Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3)

by Sean Campbell

  ‘Why the bleeding hell is Ike’s name in the jacket then?’ Morton asked.

  ‘It was his old partner, an old timer who ran the tailor’s before him. He’s based over on Savile Row.’

  ‘Pricey then?’

  ‘A few thousand I’d say. For a whole suit with the trousers of course.’

  ‘Reckon we can get DNA off that?’ Ayala asked.

  ‘Doubt it,’ a voice said from behind Morton. He turned to the Chief Scene of Crime Officer, a chubby man called Stuart Purcell. ‘I’ve got ten men collecting samples for trace, but it’s going to take a week just to bag, tag and log it all.’

  ‘Fine, but make sure that sample is near the top of the pile. I want to know who is rich enough to leave that lying around.’

  ‘Is it really a big deal? It’s a nice jacket, but compared to this house it’s small change,’ Purcell said. ‘People leave coats behind all the time.’

  ‘They do, but you’d come back for something hand tailored, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Fine. But you owe me, David. And not for the first time.’

  ‘Add a beer to my tab,’ Morton said. ‘Which way is the body?’

  ‘Out back with the coroner. Through that door at the back on the right.’ Purcell waved an arm to indicate a white uPVC door at the rear that hadn’t been visible from the main hallway. It seemed incongruous with the rest of the house. All the others doors were wooden, complementing the period features of the house, but the uPVC door had been put in much more recently.

  Morton grabbed Ayala’s arm, and steered him towards the door. ‘Come on then. You get to meet a real life celebrity. I doubt she’ll be too talkative, but I’m sure you’ll jabber on enough for the pair of you.’

  The door that Stuart indicated led through to a narrow hallway. A wooden bench ran down the middle of the room while a series of cubicle doors lined either side. Morton nudged the nearest door open with his foot to reveal a bench with private shower and a small shelf full of toiletries. Morton could hear Ayala exploring the next cubicle along.

  ‘Nice changing rooms,’ Ayala called out. ‘Ellis DeLange must be a fan of entertaining. You reckon anyone would miss a few of these?’ Ayala held up a few miniature bottles of toiletries.

  ‘Detective Ayala, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. This isn’t a hotel.’

  At the far end of the hallway a door was propped open with a kitbag that Morton recognised as belonging to the coroner. Through the doorway, Morton could see a swimming pool with sunshine bouncing almost mockingly off the water’s surface as light shone through a windowed roof and danced off an array of tiny gemstones embedded in the pool floor.

  As Morton entered, the heat and humidity of the room hit him, together with the sharp smell of chlorine mixed with a lingering fetid sweetness.

  Doctor Larry Chiswick hunched low over the edge of the swimming pool. His shaggy grey mane, tied up by an elastic band, had been gathered into a shaggy ponytail that ran down his back.

  At the pool’s edge nearest the coroner, the body of Ellis DeLange floated face down, gently bobbing under the current from the pool’s filtration system.

  Morton crouched next to the coroner, and looked at the body. Ellis DeLange was a petite woman, with a frame to match. Morton guessed that she couldn’t have weighed more than eight stone. Long blonde hair covered most of her upper back, with a tiny pink string bikini, which left little to the imagination, visible underneath.

  ‘The curtains don’t match the drapes. She’s a brunette really,’ Ayala said from behind Morton.

  ‘Read that in one of your gossip mags?’

  Ayala pouted. ‘No – look at her roots.’

  Morton followed his gaze. Ellis’ roots were dark brown. The coroner used a gloved hand to sweep aside the sodden locks, which had splayed out to cover most of Ellis’ back, to give Morton an unobstructed view of a striking tattoo which covered her back and sides with a floral motif. In life she had once been a beautiful woman, but her skin was inelastic and had begun to slip underneath the tattoo, giving it a somewhat distorted appearance.

  Morton glanced sideways at the coroner. ‘Can we get her out of the pool?’

  Doctor Chiswick nodded, and few minutes later Ellis’ corpse was staring up at the ceiling from a plastic sheet, giving Morton the chance to look at her face.

