee when the telephone rang.

  ‘Porteous.’ He continued to make neat, pithy notes in the margin of the report on his desk.

  ‘We’ve got a body, sir.’

  He took a breath. ‘Where?’

  ‘In the lake. Only visible now because the water’s so low. It was found by an instructor at the Adventure Centre.’

  ‘Natural causes then?’

  ‘Unlikely, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was tied to an anchor. Weighed down.’

  ‘So.’ The kettle clicked off. Still holding the phone he poured water on to coffee granules. ‘Murder.’

  There was a brief silence. Perhaps the sergeant was expecting a rush of orders. Instructions and queries fired one after another. None came. Instead Porteous asked calmly, ‘Any identification?’

  ‘Can’t even tell the sex. It looks as if it’s been there some time.’

  ‘No rush then. They haven’t done anything daft like trying to lift it from the water?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Tell them to leave everything as it is. Are you clear? Exactly. I want the pathologist there. I seem to remember that water has a preservative effect. Once the corpse is lifted from the lake it’ll start to decompose very quickly. Make sure they understand.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘Get hold of Eddie Stout. Tell him I’ll meet him there. And Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll need a car.’

  Before leaving his office Peter Porteous drank his coffee and finished reading the report on his desk.

  The town had its back turned to the lake, was separated from it by a small hill and a forestry plantation. There were no views. Many of the older residents could remember the valley before it was flooded to create a vast reservoir and still disapproved. They had quite enough water. In the hills it never stopped raining. Let the city dwellers fend for themselves.

  The road to the lake was signposted Cranwell Village and showed a No Through Road symbol. Beneath it was a brown tourist sign which said Cranford Water Adventure Centre. Cranwell Village was a scattering of houses on either side of the single-track road. There was a church and a pub and a country-house hotel where, the month before, Porteous had briefly attended a colleague’s engagement party. Then there was a bend in the road and a sudden, startling expanse of water, this morning dazzling in the sunlight. The lake had a circumference of thirty miles. The valley twisted, so although Porteous could see across the water to the opposite bank, each end of the reservoir was invisible. The lane ended in a car park, with a grassed area to one side and a couple of picnic tables. There was a noticeboard with a map showing a series of walks and nature trails. A gravel track followed the lake a little further north to the Adventure Centre, a wooden building of Scandinavian design, surrounded by trees. Porteous parked by the noticeboard and studied it before walking up the track.

  Detective Sergeant Stout had arrived before him. His car was parked in one of the residents’ marked spaces next to the building. He wore, as he always did, a suit and a tie, and looked out of place in the clearing, surrounded by trees, with pine needles underfoot. An officious garden gnome. Next to him stood a fit, middle-aged man in shorts, a black T-shirt with the Adventure Centre logo on the front in scarlet, and the rubber sandals used by climbers. Porteous always treated Stout carefully. The older man had been expected to get the promotion which had brought Porteous to the team. He was well liked but too close to retirement now to move further.

  ‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, Eddie.’ As soon as the words were spoken he thought they sounded sychophantic, insincere. Stout only nodded. ‘Perhaps you could introduce us.’

  Stout nodded again. He was a small, squat man with the knack of speaking without
appearing to move his mouth. He would have made a brilliant ventriloquist, though Porteous had never passed on the compliment. ‘This is Daniel Duncan. He’s director of the Adventure Centre. One of his instructors found the body.’

  Porteous held out his hand. Duncan took it reluctantly.

  ‘Perhaps I could talk to him,’ Porteous said.

  ‘Her,’ Duncan said. ‘Helen Blake. She’s a bit upset.’

  ‘We should give her a few minutes then. Is there anything we can see from the shore?’

  From where they were standing the view of the lake was obscured by trees. Duncan led them along a path to the back of the building, to a dinghy park, where there were half a dozen Mirror dinghies and a rack of canoes. A concrete slipway sloped gently into the water. He walked very quickly, bouncing away from them on the balls of his feet, as if he hoped the matter could be dealt with immediately.

