by Peter Murphy
‘Can you help me at all about what happened here?’
She nodded and pushed the door open.
‘I saw it all,’ she replied, ‘through the window. You’d better come in.’
3
‘Would you like some tea?’
They had closed the front door, leaving the horror of the mews behind them, and made their way through to the kitchen at the rear of the house. It was suddenly more peaceful, and for the first time Webb was able to release some of the tension he had felt building inside him since they had arrived on the scene.
‘Yes. Thank you, Mrs Cameron. I’m sure a cup of tea would do us all some good. Just milk for me, please.’
‘Two sugars, please,’ Raymond said.
She struck a match and lit one of the burners on the gas stove. She filled the kettle and put it on to boil.
‘It didn’t take you long to get here,’ she said, her tone still shocked, distant. ‘Everyone says that when you call the police it takes them ages to come, but you were here in no time at all.’
‘As I said, we are based at Holborn Police Station, at the top of Lamb’s Conduit Street,’ Webb replied, ‘so we were almost on the doorstep. We were able to dash down here as soon as the call came in. Was it you who called it in?’
‘Yes. Was the ambulance in time to save her?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
She nodded, placed both hands on the kitchen table, and bent low over it, as if reminding herself to breathe.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said eventually. ‘I didn’t see her moving at all.’
‘Did you go outside?’ Raymond asked.
‘No. I was too frightened. Shocked, too, I think.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Webb said. ‘You did the right thing, staying inside. There was nothing you could have done out there, and it might have been dangerous for you.’
They waited in silence for the tea to be made and served, allowing her time to recover her composure. They sat around the table, Wendy on one side, the officers on the other. She opened a tin, a Delft blue with a windmill and tulips on the lid, and offered biscuits.
‘So, do I take it you know these people?’ Webb asked.
She nodded.
‘Henry and Susan Lang. They were my clients.’
‘Clients?’ Raymond asked.
‘I’m a welfare officer for the High Court – for divorce and child custody cases. The judges ask us to interview the parties and write a report if they need information or an evaluation for a case they’re doing.’
‘What kind of report would that be?’ Webb asked.
‘It varies. In most cases, I report on arrangements for children, to help the court to decide who should get custody, or how much access to allow the non-custodial parent. In some cases, it’s just to assess the prospects for a reconciliation before the case goes ahead.’
Webb suddenly felt his stomach turn over. He glanced at Raymond.
‘What kind of report were you doing in the Langs’ case?’
‘It’s about the children. The divorce would probably have gone undefended – they couldn’t wait to get rid of each other – but there was going to be a hell of a fight over custody and access. Mr Justice Wesley had given Susan interim custody, with liberal access to Henry. But that doesn’t mean she would have got custody after a full hearing. There were two sides to that.’
‘How old are the children?’ Raymond asked.
‘Marianne is seven, and Stephanie is five.’
‘More importantly,’ Webb asked, ‘where are the children?’
‘Oh, they’re safe,’ Wendy replied. ‘They will be with Susan’s mother. That’s where they spend most of their time, if the truth be known. Susan was always ready to fight for them and scream about how much she loved them when she was in court, or with me, but I’m not sure she thought about them very much the rest of the time.’
‘But she was determined to get custody?’
‘Yes. But so was he; even more so, if anything.’
‘Were you ready to submit your report?’
‘No. The judge asked for the report before he held the next hearing, but I told him I would need at least six weeks because of pressure of work and I still had some way to go. I would have had to do a detailed inspection of both homes – the matrimonial home, where Henry is still living, and Susan’s flat. Then I would have met with both of them again, at least once individually and once together, before I prepared my final draft.’
‘I see. And they were in a meeting with you today, between what times?’
‘Between 12.30 and 1.30, or thereabouts.’
‘Did you see either of them with a knife?’
She reacted sharply.
‘Good God, no. I wouldn’t tolerate anything like that. I would have called the meeting off immediately. Then I would have called the police, and reported it to the court.’
Webb nodded.
‘So, what did you see through the window?’
She froze, cup in hand, and looked somewhere into the distance above Webb’s head.
‘As I say, they left at about 1.30,’ she replied. ‘I came back here to the kitchen to sort something out for lunch, but after a few minutes, I thought I could hear raised voices. I made my way back to the front room, and I saw Henry and Susan arguing. They were across the street, and they had stepped just inside the mews. I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but it was obviously about the children. We had been talking about the children during the meeting, of course. I was about to go outside and remind them that arguing in front of me wasn’t the wisest thing for them to be doing, when I was going to report on them to the judge. And then…’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Cameron. Take your time.’
‘And then it happened.’ She put the cup down and held her head in her hands. ‘I saw him strike blow after blow, six or seven in all, one after another, bang, bang, bang, just like that. I don’t think she saw it coming. There was no struggle. I didn’t see her do anything to defend herself. She just went down in a heap. I didn’t even realise that he had a knife until I saw how much blood there was. And then he was just sitting there on the ground, doing nothing. I managed to lock my door, grab the phone and call the police. And then you came, and that was it.’
