The Night She Died

by Dorothy Simpson

  He and Mallard crossed the road together.

  “Move these people away,” Thanet snapped at the constable on duty at the footpath entrance.

  Preoccupied as he was with the coming ordeal, he and Mallard had walked on a few paces before it registered: in the knot of sightseers one face had been familiar. Whose was it? Thanet stopped, turned to look back, but the little crowd was already dispersing, drifting away reluctantly with their backs towards him.

  Thanet shrugged, followed Mallard to the spot where a second constable stood guard, at an open doorway in the ramshackle fence on their right. He peered in at a long narrow garden crammed with mounds of sand and ballast, planks, bricks, paving stones and bags of cement, then picked his way through the clutter to the little brick building tucked away in a corner, behind the fence.

  Here Lineham was watching the photographers, who were already at work. They all moved back as Mallard and Thanet approached.

  Thanet steeled himself, looked.

  The bundle of old clothes, crammed into the confined space between the wooden lavatory seat and the door, resolved itself into the body of a woman, head slumped forward on to raised knees, face invisible. There was dried blood in her sparse brown hair.

  Thanet took a deep, unobtrusive breath.

  “Which shots have you taken?” he asked.

  The photographers had been thorough.

  “Better get her out, then,” Mallard said. “It’s impossible to examine her properly in there.”

  They spread a plastic sheet upon the ground and Lineham summoned the constable at the gate to help him. Together they stooped to ease the body out of its hiding place. It was not an easy task. Rigor had stiffened her and Lineham had to struggle to lift the upper half of the body sufficiently to enable the other man to manoeuvre the feet through the narrow doorway. Gently, they lowered her on to the plastic.

  “Turn her on her side, for God’s sake,” said Mallard. “Looks like a bloody oven-ready chicken.”

  The bent head, knees tucked up to the chest and splayed feet did indeed look grotesque and the two men stooped hurriedly to obey the police surgeon’s command.

  Perhaps Mallard, too, resented the fact that the woman had been denied any dignity in death, Thanet thought, moving closer as the doctor squatted down beside the body.

  The woman was, as he had been told, middle-aged—in her early fifties, perhaps? She was small, slight, and her clothes were drab: brown woollen skirt, fawn hand-knitted jumper, brown cardigan, sensible black lace-up shoes, worn and scuffed. Thanet’s limited view of the side of her face gave him a glimpse of sparse eyebrows, muddy skin. There was a large mole sprouting hairs just above the jaw-line.

  An unobtrusive little woman, Thanet decided. Unassuming and probably undemanding. And, above all, a most unlikely corpse. Women like this were not usually the victims of deliberate violence. Of a casual attack, a mugging perhaps, yes: that might, of course, be the answer here. If so, it would be the first crime of its kind in a village community in this area. There had been several cases in Sturrenden itself of late, but so far the villages had remained immune.

  Thanet grimaced at the thought. Brutality against the old was a particularly repellent manifestation of violence. But in any case this explanation somehow didn’t feel right. The victims of muggings were usually struck down and left to lie. Here, trouble had been taken to hide the body.

  “This lavatory in use?” Thanet said to Lineham.

  “No, sir. The house is empty. It’s being done up by a builder, but in any case it has an indoor loo, has had for years.”

  “Any sign of the weapon?”

  “Not yet, sir, no.”

  “What was her name? Birch?”

  “Yes, sir. Carrie Birch.”

  “Carrie Birch,” murmured Thanet. Insignificant though she may have been, Carrie Birch had been a person with her own hopes, fears and daydreams and she had had as much right as anyone to live to enjoy them.

  I’ll get him if I can, Thanet promised her silently.

  2

  Thanet shifted his buttocks into a marginally more comfortable position and resumed his contemplation of Nettleton. From his perch on the five-barred gate he had a clear view of the area which interested him, the area around the church.

  At the beginning of a case he always liked to establish in his mind the geography of the place in which the crime had been committed. After that came the people and then … ah, then the part which really interested him, the relationships between them. Always, somewhere in that intricate web of attitude, emotion and interaction, would lie the truth of the murder. Who and where and how and why would slowly become evident as his understanding grew, as would the unique position of the victim in that web, murder the inevitable outcome of its weaving.

  The row of terraced cottages in which Carrie Birch had lived lay at right angles to the road and almost opposite the church. They looked out upon open fields and in front of them a narrow lane wound its way to a cluster of farm buildings. The gate upon which Thanet was sitting was a hundred yards or so further on along that lane.

  Behind the cottages ran a footpath which, according to Lineham, provided a short cut to the church from the far side of Nettleton. On the other side of that footpath and immediately opposite the church was the vicarage, an attractive modern house, brick and tile-hung in traditional Kentish style. The Old Vicarage on the other side of the road was a much larger and presumably therefore uneconomic building, and was the last house in the village. Between it and the church, in what must once have been its extensive grounds, had been built two relatively new modern houses, one a wooden Colt bungalow, the other a much larger and more opulent construction of brick, plastic “weatherboard” and generous expanses of glass.

