Derek thought with a shudder of how the rapidly cooling body had felt as he’d crammed Rupert’s possessions back into the pockets of his trousers. Some had fallen on the ground as he’d laid the body down, but he didn’t have the nerve to pick them up for a second time and shove them back into the old man’s pockets.

‘I like his coat,’ Kinnear had said and stripped it from his body, emptying his pockets out and dropping everything on to the floor.

The little plastic pot with his tablets inside had rolled under the car and Derek had only found them a few days later. Not knowing what else to do, he’d dropped them into the door pocket in his car and thrown them from an open window later in the day. Then he’d worried about kids picking them up.

Kinnear had worn the jacket that morning. Worn it like it was his own.

Sharon answered after what seemed like an age. ‘Sorry, love, in the shower.’

Derek relaxed a little visualizing her, damp and soapy clean. ‘Tell me more,’ he said.

Thirteen

Alec was studying the post mortem. ‘No indication that his position was changed after death,’ he said. ‘Haemostasis is consistent with him having been laid on his back after death and not moved again.’

‘Which means,’ Naomi mused, ‘that he was moved very soon after. Within an hour or so, before the blood settled to the lowest point. If he was then laid out in more or less the same way, there’d be no obvious inconsistency.’

‘And the PM just showed massive heart failure,’ Alec added. ‘Nothing surprising or out of place.’ He sighed and Naomi could hear the frustration in his voice as he continued. ‘I don’t blame the local police for not looking further than the obvious but …’

‘Would you have handled it any differently?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. No sign of foul play and you can just bet that when someone first called Marcus and told him Rupe was dead he’d have assumed it was his heart and probably said so. I’d probably have handled it the same way, and that’s supposing I’d been involved. Likely this didn’t get further up the chain than uniform and the local beat bobby.’

‘Did Fine give you a copy of the police report?’

‘Yes, he did. The first officer on scene was DC Steven Hythe. He got the call and went straight to the place the body was found. The male hiker, John Armstrong, had stayed there. Said he was worried about kids coming by and maybe seeing something they shouldn’t. Anyway, it seems Hythe is a local, born and bred, and his report comments that in his opinion all marks on the body were consistent with the work of the indigenous wildlife. PM confirms that: crows, badgers and probably a fox. Not pleasant but certainly not suspicious.’

‘And the constable was able to come to that decision straight away; that the damage was all done by animals?’

‘I guess you get used to knowing what to look for. Down our way you find a body that’s been in the sea, you can make a fair guess which injuries were caused by rocks and breakwaters and which look suspicious.’

‘I guess so.’ She could hear how hard Alec was finding it to remain detached. After all this body had been a man he’d loved, admired. ‘You want to talk to this Detective Hythe?’

‘Gone on leave, apparently. I already asked Fine. He’s somewhere in the Canaries.’

‘There’s always the phone.’

‘And I would ask him what?’

‘You don’t have to snap.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK. Look, let’s have a recap. Rupert was found in a place where he most likely didn’t die. He appears to have died of natural causes, which begs the question why move the body. And why there. It sounds like someone who knows the area.’

‘True and Rupe could not have died far from that spot either. No sign of earlier haemostasis so the body must have been moved very soon after death and moved no great distance. Pity he was cremated. A second PM would very likely reveal any inconsistency.’

‘Right. We can probably plot some kind of search parameters. The chances are too that he wasn’t transported in his car. There’d be some fairly obvious indication if he’d been propped up in a car seat, no matter how quickly they’d moved him. No, he was laid out, maybe in a van or something similar, then carried and placed on his back.’

‘Which suggests whoever did it had either thought through the process or they’d just got lucky.’

‘My bet is on lucky. But why move the body.’

‘Because they didn’t want Rupert linked to the place he died.’

‘Right. What else. The car. Still no sign. But the key is missing which suggests they either moved it or are anticipating the need.’

‘OK, so, as Fine said, it’s either under cover somewhere or it’s under water. Both equally possible round here.’

‘What else do we have?’

‘Rupe’s treasure hunt,’ Alec said. ‘No, I can’t see this being about buried treasure, satisfying as that would be somehow.’

‘Satisfying?’

‘You’d have to have known Rupert, I think.’

‘OK, but it’s still worth following up on the list. He may have said something, hinted at something, even behaved oddly. And there’s the boy that came to the antique shop. We’ve still not figured out if he belongs to “buried treasure” or “men at house”.’

‘True,’ Alec agreed. ‘And there’s the mobile phone and the shop computer to examine and the laptop still to search for.’

‘I don’t think that’s at Fallowfields. My guess is it’s wherever the car is. But you’ve not looked at the disks yet or the USB drive.’

‘Damn, I forgot to ask Marcus about using his computer. Though there might be a shop in town where I can get an external disk drive for my laptop.’

‘You’d rather not ask Marcus?’

Alec hesitated. ‘I’d rather do what we can on our own,’ he said.

‘Any reason?’

‘Just a feeling.’

‘I’m not sure I like your feelings. They usually mean trouble.’

Alec pulled up a chair and sat down beside her at the dressing table. She heard him help himself to a biscuit. ‘Tea’s cold,’ he complained. ‘I have a feeling,’ he continued, ‘that this time it’s big trouble.’

Following directions given at the hotel reception they found a tiny computer shop crammed in-between a bookstore and a small café. For such a miniscule emporium, it was surprisingly well stocked and Alec was able to purchase the drive and cable he required. The book shop proved irresistible and Naomi chatted to the owner while Alec browsed, eventually returning to the counter with a stack that fell over as he set them down.

‘What on earth? Sounds like you’ve bought half the shop.’

‘No, just some local history guides, including two of Rupert’s and a few old paperbacks.’

‘Like?’

‘Oh, the usual, you know.’

Naomi laughed. Alec loved forties and fifties pulp detective stories from both sides of the Atlantic. They were getting harder to find, though, and he had taken to haunting car boot sales and rummaging in the furthest corners of second-hand book shops to fulfil his desires.

‘These sell very well,’ the shop owner said. ‘The local history guides, I mean. So sad that he isn’t with us any longer.’

‘It is,’ Alec confirmed.

‘We were so looking forward to his new one. Guy, in the computer shop next door, he reckoned we should stock up with metal detectors. Free book with your treasure detector, that kind of thing.’

Naomi laughed. ‘So everyone knew about the new book then?’

‘Oh yes. Rupert, Mr Friedman, was a regular in here. And then there was that piece in the local rag, with a picture and so on. I’d already got my order in. Like I said, he always sold well.’

She totalled Alec’s purchases on a calculator. ‘These old things don’t scan, of course. Rupert was a real character. Did you know him?’

‘Yes,’ Alec told her. ‘He was my uncle.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. He was a lovely man. I’m surprised you don’t already have copies of his books, then?’