Something In The Air

Chapter 6 - Spilt Milk

They were now onto their third round of drinks. Maddox was already beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol – he didn't drink regularly and his tolerance was predictably low – and wished they would hurry up and start serving the three-course dinner; the hall was now full to the brim with guests, but not many people had made their way over to the tables yet. He'd brought a packet of CREON with him inside his jacket pocket, but there hadn't been room for additional snacks and he was regretting not having anything to eat before he'd left. He turned towards Leon, deliberately pushed away his half-empty glass and tried to focus on something else other than the light-headedness he was experiencing.

"So what about you? What have the Met got you working on at the minute?"

"Funny you should ask. I've just been assigned a new case actually," Leon remarked. Maddox couldn't be sure, but it looked like he was handling the alcohol without any trouble whatsoever. "I took it on a couple of days ago... suspected suicide."

Maddox threw up his arms in abhorrence. "Now you see? At least that's a bit more interesting!" Not for the first time, he felt a pang of jealousy.

Leon shrugged a shoulder, as if it wasn't a big deal. "It happened in Woodford, where the bridge crosses the train tracks near to the tube station. A middle-aged man – and unlike you I'm talking actual middle-aged; he was in his mid-fifties – was found dead on the tracks. At least one train must have hit him because there wasn't much left. Emma, one of my junior DCs from Chigwell station, was the attending officer at the crime scene, but she decided to call me in pronto for a second opinion."

"How come? Can she not handle a simple suicide case by herself?"

"She's relatively new and inexperienced on the job, so maybe not. Alternatively, maybe she took one look at the bloody mess of a body and decided she wanted to keep down her lunch for the next week. To be honest, I probably could have given her some advice and told her to get on with it, but I didn't have anything better to do myself so I went to check it out. By the time I arrived, the whole area had already been cordoned off and Emma ran me through her preliminary inspection. After listening through and asking a few questions, I called Forensics then had a look around myself.

"My first impression was as she described it to me – a suspected suicide, clean and simple. Well, maybe not 'clean'... I take in the scene and the victim barely even resembles a human being anymore; hunks of flesh missing, broken limbs, blood and innards everywhere..." He looked up at Maddox and chuckled. "I think you get the picture. Emma has noticed a wallet though, a brown leather one tucked inside the pocket of the victim's jacket. It's blood-stained and a little chewed up, but surprisingly intact. Emma has already looked inside and, to our good fortune, there lies some much-needed ID.

"Declan Fry is his name. Later on, back at the station, I did some digging – not just for his grave – and apparently, he was a professor of environmental sciences at University College London. I contacted the university and they confirmed this; said he was very highly regarded in his field and had published a tonne of research papers, even appeared on national television a few times."

"Can't say I've heard of him."

"That's not surprising. How many famous professors are there apart from Hawking and Brian Cox? But a lot of them live notoriously stressful and hectic careers. I suppose mental health issues driving him to suicide makes sense.

"Emma's theory is that he must have jumped from the bridge onto the tracks below. Perhaps the initial fall killed him – for his sake, I hope it did - but if it didn't then the next train barrelling along the rail line certainly finished him off. The police were called just before eight in the evening. The caller was a civilian who'd been standing outside at Woodford Station platform. He'd seen the body on the tracks as it was illuminated by a passing train. As far as he could tell, it hadn't been moving at the time. The local police station got his name and phone number to question in more detail later, but he'd disappeared by the time I arrived.