Body of a Girl

by Michael Gilbert

  “I suppose it was her handbag.”

  “It’s been identified half a dozen ways. The bag and the contents. When we thought the body was Sweetie, we thought about it one way. Now we’ve got to think about it another.”

  “You’re paid to do the thinking round here.”

  “That’s right,” said Mercer, with his sudden mirthless smile.

  “And I’ve been doing some. You can work it out three different ways. It was an accident that the bag got left there. Let’s say she was fooling round on the island and she dropped it, and she didn’t bother to go back and look for it. Or to report its loss. Me, I don’t believe a word of it. For a start, it had all her keys in it.”

  “So?”

  “Second idea. She went into the river, higher up. Over the weir, perhaps. And the bag was washed up on the island.”

  “Then you think she’s dead?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mercer bleakly. “She’s dead all right. There’s very little doubt about that. And her father knew it. That’s why he wasn’t afraid to sell the ring.”

  “When bodies go into the river, nine times out of ten they turn up again. They float to the top and someone sees them and pulls them out.”

  “Right. And that brings us to the third possibility. The man who killed Sweetie may have thought about that. He may not have wanted her body to turn up. If it had surfaced too soon it could have been identified. It might have shown how she was killed. It might have led back to him.”

  “Then what would he do?”

  “What he did with the other one,” said Mercer. “He’d bury her.”

  There was a long silence. When Clark spoke his colour and his voice were both back to normal. “You seem to have worked all this out very clearly,” he said. “Have you got as far as thinking out where he’d put her?”

  “Murderers haven’t got a surprising lot of imagination. Look at Christie. He buried all his girlfriends in the same garden.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I should start by digging up the island. Not just prodding it this time. Digging it right up.”

  “The whole island?”

  “The whole island. Trench it across. Put half a dozen men on to it and we could do it in a day. Less than that if they worked intelligently. Stop digging as soon as they came to a layer of packed stone or hard earth. Concentrate on the soft parts.”

  “The Press would have a field day.”

  “The whole thing would be over before they got there.”

  But the Superintendent was pursuing a fresh line of thought. He said, “What are we going to do about Hedges?”

  “Ask for an adjournment on the assault charge. Don’t oppose bail. I suppose he can raise it.”

  “We’ve had three people come forward already offering bail.”

  “Fine. Let him go. But keep a careful eye on him.”

  “If we keep any sort of eye on him,” said Clark, “we shall be accused of hounding him. He’s a public figure.”

  When the knock came, Mr. Weatherman looked up with a frown from the complicated lease he was studying and growled, “Come in.” When he saw it was Mrs. Hall the frown changed to a smile. He approved of Mrs. Hall. She had only been with the firm for six months, but she had already shown that she was capable of doing the work which had been handled previously by a male cashier and an assistant. She worked hard, and talked very little; sovereign virtues in Mr. Weatherman’s eyes.

  “Well, well,” he said. “I hope you haven’t come to tell me that our client account is in the red.”

  “Nothing like that, sir. It was just that I was talking to young Jarvis.”

  “More likely he was talking to you.”

  Mrs. Hall smiled in turn, and said, “That’s true. He does talk a good deal. What he said was that he had been reading about the inquest on that girl – the one they found on the island – and he was wondering if it might be Miss Dyson.”

  Mr. Weatherman considered the matter, drawing his upper lip down over his teeth as though he was preparing to shave it. Then he said, “What makes him think that?”

  “It was her feet. Something she once told him. That she had to take a different shoe fitting on each foot.”

  “That’s not uncommon.”

  “And she did disappear rather suddenly. And it was about two years ago, which was the time they thought—”

  “I recall that we made a number of enquiries at the time. It seems she simply packed up her things and went off up to London. She certainly gave us no notice here.”

  “How did we know she went to London?”

  “A policeman who knew her by sight saw her catching the evening train. She had her luggage with her. I can’t think of any reason why she should come back here, in order to be murdered and buried. Can you?”

  “It doesn’t sound very likely,” agreed Mrs. Hall. “Why did she walk out on us?”

  “I telephoned her previous employer. He told me she had played the same trick on him. She was a bird of passage, Mrs. Hall. I imagine she has done it half a dozen times. And left bad debts behind her, as she did here.”

