A Cold Case

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘So who were those awful foster parents?’ Janet Thackery demanded.

  ‘Roberta won’t tell me, which is probably just as well.’ Mundy’s jaw set firm.

  ‘Why? Because you’ll visit them carrying a pickaxe handle?’ Janet Thackery spoke coldly.

  ‘That sort of thing.’ Mundy nodded slowly. ‘Although I was thinking more along the lines of a sawn-off shotgun. But she has been to my drum, and now and then she lets herself in using a set of keys I let her have and leaves a cooked meal in the oven for me to come home to.’

  ‘Nice.’ Janet Thackery smiled warmly. ‘That is nice of her. She must think a lot of you, Maurice.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mundy smiled. ‘We rub along very well as father and daughter, I can say that, but I do fret for her welfare. She does cause me a lot of worry.’

  Maurice Mundy took his leave of Janet Thackery with sincere thanks for a lovely meal and returned home. Upon reaching Archway he parked his car as close to his house as he could and walked the remainder of the journey under the street lamps. He turned into Lidyard Road and saw three male figures standing in the shadows outside his house. He approached with caution as they watched him walk towards them. One he recognized as the steely-eyed Christopher Spate. He did not recognize Spate’s companions.

  ‘Working late?’ Mundy commented dryly. ‘I like to see dedication in young detectives.’

  ‘So are you.’ Spate’s reply was cold, cynical and sarcastic. ‘So it looks like. Such dedication in an older officer is quite an inspiration.’

  ‘I’m not working.’ Mundy held eye contact with Spate. ‘I’ve just had dinner with a friend.’

  ‘How civilized,’ Spate sneered. ‘So you visited my old man?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mundy tried to sound relaxed.

  ‘How did you find him?’ Spate asked with an icy edge to his voice.

  ‘Seems he is quite unwell,’ Mundy replied calmly. ‘I don’t think he knew who I was. He seemed very confused.’

  ‘Yes …’ Christopher Spate hissed the word. ‘He is very confused so there’s not much profit to be had in taking your inquiry further, is there?’

  ‘None,’ Mundy replied. ‘None at all.’

  ‘Good.’ Spate smiled an insincere smile. ‘That is good … so long as we understand each other, Maurice. We’ll leave it like that.’ He turned and he and his two companions walked away, watched by Mundy until they were swallowed by the mist which by then was falling over London town.

  EIGHT

  ‘I just never made the grade, as simple as that.’ Geraldine Chisholm forced a smile. ‘It didn’t happen for me. I got married instead, had three children and returned to work later in life. All those earth-stopping journalistic exposés I was going to write … hey ho … pie in the sky …’

  ‘But you seem fulfilled,’ Maurice Mundy observed. ‘You seem to be a very contented person, if you don’t mind me saying.’ He replaced his ID card in his wallet.

  ‘Not at all, of course I don’t mind you saying that, and yes, I am fulfilled. I have a good marriage to a lovely man. I have three lovely children … all grown up now and all entered into the professions, and I have two grandchildren with more promised. So yes, on an emotional level I am fulfilled as you say, but I completed my journalism degree so I could write for the Sunday Times … and here I am … the Catford Chronicle and Advertiser. I started out here and returned here to end my working days.’ Geraldine Chisholm was a large-boned, round-faced woman with big brown eyes. Her office on Brownhill Road in Catford was small and cluttered. Outside her office, Mundy heard the clatter and footfalls of a busy newspaper office. ‘So how can I help the Metropolitan Police?’

  ‘Tom Greenall.’ Maurice Mundy enjoyed the musty smell of the premises of the Catford Chronicle and Advertiser.

  ‘Tom Greenall?’ Geraldine Chisholm inclined her head to one side. ‘Tom Greenall … Tom Greenall. That name rings half a bell.’ She spoke with a distinct south London accent.

  ‘Joshua Derbyshire,’ Mundy prompted. ‘The murder of Anne Tweedale.’

  ‘Oh … of course.’ Geraldine Chisholm’s face brightened up. ‘I didn’t get anywhere with that … that was another pie in the sky.’

  ‘What was your interest in the case?’ Mundy asked.

  ‘A multiplicity of interests … not all altruistic, I confess.’ Geraldine Chisholm sighed. ‘I was out for what I could get as much as anything – I’m prepared to admit to that.’

