The Murder House

by Simon Beaufort

  A search of Wright’s house revealed things that didn’t become common knowledge. One was that he had photocopies from the station’s property book, including the page that contained Butterworth’s Blunder. It was concluded that Wright had either approached Paxton with the information or had left it in a place where he knew the lawyer would find it, in order to cause the Noble case to fail.

  ‘And you don’t need me to tell you his motive,’ Davis had told the three superintendents. ‘It was to discredit Neel Oakley – just because Neel is half-Indian.’

  Another item found in Wright’s home was a crumpled prescription form. It was made out to Butterworth for a mild anti-depressant. It was concluded that the sergeant had either seen Butterworth throw it away or he had found it in a bin. Regardless, the knowledge had allowed him to start the rumour that Butterworth had committed suicide when he had stepped in front of the lorry.

  Oakley burned with a cold, dark anger. If Wright had had any decency he would have told him that Butterworth had not collected the prescription that might have helped him keep things in perspective. He was sure he could have persuaded his friend to take the pills – and Mark might still be alive.

  The station divided into two camps: those who wanted to dissociate themselves from Wright’s infamous bigotry and those who wanted to remember the good things about him. Jeeves was firmly in the former, painfully aware that he might be tarred with Wright’s brush if Oakley mentioned the episode in the radio room. Keen to ensure that Oakley knew Wright’s views weren’t his own – and hoping to curry favour by passing information to him before he told the superintendents from Professional Standards – Jeeves sought out the DI in the canteen.

  ‘I need some advice, Guv,’ he said, sitting down. Oakley folded his newspaper and waited. ‘Barry Wright told me a few things the night before he was killed. I’ve been thinking about them, and I don’t know what to do. It might be nothing, in which case I should forget about them and let him lie in peace. But it might be something …’

  ‘Let’s hear it, then,’ said Oakley, when Jeeves paused.

  ‘He was one of us,’ said Jeeves unhappily. ‘He had his faults, but I don’t want to say things when he can’t speak to defend himself.’

  ‘Don’t eulogize over him, Jeeves. He wasn’t “one of us” as far as I’m concerned. He was a dinosaur, and his attitudes were dangerous and unpleasant.’

  ‘I’m sorry I was listening to him that day in the radio room,’ blurted Jeeves, ‘when you came in. But what else could I do? I couldn’t tell him to shut up, could I?’

  ‘Of course you could,’ countered Oakley. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t tell the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse this time. We’ll just let it go, shall we?’

  Jeeves nodded in relief, then began his story. ‘Barry and me went for a drink after work on Friday – not the Mucky Duck, where we usually go, but a place near Redcliffe Bridge. He said he didn’t want to be with a lot of bobbies because he was upset by that Helen Anderson business.’

  ‘He was angry,’ corrected Oakley. ‘Not upset.’

  ‘Whatever. Anyway, because he was off the next day, he drank a fair bit.’

  ‘So I gather.’ The post-mortem results indicated that Wright must have been reeling from the amount of alcohol he’d consumed over the previous eight hours.

  ‘I left him at midnight – I had to get up early, even if he didn’t. He was pretty drunk, so I took his car keys. I didn’t want him driving home.’

  ‘And I suppose you noticed then that he had his car keys, his house keys, and another key all bright and shiny?’

  Jeeves nodded. ‘The new one was with his car keys, and he made me take it off the fob and give it back. He wouldn’t say what it was for, and there was no reason for me to recognize it. But yesterday I got to thinking. He went to get a sandwich at Asda on Friday lunchtime. There’s a key-cutting place nearby …’

  ‘So, you think he took the Orchard Street keys from the incident room and went to copy them during his lunch break?’

  Jeeves nodded. ‘He insisted on coming back to the station before he took the next call, which was weird, as it meant retracing his steps, but I understand now – it was to return them before they were missed.’

  ‘You should tell the Three Horsemen this,’ said Oakley, reaching for his paper. ‘I don’t see why you need me to encourage you.’

