For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(69)
Derek added, “Yeah. It’s dead and gone, all right, when you’re talking with the toffs down river. They don’t see trouble till it smacks them in the face. But it’s a bit different, isn’t it, when you’re rubbing your elbows with the likes of us.”
Lynley gave thought to Derek’s words as he walked back to the south end of the island and ducked under the established police line. How often had he heard variations on that theme espoused religiously over the last few years? We’ve no class system any longer, it’s dead and gone. It was always stated with well-meaning sincerity by someone whose career, whose background, or whose money effectively blinded him to the reality of life. While all the time those without brilliant careers, those without family trees whose roots plunged deeply into British soil, those without access to ready money or even the hope of saving a few pounds from their weekly pay, those were the people who recognised the insidious social strata of a society that claimed no strata existed at the very same moment as it labelled a man from the sound of his voice.
The University would probably be the first to deny the existence of barriers between gown and town. And why would they not? For those who are the primary architects of ramparts rarely, if ever, feel constricted by their presence.
Still, he had difficulty attributing Elena Weaver’s death to the resurrection of a social dispute. Had a local been involved in the killing, his instincts told him that the very same local would have been involved with Elena. But no local had known her from what he had been able to ascertain. And following any pathway that led towards town-and-gown promised, he felt certain, to be a search for nothing.
He walked along the trail of boards which the Cambridge police had laid down from the island’s wrought iron gate to the site of the murder. Everything that constituted potential evidence had been swept up and carted away by the crime-scene team. Only a roughly shaped fire ring remained, half-buried in front of a fallen branch. He went to this and sat.
Whatever difficulties existed within the political arena of Cambridge Constabulary’s forensic department, the crime-scene team had done their job well. The ashes from the fire ring had been sifted through. It looked as if some of them had even been removed.
Next to the branch, he saw the impression of a bottle in the damp earth and he remembered the list of items which Sarah Gordon had said she had seen. He wondered about this, picturing a killer clever enough to use an unopened wine bottle, to dump the wine in the river afterwards, to wash the bottle inside and out, to tamp it into the earth so that it looked like part of the general rubbish in the area. Smeared with mud, it would appear to have been there for weeks. Moisture inside would be attributed to the damp. Filled with wine, it suited the still-limited description of the weapon which had been used to beat the girl. But if that was the case, how on earth were they to trace a bottle of wine in a city where students kept supplies of drink in their very own rooms?
He shoved himself off the branch and walked to the clearing where the body had been hidden. Nothing was left to indicate that yesterday morning a pile of leaves had camouflaged a killing. Bladder campion, English ivy, nettles, and wild strawberries remained untrampled, despite the fact that every leaf on every plant had been scrutinised and evaluated by people trained to ferret out the truth. He moved to the river and gazed across the wide expanse of marshy land that constituted Coe Fen along whose far edge the beige rise of the buildings of Peterhouse lay. He studied them, admitting the fact that he could see them clearly, admitting that at this distance their lights—especially the light from one building’s lantern cupola—would probably glow visibly through all but the most impenetrable fog. He admitted also that he was checking out Sarah Gordon’s story. He admitted also that he could not have said why.
He began to turn from the river and caught on the air the unmistakable, sour smell of human vomit, just a solitary whiff of it like the breath of an illness that was passing by. He tracked this to its source on the bank, a coagulating pool of greenish brown slop. It was lumpy and foul, with the tracks and the peck-marks of birds sinking into it. As he bent to examine it, he could hear Sergeant Havers’ laconic comment: Her neighbours cleared her, Inspector, her story checks out, but you can always ask her what she had for brekkie and cart this in to forensic for a check-out as well.
Perhaps, he thought, that was the problem he was having with Sarah Gordon. Everything about her story checked out completely. There wasn’t a hole anywhere.
Why do you want a hole? Havers would have asked. Your job isn’t to want holes. Your job is to find them. And when you can’t find them, you just move on.
He decided to do so, following the trail of boards back the way he had come, leaving the island. He walked up the rise in the path that led up to the causeway bridge where a gate gave way to the pavement and the street. Directly across from it was a similar gate, and he went to see what lay beyond it.
A morning jogger, he realised, coming along the river from the direction of St. Stephen’s would have three options upon reaching Fen Causeway. A turn to the left and she would run past the Department of Engineering in the direction of Parker’s Piece and the Cambridge Police Station. A turn to the right and she would head towards Newnham Road and, if she persisted far enough, to Barton beyond it. Or, he now saw, she could proceed straight ahead, crossing the street, ducking through this second gate, and continuing south along the river. Whoever killed her, he realised, must have not only known her route but also known her options. Whoever killed her, he realised, had known in advance that the only certain chance of catching her was at Crusoe’s Island.