“Sorry, sir.”
“What?” It was hard to hear.
“I took that turn a bit too fast.”
Tyler realized he had been gripping the edges of the sidecar. He felt like a right old idiot. A feeling not helped by the fact that his knees were bent up tight to his chest. There were no springs in the seat and every bump in the road jolted his posterior.
They turned left at the next intersection without any appreciable slowing down and narrowly missed a lorry coming across the bridge, en route to taking Italian POWS out to local farms to work for the day. The men sitting in the open back gaped as the motorcycle raced by. The Italians were always a reminder of the current conflict. They appeared to be very young, and Tyler felt the usual fleeting moment of pity.
The motorcycle bounced across the stone bridge, skidded right, and then raced along the leafy lane. Within minutes, much to Tyler’s relief, they slowed down, and Constable Mortimer guided them into a grassy space off the side of the road, slipping in beside an ancient Austin already parked there.
“This is St. Anne’s, sir.”
Tyler would hardly have known there was a house there at all. It was surrounded by a high stone wall that was itself topped by a dense thicket. The roof and uppermost windows of the house were only just visible.
“We have to enter by this side gate,” said Mortimer.
Tyler unfolded himself from the sidecar while the constable went ahead and lifted the latch on the wooden gate.
The house behind the bristling hedge was rather elegant, with softly weathered red brick, bay windows, and a gracious arched entrance. A concession to its current use was a ramp built along one side of the stairs. What once must have been the front lawn was now given over to vegetables. However, because of the high wall, the whole area was in deep shade and the plants didn’t exactly appear to be flourishing. A handful of iron picnic tables and striped deck chairs were scattered on the strip of gravel path that ran along the front facade of the house.
The front door opened immediately and a woman in a plain blue frock came out and hurried towards them. He’d thought the title “Sister” had referred to her being a nurse, but Rebecca Meade was clearly also a member of a religious order. A good-sized silver cross hung around her neck, and she was wearing a short, dark veil, which covered most of her hair.
“Inspector. I’m Sister Rebecca. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
She was probably his age or slightly older. The brown hair not hidden by the veil was lightly streaked with grey. In normal circumstances, she probably would have had a pleasant face, with smile lines at the corners of her eyes and a fresh complexion. But these were not normal circumstances and her expression was shadowed with worry.
“How is the situation, Sister?”
“Stable. All of the patients and staff are assembled in the common room, except for our two orderlies. One is taking care of the boy, the other I asked to stand watch at the cottage until you arrived.” Her voice was calm, as it had been on the telephone, but he could see her self-control was hard won.
“Good work. My constables should be arriving very soon.”
“I assume you will want to go to the cottage first,” she added.
He nodded and turned to Mortimer. “I want you to supervise the residents. Reassure as best you can, but don’t give out any unnecessary information. None. I’ll be coming to talk to everybody soon. Send one of the constables to the cottage when they get here. We need a guard on the gate, both front and rear entrances of the house. Nobody should leave and nobody should be let in who’s not authorized. Just let’s hope our killer isn’t hiding on the grounds somewhere.”
“There really aren’t any good hiding places to speak of, sir. Just shrubbery.”
“All right. Glad to know that. Thank you, Constable. Clear about what to do?”
“Quite.”
“Off you go then.”
She strode off.
“This way, Inspector,” said the nun.
The gravel path followed along the side of the house towards the rear. As they went past a broad window, Tyler saw that some of the patients had gathered in the bay. Incongruously, one of them appeared to be in clown’s attire. A young woman with a pirate-like eye patch was next to him and beside her, a man in an elegant dressing gown and cravat. There was a long cigarette holder in his extended hand.
Tyler could see their disfigurements. Frighten the kiddies indeed.
As they walked, he scanned the grounds. The surrounding wall was only about fifty feet away from the house, and the area in between was also given over to vegetables. Here, too, the growth was spindly from lack of sunlight. Just past the bay window, there was a metal fire escape, its presence jarring against the weathered brick of the Victorian house.
The cottage where the crime had occurred was easy to identify. The blackout curtains were all closed, giving the house an oddly sightless, forlorn appearance. Normally it would have been pretty, with its white-painted bricks and a front strip of a flowerbed filled with pink dahlias and purple lupins. The high wall of thicket and stone loomed behind it.
A stocky, dark-haired young man was standing by the front door. He wore a white hospital jacket over his regular clothes. A tin helmet was perched on his head. He drew himself to attention as Tyler approached and saluted awkwardly, as if he were trying to suggest he was a military man.
“This is Dai Hughes,” said Sister Rebecca. “He is one of our orderlies and he’s also in the Home Guard. Dai, this is Inspector Tyler.”
“Thank you, Hughes,” said Tyler with a nod. “All quiet?”
“Yes, sir. Nobody has approached the premises.”
He moved out of the way so Tyler could take a look at the door.
“We have touched nothing,” said Sister Rebecca. “As you can see, there is no sign of a break-in. Evan Hughes, our other orderly, was the man who first arrived. He says the door was not locked.”
“Would it be, usually?”