  ‘Meaning …?’ Mundy frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ Geraldine Chisholm paused, ‘I was convinced of Joshua Derbyshire’s innocence. I wanted to expose an unsafe conviction but I had intended to write a book about it, make some money for myself and also use the book to lever me into investigative journalism, to get a position as a crime reporter on a national newspaper. The case made quite a media splash and I began to look into the background of Joshua Derbyshire because initially I thought it was a safe conviction. I was looking for early signs of depravity, hoping to find a childhood friend who could tell me how Joshua Derbyshire used to torture small animals for fun … that sort of thing.’

  ‘And did you?’ Mundy asked.

  ‘No.’ Geraldine Chisholm shook her head vigorously. ‘In the event, all I found was a great sea of puzzlement … so many unanswered questions, things which didn’t add up and deliver. I did manage to get an interview with the lead detective on the case. What was his name? An icy character … he was one very cold fish.’

  ‘Spate,’ Mundy suggested.

  ‘Yes, that was it, Duncan Spate.’ Geraldine Chisholm paused. ‘I found him a frightening character. He seemed utterly convinced of Joshua Derbyshire’s guilt and was determined to prove it at all costs – closed-minded is just not the expression. It was like he was a police officer, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one. I found him to be a very threatening presence.’

  ‘I see,’ Mundy replied softly.

  ‘But by the time I interviewed Duncan Spate I was by then of the firm belief that Joshua had been wrongly convicted, because far from anyone telling me what a violent little boy he had been, how he used to torture cats and shoot birds with his air rifle, all I heard was what a big softy he had been with not the slightest indication of violence in him. He seemed to have been a boy who didn’t have any application at all. He was very lazy and perfunctory, allegedly … just not the sort of person who would murder someone by attacking them with a knife. That takes effort – determination, I would have thought. So I put my thoughts to Duncan Spate and he said, “He’s guilty, all right, he’s where he belongs,” and then he turned and walked away.’ Geraldine Chisholm looked down and to one side and paused.

  ‘You’re going to tell me something,’ Mundy suggested softly.

  ‘Yes … yes, I am.’ She paused. ‘Give me a moment, please. The very next evening, after talking to Duncan Spate, I was walking home and I was attacked. I was grabbed by a tall, strong man and pulled into an alley. I thought this is it … this is the rape I’ve been dreading … this is everything I have been living in fear of. I was pushed up against the wall and punched twice in the stomach, which winded me so I couldn’t scream. He knew what he was doing. The attacker then grabbed me by my hair, held my head against the wall and put his mouth up to my ear. He said … growled really. Holding my head in both of his paws, he growled, “Don’t shove your nose where it doesn’t belong … don’t ask questions, not if you want to live … understand, wench?” Then he banged my head against the wall a couple of times and walked away.’

  ‘Wench?’ Mundy repeated.

  ‘Yes.’ Geraldine Chisholm nodded. ‘That word … wench … becomes significant.’

  ‘I see … sorry.’ Mundy reclined in his chair in front of Geraldine Chisholm’s desk. ‘Please carry on.’

  ‘I didn’t recognize the man who attacked me,’ Geraldine Chisholm continued. ‘I didn’t know him but I found out later that he was a young thug called Billy Tipton.’

  Mundy pull
ed his notebook from his pocket. ‘I must make a note of that name … Billy Tipton.’

  ‘William Henry Tipton.’ Geraldine Chisholm spoke confidently. ‘If he’s still in this world he’ll be pushing his fiftieth birthday.’

  ‘You’re very positive about his identity,’ Mundy remarked.

  ‘I am utterly certain of it.’ Geraldine Chisholm maintained a cold, serious expression. ‘A week later, just a week after the attack, I was covering a sitting of Lewisham Magistrates Court for this newspaper. Lewisham Magistrates Court hears cases of crimes committed in this neck of the woods, you see. Anyone arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the street out there will appear in front of the Lewisham bench, as you probably know, being a police officer …’

  ‘Yes.’ Mundy nodded. ‘I do know that.’

  ‘Well, who should come up before the Lewisham beaks but a large, well-built thug called William Henry Tipton, who gave his age as being eighteen, and who spoke in the same distinct accent as the man who attacked me. He pleaded not guilty to the assault of a woman and said in his defence, “The wench slapped me so I slapped her back” … distinctly using the word “wench”.’

