Fear of Drowning

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Sorry it shows.’ Hennessey approached the man.

  ‘Oh, it shows.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Edward Thom, schoolmaster, retired.’

  ‘Ah … yes. It was you who first raised concern. I remember your name in the report. I’m Hennessey, Chief Inspector.’

  Thom nodded at the tall, gaunt-looking man, a man in his mid- to late-fifties, a man of eyes which, thought Thom, showed both wounding and wisdom.

  ‘Mr Thom, did you see or hear anything suspicious last night? That is, anything of that nature in respect of the Williamses’ bungalow.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did as a matter of fact. Heard more than saw, in fact heard rather than saw, didn’t see anything at all.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Heard a car in the lane, a powerful-sounding car, thought at first it was the Williamses’ son checking the house, but it wasn’t his car. He has a sports car but I’ve heard his car often enough to recognize it. This car had an engine which had a much deeper note, a very powerful machine. Came at about midnight, we’d just returned from our walk, me and my best friend in there…’

  Hennessey smiled. ‘I have a dog. I understand the relationship.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Mongrel.’

  ‘Good … anyway, I heard the car arrive and I heard it drive away again at about one a.m.’

  ‘But you didn’t see anything?’

  ‘I did not, Mr Hennessey, but I did see something about a week ago. It actually didn’t occur to me when I spoke to the constable yesterday morning, but now I may be seeing the awful significance of it. But it’s only significant if a tragedy has befallen the Williamses. If they turn up safe and well, then what I saw cannot be relevant.’

  Hennessey paused. ‘Well, Mr Thom, without divulging details, I can tell you, off the record, that a tragedy has befallen the Williamses, that ours and your worst fears are confirmed.’

  ‘Oh…’ Thom groaned. ‘I am sorry. Well, in that case, on Thursday of last week I heard a man threaten to kill the Williamses, Mr Williams particularly.’

  ‘You heard someone threaten to kill the Williamses?’

  ‘Heard and saw,’ Thom said. ‘You can see for yourself that the Williamses’ driveway is visible from where we are standing, you can see it through the trees.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hennessey nodded in agreement. ‘It’s a clear enough sight.’

  ‘And it’s a good acoustic pocket as well,’ said Thom. ‘Your constable there will be hearing our conversation quite audibly.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Call to him in a normal voice…’ Hennessey did so, not raising his voice any, he said, ‘Constable, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the constable replied. ‘Clear as a bell.’

  ‘My heavens.’ Hennessey was genuinely surprised.

  ‘It isn’t just a function of the silence, so that your voice has nothing to compete with, it’s a function of that wall there.’ Thom pointed across Old Pond Lane to the slab-sided brick wall of a detached house which stood opposite and between Thom’s house and the Williamses’ bungalow. ‘Talking to your constable just now was like bouncing a snooker ball off the cushion. If it hits the cushion at forty degrees it’ll bounce off at forty degrees. Your voice and the constable’s answer did not directly travel between you, it travelled across the lane, bounced off the wall of that house and travelled back across the lane.’

  ‘Astounding.’

  ‘Elementary, actually,’ said Thom. ‘But that explains how I heard as well as saw what happened on Thursday.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Fellow called Richardson. Irish by his accent, despite his English name…’

  ‘Well, I’m English with an Irish name.’

  ‘Point taken … He had a length of scaffolding in his hand, waving it about his head, the Williamses were backed up against their door … he was threatening to brain them, they threatened him with the police. He said, “Go on, call them, you’re the criminals, not me.”’

  ‘He had a scaffolding pole in his hand?’

  ‘Not a twenty-one.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A twenty-one. Full-length scaffolding poles are known as “twenty-ones” in the building trade because they’re that long measured in feet. I had an extension built on my house a year or two ago and I was chatting to the builders and I picked up that piece of information. When a scaffolding pole is bent it can’t properly be straightened and so the straight bits are cut off and make handy short bits to put at the end of gangways and suchlike.’

  ‘And this fellow had one such short bit?’

  ‘Yes, about two feet long. He was a big man, hands like bears’ paws, well able to grip a scaffolding pole. Anyway, the thing didn’t escalate into violence and the angry Irishman drove away in a small lorry – I think they’re called pick-ups – which had “Richardson – Builders” painted on the side of the door. I am just assuming that the angry Irishman was Mr Richardson.’

  ‘Do you know what the row was about?’

  ‘Money. Richardson said that if he didn’t get his money then Williams’s blood would be spilled, and if she got in the way, she’d get it too. I assume “she” was a reference to Mrs Williams. Charming fellow.’

  ‘It’s a fair assumption, I’d say.’ Hennessey looked at the house which stood on the other side of the lane, on the wall of which voices had bounced between Thom’s house and the Williamses’ house. ‘I wonder if the people who live in that house saw anything?’

  ‘Plenty, I expect. He’s a vet, recently retired and celebrating the fact by taking his wife on a world cruise with Cunard. Daresay they’ll be somewhere between Sydney and San Francisco right now.’

  Hennessey chuckled.

  ‘Reinforcements?’ Thom said, as a white van slowed to a stop outside the Williamses’ bungalow.

