by John Gardner
‘Half-an-hour later the duck comes back.’ Magnus cheerily went on. ‘“Spare a piece of bread for a hungry duck.” Again the barman tells the duck to get out, but half-an-hour later he comes back. “Spare a bit of bread for a duck down on his luck.” The barman gets really angry. Says. “Out! If I catch you in here again I’ll nail your beak to the bar.” Half an hour later the duck comes back. Says. “Got a nail?” The barman says. “No!” “Good,” says the duck. “Got a piece of bread for a hungry duck?”’
Suzie snorted.
‘Number five, was it?’ Magnus asked.
‘Five, yes. Five Coram Cross Road.’
‘Yeah, we’ve arrived. Coming up on the left. There’s a bloke with a camera and one or two other people. You all right, Skipper?’
‘Not really.’
‘It’ll be okay. Just do everything by the book, right?’
At least Big Toe had made her read the notes on the system. Everyone in CID had studied ‘The System Relating to a Murder Investigation’. Harvey had put it together from three separate papers written by senior officers of the Met.
They were large detached Victorian houses in the kind of street that stank of nice middle-class respectability. Suzie reckoned they would have four bedrooms, drawing room, dining room, study, kitchen, bathroom and a nice, well-stocked, mature garden. Bigger than your average semi, but still built close together. The people who had done them in the 1870s obviously wanted to cram as many into the space as they possibly could.
Now, in late 1940, Coram Cross Road balanced itself between being middle-class and upper professional, with St Leonard’s Parish Church at the far end: dark and sooty with a spire lingering its way to God.
‘Don’t pull into the drive,’ Suzie told Magnus, thinking they might need to look for tyre tracks or footprints if it was murder. The little cluster of people by the gate was being kept back by one uniform. The other uniform stayed by the door of the house.
Magnus parked the Wolseley in the street, close to the kerb and they both got out while the knot of people stood and gaped.
‘Who’s she?’ someone asked.
‘Stand back. Let the officer through,’ said the uniform, and Sergeant Mountford walked — a little slowly Magnus thought — towards the house.
The other uniform was by the little gabled porch in front of the door. Of course there was no light in the porch but just enough moon for Suzie to make her way up the sedate path, past the cold flowerbeds and a couple of scabrous, spidery trees. She recognized Sergeant Eric Osterley’s tall, stooped figure by the door. Because of the stoop, his angular face and the large spectacles they called him ‘the Prof’. She had worked a theft with ‘the Prof’ just after she arrived at Camford Street. ‘Hello. Prof,’ she said raising her eyebrows to make it a question. Her body language said, ‘What’s it like inside?’ Then she said it aloud.
He gave a little shudder. ‘Not for the faint-hearted. Very unpleasant, Sue.’ In his head he was saying, Christ what’s Sanders thinking about letting Suzie loose on this? Aloud he told her to take care. ‘There’re a lot of fluids about in there.’
‘You got the shout at the nick?’ she asked.
‘I was in the area car. A civilian phoned in. Friend of the deceased — Winnie Tovey’s with her. In number three. Next door.’
‘WDC Cox?’ she asked.
‘Inside with DC Richards. I sent Winnie next door.’
‘Right.’ Winnie Tovey? She searched her memory. Tovey? Was that the little blonde WPC? A bit common? Dumpy? She thought so. Certain of it. Nodded to herself.
‘Okay.’ She shrugged and called out for Magnus to join her.
Magnus had the murder kit: the black leather case holding portable fingerprint equipment, tweezers, cellophane evidence bags, rubber gloves, knives, glass cutter, steel pull-out measure, magnifying lenses and the other essentials of on-the-spot evidence-collecting gear. At the Yard she’d heard it referred to as the John Bull Printing Outfit, after the child’s toy.
As Magnus was getting it out of the car someone again asked, ‘Who is she?’
‘WDS Mountford.’ It took him off guard, then he thought, Oh bugger it — doesn’t matter.
‘Know how old?’ The press were obsessed by age.
‘Twenty-two, twenty-three, but I didn’t tell you that.’