  Thanet already knew that Carrie Birch had lived in number four, Church Cottages, with her mother. Number one, next to the road, was occupied by a young couple and their baby; number two was being renovated, number three housed a family of four and number five an elderly woman. Not, Thanet thought, a particularly promising bunch of suspects. Perhaps someone more interesting might turn up.…

  Suddenly aware that his buttocks had gone numb, Thanet slid down off the gate and began to rub them, grimacing at the discomfort. He began to walk back down the lane towards the cottages.

  According to Doc Mallard, Carrie Birch had been killed between 9 pm and 11 pm the previous evening. She had been struck on the head with the traditional blunt instrument, but in his opinion it might not have been this blow which had caused her death. He was unwilling to commit himself before the post mortem, of course, but there seemed to be indications that she might have been suffocated. After the twelve or thirteen hours which had elapsed since her death the blueness of the features normally associated with suffocation had worn off, but some unpronounceable condition of the tiny blood vessels under the skin of her cheeks was apparently sufficiently marked to give him cause for suspicion.

  It seemed possible then that the murder, even if not premeditated, had been deliberate; a blow on the head could be struck in anger, but subsequent suffocation was a very different matter.

  An increasingly deafening roar from behind him made Thanet press himself back against the fence as a red tractor came trundling around the bend. Its driver grinned and raised a hand in salute as he rattled by. Thanet waved back.

  The tractor turned left on to the main road and almost at once an ambulance entered the lane, pulled up in front of number four. Behind it came Lineham, walking swiftly. Thanet moved forward to meet him.

  “That’ll be for Mrs Birch, sir,” Lineham said, gesturing at the ambulance. “There’s no one to look after her now, so the social services have arranged for her to go into hospital. Do you want a word with her, before she goes?”

  “Not at the moment, I don’t think.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  Thanet looked at Lineham sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Lineham shrugged. “I had a word with her ea
rlier. Couldn’t stand her, myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’d guess she ran that poor little woman off her feet and never once said thank you for it. All she can think of now is herself—what’s going to happen to her. Why did Carrie have to go and get herself murdered, that’s her attitude. Makes me sick.”

  It was unlike Lineham to be so vehement. Thanet made no comment, however, and the two men strolled on past number four as the ambulance men went up to the door and knocked.

  “She last saw her daughter at just before nine o’clock last night, you said?”

  “That’s right,” said Lineham. “Apparently Miss Birch had arranged with a neighbour, the Miss Pitman who rang the station this morning, to go and look in on Miss Pitman’s father, who is also an invalid, while Miss Pitman was at the Parochial Church Council meeting. Apparently this was a regular arrangement whenever Miss Pitman was out in the evening. Miss Birch worked for the Pitmans in the mornings, too, cleaning and generally looking after the old man’s needs. Anyway, Miss Birch settled her mother for the night before leaving and that was the last Mrs Birch saw of her. She went to sleep and when her daughter still hadn’t brought her morning tea at half past eight this morning—she used to bring it at eight, regular as clockwork—Mrs Birch panicked. She tried shouting, ringing the little handbell she has in case she needed her daughter in the night, but there was no answer and in the end she managed to get help by banging on the wall between her bedroom, which is on the ground floor, and number three.”

  “Who lives there? A family of four, you said?”

  “That’s right. Name of Gamble. He’s a fitter at Brachey’s, on night shift at the moment. He was in bed and sound asleep by then and his wife and son had already left for work. His daughter Jenny was still at home, though, and she heard Mrs Birch banging on the wall.”

  “How did she get in?”

  “The Gambles have a key to number four, in case of emergency.”

  “Is the daughter usually at home in the daytime?”

  “No, she works in Boots in Sturrenden.”

  “Funny, leaving the spare key there, then, if there’s usually no one except the father home during the daytime, and he’s in bed. Why not leave the key with the other neighbour, the woman in number five?”

  Lineham shrugged. “She’s a bit of a recluse, I gather. Not the sort of person you leave keys with.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Cox.”

  “Miss?”

  “So far as I know.”

  They had reached the end of the lane now and turned to watch as a small procession wound its way out of number four: the two ambulance men, a bulky woman in a wheelchair and a second woman carrying suitcase and carrier bag.

  “Who’s that?” asked Thanet.

  “Miss Pitman. She’s been sitting with Mrs Birch until the ambulance came. When Jenny Gamble found that there was no sign of Miss Birch and that her bed hadn’t even been slept in, she ran across to the Pitmans’. The Gambles haven’t got a phone.”

  The two men stepped back against the fence as the ambulance edged its way past them and drove off in the direction of Sturrenden. Thanet looked with interest at the woman who was hurrying along the lane towards them.

  “Miss Pitman?”

  “Yes?”

  Thanet introduced himself. “I’d like a word with you, if I may.”

  She was in her early forties, he guessed, a tall woman with untidy brown hair and a harassed expression.

  She put a hand up to her forehead. “Yes, of course Inspector. It’s just that … oh, dear, everything is haywire this morning. Poor Carrie, and then Mrs Birch.… And I really must see to my father, he’s an invalid. Do you think you could possibly come over to the house with me? I must check that he’s all right.”

