The beer garden was small, with a high wall backing onto a row of houses. They sat under a small veranda on some decking. Josh got the space heater ignited with a click and a whoomph, and wheeled it closer. The warm air wafted down on Erika. The woman came out with their coffees and an ashtray.
‘I’ll be in the bar if you need me, Josh… Remember he called you,’ she said, departing with a scowl.
‘Is her bark worse than her bite?’ asked Erika, taking a sip of her coffee.
‘Sandra’s cool; she’s like another mother to me,’ replied Josh, taking out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one. ‘Where are you from? You’ve got an odd accent.’
‘Slovakia, but I’ve lived in the UK for twenty-five years.’
Josh cocked his head and sized her up, gripping his glowing cigarette. ‘You’ve got like a northern accent, with a bit of foreign underneath.’
Erika noted how pale and ill he looked in the weak January sun.
‘Yes. I learnt English in Manchester, where I met my husband,’ she said.
‘How long have you been married?’
‘I’m not. He died a few years back.’
‘Sorry.’
Despite the cold, it was hot under the space heater. Josh went to push up his sleeves and then checked himself, but not before Erika saw needle marks on the inside of his arms.
‘Josh, this isn’t my case. You should have asked to speak to Superintendent Sparks.’
‘The creepy guy who looks like a vampire with piles?’
Erika stifled a smile. ‘That’s him.’
Josh stubbed out his cigarette, lit another, and exhaled, biting his lip. ‘I think I know something, about the dead girl. But telling you means I have to admit to something illegal.’
‘Start by speaking hypothetically,’ said Erika, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He shrank back a little. ‘What if a person bought drugs from a dealer, but then saw that dealer at the crime scene?’ he asked.
‘What are we talking? Cannabis?’
He shook his head. ‘Much worse.’
‘Does this person have any previous convictions?’
‘No… They don’t, I don’t,’ he said softly, looking at the floor.
‘Then I doubt the CPS would push for a prosecution. Do you need help?’
‘I’ve got all the numbers; I just have to get around to calling…’ Josh stamped out his third cigarette, furiously blinking back tears.
‘Josh, you saw the girl in that dumpster. It was a brutal death.’
He nodded and wiped his eyes.
‘Okay. There’s this dealer, he hangs around the student union all the time. I went to take out the rubbish earlier than I said I did. The first time I went out, he was there, the dealer. So I went back inside.’
‘What time?’
‘Five, five-thirty.’
‘Why did you go back inside when you saw him?’
‘I owe him money… nothing major, but he’s a nasty piece of work. I thought he’d come for me.’
‘What exactly was he doing?’
‘He was just, like, standing beside that dumpster.’
‘Just standing?’
‘He had his hand inside. Then he stepped back and was just staring.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘Steven Pearson.’
‘Address?’
‘He’s homeless as far as I know.’
‘Josh, did you find the body, just as you told me, around seven thirty p.m.?’
‘Yes, that part is true. I came back outside with the rubbish around seven thirty, when he was gone.’
‘Would you be willing to put this on the record, give us a statement?’
‘And if I say no?’
‘If you say no, you’ll have a drug problem and the murder of a young girl on your conscience.’
Josh looked at the ground and then nodded. ‘Okay.’
* * *
When Erika was back in her car she made a call to John at Bromley, and got the number for DCI Hudson. Melanie’s phone went straight to voicemail, so she left a brief message with details of Josh and what he had seen.
Erika looked out of the window at the car park. It had started to snow hard, and Sandra darted out of a fire exit with a bag of rubbish and slung it into the open dumpster.
Then, Erika made another call to find out who would be conducting Lacey Greene’s post-mortem.
Chapter Seven
Just after eleven the next morning, Erika arrived at the mortuary in Lewisham, where she was met by Forensic Pathologist Doug Kernon. He was a big jovial bear of a man in his early sixties, with short grey bristly hair, and a red florid face.
‘Erika Foster, glad to finally meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you!’ he boomed cheerily, shaking her hand and showing her through to his small office next to the morgue.
‘Good or bad?’
‘Both,’ He grinned, pushing his glasses up on his nose. Erika had lied, saying she was involved with the Lacey Greene murder investigation. Her rank and reputation meant that this was accepted, but with her rank and reputation she acknowledged she should know better.
‘You’ve just missed DCI Hudson. I presumed as SIO she would be briefing you?’
‘She wanted to get my angle on things,’ Erika lied. ‘I hope you don’t mind running through it again?’
‘No. Not at all,’ he said with a wave of his hand. His office was crammed with the usual shelves of medical tomes, and the quirks that senior members of the medical profession acquire. There was a lava lamp, and a treadmill under a small window, but the conveyor belt was lined with seed trays full of home-grown salad leaves. He seemed to have quite a fancy for the British actress Kate Beckinsale. Erika counted nine pictures of her in her various movie roles. On his desk were various open parcels of greaseproof paper containing meats and cheeses, and a loaf of artisan bread on a wooden board.
‘Not peckish, are you?’ he asked, following her gaze. ‘I was about to tuck in and open a jar of my wife’s piccalilli.’
‘No, thank you. I have to be back at the office,’ said Erika. She’d dealt with death for many years, but wasn’t sure chorizo and stilton would sit well before viewing the body.
‘Of course, let’s go then.’
His demeanour changed when they moved from his cosy office and into the chilly morgue. There was a scrape of metal as he pulled out one of the mortuary drawers on the large back wall, which contained the black body bag.
Erika moved to a computer screen in the corner of the morgue, which had details of Doug’s report and a driving licence photo of Lacey. She had been an attractive woman, of medium height with long glossy brown hair, a beautiful heart-shaped face. There was a youthful almost cherubic beauty about her, and this was all captured in an ID photo. Erika presumed she had been even more beautiful in real life.
From behind, Erika heard the slow oily sound of a zip being opened and the crackle as Doug flicked back the folds of the body bag. She took a deep breath and turned.