Blood and Judgement

by Michael Gilbert

  Conditions were not normal at the moment, owing to the discovery, a week before, in an empty shed under the railway arches at Pond End, of the misused body of nine-year-old Corinne Hart. Until Corinne’s killer was discovered the superintendent was tied fast to his telephone, and the tiny room was further overcrowded by the addition of a camp bed in one corner.

  The room opposite was officially known as the Interview Room. Very few interviews took place in it, because most of the floor space was already occupied by filing cabinets and the rest by Detective Constable Mote’s photographic apparatus.

  The far end of the corridor led straight into the CID room. This looked like nothing so much as a senior classroom. It had six flat desks, each with its chair. (Normally there were only five, but the Corinne Hart inquiry had brought back Sergeant Gwilliam, temporarily, from No. 2 Station and an extra desk had to be squeezed in for him.) Petrella, as sergeant-in-charge, had the biggest desk by the window. Immediately under his eyes sat Probationary Detective Constable Wilmot. Next to him the photographic Mote. In the far corner, Detective Constable Cobley, a Devonian, known naturally as Tom. And under the second window the newly promoted Sergeant Wynne, who was by a long way the oldest man in the room but who had done all his earlier service in the colonial police and was now starting again.

  There were two telephones, located on the window sill for want of anywhere better to put them, and the walls were covered with notices: sociable notices about forthcoming Christmas dances, gloomy notices about the habits of the Colorado beetle, and sharp notices starting “It has been observed that junior detective constables…” and signed “G Barstow, Detective Chief Superintendent i/c No. 2 District Metropolitan Police.”

  When Petrella and Gwilliam came in, this room was empty.

  “Are you going to do anything about Howton?” said Gwilliam.

  “I don’t think so,” said Petrella. “You know what they always say. ‘He wasn’t in uniform. I didn’t know who he was. I thought he was going to hit me, so I hit him first.’”

  Gwilliam grunted. “That landlord,” he said. “It’s in my mind that I had trouble with him before, when I was at this station. If I was you I’d tell the man on that beat to keep his eyes open. You run him in once or twice for serving drink after hours, it’ll teach him to mind his manners.”

  “Howton’s not our headache,” said Petrella. “He belongs to S Division.”

  “I ran Howton in twice when I was in S,” said Gwilliam. “He’s a hard case. He and Monk Ritchie started the first Camden Town mob. Did you know? When Monk was sent up for a handful last year, Howton took over, and formed his own bunch out of what was left. Jacko, Curly, Ritzy Moritz–”

  “Is Moritz very tall and thin – a fancy dresser?”

  “That’s right,” said Gwilliam.

  “Well, he was in the pub tonight,” said Petrella. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “I was only going to say,” said Gwilliam, “that I heard that when Howton took over Monk’s boys he took over his Rosa at the same time. When Monk got out, we were tipped off to watch that crowd, in case Monk had got ideas of sorting things out personally. Only he never went near them. Hopped straight across to France.”

  Petrella said, “It’s a small world, isn’t it? I was checking the pawn list tonight for a piece of stuff that was meant to be part of one of Monk’s jobs.” There was a clatter of footsteps in the passage.

  The station sergeant opened the door and said, with a grin on his face, “Three gentlemen to see you.”

  Petrella knew most of the boys in his manor and he recognized the leader of the deputation.

  “Hullo, Ray, what’s it this time?”

  “We told the constable what we saw,” said Ray, “and he told us to come straight along here and tell you. That’s right, innit?”

  The two smaller boys nodded gravely. Their faces were black with an underlayer of stove blacking and an overlayer of smoke and gunpowder and their clothes were indescribable; but they stood their ground, conscious that what they had to say would more than pay for their sins.

  “Start at the beginning,” said Petrella.

  “We were up on Binford Sports Ground,” said Ray, “getting more wood for our bonfire. The man said we could. And we found this gate. It was loose, see, and we got through.”

  “Which end of the sports ground?”

  “The far end. Behind the running track.”

  “Then you must have been in the private ground round the reservoir.”

  “’Sright,” said Ray. “Only the gate was open – well, it was loose. So how were we to know?”

  “All right,” said Petrella. “You were trespassing innocently, Water Board property, looking for firewood for your bonfire. So far I’m with you. What happened next?”

  “That’s when we found her. A woman.”

  The three black faces looked up hopefully.

  2

  The Body of a Woman

  “We’ll go in the car,” said Petrella.

  Binford Park Reservoir was an awkward place to get at. It was wedged between the embanked main railway line on one side and the sports ground on the other. At the bottom there was an entrance from the road and a motorable track opposite the filter beds. But if they used that, it would mean waste of time getting the keys and a scramble along the steeply sloping reservoir side.

  “We’ll go to the sports ground,” he said to the driver, “the entrance is in Carslake Road.”

  “What about me cushions?”

  “That’s all right,” said Petrella. “It’s their faces that are dirty, not their bottoms. Hop in, boys, and sit quiet.”

  They found the gates to the sports ground open and a worried little man standing beside them.

