by Mike Crowson
Chapter 2: Monday 13th August (pm)
Monday morning began with what Detective Inspector Hampshire had thought might be a long and boring meeting of senior staff. It tuned out not to be as bad as she had feared - not quite, but nearly.
The Divisional Commander had passed on the hierarchy's worries about a declining crime detection rate. The Home Secretary was worried about public perceptions across the country, and the Commissioner of the West Yorkshire Police was worried about the figures for the County as a whole. Quite what good would be done by wasting the time of senior officers, when the real problem was recruitment, completely escaped Millicent, but it had provided enough material for a meeting long enough to make the pleasant weekend seem a distant memory.
By the time she returned to her desk on Monday afternoon, Millicent was faced with several new folders waiting her attention, and turned to her real interest of solving crimes with some relief. The first folder contained the beginnings of what she realised was probably going to be a very substantial investigation. It was the autopsy report of the man pulled from the canal on Sunday.
The man had not drowned - he was already dead when he entered the water. The blow on the skull, Doctor Millard thought, would probably have killed him, but that too was done after death. There was another blow to the front of his head which he had received while alive, but that wouldn't have killed him, though it might have knocked him unconscious. He also had extensive bruising and a crack, though not a fracture, to one thigh. Millard thought a minor traffic accident might have caused either or both of the injuries before death, or perhaps a fall. As to what had actually killed him there were no doubts. There was enough morphine and pure heroin in his blood to have killed two or three people. After consideration she picked up the phone and rang Doctor Millard.
"Afternoon Brian," she said. "Millicent here. I just got your report on the body from the canal."
"Strange one, that," Millard said. "Talk about overkill. Enough blood in his morphine stream to kill an army, hit over the head hard enough to kill him and then drowned."
"I thought you said he didn't drown."
"I was joking. He was quite definitely dead before he entered the water. I think, incidentally, he got the second blow on the head while he was lying down. That would be lying down dead, of course. The wound didn't bleed because he was already dead."
"Anything else you can tell me?"
"You mean that isn't enough?" Millard snorted with laughter. "Well, he died lying on his left side - lividity, the blood drained to that side. The morphine was injected and the knock out blow and bruising were on the right and right front. Actually, he'd several skin punctures in his arms. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was a regular addict, but it wasn't a single injection. I know the morphine was injected, because there was none in his stomach but lots in his blood."
"I see. Any thoughts on the time of death?"
"Sometime Saturday," Millard said. "Probably about the middle of the day. A bit too long dead to be precise about it, but if you looked at between eleven and three Saturday you’d probably be in the right area."
"What I really rang you up to ask was whether the fire would have disguised the death from morphine."
"Aha," Millard teased, "The detective brain at work." There was a short pause. "The answer is that it would depend on the severity of the fire, but probably. From what I hear of the fire in the warehouse, it was pretty fierce, so in this case it would have disguised the cause of death as completely as a cremation. Besides, I looked for evidence of drowning and only did a blood test when I was sure he didn't die from drowning or the cracked skull. If he'd died in the fire the cause of death would have seemed pretty obvious, so I might not have done all the tests, even assuming there was enough there to test."
"Thanks very much, Brian. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I think the morphine is the connection between the fire and the body."
"You may very well be right," the doctor agreed, "but in that case, what’s the connection between the canal and the body?"
"Good question," admitted Millicent.
"Now, what about the other body you dragged from the canal?"
"I hadn't got around to that one yet," Millicent said, opening the second folder and reading aloud. "Late teens or early twenties ... drowned ... consumed a lot of alcohol ..."
"Yes," Millard said, "He was drunk or close to it. Of course, he may have nothing at all to do with the other body of the fire but..." The doctor left the sentence in mid air.
"It would be a hell of a coincidence," Millicent agreed. "And I don't believe in coincidences."
That was not entirely true. Some things just happened at the same time by what Carl Jung had called synchronicity and Millicent knew that she had more than her share of what the world would call luck, but she found there was usually an explanation for events like this, and she preferred to find it. That was one of several strengths she had as a detective.
"You're a bit of a cynic," Millard said cheerfully, "But I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. Well, I wish you the joy of it."
Millicent said her goodbyes and rang off.
Before she called in several members of her department, Millicent glanced at the third new folder. This was a report from the Fire Investigation Branch of the fire brigade, to the effect that the fire had started suddenly and fiercely with some kind of incendiary agent or accelerant and that a body had been discovered in the ruins.
A third body. Millicent was still inclined to think that the three deaths were connected, though there was no evidence to that effect at this stage. She rang for her secretary to fetch her a coffee and sent for Sergeant Lucy Turner and Constables Tommy Hammond and Gary Goss. Sergeant Gibbs had the day off, but she would probably need him as well.
"This will probably be a big one," Millicent told her team as they gathered in her office. She went through the main points of Sunday’s events and the autopsy findings.
There was nothing on the body to identify the kid from the canal, but his prints were on file. "They identified him as Kevin Musworth," she said. "According to his record, he's a minor vandal and a thug known to this division. He was nineteen, but the record was light on convictions, other than a handbag snatching count."
"There's nothing connecting him with the fire, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't connected with it somehow," Millicent continued. "Tommy, start with the fire and the woman who reported it. See if she saw anything else. Get a statement from her. DC. Goss, you talk to the barge man who was there when the first body was found, then find out what Musworth was up to on Saturday night and who he was up to it with. Work in tandem with Tommy."
She paused a moment as she opened the other file.
"We don't have an identification of the man at all," she went on. "His prints aren't on record and there was no wallet or anything. Lucy, see if there's anything reported to missing persons. If there isn't we'll have to do a door to door and see if the face clicks, or perhaps enlist the help of the Witchmoor Argus." She glanced at the face, photographed in death the victim had been a handsome man in his early forties. Handsome, yes, but something else. Petulant or spoiled, perhaps?
Lucy pulled a face. "You'd think the killer would stick a label on him," she said. "What happened to his driving license?"
"No wallet, empty pockets," said Millicent shortly.
"I suppose," Tommy remarked, "that Musworth didn't have it?"
"Unfortunately not," Millicent said. "but that's an idea, though. Maybe Musworth had it and dropped it in the fire."
"It'll be fried then," said Lucy, and went out to talk to missing persons.
"Baked," Millicent said to Lucy's back. "Now get on with it," she told the other two.
In less than ten minutes Lucy was back. "I think I may have a name for your corpse," she said.
Millicent looked up. "Listed as missing?"
"I drew a blank with missing persons, but when I tried the front desk for recent reports, the desk
sergeant remembered a very insistent woman coming in late afternoon Sunday, towards the end of his shift. A Mrs. Shirley Hunter. She was trying to report her husband Simon Hunter missing. I've got you an address." She opened her notebook but Millicent interrupted.
"I think we'd better talk to this Mrs. Hunter," she said, rising from her desk, "And you can come with me."