‘Appreciated.’
‘Once that has been done, I’ll extract an upper molar and cut it into cross-section; from that I can determine her age within twenty-four months, as I said. Then I’ll detach the lower jaw and our forensic odontologist will be able to make a positive or a negative match to any dental records you can send us.’
‘Thank you.’
‘For your attention at the Yard, Mr Vicary?’
‘Yes, please. Seems I am the senior interest officer, for my sins.’
Shaftoe grinned, ‘For your sins. So that’s it: tortured, murdered, adult female who had given birth. Oh . . . and probably Western European . . . and too damn young to be in here – mind you, they always are.’
Vicary made his thanks and exited the pathology laboratory.
Moments later, when Shaftoe and Button were alone in the laboratory, save for the skeleton of the unidentified victim, Shaftoe said, ‘Billy . . .’
‘Yes, sir . . . I’m sorry, sir,’ the slightly built man whimpered.
‘Billy, nobody is ever going to call me a pull-yourself-together merchant but you really do need to start mustering some self-control. You can be seen trembling . . . it doesn’t look good. When we have observing police officers we need to present as calm, competent, professional men, good at our jobs . . . and don’t dismiss your job lightly, Billy. I could not do mine if you couldn’t do thine.’
‘Yes, sir . . . thank you, sir . . . but you see, sir, my sister’s cousin died last week and that sort of thing always brings it home, that one day I’ll be on that table, being cut open with this scalpel, sir . . . by you, sir, or by one of the other gentlemen, sir . . . or one of the ladies.’ Button looked pleadingly at Shaftoe.
‘I’ve told thee before, Billy,’ Shaftoe mustered patience, ‘it’s highly unlikely that you’ll need to be given a post-mortem examination; you are unlikely to be caring for the instruments that will be used to cut you open. Only suspicious or unknown causes need apply for a place on that table, which is the minority of deaths in the UK.’
‘Yes, sir . . .’ Button stammered. ‘Can I go now, sir?’
‘Yes . . . yes . . .’ Shaftoe peeled off the latex gloves and dropped them into the yellow bin in the corner of the laboratory, and once again he reflected that the wretched Button should have taken a job mowing the lawns in the parks in whichever London borough he lived. He then pondered, also as before, that he was better served by the Billy Buttons of this world than by the sort of man who is fascinated by morbidity and is seen to gleam at corpses, or by the necrophiliacs who are not unknown to smooth their way through the vetting process. Nonetheless, Shaftoe accepted that one very square peg in one very round hole did not begin to describe the extent of the mismatch between Billy Button and his job in the pathology laboratory of the London Hospital, EC1.
The woman flung the door open. Two men she did not recognize stood on the threshold. One man was tall, clean-shaven, slender, the other was equally tall, but heavily built with a striking black beard. Both were smartly dressed in plain clothes. She was startled and shut the door a little. The visitors were clearly unexpected. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘DC Ainsclough.’ The slender, clean-shaven one showed the woman his ID. ‘This is DC Brunnie.’
Brunnie also showed his ID.
‘Police! Is there something the matter?’ Behind her, Ainsclough and Brunnie saw a cluttered hallway and heard two children playing noisily. Ainsclough glanced along The Crest, Palmers Green, a neat terrace of two-storey houses with bay windows. No person was on the street, though he noticed a curtain twitch in the downstairs room of an adjacent house.
‘We’re here in connection with a Mr Dalkeith.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘Yes . . .’ Ainsclough spoke softly. ‘We thought he might not be . . . but does he live here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. What relationship is he to you, if I may ask?’
‘He’s my husband . . . but he walked out. He left just before Christmas. Imagine that, two children and he walks out just before Christmas. I am Annie Dalkeith.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘He has a room in Kilburn. He told me to forward his mail and like a fool, I do so.’ Mrs Annie Dalkeith was a small, round woman with a mop of brown hair. She wore a large pullover and tracksuit bottoms. Her feet were encased in pink slippers.
