Betrayed by Death

by Roderic Jeffries

  Menton, who was more interested in making progress than in understanding her feelings, said: “We’d like a list of his friends and where they live.”

  “Friends?”

  “That’s right.”

  She shook her head. “There isn’t anyone.”

  “There must be,” he said impatiently.

  She looked sadly at him. “He’s never had friends. I tried to make him see people, but he always said — he said that he didn’t need to meet anyone else when he’d got such a wonderful home.” Her face worked as if the tears were finally about to fall. “You will find him, won’t you?”

  Fusil answered her. “We’ll do everything we possibly can, Mrs Thompson.”

  *

  Menton drove them in his car back towards Divisional H.Q. “Well, where the hell’s he got to? Suicide?”

  Fusil was the first to voice an objection. “I don’t suppose you can really say a bloke’s not the kind who’ll commit suicide, but remembering that, I’d say he isn’t. And wouldn’t he have said something to his mother, even if only to kiss her goodnight, knowing it was really good-bye? And what about the dog?”

  “The dog?” Menton swerved to avoid an overtaking car.

  “That dog’s more to him than any dog will ever be to us. I guess you’d have to be someone who’s seen his father go off with another woman and his mother have to slave like a tweeny, to find oneself virtually incapable of forming normal friendly relations, to be able to appreciate exactly what place that dog does hold in his life. But I’m quite certain that if he were about to commit suicide he’d say good-bye to the dog, even if he didn’t kill it before himself.”

  Menton shook his head, but didn’t argue. “All right, if he’s not committed suicide, where is he? Run off because he’s scared?”

  “Ten to one he’d have taken the dog with him.”

  “That phone call is the vital factor,” said Adams slowly. “If only we’d something to go on to give us an inkling of what it was about.”

  “Someone telling him how close we’re breathing down his neck, so he panicked?” suggested Menton.

  “He’s a bloke without friends, so who’d warn him?” objected Fusil. “And in any case, we’re not breathing down his neck.”

  “Thanks to you,” Menton snapped.

  *

  Josephine closed the book and put it down on the small bedside table. “Goodness only knows why I bothered to finish — talk about a load of the ridiculous!” She looked round and saw that Fusil was already asleep.

  Some of the lines had eased from his face and he looked younger. She knew a moment of heart-tug because she was suddenly reminded of one night in the first year of their marriage when she’d cradled his head in her lap and had wondered, with considerable apprehension because the gods were jealous, how long her happiness could last? It had lasted throughout their marriage. She reached out and touched him lightly on the forehead, gaining deep emotional pleasure from the physical contact.

  The phone rang and he was jerked awake, and suddenly the lines of strain were back. Goddamn you, she silently shouted, why in the hell can’t you leave him alone? You’re killing him because he doesn’t know how to refuse to do the work. She reached across him — although awake, he was not yet orientated — and lifted up the receiver from the phone on his bedside table. “What the hell’s the matter?” she demanded with bitter anger, not caring if she were speaking to the chief constable. “It’s after midnight and Bob didn’t come back —”

  “Is that the D.I.’s place?” cut in a flat, harsh voice.

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Is he there?”

  “What d’you want?”

  “To talk to him, lady.”

  Fusil said: “Is it the station?”

  She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “No; at least, I’m pretty certain it isn’t. But it is someone asking for you.”

  “Let’s have it.” He took the receiver from her, flicked away the lead which had been trailing across his chest, and said: “Fusil here.”

  “D’you know Randell Wood?”

  “Not off-hand.”

  “Find it. Third gate up from Stovenstreet, right-hand ride. Got that?”

  “Who’s talking?”

  The connexion was cut.

  He replaced the receiver, lay back, and stared up at the ceiling.

  “What was that all about, Bob?” she asked.

  “The bloke didn’t say. But I reckon I can guess,” he replied heavily. He folded back the bedclothes on his side of the bed and climbed out on to the carpet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The two cars and a dog handler’s van drew up at the crossroads which marked the tiny village of Stovenstreet. On their right was a general store and a couple of cottages, on their left a field: on the other side of the major road were a pub, two bungalows, and four stone-built cottages with peg-tile roofs.

  “Which way from here?” asked Fusil, driving his own car.

  Kerr, with the aid of a pencil torch, consulted the map which was open on his lap. “It looks like straight on.”

  “Looks like? Can’t you read a bloody map?” Tension and tiredness were making most of them short-tempered.

  Kerr, irrepressible even in the middle of the night, said: “It’s a useless map — none of the pubs are marked.”

  Fusil drove across. They passed a modern bungalow, mullioned windows, mown grass verge, and geometrically trimmed privet hedge, a field in which a cow looked over the hedge with eyes which gleamed huge with reflected light, a cottage which, in need of repair and with unkempt garden, was yet far more in keeping with the countryside than the bungalow, and then came to the beginning of the wood.

  “There’s the first gate,” said Kerr.

  They passed a five-bar gate which sagged because the bearing-post had rotted, then the road curved round to the left.

  “Second one,” said Kerr, when they were two hundred yards beyond the bend. “And the third,” he added, spotting the gate only fifteen yards beyond the second one.

