Corpus

by Rory Clements

  There was a great deal of blood, caused by a massive wound to the skull, which had evidently been crushed by the sledgehammer and by deep cuts to the body caused by forceful slashes with the sickle. But this was no frenzied attack. This had been carefully devised. A single blow to the head would have been enough to render him insensible, leaving him helpless against the vile butchery of the blade.

  Wilde tried to push Lydia back away from the gruesome sight, but she was having none of it. She took the fading torch from Wilde and knelt down at the side of the dead man, removed the deadly implements from his torso, and put her hand on his chest and throat. Blood was still oozing from the wounds and the body had lost none of its heat, but the injuries were far too great for anyone to survive.

  ‘This has just happened, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘The last few minutes. The killer could still be here.’

  Lydia held the feeble beam of the torch to the dead face and in the dim light they looked down at the mutilated features.

  In his late forties, Carr should have been at the height of his powers. He had fought and survived the most terrible war mankind had ever known, had won the Victoria Cross for single-handedly taking out an enemy machine gun while armed only with a service revolver, had become known in the popular press simply by his fitting initials, VC. And now, most bitter of ironies, he had been killed not by a warrior, but by a skulking assassin. Even in death, he had a military bearing and a soldier’s dignity. The killer had not been able to rob him of that.

  The roar of an engine broke the silence.

  ‘That’s the car,’ Wilde said. ‘Come on.’ He ran from the open-fronted barn round to the driveway. The wheels of the car were throwing up gravel as it turned in an arc and began to head away from the house. Through the sleet, Wilde could see the backs of two capped heads in the front seats; one driver, one passenger.

  Lydia was right behind him.

  ‘I’m going after them,’ he shouted as he climbed on the Rudge and kicked it into life. ‘Break into the house, see if the telephone is working yet. Get the police.’ Twisting the throttle, he hurtled forward, momentarily lifting the front wheel clear of the ground. Once in control and out on the road, he saw the car a hundred yards ahead. In good weather he could have out-accelerated it with ease, but tonight the film of ice made the road lethal. He strained to see the way ahead through his misting goggles and it was all he could do to prevent himself losing grip and sliding into the verge.

  On a straight stretch, a piece of road he knew well, he let out the throttle. Ahead of him, the car was slowing. He wiped a sleeve across his goggles and saw that the passenger had his door open and was leaning out facing him, clutching a dark shape. A gun.

  Wilde saw a flash from the muzzle and heard the sharp crack of an automatic pistol shot. Instinctively, he braked and swerved, fighting to keep control on the icy surface. There was another shot, then a third. They were approaching a series of bends. The car accelerated again, the driver sliding through the curves, knowing that Wilde’s motorbike could not possibly match it on the bends. Not in these conditions.

  He followed as well as he could, but he had already lost sight of his quarry and could no longer even see the vehicle’s lights. The road, too, was increasingly difficult, but he kept on doggedly. A ragged white sheet of damp snow lay in patches. His only hope was that the driver would think he had lost his pursuer and slow down.

  A couple of minutes further on, Wilde spotted an animal at the side of the road ahead of him, dragging itself, injured or sick, a curious, desolate heap of life. A small deer or a large fox. He wondered if the car had hit it? As he got nearer he saw the animal’s legs were giving way; it was collapsing. He slowed down. It wasn’t an animal. It was a wounded man on all fours.

  *

  The back doors were all open. The lights were working so Lydia switched them on as she went, calling out softly, hoping to find a family member or servant at home. She trod tentatively, determined but afraid. Perhaps one of the attackers was still here.

  The telephone was on a glass-topped table in the front hall. She picked up the receiver but the line was dead.

  She heard gravel crunching, outside, somewhere in the drive. She switched off the light and edged open the curtain. Looking out, she glimpsed a figure walking towards the door, the light of his torch cutting through the damp sleet. Her body tensed, then relaxed almost as instantly at the sight of the high helmet and reassuring uniform of a police officer. Her heart still pumping furiously, she closed the curtain, switched the light back on and opened the front door.

