Murder of a Silent Man

by Phillip Strang

  ‘How much do you know about your brother’s death?’

  ‘I know about Dorothy upstairs in the house. Did Gilbert kill her?’

  ‘Why? Should he have?’

  ‘I’m not talking murder, but Dorothy, she would have these periods where she’d go a little crazy.’

  ‘What can you tell us?’

  ‘Manic-depressive. Not that it happened often, and very few knew outside of the house. Gilbert gave her the best medical treatment that money could buy, and after a few weeks, she’d be fine again. I know she never left the house during those times. That’s why there were shutters on every window, to keep her isolated from the influences outside, to keep people from peering.’

  ‘A virtual prisoner?’ Wendy said.

  ‘In her own home? I don’t think so. If she had been in a hospital, it would have been a straitjacket and isolation.’

  ‘She could be violent?’

  ‘Very. Whenever it happened, Ralph and Caroline would go and stay with friends. They may have known, but probably not the full story.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘Dorothy told me everything. The darkness she felt, the despair, the need to lash out or to sit and cry for hours. We became very close.’

  ‘Yet you never spoke to your brother.’

  ‘Never. I don’t know if he knew that Dorothy was meeting me, although he may have. Regardless, he never interfered. She could have flung herself down the stairs, broken her neck.’

  ‘Do you know this is what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what killed her. The only certainty is that my brother is not responsible.’

  ‘Let us go back to when Dorothy disappeared,’ Wendy said. ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘I remember trying to contact Gilbert, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I spoke to the housekeeper.’

  ‘Molly Dempster?’

  ‘That was it. She said that Gilbert did not want to have any contact with me.’

  ‘Were you surprised by his reaction?’

  ‘Not really. Gilbert was always a private man, and if Dorothy had disappeared, then he would deal with it himself.’

  ‘She could have been kidnapped, murdered.’

  ‘Molly said she hadn’t and my brother was convinced she had had one of her turns and would not be coming back.’

  ‘How could he be so sure?’

  ‘It’s too late to ask him now.’

  ‘Are you sad that he’s died?’

  ‘I would like to have become friends with him again. To have sat down and reminisced. We had a shared history, a devotion to Dorothy.’

  ‘Are you surprised that he kept her upstairs in the bedroom?’

  ‘He would not have wanted to be parted from her. He was a decent man, even though he had treated me poorly over the years. I had seen him walking out in the street once or twice, but he seemed a broken man. I suppose having his dead wife upstairs in that house for all those years must have driven him crazy.’

  ‘He never spoke one word to anyone, apart from his solicitor.’

  ‘Leonard Dundas. He’ll know more than me.’

  ***

  Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Goddard, never far from Homicide when there was a murder, sat in Isaac’s office. ‘Tough one, the corpse upstairs,’ he said. He was a good man, even a friend, but he always seemed to come when Isaac was rushing out of the door.

  ‘We’re going back to the house,’ Isaac said, more by way of a hint than anything else. Although he had to admit that having Goddard back in charge was preferable to when Superintendent Caddick had been in Goddard’s office, and causing trouble with his incessant demand for reports, and his constant incompetent interfering. The man was now consigned out of London, far enough to no longer be a nuisance.

  ‘Macabre.’

  ‘It’s out of the ordinary, although Gilbert Lawrence is our priority.’

  ‘It could be related.’

  ‘Only if someone else knew what was upstairs, and if the husband had killed her.’

  ‘Speculation, but it’s worth considering. Any suspects?’

  Isaac had expected the inevitable question. The chief superintendent was always looking for a quick arrest, but so far there were no clues that led to a killer of Gilbert, no indication that anyone else had been involved with preserving the body of a long-dead woman.

  Once free of the superintendent, Isaac and Larry Hill drove over to the Lawrence house. On arrival they walked over to where Gordon Windsor was standing. This time, the man was on the footpath outside the home, coveralls were not required.