As Magnus came up the path, the police surgeon’s car pulled up short of the drive and the doctor got out, nodding curtly towards Suzie: an older man; the one she had seen with the ambulance down the Cut the other Friday night. Dr Jimmy Blatty, Shirley Cox had told her later — stocky, leathery, thickly Scottish, a no-nonsense man with a brittle manner and little sense of humour. That was all she knew about him except that under normal circumstances he’d be retired by now.
He’s over the hill and doesn’t approve of me being here, she told herself. Well, he’s in good company because I don’t approve of myself being here either.
‘Let’s do it,’ she looked Magnus in the eyes, square.
‘By the book,’ he said again. ‘By the system, Skip. It’ll be fine.’
‘Absolutely.’ She swallowed and they went inside.
To the horror.
You could smell it as you came through the door, the heavy abattoir reek of gore, the electric and metallic stink, thick as pig shit along the passage which ran to the left of a wide staircase into the large kitchen. Dominating the hall was a tree, half decorated and with a scattering of tinsel and little candles in tin holders, the Ghost of Christmas-Never-To-Come scattered about. Green crêpe paper round the base of the tree.
Love the carpet, Suzie thought. Really like that blue. Light blue, darker than the Cambridge blue, but a lovely bright colour that worked down the stairs and across the broad stretch of hallway. On the stairs it was secured by shining brass rods, and the wooden border was stained dark and shiny: neat and clean as a new pin.
‘Oh, Christ!’ She was on it before she realized and it sucked the guts out of her, made her head spin. She opened her mouth and thought she’d vomit. As Osterley had advised, there were a lot of fluids.
Pip Magnus’ hand dropped on to her forearm, but she roughly shook him off. Whatever else she was not squeamish. Not after the Cut. It was one of the few things she was proud of, being able to stand unflinching at a really bloody crime scene, even though she found this particular body very hard, from the skewered eyes to the wired throat and right down to the detestation: the bloody mess between her spread thighs.
Even when she turned her head away, she still had a clear picture imprinted on her mind’s retina. The revolting thing was that you felt you knew the girl. She put that down to seeing her photograph in last week’s Radio Times, and knowing her reputation: the story they all knew.
‘Tomorrow it’s going to be the start of a very cold snap. Winter drawers on.’ And she knew what she had said. Signalled it with a small smirk in her voice. That’s the winter drawers girl, Suzie Mountford thought. Wonder the BBC didn’t give her the push like they’d done to that naval commander who was drunk describing, ‘The Fleet’sh lit up; everything’sh lit up.’ Now what’s her name? Benton. Jo Benton. Jo Benton’s dead.
Metal meat skewers plunged into the dead jelly of her eyes, the face disfigured into a new dimension by the skewers sticking out and the rictus of death, the tongue over the drawn-back lips, showing her teeth. Then the terrible swelling around the neck. Last, the first thing the eye was drawn to, the bloody entrails and mess between her thighs. The belly ripped open with one deep upward slash. And above, the hair unblotched by blood, still a full cap of thick gold. Close up it looked as if it had needed some help from a bottle.
The doctor had come in behind her, fumbled with his bag, dropped it but was now kneeling, taking a good look before he spoke, clipped, matter-of-fact. ‘I’m pretty certain the eyes and the other thing are post mortem.’
‘What —?’ Suzie began.
‘She’s been strangled with a piece of wire,’ he said, trying to make it s
ound as though this was something he encountered every day. ‘Looks like piano wire. About two and a half feet long; maybe three feet; ends wrapped with insulating tape. Penetrated the flesh in a few places and smashed the windpipe. Not the nicest way to go. I’d say she probably tried to fight back but gave up pretty quickly. I’ll tell you what pictures we’ll want and then I’ll take samples in situ and others when appropriate.’
Suzie saw Shirley hovering with the camera, and not looking at all shaken by the revolting mess that had been Jo Benton only an hour or so ago. Behind her, Suzie heard movement, turned and saw the ambulance men with their stretcher. She lifted a hand, indicating they should wait. ‘Go through it with a fine-tooth comb ...’ She glanced back and saw Sammy Richards looking haggard, face like parchment. ‘Go through it, and then go through it again. I want it really sorted with the Home Office people, the people at Hendon, by the morning. Will he not be coming, the Home Office —?’