  “If she left bad debts behind,” agreed Mrs. Hall, “she wouldn’t be very likely to come back.”

  “I shouldn’t give it another thought,” said Mr. Weatherman.

  Despite this good advice, after Mrs. Hall had gone, he did not return at once to his lease. He lay back for a time in his chair, his long face abstracted.

  At three o’clock that afternoon Hedges left the Stoneferry Magistrates Court, temporarily a free man. He accepted the congratulations of the middle-aged lady, the retired colonel and the Congregational minister who had between them organised his bail. But it was not congratulations he wanted. He wanted a drink. And the pubs were shut. He had a bottle at home. It had been carefully hidden, and might have escaped the attention of the policemen, pressmen and nosy-parkers who had, he suspected, been ransacking his barge.

  When he reached the bridge which led to the island he was pleased to find that there was no one in sight. A light misty rain had started falling. Maybe that was discouraging sightseers. So much the better.

  The police had put a new padlock on the door, and had supplied him with a key. He had it in his hand when he became aware that two men had materialised behind him. The shock this gave him made him drop the key. One of the men stooped down and picked it up, but made no move to hand it back.

  “What do you want?” said Hedges, his voice squeaking oddly. The men both wore raincoats, the collars turned up and partly concealing their faces. He didn’t like the look of them at all.

  “Are you the man they call Sowthistle?”

  “The kids made it up. It’s just a bit of sauce.”

  “It’s not made up,” said the second man. “Sowthistle’s a real plant. It grows on sour and marshy soil.”

  “You give me back my key.”

  “Surely,” said the first man, but made no move to hand it to him. “Would you like to give us a story?”

  “Are you from the papers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “London papers?”

  “That’s right.” He mentioned the name of the paper and Hedges smirked. He said, “You boys come inside. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Police brutality. Third degree. The lot.”

  “That’s fine,” said the first man, but still made no move. “Tell me, Mr. Sowthistle. That island where they found the body. My friend and me were just arguing. Can you actually see it from here?”

  “Can you see it?”

  “I said you can. He said it’s impossible. Too many trees and bushes in the way.”

  A look of deep cunning appeared on Sowthistle’s face. This was the sort of talk he understood. He said, “How much would it be worth to you to win your bet, mister?”

  “I always like winning my bets. It could be worth a quid.”

  “Then you’ve won it. I’ll show you.” He led the way, following a path through the dripping, knee-high unde
rgrowth, to a point at the upstream end of the island. Here there was an apparently impregnable screen of overgrown elder, thorn and matted growth with a single scrub oak in the middle of it. The tree leaned out at an angle over the water, and the men could see that rough steps had been formed in it, and that there was a sort of platform near the top.

  “Your private observation post, Dad?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re a dirty old voyeur. How much did you charge to let your customers watch the boys and girls having fun together?”

  “I’m not admitting anything, son. Not if you’re going to put it in your paper.”

  The man looked at Sowthistle curiously. He was an experienced crime reporter, and had met, in the course of his duty, all sorts of criminals, perverts, and layabouts. He thought he had never encountered anyone quite as fantastic as the old man in the shiny blue suit who was jigging about in the mud beside him.

  “Go on,” said Sowthistle. “You climb up and have a peep. You can see the whole bloody island. Every bloody bit of it.”

  Treading carefully on the slippery trunk, and grabbing the hand-holds which presented themselves, the reporter hauled himself up onto the platform. He stood there for a moment, then came down a lot more quickly than he had gone up. He touched his companion on the arm, and doubled off up the path, slipping and stumbling as he went.

  Sowthistle stared, open-mouthed, after the departing figure. Then he turned and started to climb the tree. As he did so, a sound of which he had been vaguely aware became clearer. It was the clink of metal on stone. There were men on Westhaugh Island. They wore black waterproof capes, and they were digging.

  Sowthistle watched them for a moment. Then he clapped his hand to his pocket.

  “God rot him,” he said, “he’s gone off with my key. He never paid me that quid either.”

  There were screens round the bed in the casualty ward. The sister said to Mercer, “We put them there because you asked us to. They’re quite unnecessary really.”

