The Riot

by Laura Wilson

  If he’d been roused from sleep, Matheson gave no sign of it, but looked as neat and alert as he had every other time Stratton had seen him. The road was quiet now, but for the activity around the fire engine and a few stragglers who were being herded away by a group of weary constables. Stratton knew exactly how they felt. He stood, numb and exhausted, while Matheson gave orders.

  ‘You look all in, man. Let’s go and sit down for a moment.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I think I should—’

  ‘Nothing we can do for Mrs Rutherford until the medico comes,’ said Matheson, ‘and I want to know what’s been happening.’ Leading the way back to his car, he motioned to Stratton to sit in the passenger seat and, leaning on the door frame, palmed a hip flask. ‘Here.’

  Stratton stared at the flat leather-covered bottle. ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘Drink it, man. That’s an order.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He took a gulp and shuddered as the Scotch burnt its way down.

  ‘Again,’ said Matheson.

  Stratton complied. ‘I’ve got a witness who says the fire was started by two men in a green van.’

  ‘Was it indeed? Cigarette?’

  ‘Thank you, sir. The lady said it was one of those with two doors at the back.’

  Matheson raised his eyebrows.

  ‘If I’d managed to get hold of that little toerag this afternoon …’

  Matheson put a hand on Stratton’s shoulder. ‘No registration, I suppose.’

  ‘No, sir, but maybe one of the other neighbours … I’m betting that there were a few other people looking out of their windows.’

  ‘What about Mrs Rutherford?’

  ‘Looks like a very severe blow to the head, but what she might have been doing in the next-door garden is anybody’s guess. If she’d gone outside for a breath of air, why not just step out of the back door? Believe me, sir, those gardens aren’t places you’d want to linger. I can’t imagine why you’d go to the bother of scrambling through a hole in the fence.’

  ‘Unless she was with somebody.’

  Stratton frowned, thinking of Mrs Rutherford with her mannish hands, her ungainly, graceless movements and ridiculous frock. The suggestion that she might have slunk away from the party like some lovestruck teenager intent on a fumble in the shadows seemed absurd. Matheson cut across his thoughts, ‘She did seem to be rather keen on those coloured fellows at the nightclub.’

  ‘Well, one of them was certainly present. Clinton Etheridge.’ Recalling the Hon. Virginia’s skittish behaviour of the previous morning and the feverish look in her eyes, Stratton added, ‘It’s possible, I suppose, but if they had planned a tryst of some sort, you’d think they could have waited.’

  ‘Perhaps it was on the spur of the moment,’ said Matheson. ‘The moonlight, the heat, the excitement, the thrill of concealment, a spot too much to drink …’

  ‘You haven’t seen the garden, sir. Also,’ said Stratton, remembering what Fenella had told him at the town hall, ‘Mrs Rutherford’s teetotal.’

  ‘Sometimes people act out of character, especially when they’re in unfamiliar company. I can’t believe, incidentally, that alcohol was the only thing on offer.’

  ‘Marijuana was mentioned, sir.’

  ‘Well, there you are. Only conjecture, of course. I don’t suppose you’ve had time to speak to anyone from the next-door house yet?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir.’

  ‘Hardly surprising. You might have a word now – I can’t imagine they’ve managed to sleep through all this. I’ll send someone to fetch you when the pathologist arrives.’

  *

  Number 35 had been evacuated, and its inhabitants had been given shelter, en masse, across the road. The basement kitchen was crowded to bursting with adults and children clad in various combinations of nightclothes, shawls and coats. The men, both white and coloured, had settled round the table on an assortment of battered chairs to drink rum, while the women, drooping around the edges of the room, jiggled infants in blankets and swatted ineffectually at the grizzling toddlers clustered about their legs. It didn’t take Stratton long to establish that, of the thirteen inhabitants of number 35, none had been present at the party or seen anything untoward in the street outside or the back garden. None of them seemed very bothered by what had happened, and the women seemed only interested in knowing when they could go home and put the children back to bed. The white men were defensive, with a lot of ‘It was people from outside, nothing to do with us.’ The coloured men seemed to accept this, or at least they didn’t dissent, except one, who banged his glass on the table and challenged them, ‘Raas! If I could get a good job back home and I had the money to get there, you think I’d stay?’ but the others seemed sunk under a pall of resignation, not willing to talk about the situation. Watching him, Stratton felt as if all the sufferings of the men’s race was on their shoulders and that he, Stratton, was in some way responsible. He was more relieved than he’d have cared to admit when Dunning appeared to tell him that Dr McNally was waiting for him outside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘Could it have been an accident?’ asked Stratton.

