Malice in London

by Graham Thomas

  Powell dutifully smiled. “Besides that.”

  “Be precise, man!” Sir Reggie roared. “What sort of similarities?”

  “Brighton drowned and Morton bled to death as a result of a knife wound. That much is clear. I’m more interested in the fact that they were both struck on the head with unknown blunt objects prior to death.”

  “Ah, yes,” Sir Reggie snorted, “the convenient blunt object, the forensic equivalent of the proverbial black box!”

  Powell looked puzzled.

  “There is a deplorable absence of rigor in modern forensic practice despite all the ballyhoo you hear about DNA and other scientific marvels. If a villain farts at a crime scene, I expect it won’t be long before we’ll be able to test the air with some gadget that will identify the culprit ninety-nine times out of a hundred with an error of plus or minus three percent. But none of this wizardry is a substitute for experience and bloody hard work.”

  “I’m not sure I understand …”

  “Don’t get me wrong, the pathologists involved did decent jobs—I know both of ’em personally—they just didn’t take it to that next step. Of course, they don’t have the benefit of reviewing the other’s work, as I have,” he added charitably.

  Powell waited patiently for more. He had learned from hard experience that the best way to extract information from Sir Reggie was to appear disinterested. The Senior Home Office Pathologist had a reputation as a brilliant eccentric who had little patience with the intellectual deficiencies of lesser mortals. While his storied abilities seemed at times to have less to do with the scientific method than an uncanny sense of intuition, no one, in Powell’s experience, could read the entrails of forensic mysteries like Sir Reggie. And to his further credit, he bore his title humbly, almost with embarrassment, refusing to be called Sir Reginald by anyone he was on remotely civil terms with.

  “Taking the Brighton chap first,” he continued, “the appearance of the body at postmortem clearly points to drowning as the cause of death. The external signs—the foam cap around the mouth and nostrils and the piece of flotsam found locked in his right hand as a result of cadaveric spasm—were corroborated by the appearance of the lungs as well as the presence of water in the stomach.”

  Powell knew all this already, having read the postmortem report himself, but he was content to let Reggie warm to his subject.

  “The injury to the back of the head was relatively inconsequential in this case. The energy of the blow was just sufficient to produce a distinctive depressed fracture of the outer table of the skull, leaving the inner table intact. It probably contributed to the victim’s death only in as much as it likely rendered him temporarily unconscious, or at least stunned him, before he ended up in the river, thereby facilitating his eventual drowning.”

  “Getting back to the head wound—”

  “All in good time,” Sir Reggie said gruffly. “Now then, turning to the case of Clive Morton—a great loss, by the way,” he added parenthetically. “I respect a chap who refuses to be ripped off and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.”

  Powell wasn’t surprised.

  “Morton died of exsanguination as a result of an incised wound to the left side of the neck that severed the jugular vein. The angle of the cut is consistent with a right-handed assailant standing over the victim. Because we’re dealing with a cut rather than a stab wound, it is unfortunately not possible to ascertain much about the nature of the edged weapon that was used in the attack. There were no defensive wounds, so one can assume the victim was unconscious at the time the coup de grâce was administered.”

  “Lovely,” Powell remarked. “Then he stuffs an apple in poor old Clive’s cake-hole.”

  “Obviously a hard-core villain. Ha ha!”

  “Er, very good, Reggie, but if we might return to my original question. You’ve provided an excellent summary of how the two cases differ; I’m interested in finding out if there are any similarities.”

  Sir Reggie leaned back in his chair at a precarious angle and stared at the ceiling. “Context, Powell, I must have context if I am to devote any more mental energy to this problem.”

  Powell briefly summarized the case for a possible link between the two murders. “The fact they both were connected to the Dockside development is either one hell of a coincidence or else someone out there is dead set against the project going ahead,” he concluded wryly.

