The Murder House

by Simon Beaufort

  He’d been reading an account of Kovac from the Albanian police, which had been translated by Professor Jinic. Kovac was a minor celebrity in his country, often invited on national television to talk about subjects as diverse as the Hubble telescope, global warming and dinosaur extinction. His achievements in nanotechnology seemed to warrant less publicity.

  Why? Because the public was more interested in ‘popular’ science? Because Kovac wanted to keep his research secret? Or just because Albanian television had yet to make a documentary on theoretical physics?

  Oakley had also learned that Kovac had been arrested in his youth for subversion, although there was nothing to suggest he’d done anything more serious than sit with like-minded students in smoky cafes to discuss politics. His ‘insurgency’ couldn’t have been too bad, because he’d been allowed to travel once he became a professor, and he had made regular trips not only to Britain, but to the United States.

  Oakley called for Evans, and pointed out that if Kovac had been arrested in his radical youth, there should be records of his fingerprints, so why weren’t they with the information that had been sent? Evans explained that after the collapse of the Albanian communist regime a number of government buildings had been set alight. It was possible that Kovac’s records were already lost. He agreed to follow up, but clearly thought it was a waste of time.

  ‘So we’re just waiting,’ said Oakley, dispirited. ‘Waiting to see if Merrick can link a partial print to a viable suspect; waiting for Tirana to be more helpful; waiting for something to turn up from the black plastic enquiry; waiting for our body to be matched to a missing person; waiting for FSS to analyse the saliva on our anonymous letter; waiting for a witness to remember something to tell us.’

  ‘We’ve got the scarf enquiry,’ said Evans, irked that his ‘baby’ had not been mentioned in Oakley’s list. ‘I’ve got an artist’s impression and I was going to hawk it around Orchard Street this afternoon to see if it jogs anyone’s memory.’

  He rifled among some papers and produced a rather attractive picture, more like art than evidence. It showed a slim woman wearing a calf-length dark coat with a scarf tied at the back of her neck. She was looking down, her face in shadow. Her hands were in her pockets, and her posture was rather furtive. Oakley thought she looked like a Second World War heroine, about to give vital information against the Germans.

  ‘Is that how your witness recalls the scarf being tied?’ he asked, thinking about his conversation with Anderson. ‘The ends linked together at the back? Not knotted under the chin?’

  ‘Both witnesses say it was like this,’ said Evans. ‘Besides, what woman would tie a scarf under her chin these days?’

  ‘It’s good,’ conceded Oakley. ‘Get a copy put up in the reception area, too. Who knows? It might prompt someone. She’s too young for that look, anyway.’

  ‘This is a woman in her twenties or early thirties,’ agreed Evans.

  ‘I don’t think you can go that far,’ cautioned Oakley. ‘But it’s not a pensioner. It could be someone of sixty. It could be Maureen Paxton.’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Evans. ‘I bet she’s got headscarves.’

  ‘This could be our best way forward,’ said Oakley, sensing there might be some mileage in the lead after all. ‘If anyone in Orchard Street is out when you call today, make sure you get them tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s the note business going?’ asked Evans.

  ‘Nowhere – until FSS gets back to us about the stamp. But I think I’ll speak to Yorke’s little brother this afternoon. Why not? We’ve nothing to lose.’

  ‘Want me to come?’

  ‘No, you work on the scarf. I’ll take Dave instead. It’s about time he met the Yorke clan, and it might be a good idea to have some fresh eyes looking at them. We’ve known them too long.’

  ‘Give me a mysterious woman over an interview with Michael Yorke any day,’ said Evans vehemently. ‘He threatened us the last time we met, remember?’

  ‘It was just sabre rattling.’ Oakley didn’t mention his second encounter with Michael, when the man had again indicated that he thought the police had something to do with Paxton’s sudden disappearance.

  ‘You look tired, Guv. You should get a strong coffee before you see Yorke. You need to be at your best or he’ll make mincemeat of you.’