  She had the beginnings of crow’s feet, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her skin was pulled taut across high cheekbones, contrasting sharply with the sagging skin of her back. A waxy film had begun to form on the skin, which turned her a pale shade of green.

  ‘Adipocere,’ Chiswick said.

  Thick purple veins criss-crossed her arms and legs like train tracks.

  ‘Drugs related?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Probably, but toxicology will confirm.’ The doctor referred to the standard array of toxicological tests performed in suspicious death cases.

  ‘How’d she die, Doc? Did she drown?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I wish things were that straightforward. I can’t see any petechia in her eyes or any foam in her airways. But she appears to have suffered blunt force trauma to the back of her head. Feel under her hair at the back of her skull,’ Chiswick said. He held out a box of gloves to Morton. ‘That could well be our cause of death.’

  Morton grimaced and waved away the proffered gloves. ‘I’ll take your word for it, thanks.’

  He stood, and stretched his arms.

  ‘Suit yourself. She’s got some sort of abrasion there,’ Chiswick said. ‘There are some post-mortem scrapes where she’s bashed against the tiled sides of the pool while floating, but that’s it.’

  ‘Definitely foul play then. What was she hit with?’ Morton stood, then twirled slowly on the spot, looking for anything that could have been used to bludgeon someone to death.

  The doctor stood up, and looked Morton in the eye. ‘I can’t definitively rule out accidental death at this stage. She hasn’t bled out much so she can’t have been struck with anything particularly sharp. We’re looking for something large and heavy with a smooth edge. It’s got to be heavy enough to cause internal bleeding, but not so heavy that it would have broken the skull. That means something with a large surface area.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Something smaller would have concentrated the force of the swing into a small area of contact between the weapon and Ellis’ skull, causing it to break. Her skull isn’t that badly damaged. We’re looking for something large enough to have diffused the force across the skull. Her brain got the brunt of it, but the blow didn’t crack her skull open.’

  ‘Could she have slipped and hit her head on the edge of the pool?’

  ‘I doubt it. The impact would have been much more concentrated by the hard angle on the edge of the tiles, and that isn’t the case here.’

  Morton nodded. He’d worked with Chiswick long enough to trust the coroner. ‘How long has she been dead then?’

  ‘Ballpark, a week or so but I can’t be sure. The water temp is twenty-three Celsius–’

  ‘Room temperature,’ Morton said sharply.

  ‘Yep. Body’s the same. Body temp while alive is about thirty-eight give or take, and the old rule of thumb is about one degree an hour, so it would have taken fifteen hours for her to hit room temperature. That’s our bare minimum estimate.’

  ‘Putting time of death yesterday at the latest?’

  Chiswick crouched back down and pointed at a greenish patch of skin tinged with what looked to Morton’s untrained eye like bruising.

  ‘Normally adipocerous tissue would mean she’s been dead for a fortnight or more, but the atmosphere in here has messed up the forensic window. It’s so hot and humid that the skin became adipocerous faster than a buried body would have. I can’t accurately say how much quicker, though.’

  ‘Humidity in here is insane. Who in their right mind has an indoor pool?’ Ayala interrupted.

  ‘Someone with more money than sense,” Morton repl
ied.

  ‘That’s all I’ve got for you right now. With your leave, I’ll get her back to the morgue, and let you and the forensics boys do your jobs.’

  ‘That’d be great. Thanks, Larry. Where is she in the queue?’ Morton referred to the autopsy priority queue.

  ‘You’re in luck. I’ve got no other suspicious deaths on my list. I’ll bump her up to the top, and get to work this afternoon. Come by around five?’

  ‘See you then.’

  Chapter 2: The Old Coach House

  Edgecombe Lodge had two unique buildings as its neighbours. To the east sat The Stables, while The Old Coach House could be found to the west. The three had once been one property when Richmond had been less crowded, with only a field where Edgecombe Lodge now stood. Back then The Stables had been an outbuilding for The Old Coach House, one of many of London’s lost coach houses.