  Fusil braked to a stop. He turned round in the seat and reached over to the back to pick up a heavy-duty torch. He removed the keys from the dashboard, stepped out on to the road, went round to the boot and opened this. They changed into wellingtons, and Kerr lifted out two portable arc-lights.

  When they were all ready — two detectives, four uniform P.C.s, and a dog handler with his dog — Kerr swung the gate open and Fusil led the way into the wood. Two of the P.C.s had switched on torches, and as they walked along the narrow, sodden ride, shadows danced on either side. Forty yards in they were all startled by the sudden clapping of wings as several pigeons left an oak-tree; they heard a scampering across dead leaves, but although the two P.C.s briefly aimed their torches at the noise no one was able to make out what the animal was.

  A hundred yards in, the ride divided with one fork bearing left, the other turning sharply right. They followed the right-hand ride, now moving very slowly and visually searching — as far as this was possible — the ground on either side.

  Fusil gave the order to halt. Not far in, the scrub hornbeam, ash, and beech-trees, gave way to a clearing, very roughly oval in shape, about forty feet across. He squatted and shone the torch just above the ground to try to pick out a track: a yard from where he stood, the earth looked slightly beaten down, and there were a couple of thin twiggy branches lying on it.

  “The rest of you stay where you are.” He threaded a way through the trees, carefully keeping off the track, until he reached the clearing. Because there was no overhead cover, brambles, bracken, weeds, and weed grasses had in the summer grown in profusion, and now, with the dead bracken, weed stalks, and tufts of dried grass threaded through the rampant trails of the brambles, there was a natural barrier which cost Fusil a great deal of effort, a fall, and much swearing, to break through.

  In the centre of the clearing and not visible until one had broached the barrier was an area where for no readily a
pparent reason no brambles had grown and very little bracken. A careful attempt had been made to cover up any signs of disturbance, but even in the torchlight it was clear that there had been some digging here.

  “Bring the dog in,” shouted Fusil. “Make certain you keep away from the track. Get lights rigged up in the trees. Kerr, you and two P.C.s stand by with spades.”

  Two P.C.s set about rigging the portable arc-lamps with their beams directed at the clearing; the remaining two joined Kerr and waited. The dog handler went round until he found an easier way into the inner clearing than Fusil had, then cast off his dog. The Alsatian began to quarter the ground, of necessity going slowly because the distances were so short, its nose held low. Almost immediately it came to a stop, lowered its head still further, then scratched at the ground.

  “Get the dog back,” ordered Fusil. “Kerr — come on in and start digging.”

  The handler called the Alsatian away and ordered it to sit. Kerr led the two P.C.s over and, after he’d marked out a line as their point of reference, they began to dig. Each clod of earth was carefully placed out on undug soil so that afterwards there could be no doubt from where each one had come.

  After some ten minutes, one of the P.C.s called out: “I’m on to something soft here.”

  Fusil went to where the P.C. was working. He looked down, but nothing other than yellow clay was immediately visible. “Groundsheet and trowel.” He was brought these, and he spread out the groundsheet and knelt. He dug down with the trowel and after lifting out the first scoop of earth he became conscious of a growing stench which made it virtually certain that they had found the grave of at least one body. “Kerr.”

  Kerr moved quickly past the two P.C.s.

  “Return to the car and get on the blower to H.Q. We want a pathologist and a photographer out here immediately. We’ll need carrying-bags and all ancillary equipment. See the usual undertakers are contacted and warn them there may be up to nine bodies for moving. Alert Mr Menton and Mr Adams.”

  *

  It was not a task any of the men present was ever going to forget: the horror was increased, not decreased, by repetition. Nine boys who had been strangled with thin cord.

  Chapter Twenty

  In the billiard-room, Menton slammed his hand down on the chipboard covering the table. “You know as well as I do what happened.”

  “I know nothing for certain, sir,” replied Fusil.

  “You worked with a villain to push that spoon through to Jones in order to force him into identifying Thompson. Then when we couldn’t find the proof to nail Thompson, you fed the same villain his name, because there isn’t a villain alive who won’t go for a sex maniac who’s harmed kids.”

  “I’ve not given Thompson’s name to anyone outside the force.”

  “You’re a goddamn liar.”

  Adams, embarrassed by the venom in Menton’s voice, coughed. Menton ignored him. “After you’d given the name, one or more men got hold of Thompson and tortured him into telling them where he’d buried the kids.”

  “If that did happen, it was not because of anything I’ve said because I’ve said nothing.”

  “Who was it phoned to tell you where the kids were buried?”

  “I do not know who the caller was.”

  “How did he know where the bodies were? Unless he or someone else had forced Thompson to speak?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “How could anyone have known Thompson was suspected if you didn’t tell ’em?”

  “I can’t answer that.” He was certain he could. He’d refused to name Thompson to Moody. But Jones had been released on bail, and Moody must have forced him to name the man he’d previously identified at the police station.

  “You’re a detective inspector, sworn to uphold and obey the law. Yet you’ve deliberately become an accomplice to torture and murder.”