  Oakley knew he looked seedy. His relationship with Catherine was at the stage where they wanted to spend a lot of time together – preferably awake – and he’d had less than three hours sleep the previous night. She’d gone to work at five so he’d driven her to the hospital, then come to the station. Now he was wondering if it would have been wiser to have stayed in bed. Still, he intended to take Sunday off, when he would doubtless exhaust himself further with Catherine. He hoped she’d be free.

  He went to the men’s toilet and splashed cold water over his face, then decided to go to Orchard Street to look around again. It would give him a break before seeing Yorke, and might even inspire him to new solutions. The investigation already felt stale.

  Merrick arrived, looking fresh, neat and cool in a loose cotton shirt and neatly pressed chinos, and offered to go with him. They had a late breakfast first, ordering the ‘station special’: fried eggs, greasy sausages, flaccid bacon, black pudding and tinned tomatoes. Two cups of tea washed it down, leaving Oakley overloaded and slightly queasy. He nearly always felt ill after a station special, and wondered why he never learned to stick to the toast.

  It was a hot day, and the city was busy with folk out shopping or seeking cool breezes around the waterfront. There were sun umbrellas everywhere, and those cafes with tables and chairs outside were enjoying a roaring trade. Traffic fumes hung in the air like poison, mixed with the sulphurous odour from the harbour. Oakley saw a child sucking desperately on an asthma inhaler while her parents crouched next to her in mute concern. Nearby, two mothers with prams stood chatting as a bus belched exhaust over them all.

  Orchard Street seemed pleasantly quiet after the bustle of the city centre. Curtains were drawn to keep out the sun, while gardens wilted in the heat, their lawns yellow-brown.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Oakley as they pulled up at the house. ‘I forgot to bring the keys.’

  Merrick jangled them jauntily. ‘I didn’t. We normally lock them in the filing cabinet, but someone had accidentally left them on the windowsill instead. I happened to spot them as we left, and thought we might need them.’

  ‘We’re slipping,’ said Oakley disapprovingly. ‘I’ll have a word about security at tonight’s briefing. Come on. Let’s see what brilliant insights come to us by revisiting the crime scene.’ He stopped dead. ‘Where’s the guard?’

  ‘Uniform pulled out because they’re busy. It’s been unguarded since about eleven last night.’

  Oakley sighed. ‘They should have told us.’

  ‘They did – DI Davis – but there wasn’t much she could do about it. If uniform doesn’t have the manpower, it doesn’t have the manpower.’

  Shaking his head, Oakley slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. In the distance, the cathedral bells were chiming twelve o’clock. Oakley walked straight to the kitchen, while Merrick went into the lounge.

  ‘Guv! In here! Quick!’

  The suspicious death of a police officer warranted some very specific procedures. The duty superintendent, SOCO and police surgeon were all immediately contacted, and all available officers were assigned to initial house-to-house enquiries – but the investigation into Wright’s death would be headed by another station, to eliminate mistakes made by anyone emotionally involved.

  The first thing Oakley and Merrick did was make sure there was no one hiding in the house – Wright clearly hadn’t been dead long because the blood was still wet. Then they began calling for the long list of services they knew they would need. An ambulance was not among them.

  Before they left the house to senior officers and SOCO, Oakley stood over Wright and stared down at the body. As he would not be i
nvestigating the murder, it would be the only opportunity he would have, so he tried to fix every detail in his mind. Wright had probably been kneeling when he had been attacked, because both blows seemed to have been delivered from above. There was a piece of paper poking from underneath him: a betting slip.

  What had Wright been doing there? Was the betting slip relevant? Did he have a gambling problem? He earned a respectable salary as sergeant, but his clothes were cheap. Did that mean his debts had left him short of money? And if so, had someone at Urvine and Brotherton homed in on it and paid him to photograph confidential police files? Worse, had he accepted money to gossip to them about Butterworth’s Blunder? Wright had always been in the frame for that, as far as Oakley was concerned.