‘Home Office Pathologist?’ Blatty looked up at her, hard and irritated. ‘The senior pathologist has enough to do. I’m going to remove the body when I’ve got all the pictures and samples we need. Maybe he’ll be over for the post-mortem; maybe not. It really doesn’t matter.’
‘I hope so. I hope he will.’ She hadn’t pleased the doctor. She could see it and somehow didn’t care; didn’t really like Doctor Blatty, moving past him going to the door into the kitchen.
‘Why’s it so damp in here?’ she snapped, seeing condensation on the kitchen windows and the opaque panel in the kitchen door. The wall also had a coating of condensation.
‘There was a pan of water boiling its head off in the kitchen when we arrived, Skip.’ Sammy retreated from her, backing into the kitchen.
‘What did you do with it?’
‘Turned the gas off and —’
‘Make sure you cheek that pan for prints, and put the whole thing in your report.’ Something had clicked on like a light bulb in her brain. She glared around and realized that the bad day stuff seemed to be leaving her.
‘We think he just walked in. This door was open.’ Sammy pointed to the door that led straight into the kitchen from the side of the house. ‘People don’t lock their back doors as they should.’
Suzie thought, no. No, they don’t. It’s near enough the same as she remembered it from the tile she’d seen. She’d ring Rex Fulbright in CRO and get him to look. It was round the end of the summer: August. September time. Cambridge, she thought. Somewhere up there. She’d ring him tomorrow. Rex. She could call him Rex now: sergeant to sergeant.
Magnus was behind her in the kitchen doorway. She dropped her voice and told him. ‘We’ll go and see the witness who found her then come back here and look upstairs.’ As they passed the doctor she said something about getting samples from under the victim’s nails and seeing they got to Hendon with the other things.’ The Forensic Laboratory was at Hendon.
Then she again said something about the Professor — the Home Office Pathologist. ‘Young woman,’ the doctor almost snarled trying to stay dignified, ‘you’re obviously unaware that I’m an accredited Home Office pathologist. We don’t need the Professor. I know my job.’
‘Sorry. Doctor.’ She felt an idiot. ‘I’m very sorry.’ Then. ‘Can you give me a time of death?’
‘Not very long ago.’ His tone was still disapproving. ‘I’d say between six and half-past. Six forty-five at the latest.’
As they got to the door she said to Magnus. ‘What price your bloody duck now.’
‘Doc Blatty’s very good, Skip.’
‘No doubt. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Thought you knew. Why rattle on about the Home Office? He plays golf, belongs to the same club as Sanders of the River. Used to be head of the Path Lab at St Mary Mother’s.’
‘I really don’t care if he plays cricket with Donald Bradman. I know we’re stretched and doctors are scarce, but I’m not mad about him.’
‘Don’t think he’s got much of a crush on you either, Skip.’
‘No. Well.’ She remembered Sanders of the River’s caveat. Suspicious death, he’d called it. ‘Does that look like a suspicious death to you, Pip?’
‘Looks like murder to me, Skip.’
‘Very little doubt about it is there?’
‘No doubt at all.’
‘Then we need good forensic stuff and I don’t get the impression that old man Blatty’s all that good. Looks slow and plodding to me.’
‘Skip, we’re not going to —’
She shushed him sharply. ‘A tough old copper once told me that detection is ninety per cent keeping your ear to the ground and ten per cent having ideas.’
‘So?’
‘So I just had an idea, right?’ She hoped she was right; prayed that she had remembered correctly: a young girl, thirteen or fourteen, choked with a piece of piano wire in a Cambridgeshire village: a pan of water boiling on the kitchen hob and access through an open back door. The kid had just come home from school on her bicycle. She thought it was the end of August; what if it was last year though, or even the year before?
‘Right, Skip.’
Outside someone stuck a camera in her face and a flash bulb plopped. There were four reporters and a couple of photographers.
‘Damn!’ she said. ‘No!’ she said, and, ‘Pip ...?’ hoping he would do what you saw at the pictures, up the Odeon: whip the camera away and break out the film. But Magnus just hustled her through, pushing the reporters off the path and on to the meagre little garden with its winter flowerless cherries and the hard empty beds.
