Free Deadlight by Graham Hurley Page A

introduction, Jerry Proctor brought news from the post-mortem. Coughlin had received a number of heavy blows to his face, neck, upper body and groin area. There were no penetration wounds and the damage could equally have been inflicted by boots, fists, or some kind of weapon. Coughlin had three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen but the immediate cause of death, in the view of the Home Office pathologist, had been inhalation of vomit. At some undetermined point, he’d started to throw up and the stuff had been sucked back into his lungs, effectively suffocating him.
    ‘This was after the beating?’ Faraday wanted to know about the exact sequence of events.
    ‘Almost definitely.’
    ‘You think he might have been alone by then? Only there could be legal implications here.’
    ‘Manslaughter?’ Proctor shook his head. ‘We’re talking specific intent, aren’t we? Whoever whacked him did so for a purpose. And the whacking led to his death. That says homicide to me.’
    ‘But you’re telling me he threw up because he got whacked?’
    ‘Impossible to judge. The pathologist’s talking lots of alcohol. Tox won’t be back for a couple of days but there was an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker on the floor and his gut still stank of booze.’
    ‘So what are we saying? He was pissed out of his head?He got whacked? He threw up, swallowed it, and choked to death?’
    ‘Something like that. But it’s intent again. Without the whacking’ … Proctor shrugged … ‘who knows?’
    ‘OK.’ Faraday scribbled himself a note then paused, struck by another thought.
    ‘Had he eaten at all? Earlier?’
    ‘Kebab. There were bits of meat and shredded lettuce in the vomit.’
    ‘Fresh? Recent?’
    ‘Couple of hours. Maybe a bit longer.’
    ‘Did he bring the take-out back with him?’
    ‘I’d say not. We’ve been through the waste bin in the kitchen, and the dustbin outside, too.’
    ‘What about the kebab houses, then?’ Faraday addressed the question to a sturdy-looking figure down the far end of the table. Paul Ingham was the DS in charge of Outside Enquiries, a no-nonsense Yorkshire-man highly rated by Willard. It was Ingham’s job to turn queries like this into individual actions, tasking his two-man teams of DCs.
    ‘This afternoon, boss. They’ve all got copies of the mug shot but most of these places don’t get going until two.’
    Faraday turned back to Proctor. ‘Let’s stay with Coughlin. Any signs of resistance? Did he put up a fight?’
    ‘Seems not. Nothing under his fingernails, nothing we could DNA, and very little blood. That pissed, he’d have been helpless. Time of death was around one in the morning, maybe a tad later. It might all have been over in a couple of minutes. We just don’t know.’
    ‘Great.’ Faraday looked at Dave Michaels. ‘How are we doing with a time-line?’
    Michaels consulted an A4 pad at his elbow. Coughlin had definitely made a cash withdrawal in the early evening. The ATM receipt in the pocket of his trousers put him in Southsea’s Osborne Road at 18.46.
    ‘We’ve got CCTV on that?’
    ‘Yes, sir. Guys are down at the suite at the moment. Definitely Coughlin. Definitely Osborne Road.’
    ‘And he went where? After getting the money?’
    ‘Thresher’s. It’s just along the street, same camera. We’re checking on the till records but he definitely walked out with a bag.’
    ‘With the Scotch?’
    ‘Tenner says yes.’
    ‘Receipt?’
    It was Proctor who shook his head. The lads at 7a Niton Road had been through Coughlin’s clothes and found nothing.
    ‘Must have binned it,’ Michaels grunted.
    ‘OK.’ Faraday closed his eyes a moment, trying to get a fix on the sequence of events. ‘Let’s say the Scotch
was
from Thresher’s. Are we suggesting he drank it all?’
    He opened one eye. Michaels was shaking his head.
    ‘I think we’re talking company. No forced entry, remember.’
    ‘We’re sure about that? Jerry?’
    Proctor nodded. The SOCOs had