Denial of Murder

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Oh …’ Shaftoe groaned with evident dismay, ‘he must have been quite hungry when he died. I can detect no remnants of food at all … none whatsoever. Yet I still stand by my earlier observation that he appears to be well nourished. Hunger and food scarcity was not a constant experience in his life, but for the last forty-eight hours of it, possibly the last seventy-two hours, he ate nothing at all. He would have been quite hungry, even very hungry, but far from starvation. It takes three weeks for an adult human to starve to death, though hunger strikers in hospital conditions where no exertion is required of their bodies have lasted nearly thrice that length of time … but a man trying to walk to safety out of a wilderness with no shelter can expect to live for three weeks without food and our friend here is far from that point. I can also detect fat deposits … and they would be the first to be gobbled up as hunger really sets in, so … no food for the last two or three days of his life.’ Shaftoe paused. ‘I will take a blood sample and use it to test for toxins as well as to extract his DNA, but I am pretty certain that I have found the cause of death … blunt force trauma to the head … two blows with a linear instrument. The first to the side of the head and the second to the crown or top of his head, both delivered with great force. As I said, either could have been fatal. So one to do the job and a second one to make sure.’ He turned to Vicary. ‘I will have my completed report faxed to you at New Scotland Yard later today, Mr Vicary.’

  ‘That would be much appreciated. Thank you, sir.’ Harry Vicary left the pathology laboratory and walked silently to the changing room where he placed the coveralls in the waste bin provided and then re-dressed in his outer clothing. He left the Royal London Hospital and walked casually to Aldgate East Underground Station where he took the Tube to St James’s, and from there walked the short distance to New Scotland Yard. As he had hoped, and indeed as he had half expected, a file on the deceased, having already been identified by his fingerprints, had been placed in his in-tray for his attention.

  TWO

  The slender file on Gordon Henry Claude Cogan so far made, Harry Vicary found, interesting but not wholly surprising reading. In Vicary’s experience, victims whose skulls are splintered and who are then left lying half in and half out of the gutter to await discovery by the first luckless member of the public, in this case the milkman, to chance upon them are usually people with enemies who are also invariably known to the police. Gordon Cogan was no exception. Cogan was, according to the date of birth in his file, forty years old when he was murdered. He had one conviction for the abduction and rape of a minor, and a second conviction for murder. Any other crime(s) that Cogan had committed had either not been solved or not been reported, and there had to be other crimes, Vicary reasoned, because felons who abduct, rape and murder tend to ‘graduate’ from less serious crimes. What did cause Harry Vicary eyebrow-raising and jaw-dropping astonishment was the seemingly unduly lenient sentence of just six months imprisonment for the offence of abduction and rape of a minor, which was committed when Cogan was in his early twenties. Vicary continued to read the file and he found that very shortly upon his release from prison for that offence he was then convicted of the murder of a young woman and served fifteen years of the mandatory life sentence. He had been released from that term of imprisonment just a few weeks before he was murdered. ‘Not a wholesome individual,’ Vicary murmured to himself as he reached slowly forward for his mug of tea which stood on his desktop, next to his telephone. He drained the tea, which was by then lukewarm, then stood and carried the file on Gordon Cogan to the detective constables’ room where he found Detective Constables Penny Yewdall and Tom Ainsclough both sitting at their desks, reviewing paperwork. ‘Busy, I see,’ he commented warmly. ‘That is a pleasing sight. Most pleasing.’

  ‘Last month’s statistics for me, sir,’ Yewdall replied, equally warmly, glancing up at Vicary.

  ‘Writing up the results of the house-to-house on Lingfield Road here, sir.’ Ainsclough tapped the paper in front of him. ‘And I can tell you now that it won’t be taking very long … there has been nothing to report. The good citizenry of Wimbledon saw or heard nothing of note.’

  ‘Frankly, I didn’t think they would.’ Vicary sighed. ‘As I said at the time, but that the job had to be done.’

  ‘Oh … yes, of course, sir,’ Ainsclough replied, ‘I realize that. Fully realize it.’