  ‘This is the last thing we need,’ he said crossly. ‘We’ve only been going three years and this is the first season we’ve shown any profit.’

  ‘But the building must have been here longer than that.’ It looked weathered. Lichen was growing on the roof.

  ‘It’s nearly ten years old. It used to be run by the council but in the last round of cuts they had to sell it off. I took it over then.’

  ‘What was here before that?’

  Duncan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘It was a caravan site,’ Stout volunteered. ‘A sort of holiday centre. I think the people who owned it went bust. The wooden building wasn’t here then, though, and the trees have grown a lot. There was the reception and a bar nearer the lane. Brick and concrete. An ugly place. I remember it being demolished.’

  Porteous leaned against the stone wall which separated the dinghy park from the shore. There was the smell of baked mud. A slight breeze moved the water but seemed not to reach him.

  ‘Where did Ms Blake find the body?’

  Duncan pointed to a rotting wooden staithe which jutted out from the water about thirty yards from the wall.

  ‘This is the driest summer since the reservoir was built. The water’s never been so low. Those posts haven’t been exposed since I’ve been here. Not until a couple of weeks ago. I think they formed part of a jetty or a pier when the lake was first flooded. The body’s near that far post.’

  ‘So it was probably weighted and thrown from the jetty? Before it collapsed?’

  Duncan shrugged again as if he wanted to disassociate himself from the enquiry.

  Porteous gave up on him and turned to Stout. ‘I don’t suppose you remember when the jetty fell into disuse. That might help us date the body.’

  ‘I don’t think it fell down. I think the council knocked it down when the Adventure Centre was built. They didn’t want the kids drowning themselves.’

  Porteous pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. ‘So we’re talking a ten-year-old body. At least. When was the reservoir completed?’

  ‘1968. The year Bet and I moved here.’

  ‘So, a twenty-odd-year window of opportunity, if we accept the body’s been in for ten years. It’ll be a nightmare just sorting through the missing-person records.’ He didn’t talk as if it would be a nightmare. His voice was suddenly more cheerful. ‘I don’t suppose anyone obvious comes to mind? As a candidate for the victim.’ He’d learned already that Eddie was famous for his memory and his local knowledge. According to the desk sergeant he went to bed reading the ‘Hatches, Matches and Dispatches’ column of the local paper.

  ‘Give us a break, sir. We’ve no age or sex. I’m not a miracle worker.’

  ‘That’s not what I was told.’

  Duncan had wandered away from them and was pulling one of the dinghies on to a trolley. Porteous joined him but didn’t offer to help.

  ‘How deep is the water there?’

  ‘The bank’s steep at this point so usually it’s very deep. The post must have snapped off sometime because the jetty would have been higher than that. It’s silty there too. This year? You’d probably be able to walk out in thigh waders.’

  ‘Thanks. We’ll see how the forensic team want to play it.’

  He found it hard to imagine Carver, the pathologist, in thigh waders. He was a dapper man given to flamboyant ties and waistcoats. His hair was a deep oily black, which could only have come out of a bottle. Even in the Teletubby paper suit he put on to enter a crime scene he gave the impression of neatness and vanity.

  ‘Will you wait here for Mr Carver, Eddie? I’ll see if Ms Blake’s up to a few questions. Mr Duncan, if you wouldn’t mind . . .’

  Duncan seemed at first not to have heard. He finished coiling a piece of rope, straightened, then reluctantly set off towards the Centre. Porteous followed.

  ‘Where do you get your customers from?’

  ‘That’s hardly relevant to your enquiries, is it? If the body’s as old as you think.’ He stopped in his track so suddenly that Porteous almost walked into him. ‘Sorry, that was rude. Everything I own is sunk into this place. I’m worried. In the summer holidays most of our clients are kids whose parents think it would be good for them to do more than sit in front of the computer screen all day. At the moment the whole place has been taken over by one school party. We’re starting to attract more adult groups too – companies looking for a quick fix in corporate bonding.’ He opened double doors into a wood-panelled lobby with a couple of chairs, a payphone and a drinks machine.

  ‘Helen’s through there, in the common-room. I’ll be in the office if you need me.’

