A Jess Bridges Mystery

Chapter 3

Jess

I was fuming. The note of disbelief in the policeman’s voice was unmistakable.

‘Miss Bridges, if you would explain what happened one more time?’

The officer was a bear of a man with a face only a mother would love – a Tyson Fury gone to seed – and I was standing before him, clutching to my chest and nether parts double spreads from the Oxford Mail that I’d fished out of a bin. He’d been summoned by a passing jogger who had seen me on the other side of the river and given me the fright of my life when he pushed through the bushes to offer help. Together we’d brought the boat over to the bank of the river inside the park, as that was nearest the road. I think I had some muddled thought that paramedics might be able to do something, even though the man in the punt was clearly dead. You’ll have to forgive me for that impulse; I was in shock, I think. The runner, a man in his late thirties, somehow familiar but don’t ask me where from, was now sitting on a bench a few feet away, dripping wet but not seemingly bothered by his state. He also was looking at me incredulously. Or was it … lasciviously?

‘As I told you, Officer … er …?’

‘Sergeant Boston.’ The policeman was not even bothering to keep his eyes on my face.

‘I’d been in the river. Swimming. For fun. A Retriever stole my clothes, my friend went after it but didn’t come back, so I decided to swim over to the punt to see if I could find an alternative – cushions or something.’

He looked down at the newspaper. Unfortunately, my boobs were currently wrapped in a headline that claimed: ‘Oxford named “wokest” place in the country’. I think a few of its citizens might’ve missed the trend.

‘This is my alternative. The local rag. You couldn’t possibly call for something for me to wear, could you?’

‘The ambulance will be here momentarily.’ Did he get off on being pompous? I thought probably ‘yes’. ‘They’ll give you a blanket. You admit to swimming naked?’

He seemed to be missing the point. ‘You do realise there’s a dead body in that boat?’

‘Yes, I do. But swimming naked is a public order offence.’

‘So, under public order law, it’s OK to murder someone and dump their body but not to skinny dip? There seems to be something a little wrong with that line up of priorities.’ Shut up, Jess!

He lifted a brow. ‘Did you murder someone, Miss Bridges?’

‘No!’

‘So how do you know he was murdered?’ We both knew how I was aware it was a he. The victim was lying on his back. I could report that death was not kind to genitalia.

‘The head wound was a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?’ Half of the man’s head had been knocked in by what on TV cop shows they call blunt force trauma.

‘Did you touch the body?’

I nodded. Stupidly, in my first shock, I’d felt for a pulse. ‘Just the wrist and neck. To see if I should try CPR.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Did you move him at all?’

‘No, only the boat.’ We’d swum over, tied it up to a tree and then the jogger had called the police on the phone he’d thankfully remembered to leave with his shoes on the bank. What he had made of a naked woman gibbering about a dead man, I had no idea. His eyes had barely left me since.

The flashing lights heralded the arrival of the promised ambulance. Dusk had fallen. The few stars that you could see with the full moon were beginning to spray the sky like a body glitter. Had Cory given up on me? Or would she see the lights and make her way over to this side of the park if she was allowed in? I’d call her on a borrowed phone but realised I’d no idea of her number. The incompetence of the digital age.

The policeman closed his notebook. ‘Stay here, Miss Bridges. I’ll just show the ambulance where to go.’

Sergeant Boston strode off to welcome the cavalry. But would someone please get me some sodding clothes? I resolved I was not going to talk to anyone until they provided me with something better than newsprint.

I looked over at the jogger. He smiled and adjusted his shorts.

Oh great. Lascivious, it was.

I turned my eyes pointedly away.

Chapter 4

Leo

Leo found Harry thanks to the blue lights of the ambulance. That had been parked to one side with its headlamps illuminating a stretch of bank. The river ran black under the willows and alders. Paramedics were huddled around what Leo assumed had to be the punt containing the victim. Harry was standing at the edge of a lawn running down to the riverbank. In the further distance, three figures waited, each sitting separately on a bench.

‘Harry.’ Leo raised a hand to his sergeant.

