by Jack Higgins
12
The small rest room was badly overcrowded and there was hardly room to move between the camp beds which had been specially imported. Miller slept badly which was hardly surprising. There was an almost constant disturbance at what seemed like five minute intervals throughout the night as colleagues were sent for and the rain continued to hammer relentlessly against the window pane above his head.
At about seven a.m. he gave up the struggle, got a towel and went along the corridor to the washroom. He stood under a hot shower for a quarter of an hour, soaking the tiredness away and then sampled the other end of the scale, an ice-cold needle spray for precisely thirty seconds just to give himself an appetite.
He was half-way through a plate of bacon and eggs and on his third cup of tea in the canteen when Brady found him. The big Irishman eased himself into the opposite chair and pushed a flimsy across the table.
“Hanley in Information asked me to give you that. Just come in from C.R.O. in London.”
Miller read it quickly and took a deep breath. “Quite a lad when he gets going, our Bruno. Where’s Mallory?”
“Still at the post-mortem.”
Miller pushed back his chair. “I’d better get over to the Medical School then. You coming?”
Brady shook his head. “I still haven’t contacted Mrs. Phillips’ doctor. Mallory told me to wait till after breakfast. Said there was no rush. I’ll be across as soon as I’ve had a word with him.”
“I’ll see you then,” Miller said and left quickly.
The mortuary was at the back of the Medical School, a large, ugly building in Victorian Gothic with stained glass windows and the vaguely religious air common to the architecture of the period.
Jack Palmer, the Senior Technician, was sitting in his small glass office at the end of the main corridor and he came to the door as Miller approached.
“Try and arrange your murders at a more convenient hour next time will you,” he said plaintively. “My first Saturday night out in two months ruined. My wife was hopping mad, I can tell you.”
“My heart bleeds for you, Jack,” Miller said amiably. “Where’s the top brass?”
“Having tea inside. I shouldn’t think you rate a cup.”
Miller opened the door on the other side of the office and went into the white-tiled hall outside the theatre. Mallory was there, seated at a small wooden table talking to Henry Wade, the Head of Forensic, and Professor Stephen Murray, the University Professor of Pathology, a tall, spare Scot.
Murray knew Miller socially through his brother and greeted him with the familiarity of an old friend. “You still look as if you’ve stepped straight out of a whisky advert, Nick, even at eight-fifteen in the morning. How are you?”
“Fine—nothing that a couple of weeks’ leave wouldn’t cure.” Miller turned to Mallory. “I’ve just been handed the report on Faulkner from C.R.O.”
“Anything interesting?”
“I think you could say that, sir. Harry Meadows wasn’t wrong—he does have a record. Fined twice for assault and then about two years ago he ran amok at some arty Chelsea party.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“His agent. Three broken ribs and a fractured jaw. Faulkner’s a karate expert so when he loses his temper it can have rather nasty results.”
“Did they send him down?”
“Six months and he did the lot. Clocked one of the screws and lost all his remission.”
“Anything known against him since?”
“Not a thing. Apparently some sort of psychiatric investigation was carried out when he was inside so there’s quite an interesting medical report. Should be along soon.”
Mallory seemed curiously impatient. “All right, all right, we’ll talk about it later.” He turned to Professor Murray. “What do you think then, is this another Rainlover thing or isn’t it?”
“That’s for you to decide,” Murray said. “I’m the last man to make that kind of prediction—I’ve been at this game too long. If you mean are there any obvious differences between this murder and the others, all I can say is yes and leave you to form your own conclusions.”
“All right, Professor, fire away.”
Murray lit a cigarette and paced up and down restlessly. “To start with the features which are similar. As in all the other cases, the neck was broken cleanly with a single powerful blow, probably a blunt instrument with a narrow edge.”
“Or the edge of the hand used by an expert,” Miller suggested.
“You’re thinking of karate, I suppose,” Murray smiled faintly. “Always possible, but beware of trying to make the facts fit your own suppositions, Nick. A great mistake in this game, or so I’ve found.”
“What other similarities were present, Professor?” Mallory asked, obviously annoyed at Miller’s interruption.
“No physical ones. Time, place, weather—that’s what I was meaning. Darkness and rain—the lonely street.”
“And the features in this one that don’t fit?” Henry Wade said. “What about those?”
“Recent bruising on the throat, another bruise on the right cheek as if someone had first grabbed her angrily around the neck and then struck her a violent blow, probably with his fist. The death blow came afterwards. Now this is a very real departure. In the other cases, there was no sign of violence except in the death blow itself. Quick, sharp, clean, obviously totally unexpected.”
“And in this case the girl obviously knew what was coming,” Mallory said.
Henry Wade shook his head. “No, I’m afraid that won’t work, sir. If she was attacked by an unknown assailant, she’d have put up some sort of a struggle, even if it was only to get her nails to his face. We didn’t find any signs that would indicate that such a struggle took place.”
“Which means that she stood there and let someone knock her about,” Mallory said. “Someone she knew.”