  ‘Hard to see how.’ McNally glanced back at Mrs Rutherford’s body, which now, decorously covered by a canvas sheet, lay beneath bright arc lamps, with the stretcher placed ready beside it. ‘Judging from what I’ve seen of this place, it would be pretty easy to trip over, but unless one were very unlucky …’ He shook his head. ‘You haven’t moved anything out of the way, have you?’

  ‘Would I?’ Stratton gave the pathologist what he hoped was a look of injured innocence.

  ‘You might not, but you said she was found by some firemen, and—’

  ‘And they assured me that they’d left everything as it was.’

  ‘Having trampled all over the garden.’

  ‘Be fair,’ said Stratton. ‘They didn’t know they were going to find a body.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said McNally grudgingly. ‘If it was a blow to the head, you’d need a fair amount of force. Yes,’ he held up a hand, ‘before you ask, it could have been a well-nourished woman. I don’t suppose you found anything that looks as if it could have been used to bash her with, did you?’

  ‘We’ve not had the chance to look,’ said Stratton. ‘As you may be aware, there’s been rather a lot going on round here tonight.’

  ‘So I gather,’ said McNally drily. ‘I’m looking forward to reading all about it in tomorrow’s paper. In the meantime, there’s not much more I can do.’

  ‘Can you give me an idea of how long she’s been dead?’

  McNally pursed his lips in what Stratton privately thought of as his ‘not angry, but disappointed’ face, but that was clearly as much for form’s sake as anything else, because he said, decisively, ‘Not more than a couple of hours.’

  ‘She was found at about twenty to one, so … ?’

  ‘I’m not saying definitely, but she might still have been alive at eleven o’clock, although not much later. That’s not official, of course. Now, if that’s all …’

  Remembering his conversation with Matheson, Stratton said, ‘She’d not been interfered with, had she?’

  ‘Not that I could see. Certainly no signs of violence or forced entry – underclothing wasn’t disturbed. Again, it’s not official, but as far as I can tell without getting her on the slab, she appears to have been lying down when she received the blow … Which is another reason for thinking that it was a blow and not the result of a fall. I didn’t notice any signs that she’d been fending someone off, but I shan’t know that for sure until I can examine her properly.’

  ‘So it might not have been against her will.’

  ‘Ah. You want me to look for signs of recent activity in that department, do you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Fair enough. We’ll get her squared away, then.’

  *

  When McNally and the stretcher bearers had left, Stratton and Dunning repositioned the arc
lamps for a look around the garden, but found nothing except more nettles interspersed with mounds of earth mixed up with bricks and rubble from some long-ago building work. Stratton doubted that the garden was used much, if at all, even by the children. Beside the back entrance to the house was an outside lavatory which appeared to have no door and directly in front of it lay the stiff grey body of a dead rat. Looking up and down the row, he could see only the snaggled tops of wooden fences and the silhouettes of trees.

  Matheson appeared, accompanied by Hale. ‘All done?’

  ‘As much as we can, sir. Did everyone get out all right in the end?’ he asked the fireman.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hale. ‘A few casualties – minor injuries, so far as I’m aware, but no fatalities. At least, not from the fire.’

  ‘Sergeant Parker’s been taken to Casualty,’ said Matheson, ‘so I’m leaving Sergeant Lasson in charge. Most of those at the party have been patched up and gone home, but I think we’ve got most of the names and PC Colbert’s been taking statements. It seems that Mr Rutherford was at the party, but he appears to have left before the incident because no one saw him afterwards.’