  Sir Reggie smiled grudgingly. “At first blush,” he said, “the attacks would seem to be quite different in character. Bludgeoning is most commonly associated with unpremeditated attacks—an assault carried out in the heat of passion with the first heavy object that comes to hand. A mugging gone wrong is another plausible scenario that is consistent with the particulars of the Brighton case. The victim is accosted by a mugger, attempts to flee, and is struck on the back of the head. The villain panics and disposes of the evidence in the Thames. Clive Morton’s murder, on the other hand, positively smacks of premeditation. It is true that the victim was struck on the back of the head in much the same manner as Brighton, except much harder. But it is the next step in the sequence of events that is suggestive. After knocking him unconscious, his assailant then takes the trouble to prop him up against a refuse bin before methodically slitting his throat—”

  “Methodically?”

  “One neat, deep cut as opposed to a number of clumsy attempts. Leaving aside the significant fact that he was found with his wallet still on him, which would seem to preclude robbery as a motive, there is the business of the apple to consider. It was obviously intended to make a point.”

  Powell frowned. “Yes, but what point?”

  “You’re the bloody detective,” Sir Reggie rejoined.

  “So you’re saying the two crimes have little in common—”

  “I didn’t say that. I said at first blush.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve carefully examined the photographs taken at postmortem and have made some measurements of the depressed fractures of the skull in each case. The indentations in both cases had three sides—that is, flat at the deepest point with the other two sides sloping outward. Based on the distinctive character and shape of the marks, I can only come to one conclusion …” He paused dramatically for effect. “Both injuries were inflicted by a heavy object, probably hexagonal in cross section, approximately an inch and a half in diameter. Although I can’t be absolutely certain, it is likely, indeed probable, that the same weapon was used in both attacks.”

  Powell’s mind whirled as the import of this revelation struck home. “What kind of weapon?” he asked mechanically.

  The pathologist shrugged. “It’s a bit of a poser.”

  CHAPTER 18

  It was going on four o’clock when Powell finished up at the lab, so he was able to persuade himself that there was little point in returning to the office. On the way back to Tony’s flat, he stopped at a pub in Berwick Street for a restorative. He spent the next hour smoking and mulling over the implications of Sir Reggie’s findings. If in fact Richard Brighton and Clive Morton were murdered by the same person, which now seemed likely, then one had to wonder who might be next. It was possible, of course, that the crimes had been committed by different individuals using similar weapons. But the somewhat unusual shape of the object described by Sir Reggie made this scenario unlikely. The possibility of separate random attacks by the same person seemed even more remote. One could only assume, therefore, that the killings had something to do with Dockside, the only thing the two men were known to have in common at this point. Which raised the chilling possibility that there could well be others on the murderer’s hit list. Paul Atherton, the developer, for one. Perhaps the first two murders had been intended to scare him off. Powell frowned at his empty glass.

  Then there was Charles Mansfield. Someone was evidently out to discredit him with the accusation that the he stood to benefit financially from Dockside. And with Brighton out of the picture, Mansfield had, by
default, assumed the mantle of head cheerleader for the project on Southwark Council.

  The question was, Who stood to gain the most from Dockside’s demise? Tess Morgan leapt immediately to mind. Evans had seemed favorably impressed by the woman, but there was no denying that she had a lot to lose if the project went ahead, as did the hundred or so other tenants she represented.

  After two pints and half a dozen cigarettes, Powell realized he was rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns, so he left the pub, stopping in the street market to purchase an eggplant. He was pleasantly surprised to bump into Sarah Evans, who was poring over the kiwis at a fruit stall. “This is a surprise,” he said.

  She smiled. “I often stop here on the way home from work. You can find some incredible bargains at this time of day.”

  Powell contemplated the bleak prospect of another evening alone. “Look, Evans, if you don’t have any plans, I mean if you’re not busy, why don’t you come back to my flat with me and I’ll make us dinner …” He trailed off awkwardly.

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Your flat?”

  Powell explained about Tony Osborne.