  He and Merrick were taken back to the station in separate cars and interviewed at length by senior officers from Professional Standards. As the person who ‘finds’ a murder victim is often also the killer, the visiting superintendents were interested to hear that Oakley had a history of disagreements with Wright. Oakley was grateful that Merrick had been with him.

  The death of Wright overshadowed everything else that day. The police surgeon estimated the time of death as between five thirty and seven o’clock that morning, while the cause was two blows to the head from a heavy blunt instrument. It wasn’t yet known whether any of the ornamental stones along the mantelpiece were missing but they had been photographed for the first murder, so it was only a matter of time before that was resolved.

  Policemen talked, and the death of someone they’d known was inevitably going to be the subject of rumours. There was a short-lived one that Oakley had done it, but it was quickly established that he had alibis at the hospital and then at the station, and the time he’d taken to drive between the two – quickly, because it had been too early for traffic – wouldn’t have allowed for a detour to Orchard Street.

  Davis was another brief suspect, but she had alibis in her husband and three daughters – a problem with a pet duck had seen them all together from three that morning onwards, huddled worriedly over a basket. Helen Anderson also came under suspicion, but it was quickly established that she hadn’t had access to the house keys, and there was no evidence that the lock on Orchard Street had been forced. Moreover, a number of grateful residents were willing to attest that she was innocent of any wrong-doing. They’d seen the patrol car drop her off at number nine, after which she’d gone to help with the lorry. One witness even claimed that she hadn’t been out of his sight from the moment she’d arrived – he’d been angry that the police were guarding the house, but hadn’t responded to his complaint about the lorry.

  So, the rumour-makers decided that the original murderer had sneaked back to the scene of his crime while it was left unguarded for the first time in a week. Wright had caught him and had died fighting him. But there was one question that no one could answer: why had Wright been there in the first place?

  For the first time since joining the force, I was given a taste of what it felt like to be on the other side of the table. The three superintendents from Professional Standards were grim, hatchet-faced men, who clearly intended to put the fear of God into me. I knew I’d have to be careful. They introduced themselves. The skinny, bald one with the big hands was Sampson, the short one with the glasses was Parker, and the one with the deep tan and the wrinkles was Kidmore.

  ‘Tell us what happened this morning,’ said Sampson crisply. ‘In your own words.’

  ‘I arrived at work at ten to six, and was told that I’d been assigned to stand guard at Orchard Street. PC Franklin gave me a lift, and we arrived at about quarter past six.’

  ‘PC Franklin said it was twenty past,’ pounced Kidmore pedantically.

  ‘Perhaps it was,’ I said, trying not to sound too eager. That five minutes might see me in the clear. ‘The first thing I did was have a careful look around the garden.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Sampson.

  ‘Because there hadn’t been a guard since eleven the previous night, and I thought I ought to check it over. There wasn’t anything else to do, anyway. Standing outside an empty house isn’t very interesting.’ I spoke with a spark of defiance. I hoped they’d look at the records and ask why I’d been given so much guard duty when it should have been shared out more equally. It would scream of sexism, and wouldn’t do Wright’s reputation any good.

  Sampson nodded approvingly. ‘That shows initiative. Did you notice anything unusual?’

  My thoughts raced. Here was an opportunity to make something up, to invent a clue or a happening that would lead them away from me. But I decided against it. The less I said, the less chance there was of slipping up.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘After the garden I pushed on the door to make sure it was locked. You may find my fingerprints on it.’

  ‘We did,’ confirmed Parker dourly. ‘A whole hand, actually.’

  I raised it, fingers splayed, and showed them how I’d shoved at the door. ‘It was locked, and I pushed quite hard. Obviously, I couldn’t check the back door, because it can only be reached from inside the house. Well, I suppose you could get to it through the neighbours’ garden …’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Parker. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I got a call from PC Jeavis, the radio operator, telling me to sort out the lorry at the end of the street because there had been a number of complaints about it.’

  ‘Did you go immediately?’ asked Sampson.

  ‘I told Jeeves that I shouldn’t leave the house unguarded. He said it’d been abandoned all night, so a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘We have that conversation on tape,’ said Parker.

