‘Allegedly?’ Tom Ainsclough echoed. ‘You say allegedly?’
‘Yes … yes … I do,’ Derek Cogan repeated, ‘he allegedly strangled her. I say again, he allegedly strangled her. Allegedly.’ Derek Cogan sipped his drink. ‘Gordon always claimed that he was innocent and he was a truthful man by nature. He was also an unlikely sort of person to strangle someone. He was slightly built, mild mannered, bookish, living quietly, trying to rescue something of his life. All right, he was also drinking by then but drink just made him sleepy, not violent, and he would not readily associate with a rough street girl who injected herself with narcotics. I mean, if someone strangles someone else … I would have thought that that suggests passion, which suggests a relationship. It didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all.’
‘But he was convicted,’ Yewdall pointed out. ‘There must have been solid evidence against him, for him to be convicted of murder.’
‘Yes, there was,’ Cogan advised, ‘they found Gordon’s DNA on her body, especially around her throat … and all over her room.’
‘Good enough,’ Tom Ainsclough commented. ‘That sounds good enough to me.’
‘So the police thought, but despite that Gordon pleaded not guilty and he did so against legal advice.’ Derek Cogan sipped his drink once more. ‘Again, you see, that is Gordon. He pleaded guilty to the abduction and rape of a fifteen-year-old because he was guilty and he had an integrity about him, and he would only plead not guilty if he believed that he was not guilty. He was my brother, I knew him well, but DNA does not lie and unsurprisingly the jury found against him. He collected his mandatory life sentence, but he consistently refused to accept his guilt and was classified as an IDOM. “In denial of murder”.’
‘Yes … thank you …’ Yewdall replied coldly, ‘we know what IDOM stands for.’
‘Sorry … of course you do. Sorry. Sorry.’ Derek Cogan held up his hand and then continued. ‘I was so proud of him sticking to his guns like that, and not admitting guilt, so as to be able to work towards his parole. He was a man of integrity … and in fact you do read of DNA results being compromised which will invalidate them, so they can lie in a sense. Because of that we began to think that was what had happened and we planned for him to appeal against his conviction.’ Cogan looked as if he was mustering strength. ‘Then, talk about another bolt from the blue, he damn well changed his plea to “guilty”. He did ten years as IDOM and then changes his plea. I was devastated. I couldn’t – I freely confess that I still can’t believe that our Gordon could kill someone, not the younger brother that I knew, but there he was, as large as life, putting his hand up to it. I was … well, as I said, I was devastated. I did not visit him for a long, long time after that. I just could not bring myself to face him. Then I went from being disappointed to being annoyed with him. In fact, I was furious. Livid. Why on earth would he want to murder a seventeen-year-old drug addict? What on earth was his motivation? What had been the nature of their relationship? But anyway, he became a model prisoner, and he eventually got re-categorized down to a Category B and then Category C prison, and was in time released on licence five years after he changed his plea.’ Derek Cogan took a deep breath. ‘He kept himself well away from mother and I, but we would receive the occasional postcard, now and again, usually letting us know of a change of address. He was last living in a bedsit in Kentish Town. So that was his life. That was the life of Gordon Cogan. Newly out of university as a highly qualified teacher, kept on remand for six months and then released, his life in tatters, then arrested for murder a few weeks after his release, inside for fifteen years, released again and a matter of weeks after his second release he was murdered. It was as if someone really wanted him dead. As I said, nothing adds up and delivers.’ Derek Cogan drained his glass. ‘I don’t think I can tell you anything else. I must get back to Richmond now. Poor mother … she won’t accept the news until I tell her that I have seen poor Gordon’s body. God rest him.’
Inkerman Road in Kentish Town was, as Swannell and Brunnie discovered, a straight, narrow road lined with three-storey, flat-roofed, mid-Victorian terraced housing. The houses were painted in sombre whites and greys and blacks, and the street enjoyed one or two trees growing from the pavement along its length and at either side of the road. Gordon Cogan’s prison release address was on this street, close to the junction with Alma Road.