  The policeman was tall, well over six feet, with a comfortingly broad chest and a powerful physique. He looked down at her from his great height.

  ‘What’s going on, miss? I was asked to look in on the general.’

  The words came in a rush. ‘He’s dead.’

  *

  She took him round to the barn at the back of the house. He shone the powerful beam of his torch on the mutilated remains of Sir Vyvyan Carr.

  ‘Bastards.’ The constable quickly turned to Lydia. ‘Forgive the language, please, miss.’

  ‘Bastards.’ She nodded at the corpse. ‘That’s the obscenity, there.’

  ‘He was one of the finest. Never heard a bad word said about him. Who would do this?’

  ‘I think it was a man named Leslie Braithwaite. A car just drove off. I’m pretty sure he was in it.’

  ‘Was that the car that nearly hit my bicycle? It was followed by a motorbike. Ridden like a madman.’

  ‘Yes, it almost certainly was.’

  ‘There were two men in the car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the motorcyclist?’

  ‘That’s Professor Thomas Wilde. I’ll explain it all.’

  ‘Before you do, miss, what about the others? Lady Carr and their housekeeper, Mrs O’Brady? Oh, and the general’s valet, little John Carpenter. I think he used to be Sir Vyvyan’s batman in Flanders. Do you know where they are?’

  ‘Oh God . . .’ If Sir Vyvyan had been slaughtered and his wife and two servants were not in evidence, where were they now?

  *

  They found them in a linen cupboard on the first floor. They were all gagged with cloth rags thrust in their mouths and were bound hand and foot with narrow cord. Their bindings were tight and painful and their gags barely allowed them to breathe. But they were alive. The housekeeper, Mrs O’Brady, a thin, nervous woman, was delirious and gasping; Lady Carr was staunch and indignant. Carpenter, the valet, was badly injured and in pain. His hair was thick with blood and, once his bindings were untied, his left arm hung helpess, fractured above the elbow.

  ‘My husband and Carpenter took them on, constable,’ Lady Carr said. ‘Wouldn’t give in. They overpowered us but still they struggled, even at the point of a pistol.’

  ‘I’m afraid your husband is dead, Lady Carr,’ the policeman said.

  ‘Yes, I feared as much.’ The general’s wife did not flinch at the news.

  ‘Can you describe your attackers?’

  ‘They had scarves around their faces. One was small and wiry, no more than five feet tall. The other was powerful, well-built. They said little and their voices were muffled, but I heard the taller man’s voice.’

  ‘Was there any accent?’

  ‘He was monosyllabic. I’m afraid I would have trouble identifying him from his voice.’ Lady Carr shook her head briskly.

  For a moment, Lydia thought she would shed a tear, but none came. She was, above all, an officer’s wife. If her husband was a general among men, then she assumed the same rank among women. She turned to Lydia. ‘And may I ask who you are, young lady?’

  ‘My name is Lydia Morris.’

  ‘And why are you here?’

  ‘I live in Cambridge. We were trying to contact Sir Vyvyan. We had reason to believe he was in danger.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Professor Thomas Wilde and myself. We believe that one of the men who attacked you was my
lodger. We found a note . . . I’m afraid it will take some little time to tell the whole story.’

  ‘Then the sooner you start, the better.’

  SATURDAY DECEMBER 5, 1936

  CHAPTER 26

  The minute hand on the wall clock ticked insistently: 3.55 a.m. Wilde had a great desire to remove his shoe and hammer the heel into the glass to stop its infernal noise forever.

  Detective Superintendent Bower appeared at the door. He turned to a junior officer. ‘Perhaps you’d get someone to brew us a pot of tea.’

  The sergeant nodded and was immediately replaced in the doorway by the elegant form of Philip Eaton, who slid in and waited by the door while Bower took the chair opposite Wilde.