‘Mrs Dalkeith –’ Ainsclough glanced along the street – ‘we may have some bad news for you and this is a bit public . . .’
Annie Dalkeith paled, and then stepped aside. ‘I haven’t tidied up; you take me as you find me.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Ainsclough stepped over the threshold, followed by Brunnie.
Annie Dalkeith shut the door behind the officers and directed them to the living room of the house, which the officers found untidy and chaotic, but not at all unclean. Strangely, the curtains were half-closed, allowing just sufficient daylight into the room so as not to require the light to be switched on, but what light there was seemed to be admitted with a certain reluctance. Annie Dalkeith plucked a large plastic child’s toy off the settee and invited the officers to take a seat, while she sat in an armchair and shakily lit a cigarette. The children, still unseen in a nearby room, had stopped squabbling, as if hushed by the sudden presence of strangers in the house.
‘Mrs Dalkeith . . .’ Ainsclough struggled, ‘we believe that your husband may be deceased.’
‘Michael . . . oh . . .’
‘Yes. The . . . he has still to be identified . . . so that will mean—’
‘So that’s what he meant?’ She sat back and drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘I did wonder.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he left us in December, like I said. He did not say why. He and I hadn’t quarrelled . . . nothing like that had happened. Ours wasn’t a perfect marriage but it was working. What happened?’
‘We believe he died of exposure in the recent cold snap.’
‘Oh . . .’
‘On Hampstead Heath.’
‘On the Heath? Michael knew the Heath. He liked to walk on it. He was a good father but he would never take the children on to the Heath for some reason that he never would explain.’
‘Interesting. So tell us, why did you say “So that’s what he meant”?’
‘Just that he said that he had to leave us for our sakes . . . he wouldn’t explain. He just said it was for “the best”. It wasn’t easy for him. He loved the children, loved his beer like any Irishman, but he loved his children more.’
‘He was Irish?’
‘Yes.’
‘With a name like Dalkeith? Sounds Scottish to me.’
‘Grandfather, maybe great grandfather was English, a Londoner, and seems he didn’t go a whole bunch on the notion of fighting the “People’s War” back in 1939 and went to live in Ireland – in the Republic – to avoid being conscripted. Went to Cork, married a local girl and started a family, the Dalkeiths. Michael is third or fourth generation and wanted to return to his family roots in London . . . but he was Irish . . . Irish parents, grew up in Ireland, thick Irish accent.’
‘I see.’
‘I’ve read about Irishmen who came over to volunteer for the London Irish Regiment, and others who joined the navy and the airforce, who pretended to be Ulstermen to join the forces, like Americans who pretended to be Canadians, but I didn’t know there was a two-way traffic,’ Brunnie commented.
‘Apparently, not a few Brits did the same thing in 1939, and Canadians went to live in the USA at the same time and for the same reason, but that’s history.’
‘Yes . . .’ Ainsclough sat forward. ‘Was your husband employed?’
Annie Dalkeith shrugged, ‘Odd jobs. He had a bit of a record, but you’ll know that.’
‘Yes, just petty stuff and nothing recent, but you said he left “for the best”. Strange thing to say?’
‘Yes.’
‘He gave no
reason?’
‘No . . . but he’d been agitated for a while . . . sleeping badly.’
‘So he was worried about something?’
‘Yes, but he never said what. Then, just out of the blue, he said he was leaving us. Oh yes, he said we’d be safe that way.’
‘Safe?’
‘That’s what he said . . .’
At that moment two small mixed-race children, a boy and a girl, ran into the room, crying ‘Mummy, Mummy’. Annie Dalkeith smiled and gathered them into her arms. ‘He’s their stepfather,’ she explained apologetically, ‘but he loved them just the same.’ She stood and took the children back to the other room.
‘Can you accompany us to the London Hospital, please?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes . . . we have to identify the body.’
‘The body . . .’ Annie Dalkeith echoed the words. ‘The body . . .’
