‘I need you to get your fat arse over to Mirror Lake – they’ve had a body wash up.’
Leo isn’t fat. He is, in fact, in far better shape than Crouch, whose pale flesh looks as though it’s been moulded from lumps of Play-Doh, but this doesn’t stop Crouch asserting his authority through the medium of playground insults.
‘Isn’t that in Wales?’
‘I didn’t ask for a geography lesson.’ Crouch shares his iPad screen to the smart board on the wall, and for a split-second Leo is treated to the first two lines of everything in Crouch’s inbox. In among the burglary overviews and the violent crime statistics, Leo sees a message from a Joanne Crouch entitled Your mother AGAIN, and an urgent-flagged email from Professional Standards, before Google Maps fills the screen.
Leo takes a moment to get his bearings. In the centre is a thin, meandering lake marked Llyn Drych, through which runs the border between England and Wales. Mirror Lake, Leo knows, although he has never had a job take him that far towards the boundaries of Cheshire Constabulary. A mountain range stands on the northern tip of the lake, and on the west side, just into Wales, is the small village of Cwm Coed. Between the town and the water is a band of green, running around the lake.
Crouch points at a patch of green on the eastern side, at the far end of their area. ‘Just before you got in, we had a MisPer report from here.’ He taps his screen, and the map changes to a satellite view. The green is woodland, not grass, Leo realises: trees packed tightly around the water’s edge. Crouch draws a wonky circle and taps it meaningfully. ‘This picture’s a couple of years out of date.’ He closes the map and swipes through his apps to find Safari. Mail, Weather, Sky News – is that Tinder? ‘This is what’s there now.’
A website appears on the large screen, a film playing soundlessly in the banner image. It’s a Shore thing . . . reads the caption. Sun sparkles on the surface of Mirror Lake, as the camera swoops closer to a row of wooden cabins at the edge of the water. A laughing child, frozen in mid-air, swings on a rope above a deck more suited to the Maldives than North Wales. It isn’t a film, Leo now sees, but a computer-generated animation: an artist’s impression of what is clearly a high-end development.
‘This is The Shore,’ Crouch says. ‘And don’t get any ideas, because the chances of you affording a place there are on a par with you ever progressing beyond the rank of constable. One of them’s owned by that ex-boxer actor. The one who’s married to her with the massive tits.’
‘Who’s the MisPer?’
‘The resort’s owner, Rhys Lloyd. A male opera singer.’ Crouch slots the words alongside each other as though the combination were experimental. He refers to himself as a traditionalist, which Leo has found, during the course of his own thirty-six years, is often synonymous with bigoted arsehole. ‘Very well known, I’m told,’ Crouch goes on. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’
‘I take it you don’t like that sort of thing?’
‘Tights and nancy boys? Do you?’
Leo opens his notebook with the attention one might give a portal into another world. ‘Who reported him missing?’
‘His daughter. Rang in on the nines. The wife confirms he didn’t come to bed last night, but apparently that wasn’t unexpected. She thought he was partying, or sleeping it off somewhere else. Or having it off, maybe.’ Crouch snorts.
‘Do you want me to speak to the family?’
‘Take a gander at the body first. Make sure the Welsh haven’t fucked it up. Local enquiries, last known movements – the usual. North Wales has sent a DC – he’ll meet you at the mortuary.’
‘No problem.’
‘If it’s an accidental drowning, bat it back to Wales.’ Crouch clears his screen. ‘He washed up on their side.’
‘And if it’s murder?’
‘Depends. If it’s going nowhere—’
‘Bat it back to Wales?’
‘Not as thick as you look, are you?’ Crouch waits expectantly. Leo isn’t sure how to answer. ‘But if there’s a suspect, keep the job, and we’ll get it squared away soon as. First murder of the year, done and dusted in a day, boom.’
Boom? Crouch often bemoans the fact that he is never drafted in to give statements to the press, standing on the steps of the court, or next to the fluttering tape of a murder scene. Based on what Leo has seen of his boss, this is a wise decision on the part of the comms team.