  ‘We’re convinced that Gilbert Lawrence buried his wife in the cellar for a few years. Once she had decomposed, he cleaned the bones and any loose skin with dermestid beetles,’ Windsor said.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Skin beetles. Taxidermists, museums, hunters, use them to clean the flesh off a body. They’ll only eat dead flesh. It takes time, and he would have had to buy them. We found a tank that he had used.’

  ‘By why clean the bones? The woman’s dead. Surely he’d want to see some semblance of her?’

  ‘How would I know? The man’s disturbed. He can’t bear to be parted from her, but if she was left to decay on her own, can you imagine the insects, the putrefaction, the smell?’

  ‘Okay, we’ll accept that the man had lost it, mentally that is, but what does this tell us about how the woman died?’

  ‘It doesn’t, not yet. We’re taking what remains to Pathology today. Give them a few days, more than the two hours you normally do, and maybe they’ll come up with something.’

  Isaac knew Windsor was right. As the senior investigating officer, an arrest and a conviction always looked good on his CV. The only problem was that the last three murder cases his department had investigated had extended, not only in time but also in the number of deaths. The current investigation had all the hallmarks of being another one. And what did they have: a body, no more than a skeleton, a body in the garden with a knife in its back, a family at war, although it was more of an uneasy truce. Isaac hoped he was wrong in his summation, but he was sure he was not.

  Wendy had liked Emma Lawrence, an elderly woman with a healthy outlook on life, a woman who had embraced the flower generation, free love, and no doubt transcendental meditation and a few drugs not on prescription. Regardless, she still looked sprightly, more so than Wendy, and she knew it.

  Caddick, when he had temporarily occupied Goddard’s seat, had been desperate to get Wendy out of Homicide by way of a rigorous medical, showing that she could no longer keep up with the workload. Wendy knew it was rubbish, using whatever he could to get rid of her.

  She didn’t need to be able to run a hundred yards in under twenty seconds, and she didn’t need to be able to scale a wall in one bound. But Caddick had been desperate to undermine Isaac’s support mechanism of loyal staff: Bridget Halloran, the lead admin person in Homicide, Wendy Gladstone, who had known Isaac longer than anyone, even from when he had been on the beat in uniform, and then there was Detective Inspector Larry Hill. He had handled himself well on an earlier murder investigation, and Chief Superintendent Goddard had brought him across to Challis Street at Isaac’s request.

  ‘There would still have been some smell during the process,’ Larry said to Windsor outside Lawrence’s house.

  ‘Contained, at least within the house,’ Windsor said. ‘No idea how the housekeeper could have avoided catching a whiff occasionally. Lawrence had done it well, almost professional. Burying the body in the cellar. In time, the body could be removed, and placed in with the beetles. It’s all a bit weird for me, but who knows how the man thought. Apparently, he was into real estate,’ Windsor said.

  ‘A lot of it, from what we’re told. Bridget’s doing the research, and we’re on our way to meet with the solicitor. No idea about him, but it appears that he was the only one who spoke to Gilbert Lawrence.’

  Chapter 4

  Leonard Dundas occupied a suite of o
ffices in Pimlico. Isaac had to admit that he was impressed. But then, it was Pimlico, he thought, and definitely upmarket and costly.

  ‘Can I help you?’ a young woman asked. She was sitting behind a glass-topped reception desk. It looked expensive. In fact, the whole office did, what with its leather chairs in reception, the open plan office, a man watering the plants around the place.

  ‘Mr Dundas, he’s expecting us. DCI Cook, DI Hill, Challis Street Homicide,’ Isaac said.

  ‘It’s a shame about Mr Lawrence,’ the woman said.

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘As good as. He was our only client.’

  ‘You must have thirty people here.’

  ‘Thirty-four. One’s off sick, and another two are out on business. I’ll let Mr Dundas know you’re here.’

  Isaac and Larry made themselves comfortable, but not for long. An elderly man came into reception. He was wearing a suit, his greying hair parted in the middle, a sullen expression.