‘Had you ever known Henry to be violent before?’
She shook her head firmly.
‘Good God, no. He’s a quiet, mild-mannered man. He’s not some kind of…’ She took a breath and visibly pulled herself together. ‘The answer is no,’ she continued. ‘I would never have believed what I saw today.’
Webb drained his tea cup.
‘All right, Mrs Cameron, you’ve had quite a shock. I’m not going to ask you any more questions now. I’ll send a constable to take a full statement from you tomorrow. We will need to hear all about the Langs’ divorce, in as much detail as possible. We will also need a copy of all the drafts of your report.’
She stood, as they did.
‘I really want to help,’ she replied. ‘But you must understand, I am an officer of the High Court. Everything I do is confidential. I report to the judge. I will have to ask the judge first. I’m sure it won’t be a problem, but…’
Webb nodded.
‘I understand. But please ask the judge for permission as soon as you can. We will be questioning Mr Lang later this afternoon. It’s going to be a lot easier getting to the truth if we know what’s been going on.’
‘I’m trying to make sense of this,’ she said, as the officers were leaving. ‘You know, if Susan had done something like this, I think I might be less shocked. She has a temper, and the meeting did get pretty heated. But Henry… something must have gone really wrong, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming.’
‘You can’t blame yourself, Mrs Cameron,’ Webb commented. ‘This is not your f
ault in any way.’
‘No, I know. It’s not that. It’s just that I’m trying to explain it to myself, to make sense of it.’
‘You did say that Henry wanted custody of the children even more than Susan did,’ Raymond reminded her. ‘What was it that made you think that?’
She considered for some time.
‘Henry doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve,’ she replied, ‘and he never banged on and on about wanting the children in the way she did. But when he did say something, he seemed very intense. You could tell he meant it…’ She stopped. ‘I don’t want to say any more now. I am sure it will become clear to you once you question him.’
‘Are you going to be all right?’ Webb asked. ‘Do you have someone you can talk to?’
She smiled.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. She had opened the door, and was staring fixedly across the street. ‘Will they clean all that blood up this afternoon? It’s so horrible. I can’t bear having it there where I see it every time I open the door.’
Webb glanced at the three forensic officers who seemed intent on searching every last inch of the entrance to the mews for clues.
‘I’m sure they will do it as soon as they can,’ he replied.
4
On arriving back at the police station, Webb carefully repackaged the knife in a plastic evidence bag and assigned Raymond to make sure that it found its way to the forensic science laboratory without delay. He then made his way down to the cells. It was quiet. The previous night’s consignment of drunks, working girls, and assorted nuisances had long since been dispatched to the Magistrates’ Court to be dealt with, and the remands had not yet returned. He found the duty sergeant, PS Bert Miller, his feet up on his desk, with a cup of tea and a copy of the Daily Mirror. On seeing Webb, Miller threw the newspaper down on the desk beside him, and swung his feet down to the floor.
‘I was wondering when we might see you, Johnny,’ he smiled. ‘You’ve got a right one here, and no mistake.’
Miller and Webb had joined the force at about the same time, more than 20 years before, but their career paths had been very different. While Webb had scrambled for a job in CID as soon as he decently could and worked his way up through the ranks, Miller’s taste was for work in uniform, out of doors, away from the police station, dealing with the public.
His family had eventually persuaded him to apply for promotion to sergeant, which he had done reluctantly, and had regretted ever since they sewed the stripes on his uniform. As duty sergeant he spent far too much time on routine custody matters, which involved endless paperwork. He took every available opportunity to take part in any assignment away from the station, but sergeants were in short supply, and most of the outside jobs these days were entrusted to constables. In cases where a serious crime required a show of uniformed strength, a large drug bust for example, he always volunteered, but there was often some upstart graduate-entry inspector who wanted to prove to the world that he could handle the physical side of policing and pulled rank to take his place. Despite all this, Miller loved and respected the job. Even though he knew Webb well, he would have called him ‘sir’ or ‘guv’ if there had been another officer within earshot.
‘Still not talking, is he?’ Webb asked.
Miller snorted.
‘Not a word. But that’s the least of it.’
‘Oh?’
‘There’s some kind of medical problem. I’ve got Dr Moynihan with him now.’
Webb looked at Miller in surprise.
‘Medical problem? What medical problem? We didn’t notice anything when we arrested him. He was quite capable of stabbing his wife violently just a few minutes before that, so I don’t see what he would need a doctor for.’
Miller got to his feet and sipped his tea.
‘All I can tell you,’ he replied, ‘is that I was checking on him every 15 minutes after I put him in the cell. Once the escorting officers told me the circumstances, I took it upon myself to put him on a suicide watch.’
Webb made a face.
‘Come on, Johnny, don’t look at me like that. You’ve known me long enough. I don’t like taking chances, you know that – not when it’s my responsibility. I don’t want some poor sod offing himself on my watch, even if he has just killed his wife. Anyway, as I say, I’m checking on him regularly, and the third time I go in, he’s sitting there on the floor of his cell, shaking. And I don’t mean shivering. I mean shaking, uncontrollably. I go in and ask him if he is all right. No reply. So I approach him and take his arm, and…’
Miller stopped and shook his head.