  ‘I see.’ Mundy nodded slowly.

  ‘I was sitting a few feet from where he was standing and I knew, just knew, it was the same man who had attacked me,’ Geraldine Chisholm explained. ‘The case unfolded and it turns out the woman slapped his face because he made a lewd suggestion and in retaliation he put her in hospital. He collected three months in prison. His victim was in hospital for longer.’

  ‘That has happened before.’ Mundy sighed. ‘All too often, in fact.’

  ‘Yes, but that very unpleasant and very distinct West Midlands accent … his size … his use of the word “wench”. I made some enquiries and I found out that the use of the word “wench” is widespread in the Black Country,’ Geraldine Chisholm explained, ‘the area to the north-west of Birmingham centred on the town of Dudley and containing towns like Coseley and Oldbury … and would you know that Tipton is a common local name, also being the name of another small town up there. So that is … that was the man who attacked me and who warned me not to ask questions.’

  ‘He was referring to Joshua Derbyshire?’ Mundy clarified.

  ‘Had to be,’ Geraldine Chisholm replied. ‘He was the only person I was asking questions about.’

  ‘Did you report the attack?’ Mundy asked.

  Geraldine Chisholm shook her head. ‘No. There were no witnesses … I was frightened … I wanted to live. Anyway, at his trial the bench found the case proved and before he was sentenced, the bench asked if “anything was known”, meaning has he any previous convictions.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mundy groaned, ‘I know that.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Geraldine Chisholm forced a smile, ‘of course you’d know that. Anyway, the prosecuting police officer then read out a long list of previous convictions. As I recall it was all petty stuff really but it meant that Tipton was well known to the police. It seemed like he was in the hands of a bent copper. That’s what I thought at the time. You do a little job for me and I’ll make this or that investigation go away. He couldn’t make the investigation into the assault on that wretched “wench” go away because he did her too much damage and he did so in front of a pub full of witnesses, including her two sisters, but I’m certain in myself that something unpleasant went away in return for him putting the frighteners on me.’

  ‘It seems very likely.’ Mundy breathed in and exhaled. ‘It seems very, very likely.’

  ‘So what did happen to Joshua Derbyshire?’ Geraldine Chisholm asked.

  ‘He’s still in prison,’ Mundy replied calmly.

  ‘Still!’ Geraldine Chisholm gasped. ‘I assumed he would have been released on parole. It’s been so long … thirty years. It must be thirty years now.’

  ‘No parole.’ Mundy remained calm. ‘No, he’s still inside, still doing bird. The judge set a thirty-year tariff and Joshua Derbyshire refuses to admit his guilt.’

  ‘So something has happened to make the police reopen the case?’ Geraldine Chisholm asked.

  ‘No, nothing has happened. I am a police officer but this is more of a personal crusade for me,’ Mundy explained.

  ‘I see.’ Geraldine Chisholm leaned forward. ‘So what do you think happened? Why would Duncan Spate want to frighten me off?’

  ‘Because …’ Mundy opened his palm. ‘Because …’

  ‘Joshua didn’t kill her,’ Geraldine Chisholm suggested, ‘because Joshua didn’t kill anyone?’

  ‘Is my thinking,’ Mundy replied.

  ‘Can you prove it?’ Geraldine Chisholm’s interest was manifest.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mundy replied. ‘But I can already provide sufficient cause for a retrial.’

  ‘Oh.’ Geraldine Chisholm beamed at Mundy. ‘How can you do that?’

  ‘It has turned out that Duncan Spate was the brother-in-law of Anne Tweedale … Josh’s victim.’

  Geraldine Chisholm gasped. ‘He shouldn’t have been involved at all.’

  ‘Nope,’ Mundy replied in a soft voice. ‘There was also considerable ill will between the two sisters, Mrs Spate and Miss Tweedale. All their father’s estate went to Anne Tweedale and nothing to Phyllis Spate née Tweedale. Upon Anne Tweedale’s death her will vanished and she was deemed to have died intestate. Her entire estate eventually passed to her sister, Mrs Spate.’

  ‘Did nobody pick that up at the time?’ Geraldine Chisholm looked shocked.

