Free I Saw You by Julie Parsons Page A

with olives.
    ‘A bunch of coriander, a lump of feta, some hummus.’ McLoughlin dumped them out. ‘A large packet of ground cumin, some paprika – oh, and these are nice.’
    ‘Let’s see?’ Harris was positively drooling. ‘What are they?’
    ‘Pickled green peppers. Very hot, but dee-licious.’
    Harris pushed his glasses up on top of his head and looked speculatively at McLoughlin. ‘This is all great. And I’m sure we could carry on a long and fascinating conversation about
the nature of Middle Eastern food and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, but tell me, Michael, what do you really want?’
    His friend didn’t look good, McLoughlin thought. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin, which usually had the ruddy health of a sailor, was grey and wan. ‘And
what’s up with you? Too many late nights? Is that a healthy social life or are you sleepless for some other reason?’ McLoughlin rummaged in the bag again and pulled out a large round of
flatbread. He broke off a piece. ‘Like some?’
    Harris nodded, and for a moment McLoughlin thought tears were making his eyes shine so brightly.
    ‘There’s a knife in the drawer.’ He reached over and pulled it out.
    McLoughlin split the bread in half and filled it with hummus. He handed it to Johnny. ‘So, Chicko’s gone, has he?’
    McLoughlin had never been able to understand Johnny Harris. He was a straight guy in so many ways. Great sailor and tennis-player. A churchgoer to boot. But such terrible taste in men. Chicko,
small, dark and handsome, had been the last.
    ‘Chicko? You want to know about the lovely Chicko? He said I was doing his head in. Whatever that means. So I’m on my own again. Footloose and fancy-free.’ Harris managed a
weak smile. Then he cleared away the remains of the food and wiped the counter-top with his handkerchief. He got up and opened one of the huge filing cabinets that lined the walls and tugged out
Marina Spencer’s records. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘let’s have a look at these.’
    They were the photographs taken post-mortem, arranged in chronological order. The first showed Marina’s body lying twisted on the rocks of the rapids. Her hair streamed out behind her
head, pulled free by the flow of water. She was wearing a long dress with an exotic print. Her feet were bare. There were close-ups of her face, her hands, her torso. Her cheekbones and chin were
bruised, but the rest of her body seemed untouched.
    ‘Now, these are the ones that were taken here.’ Johnny spread them out.
    McLoughlin had seen such photographs tens, possibly hundreds of times before. They didn’t shock him in the way they used to. Now he could break the image into its constituent parts. He
knew what to notice. And what to ignore. He knew that it was important not to see the person as a person. ‘What did you look for?’
    ‘The usual. Signs of violence. Strangulation. Haemorrhage. Abrasions. Bruising etcetera. She has bruises on her face and, see here, on her ribcage, knees and thighs. But they’re
consistent with being carried down on to the rocks by the force of the water.’
    ‘And nothing else, no sign that she was restrained, tied up in any way?’
    ‘No, absolutely nothing. See here, these close-ups of her wrists and ankles? Not a scratch.’
    ‘And she definitely drowned?’
    ‘Absolutely. Here, I have the content of her lungs. See? Lake water. And we both know that if she’d been dead when she went under she wouldn’t have breathed so there would have
been no water.’
    ‘And what about her blood? What did that show?’
    ‘OK. Alcohol, three hundred and sixty mls, traces of cocaine. Oh, and LSD. Lysergic acid diethylamide, the king or queen of the hallucinogens. A synthetic alkaloid related to ergot. She
was out of it.’
    ‘“Out of it”? Is that a technical term?’ McLoughlin raised his eyebrows.
    Harris smiled grimly. ‘Very smart. LSD interferes with the natural action of serotonin in the brain.