‘Indelicate of me . . .’ Ainsclough stammered. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No . . . no, it’s alright, it’s something I will have to get used to. I’ll get my coat. Let me go next door, I’ll ask Mrs James to watch my children.’
‘Could you let us have the address in Kilburn, the one your husband was using?’
‘One-two-three Claremont Road,’ she tapped the side of her head, ‘it’s lodged in here . . . Kilburn where half of Ireland lives. Funny, when he came to London to look for his roots, he ended up in Little Ireland.’
When Annie Dalkeith had left the house to take her children to her neighbour’s, Ainsclough turned to Brunnie, ‘There’s more to this than misadventure. My waters tell me there’s a story here. I want to visit the address in Kilburn if it’s a positive identity . . . which it will be.’
Brunnie nodded briskly. ‘Yes, it sounds . . . well . . . one copper to another, it sounds interesting.’
Annie Dalkeith declined the offer of a lift home and took the tube back to Palmers Green. She didn’t want to be above ground, the tube felt right, it felt correct, it felt appropriate to be rattling through a pitch black tunnel in a carriage where no one spoke – even good friends could not sustain a conversation on an underground train. The silence all around her and the pitch black outside the window seemed to provide the perfect atmosphere in which to contemplate widowhood at just thirty-one years of age.
She left the tube at Southgate and walked slowly home, not wanting to rush the journey, not wanting to collect her two children, not wanting to tell them that ‘Mikey’ hasn’t just gone for a holiday. He had gone, gone . . . gone for good . . . and not because he doesn’t want us. Identifying his body hadn’t been like it was in the films, it had been more sensitive. Seeing him as if sleeping . . . at peace.
Lights were beginning to be switched on in the houses as she walked homeward.
Yes, he was at peace. It was a very pleasing last image of him. She would hold it in her mind’s eye for a long, long time.
A very long time.
Ainsclough halted the car outside the address on Claremont Road, Kilburn. It revealed itself to be a mid-terraced property in a line of neatly painted late-Victorian four-floored terraced housing, directly across from a cutting in which ran the overground railway line. The address was, not surprisingly to the officers, found to be a multi-occupancy house. Once housing the family for which it was designed, it now had six doorbells beside the front door, not named as such, but labelled Flat 1, Flat 2, etc. Ainsclough pressed them all in turn. ‘See what we wake up,’ he murmured sourly. When there did not seem to be any reaction from within the house, he banged loudly on the door and shouted, ‘Police . . . open up!’ From inside the house there then came the sound of scurrying feet and then of a toilet being flushed. The officers grinned, and Ainsclough remarked, ‘That’s this week’s supply of dope gone down to the sewers.’
‘Aye . . .’ Brunnie stopped smiling and said, ‘It also probably means some old lady is going to be robbed of her handbag tonight.’
‘No road round it.’
‘Nope. Have to give you that,’ Brunnie conceded. ‘No road round it.’
The door was eventually opened by a timid looking, pale, drawn youth. He had a thin face and unwashed hair. He held the door ajar and peered at Ainsclough and Brunnie through a three inch gap between the door and the frame. ‘Police?’ He had a thin, rasping voice.
‘Yes,’ Ainsclough replied, ‘but we are not interested in anything you have just flushed down the toilet.’
‘You’re not?’
‘No.’
‘So that was a waste of good gear,’ Brunnie added.
The youth suddenly looked unwell. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, and was barefoot. ‘And we don’t even have a search warrant, but we can get one.’
‘We want information,’ Ainsclough said, ‘about a fella who has a room here, Michael Dalkeith.’
‘Irish Mickey? He’s not in.’
‘We know.’ Ainsclough spoke quietly. ‘In fact, we’d be very, very surprised if you said that he was here. When did you last see him?’
‘A week ago . . . ten days . . . something like that, walked out when the snow was on the ground. He hasn’t come back yet.’
‘You haven’t reported him as a mis per?’
‘Mis per?’
‘Missing person.’