  ‘That’s not all. When we were at the pub he talked about the anonymous note on the wall of the incident room. While he did, he was looking right at Michael Yorke and Dave Randal, who were sitting in a corner with a couple of women.’

  Oakley was astonished. ‘You drink in a pub that’s frequented by criminals?’

  ‘It was the Hole in the Wall, Guv.’ Jeeves was defensive. ‘It’s a classy place. It’s not our fault that Michael and Randal were there that night.’

  ‘So, the meeting was coincidental?’

  Jeeves was becoming agitated, seeing in Oakley’s questions the conclusions Professional Standards might draw. ‘Of course! You don’t think I’d have anything to do with the likes of the Yorke gang, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Oakley, after a moment. He did, however, think that Wright might. ‘Go on.’

  ‘After a while Randal went to the bog, and Barry followed him. When they came out, Barry showed me a betting slip. I think he’d picked Randal’s pocket.’

  ‘What did he say when he showed it to you?’

  ‘He just grinned and put it in his wallet. Then he went back to slagging you off, saying that you couldn’t catch the murderer, so he’d have to lend you a hand.’

  ‘So he stole the betting slip from Randal and was in the process of planting it when someone killed him,’ mused Oakley. ‘It fits the material evidence, it sounds like something he would do, and it explains why he was there.’

  ‘It doesn’t explain who killed him, though,’ said Jeeves. ‘It wasn’t Randal, because I don’t think he knew what Barry had done. I doubt he or Michael even noticed us.’

  ‘You need to report this immediately.’ Personally Oakley thought that Jeeves was a fool to have left it so long. It looked furtive, to say the least. ‘When they ask why you haven’t mentioned it before you can say it’s only just made sense to you. That’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is clearer now I’ve discussed it with you. Do you think Barry was right? The Yorke clan does have something to do with Kovac? Yet why would they kill a foreign physicist?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think it’s time we paid another visit to Michael and Randal.’

  Before I went home that day I was pleased to hear that one of my anonymous notes was being taken seriously at last – God only knows what happened to the other one. Apparently Oakley was frustrated because there hadn’t been a single strand of evidence for FSS to find. I was pleased. All my care and attention to detail had paid off. He wasn’t the only one who could be meticulous.

  He and Merrick were going to visit the Yorkes soon, although I overheard Superintendent Taylor telling them that they were wasting their time. Wright had believed my note, though, or he wouldn’t have been planting ‘evidence’ to implicate them. Jeeves told me about it, although he wasn’t supposed to. Jeeves is rubbish at keeping secrets.

  I thought it ironic that Wright’s death should come about as a result of my note, and all I can say is that he must have been really drunk to think that he could introduce the betting slip to the crime scene at that stage of the investigation. Perhaps he’d intended to ‘find’ it himself – an experienced officer solving the case with a quick and penetrating look around him. I doubt Oakley would have fallen for it, though.

  The other thing I gleaned from the grapevine was that Wright had given James the information about Butterworth’s Blunder – he’d photocopied the property book. But his bank account didn’t show any sudden and inexplicable payments, so it was generally assumed that his motives were malicious rather than fiscal.

  I was livid, though, because I saw that I’d pro
bably told James nothing he didn’t already know from Wright about Butterworth’s Blunder on that horrible day on the train. He’d merely wanted to put me in a terrible situation, so that he could use my guilty conscience to blackmail me later. He’d played me for a gullible fool.

  Still fuming, I went home to get ready to see a play at the Old Vic with Colin. My life was so much better than it had been the week before. Colin and I were still getting to know each other, and I liked him more and more. Wright was gone, and the atmosphere at work had been much nicer, despite the shock at his death. Taylor had ordered Oakley not to waste any more time on James’ disappearance, while DI Davis was doggedly bent on proving that Kovac was the killer. And James’ murder seemed a lifetime ago. I barely thought about Wright’s. Perhaps I was getting used to them.

  Thursday, 23 August

  The police search for Marko Kovac grew more intense now that the case involved the death of one of their own. His photograph was shown again and again on television, with a bulletin to say he was wanted for questioning.