  ‘Scene of Crimes Officers.’

  ‘The Williamses’ bungalow is a scene of a crime, then?’

  ‘Yes. Now it is.’

  ‘And I came here for a quite retirement.’

  * * *

  ‘That will be my findings, Sergeant Yellich.’ Louise D’Acre removed the gauze mask from her mouth and pondered the bodies, laying side by side on twin stainless-steel tables, the top of the skull of each having been removed, thus exposing the brain. ‘Both died of head injuries, but both died differently.’

  ‘What was that term you used … for him, Dr D’Acre?’

  ‘For him, he died of a subarachnoid haemorrhage. What happened to him is that he sustained multiple blows to the head but he has quite a thick skull. His skull didn’t fracture at all, but the blows caused subcranial lacerations and the blood collected in the subarachnoid space. What happened then is that the blood was prevented from coagulating because it mixed with the cerebrospinal fluid which dilutes it and it then slides down inside the skull to cover the brain and enter the basal skull fossae, and death follows.’ She peeled off her latex gloves from her hands. ‘The process is not fully understood, but when the brain stem comes into contact with blood, death occurs.’

  The mortuary assistant covered the bodies with sheets.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Filey.’ D’Acre smiled at the small bespectacled man, who smiled his acknowledgement. ‘The fact that he had been drinking, he has a high blood/alcohol level, the alcohol would have eased the bursting of aneurisms, the blood vessels.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So that is he. Now she, on the other hand, did suffer a fractured skull. A single blow cracked her skull open from front to back, sending brain splinters into the skull, killing her instantly. A blunt instrument was used in both cases.’

  ‘Time of death?’

  ‘Found this morning … I noted a slight discolouration of the abdominal skin, that is the usual sign for the onset of putrefaction, which normally takes place within two to three days after death. They probably were not killed last night, probably any time from Sunday to Monday evening … but
they would have been deceased by yesterday morning. I think of interest to you is the hypostasis, that was the redness about the buttocks, the shoulders and the calves and ankles.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘That fully established itself in six to twelve hours after death and is basically a settling of blood in the body due to gravity, especially where the body has been exposed to a cold surface. When they had died, they were both laid on the ground face up and remained there for about twenty-four hours, during which rigor mortis set in. Then they were moved, the rigor was broken, and they were then taken to the shallow grave and placed on their sides. If they had been buried soon after death in the manner in which they were found, then rigor would be present and the hypostasis would be present down one or the other side, not on the posterior aspect of their bodies.’

  ‘Moved after death,’ Yellich said. ‘Alive on Sunday, deceased by Tuesday, moved after death.’

  ‘They were probably buried on the Tuesday evening, that is yesterday and today’s hours of darkness. Found this on her clothes.’ D’Acre held a small glass test tube and handed it to Yellich.

  ‘A butterfly?’

  ‘A moth.’ D’Acre looked at the test tube. ‘What great monument of purpose you were destined for and never knew it, eh, little one? You see, Sergeant, it’s my guess that in the burial of the two bodies in a shallow grave, there would be a lot of movement, bodies being carried and dumped, soil being heaved … would there not?’

  ‘Yes, I would imagine so.’

  ‘It’s my further guess that this wee beastie – it’s a common moth, nothing out of the ordinary about it – came fluttering along, possibly attracted by a light from a lantern or car headlights, and by some means got caught up in the movements, had a spadeful of soil chucked over him. Got in the way of a spadeful of soil, was brought down as he fluttered by, didn’t recover before the next spadeful of soil landed on him and his goose was cooked. But his presence meant that he was in the vicinity at the time of the burial, that means it was a night burial. Allowing for time for rigor to establish itself, because it was broken, then they could not have been buried Monday night/Tuesday morning, they had to have been buried last night. And murdered at least twelve hours before that.’

  ‘So … they were seen alive on Sunday in the afternoon…’

  ‘Any time from then until yesterday morning was the time of their death, if you’re certain they were alive on Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Their children saw and spoke with them.’

  ‘Good enough, I suppose, but clinically speaking, I’d be prepared to push the time envelope back twenty-four hours, but that’s at the extreme. If you think that the witnesses to their being alive on Sunday are reliable, then that would fit with my clinical findings that death was likely to have occurred between’ – she glanced at the clock on the wall – ‘between about twenty-four and fifty-two hours ago.’

  ‘Between Sunday night and Tuesday morning?’

  ‘If you like, but I can narrow it down further.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Stomach contents reveal a partially digested heavy meal.’

  ‘They were known to have been at a restaurant on Saturday evening, returning home about midnight.’

  ‘Well, it takes about twenty-four hours for a meal to be digested and the waste vacated per rectum and heavy, fatty meals remain longer than light meals, as you’d expect, and digestion does continue after death. But the presence of the Saturday-evening meal in their system points to death nearer to the fifty hours end of the time window.’

  ‘Closer to the Sunday?’

  ‘Yes. Much closer to the Sunday.’

  * * *

  ‘She didn’t say what sort of weapon was used, boss,’ Yellich said in Hennessey’s office. ‘Apart from a blunt instrument.’