  “Jackson,” he said. “I’m the secretary here. I hope it’s all right about those boys. There’s a lot of dead wood behind the pavilion. I told them they could have that–”

  “That’s all right, Mr Jackson,” said Petrella. “Could you hold the gate a little wider so we can get the car in.”

  “It’s terribly muddy beyond the pavilion.”

  “I expect we shall manage.”

  They bumped off up a path which soon degenerated into a track.

  “Lucky we got four-wheel drive,” said the driver, nursing the heavy car skillfully. “Can’t go much further without chains.”

  “All right. We’ll walk from here. See if you can turn her round without getting bogged. I don’t know what we’re going to need yet.”

  He set off into the darkness, with the boys trotting behind him. In the middle of nowhere they stopped, sodden grass under their feet. The mist was thicker.

  “Where now?”

  The boys consulted, doubtfully. Petrella had an inspiration. “Did you say something about a policeman?”

  “That’s right,” said Ray. “We found a copper, outside the gate. Showed him where to go. It wasn’t so thick, then.”

  “That’s all right, then,” said Petrella, “he ought to hear us if we shout altogether. Oy!”

  Two trebles and one busted treble joined the chorus. A faint shout answered them. They turned to their left and started to climb toward it. Soon the ground levelled out and their feet crunched on a cinder track. Then down again, sharply, toward an iron fence. The shout came again, to their left, and much nearer.

  They found Police Constable Farrer standing by the gate.

  “Wotter night,” he said. “Oh, it’s you, Sergeant. Here she is. Lock’s busted. You push her and she’ll open. I took one look inside to see they weren’t making it all up, then I came out.”

  “Quite right,” said Petrella. He switched on his big torch. The gate was no more than a section of the rusty iron fence, which had been equipped in ages long past, with hinges on one side and a lock on the other. It was so long since it had been used that the path beyond, straight down through the bushes, was now hardly visible.

  “Halfway down on the left, in the bushes, just off the path, if you can call it
a path,” said Farrer. “Been there some time, I’d say.”

  The lock of the gate had rusted and snapped. Petrella pushed against the resisting weed and grass beyond and squeezed through the gap. He kept, as much as he could, to the side of the path, but it wasn’t easy in that sloping, sodden wilderness. Every time he felt his feet slipping he remembered that the reservoir was immediately below him. He found her easily enough. He saw what must have caught the boys’ eyes earlier in the evening. The sole of a brown shoe, set at that unmistakable angle which means, at once, that the shoe is not a derelict cast-off but is attached to a human body.

  She was lying on a shelf of earth which ran parallel with the bank of the reservoir and about halfway up the slope. It was an exaggeration to say that she was buried. She was lying in a slight dip, and the grass had grown round her and the leaves had blown over her.

  If she had been a yard or two further in from the path, he thought, she might have lain there until the Day of Judgement, when all hearts are opened.

  Petrella switched off his torch and climbed slowly back to the top of the bank. He had a decision to make. Clearly there was nothing to be done before morning. In fact, trampling round in the dark they might already have done more harm than good. On the other hand, even in cases of this sort, to waste no time was the inflexible rule. He had worked things out by the time he had got through the gate and heaved it shut behind him.

  “There’s no sense in you staying on guard, Farrer,” he said. “There’s nothing to guard against, and all you’ll catch will be double pneumonia. Get the station to send a man up at first light. One man should do. There’s no need to make a lot of fuss. I don’t suppose we should get many people up here anyway.”

  This reminded him of something else. He turned to the boys, who were standing in a row like sparrows hopeful of further crumbs from a promising feast.

  “I’ll get the driver to take you home,” he said. “Your mothers and fathers will want to know what you’ve been up to. Well, you can tell ’em – tell ’em everything – except where the body is. If we have a crowd up here first thing tomorrow, I’ll know who’s to blame and I’ll come after you with a belt.”

  Ray exposed his gap teeth in a beautiful smile. His prestige was going to be so heightened by his return home in a police car that nothing else mattered.

  “I won’t tellum,” he said.

  Having got rid of his assistants, Petrella had a word with the anxious man at the main gate, the resident secretary of the Sports Club.

  “Of course you can use our telephone, Sergeant,” he said. “As a matter of fact, my wife’s just making a cup of tea.”

  Petrella got through to Superintendent Haxtell. He kept it short. He knew that the superintendent’s mind was fully occupied with the elaborate campaign which had now spread outward from the empty railway shed under the arches and embraced two whole postal districts, and in which hundreds of men had already asked questions of tens of thousands of people and would question tens of thousands more.

  “There’s nothing to suggest murder,” he concluded apologetically. “It could easily be suicide – or natural causes, even. But I thought–”

  “Quite right,” said Haxtell. “Always cater for the worst, first. I’ll get a pathologist up to you in the morning. You can manage all the rest of it?”

  “I’m staying on the spot,” said Petrella, “and I’ll go up there myself at first light.”

  “Fine,” said Haxtell, and ran off.

  Mr Jackson, who had come in with the cup of tea, said, “If you’d care to use our spare bed, we’d be only too pleased. And we could lend you an alarm clock.”