Harry turned, but with some reluctance in his stance. ‘Leo. Really, there was no need for you to come on your weekend off. I had it under control.’

‘That wasn’t why the Super called me in.’

‘You could’ve told her I was up to the job.’

He could’ve but he hadn’t. ‘Ours is not to reason why, Harry …’

Harry sniffed at that. He was not a fan of women in authority. According to those that went drinking with him, he suspected all of them of getting their promotions thanks to gender bias. He was not that keen on the new breed of university educated types like Leo either, displacing those who ‘learned the hard way’ on the beat.

‘As per orders,’ said Harry, ‘I haven’t fully questioned the witness who found the body, but I did do an interview with the park keeper, Bill Bethwin. Is that all right?’ He said this in a tone that implied it had better be.

Leo really wasn’t interested in a fight. He just wanted to get on with this before the storm hit. The fretful trees were already making it hard to hear his report. ‘Fine. What did Mr Bethwin have to say?’

‘Apart from the jogger, who called it in, and the witness who found the body, there were no other members of the public in the park when Bethwin did his final check. He thinks it’s likely that the punt drifted here from upstream, rather than came from one of the hire places near Magdalen Bridge.’

‘What makes him say that?’ Leo had his own ideas but he was interested in what an experienced groundsman might say.

‘No pole. Hard to punt without one so if it moves it will be with the stream, not against.’

‘Unless the killer punted it here and dumped the pole in the bushes? We’ll need to mount a search for it.’ Leo glanced up: it was already dark with an almost full moon that was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. ‘At first light. Can you call that in?’

‘Already done. We’ll sweep the meadows on both sides of the river between here and the boathouses – there’s the hire place as well as a couple of college ones.’

Grappling for authority with Harry was like trying to catch a bar of soap in a bath. ‘OK. Let’s concentrate on getting the body processed before the weather changes. The Super said the victim is well known?’

‘Yes, the witness thinks he recognises him.’ Leo’s ears pricked up: connection was always worth a closer look. ‘He reckons it’s the bursar from Linton College, Dr Kingston.’

Linton College was just upriver from the park, sharing a long boundary on the north. ‘Has anything been moved?’

‘Unfortunately, yeah. The woman who found the punt moved it to this side of the river with the help of the Good Samaritan who went to her aid. Swam across towing it, can you believe it? To get help, or so she claims.’

Leo gave him a sharp look. ‘I thought you hadn’t spoken to her?’

‘I got this much out of her before I got my orders to stand down.’ And Harry was clearly furious about that. ‘The girl’s a liability, messing with evidence, prancing about buck naked. The victim is starkers too.’

‘Do you think she’s involved, with the killing? Some sexual encounter that went wrong?’

‘God knows, I haven’t been able to ask her, have I?’ Headlights appeared behind them, casting Harry’s craggy face into dissatisfied lines. ‘Thank Christ, SOCO are here. They took their own sweet time, didn’t they?’ And without waiting to ask if Leo had finished with his questions, Harry strode away to greet the scene of crime officers who’d just driven into the park.

Leo knew he was going to have to do something about Harry’s attitude, but not now. First, he wanted a look at the body; then he needed to talk to the witnesses, particularly the one who found him. The wild swimmer.

Chapter 5

Jess

From my soggy vantage point on the bench, I could see that Sergeant Boston was now briefing a newcomer who had walked in from the gate. After a brief discussion, another vehicle arrived and the new man walked down to the punt, something draped over his arm. Was he another policeman maybe? They wouldn’t let the press in to view the body, would they? He had to be official. Mr Tall-and-too-dark-to-see-if-he’s-handsome talked to the paramedics, shone a torch into the punt for a thorough examination, then stepped back. Switching the torch off, he approached me with – yes, thank God! – a jacket.

‘Miss, I thought you might need something to wear?’

Not meeting his eyes, I grabbed it from him and draped it over my shoulders. It was a lovely soft linen that smelled faintly of wood fires. As he was a tall man, it hit me around the mid-thigh. ‘Thanks. Newspaper was not a fashion statement.’

‘I’ll see if the paramedics have some scrubs you can borrow. This might take a while. I’ll be back in a moment.’

