Deep Cover hv-2

by Peter Turnbull

  Deep Cover

  ( Harry Vicary - 2 )

  Peter Turnbull

  Peter Turnbull

  Deep Cover

  PROLOGUE

  Two men stood at the edge of a stand of shrubs on Hampstead Heath at the edge of Ken Wood. The recent fall of snow had, for the most part, covered the body beside which the two men stood. Wind sliced across the Heath, carrying with it a fine drizzle from a low, grey sky. The men shivered. One pulled his coat collar up against the rain. The other stamped his feet to improve the circulation. It was early afternoon, yet lights burned in the offices and homes in London, surrounding the Heath with a shimmering ring of yellow and white light.

  ‘Strange place to lie down and die.’ ‘Mongoose Charlie’ cleared his throat and spat the yellow phlegm into the crisp snow beside him. ‘Strange old place.’

  ‘Saved us a job though.’ Sydney Pilcher blew into his hands. ‘Saved us a right job.’ Pilcher then turned and walked across the snow in a slow, deliberate manner, retracing his steps back towards Spaniards Road.

  ‘Mongoose Charlie’ remained by the corpse for a few seconds. Then he turned and followed Pilcher. ‘You’re right, boss,’ he said softly, ‘he saved us a right old job.’

  ONE

  It was ‘that’ winter. It was caused, the meteorologists announced, by a high-pressure cell that was stationary over Iceland and had thus allowed the arctic weather to sweep south and over the entire United Kingdom with a substantial blanket of snow and ice, especially black ice. It was further reported that the winter was the coldest winter for twenty years, and it came at a price. There was an endless stream of walking wounded who inundated the accident and emergency departments of the country’s hospitals, mainly suffering from fractures caused by slipping while walking on the unseen ice or from slow impact car accidents, but accidents that were sufficiently serious to cause non-fatal injuries. All of which had to be treated. There were also the inevitable fatalities, some very tragic, like the young man found floating in the pool of a water fountain dressed only in a tee shirt and denim jeans, who had died of drowning brought on by hypothermia and alcohol excess. Other incidents had an amusing quality, such as the one wherein two youths had driven their car far along the surface of an iced-over canal until, inevitably, they had encountered a patch of thinner ice and their car had plunged into three feet of water. Then had come the thaw, and, when it came, it brought with it its own unique set of problems: flooded homes in the main, and the discovery of bodies of people who had been reported missing at the height of the snowy weather. The body of a man called Michael Dalkeith being one such.

  Michael Dalkeith’s body was discovered lying face down in the mud by a dog walker who was immediately touched by the spectacle; the poignancy reached her, deeply so. The woman noticed that the man wore clothing which was wholly inadequate for the weather. She saw a battered and torn wax-coated jacket, she saw denim jeans, which she knew from experience offered no protection against the cold, especially when aggravated by wind chill, and further aggravated, in this case, by the fact that they were clearly old, faded and threadbare, and which had ridden up his left leg to reveal that the wretched man was without thermal underwear and wore only short cotton socks and running shoes. Clothing suited only to warm, autumnal evenings, so thought the dog walker. He did not even have gloves upon his hands. The deceased had black hair and grimy looking skin, and he appeared to the woman to be a lowlife, most likely a street beggar, she thought, though he seemed to be older than most beggars she was used to seeing. But no one, not anyone, deserved this; dying alone in a snowstorm on the Heath, such a short distance from some of the most valuable houses in London, surrounded by wealth and warmth.

  The woman slipped the lead round the neck of her King Charles spaniel and led him gently away from the body. She surveyed the scene before her as she walked to Spaniards Road; evergreen foliage had emerged with the thaw and a clear blue sky overlooked London, although the wind still blew keenly from the east. At Spaniards Road the dog walker halted and addressed a young man in a duffel coat who was about to enter the park, asking him whether he possessed ‘One of those damn mobile things? You know those little boxes that people hold to their ear and ruin everyone’s railway journeys?’

  The man grinned at the woman’s indignation and took out a mobile phone from his jacket pocket. ‘One of these?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. . loathsome things. Phone the police, can you?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man replied, a curious note having entered his voice, ‘I can. Why should I?’

  ‘Well, do so. Why? Because there’s a body over there.’ The woman turned and pointed towards Ken Wood.

