Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [44]
“You’re safe enough. Just don’t go near Alistair.”
Helen jumped at his words. “What do you mean, Rex? Surely—”
“Just stay in public view, lass, and you’ll be fine.”
Rex headed out of doors, planning to find somewhere out of earshot of the guests and away from prying eyes. While skirting the gorse-decked loch, he noticed what looked like a jellyfish. On closer inspection, he found it to be a plastic shower cap, such as Moira had been accustomed to wear in the bath. Grabbing a twig, he dragged it out of the cold gray water and wrapped it in a clean handkerchief.
Hoping against hope that her phone had enough charge left in the battery, he continued up the hill where he might get a good signal. Sheltered from the wind behind a stand of conifer, he called his legal contact in London whose services he had used before.
“Thaddeus, sorry to call you on the weekend,” he said.
“Mr. Graves, sir, I’m delighted to hear from you. How are you?”
“Just fine, but I’m up at my Highland retreat without a laptop or charger for the mobile and I don’t know how long it will hold out.”
“Do you have a land line, sir?”
“It’s been cut.”
“Oh, I see. Well, you had better just tell me what you need and where I can reach you.”
Rex gave him the details of the drowning at Loch Lochy two summers ago and the names of the people involved. He added those of his guests he knew less well. “See what you can come up with,” he instructed the young law clerk. “And dig deep into these peoples’ backgrounds.”
A clerk for one of Rex’s ex-colleagues at the prestigious London firm of Browne, Quiggley & Squire, Thaddeus was an excellent researcher with highly placed connections. He was also discreet and therefore a perfect ally in his private cases. Rex gave him the numbers for both Moira’s and Shona’s phones and stressed the urgency of the situation before terminating the call.
Consulting the card Alistair had given him, he punched in the numbers for the coroner in the hope she had already had a chance to examine Moira’s body.
“Dr. Macleod speaking,” answered an older woman’s voice, brisk but kindly, with only a hint of Scottish.
“Rex Graves, QC. I’m calling aboot the victim pulled from the loch at Gleaneagle Lodge. My colleague Alistair Frazer supplied the information to the medics.”
“Are you a relation of Moira Wilcox?”
“No, just a good friend. She was staying at my house.” He gave Sheila Macleod the whereabouts of Moira’s father in Glasgow so the police could inform him of her death. “I wonder if you might let me have a few details if you’ve had time to look at the body.”
“I have, and I can tell you I’ve examined several drownings in lochs. In fact, I published a medical article on the subject last year. In a smaller, slightly brackish lake like Loch Lown, you might find some effects of hypertonicity in the victim’s blood and lungs, indicative of salt concentration. Not so in this case, and no aspiration or ingestion of any vegetation or other particulate matter, although I found aquatic debris in the victim’s hair. I would therefore be inclined to concur with the theory provided by Mr. Frazer that this drowning took place in the bathtub.”
Adjusting the phone to his ear, Rex perched on a damp log, green and springy with clinging moss. “What else did you find, doctor?” he asked with all the reverence he could infuse in his voice.
“Hip fracture consistent with a heavy fall. The bloodless scratches on her hand also occurred postmortem. The blood clots quickly once the heart shuts down, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“So following my assumption, she was dead before she was pushed out the window?”
“Before she sustained her injuries, yes. A bruise inflicted post mortem, as on Moira’s hip, will contain the normal count of white blood cells and no more. This is because extra white blood cells only rush to the site of an injury to start the healing process while the body is still living.”
“Any other forensic clues?”
“I was not able to lift any prints, I’m afraid. Nor much else. I would guess—and this won’t go into my report