Inside the house, Gordon Cogan’s room revealed itself to be neat and cleanly kept, though, Brunnie thought, perhaps a little threadbare and spartan. Nonetheless, it read correctly for a man on limited income who had very recently been released from fifteen years in prison. The bed was made correctly with the prescribed ‘hospital corners’ and all items were neatly in their place. It was evidently the room of an institutionalized man.
‘He hasn’t been here very long. He was very recently transferred from another hostel,’ the warden of the bail hostel was a softly spoken Asian man of medium build, ‘but he was not ever any bother at all. He was always quiet and always sober.’
‘When did you last see him?’ Swannell casually opened a drawer at random and saw that it contained a few items of inexpensive and well-worn clothing, all neatly folded.
‘Friday. He signed out after breakfast on Friday morning. He always seemed to be a man about a mission.’ The warden held on to the handle of the opened door. ‘He once told me that he was looking for someone, but not in a threatening way, you understand. He said that he believed that the person he was looking for could help him, and that he would return mid-evening, have a meal and then stay in his room until the next morning. I reported him to the police as being in breach of his licence conditions when he had not returned by eleven p.m. on Friday, as I am obliged to do. But … deceased, you say?’
‘Yes.’ Brunnie nodded. ‘I reckon you can notify the probation and aftercare service that you have a vacant room.’
‘I suppose so.’ The warden spoke solemnly. ‘I’ll parcel up his belongings. Does he have any family?’
‘Yes, though we understand that they thought that he was living independently in a bedsit, not in a probation service hostel,’ Swannell replied. ‘They’ll be in touch about his things.’
‘Very good.’
‘Did he say anything about the person he was looking for,’ Brunnie asked, ‘in the non-threatening sense?’
‘Only that she was a woman.’ The warden glanced round the room. ‘He said, “She can help me”.’
‘She?’ Brunnie repeated. ‘She?’
‘Yes,’ the warden replied, ‘I’m certain he said, “She can help me”.’
The phone on Harry Vicary’s desk warbled. He let it ring twice before making a leisurely long arm and lifting the handset up to his ear. ‘Detective Inspector Vicary, Murder and Serious Crime Squad.’ He spoke in a calm yet authoritative manner.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the voice on the other end of the line was male, equally calm and also with a certain warmth. It had, Vicary believed, a strong echo of the West Country about it: most probably Devon, he thought, not Somerset, possibly east Cornwall, but most likely Devon. ‘Detective Constable Trelawney here, Wimbledon Police Station. About the motor vehicle that was burnt out in our patch last night or early this morning …’
‘Ah, yes … any luck?’ Vicary changed the phone from his left to his right ear.
‘I am afraid not, sir. I have no news to report. We have traced the owner, who lives in north London and hadn’t even realized that his car had been stolen. He seems quite genuine … a young lawyer … he is not a criminal type at all.’
‘I see,’ Vicary replied. ‘I had expected that sort of result, but it had to be checked out anyway.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Trelawney took the phone from his ear, enabling Vicary to hear the background noise of the interior of Wimbledon Police Station as Trelawney coughed. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘wretched summer cold.’
‘No worries,’ Vicary replied patiently.
> ‘The car might, but only might, be connected to the murder in Lingfield Road,’ Trelawney continued. ‘We have trawled through all the CCTV footage we could muster which covers the immediate area and have picked up the car turning from the Ridgeway into Lingfield Road at three fourteen a.m., from where we lose sight of it.’
‘But it did turn into Lingfield Road?’ Vicary asked. ‘You are certain of that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It has to be the car that was used to transport the body,’ Vicary mused.
‘My thoughts also, sir,’ Trelawney replied. ‘The car was burned out in Parkside Gardens, which is just beyond Lingfield Road as you drive from the Ridgeway. We have enhanced the footage of the car and observed two male-looking figures wearing hoods, and the driver was wearing gloves.’
‘Those will be our suspects,’ Vicary growled. ‘Hoods. Gloves. Hiding themselves like that.’