  There were two theories among the murder squad officers. First, Davis led a faction that thought Kovac had murdered either someone connected to his secret policeman brother, or someone trying to steal his research. This scenario had him returning to the house when the guard was absent, so he’d been there when Wright had arrived.

  The second theory, headed by Evans, was that Kovac was the victim. He’d been delayed in leaving, and the Yorke gang had found him in a house that should have been empty. He was killed to ensure his silence. The gang had then waited until the police stopped guarding number nine, and had killed Wright when he burst in on them.

  The problem Oakley had with both hypotheses was the house – why would Kovac return to a place he had cleaned his belongings out of, and why would the Yorke gang be there at all, never mind going back again later? He also thought Wright’s death was more complex than just stumbling across the culprit and paying the price. But he had no better explanation, and Taylor was beginning to lose patience with his refusal to accept the conveniently missing Albanian as a solution to the mysteries.

  He visited the university again that evening, but the department was locked up. He was about to leave when he saw Ron Yates carrying two buckets of dirty water.

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked, watching Yates tip them down the drain.

  ‘An ongoing problem – a flood in the basement. Any news on Marko?’

  Oakley shook his head. ‘But I wondered if he’d received any post this week that might help us find him.’ He knew he sounded as though he was snatching at straws. ‘May I look?’

  ‘Nothing came this morning – I’ve been keeping an eye on it, like you asked. But there might have been a delivery this afternoon. Come in, and we’ll check his pigeon hole.’

  Oakley followed him along a corridor and down a flight of stairs, where Yates stepped carefully across a puddled floor that was swathed in black plastic, all fixed together with thick lines of silver tape. A large roll of the plastic lay at the far end of the room, along with a box containing a dozen rolls of duct tape.

  Oakley stared at them. ‘Did Kovac ever ask for any of this?’

  Yates shook his head. ‘No, why?’

  ‘Then could he have helped himself?’

  Yates shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose so, although I can’t imagine why. No one ever comes down here except me. There’s a men’s loo over there, but most of the staff use the newer ones on the first floor.’

  ‘So he may have come for the toilet and seen this plastic and tape?’

  Yates nodded. ‘Why? Is it important?’

  Friday, 24 August

  Wright’s murder had taken precedence over the stale case of the unidentified body, and Oakley had been forbidden to interview the Yorke gang until it was determined if they were involved in the sergeant’s death. He protested vehemently, but the three superintendents were adamant – he might spoil their chances of nailing Wright’s killer if he asked the wrong questions. Oakley disagreed, but an order was an order, so he grudgingly abandoned that line of enquiry.

  He sent a piece of plastic and a roll of tape from the university to FSS, and the result had come back surprisingly quickly – the edge of the piece from the university was a perfect match for the piece that had been wrapped around the body. Moreover, dust on both proved they came from the Victorian building that housed the physics department. Kovac was indeed responsible for taking them to Orchard Street, thus supporting the theory that he was the killer. As Davis was quick to ask, why else would he pinch them?

  Oakley turned his attention back to the anonymous note, casually ignoring both Taylor’s orders and the fact that it was a lead that pointed back to the Yorkes. A handwriting expert told him nothing he couldn’t have guessed for himself: the author had used capital letters to disguise his writing and the spelling was eccentric, which suggested either a poor education or a deliberate attempt to mislead. Because the writing was neat, the palaeographer was inclined to opt for the second. This fitted in with the pains the writer had taken to make sure there was no trace evidence.

  The saliva test on the stamp didn’t look promising, either. There wasn’t enough of it, and the hot weather since it had been posted had degraded the DNA. FSS hadn’t given up completely, though, and one dedicated soul was working on it just for the challenge.

  Oakley sat at his desk that evening, put his feet up, and accepted the mug of the powerful coffee Evans brought him. ‘Let’s review what we’ve got – not theories and hunches, but actual facts.’

  ‘All right,’ said Evans, pulling up a chair. ‘Kovac stole black plastic and tape from the university – and there’s no reason why he should do that except to wrap a body.’