  ‘No, apparently not,’ Mundy advised. ‘The intestacy procedure takes about two years, by which time the dust had settled on the murder and on the trial. Nobody who was involved in the intestacy hearing noticed that Miss Tweedale’s sister had the same surname as the man who led the investigation into her murder.’

  ‘That stinks,’ Geraldine Chisholm remarked coldly. ‘It smells like Billingsgate Fish Market at the end of a long summer’s day.’

  ‘I know.’ Mundy smiled. ‘I know. You might get a book out of this after all.’

  ‘How can I help?’ Geraldine Chisholm asked eagerly. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘By noting our conversation,’ Mundy requested. ‘I have already written a report detailing my concerns to Mr Greenall, should anything happen to me.’

  ‘Why? Have you been threatened?’ Geraldine Chisholm looked genuinely concerned.

  ‘Yes,’ Mundy replied, ‘I have.’

  ‘By whom?’ Geraldine Chisholm queried.

  ‘Duncan Spate’s son, Christopher,’ Mundy replied flatly, ‘who is now also a police officer.’

  ‘It gets worse,’ Geraldine Chisholm put her hands on her head. ‘It just gets worse.’ She laid her hands on her desktop. ‘So where is Duncan Spate now?’

  ‘He’s living in a house in Wimbledon,’ Mundy told her, ‘which he could not have possibly afforded on his police officer’s salary, and he’s pretending to be suffering from senile dementia.’

  ‘Pretending?’ Geraldine Chisholm queried.

  ‘Well, when I called on him it seemed that he didn’t know who I was and couldn’t understand what I was saying, yet just a few hours earlier he had given me a precise time to call on him and, when I was there, he stopped his two dogs from barking at me,’ Mundy explained. ‘He also asked if Tweedale was a place in Yorkshire.’

  ‘That is not the action of a man with dementia,’ Geraldine Chisholm observed. ‘My dad’s got dementia. Believe me, I know dementia and that is not a man with dementia.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’ Mundy smiled.

  ‘So what do you think happened?’ Geraldine Chisholm asked.

  ‘I think Duncan Spate arranged for someone to murder Miss Anne Tweedale, and that he planted, or arranged to have planted, evidence that would implicate a local misfit and have him convicted of the murder so that his wife could claim Anne Tweedale’s entire estate.’ Mundy spoke again in a flat, matter-of-fact manner. ‘Helped by the fact that Anne Tweedale kept her will in her house and did
not lodge it with her solicitior.’

  ‘How can you prove that?’ Geraldine Chisholm asked.

  ‘I don’t know … but I will trace William Tipton. I can do that quite easily,’ Mundy replied. ‘Whether he’ll talk to me is another matter. That will remain to be seen … and that is if he is still with us. A lot can happen in twenty-eight years.’

  Maurice Mundy returned to New Scotland Yard, presenting, to an observer, as a shabby-looking man in an ill-fitting raincoat and an old, seen-better-days fedora. He took the lift up to the fifth floor and walked along the corridor to the small room which had been allocated to the officers of the Cold Case Review Team. He found Tom Ingram sitting in a chair with his feet on his desk, uncurling a paperclip. ‘Overslept?’ Ingram growled.

  ‘Sorry …’ Mundy peeled off his coat and hung it on the coat stand. He took his hat off and hung it on the peg above his coat.

  ‘The young master has been enquiring as to your whereabouts.’ Ingram tossed the paperclip into the metal waste bin which stood on the floor beside his chair. It clattered softly against the inside of the bin and came to rest silently on a layer of screwed-up paper.

  ‘Pickering,’ Mundy clarified, ‘that particular young master?’

  ‘The one and the same,’ Ingram replied sourly. ‘I stuck my neck out for you, said that I’d seen you, that you were in the building somewhere. Fortunately for you he’s trapped in a case conference until … whenever.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom.’ Mundy sank into the chair behind his desk.

  ‘Anyway, we’re on our way.’ Tom Ingram stood up.

  ‘We are?’ Mundy asked.

  ‘Yes. Kenneth Cassey has asked us to visit. He’s promised us a statement.’ Ingram smiled broadly. ‘A written statement, no less. So he says.’ Ingram reached for his coat. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Great … just give me a couple of minutes.’ Mundy also stood up.