  Once they became detached homes in their own right, they shared little in common beyond a security fence which ring-fenced the three from each other and from the rest of the block.

  The Stables had begun life as the most humble building, but little remained of the original structure as glass-clad extensions had been added on all sides to maximise space. A thick row of overgrown leylandii, nearly twenty feet tall and almost as dense, separated The Stables from Edgecombe Lodge, so Morton turned his attention to The Old Coach House, which had no such encumbrance.

  When Morton pressed the security buzzer at the gate outside The Old Coach House, a camera perched on top of the gate swivelled towards him and a tiny red light blinked rapidly as the camera turned on.

  ‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice emanated from a speaker.

  ‘Good morning. Detective Chief Inspector Morton. Could I speak to the homeowner please?’

  ‘Wait.’

  It was clear that the voice’s owner wasn’t English. A second voice, a man’s this time, came over the speaker, but it was muffled. Morton thought he heard the pair arguing. Then a few choice words, definitely not English, became audible as the man grew angrier.

  ‘Nyet, ni nada.’

  ‘Sir? Sir! We can hear you. Can we have a few moments of your time please?’

  The intercom crackled, and the man spoke directly to Morton in a gruff tone: ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about your neighbour, Miss Ellis DeLange.’

  ‘What she now do?’

  ‘She’s dead. May we come in?’

  ‘Do you have warrant?’

  Morton tilted his head slightly, considered appealing to the man’s better nature, then decided to try bluffing. ‘We can come back with one.’

  The intercom clicked off, and Ayala turned away thinking Morton’s bluff had backfired, and then the gate began to retract with a loud clank. The motor whirred to a stop, then started up again moments after Morton and Ayala darted inside. They were met at the door by an elderly Hispanic woman who looked furtively up and down the street as if worried she might be seen talking to the police before beckoning them to come inside. The woman led them through to a grandiose sitting room with high ceilings and thick oak beams laid bare. She pointed to an L-shaped sofa, then disappeared back through the doorway.

  The Old Coach House’s sitting room contrasted sharply with Edgecombe Lodge. There were few personal possessions, and those that could be seen were displayed neatly on shelves either side of the chimney. Even the logs in the fireplace were meticulously stacked. The home had an old-world feeling. It was cosy and warm, like a well-worn jacket.

  Morton ignored the sofa, and moved towards the shelves. In between knickknacks there were a number of photographs. Each one showed the same man, who Morton presumed was the homeowner: a tall, Caucasian man around Morton’s age but still in good shape. All of the photos showed him in action poses. One had him knee deep in a river fly fishing. In another, he posed in a military uniform with blue piping which Morton didn’t immediately recognise. The shoulder boards were marked with the letters ‘GB’ but it wasn’t a British uniform.

  As Morton tried to work out which army the uniform represented, the voice from the intercom boomed out behind him.

  ‘Ah. You like the photo of my uniform, yes?’

  Morton turned to see the man from the photograph with a twinkle in his eye, dressed in a wide pinstripe suit, and wearing much too much cologne. ‘It’s very... imperial. Is it–?’

  ‘–Russian? Yes. Now, you talk. I have’ – the man glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece – ‘ten minutes, so hurry.’

  ‘I’ll cut right to it then, Mr...?’

  ‘Vladivoben.’

  ‘Mr Vladivoben, how well do you know Miss DeLange?’

  ‘I see her in the street sometimes but our conversation has never been more than that.’

  ‘So you know nothing of her lifestyle?’

  At that moment, Vladivoben was saved from having to answer by his maid’s reappearance. She carried a tray laid with an old-fashioned bone china teapot and a plate laden down with biscuits, which she unwisely set down upon the coffee table right in front of Ayala. She poured three cups of tea, then shuffled towards the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Morton saw her loitering to listen to the conversation, though she busied herself dusting a bookcase.

  While Ayala helped himself to the biscuits, Morton pressed on with the interview. ‘Where were we? Miss DeLange. I assume you know of her fame.’

  ‘Her infamy, yes. My daughter has a number of her prints. But her lifestyle is her own. Around here, we live and let live. People here value privacy.’

