Submerged

“What were you doing way out here?” The question came from Krebs, who had silently appeared behind her. The policewoman verged on petite, but she had a masculine look about her, with a square jaw and short-cropped hair.

“To enjoy the day and St. Hilda’s Serpents,” Molly answered.

“Fossils,” Paddington explained, joining them. “Blackpool has one of the richest coasts for fossils on the north shore of England.”

Krebs snorted. “Fossils.”

Ignoring her, Paddington continued. “At low tide in the rock pools, coiled ammonites, nicknamed St. Hilda’s Serpents, can be found. I used to look myself once in a while…but in places where the trails are a little friendlier.”

Molly heard the approach of a motorcycle and spun to see Michael pull up.

“Wonderful,” Krebs growled. “Might as well invite the whole town.”

“Afternoon, Michael,” Paddington greeted, then turned to Molly. “Show me this dead body. I want to take a look before I call the coroner. Hopefully we can get this wrapped up before we lose the light.”

“Is anyone else joining us?” Krebs asked Molly. “Did you invite more people, Mrs. Graham?”

Molly didn’t bother to answer. She started picking her way down the side of the cliff, pointing to her left and right at narrow spots they should avoid.

There were only a few handrails along this trail. In her opinion they marred the scenery, but made it a little safer for the less surefooted hikers—and now the police.

Michael nimbly stepped around Paddington and joined Molly. Experienced hikers, the Grahams were familiar with the long, winding trails that cut across the entire coastline, including this section.

The handrails stopped when the trail became steeper, discouraging the less proficient hikers from going further.

“Pretty desolate here,” Michael observed.

“And beautiful,” Molly added. There were a few cottages along the ridge farther to the south, and soft glows came from some of the windows. The air was clean here, and the wind carried a slight chill. It smelled of salt and rocks and felt good against her face.

“Careful,” Michael cautioned Paddington.

The D.C.I. motioned for Krebs to stay behind him. “Two more years,” he grumbled. “Two more bloody years.”

“Not much farther!” Molly called several minutes later.

“What!” Paddington said. “If we keep going we’ll be in the sea.”

“Here.” Molly stopped on a meter-wide ledge and pointed. “He’s down there, see?”

“Not yet,” Paddington said.

Michael maneuvered around Molly so they were out of the D.C.I.’s way.

“Should’ve called Oates to handle this.” Paddington leaned over and peered at the rocky terrain below and a thin strip of rock covered with scree. “Is that a footprint? It’s as dry as Ghandi’s flip-flop here. Hasn’t rained in days.” He took a few more steps down and reached out a hand as if to catch himself. “I’ll probably take a tumble and ice myself, and you berks will be left with Krebs.”

Molly quietly watched him as she inched forward. She noticed Krebs was staying farther up on what passed for a trail. “See him yet?”

There was a shuffling sound, the click-click-click of a rock caroming down the cliff from Paddington’s movements. Nobody else even breathed, and the sounds around Molly seemed to intensify—the lapping of the sea against the base of the cliff, the cry of some bird, farther away was the shushing sound of a car driving by up on the main road, and fainter came a dog barking.

“Yes, I see the poor bloke,” Paddington finally said. “Now, how the hell am I going to get to him?” He looked up. “Sergeant Krebs…call it in and notify the coroner.”

The D.C.I. managed to get on his hands and knees and lever himself over the edge of the cliff. Molly and Michael joined him and hovered, hands out to grab him if it looked as if he was going to slip.

Paddington scrambled onto the lower ledge. “And Krebs? Get Oates out here and tell him to bring some ropes with him.” Molly started down the last section just as he added, “You two, stay there.”

Seconds later when she knelt beside him, he shook a scolding finger at her. “I thought I ordered you to keep back.”

“Sorry.”

“Jack Hawkins’s nose, eh?”

She nodded to a long, bulbous rocky outcropping that shadowed the body.

“The actor from Middlesex,” Michael explained. He stayed on the rocks above them, recognizing there was not enough space for all of them. “He was in Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur, Zulu, The Bridge on the River Kwai…”

Molly was shoulder-to-shoulder with Paddington, and now could see the body clearly. The dead man had looked elderly to her, but she hadn’t been that close when she’d first spotted him. Now she realized that he was quite young, and she’d been confused by the rock dust on his skin and all the bruises. His clothes were rumpled and torn from the fall, his legs and arms twisted, and already the hungry, curious sea birds had inflicted damage on his body. She wrinkled her nose at the foul stench and sucked in a breath when she spotted a small crab crawl out of his mouth and scurry away.

“I’d say late twenties,” Paddington said. “Maybe thirty, but no older than that.” If the odor bothered Paddington, he didn’t let it show. “Tennis shoes.”

New-looking ones, Molly noted, but a cheap brand. Molly knew shoes. “Not what I’d wear to hike this cliff,” she remarked. Actually, not what she’d ever wear.

“Been dead two, three days, I’d wager.”

“That recent?” Molly was surprised by Paddington’s assessment. The body looked so decomposed she would have thought it had been here weeks or months.

“But how—”

“The sea air,” Paddington explained as he pulled a pen out and used it to open the flap of the dead man’s shirt pocket and fish around inside. “Bodies decay fast in the open. The salt, the water spraying up here, the birds and crabs, other scavengers. Two days, maybe three at the outside, but the coroner will tell us for sure. Poor bloke.” He searched the other pocket. “Empty. Figures.”

Molly stared at the top of the corpse’s head. That way she could avoid looking into its empty eye sockets. She’d read somewhere that birds went for the eyes first. “All this blood…” she said. “I figured he had been hiking and fell, hit his head.” The rock beneath the body was stained dark. She suspected there’d been more blood, but the sea spray had no doubt washed some of it away.

After pulling on gloves, Paddington gently examined the corpse’s skull. “Oh, he hit his head all right, and broke a few other bones in the process. But he was dead before that.” He pointed to the man’s neck, moving the shirt collar open and exposing the jagged line across the man’s throat.

Molly felt bile rising in her mouth when she tried looking away and her gaze passed over the eye sockets again. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea, climbing down here with the D.C.I. Maybe she should have just given him directions.

“Slit all the way across,” Paddington pronounced. “That’s what killed him. This young fellow was murdered.” He angled around to the other side of the body and shifted it to check the pants’ pockets.

“No wallet, no ID, a couple of folded euros and a green tin of chewing tobacco.” He straightened and regarded Molly. “Maybe he wasn’t carrying a wallet. Or maybe the killer took it.”

“So you don’t know who he was.”

“No.” Paddington turned to stare out to sea. “But I’ll make short work of it, no doubt. It’ll give me something to do…not that I need anything else with that big marina to-do of yours tomorrow. It’s going to be quite the show, I’m sure….”

CHAPTER TWO

MOLLY COULDN’T SMELL the fish, though she normally smelled nothing but when she came to the marina.

Today, the perfumes and aftershaves of the crowd overpowered any hint of fish, though Molly could still detect the scent of sizzling bacon from a dockside café still serving breakfast and a sudden belch of diesel fumes from a tourist bus that had pulled up.