‘Again, our thoughts also, sir.’ Trelawney coughed again but courteously away from, not into the phone. ‘We then trawled through the footage of folk leaving the area later that morning, the commuters, but we could not see any likely candidates.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me either,’ Vicary growled again. ‘As we thought at the time, they would most likely have hidden in someone’s front garden and emerged when the first commuters began to walk past them, and they would also have taken off their hooded jackets and replaced them with sports jackets or some similar garment. They might even have had business suits under the hooded jackets, and pushed their hooded jackets into briefcases … really looking the part. I also think that they would have left the area separately, each using a different route as well as walking separately. Did you see any indication of race?’
‘None, sir. The driver wore gloves as I said and the front-seat passenger kept his hands out of sight,’ Trelawney explained. ‘They were definitely aware of CCTV.’
‘Very well, thank you for telling me,’ Vicary replied. ‘I’ll record this information or non-information in the file, but you’ll be faxing me a written report anyway?’
‘Of course, sir,’ Trelawney confirmed. ‘It’ll be with you later today.’
‘Thank you … Oh, Mr Trelawney,’ Vicary caught Trelawney just before he hung up, ‘it’s just an interest of mine … but your accent, mild as it is …’
‘Cornwall, my handsome,’ Trelawney replied with good humour and in an exaggerated accent. ‘Padstow, to be exact.’
‘Ah … I thought Devon or east Cornwall.’ Vicary allowed his smile to be ‘heard’ down the phone line.
‘Well, you were almost correct there, my handsome – north-east Cornwall. But I’ll write this up asap and fax it to you directly.’
‘Appreciated. Thank you.’ Vicary replaced the handset gently. He had very much enjoyed the brief conversation with DC Trelawney from Padstow, and he felt greatly uplifted by it.
The man ambled slowly out of the side door of the building and stepped on to Turner Street. He wore corduroy trousers, rolled up at the bottom in the form of rough turn-ups, brown shoes, a lightweight summer jacket and a flat white golfing cap. He had an ex-military khaki canvas knapsack slung over his left shoulder. The man turned right towards Whitechapel Road and when he got there turned left and kept close to the line of buildings as much out of the way of the other foot passengers as he could. He did not particularly enjoy the view of the Gherkin as he walked. He felt it was a monstrous building, very symbolic of the plethora of new buildings which he felt were ruining London, making the lovely old city slowly vanish. He once again noticed how that part of London in which he was walking had now been strongly given over to the influence of Islam: there were huge Mosques, for example, and many buildings that were originally public houses were occupied by businesses selling Asian clothing or halal meat. As the man approached Aldgate East Underground Station he crossed Whitechapel Road and walked into the White Hart, one of the few remaining public houses along the road. In the cool and calm interior of the pub he ordered a beer and chose to remain at the bar rather than sitting down. The man would cut a modest figure to the casual observer, with a barrel-chested upper body, short legs and standing just five feet six inches tall. As was his wont, the man kept himself to himself and avoided eye contact with other patrons. He was a man minding his own business and he clearly expected other people to mind theirs. He attracted little attention from the patrons, most of whom just glanced at him once and then forgot him, thinking as any observer would be forgiven for thinking, that he was just an ordinary ‘geezer’, having a beer or two at the end of the working day, on his way home to the ‘trouble and strife’, middle-aged, scratching pennies, but still able to afford to eat and still able to afford a few beers. The man the other patrons were in fact glancing at once and then forgetting was John Shaftoe, MD, MCRP, FRCPath, Home Office registered forensic pathologist.
John Shaftoe remained in the White Hart until approximately 6.30 p.m., at which time he reasoned that the rush hour, which he often referred to as the ‘crush hour’, would have largely subsided. He walked back across Whitechapel Road to Aldgate East Underground Station and took the Metropolitan Line to King’s Cross, from where he took the mainline service to Brookmans Park. From Brookmans Park Railway Station he walked in a slow, ambling manner over the footbridge and into the centre of the village, then arrived at a gentle incline that was Brookmans Lane, observing, as he always did, the well-set detached houses on either side of the road, some with single driveways while other properties had U-shaped ‘in and out’ driveways. Shaftoe felt, once again, particularly envious of the owners of houses on the northern side of the road whose properties backed on to the golf course and which would never be built on. Not in his lifetime, anyway. He walked on, up to nearly the very top of the lane and then turned right down a single driveway and let himself into the house. His wife greeted him warmly and helped him out of his summer jacket as he hung his knapsack on a clothes peg. ‘Good day, pet?’ she asked warmly.