  ‘Have you ever had cause to argue with Miss DeLange?’

  Vladivoben’s nostrils flared. He drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. ‘You dare to come into my home and imply I had something to do with her death? I find your insinuations insulting, Mr Morton. I bid you good day. Maria will show you out.’ And with that, he swept from the room without another word.

  ‘Well, that was sudden,’ Ayala said. ‘What spooked him?’

  Morton was saved from answering by the maid shuffling in. She stared at the floor as she entered, being careful to avoid eye contact. She was about to lead them back out when Morton tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘It’s Maria, isn’t it?’ Morton asked in his gentlest tone.

  ‘Si. I mean, yes, sir.’

  ‘Maria, did you know Miss DeLange?’

  She shook her head slowly, a quizzical expression appearing briefly on her weathered face.

  Acting on a hunch, Morton tried again. ‘But there is something you know, isn’t there? Did you hear or see something?’

  ‘I am... not sure. The lighting. It was not so good.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘El Sábado,’ Maria said.

  ‘Saturday,’ Ayala translated, though he needn’t have bothered.

  ‘And what did you see?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Out of my window, up in the attic. I hear noises. Someone is knocking dustbins. I look out. And I see a naked man climbing over the fence at the bottom of Miss Ellis’ garden.’

  ‘A naked man! Did you see who it was?’

  ‘No sir. All I know. Is a man, sir.’

  ‘Was he tall, short, black, white?’

  Maria blushed furiously, but shook her head. ‘I no know, sir. It too dark and I only see from behind.’

  ‘Did he have any memorable features?’

  The maid bit her lip, cast her gaze downwards at the floor and mumbled something.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that, Maria.’

  ‘He was... a small man.’

  ‘How short?’

  ‘No. Not short. Small.’

  Morton furrowed his brows. Maria saw his confusion and pointed between her legs.

  Ayala smirked. ‘¿Lo pequeño?’ he asked.

  Maria held her thumb and forefinger aloft approximately half an inch apart.

  This time, it was Morton’s turn to bite his lip to stop himself laughing. He just about k
ept a straight face as he said: ‘And how did you see this?’

  ‘Que?’

  ‘If he had his back to you, how did you see his... size?’

  ‘He like this at top of fence,’ Maria replied. She mimed putting one leg over a fence. ‘I see everything.’ Maria shuddered, as if she’d rather forget.

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Maria. You’d best see us out.’

  Ayala leapt from his seat on the sofa, snatched up a handful of the biscuits for the road, and followed Morton out.

  Safely back outside, Ayala burst out laughing. ‘What in God’s name was that all about?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’

  Chapter 3: Too Much Information

  With several hours to go before the autopsy would be complete, and uniformed officers dispatched to carry out a general canvass, Morton decided to explore the rest of Edgecombe Lodge while Ayala dealt with the chain-of-custody paperwork.

  There was one bedroom on the ground floor, a double right off the main hallway. From the lack of personal items, Morton assumed it was reserved for guests. A bay window opened out onto the front driveway, but the curtains were still drawn when Morton entered.

  The bed was unmade and a half empty bottle of triple distilled vodka lay on its side atop the bedside cabinet. Plastic markers had been placed by forensics techs to mark where evidence had been collected, making it look like a confetti of rainbow-coloured plastic had been thrown in the air. Each disc was numbered with a colour corresponding to the type of evidence collected. So far, Morton had spotted discs up to the high three figures but it wouldn’t surprise him if Purcell’s team passed the one thousand mark by the time they were through processing the house.

  With four more bedrooms, five bathrooms and a converted attic yet to be searched, the Forensics Department would be busy for weeks.

  Most of the house was so messy that it was impossible to tell if anything was missing or out of place. A few shelves looked oddly empty, but whether that was from items gone missing or a lack of possessions, Morton couldn’t tell. Pizza boxes, which Morton recognised as belonging to a local Italian restaurant, Trattoria Da Mondo, seemed to be everywhere. It must have been Ellis’ favourite takeaway.