  “I see, a little home away from home, is that the idea, sir?”

  “Something like that.”

  When Evans had worked with Powell previously on the Yorkshire moors murder case, she had felt herself attracted to him, as she sensed he was to her. He was, however, married, not to mention the fact that he was her superior. And she had her career to think about. By unspoken agreement, they had identified the boundary in their relationship over which neither of them was willing to step. She had the impression that Powell compensated for this by affecting a certain formality in his manner toward her at work. Being competitive by nature, she felt that he was always testing her in the most aggravating fashion. Curiously enough, they were much more relaxed in their social relationship—an arrangement with which they both seemed comfortable.

  “Well, what do you say?” he was asking.

  She smiled. “Why not? As long as you’re doing a curry, that is.”

  Sarah Evans wandered around the flat with a glass of white wine as Powell got things ready in the kitchen. She emerged from the bedroom shaking her head in amazement. “Wow, black silk sheets!”

  Powell smiled sheepishly. “What can I say?”

  “Are you almost ready? I’m starving.”

  “Come over here and pay attention, Evans. I am going to show you how to prepare brinjal bharta. Right. I’ve already heated the oil in this pot. I’m adding a half teapoon of cumin seeds and a quarter teaspoon of black mustard seeds. Now I’ll put the lid on until the mustard seeds start to pop.”

  Evans listened intently to the seeds sizzling in the oil. After about thirty seconds, she began to hear a faint pinging sound like miniature popcorn explosions.

  “Now then,” Powell said briskly, uncovering the pot. “I’m going to fry one chopped onion and one tablespoon each of finely chopped garlic and ginger until they’re golden brown.” The ingredients hit the hot oil with a loud chum. “While I’m doing this, I’d like you take that eggplant on the counter there, remove the skin, then mash it up in a bowl.”

  Evans regarded the large eggplant doubtfully. The skin was blackened and wrinkled as if it had been scorched with a blow torch.

  “It’s supposed to look that way, Evans. I previously roasted it over a flame—you could do it under a grill or on a barbecue—to give it a sort of smoky flavor. Now get to work and be careful—it’s hot.”

  As she mashed away, Powell added two chopped green chilies to the pot for heat, a coarsely chopped tomato, and a half teaspoon of turmeric powder. “If you’re too lazy to use the individual spices, this is the point you could add a good teaspoon of curry powder in place of the cumin, mustard, and turmeric. I’ll stir fry this for five or ten minutes until the oil separates from the mixture and floats to the surface. Then I’ll add the mashed eggplant, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and salt to taste, then cover and simmer for about fifteen minutes.”

  Evans, who rarely had time to cook for herself, shook her head in admiration. “I’ll never remember all this, you know.”

  Powell smiled. “Then you’ll just have to keep coming over until you do. Time for another glass of wine before dinner, I think.”

  A half hour later, Powell presented Evans with the fragrant vegetable curry, garnished with cilantro and served with basmati rice and the chapatis they had picked up on the way home at the Indian takeaway around the corner.

  After they had demolished the meal, Powell put the kettle on for the coffee press. “I get my beans from Starbucks,” he said, thinking about Jill Burroughs.

  Evans groaned contentedly. “You’ve missed your calling. You should quit the force and open a restaurant here in Soho, call it Powell’s Palace of Pappadams or something like that.”

  He looked at her. “You’re just after my job.”

  She laughed unselfconsciously. “Is it that obvious?”

  Powell grinned, then said casually, “I went to see Sir Reggie this afternoon. I asked him to take a look at the Brighton and Morton postmortem reports.”

  She perked up. “Oh, yes?”

  He told her about the pathologist’s conclusion.

  “It looks like we’re finally on to something,” she said, her eyes bright.

  “Thank you for that insight, Evans.”

  “I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone is determined to put a stop to Dockside and will stop at nothing to do it. If you want my opinion, I think he killed Richard Brighton in an act of desperation and then, when he realized he’d gotten away with it, he planned Clive Morton’s murder—”

  “You said he,” Powell pointed out.