  ‘Can you show me?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’d rather you call the police. I don’t like indulging ghoulish behaviour.’

  ‘I am one.’

  ‘A ghoul!’

  The man smiled. ‘No, I am a police officer, off duty, but then a policeman is never off duty, not officially. Just show me, please.’ The wind tugged at the man’s hair.

  Upon being shown the body, the police officer dialled 999 and gave his location and reason for calling. He took note of the dog walker’s name and address and then remained in attendance.

  So much, he thought, for his first day off in many, many weeks. There is no justice in life and there’s no rest for the wicked. There just isn’t.

  The white-haired man sat back in the deep, leather-covered armchair and pulled strongly on a large Havana cigar, and then exhaled, blowing neat smoke circles as he did so. ‘Well, now we know where the little toerag went and he won’t be doing us no harm. Pity though, I wanted him to have a slap or two, but at least he’s gone, that’s the main thing.’

  The woman smiled but remained silent and glanced out of the tall rear windows of the house on to the back lawn and the woods beyond, as the sun exploited a gap in the cloud cover and shone down through the drizzle, creating what she called ‘damp sunshine’.

  ‘See, toerags like that toerag, they’re not up to much. . they don’t count for much, they never amount to much. . but it’s toerags like that little toerag that know where all the bodies are buried, and it’s that which makes them dangerous. But now we know where he went: he went for a walk on Hampstead Heath and then he went for a kip in the snow.’

  ‘Neat.’ The woman returned her gaze to the man and did so adoringly. ‘That’s neat. I am pleased with you.’

  Five minutes after he made the phone call, the off-duty police officer heard the siren of the approaching police vehicle, and, as the white car with its blue lights flashing approached him, he raised his hand. The car stopped beside him and two young uniformed constables got out of the vehicle.

  ‘Deceased person in the shrubs.’ The man showed his ID.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the driver replied.

  ‘This isn’t my patch. . I am off duty, allegedly. Come, I’ll show you.’ He replaced his ID in his jacket pocket and, with the two constables walking immediately behind him, led the way up the slippery grassy slope to the edge of Ken Wood and showed them the corpse. ‘It’s clammy to the touch,’ he explained. ‘I’m no medical man but he is dead alright. The snow must have preserved the flesh to some extent. Found by a dog walker. I have her details for you. It’s your pigeon now but I can’t see any suggestion of suspicious circumstances. Looks like a down-and-out who went to sleep in the snow. . but like I said, it’s your pigeon.’

  ‘We’re finding a few like him, sir, once the snow melts it’s the same each winter.’

  ‘Yes, I know, so are we. All London is finding bodies.’

  The constable grasped the radio which was attached to his lapel and contacted his control, requesting a police surgeon and CID in attendance. His calm, unhurried manne
r impressed the off-duty officer. The constable then took note of the officer’s name and contact details, and also the details of the dog walker who’d found the body. ‘People say they like a good hard and long frost, it kills off sickly vegetation — ’ he closed his notebook — ‘but they don’t think about sickly human beings.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The off-duty officer turned and looked over the Heath, down towards Parliament Hill. ‘Red Kite!’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘Red Kite. . that bird. . see it? That’s a Red Kite, they’re scavengers. I had a pheasant in my garden a week or two ago, strutting up and down like he was the cock of the walk. I came for a breath of fresh air and a chance to observe some of inner London’s wildlife, of which there is much, not quite as exotic as the vultures in New York City, but interesting just the same.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, you don’t need me any more. I’ll go and rescue what I can from my day off.’

  Harry Vicary halted his car behind the vehicles already parked in a restricted area on Spaniards Hill, close to the entrance of the Heath. He saw police vehicles, a black, windowless mortuary van, two unmarked cars, all supervised by a solitary woman police officer, there to move curious pedestrians on and to legitimize the parking of the vehicles in the ‘No Parking’ area. Vicary left his car and walked up to the WPC. ‘Detective Inspector Vicary’ — he showed her his ID — ‘I was asked to attend here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The WPC spoke with a distinct Scottish accent. ‘Up there, sir.’ She pointed to the wooded area and then Vicary saw the police activity: uniformed officers, a white and blue tape strung from shrub to shrub and a white inflatable tent. He identified John Shaftoe and Detective Constable Ainsclough, and walked laboriously up the slope, stopping to tuck the bottom of his trousers into his socks, caring not about the image he presented by doing so. As he approached the focus of activity DC Ainsclough separated himself from the group and walked towards Vicary.