  ‘Does he know yet, sir?’

  ‘No. I’m assuming he’ll be home by now, so I’d like you to go and break the bad news to him. There were a number of journalists crawling around the place, and one doesn’t know what they might have picked up. We’ll need a formal identification, of course, but that can be done in the morning. Incidentally, a couple of people mentioned that they’d seen the Rutherfords arguing,’ said Matheson.

  ‘Any reason given?’

  ‘No – and of course I didn’t tell them why I was asking – just the usual stuff about needing to account for everyone.’

  ‘I’ll ask Rutherford.’

  ‘Yes, you might do that. And when you’re finished, Dunning can drive you home. No point in you hanging around.’

  *

  Colville Road was quiet and almost deserted now, but for the fire engine and the line of policemen at each end. The pavements were littered with the aftermath of the fighting – broken glass, dotted here and there with bricks, lengths of railing, torn clothes and slews of trampled rubbish split from the dustbins. Walking along with Dunning, Stratton spotted a set of knuckledusters and a trilby hat and, catching his foot in something, looked down and saw that it was a brassiere.

  The Austin 90 had several dents in the side doors but was otherwise intact. Stratton climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I take it you know where we’re going?’

  ‘Belgravia, sir.’

  No surprises there, thought Stratton, wondering if the Rutherfords had been brought to Colville Road by a chauffeur and, if so, what had happened to him.

  As they turned off Grosvenor Place and into Belgravia, Stratton, who’d been lost in thoughts about Fenella and how she’d still been wearing his bracelet, even though she couldn’t have had any idea of seeing him, suddenly noticed how peaceful it was. A different country, here – calm, quiet and ordered, with all the inhabitants fast asleep with no idea of what had been happening just a few miles away across Hyde Park.

  Except, apparently, Giles Rutherford. ‘Looks like he’s still awake, sir,’ said Dunning, as they pulled up in front of a smartly appointed building. An expensive-looking car was parked outside and lights shone in the first-floor windows. The house, a five-storey affair in the middle of a terrace, was not dissimilar in architectural style to those in the streets they’d just come from, but the difference in condition was extraordinary: not a chip in the paintwork, a dustbin or a piece of litter in sight. You wouldn’t dare, thought Stratton, as he crossed the pavement to ring the bell.

  He wasn’t sure who he’d thought was going to answer the door – some sort of flunkey, perhaps, or a maid – but after some muffled thumping noises from within, Rutherford himself appeared. His hair was ruffled and his clothes, an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and half-untucked from his trousers, looked dishevelled. His face, Stratton thought, looked pinker and puffier than he remembered it, and he was clutching a brandy balloon in one hand. He peered owlishly at Stratton for a moment, then put a finger to his lips. ‘Sssh. Don’t want to wake the neighbours. My wife’s friends, you know.’

  Stratton’s heart sank. The words were slurred, and Rutherford swayed as he led the way upstairs, losing his balance on the turn so that Stratton braced himself in case he fell backwards. ‘Don’t want the staff to hear.’ Lurching against the door frame of the sitting room, he indicated, gesturing widely with the brandy glass and spilling some of the contents onto a handsome Chinese rug, that Stratton should take a seat. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ All the furnishings, from the writing desk in the corner to the pieces of fancy porcelain on the mantelpiece, looked as if they had been inherited rather than bought: heirlooms from Virginia Rutherford’s family, presumably. Rutherford made it across the room with some difficulty, fetching up in front of the fireplace, and, after much fumbling in his pockets and ineffectual scraping with matches, lit a cigarette. ‘Wife’s not home yet. Don’t suppose you’ve brought her back from the party, have you?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Stratton. ‘I’m a police officer. DI Stratton, sir, CID, from Harrow Road.’