“It should have been. We ask the staff who live on the grounds to lock their doors for safety reasons.” She hesitated. “Some of our patients have been severely traumatized by their experiences. They have been known to wander. ‘Trying to go home,’ as they see it. There is always somebody on duty at night, but needless to say, such incidents are upsetting for all concerned.”
Tyler crouched down and peered at the door jamb. No scratches, nothing untoward.
“In fact, the key was still in the lock on the other side,” said the almoner. “I found it myself.”
Tyler addressed the young orderly. “Stay here, will you, Hughes? A constable should be arriving shortly, but until then, I want you to keep guard. Call me at once if you need to.”
He opened the door and stepped inside the cottage, followed by Sister Rebecca. The air was already permeated with the insidious, inevitable smell of deteriorating human flesh.
“As I said, we have touched nothing,” murmured the almoner. “However, not knowing that a crime had occurred, Evan Hughes did switch on the lights when he entered.”
“Why was he here?”
“Sergeant McHattie is one of our teachers. He had not shown up for his seven o’clock massage class and Hughes came to fetch him.”
Tyler looked around. The kitchen was to his left, the sitting room to his right. A narrow staircase was directly in front. Everything was neat and tidy, the furnishings sparse. The only nod to luxury was an ornate grandfather clock tucked into the far corner.
“The bodies are upstairs,” said Sister Rebecca.
“Would you prefer to stay down here?” he asked.
“As I said, Inspector, I am a trained nurse. I might be of help.”
“Of course. Thank you, Sister.”
She led the way up the stairs, which were uncarpeted and creaked quite loudly. The landing was dimly lit by a night light plugged into the skirting board.
“In here.”
Tyler stood for a moment in the doorway. The blackout curta
ins were closed tightly and the overhead light was on. Like the downstairs, this room was uncluttered and there was no sign of any struggle having taken place. There were two bodies. One, a young boy, lying a few feet inside the room, the other, much larger, in the bed. The noxious smell was stronger here.
Tyler went to the boy first. “This is McHattie’s son, I presume?”
The almoner nodded. “Yes, that’s Ben.”
Tyler crouched down and shooed away the flies. The glazed eyes were open. There was the faint shadow of an unshaved moustache on the boy’s upper lip and he touched it gently. Not even mature enough for stubble. Poor lad. He’d had no life yet.
“He was just sixteen years of age,” said the nun. “We actually celebrated his birthday last week.” She bit her lip. “A good boy.”
There was a cricket bat lying close to Ben’s out-flung arm. Tyler surmised he had entered the room armed with his trusty bat. It didn’t appear to be blood-stained, so he assumed Ben had had no chance to engage in combat.
Treading carefully, Tyler approached the bed. Then he felt his stomach clench. On the bedside table was a ceramic dish in which sat two eyeballs. Brown irises. Tyler could see that the corpse had two sockets where eyes had once been.
Sister Rebecca must have sensed his shock. “Jock used artificial eyes. He was blinded during the Great War. Mustard gas in the trenches. He thought the prostheses made him less unsightly.”
In fact, McHattie looked to have been a rather handsome man: firm chin and jaw, straight nose. His hair was cropped short, soldier-fashion, peppered with grey. Like his son, he had a jagged wound in his head.
The pillow beside him was splattered with blood but undinted. Gingerly, Tyler pulled down the quilt. McHattie was wearing blue cotton pyjamas. His bare feet were deeply scarred and pitted. Three toes were missing from the right foot.
Tyler pointed. “Also a result of the mustard gas, I presume?”
Sister Rebecca nodded. “His entire body was scarred. It’s a miracle he survived at all, given the extent of his injuries. He coped extremely well, considering.”
“So what are we dealing with here? Any theories, Sister?”
“None. As for robbery, Jock McHattie was hardly wealthy. He supported his family on a soldier’s pension and the wages he earned as a teacher here, which weren’t much. He was liked and respected in the hospital. Not only that, I cannot understand how anybody got in.”
“That’s certainly a high wall you’ve got there.”
“Quite so. It completely surrounds the grounds. There are only two gates – one at the west entrance where you came in, the other on the east side. The east gate isn’t really used and is always kept barred. The west one is bolted at ten thirty every night. The doors to the main house are also locked at this time.”
“Who is responsible for that?”
“The Hughes brothers, Evan and Dai. Whichever of them has the night shift does the lock-up.”
“Do they both live in the house?”
“Yes. They have a bedsit on the ground floor.”
Tyler picked up a framed photograph from the dresser. Obviously the McHattie family: Jock, his arm around a plump, pretty woman; on his other side, a young woman who resembled the older one; two boys kneeling in front of them.
He replaced the photograph. “Let’s take a look at the boys’ room.”
Tyler went into the adjoining room. Two single beds, both unmade. In comparison with the rest of the house, this room was untidy. A pile of comic books on the chair, some wooden tanks and a train set on the floor, drawings of aeroplanes tacked to the walls. The dead boy, Ben, had sprawled his signature across his drawings. He preferred Spitfires; his brother, bombers.
Tyler glanced over his shoulder at Sister Rebecca.
“Shirley McHattie lives at home, I take it?”
“Yes, she does.” The nun frowned. “I should tell you, Inspector, that Shirley is eight months pregnant.”