  ‘More than a frozen corpse, sir,’ Ainsclough advised.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ainsclough seemed to Vicary to be nervous of authority, which Vicary always interpreted as being a healthy sign; far, far preferable in his view to arrogant individuals who seem to feel they are everyone’s equal, if not their superior.

  ‘Seems so, sir,’ Ainsclough stammered, ‘. . frankly I would not have noticed it, but Mr Shaftoe was keen-eyed.’

  ‘So what have we got?’

  ‘I’ll show you, sir.’ Ainsclough led Vicary to the place where the frozen corpse was found and where John Shaftoe was already standing. Upon reaching the spot, Vicary nodded to Shaftoe and the two men whispered a brief ‘Hello’ to each other.

  ‘Here, sir.’ Ainsclough pointed to the ground. Vicary saw only ground, loose soil and a few clumps of sodden grass, recently exposed by the thaw. ‘I’m sorry — ’ he turned to Shaftoe — ‘what am I looking at?’

  ‘Look carefully, the man’s head was close to the laurel bush. . his feet are where we are standing. . say six feet between the bush and ourselves.’

  ‘I still. .’

  ‘Now look at the ground upon which we stand and behind us. .’

  Vicary did so. ‘Mud and grass,’ he said. ‘What you’d expect on the Heath.’

  ‘And consolidated.’ Shaftoe grinned. ‘Yet here, with shrubs on three sides to conceal it, and a fourth side, narrow so as to serve as an entrance. All the ground herein is disturbed.’ Shaftoe was barrel-chested, with a ruddy complexion and wispy white hair. ‘Still don’t see it?’ His short stature obliged him to look up at Vicary.

  ‘No. .’ Vicary shook his head. He was growing deeply more curious because he knew Shaftoe to be a man, a gentleman, a professional, who took his work seriously. He was not, in Vicary’s experience, the sort of man to play games. He was not at all the sort of man to summon him from his desk to look at muddy soil on Hampstead Heath. ‘Go on, tell me.’

  ‘It’s a shallow grave.’ Shaftoe spoke calmly. ‘I’ll lay a pound to your penny that there is a corpse down there. The down-and-out went to sleep over a corpse, possibly a skeleton.’

  ‘Recently dug?’

  ‘Not necessarily, which is why I said possibly a skeleton. It isn’t so much the amount of soil that is exposed, that could have been caused by animals. . badgers or foxes scratching at the surface. . it is more the slight raising of the ground, as if the soil has been dug up and replaced over something, and the rectangular nature of the area in question. . roughly rectangular but definitely longer than it is wide and about the dimensions of a human being, an adult human.’ Shaftoe paused. ‘If I am wrong, I can only apologize for dragging you up here on such an unpleasant day, but I think you ought to undertake an exploratory dig.’ Shaftoe paused again and smiled. ‘Congratulations on your promotion by the way. I haven’t seen you since the Epping Forest murder.’

  ‘Thank you. Haven’t stitched the stripes on yet, but thank you.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about Archie Dew.’

  ‘Yes, he is missed. I call on his widow occasionally. She is soldiering on. Manfully is probably the wrong word but I can’t think of the right one.’

  ‘No matter, I know what you mean.’

  ‘So,’ Vicary brought the conversation back to the matter in hand, ‘we have one death, most likely by misadventure. .’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ainsclough spoke. ‘Death was confirmed by the police surgeon and so I requested the pathologist. . and it was when we removed the corpse. .’

  ‘Presently in the tent?’ Shaftoe nodded to the white inflatable tent that had been erected close to the shrubs. ‘Couldn’t erect it over the body,’ he added. ‘No room.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It was then that Mr Shaftoe looked at the ground over which the body had lain and said there’s something else down there.’

  Shaftoe grinned. ‘I actually said “Summat’s down there”, but your man can translate Yorkshire into English.’

  ‘Yorkshire grandfather,’ Ainsclough explained.

  ‘I did wonder,’ Shaftoe smiled. ‘With a name like yours you had to have roots in God’s own county.’

  ‘Yes, sir. . but that’s when I requested your attendance. . it’s more than just a frozen corpse sir, at least it might be.’