“I don’t see how we can be certain of that, sir.” Miller couldn’t help pointing out what seemed an obvious flaw. “She was on the game after all. Why couldn’t she have been up that alley with a potential customer?”
Again the irritation was noticeable in Mallory’s voice. “Would she have stood still while he grabbed her throat, fisted her in the face? Use your intelligence, Sergeant. It’s quite obvious that she took a beating from someone she was perfectly familiar with and she took it because she was used to it.”
“I think the Superintendent’s got a point, Nick,” Henry Wade said. “We’re all familiar with the sort of relationship a prostitute has with her minder. Beatings are the order of the day, especially when the pimp thinks his girl isn’t coughing up all her earnings and the women take their hidings quietly, too. God knows why. I suppose a psychiatrist would have an answer.”
“True enough,” Miller admitted.
“And there’s one important point you’re forgetting,” Wade added. “In every Rainlover case yet he’s always taken some memento. Either an article of clothing or a personal belonging. That doesn’t seem to have happened here.”
“Anything else, Miller?” Mallory enquired.
“Was there any cash in her handbag, sir?”
“Two or three pounds in notes and silver.”
“Faulkner said he gave her a ten-pound note.”
“Exactly, Sergeant.” Mallory gave him a slight, ironic smile. “Any suggestions as to what happened to it?”
“No, sir.” Miller sighed. “So we’re back to Harold Phillips?”
“That’s right and I want him pulled in now. You can take Brady with you.”
“And Faulkner, sir?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Sergeant, don’t you ever take no for an answer?”
There was an electric moment and then Murray cut in smoothly. “All very interesting, gentlemen, but you didn’t allow me to finish my story. If it’s of any use to you, the girl had intercourse just before her death.”
Mallory frowned. “No suggestion of rape, is there?”
“None whatso
ever. In view of the conditions I would say the act took place against the wall and definitely with her consent. Of course one can’t judge whether under threat or not.”
Mallory got to his feet. “Only another nail in his coffin.” He turned to Miller. “Go and get Phillips now and bring the clothes he was wearing last night. I’ll expect you back within half an hour.”
There was a time to argue and a time to go quietly. Miller went without a word.
Miller met Brady coming down the steps of the main entrance of the Town Hall. “You look as if you’ve lost a quid and found a tanner,” he told Miller. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got to pull Harold Phillips in right away. Mallory thinks he’s the mark.”
“Harold—the Rainlover?” Brady said incredulously.
Miller shook his head. “Could be this wasn’t a Rainlover killing, Jack. There were differences—I’ll explain on the way.”
“Did you and Mallory have a row or something?” Brady asked as they went down the steps to the Mini-Cooper.
“Not quite. He’s got the bit between his teeth about Harold and I just don’t see it, that’s all.”
“And what about Faulkner?”
“The other side of the coin. Mallory thinks exactly as I do about Harold.”
“He could change his mind,” Brady said as they got in the car. “I’ve just seen a report from Dwyer, the beat man who found the body and got slugged.”
“How is he?” Miller said as he switched on the ignition and drove away.
“A bit of concussion, that’s all. They’re holding him in the infirmary for observation. There’s an interesting titbit for you in his report though. Says that about ten minutes before finding the body, he bumped into a bloke leaving the coffee stall in Regent Square.”
“Did he recognise him?”
“Knows him well—local resident. A Mr. Bruno Faulkner.”
The Mini-Cooper swerved slightly as Miller glanced at him involuntarily. “Now that is interesting.”
He slowed suddenly, turning the car into the next street and Brady said, “Now where are we going? This isn’t the way to Narcia Street.”
“I know that coffee stall,” Miller said. “Run by an old Rugby pro called Sam Harkness. He usually closes about nine on a Sunday morning after catching the breakfast trade.”
Brady shook his head sadly. “Mallory is just going to love you for this. Ah well, a short life and a merry one.” He eased back in the seat and started to fill his pipe.
Rain drifted across Regent Square in a grey curtain and when Miller braked to a halt, there were only two customers at the coffee stall, all-night taxi drivers eating fried egg sandwiches in the shelter of the canopy. Miller and Brady ran through the rain and Harkness turned from the stove, a frying pan in his hand.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Miller. Looking for breakfast?”
“Not this time, Sam,” Miller said. “Just a little information. You know about last night’s murder in Dob Court?”
“Don’t I just? Cars around here most of the night. Did all right out of it in tea and wads, I can tell you.”
“I’ve just been looking at Constable Dwyer’s report on what happened. He says he called here about ten past ten.”
“That’s right.”
“I understand you had a customer who was just leaving—a Mr. Bruno Faulkner according to Dwyer.”
Harkness nodded and poured out a couple of teas. “Artist. Lives round the corner from here. Regular customer of mine. Turns out at any old time in the a.m. when he’s run out of fags. You know what they’re like, these blokes.”
“And it was cigarettes he wanted last night was it?” Brady asked.
“He bought twenty Crown King-size. As a matter of fact I’m waiting for him to look in again. He left a pair of gloves—lady’s gloves.”