Tyler raised his eyebrows. “That so? How old is she?”
“She has just turned eighteen.”
“And the father?”
“She has not revealed his identity. At least not publicly, that is.”
“Any guesses as to who it might be?”
Sister Rebecca shook her head. “She was already pregnant when the family arrived here.”
“Gossip?”
“What you might expect. A soldier who’s gone overseas.”
“Caused a rift in the family, did it?”
“I believe it has. Martha has already approached me about making arrangements for Shirley to give the baby up for adoption. The McHatties are staunch Methodists and the situation is a matter of great shame for them.”
“Marriage not in the cards?”
“Mrs. McHattie said they weren’t prepared to wait until the man returned, as there was a good chance he might never come back.”
“Unfortunately, that is an all too common story these days.”
The almoner sighed. “So it is.”
“Where is Shirley’s room? I’d like to take a look,” said Tyler.
“It’s off the kitchen.”
Softly, Tyler closed the door to the boys’ room and followed Sister Rebecca downstairs.
Shirley’s room had probably once served as a pantry. Tyler stepped inside. There was just enough space for a single bed, a tiny dresser, and a wooden chair.
The blackout curtains here were open, but the morning sunshine was blocked by the forbidding wall about twenty feet away. The only concession to personal taste was a framed photograph of what appeared to be the snow-capped mountains of Scotland and a cut-out picture of the handsome film star Michael Wilding on the wall. There was no evidence of preparation for the imminent arrival of a baby. No knitting on the single chair, no crib waiting beside the bed.
A puff of wind stirred the inner lace curtain and Tyler saw that the window sash had been pushed up a few inches. As he took a step closer to take a look, a handful of bluebottles flew into the air. They had been crawling all over a dead pigeon lying on the windowsill. The bird was already stiff, its red legs and feet stretched out as if in protest. Its beak was open and its head flopped to one side.
“Oh dear, that is probably one of Mr. McHattie’s racing pigeons,” said the nun. “How on earth did it get inside? It must have flown against the window.”
The pigeon had a rubber band on each leg; one had a number printed on it, 220; the other was slightly wider, and there appeared to be a tiny metal tube tucked down one side. Carefully, Tyler pulled it out. He could see a piece of tightly rolled, thin paper inside, which he removed and carefully unrolled.
In small block letters were printed the words:
THEY HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE.
6.
TYLER SHOWED THE NUN THE PIECE OF PAPER. “Do you have any idea what this is about, Sister?”
She drew in her breath. “No, I don’t.”
“You said the pigeon must be one of McHattie’s?”
“Jock belonged to a club that raced homing pigeons. In spite of his handicap, he was very active. He was most proud of the fact that his birds had won many trophies over the years.”
“Did anybody help him?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Alfie Fuller, our cook’s son. That is, he did until recently.”
“Oh?”
Before Sister Rebecca could elaborate, there was a light tap on the door. Constable Mortimer hovered on the threshold.
“Excuse me, sir. Mrs. McHattie and her daughter have returned.”
Tyler’s first response was intense relief. At least they were alive. Whatever macabre vendetta might have been inflicted on the family, it had not included the two women.
“I told them you would come and speak with them.”
Tyler regarded the young woman for a moment. “Get your breath,” said Tyler. “You being all upset is only going to make matters worse.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“You don’t have to apol
ogize. Nobody likes this aspect of the job, believe me. Where are they?”
“Waiting in the foyer.”
“Have the constables arrived?”
“Yes, sir. I issued your directions. I asked Constable Mady to stay in the common room with the residents in my place. Constable Chase is with Mrs. McHattie. The others have taken up their posts at the gates.”
Tyler closed the door to Shirley’s room. “I need to talk to the other son before I do anything else. Constable, I’d like you to stay with Mrs. and Miss McHattie. They’ll probably feel better with a woman officer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tyler turned to the almoner. “Sister, is there anywhere they can be put where they won’t have contact with the residents?” She nodded. “The doctor’s consulting room. It’s next to the common room.”
“I know it,” said Mortimer. “It used to be the library.”
“Right then,” said Tyler. “Let’s use that.” He looked at the constable. “Hard as it might seem, we cannot allow anybody into the cottage just yet. Even if Mrs. McHattie insists.” He paused. “If you need to, you’ll have to get one of the staff to restrain her. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I do. And I myself have been trained.”
Tyler thought he detected the merest hint of sharpness in her voice. But what the hell, women police officers were a whole new kettle of fish. People were going to trip over sensitivities initially. As he seemed to have already done.
“Please make use of my office, Inspector,” said the almoner. “It’s off the dining room. The telephone is in there.”
“You took over the breakfast room, did you?” chipped in the constable. “Good move. It does get a little more light at least.”
“Constable Mortimer’s aunt used to live here,” said Tyler.
The officer turned pink. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”
“I was simply clarifying for the almoner,” said Tyler.
Sister Rebecca smiled at Mortimer. “Perhaps your knowledge of the house will come in useful.”
Not for the first time, Tyler felt like a clod.
“Quite true, Sister,” he said. “Now, I’d better get to it.”
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