‘No.’ The youth shrugged. ‘That’s Irish Mickey, he goes away for days at a time and he’s got family in Palmers Green or someplace, so he told us once . . . and he stays out all night earning money.’
‘He’s on the dole. Unemployed.’
‘You try surviving on the dole. You can’t do it. Not in London anyway. You got to do a little bobbin’ and weavin’ . . . a little duckin’ and divin’ if you want to keep your old tin and lead above the wet stuff.’
‘Is that right?’
‘It’s how it is.’
‘Are you duckin’ and divin’? Is your head above water?’
Again the youth shrugged. ‘I don’t go stealin’, I’m not a crook. I got a job washing up at the Chinese food joint.’
‘Washing dishes?’
‘They pay cash and I get a meal at the beginning of each shift, keeps me alive.’
‘And the DSS don’t know about it?’
‘Nope . . . I mean, do me a favour, the nice thing about those DSS snoopers is that they only snoop during office hours.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘So they say . . . and I take a different route to work each evening and a different route home. There’s a whole hidden army working at night for cash; you need to moonlight. Irish Mickey was like that, he’d be away for a day or two, come back with hard cash in his pocket; more than I could earn but we never asked questions. So he keeps a drum here but his Giro goes to another address. We don’t get much post.’
‘Which is his room?’
The youth pointed to the window beside the front door. ‘That’s his, downstairs front. Nobody wants a front room, too noisy . . . got noise from the street and you’ve got noise from the railway, so the last person in the house gets the downstairs front, the second last gets the upstairs front. Me, I got the back room.’
‘So, Mickey Dalkeith was the last lodger to move in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which was when?’
‘About a year ago. It’s a fairly settled drum. I’ve been here two years, I’m comfortable. There are better, there are worse, but I’m happy. Queen’s Park tube and railway station is at the end of the street and it’s not too far to walk to work.’
‘We need to look inside Mickey’s room.’
‘Why?’
Ainsclough pushed the door open, and as the youth stumbled backwards, he said, ‘Let’s just say we’re interested and let’s just say a warrant won’t be needed.’ Ainsclough and Brunnie entered the house and instantly fought for breath, the heavy malodorous air within smelling, it seemed, of a combination of damp and kitchen smells, both compounded by a lack of sufficient ventilation.
‘Don’t you open win
dows in this house?’ Brunnie complained.
‘You get used to it.’ The youth sank back against the wall, merging with the gloom.
Ainsclough tried to open the door to Michael Dalkeith’s room and found it secured by a barrel lock, but only loosely so. He shoved the door and it opened easily. He turned to the youth. ‘Thanks for your help. So sling it, unless you want us to search your room as well.’ The youth quickly ‘slung it’, climbing the stairs hurriedly and silently. The officers stepped into the darkness that was Michael Dalkeith’s room.
The body on the bed was that of a young female. Naked. Eyes open, arms and legs raised in rigor. Body fluid had drained from the eye sockets and had solidified at the side of her head. She was Northern European and had short blonde hair. She was thin and wasted in terms of her appearance. She was bruised about the throat.
Ainsclough and Brunnie glanced at each other.
‘So what do you think?’ Ainsclough reached for his mobile phone. ‘Strangled her and then went for a walk in the snow? Murder/suicide . . . the alternative being a life stretch?’
‘Possibly,’ Brunnie murmured. ‘Certainly looks that way. We’ll need to speak to everyone in the house. I’ll round them up.’
Ainsclough nodded. ‘I’ll ask for assistance . . .’
Brunnie walked out of the room as Ainsclough requested the attendance of a senior officer, SOCO, pathologist and a vehicle to ‘remove persons to custody’. He went up the stairs, which creaked under his weight, and knocked on the bedroom door at the back of the house, opening it before the occupant could ask him to enter. The youth stood in the middle of the floor looking lost and helpless. ‘Who else is in the house?’ Brunnie demanded.
‘Just the women. Front room.’
‘What about the top floor?’
‘Empty. Three rooms up there but the landlord doesn’t let them out. Go and look if you don’t believe me.’
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