‘So, so, pet,’ Shaftoe replied, sitting down on a wooden chair in the hallway and tugging at his shoelaces. ‘I went in early, as you know, to look at a decayed corpse which had been pulled out of the river and, in the event, got called out to attend a recent corpse.’
‘Oh, my …’ His wife sighed.
‘Yes. He was quite a young bloke; forty … he’d been battered over the head. I was able to wrap that up before lunch, and then I addressed the decayed corpse which I had intended to do first thing. Unlike the first corpse, I couldn’t determine the cause of death. He had no identification and no distinguishing features. They’ll give him a name and bury him in a pauper’s grave.’
‘I always find that upsetting.’ Linda Shaftoe shook her head slowly. ‘Dying … nobody misses you … nobody knows who you are … nobody cares … Just given a name and buried, and forgotten.’
‘It happens, pet.’ Shaftoe slid his feet into an old and very comfortable pair of slippers and stood up. ‘It happens … especially in large cities. Folk come from all over to live in the cities looking for anonymity, and they find it. They find it all right.’ He smiled at his wife. ‘Do you feel like touching base, pet?’
‘Oh aye … let’s do that,’ Linda Shaftoe replied enthusiastically. ‘We have not done that for a while.’
‘Right, I’ll make a point of coming home early one day this week and we’ll go out somewhere for the night.’ Shaftoe beamed at his wife, pronouncing ‘right’ as ‘reet’ and night as ‘neet’. ‘I’ll leave before the crush hour – so long as I miss it, that’s the important thing. What’s for supper?’
‘Cottage pie.’ Linda Shaftoe turned and walked to the kitchen. ‘I know it’s summer, but I also know how much you like your cottage pie.’
‘Champion, pet,’ Shaftoe smiled at her, ‘just champion.’ Linda Shaftoe was the same age as him, also from Thurnscoe and also the child of a coal miner whose father had hoped his only daughter would marry a ‘lad with a trade’: a fitter, an electrician or a plumber
– anything but a coal miner. He was subsequently a man who could not contain his glee when he found that his beloved daughter had ‘pulled’ a doctor, and not just a doctor but an ‘ologist’. Not only that, the ‘ologist’ in question was not ‘stuck up’ with a posh accent but a ‘right good lad from the next street’. So ‘our Linda had done herself proud’. Perfect. Just perfect.
Early that same evening, Harry and Kathleen Vicary strolled contentedly arm in arm from their terraced house in Hartley Road, Leytonstone to the Assembly Rooms in the town centre. They sat near the back of the six rows of seated persons as the guest speaker was introduced. After being introduced the speaker said, ‘Hello, my name is Felicity and I am an alcoholic,’ upon which the Vicarys and all other persons in the room, save the person who had introduced her, replied, ‘Hello, Felicity’, and then listened as Felicity, a slight figure in a scarlet dress, recounted her journey from the gutter to her divorce, then to becoming a ‘dry’ alcoholic who was by then in full control of her life. After the talk Harry and Kathleen Vicary joined others for a coffee and a biscuit and a chat.
Upon leaving the Assembly Rooms the Vicarys went to the Wagon and Horses pub and joined the quiz team to which they belonged, drinking tonic water while the other members of their team drank beer. Their team was eventually placed fourth out of eight teams when the results were announced, but Harry Vicary felt that fourth was perfectly respectable. It was not the winning that mattered anyway, so he believed, but the taking part. It was also the small items of knowledge he never failed to pick up on each and every quiz night which added to the enjoyment. As he and his wife walked slowly back home through a balmy summer’s evening, Vicary pondered that he had, that evening, learned that a ‘Fletcher’ was an arrow-maker in Medieval times, and during the round on the Great Fire of London in 1666, he had learned that Samuel Pepys had buried a Parmesan cheese in his garden to preserve it from the flames. Interestingly, he had also learned that the fire was sometimes known as ‘the food fire’ because it had started in Pudding Lane and had eventually died out in Pie Lane.
Denial of Murder Page 5