  ‘I take it you’re happy to have Mr Eaton here, professor,’ the superintendent said. It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes, but I’d prefer Scotch to tea, all things considered.’

  ‘Not possible, I’m afraid. And I’m sorry you have been kept here so long.’ He held out his hand to indicate Eaton. ‘I believe you have already divined that our friend here is more than just a grubby newspaperman.’

  ‘Shouldn’t Lydia Morris be here, too? Where is she?’

  ‘We’ve spoken to her and taken her home.’

  ‘Well, I want to go home, too. It’s four in the morning and I’ve had no sleep.’

  ‘This is wearying for all of us, but time is of the essence – and we really would prefer to talk to you and Miss Morris separately. This is a most complex set of circumstances, with major implications. I’m sure you’ve worked out that much. We need to hear your stories individually. I trust you’ll understand.’

  Wilde understood, but he didn’t like it. ‘You make it sound as though we were suspects, not witnesses.’

  Detective Superintendent Bower waved the suggestion away. ‘Suspects? Good Lord no, Mr Wilde. But you must understand that a lot has happened very fast and we’re falling over ourselves trying to catch up with events. It’s fair to say that this is a fine mess, as Laurel or Hardy might put it.’

  Bower was trying to lighten the mood. Wilde went along with it; better to have this policeman on his side, perhaps. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘A fine mess.’

  ‘So we now have three murders and a man in Addenbrooke’s Hospital fighting for his life after falling from a motor car at high speed.’

  ‘Three murders? I think you have to acknowledge now that there are four.’

  ‘Ah yes, Miss Hereward. We’ll come to that in due course. The thing is, if we get ahead of ourselves, we may be doing the murderers’ work for them, which we believe to be the spreading of terror and chaos. For the moment, professor, who is Leslie Braithwaite?’

  Wilde told him as much as he knew about Braithwaite’s background and then went on: ‘At least some of it must be true. He was obviously a miner. He had the marks caused by coal-dust. I believe it gets into cuts and grazes and stays there, like tattoos. But I can’t say I warmed to him. In fact, I tried to advise Miss Morris against taking him in. You must know about his assault on her?’

  ‘Just say what you know, professor.’

  ‘Well, we reported it, of course. Braithwaite tried to rape her. Quite a violent attack. I’d say he was drunk. Luckily I was on hand to throw him out. I thought we’d seen the last of him. But then, as you also know, I found him crawling at the side of the road a few hours ago. Abandoned by his accomplice in murder, so it seems.’

  ‘And what made you go to Brandham Hall in the first place?’

  Wilde explained about the paper they had found in Braithwaite’s room. ‘In the light of everything that had happened, we both thought it was significant. Why would an unemployed miner be calling the Dorchester Hotel? Why would he have written down the names of Sir Vyvyan Carr and his house?’ Wilde threw up his hands. ‘You might think it was a great leap in the dark, but we felt we had to do something and fast. And we were right – but not fast enough to save Sir Vyvyan.’ Though God knows what they would have done against two armed men.

  Lounging against the doorjamb, hands in his trouser pockets, Eaton said nothing.

  The superintendent unbuckled his black leather briefcase. He removed a small blue card and laid it on the desk between himself and Wilde.

  ‘Have you seen this before?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Wilde said. He examined it closely. It was Leslie Braithwaite’s membership card for the Communist Party of Great Britain, complete with number. ‘It looks real enough. Certainly fits in with what I know of Braithwaite’s politics.’

  ‘We have no way of knowing if it’s genuine. The CPGB leadership don’t like the police. They tend not to be very cooperative when we make inquiries. Some members just have a number and don’t even fill in their names on the cards, so keen are they to remain anonymous. The world reduced to numbers.’ Bower paused. ‘Tell me, professor, what are your politics?’

  Wilde frowned at the question. ‘It’s none of your goddamned business, Mr Bower.’

  ‘You don’t have to answer, of course. You are not being accused of anything, but it seems a relevant question.’