‘The Prof’ — Sergeant Osterley — started to ease her through the little throng. ‘Was going to warn you,’ he muttered, and Magnus now moved in front of Suzie as though he planned to guard her with his life.
‘You have made sure there’s nobody else in there?’ she inclined her head back towards Number Five.
‘Of course. We went into every room.’ He was breathing hard. Not used to the exertion.
‘You moved nothing?’
‘Course not. Didn’t touch a thing.’
‘What time did you get here?’
‘Just after seven. The call to the nick was six fifty-seven.’
‘You must’ve just missed him.’
‘Who?’
‘The bloke who did it. The quack said she was killed between six and six-thirty. Not later than six forty-live.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Not now. Later.’ Magnus said to one of the newsmen.
Then the reporter slipped through to block Suzie’s way, his long raincoat flapping around his legs. Muffler flying. It was a navy blue raincoat, like the ones she had worn at school, only hers had been dark green. He had probably worn the navy blue coat at school himself a couple of years ago.
‘There’s a rumour that the owner of this property has died. If so, she’s a colleague of ours: a radio journalist. Please tell us.’ He wound his scarf about one more time. Later they would tell her his name was Meadows from the Camford Herald. In the nick they called him ‘the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’. Chris Meadows was his name and he was out to earn himself a bit of lineage from the nationals.
Suzie Mountford faltered, stopped, then spoke quietly, ‘There has been a death at this house. It is suspicious. The person has yet to be identified.’
‘Not now.’ Magnus muttered again. ‘There’ll be a statement later.’
‘That’s all,’ she said and they jostled closer again. They wanted her name and rank. Was she in charge? Was the dead person a woman? What killed her?
‘That’s it,’ Magnus said louder and, with his hand on the small of her back while Sergeant Osterley became the outfielder, they murmured and elbowed a pathway through.
She moved forward, turning, sideways, using her shoulder to get through the knot of people, thinking, O Jesus. I’ll be in the papers tomorrow. Mum and the Major will see it and they’ll be on the telephone in no time. The Major didn’t hold with getting in the pa
pers. He thought it was vulgar.
At Number Three Winnie Tovey had a quiet sparkle about her and was totally in command. ‘I got her mum to send for the doctor,’ she said as if to explain the trembling, sheet-faced, quaking young woman slumped in an easy chair close to the fire, surrounded by cosiness. There were incongruous chocolate-box pictures on the walls, a tinted mirror big over the fireplace, chirpy chintz covers on the easy chairs and a little sofa, the antithesis of the house next door, the death house.
‘You’ve had a terrible shock.’ Suzie reached out and touched the young woman’s shoulder.
‘Doctor’s given her something to quieten her down.’ Tovey looked at her, one eyebrow raised. The subtext was clear. Don’t expect too much from her. Suzie had been right. Winnie Tovey was a bit common.
‘I’m WDS Mountford,’ Suzie began.
‘Woman Detective Sergeant,’ the constable translated. Then, ‘Sally.’ Tovey had a husky voice: like the film star Jean Arthur. ‘Sally Grigson.’
It was an introduction.
‘Right, how are you. Sally?’
The girl gave a long, tremulous sigh.
Suzie had seen the policewoman leaving the nick yesterday wearing a long and stylish wine red coat with enormous lapels and a lot of brass. Tovey tried to be modish even in uniform, but it didn’t quite work. Suzie wished she could have afforded the coat. Boyfriend? she wondered, or is she from a well-off family? Now, Suzie could have carried that coat. It needed her height. All it did for Tovey was swamp her.
‘Sally. I’m sorry to bother you but I have to ask a couple of questions.’
The girl nodded, raising her head. She had lank dark hair and her eyes were large, round and, at this moment, teary. Sally was thin, insubstantial as the proverbial wraith. Looked eighteen or so, but Suzie never trusted her own assessment of people’s ages.
‘I’m sorry,’ Suzie repeated. ‘You found her, yes?’
Sally Grigson gave a long shuddering nod, then shook her head, once, then again and then twenty seconds of continued shaking. ‘Horrible,’ she croaked. ‘Oh God, horrible.’ Her hand lifted from her knee. It was trembling violently.