  ‘Good … look … I’d like you two to do a visit, please.’ Vicary held up the file on Gordon Cogan.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Yewdall put her pen down.

  ‘It is in respect of the Wimbledon Village murder, doubtless Tom here has told you about it?’ Vicary glanced out of the DCs’ window which, like the view from his own, offered a vista of Westminster Bridge, the river and the solid buildings on the South Bank, all at that moment bathed and glinting in a strong sun.

  ‘Yes, he has, sir.’ Yewdall glanced at Ainsclough. ‘It sounded like an interesting start to the day. Quite intriguing … that sort of thing does not happen in Wimbledon. At least not in the Wimbledon that I know.’

  ‘It was, and we are still in the most important twenty-four hours so, as you know, it takes priority.’ Vicary continued to look warmly and approvingly on the two detective constables, who were both still in their twenties and both of whom, Vicary had constantly found, always worked very well together. Very well indeed. ‘The visit in question is in connection with the murder. The victim has now been identified and is known to us, as I suspected he might be given the kind of injuries he sustained, but his next of kin have still to be notified. They may also wish to view the body. I attended the post-mortem this morning and Mr Shaftoe believed he might have been able to save the face of the deceased, so the body may be viewed if the next of kin request it … but you had better check with the Royal London first. Frankie and Victor are to visit his release address later today.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ainsclough replied. ‘Understood.’

  ‘You will have to read the file before you visit, of course.’ Vicary laid it on the edge of Yewdall’s desk. ‘He … the victim, was not, it seems, the most pleasant of individuals, but no matter what you might feel about him getting what was coming to him, if that was the case, remember that he is also a murder victim and that he deserves justice. Fair enough?’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Penny Yewdall answered for both she and Tom Ainsclough.

  ‘His next of kin,’ Vicary continued, ‘are the only contacts we have. As you’ll see from the file, the box for “criminal associates” is marked “none known”, and so he appears to have been a bit of a lone wolf, as indeed are the great majority of sex offenders.’

  ‘Sex offender?’ Yewdall commented. ‘Really?’

  ‘As you will read. As, in fact, both of you will read. So … break the news as gently as you can … it’s never easy … then play it by ear. See what you see,’ Vicary requested, ‘find out what you find out … you know the drill. You’ve both been there before.’

  The Cogans invited Yewdall and Ainsclough into their home, cautiously so and with apparent wariness, upon seeing the officers’ warrant cards. The Cogans’ home revealed itself to be a modest but neatly kept terraced house in the cul-de-sac of Evelyn Road in Richmond upon Thames. Standing in the shaded downstairs room to the rear of the house, Yewdall broke the news of the death of Gordon Cogan as gently and sensitively as she could, she being the only person to speak in the hushed silence which had by then descended upon the household. The man, who had viewed the officers’ ID cards and then identified himself as being one Derek Cogan, and who was clearly in his early middle years, nodded slightly and kept his lips firmly together. Then he spoke in a soft whisper, saying, ‘Thank you for telling us.’

  The woman who had said, ‘I am Mrs Cogan,’ was, noted the officers, frail, elderly and slightly built, and fought to contain her tears. Eventually she was able to say, also in a whisper, ‘Please excuse me.’ And then she turned, left the room and was heard running up the stairs – a demonstration o
f great agility for one of her years which surprised and impressed both Ainsclough and Yewdall.

  ‘Mother never likes anyone to see her cry,’ Derek Cogan explained, somewhat apologetically. ‘She belongs to a different era, you see. Values were different when she was young, and she has retained them.’