Thankfully the ambulance came stocked with spares, and I was able to face the world without a blush. It wasn’t nakedness that bothered me but being naked when other people weren’t.

The scene of crime officers were now clustered around the boat with Sergeant Boston and Mr Tall-and-dark, finally getting to the important part of the evening’s story. Not bloody skinny dipping. I lay back on my bench and closed my eyes, wishing it all away.

I’d found a dead body once before. That time hadn’t been a coincidence as I’d been looking for the man in question, not knowing someone else had got to him first and killed him. And what a can of worms that had opened. This time should be much more straightforward as I had no idea who the victim was or why he met his end here, presumably sometime while we in the book club were discussing Jago Jackson on our picnic blanket on the other side of the river. Trees on the edge of the water had prevented us from seeing anything so, other than being the one to discover him, I was going to be a piss-poor witness. Hopefully the police would see that and let me go. Cory must be worried.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes reluctantly, half expecting the aroused jogger, but instead found that the nice policeman was back.

‘I’ve just got a message from the gate. There’s a woman who claims she knows you. She says her name is Cory Reynolds.’

‘Cory? Great. Can I go home with her?’ I glanced over but there were too many vehicles now to see her.

The policeman had the sensitivity to pull a long face. I could now attest from close up that he was indeed good-looking in an overworked kind of way, straight dark hair, short at the sides and longer on top. Long-sleeved white shirt with a moss green tie completed the look. He was definitely the most smartly dressed person on this crime scene, hitting the note of classy gentleman rather than rumpled policeman, a modern-day Mr Knightley come to take your statement. ‘Sorry, but I can’t clear that yet. But she says she has your … um …’

‘Panties?’ I suggest. ‘Bra?’

He looked away. Great: I’d managed to embarrass him. ‘Yes. A dog apparently dropped them and made off with half a dress. I think Mrs Reynolds has the other half.’

I can just imagine the game of tug-o’-war that Cory had played. At least she persevered.

‘I live with her – as a lodger – friend – not partner –’ I’m rubbish at not spilling the beans to the authorities ‘– and she drove me here. She’s got kids. I don’t think she can stay any later.’ I’m hoping the nice officer will say that they’ll follow up at home tomorrow but I’m not so lucky.

‘Then how about I tell her we’ll drop you back in a squad car? Do you want your …?’

‘Yes, I want my underwear. I’m not an exhibitionist!’ He doesn’t have to say anything but we both look at the sodden remains of my newspaper. ‘Not normally. God, wasn’t anyone here ever taken with the urge to skinny dip?’

‘When I was eighteen. Scottish loch. Bitten to death. Learned my lesson,’ said the policeman, without cracking a smile.

‘That would do it.’

I went behind a bush to reorder my clothes, hoping no one was getting an eyeful. With the jacket draped over my shoulders, I pulled up my blue panties and matching bra. Mum would be proud. I hadn’t been run over by the proverbial bus and undressed in hospital, but this was close. My underwear had been on unexpected parade to various law enforcement officers, Cory and a dog, and I’d managed a matching pair. Point to me. I wriggled back into the scrubs and stood up.

The jogger was standing right next to me.

‘Jesus!’

‘Not looking, I promise.’ He held up his hands, but I was not convinced. ‘You disappeared and I just wanted to check you were OK. You’ve had a shock. We weren’t introduced earlier.’

And if I had my way, we’d never be introduced. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I had to wonder if he had anything to do with the body, being the only other person on hand at the time. The sooner I got clear of him the better.

‘Good. You’re made of sterner stuff than most then. I’m Jago Jackson, by the way.’

I stood up straight, hand clasped to forehead. ‘You’re kidding me!’ It was reassuring to find he was someone well known, less sinister somehow.

‘You know me?’ He sounded chuffed.

‘We were only trashing – sorry, critiquing your book this evening. That’s how I got into this mess. Decided to try out the wild swimming thing for myself. This is totally your fault.’

‘You didn’t like it?’ He was talking about the book, not the swimming, but I decided deliberately to misunderstand him. This guy’s ego had been stroked enough.