  “You keep accusing me. What proof of those accusations have you?”

  Menton was standing. He leaned forward slightly until his stomach was up against the chipboard. “So you reckon to wriggle out of it that way? You’re not going to do any such goddamn thing. You’re going to end up in the dock.”

  “If,” said Fusil with cold formality, “you have proof of your allegations you’ll no doubt charge me. If you haven’t, then I request that the matter be put before the assistant chief constable.”

  Menton had not expected this. “I’ll —” he began. Adams coughed again, and this time he wisely accepted the hint. He controlled his temper. “Very well. The matter will be placed before the A.C.C.” He was genuinely outraged. His love of justice was no less than Fusil’s, but for him justice had always to be within the law, irrespective of any consequences if this should prove impossible. Fusil’s actions, then, were quite indefensible and he deserved to be severely punished, even though those actions had prevented further tragedies.

  *

  The finger-print section phoned through from Barstone on Sunday morning. Kerr took the call.

  “Most of the clothing was too rotten to be of any use, but the last body hadn’t been in the ground very long and the clothing was still relatively intact. The boy was wearing an anorak and it was one of those cheap ones with a very shiny surface. I was able to raise a few prints on this. The boy’s fingers were still sufficiently intact for comparison prints and these have eliminated all but four of the prints on the anorak. Of the four, three are the same, probably the forefinger. What chance is there of getting a full set of prints of the suspect to back up those on record?”

  The moment the call was over, Kerr went along the corridor to Fusil’s room and reported.

  Fusil stared out of the window at the drizzle which had been falling since daybreak. “We’ll have to drive out to Thompson’s place and see what we can find there.” He looked back. “It’s going to be a bloody awful job because Mrs Thompson — You know something? The most difficult part of our job isn’t dealing with crime, it’s dealing with the consequences of crime.” He used the phone to speak to County H.Q., to ask the duty fingerprint officer to meet them at North Moor Road as soon as possible.

  He replaced the receiver, looked at his watch. “It’ll take Dabs at least half an hour to get there, so there’s no point in our leaving for quarter of an hour. Let’s go down and have a coffee.”

  He was looking rather old and sounding very battered, thought Kerr, as they went down to the canteen. Perhaps there was more truth than usual in the rumour that he and Menton were having one hell of a row. Why couldn’t Menton have enough common sense to realize that Fusil was the best D.I. in the force?

  They reached North Moor Road at ten past twelve and had been parked outside number 41 for no more than three minutes when a white Escort drew up behind them. D.C. McBride, a small imitation leather case in his left hand, walked up to the offside of Fusil’s car: Fusil wound down his window. “All right, let’s go in and get it over with.”

  The D.C. looked with brief curiosity at Fusil, not then understanding the reason for his tone of voice.

  When Mrs Thompson opened the front door, she recognized Fusil with an immediate fear. “Have you — have you found —” She could not put it into words. From one of the rooms came high-pitched yapping: they heard the sounds of paws scrabbling at a partially opened door and then Mitzy ran into the hall. She yapped again.

  Fusil said quietly: “I’m very sorry, but we have learned nothing fresh concerning your son’s whereabouts.”

  She closed her eyes, and for one second the three men thought she was going to faint. Kerr stepped forward, but as he did so she opened her eyes and steadied herself. “Please come in,” she said, with a courageous attempt to be hospitable.

  They entered, and McBride closed the front door. Mitzy came forward to sniff their legs and shoes: Kerr bent down and patted her head.

  Fusil cleared his throat. “We’re here —” He stopped. How did you tell an old woman, already racked by worry, that you’d come to try to prove her son was
a mass murderer?

  “You haven’t heard anything, anything at all about him?” she asked, as if there might still be room for doubt.

  Fusil shook his head.

  “I suppose he couldn’t be in a hospital rather a long way away?”

  “We’ve checked with every hospital in the country.”

  “Perhaps he was hit on the head and he’s lost his memory?”

  “I don’t think —” Fusil cleared his throat for the second time. “May we go up to his bedroom?”

  “Of course you can. But how will that help you find him? I’ve already looked and he didn’t leave any kind of note. If only he’d told me who the telephone call was from. But he was so cross when I tried to ask him.”

  “We’ll just go upstairs now and have a look around his room.”

  “Do you want me to show you where everything is?”

  “That’s very kind of you, but no thanks.”

  She watched them climb the stairs, not knowing what they were about to do but instinctively terrified that the results of their actions would bring her fresh heartbreaks.

  They entered the poorly furnished bedroom. McBride looked round, checking where there might be good recording surfaces, then went over to the dressing-table and studied the silver-back brush. “This looks promising. If we’re going to find a good set anywhere, it should be here.”

  He put his case down on the foot of the bed, opened it, and brought out a plastic bottle, a very small, shallow basin, and a camel’s-hair brush. He tapped out a measure of dark powder from the bottle into the basin and then, holding the basin in his left hand, carefully painted the powder over the silver back of the hair-brush. “Prints galore. Next thing is, are any of ’em any good?”