  ‘I quite understand, sir. There’s no need to apologise.’ Penny Yewdall ‘read’ the room. She saw that it was cluttered but in an everything-has-its-place way, and had a tasteful number of furnishings, so she thought. Photographs in heavy metal frames stood on the mantelpiece; the furniture was old and solid and, like Mrs Cogan, seemed to be of an earlier era. The curtains, somewhat strangely, she felt, were left half open; a single uncovered window looked out on to a small garden enclosed by three brick walls about six feet high and painted white, with the topmost curved coping stones painted black. A green painted door was set in the wall at the bottom of the garden, which Yewdall assumed opened into a back alley which would run parallel to the line of houses. The garden itself was, Yewdall noted, a little untidy but it was by no means overgrown, as if the householder was content to keep the vegetation in check but sought nothing neater. The room in which they stood was, she thought, a little musty and Yewdall felt it could benefit from the opening of a window. Overall, though, Yewdall was satisfied that the house seemed to be age and standard of living appropriate for the occupants and it seemed to blend well with the neighbourhood in which it stood. She saw nothing to arouse her suspicions. It was, she thought, all very SW20.

  ‘So, what happened?’ Derek Cogan asked. ‘What happened to my younger brother?’ He remained standing and did not ask Yewdall and Ainsclough if they’d like to sit down, as if he was still absorbing the news of his brother’s death.

  ‘I’m afraid that he was attacked,’ Tom Ainsclough explained. ‘He was a victim of a violent crime.’

  ‘Murdered!’ Derek Cogan gasped. ‘You mean to say that he was murdered!’

  ‘Yes,’ Ainsclough continued, ‘he was quite severely battered about the head, I’m afraid to say.’

  ‘When?’ Derek Cogan gasped. ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘During the night,’ Ainsclough replied. ‘His body was discovered lying in the street very early this morning.’

  ‘Mugged?’ Derek Cogan asked insistently. ‘Or was it a random attack? What is the story?’

  ‘As yet I’m afraid we have no clues as to the motive but we did not find a wallet on his person,’ Ainsclough advised, ‘so robbery may have been a motive.’ He paused. ‘He was identified by his fingerprints, and his police record lists this address for his next of kin. Hence our arrival.’

  ‘Yes …’ Derek Cogan lowered his head. ‘Gordon … yes … he was a little ill-advised once … he was in fact a little silly. In fact, he was once very, very silly. A very silly boy indeed.’

  Penny Yewdall felt that describing the abduction and rape of a child as a ‘silly’ act was a little overgenerous, even allowing for family loyalty, but she diplomatically kept her own counsel.

  ‘Can I see his body?’ Derek Cogan asked. ‘Would that be possible? I am sure it is him if the fingerprints have identified him, but … but for myself, I won’t be able to accept his passing unless I see the body, and mother will want to know that I have seen him. She won’t accept the news unless I can tell her I have seen him.’

  ‘Yes … yes, you can.’ Ainsclough smiled slightly and nodded his head. ‘His body is at the Royal London Hospital. We can take you there now.’

  The journey across London to the Royal London Hospital from Richmond upon Thames was passed in near total silence. In the mortuary of the hospital Yewdall, Ainsclough and Derek Cogan were shown into a room of richly polished, dark-stained wooden panelling which covered three of the four walls. The fourth wall was covered with a thick velvet curtain coloured a deep shade of purple. The floor was covered with a dark brown deep pile carpet. There was no sound. The three of them waited patiently without speaking. After they had been waiting for approximately a minute or so, Yewdall estimated, a door set in the wall adjacent to the curtain opened silently on well-oiled hinges and a nurse entered the room, closing the door equally silently behind her. She was, thought Ainsclough, in her mid-forties and wore a manner which seemed appropriately sombre. The nurse glanced at Ainsclough, who nodded once, and then, using both hands alternately, pulled on a cord and thus wound the curtain open. The opening of the curtains exposed a large pane of glass, and beyond the glass was the body of Gordon Cogan. It had been tightly wrapped in white bandages and blankets, leaving only his face visible, and by some ingenious trick of lighting and shading, he seemed to be floating in space. Nothing but ink-black darkness surrounded the body.

  Derek Cogan took a deep breath and then said softly, ‘Yes … yes … that is my brother. That is Gordon … Gordon Cogan. Thank you. I needed to see him.’ Derek Cogan then turned to the sombre nurse. ‘Thank you for taking care of him.’ He then moved away as the nurse pulled on the cord again; hand over hand, quietly closing the curtains. She then left the room.