  ‘Appears so.’ Shaftoe’s eye was caught by a 747 flying low over London on its final approach to Heathrow, and watched as the undercarriage was lowered, later than most pilots would have done so by his observations, but the wheels had been lowered and that was the main thing. It was the one thing he always looked for when watching planes land, never having been a passenger on a plane without saying, as the plane approached the ground, ‘I hope he’s put the wheels down.’ He found time to reflect that no one would be talking on the plane at that moment.

  ‘Well. . we’ll dig. Can you organize that, DC Ainsclough? We’ll be on this all day.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Suggest you clear the shrubs either side of the grave, if it is a grave; moving a down-and-out a few feet from where he slept his final sleep is one thing, but we’ll want the tent over a shallow grave.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m on it.’

  ‘And get the scene of crime officers here, we’ll need photographs.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Can I see the corpse, please?’ Vicary turned to Shaftoe.

  ‘Of course,’ Shaftoe turned and led the way.

  In the tent Vicary considered the body. It said to him poverty. It said low-skilled, possibly unemployed; it said scratching pennies. It did not say down-and-out. It was too clean and did not have the unshaven face and matted hair he had expected. ‘Have the pockets been searched?’

  ‘No,’ Shaftoe replied. ‘Not been touched. No reason not to have him conveyed to the London Hospital to await a post-mortem, but we became sidetracked by the suspicious appearance of the ground on which he lay.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I can have him removed, the mortuary van is stand
ing by, but I’d like to stay for the excavation in case what is buried is what I think it is.’

  ‘I’d like you to stay as well, sir,’ Vicary replied in a serious manner, ‘and for the same reason.’

  Ninety minutes later Vicary and Shaftoe stood side by side; adjacent to them stood Ainsclough, and beside him the two officers who had first cleared the shrubs and then had dug down, carefully so, until the Heath gave up its dead.

  ‘Female.’ Shaftoe broke the silence that had descended on the small group. ‘Remnants of clothing visible. . shoes. . the metal of the high heels is clear to see.’

  ‘So, one for us,’ Vicary commented.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m afraid so, much less than seventy years old. . the burial I mean. The corpse appears to be that of a young. . youngish person.’

  ‘Alright, once the body has been photographed we’ll remove it to the London Hospital. I assume you’ll be doing the post-mortem, Mr Shaftoe?’

  ‘Yes, I like to follow through whenever possible. Will you be attending for the police?’

  Vicary nodded slowly. ‘Yes, and for exactly the same reason. I like to follow through as well. It keeps the thread in my mind, keeps it intact and alive.’

  Detective Constable Ainsclough stood silently in the ante room next to the mortuary of the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. In front of him, on a table, was the clothing which had been removed from the man who had apparently lain down to die in his sleep in the snow on Hampstead Heath. The clothing had been laid neatly with clear reverence rather than dumped hastily on the table, and Ainsclough approached his task with similar reverence. Taking the wax jacket first, he felt the outside of the pockets for an indication of content, if any, therein and then probed each pocket gently with his fingertips, knowing that drug addicts’ needles are small, easily concealed and potentially deadly. He knew personally of one police officer who groped into a youth’s pocket during an arrest and search, pricked his finger on something sharp and rapidly withdrew his hand to find his index finger seeping blood. The youth had leered and said, ‘I’m positive. . and so are you now.’ In the event the HIV test proved negative, but the time that elapsed before the results were known was measured in many a sleepless night for the man, and it was a period of great strain upon his marriage. In this case, a search of the pockets of the jacket revealed nothing more than a set of house keys, just two keys held together with string, and the left rear pocket of the jeans contained a DSS signing-on card at the office in Palmers Green. That was the contents of the man’s pockets, two keys and a signing-on card. No money, not even a small amount of coinage; no identity save for a creased white card which gave his status as ‘unemployed’ and a signing-on date, a number and also his National Insurance number. Ainsclough pondered the man’s clothing: a wax jacket (without lining), a shirt, a vest, denim jeans (worn and threadbare), a pair of briefs, a pair of socks (cotton) and a pair of running shoes (well-worn with a split across the sole of the right shoe), and dressed thusly he had wandered on to a heathland in a snowstorm. Eclipsed, thought Ainsclough, just did not describe the man’s life. He replaced the clothing in a productions bag labelled so far with only a case number.