‘I’ve never felt anything like it. He was freezing, Johnny, absolutely bloody freezing. Talk about Scott of the Antarctic. You could have frozen water on his arms. That was why he couldn’t control the shaking. He was just too bloody cold. And you know what it’s like down here. It can be a bit on the warm side in the cells, even in winter. There would be no reason for him to be cold, much less shaking himself to death like that.’
Miller breathed out heavily and leaned back against his desk.
‘So I grabbed all the blankets I could find and wrapped them around him, and then I made him some very hot sweet tea; lots of sugar. That seemed to help. He calmed down a bit, but he was still far too bloody cold. At which point I thought, I can’t take chances with this. This bloke could be seriously ill. I need to know what I’m dealing with. You couldn’t have interviewed him in that condition, anyway. So I called Dr Moynihan, and we will see what he has to say.’
Webb nodded.
‘All right, fair enough, Bert. How long do you think Dr Moynihan will be with him?’
Miller shrugged.
‘Your guess is as good as mine. He’s been in there for a good half-hour already. Why don’t you take yourself off to the canteen and have a cuppa? I’ll let you know as soon as there is anything to report. The only thing is – I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr Moynihan wants him taken in to Guy’s or Barts for the night, for tests or observation. You know how careful he is.’
‘All right, Bert, thanks,’ Webb said.
He turned to leave, but then swung back abruptly.
‘And he really hasn’t said anything at all?’
‘Not to me. Not a dicky bird. If it hadn’t been for the documents he had with him, I would have had to book him in as “identity unknown”. Don’t we know anything else about him?’
‘Not yet. I have a feeling we will get some more from our eye witness, the welfare officer, eventually. But she can’t tell me any more without getting permission from the High Court. It’s all confidential, isn’t it?’
Miller smiled. ‘Typical.’
‘Yes, well, we’ll get there,’ Webb reflected. ‘But I’m going to be a lot happier once he starts talking.’
5
Webb returned to his office. Susan Lang’s handbag had been deposited in the centre of his desk. It was a large bag, filled to bursting with odds and ends – cosmetics, tissues, and packets of Polo mints. There were also two sets of keys, which looked like house keys and car keys. The car keys were on a Morris Minor key ring. There was a slim black address book. And, buried deep at the bottom of the bag, Webb found a packet of Durex condoms and a small plastic bag containing a white powder. He held the bag in his hands for some time, before opening it slightly, inserting a finger, and tasting with the slightest touch of his tongue. He nodded. Well, of course: what else could it have been? Picking up his phone, he summoned DC Simon Rice. When Rice arrived, Webb instructed him to prepare an inventory of the handbag’s contents, placing each item in its own evidence bag with an identifying label attached.
‘Then get this powder over to the lab as soon as you can,’ Webb continued. ‘I’m going to hold on to the address book and the keys for now. I will sign them in when I have finished with them.’
‘Very good, sir,’ Rice replied. He
seated himself in front of Webb’s desk, and began work on his list of exhibits.
DS Raymond came in just as Rice was finishing the last label. He inspected the items carefully.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ he asked. ‘In the bag?’
‘Yes,’ Webb replied.
‘Brilliant.’
‘I know. What have you got?’
‘The knife’s on its way to the lab, sir. There was a green Morris Minor parked just around the corner from the scene,’ Raymond said, pointing at the car keys, ‘in Orde Hall Street, I think it’s called. It could be hers.’
Webb nodded. He turned to DC Rice.
‘Simon, keep the car keys, and when you’ve dropped everything else off in the evidence room, take a walk and see if you can open a Morris Minor anywhere within a radius of a couple of hundred yards of Harpur Mews, using these keys. You might as well start with the green one in Orde Hall Street. If it’s still there, I’d be very surprised if it’s a coincidence.’
‘Right you are, sir.’
‘If there is a car you can open, don’t interfere with it. Stay out. Call Forensic to look at it, and don’t leave the car until they get there.’
Rice nodded, gathered up the evidence, and left.
‘I’ve made inquiries about next of kin,’ Raymond said. ‘I’ve asked the High Court to release any names and addresses in the divorce court’s files. We should know something soon. I phoned Mercury Mechanics and talked to a lad called Ernie, who confirmed that Henry Lang is the governor. Apparently they do very high-end repairs and maintenance, Bentleys, Jaguars, foreign sports cars, that kind of thing. I’ve arranged to go over there and take a look around later. We may have to wait to get entry to his house until we can contact the next of kin.’
‘Any news about the children?’
‘Yes, sir. Mrs Cameron was right – they’re with her parents.’
‘Good,’ Webb said. ‘Has anyone told you what’s been going on here?’
‘Yes, sir. I went down to the cells in case you were there. Bert told me all about it. What’s going on?’