  ‘It is very sensitive,’ Derek Cogan commented. ‘That arrangement, I mean … very sensitive … how it’s done. I was expecting him to be in a metal drawer and banks of drawers each with a body in them … the drawer pulled out and a sheet lifted from his face … like you see on television and films.’

  ‘That used to be the way of it,’ Ainsclough replied, ‘but not these days, not any more, as you have just seen … and yes, it is preferable this way … much better by far.’

  Derek Cogan took another deep breath. ‘It’s going to be a good way to remember him … as if he is floating at peace … floating so peacefully. But all for his wallet? There’d be nothing in it anyway – he was unemployed, you see, he was surviving on benefits. I mean, who would want to mug a doley? It makes no sense … it makes no sense at all.’

  ‘We were surprised at the severity of his injuries,’ Ainsclough commented as he and Yewdall and Cogan left the viewing room. ‘They were quite extensive, more severe than would normally be the case in a mugging. It was as if someone had a personal grudge against your late brother. Can I ask … did he have any enemies that you know of?’

  ‘My late brother,’ Cogan echoed the expression and gave Ainsclough a deeply pained look. ‘I suppose I will have to get used to that term now. Once I had a brother … now I have a late brother. But no … no particular enemies that I knew of. We saw each other infrequently so I knew little of his day-to-day life. In fact, I knew nothing of it … but of course he might have had enemies. You must make enemies in prison and he was not long released, as you know. Where was he found?’

  ‘In a suburban street in Wimbledon,’ Ainsclough informed.

  ‘Wimbledon!’ Derek Cogan gasped and his chest tilted forward as if he had been punched in the stomach. ‘But he lived in a dingy bedsit in Kentish Town – what on earth was he doing in Wimbledon? I mean, Wimbledon of all places …’

  ‘We might never know,’ Ainsclough replied. ‘But there is … there was an indication that he was attacked somewhere else and that his body was left in Wimbledon to be found by a member of the public.’

  ‘Oh …’ Cogan groaned deeply, ‘that doesn’t sound like a mugging. I’m not a police officer but what mugger carries his victim’s body away?’

  ‘Which were and still are our thoughts exactly.’ Ainsclough and Derek Cogan fell into step as they walked down the long, narrow corridor in the basement of the Royal London Hospital. ‘Hence our question about your late brother having any enemies … enemies who would want to kill him.’ Ainsclough paused. ‘It does seem to us to be much more than a random attack, or a mugging gone badly wrong. It seems to be more in the manner of some person or persons, as yet unknown, targeting your brother, as though someone had a reason for wanting to kill him.’

  ‘We have limited contact, as I said. Or, we had limited contact,’ Derek Cogan explained, ‘and I mean very, very limited contact. But we knew where he was, of course. We’re
family, and once or twice I would visit him, and mother and I pushed him some money now and again. Not much, we’re not wealthy but we gave him what we could afford. He was ashamed of what he did, you see … he was consumed with guilt … he felt that he had let the family down … his convictions, you see.’

  ‘Abduction and rape of a minor, and then a conviction for murder,’ Penny Yewdall, walking behind the two men, replied coldly. ‘Yes, we know about his convictions. We know all about them.’

  ‘I detect hostility in your voice.’ Derek Cogan turned and looked at Penny Yewdall but instead of replying with the scowl Yewdall had expected she saw that he wore a knowing smile. ‘Your hostility is understandable,’ Cogan turned away and again looked to his front, ‘but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Is there somewhere we can go for a quiet chat?’

  Ainsclough turned and he and Yewdall glanced at each other. Yewdall said, ‘There’s a pub across the road; it ought to be quiet at this time of day.’

  The public house which Yewdall had in mind was the Blind Beggar and it was in fact a few hundred yards to the east ‘across the road’, but it was quiet, as she had expected it to be, with just a few patrons drinking in isolation when Yewdall and Ainsclough and Cogan entered.

  ‘You know I’ve always had a desire to visit this pub,’ Derek Cogan sat in a corner seat, ‘but I have never been able to pluck up the courage to enter it.’