  ‘Tragic about Gilbert,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Dundas?’ Isaac said.

  ‘Yes, of course. My apologies. Mr Lawrence’s death has thrown us all out of kilter.’

  ‘We’re told he was your only client.’

  ‘He was, but that’s not surprising. You’re aware of his substantial holdings?’

  ‘Not in detail. We’re researching them now.’

  ‘Not all of them are in this country. He was a canny man, purchased when the market was low, never sold, or rarely. There’s more money in having the properties rented out than buying and selling. The costs only multiply, stamp duty, taxes. I’m sure you know how it is.’

  Isaac didn’t, as he still had his flat in Willesden, and he had no intention of moving. Larry did, as his wife was determined to buy somewhere larger. The only problem was that she could only envisage the furniture that she would need to buy, the colour of the curtains, the marble-topped counters in the kitchen. She did not consider what Dundas had just mentioned: the hidden costs, the removal company, the increased payment on the mortgage, the solicitor’s fees. He knew she would not stop talking about the move, and he knew that without promotion he would struggle with the payments.

  ‘What do you plan to do now?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘For me, I’m past my retirement age. I only stayed on with the firm because of Gilbert. My daughter is the junior partner. She looks after the day-to-day operations.’

  ‘What can you tell us about Gilbert Lawrence?’

  ‘Where to start? He was a brilliant man, although after Dorothy died, he changed, so much so that I barely recognised him towards the end.’

  ‘But you met with him. We’re assuming he spoke to you.’

  ‘He did, but only in truncated sentences, as he would have a prepared list of actions to follow. I would give him a report, the template we had agreed on many years ago. Our conversations were normally short, no more than a few sentences spoken by either, no mention of the weather, or the family.’

  ‘Are you saying he never asked after his family?’

  ‘Never. Howard Hughes syndrome some would call it, although with Gilbert it wasn’t a fear of germs, but the loss of his wife.’

  ‘You’re aware of what was in the house?’

  ‘I am now. What can I say? I never went into the house, never through that door with its bolt.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘In the kitchen. He made sure that the back door was bolted and the blinds were down. He didn’t want Molly Dempster to come in.’

  ‘But he kept her on.’

  ‘She had been with the family for a long time. As far as he was concerned, she was the only person he could trust.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘He didn’t trust me. He needed me, and he knew what I did, and how much I should charge. He also entrusted me with buying property for him.’

  ‘Easy to cheat?’

  ‘You can see the office here. He paid for it, the renovations, everything. The man has made me rich. Why would I have cheated him?’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I have his will and his power of attorney. In the meantime, his empire needs to be tended, and in time sold off, or passed on to those who inherit.’

  ‘Are you able to tell us the contents of his will?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Not at this time. It is sealed in a bank vault, duly witnessed. I will read it out to his family and other interested parties in due course. You have to remember that Gilbert, regardless of how he lived, was not a fool. He had amassed over two hundred and thirty properties around the world: shopping centres, office blocks, residential and commercial. We have in this office the deeds to over two billion pounds worth of real estate. He was a tough negotiator, a tough landlord. Such men make enemies, even within their own family.’

  ‘Ralph and Caroline, his children?’

  ‘Ralph was a disappointment, although he would not be capable of murder.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The man would rather scrounge off others. He’s a charismatic man, managed to charm a few women out of their savings. But murder, not Ralph.’

  ‘Caroline?’

  ‘She would be capable, but unlikely. She has a good life, and her husband is doing well.’

  ‘Well enough? There are hundreds of millions of pounds at stake here. Irresistible to a lot of people.’

  ‘Not so easy to get hold of. There are overseas trusts, offshore accounts, umbrella companies. Unravelling those, if we have to, will take a long time. We, as a company, will be fully occupied with Gilbert Lawrence for many years.’

  ‘His death doesn’t appear to concern you?’

  ‘It does. The man was a friend, even before his wife died, even after he became a recluse.’