  Her eyes, Thanet noted, were beautiful, large, velvet-brown and expressive. He took pity on her.

  “Of course, Miss Pitman. But there’s no desperate urgency. There are one or two things I must see to here. Why don’t you go on and attend to your father and I’ll be across later? The bungalow, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Oh, thank you, Inspector. That’s very kind. Do you want this? It’s the key to the Birchs’ cottage.”

  Thanet took the key with a murmur of thanks and watched her go. He firmly believed in the value of courtesy to the public. There were, of course, occasions when it was a complete waste of time, but on the whole he had always found that polite consideration elicited the highest degree of cooperation from witnesses.

  “Come on,” he said to Lineham. “I want to have a look around number four.”

  As they passed number two, however, a man erupted from the open doorway, hammer in hand. For a split second Thanet wondered wildly if Fate had decided to hurl the murderer into his arms, blunt instrument and all.

  “’Ere,” said the newcomer. “You in charge of this lot?” Tall and muscular, wearing tee-shirt and jeans, he was an impressive figure. Bright blue eyes glowered at Thanet from a face barely visible behind its luxuriant growth of hair.

  “I’m in charge of the murder enquiry, yes,” said Thanet calmly.

  “Well, when am I going to be able to get at my stuff?”

  “Stuff?”

  “Been held up all morning, haven’t I? While your lot’s been poking around in the back garden. Bill and me wanted to get on with them new partitions on the first floor this morning, and so far we haven’t been able to do a bleeding thing.”

  “I’m sorry that you’ve been inconvenienced,” said Thanet, keeping his anger at the man’s manner well under control, “but a woman has been killed, you know, Mr …?”

  “Arnold,” said the man, Thanet’s mild tone having its desired effect. He looked suitably abashed. “Jack Arnold. Yeah, well, I know you’ve got to do your job, but I got to do mine, haven’t I? I mean, time’s money, isn’t it? And there’s little enough profit in these sort of jobs nowadays as it is.”

  “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement,” Thanet said. He turned to Lineham. “How are the men getting on in the garden of number two?”

  “They should be almost finished by now. I’d have to check.” Lineham’s face was wooden and Thanet knew by experience that the sergeant was hiding his amusement with difficulty.

  “If you tell Sergeant Lineham what you want, I’m sure he’ll be able to arrange for you to have it.”

  “Twelve eight-foots of three by two and two twelve-foots of three by two, and them big sheets of plasterboard,” Arnold said promptly. “Thanks, Guv.”

  “Perhaps you’d better go with the sergeant, Mr Arnold, and make sure you get what you want,” Thanet suggested, seeing Lineham’s eyes glaze. “When you’ve finished, Lineham, come along to number four, will you?”

  “We can go through the house,” Arnold said, turning away with alacrity.

  “Just one or two small points,” Thanet said quickly. “That outside lavatory. Was it ever used?”

  Arnold turned back reluctantly, impatience in every line of his body. “No. There’s a toilet in the house, see. The landlord had toilets and bathrooms built on to the back of all these cottages a few years back, before he decided to sell them off as they come vacant.”

  “Are you working here alone, except for … er … Bill?”

  “Most of the time, yes. But we sub-contract the special jobs like wiring and plumbing.”

  “What time do you arrive for work in the mornings?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “And you get into the house which way, front or back?”

  “Front, always.”

  “Did either of you go into the back garden before the alarm was raised over Miss Birch’s disappearance?”

  “Naw. No reason to, see. We was finishing off taking out that old partition wall—the one we’re wanting to get on with.”

  Thanet ignored the hint. “Did you know her?”

  “The old … Miss Birch, you mean? Not really. Passed th
e time of day, that’s all, when she went past in the mornings.”

  “What was she like?”

  Arnold shrugged his massive shoulders. “Dunno. Quiet. Mousy type. Couldn’t say, really.”

  “All right. Thank you.” Thanet turned away.

  At the gate of number four he hesitated, then walked back the few paces which took him to the other side of the narrow lane. He stood looking at the row of cottages. It was obvious, from here, which of them were in private ownership and which were still rented out.

  They were Victorian, he guessed, built of ugly yellow brick with slated roofs. Except for the two end cottages which, he had noticed earlier, both had attic windows in the gable end, each had one window and a front door at ground level and two windows on the first floor. Number one, where the young couple lived, was spick and span, with gleaming white paintwork and a yellow front door. The downstairs sash window had been replaced by a curved bow window with small square panes, one or two of which were bottle-glass. A similar bow window had already been installed in number two, which Arnold was renovating, and in number three, where the Gambles lived. This house, too, looked well maintained. The other two, numbers four and five, looked dingy and neglected by comparison, the paintwork peeling, the roofs in poor condition.

  It was interesting, Thanet thought, just how much could be learned about the occupants of houses just by looking at the curtains. Young Mrs Davies sported frilly net curtains, looped back, the Gambles bright modern prints, the Birches traditional half-net curtains flanked by drab florals and the last house in the row, where old Miss Cox lived, full-length nets. Thanet looked thoughtfully at the latter before crossing the road again to let himself into number four.