  Helen Blake was a large-boned redhead in her early twenties. Her face was still drained of colour, so the scattering of freckles on her nose and cheekbones looked livid and raw. She was alone.

  ‘What have you done with all the students?’ He hoped the joky tone would reassure her but she looked up, startled, and some of the coffee she was holding spilled on to her jeans.

  ‘They’ve got pony-trekking this morning.’

  ‘Would you normally be with them?’

  ‘No. I only do water sports.’ She gave a laugh which rattled at the back of her throat. ‘I did try riding once. I got a blister on my bum and the beast bit me.’

  ‘How long have you been working here?’ He wanted her more relaxed before he started on the difficult questions.

  ‘This is my first season. I did sports science at university. Canoeing’s my passion. I compete. I’m hoping for an Olympic trial.’ She set the coffee mug on a low table. Her hand had stopped shaking.

  ‘Do you like it here?’

  ‘Yeah it’s OK. Dan Duncan could do with being a bit more laid back, but as he always says, he’s got a lot resting on this place.’

  ‘Did you have a group with you on the water this morning?’

  ‘No, thank God. I practise on my own before breakfast every day. One of the perks of the job.’

  ‘Could you take me through exactly what happened?’

  ‘I was on my way in.’ The words came in breathless pants. ‘I never take the students close to the old jetty. It would be tempting fate. They’d get stuck or hit one of the underwater planks and capsize. I suppose I was curious. There seems to be less water in the lake every day and I wanted to see what else might emerge. I didn’t expect a body. It seemed to be floating not far from the surface. Very white. Hardly human. Not human at all.’ She shivered and pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  ‘Could you see the anchor?’

  ‘Not then. It was covered in silt. I put my blade in to steady the canoe and the movement of the water cleared it long enough for me to see the shape. I came in then. I couldn’t look any more. Dan called the police. Two men rowed out in one of our dinghies. Perhaps they didn’t believe me. Perhaps they thought I was imagining it. I wish I had been.’

  ‘They had to check,’ he said gently.

  ‘What will happen now?’

  ‘We’re waiting for the forensic team.’

  ‘I won’t have to see it
again, will I?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What I can’t bear,’ she said, ‘is the thought of him out there all this time and none of us realizing. It’s as if nobody missed him. As if nobody cared.’

  If it was a he, Porteous thought. As she spoke he saw beyond her, through a long window, to the scene outside. Carver’s Range Rover was pulling into the drive. The pathologist parked it neatly beside the Centre’s minibus and climbed out. From the back seat he pulled out a pair of rubber waders. They were spotless and shiny, as black as his hair. Porteous hid a small grin behind his hand.

  ‘What time will the children be back?’ He didn’t want an audience of sniggering, pointing teenagers.

  ‘Not until late this afternoon. They’ve taken a picnic.’ She followed his gaze. ‘You’ll be busy. Don’t worry about me. I’m OK.’

  Later he, Stout and Carver sat in the Range Rover to compare notes. Carver had with him a silver thermos flask of coffee which he passed around, wiping the cup each time with a paper handkerchief, like a priest at communion.

  ‘Really,’ he said in the prissy voice which made some of Porteous’s colleagues want to thump him. ‘It’s most interesting. I’ve read about it of course, but this is the first time I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Seen what?’ Porteous had come across Carver when he was working in the city and was prepared to be patient with him. The man was a good pathologist and he could usually be persuaded to commit himself. Porteous would put up with a lot for that.

  ‘Adipocere. That’s what it’s called. It’s caused by saponification. Literally the making of soap. The effect of water on the body fat. One of the first pathologists to describe it said it’s as if the corpse is encased in mutton suet. Remarkably apt as I’m sure you’ll agree. Sometimes the adipocere preserves the internal organs. I won’t be able to tell you that, of course, until the post-mortem. I’ll do that as soon as I can. This afternoon if it can be arranged. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my colleagues didn’t want to be present.’ He took a fastidious sip of his coffee. ‘Really, I can hardly wait.’

  Chapter Two