  ‘I’m not a communist and nor am I a Nazi, if that’s what you mean. Beyond that, you can stick your question in the backyard.’

  Wilde’s eyes strayed over to Eaton again. He was observing the proceedings like a cat watching a bird pecking at a wounded mouse; he was deciding which one should be lunch.

  ‘The problem is,’ Bower continued, ‘we are having trouble making head or tail of our Bolshie friend Mr Braithwaite. We have been in touch with the Dorchester, but have had no luck in tracing where his call went. They have hundreds of guests and even more staff, so we are unlikely to have any joy there. As for our calls to the managers of the Yorkshire pits, they have no record of him being employed anywhere in that county. Mind you, they’ve had to be got up from their beds, so perhaps their information is not wholly reliable. We’re checking Notts and Lancs, too, so something may turn up, but I find myself not expecting anything. Nor has anyone at the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement been able to identify him.’

  ‘He did mention doing some work for the NUWM.’

  Bower shook his head. ‘Well, he didn’t make contact with them here in Cambridge. All we’ve got is the CPGB card. Did he ever mention the town or village he came from?’

  ‘Not to me. I didn’t have long conversations with the man. He was more likely to be scrounging money than telling me where he lived. It’s possible he said something to Lydia. Ask her.’

  ‘When you found him at the side of the road, before the police and ambulance arrived on the scene, I believe he was still conscious. What did he say to you?’

  ‘He was muttering incoherently. He didn’t seem to know where he was, then he sparked out. I guess he was concussed. His head had taken the worst of the damage. I tried to stem the flow of blood. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t really seeing.’

  On the cold, sleet-swept edge of the road, Wilde had torn strips of cloth from his own shirt to use as dressings. He couldn’t seek help because he couldn’t leave Braithwaite, and so all he had been able to do was wait and hope for a passing car.

  In the end, the police came. Two vehicles on their way from Cambridge to Brandham Hall. He had flagged them down and one had taken the injured man to hospital. Wilde had followed the other car on his motorbike back to the house.

  ‘I believe you have already said that you think the car Leslie Braithwaite was driving was a Ford.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t believe he was driving. From the back of their heads, I would say the driver was a taller man. Braithwaite was in the passenger seat, shooting at me. He was holding the door open and leaning out – which is probably why he fell out. Unless he was pushed, of course.’

  ‘Why would he be pushed?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the detective. But if he fell, why didn’t his accomplice stop?’

  Bower ignored the question. ‘Are you keeping anything back? It seems a stra
nge and foolhardy venture – riding a motorcycle out into the night with a young lady. Don’t you think so?’

  Wilde turned his eyes to Eaton, but he was examining his fingernails. ‘You may be right, but we didn’t see that we had an alternative. And, no, I’m not keeping anything back.’

  ‘Good. Because your cooperation is vital to us – and to you. This is all a great deal bigger than you realise. Now, let me put another question to you: did you see Braithwaite’s accomplice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We have descriptions of the two attackers and although they both wore scarves around their faces, one of the men was small and wiry, just like our man in Addenbrooke’s. The other one was stronger, perhaps a little older and certainly taller. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Any accent?’

  ‘Did you have someone in mind? Kholtov, for instance?’

  Eaton was still examining his fingers. Wilde shrugged. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Now, can we get on to the death of Nancy Hereward? She’s due to be buried this morning and you still don’t seem to be including her in your inquiries. I think you should.’

  ‘I think so, too, Mr Wilde, but as there is no suggestion of the presence of any substance other than diamorphine, the coroner has concluded that it was an accidental overdose, and the body has been released for burial.’ Bower fixed Wilde with a stern glare. ‘But like you, I still have my doubts.’

  ‘That’s something. What are you doing about it?’

  ‘Trying to find Comrade Kholtov, mainly. But I’m also wondering whether you and Miss Morris know anything about her that you aren’t telling us.’