  ‘He had what he wanted, his wife with him.’

  ‘Is it related to his death?’

  ‘We don’t know. We had hoped you could enlighten us.’

  ‘Not me,’ Dundas said. ‘I never went in there. The first I knew, the first any of us knew, was when your people found her. She was an attractive woman when she was alive. I suppose she isn’t now?’

  ‘Unrecognisable.’

  ***

  ‘DCI Isaac Cook, what took you so long?’ Graham Picket, the pathologist, said. To Isaac, it was a muted welcome, in that the man was usually more vocal when he and Larry walked into Pathology.

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate some more time with Mrs Lawrence.’

  ‘Rubbish. You were busy elsewhere. Otherwise, I would have been chasing you out of here.’

  ‘Maybe. What do you have?’

  ‘Female. No sign of major trauma. From what I can see the woman died of natural causes, although with just a skeleton, it’s not possible to be conclusive. No sign of a bullet or a knife or a blunt weapon on the bones.’

  ‘Is that all you can tell us?’

  ‘You’ve given me nothing to work with. We’ve confirmed that it’s Dorothy Lawrence. Dental records, a DNA swab from the daughter. Apart from that, there’s nothing more. The only way you’ll know what happened is if the husband wrote it down somewhere.’

  The result from Pathology was not unexpected, and the woman’s death was not the primary consideration, Gilbert Lawrence was. The two police officers returned to Homicide. It was time for a meeting with the team.

  ‘What about the son?’ Isaac asked. It was the first time he had sat down in his office for some time. Wendy Gladstone was in the office, as were Larry Hill and Bridget Halloran.

  ‘Ralph Lawrence has a history of failed businesses, broken marriages, and a troubled son along the way,’ Bridget said. Office-bound, and glad of it, she was the person who could find her way around a search engine. Isaac had asked her to put together a profile of Gilbert Lawrence, a dossier on him and his family. ‘Ralph Lawrence is in Spain, speculative real estate sales to English tourists. I contacted the local police there, and the man’s been released from jail on the understanding that he leaves the country immediately.’ />
  ‘To where?’

  ‘London. I assumed you would want to talk to him.’

  ‘Is he being picked up?’

  ‘He is. I’ve organised someone from the station.’

  That’s what Isaac liked about his team, always thinking ahead, taking the initiative. And yes, Ralph was a person of interest, although if, as it seemed, he was in Spain, he could not be the murderer.

  ‘What else?’ Larry said. He was standing, his usual pose. Both Wendy and Bridget were sitting down.

  ‘You and DCI Cook have met with Leonard Dundas. Is he providing you with a list of Lawrence’s assets?’

  ‘He is, but we would rather hear it from you. Dundas will be considering what to tell us, and what not to.’

  ‘Very well,’ Bridget said. ‘This is what we have. Gilbert Lawrence, eighty-two years of age. He purchased his first property when he was nineteen, a small studio flat in Clapham. Nothing special and it was rented out. By the time of his twenty-fifth birthday, he had sixty-three properties throughout London. Some were shops, others were offices, although the majority were residential. From what I can gather, he was cutting a swathe through London, and I’ve found newspaper articles showing the young property magnate. Their words, not mine. He had met and married his wife when he was twenty-two, purchased the house where he died when he was twenty-nine. Before that, it had been converted into flats. He had it renovated, and Dorothy decorated it. It featured in a couple of magazines at the time. I’ve included copies of what it looked like back then, although I suppose it looks vastly different now.’

  Larry looked at the magazine article. ‘It does,’ he said.

  ‘Any history on Dorothy Lawrence?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘If you’re referring to her bouts of madness, there’s very little. She was born in the north of the country, went to school there. I’ve managed to obtain a birth certificate. After her marriage to Gilbert, two children, Caroline and Ralph. You’ve met one, the other is due in the next few hours. I’m checking with the private hospitals around the country that deal with people who have her condition.’