‘Loved it – until the part with the dead guy in a boat. That kinda killed the buzz for me.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that.’ Hardly Jago’s fault but he had obviously decided to claim responsibility for all Thames Valley aquatic experiences. ‘I hate that your first wild swim was spoiled.’ I didn’t say it was my first but I let him run with that assumption. ‘You know, if you want, I could introduce you to some other great swimming spots? Ones that don’t make it into the book – that I’ve kept to myself.’

‘Er …’ How many ways are there to say no?

‘Don’t answer now but think about it. You might want someone to talk over this experience – someone who understands – who was here.’

What was it about meeting someone naked that made them think you might want to prolong the encounter?

‘Mr Jackson …’

‘Call me Jago.’

I wanted to laugh – I couldn’t take the name seriously – seems too Polo-and-Pimms to me – but that would be so inappropriate with a murdered man just a few metres away. His accent, I noticed, was trying for London rather than royal enclosure. ‘Jago then. Thanks for the invitation, but …’

He placed a card in my scrubs’ top pocket. ‘Call me. I’m easy to find as I’m a fellow at Linton College. I like the tattoo.’

I’d got a panther on my butt to match my sort-of-boyfriend Drew’s. And, just like that, I was suddenly very sad and a little bit grateful that the Jagos of this world would flirt with me. My honey was yodelling with a yoga guru (she happened to be female and gorgeous – I checked), tying himself up in knots for her, and I was left wrapped up like old-fashioned fish-and-chips in yesterday’s newspaper. But someone fancied that. I patted the card.

‘Actually, thanks, Jago. I’ll call you. Maybe. Really did enjoy the book.’ That’s not a lie. I had enjoyed arguing in my head with the author. That was a kind of enjoyment, right?

‘Great. You never did tell me your name.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ I smiled enigmatically and impressed myself by my restraint.

He laughed and turned away. ‘OK then. Surprise me later.’

Wait, he was leaving?

‘They’re letting you go?’

‘Yes. I gave my statement. Not much more to say than I saw you in, you know …’ He waved to the riverbank. ‘And called them. Unfortunately, you were right: he is dead. They confirmed it.’

‘You doubted me?’

‘I thought you might’ve been a bit hysterical – maybe a victim of an assault or something? Something he did to you?’ He gave me a searching look.

True. I hadn’t been very coherent. He had come to the rescue, called the police, and helped me wrap the paper around myself, a process I thought he’d enjoyed a little too much. I suppose it was only logical to think I might’ve had a hand in the body ending up in the punt: a sexual encounter that had gone wrong would’ve been my assumption in his place.

‘No assault, thank God. He was dead already when I found him and I had nothing to do with it. Maybe they’ll let me go too.’ I looked around for the helpful police officer.

‘Goodbye for now, mystery lady. I really hope you call.’ He shook out his legs, stretched so his abs were on display, and resumed his much neglected jog, leaving by the southern gate controlled by the police. He’d have to run all the way round the outside perimeter of the park to get back to his college, not much fun in damp clothes.

It made sense, I suppose, that a wild swimming expert would live near here, one of Oxford’s premier wild swimming spots. He probably said as much in his book but my local geography wasn’t that good. I might’ve missed the clues.

A white tent had been set up over the boat for the forensic team to work undisturbed. They were too busy to be bothered by my questions so I turned to look for someone else.

… And walked directly into the tall, dark form of the jacket-offering policeman. But something must’ve changed since we’d last spoken because he was now shaking his head at me. Usually people took a few minutes of talking to me before they reached that stage.

‘Miss Jessica Bridges? My colleague got your name correctly?’

‘Yes?’

‘Same Jessica Bridges as the one involved in the Jacob West case?’

I nodded warily and hugged my arms to myself. Someone must’ve run my name through a computer.

‘So you’ve discovered another body. You really mustn’t let this become a habit.’

Chapter 6

Jess

‘It’s hardly a habit.’ I squeezed the bridge of my nose in a vain attempt to make life return to something more normal.