  ‘Plenty of those. Do you think it could be a scaffolding pole, that it to say a short length of same?’

  ‘Have to ask her that, boss.’

  ‘I will.’ Then, by means of explanation Hennessey told Yellich about Richardson, his visit to the Williamses’, his threat and the two-foot-long length of scaffolding pole. ‘What did Williams say about anybody wanting to murder his parents?’

  ‘Not a lot. He’s a queer fish, boss, no mistake. You’d think he’d be upset about going to identify his parents, but on the journey he was obsessed by that sailor.’

  ‘What sailor?’

  ‘The lad on the platform outside the provost marshal’s office.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Hennessey spoke softly. ‘I did wonder what his story was.’

  Yellich told him.

  ‘Seemed to take it personally, then?’

  ‘Seemed so.’

  ‘What about his reaction when he saw his parents’ bodies?’

  ‘That was more natural. A bit restrained, but sorrowful, subdued. Daresay he is a human being after all.’

  When Yellich had gone, Hennessey suddenly remembered another name: Bestwood. Bestwood, that’s another name for the list, one perfunctory, lacklustre, flat-personality lump of a lad, he, little wonder he hadn’t been one of the first to spring to mind. But that’s another name for the list, but he was betting there. He was confident that soon he’d have all thirty-two names. He couldn’t remember Bestwood’s Christian name though. He thought it was probably Michael, but only probably.

  4

  Wednesday afternoon and evening

  … in which Chief Inspector Hennessey meets a ruined man, is annoyed and impressed by a scientist, and both he and Sergeant Yellich each make their favourite journey: home.

  Rufus Williams sat impassively in the interview room. Hennessey was puzzled by his calmness, but then, he thought, then this was probably his way of reacting to misfortune, a state of denial, he believed it to be called – ‘it’s not really happening, it isn’t really, it’ll sort itself out, he’s not really dead, it just looks that way.’

  ‘Would you like us to contact the Metropolitan Police to ask them to break the news to your sister?’

  ‘No. I’ll do that. Thanks, anyway.’

  ‘As you wish. We only have to inform one next of kin. The rest is up to the family.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘Difficult as it must be for you, sir,’ Hennessey pressed forward. ‘I’m afraid we have to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This has now officially become a murder enquiry, a double murder enquiry, and so we must ask you not to go near your parents’ bungalow. It’s become a crime scene.’

  ‘So they were murdered at home?’

  ‘We don’t know that. It’s been ransacked and for that reason alone we have declared it a crime scene. We’ve still to establish the location of the murders. For all we know there may be two different locations.’

  ‘How did they die?’

  ‘Beaten about the head with a blunt instrument.’

  Williams shook his head slowly. ‘There’s something unreal about this.’ Hennessey nodded. This, he thought, was more like a normal reaction, more natural, more appropriate than the reaction that Yellich had reported: the obsession with the young able seaman, that was a clear denial reaction. ‘One thing we are certain of is that your parents were not robbed. Money was not the motive.’

  ‘I could have told you that. They have no money. None at all.’ Williams looked Hennessey square in the eye. ‘No money at all.’

  ‘So it’s fair to say that no one would benefit from their death, financially speaking?’

  ‘That’s fair.’

  ‘Not even you and your sister … I mean the bungalow, any insurance policies…’

  ‘If anything, it will be scraps. I don’t know the extent of his bank accounts or building society accounts, if any, nor of his insurance policies. If any. The death certificate will only have been issued today. I’ve got to start wrapping up his estate … I just don’t have the information you want but I suspect that if he left anything, it will be only enough to pay f
or his funeral.’

  ‘What about the bungalow?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It must be worth something?’

  ‘It is, but not to us. So I believe, anyway. I don’t know the extent of it but I suspect that Father had borrowed money from the bank, using the bungalow as collateral. He had been unable to repay the loan. So I believe, anyway.’

  ‘All right. So neither your sister nor you would benefit from the death of your parents?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mr…’

  ‘Lieutenant.’

  ‘Lieutenant Williams, your parents were beaten about the head, that’s passion. They were buried in a shallow grave, that’s absence of premeditation. Who do you know, would have such feelings for your parents that they would want to kill them in such a violent way? Their murder was one of suddenly unleashed rage.’

  ‘You’ve asked me this before and I still can’t bring anyone to mind who would want to do that.’ Williams shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. But then again, he was a businessman…’

  ‘And businessmen make enemies. I know.’

  ‘Mother did once tell of a spat with a fellow called Richardson.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Irishman, has a temper. So she said.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘Don’t know about him, but apparently Father had let him down in some way. I don’t know the details, but Richardson felt he’d been let down by Father and was in a bad financial way because of it. You’ll have to ask Richardson.’

  ‘We will. He’s a builder, isn’t he?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Your father … you said he helped you financially?’

  Williams scowled. Then he said ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘To a great extent?’

  ‘That’s relative. He helped me keep away from poverty. I could enjoy the social life of a naval officer without worrying too much.’

  ‘I see,’ Hennessey said. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, from what you’ve told me, you’re now dependent upon your salary and that can’t be much.’