  It seemed no more than a slow count of ten after his head had touched the pillow that the shrill bell jerked Petrella back to life. He quelled the clock before it would wake his host and hostess, got out of bed, and padded across to the window.

  The mist was gone and stars were showing in a clear sky. Morning was not far off.

  Ten minutes later he was easing open the rusted iron gate, which squeaked protestingly. This time he avoided the path altogether, making his way along the inside of the iron railing, and then forcing his way down, where the undergrowth looked thinnest, until he stood on the path which ran round the reservoir.

  The place was alive with birds. There were swans, grebes, and coots on the water, along with ducks of all shapes and sizes; and the trees and bushes around him were full of birds, singing their morning songs. Petrella wondered how many Londoners passed that spot every day without having any idea of the existence of this hidden sheet of water.

  But his mind was running on something besides birds. A policeman’s memory is a scrapbook and pasted into it are a thousand disconnected cuttings. Things seen. Things heard. Things read. And somewhere in it, tucked away in an unimportant corner, was something about that very reservoir. Something quite recent. Something in the papers–?

  A swan with a black cap on its head and a face like an elderly barrister arose suddenly from the rushes on the left and hissed at him. Petrella continued circumspectly on his way and eventually made the complete circuit of the water and climbed back to the field.

  Full light brought up a uniformed reinforcement; and Dr Summerson, and Dr Summerson’s secretary. Petrella watched them cross the running track.

  Dr Summerson was leading, his hands in his raincoat pockets, his black Homburg on the back of his head. Petrella had seen him at work in some fairly gruesome and some fairly outlandish circumstances and had never known him other than composed, alert, and freshly shaved. There was a theory in police circles that he carried an electric razor in his car and shaved as he drove.

  “Morning, Sergeant. Petrella, isn’t it? An assault case on Helenwood Common last March? Right? I thought I recognized you. Now, how do you want me to get at this one?”

  “I thought we’d better keep off the path as much as possible, sir. I’ve found a way down to the water. Then we can come up at her from below.”

  “Fine. Let’s have the bag, Milly. And look out for your nylons.”

  “If I wore nylons on these trips,” said Milly, “I’d soon be broke.”

  Petrella showed them the place, and then wandered off on another complete circuit of the water. It was light enough to see more detail now. The track ran round the long western and the short northern sides of the reservoir at water level and then turned onto the crown of a grassy causeway which separated the eastern side of the reservoir from the New River that fed it. At the southern end the ground opened out. There was a small, yellow-brick and grey-slate cottage, which looked deserted. Beyond the cottage the track became a cinder-covered road, wide enough for a car. Petrella followed it down to the main-road gate, which was locked. On the other side of the main road, he seemed to remember, lay the filter beds and pumping stations and other centres of activity.

  He went back to the cottage. There were curtains in the windows, but it had a cold, dead look. He knocked, and knocked again, but got no reply. When he looked up he saw that he was being watched by a large brown rat, which winked at him and vanished into the tangled mass of what had once been a kitchen garden.

  He completed his second circuit and found Dr Summerson finishing off.

  “I’ll give you enough to be getting on with,” he said. “Hold those scissors a moment, Milly. Right?”

  Petrella opened his notebook at a clean page and nodded.

  “Woman of about thirty-five. Well, say middle thirties. Black hair. Difficult to be sure what she looked like – the face, I mean.”

  Petrella raised his eyes, then averted them hastily.

  “Taken good care of her figure. No surplus fat. I think it’d be safe to guess that she was a nice-looking woman. Used heavy make-up, anyway. Clothes good, but I wouldn’t say West End, would you, Milly?”

  His secretary paused for a moment from repairing her own good-looking face to say, “Upper-class prices, lower middle-class taste.”

  “You’ll get a lot more detail out
of the clothes when the laboratory’s had a go at them. There’s a maker’s label in the back of the dress which is too stained to read, but those boys will be able to make it out for sure.” Summerson paused, and added, “Dead one to two months. That’s only a guess at the moment. I’ll try and close the bracket a bit when I do the autopsy.”

  “Was she–?” Petrella hesitated.

  “Go on,” said Summerson. “Ask it. They always do. Was she murdered? I haven’t the faintest idea. When I’ve finished the autopsy I may be able to guess. But I’m not going to jump the gun. That’s a thing I have learnt. One of my first cases for the police. A boy, in Essex, found hanging in a farmyard. Symptoms of strangulation, rope mark round his neck. No one had any doubt it was suicide. That afternoon I was doing the PM in the Epping Mortuary. The man in charge of the case – it was Chief Inspector Glaister – that was in the days before they made ’em all superintendents – was watching me do it. He’d just said, ‘I wonder what a nice boy like that would be thinking of to hang himself–’ when something rolled out of him and fell on the floor with a clatter. Do you know what it was? – it was a bloody great forty-five revolver bullet. I’m sure I’ve told you this story before, Milly.”

  “Last time it was a Luger.”

  “What a memory,” said Summerson coldly. “Just hold that plastic bag while I shovel this in, will you?”

  While they were finishing off, Petrella had a word with the constable.