Normal? Jess, when was your life ever normal? When your father bullied you? When you ran away from home as a teenager to escape his abuse? When he plagued you with unwanted gifts and messages to win you back? When you got employed by a fantasist? I could go on.

‘I’m Inspector George, Thames Valley CID.’ He gestured me to take a seat on my bench again as he got out his notebook. ‘Do you know how many people find dead bodies more than once in their life? Aside from policemen and fire officers?’

I held up my hand. ‘Bet I can beat you there – I worked for an undertaker’s until recently. Dead bodies were a daily occurrence.’

‘I meant by accident.’ I was amusing him, I could tell as his eyes held a glint even if his lips didn’t curve. I expect the little detail that I had reported the murder while naked had also flagged up the incident in the control room by now. I didn’t begrudge him his humour. Usually a victim stumbling out of the bushes in my condition meant something unspeakable had happened to her; to be that way because of some overzealous pet and an impulse to wild swim provided him with some deserved light relief. I lived to serve.

‘Then I think you know the drill by now, Miss Bridges.’

‘Jessica, or just Jess, please.’

He still didn’t crack a smile. Inspector George was a tough crowd. ‘Miss Bridges, can you run through once more what happened here tonight?’

Finally, after the fourth repeat, bored out of my tiny little skull by the very few facts that I had, I was allowed home in a squad car. I was told that it would be helpful if I remained contactable for any follow-up questions. How there could possibly be any was hard for me to see but I agreed cheerily. Anything to persuade him to let me go. He could’ve asked for me to pledge my firstborn child and I would probably have said yes.

When I got back in at midnight, Cory was waiting in the kitchen. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a box of camomile tea in the other. The tea made me think of Drew. He believed in the power of herbal.

‘Oh, on a night like tonight: has to be wine!’ I slumped down in the unforgiving wooden chair. ‘What a mess!’

‘They wouldn’t let me inside the taped-off area or tell me what you found. All they would allow was for me to hand over the clothes I’d rescued.’ Cory passed me a generous serving and helped herself to a similar amount.

Of course, they wouldn’t. They didn’t want the media swarming the place. ‘I found a dead body.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah. I was looking for something to wrap myself in and came across a very deceased man.’

‘Natural causes or had he had an accident?’

‘Option three, I’d say. Very unnatural causes.’

‘As in murder?’

I nodded.

‘Jess, I have to say my life has become a lot more interesting since you moved in. Don’t leave.’

I got up and we met in a hug on her side of the table. ‘Thanks.’

Cory Reynolds, my saviour in Oxford, had taken me under her wing three months ago. My boyfriend had, quite understandably, decided that he needed some space. From me. Just for a few months, Jess. I totally love you but I need to get my head together.

Didn’t we all?

We’re not splitting up. Not at all. Drew told me it wasn’t about me (riiight) but him. He was no longer sure that life in his dad’s undertaking firm was where he wanted to put his creative energies. In fact, I’d even helped him come to this realisation, living in the moment as I do. (Yay, me). He’d never had a year off so Ron (Drew’s dad) had agreed that time away to investigate if he wanted to become a yoga teacher would be time well spent. Drew talked about juggling undertaking with yoga instruction, which created some fascinating visuals in my head of whirling coffins and chakra symbols.

‘If he comes back to the business,’ Ron told me after Drew’s announcement, ‘then Glenda and I will know he really wants it for himself.’

And I supposed Drew’s fleeing for the hills had been nothing to do with my total cock-up of Councillor James Cavendish’s funeral. Jess, how could you send the wrong body? Quite easily as it had turned out. Or my arrest during the Extinction Rebellion sit-in on the Strand (I hadn’t even meant to be there but just got carried away – literally in the case of the policemen who hefted me off the tarmac). On a normal march, Drew would have been sitting beside me but we were on duty at a service held in St Clement Danes Church in sober black suits. Apparently it wasn’t right for the funeral directors to get sidetracked.

My life was one big sidetrack. I thought Drew knew that about me?

You can have too much of a good thing, he had told me kindly as he went off to the Austrian Tyrol to train as a yoga teacher. Think of it as a fast – Lent for our relationship. A hiatus for us both will do us good and remind us why we are together.