  ‘How long did it take to deal with the lorry?’ asked Kidmore.

  ‘I’m not sure. Forty minutes, perhaps? It had got itself into an awful muddle. It wouldn’t have taken quite so long if I hadn’t had to keep stopping to let the traffic filter past.’

  ‘You were clearly busy,’ said Sampson. ‘But did you find time to glance up the street, or to have a look at the people who’d gathered to watch you work?’

  So they hoped I’d seen the killer. It really was tempting to make something up.

  ‘No,’ I said after a moment of reflection. ‘I’m sorry, but the wagon was huge, and I didn’t want it to damage someone’s car. It took all my concentration. And anyway, the road bends slightly, and I’m not sure if the house can be seen from where I was working.’

  ‘It does,’ agreed Kidmore crisply. ‘And it can’t.’

  Thank God I’d resisted the urge to fabricate! They were trying to catch me out, the ruthless bastards!

  ‘Sergeant Wright put you on report yesterday,’ said Parker. He was the nasty one. Or perhaps he was the openly nasty one, and the others were just as bad, only they hid it with a veneer of pleasantness. ‘Would you like to tell us about that?’

  I knew that Oakley, Davis and Jeeves had already been interviewed, so the three superintendents knew exactly what had happened. I wondered how they’d interpreted it – aggressive, sexist Wright picking on a woman yet again, or tough, decent Wright trying to make an officer out of a sow’s ear.

  ‘I’d gone on an errand for DI Oakley,’ I explained. ‘I realize now that I shouldn’t have done without checking with Sergeant Wright. But I didn’t think, and I set off without calling it in. Sergeant Wright recalled me and dressed me down in the briefing room in front of everyone.’

  ‘You must’ve been angry,’ said Parker smoothly. ‘An inspector orders you to do something you weren’t in a position to refuse, and you get into trouble for it?’

  I was right. Parker was the nasty one. ‘Embarrassed,’ I corrected. ‘He shouldn’t have shouted at me in public. He should’ve done it in private. I would’ve, if I’d been in his position.’

  ‘Would you now,’ said Parker noncommittally. ‘So you weren’t angry?’

  ‘I was embarrassed,’ I repeated firmly. ‘I still am – about the fact that he went for me in public, and tha
t he made me cry. I shouldn’t have let him. Maybe I’ll be angry later.’

  ‘Would you say he was a popular officer?’ asked Kidmore.

  ‘A number of people liked him,’ I replied cautiously.

  ‘Did you?’ asked Parker.

  ‘No,’ I said bluntly. ‘I didn’t.’

  Why was I telling them I had good reason for killing the bastard? Why couldn’t I have kept my mouth shut? Unexpectedly, Parker smiled.

  ‘I like honesty, WPC Anderson, and to be frank, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said otherwise. I know female officers found Wright difficult, and from what I’ve heard he was more difficult with you than most. Why didn’t you complain?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t sure it would achieve anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear you think that,’ said Kidmore, sounding genuine. ‘We’ve been working to create a force in which sexism and bullying are things of the past. I’m appalled by what’s happened here. I hope you – or anyone else – won’t be so reticent in the future.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I gave him a sort of half smile and stayed silent. The three men looked at each other, and Parker leaned across to say something in a low voice to the others. Sampson stood up.

  ‘I think that’s all,’ he said. ‘Of course, if anything else occurs to you, please contact us at once. I must ask you not to discuss this conversation with your colleagues. Unproven speculation and rumours do no one any good, and may even hamper the investigation.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, managing to inject a note of indignation into my voice that they should consider me a gossip. ‘Of course I won’t discuss it.’

  Wednesday, 22 August

  In the days immediately following the murder of Wright a number of facts emerged. Some became general knowledge and some were shared only by those who ‘needed to know’. Among the former was the fact that Wright had taken the Orchard Street keys from the incident room and made a copy at a local shop – the bright, shiny Yale had been in his jeans pocket. His colleagues had many ideas about why he would do this, some reflecting favourably on him, most not.