He searched under the counter and produced them. They were in imitation black leather, heavily decorated with pieces of white plastic and diamanté, cheap and ostentatious—the sort of thing that was to be found in any one of a dozen boutiques which had sprung up in the town of late to cater for the needs of young people.
“Rather funny really,” Harkness said. “He pulled them out of his pocket when he was looking for change. I said they were hardly his style. He seemed a bit put out to me. Tried to make out they were his fiancée’s, but that was just a load of cobblers if you ask me. She’s been here with him—his fiancée I mean—Joanna Hartmann. You see her on the telly all the time. Woman like that wouldn’t wear this sort of rubbish.”
Amazing how much people told you without being asked. Miller picked up the gloves. “I’ll be seeing Mr. Faulkner later this morning, Sam. I’ll drop these in at the same time.”
“Probably still in bed with the bird they belong to,” Harkness called. “Bloody artists. I should be so lucky.”
“So Faulkner had Grace Packard’s gloves in his pocket,” Brady said when they got back to the Mini-Cooper. “So what? He didn’t deny having her at his flat. He’ll simply say she left the gloves by mistake or something.”
Miller handed him the gloves, took out his wallet and produced a pound note. “This is on me, Jack. Take a taxi to the Packard house. I don’t suppose the mother’s in too good a state, but see if the father can give you a positive identification on those gloves. Come straight on to Narcia Street from there. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Mallory isn’t going to like this.”
“That’s just too bloody bad. How far did you get with Mrs. Phillips’ doctor?”
“He wouldn’t discuss it on the phone. It’s that Indian bloke—Lal Das. You know what these wogs are like. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile every time.”
“All right, Jack, all right, I’ll see him myself,” Miller said, an edge to his voice for the kind of racial prejudice that seemed to be part of the make-up of so many otherwise decent men like Brady was guaranteed to bring out the worst in him.
“Half an hour then,” Brady said, checking his watch. “That’s all it should take.”
“I’ll wait for you outside.” Miller watched him run across to one of the taxis, got into the Mini-Cooper and drove away quickly.
13
Lal Das, to whom Brady had referred so contemptuously, was a tall, cadaverous Indian. A Doctor of Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, he could have secured a senior post in a major hospital any time he wanted and yet he preferred to run a large general practice in one of the less salubrious parts of the city. He had a national reputation in the field of drug addiction and, in this connection, Miller had frequently sought his advice.
The Indian had just finished breakfast and was working his way through the Sunday supplements when Miller was shown in. Das smiled and waved him to a seat. “Just in time for coffee.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Business or did you just happen to be in the neighbourhood?”
Miller took the cup of coffee the Indian handed to him and shook his head. “You had a call earlier—a query concerning a Mrs. Phillips of 10, Narcia Street.”
The Indian nodded. “That’s right. The officer who spoke to me wasn’t terribly co-operative. Wouldn’t tell me what the whole thing was about, so I simply refused to give him the information he required until I knew more about it. A doctor/patient relationship can only function satisfactorily when there is an atmosphere of complete trust. I would only be prepared to discuss a patient’s case history and private affairs in exceptional circumstances.”
“Would murder be extreme enough?” Miller asked.
Lal Das sighed and put down his cup carefully. “I think you’d better tell me about it. I’ll judge for myself.”
“Fair enough. The man at the centre of things is the woman’s son—Harold Phillips. Presumably he’s a patient of yours also?”
An expression of real distaste crossed the Indian’s face. “For my sins. A particularly repellant specimen of present-day youth.”
“He had a girl f
riend called Grace Packard. Ever meet her?”
Das shook his head. “I notice you use the past tense.”
“She was murdered last night. Naturally Harold was called upon to explain his movements, especially as he’d had some sort of row with her earlier in the evening. His story is that he was home by nine-thirty. He says that his mother was in bed and that he took her a cup of tea and went himself.
“So his mother is his alibi?”
“That’s about the size of it. The murder was committed around ten-fifteen you see.”
Das nodded. “But what is it you want from me? Surely it’s straightforward enough.”
“It might have been if something rather strange hadn’t occurred. Two police officers went to Narcia Street just after midnight to bring Harold in for questioning. They had to kick on the door for a good five minutes before he showed any signs of life. His mother failed to put in an appearance at all. He said she was sleeping like a baby and hadn’t been very well, but according to the officer in charge, no one could have slept through such a disturbance.”
“Unless drugged of course,” Das said.
“He did find a box of Canbutal capsules on the mantelpiece, which seemed to offer a solution.”
“So what you’re really wondering is whether or not Mrs. Phillips could have been in bed and asleep when Harold returned home—whenever that was.”
“Naturally—I understand Canbutal is pretty powerful stuff. I also understand that it’s not usually prescribed in simple cases of insomnia.”
Das got to his feet, went to the fireplace and selected a black cheroot from a sandalwood box. “What I tell you now must be treated in the strictest confidence. You’re right about Canbutal. It works best in cases where the patient cannot sleep because of extreme pain. It’s as close to the old-fashioned knock-out drops as you can get.”