  “Well, the way Morton was murdered—it’s not the sort of thing a woman would do.”

  “Tell that to Mr. and Mrs. Borden.”

  Evans frowned. “You think Tess Morgan had something to do with it, don’t you?”

  He poured their coffees. “We can’t rule anything out at this point. After all, we don’t know much about her. Perhaps she has a boyfriend who is fanatically devoted to the cause, or maybe one of the other people she represents is more desperate than she is. Don’t forget it was a man who called about Charles Mansfield. In any case, I think we need to look a little more closely at Ms. Morgan’s disgruntled band of council tenants before we draw any firm conclusions.” He took a sip of his coffee. “There is, of course, a more fundamental flaw in your reasoning.”

  She regarded him warily. “And what might that be?”

  “Why kill Morton? He had a relatively small interest in the project. And the same question could be asked about Brighton. Why not just get rid of Atherton, the developer, and be done with it?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  Powell paused thoughtfully. “I think we need to find out if Clive Morton and Richard Brighton had something else in common besides Dockside.”

  After walking Evans to the tube station in Tottenham Court Road, Powell wandered back through the heart of Soho, taking in the sights and sounds. The narrow, crowded streets, the smell of garlic, laughing people spilling out of restaurants on their way to the theater, faces crowded behind pub windows and kids sleeping rough in urine-stained doorways.

  He found himself in Rupert Street, amidst the gaudy pink and blue neon signs proclaiming GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, BOOKS VIDEOS MAGAZINES, and SCHOOLGIRL MODELS UPSTAIRS. A man in a camel-hair coat, who looked like a slightly sinister Phil Collins, stood with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette in his mouth at the entrance to a narrow alleyway. Behind him, partially hidden in a dimly lit doorway beneath a sign that said PEEP SHOW, Powell could see a blonde woman in a short skirt. He approached the man and smiled.

  The man looked him up and down. “Good evening, mate. What’s your fancy—videos or live entertainment?”

  CHAPTER 19

  The next morning in Powell’s office, Detective-Sergeant Black was reporting on his further inquir
ies into Clive Morton’s affairs. “It turns out that Morton did have a regular dining companion—just like you thought, sir—a model named Samantha Jones.”

  Evans shot Powell a withering glance.

  He coughed politely. “This is most interesting, Black. Please continue.”

  “Yes, sir. Miss Jones went to great lengths to make it clear there was nothing romantic going on between them. They were just casual acquaintances, as she put it.”

  “That’s consistent with what his housekeeper told me about Morton’s love life. Tell me, Black, Ms. Jones wouldn’t be the kind of model who advertises in call boxes, by any chance?”

  Black grinned self-consciously. “No, sir. She looks more like your high-fashion type. And quite ambitious, I’d say. I get the impression that she went out with Morton just so she could be seen in fancy restaurants with a celebrity of sorts.”

  “What a girl’s gotta do to get ahead,” Evans rejoined.

  Powell ignored her. “It sounds like a classic symbiotic relationship. Morton gave Ms. Jones the exposure she needed to further her career, and having a glamorous escort no doubt lent old Clive a certain cachet. You didn’t happen to ask her what she thought about her companion’s laddish lifestyle, did you?”

  “She knew about it all right. Said what he did on his own time was his business. But when I asked her about his drug use, she clammed right up. I was able to find out that they were out for dinner together the night he was murdered. She says that they parted company when they left the restaurant in Covent Garden and she has no idea where he went after that. She also claims she has no idea who might have done for him.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “No reason not to, sir.”

  Powell nodded. “Now it’s your turn, Evans.”

  She glared at him. “I was going to get started yesterday evening, sir, but I got detained.”

  He smiled brightly. “I’ll overlook it this time, provided you make up for it today. I’d like you to delve a bit more deeply into Tess Morgan and her resident’s association.”