  Rutherford considered this for a moment, tucking in his chin and rocking backwards on his heels. ‘Wouldn’t be playing a joke on me, would you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Rutherford raised his eyebrows until they all but disappeared beneath the messy thatch of his hair. ‘Are you really a policeman? Because –’ as Rutherford’s eyes focused on his face his expression tautened into suspicion – ‘you look like you’ve been in a punch-up.’

  ‘Just a spot of bother, sir,’ said Stratton.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Rutherford chuckled. ‘Dangerous game, going about pretending to be an officer of the law.’

  Sighing, Stratton felt in his jacket and produced his warrant card.

  Rutherford squinted at it for a moment then, handing it back, said, ‘In that case, you might be able to tell me what’s been going on, and what the hell my wife thinks she’s up to. That is,’ he took a swig of brandy, ‘if you have any idea. Of course, you may not, but …’ staring moodily into his glass, he finished, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know at all.’

  ‘Is there any particular reason why you think she’s been up to something?’ asked Stratton cautiously.

  ‘She would insist on going to that bloody party. I told her it wasn’t right, hanging about with all those …’

  ‘Those …?’

  ‘Those … people. That Etheridge, sniffing round her skirts. I know that type.’

  I’ll bet you do, thought Stratton.

  ‘Out for what they can get. It’s not just him, it’s all those others as well, after money for this scheme or that scheme, and of course they’re all,’ he elongated the word sarcastically, ‘good causes. Virginia hasn’t a clue how to say no.’ Rutherford put his glass carefully on the mantelpiece then leant forward, rubbing the fingers and thumb of one hand together. ‘Easy money.’

  ‘But you agreed to accompany her.’

  ‘I told her she wasn’t going anywhere like that on her own.’

  ‘Did you have an argument?’

  ‘We certainly had an exchange of views.’

  ‘And at the party itself?’

  Rutherford’s eyes narrowed, and he seemed to snap into sobriety. ‘What’s all this about? Has something happened to Virginia?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rutherford. Perhaps you should sit down.’ Rutherford nodded and, one hand cupping his brandy glass, subsided onto the sofa. ‘I’m afraid that your wife – Virginia – is dead. Her body was found about an hour and a half ago in the back garden of number 35 Colville Road – next door to where the party was taking place.’

  ‘What? What do you mean, dead? She can’t be dead.’

  ‘We’re not entirely sure about how it happened at the moment, sir. She appears to have
suffered a blow to the head.’

  ‘And she’s …’ Rutherford looked at him wonderingly, ‘dead, is she? I mean, you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘So what … I mean, what do I … what happens now?’

  ‘Well, sir, tomorrow morning we’ll need you to make an identification.’

  ‘You mean it might be somebody else?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s just a formality, sir. Someone will collect you and take you to the police mortuary. At the moment – if you’re feeling up to it, that is – I’d like you to take me through your movements last night.’

  Lighting another cigarette – he appeared to have forgotten the one already smouldering in the ashtray on the mantelpiece – Rutherford said, ‘What do you want to know?’

  Stratton took out his notebook. ‘What time did you leave the party, sir?’

  ‘About a quarter past eleven.’

  ‘And Mrs Rutherford didn’t want to accompany you?’

  ‘I couldn’t find her. Besides, I’d had enough.’

  ‘And you weren’t aware of any disturbance?’

  ‘Disturbance? Is that when …?’

  ‘As I said, sir, we’re not sure yet.’ Stratton gave a brief outline of the events of the evening while Rutherford got up to replenish his glass and paced up and down in front of the fireplace. Finally, he said, ‘I knew it was asking for trouble, going to that bloody party. I told her not to, but she wouldn’t listen. I suppose one of the coloureds must have done it.’

  ‘Not necessarily, sir.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ echoed Rutherford, sarcastically. ‘For God’s sake, man, who else would have done it?’

  ‘It’s our job to find that out, sir. Did you come straight home after the party?’

  ‘What the bloody hell’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘We have to ask, sir,’ said Stratton pacifically. ‘I appreciate that you’ve had a shock, Sir, but if you could try to remember …’