  ‘Let’s not start with him. Let’s look at the Yorke gang.’

  ‘Why? We’ll never get to talk to them as long as the Three Tenors are here.’

  Oakley ignored him. ‘Yorke thought Paxton was going to get him bail – a fact borne out by Giles Farnaby’s statement and by the anonymous note. But Paxton disappeared two days before the hearing. Now, I know coincidences happen, but I don’t like this one at all, and I’m thinking more and more that the body might be his.’

  ‘But he’s gone off with his gay pals,’ sighed Evans. ‘Even his colleagues think so.’

  ‘But his mother doesn’t, and she knows him better than they do. Let’s assume he hasn’t, and something bad has happened to him.’

  ‘Then his disappearance fits with our body’s estimated time of death. Moreover, the corpse was wearing a nice suit and a white shirt – lawyer’s attire. No tie, though, and Paxton was a man who liked ties, according to Mummy. However, there’s one big problem with that theory: our body isn’t Paxton, because the dental records don’t match.’

  ‘Did Grossman look at anything other than the missing tooth? What about fillings, bridges or whatever? Did he check any of that?’

  ‘There was no point. The lost premolar eliminates him. Full stop.’

  ‘What if someone tampered with the dental records? Such as his mother?’

  ‘Come on, Guv! She wants him identified. Why would she try to mislead us?’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit gruesome, bringing your son’s dental records to be tested against an unidentified body? Perhaps she knows it’s him, but doesn’t want us to know.’

  ‘Now you’re in La-La Land,’ said Evans firmly. ‘Sorry, Guv, but our body isn’t Paxton, and if you think it is, then it’s just wishful thinking.’

  ‘Let’s just make sure,’ said Oakley, reaching for his jacket. ‘I’ve had a funny feeling about this for a while. Grossman should still be around. Let’s get him to have another look.’

  ‘What, now?’ asked Evans without enthusiasm. ‘It’s gone eight on a Friday night. He will have gone home by now.’

  ‘He’s there – I heard Taylor talking to him on the phone about a traffic accident not long ago.’

  ‘He won’t like it,’ warned Evans. ‘He�
�ll think you’re questioning his competency.’

  ‘I am,’ said Oakley.

  Evans was right: Grossman wasn’t pleased that Oakley wanted him to go over something he’d already done, especially as he had two victims from a fatal pile-up on the M4. He refused at first, but relented when he realized Oakley wasn’t going to leave until he obliged. With bad grace, he snatched up a dental mirror, grabbed Paxton’s chart and hauled open the drawer that contained the body.

  ‘Look,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Paxton was missing a premolar – this fellow has all four present and correct. Paxton had a filling in his lower central incisor – this fellow’s incisors are untouched. It’s not the same man.’

  ‘Are those the only differences?’ pressed Oakley. ‘What about that big gold crown at the back? Does Paxton have one of those?’

  Grossman studied the record. ‘Yes. And a bridge across the lower left seven and eight.’ He frowned. ‘And a complete veneering of all four upper incisors. Curious.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ asked Oakley impatiently.

  ‘Meaning there are two definite differences between this man and Paxton, but there are several similarities, including some distinctive cosmetic work.’

  ‘So what are you saying? Is it Paxton or not?’

  Grossman looked furtive. ‘Perhaps I should call in a forensic odontologist.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘I don’t know. A couple of days.’

  ‘And in the meantime?’ asked Oakley, frustrated.

  ‘I suggest you get a sample of Paxton’s DNA. His toothbrush would be best. Or his razor.’

  ‘So it is him?’ demanded Oakley. ‘We’ve got an ID at last?’

  Grossman nodded slowly. ‘I can’t say for sure, you understand, but I’d be surprised now if it proved to be someone else.’

  I finished work at ten o’clock that night and planned to go straight to Colin’s place. I’d enjoyed my day, and had impressed Inspector Blake by getting two juvenile shoplifters to confess to a whole string of other offences. For the first time in ages I felt as though I was good at my job. There was no question about it: Wright’s absence definitely made the world a better place.