  “How is Beardoe?”

  “He’s all right. It was concussion and a few bruises. If it hadn’t been for his wrist, we’d have treated him in out-patients.”

  “We’d be obliged if you could keep the pretence up for a couple of days. Then we’ll fix to take him off your hands.”

  He edged past the screen and went in. Beardoe was sitting up in bed, reading a newspaper. There was a lurid bruise down the side of his face, and his left wrist was encased in plaster. He said “Hullo”, in an unfriendly voice.

  Mercer said, “I’m sorry about all this. I ought to have warned you. I don’t suppose it would have done much good, but you could have taken some simple precautions, like getting a pal to walk home with you, and not answering the door after dark.”

  “What I want to know is, what the hell’s it all about? What am I supposed to have done?” His blue eyes were puzzled, and angry.

  Mercer sat down on the edge of the bed, and talked for five minutes. At the end of it, Beardoe said, “I’m not going to say anything about what happened. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember a lot about it. There were two men. I couldn’t describe them, and I’m not sure I would if I could. I don’t want to get mixed up in that sort of thing.”

  “Understood,” said Mercer.

  “They tell me I got concussion. That means the old brain box was shook up. Right?”

  “Right,” said Mercer, wondering what was coming.

  “Then I’ll tell you something funny. It shook me up so hard, I remembered something I thought I’d forgotten. The name of the garage that chap Taylor mentioned to me one night when he was pissed. You remember you were asking me about it.”

  “Yes,” said Mercer softly, “I remember.”

  “It was the Hexagon Garage in Baswell Street, Stepney.”

  “I’m much obliged,” said Mercer. His heavy face was expressionless. Only the lips moved, as if he repeated something to himself. At last he said, “You’ll get a bit of sick leave after this, won’t you?”

  “Can’t go back to work with my wrist busted.”

  “Have you got any friends you could go and stay with?”

  Beardoe considered. “I’ve got an old aunt in the Isle of Wight. She’s always on at me to go and see her.”

  “Would she put you up for a fortnight?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Telephone her now. The ward sister will fix it for you. I’ll send a police car for you tomorrow evening. Stay away for two weeks. That’s all. After that, I reckon everyone will have forgotten about you.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Beardoe. He was still angry.

  Mercer had left his car parked in the hospital forecourt, in a section labelled ‘Consultant Gynaecologist’. He backed it out carefully, and drove back towards Stoneferry with one eye on the driving mirror. The dashboard clock was showing a quarter after five and it was still light. Too light for what he had to do. He pulled in at a small transport café a mile short of the town and had a mug of unpleasant tea. When he came out, it was beginning to get dark. The cars going past mostly had side lights on, but no headlights yet. Mercer got into his car, switched on his own side lights, and started back the way he had come. A few hundred yards along, picking his moment, he swung across the traffic into a side road, and immediately killed his side lights. It was a long, straight road of semi-detached houses and little shops. Near the end of it he turned into an even smaller road. Here he drew into the kerb and stopped.

  He sat for a full five minutes in the darkened car and watched. No car crossed the end of the road. No one turned into it. Two or three householders coming home from work passed the car without a glance.

  Mercer looked at the clock again. It was a few minutes before six. He got out quickly, and crossed the road. The legend above the door said, ‘M. Moxon. Newsagent and Tobacconist. Papers Delivered’. A burly man, dressed in a grey cardigan, who could well have been Mr. M. Moxon himself, was pulling down the blind over the window.

  “You’re just in time,” he said. “I was shutting up.”

  “Better late than never,” said Mercer. He closed the door behind him. Then said, in quite a different tone of voice, “Got the doings?”

  Mr. Moxon unlocked a drawer beside the till, and took out an envelope.

  “Want to count it?” he said.

  “I’ll count it when I get home,” said Mercer. “If it’s wrong, I’ll come back and tell you all about it.”

  Mr. Moxon grinned, exposing a broken front tooth. “I bet you would,” he said.

  When Mercer got back to the station he found Rye waiting for him.

  “The guv’nor wants to see you,” he said. “He’s flying storm pennants.”

  “What’s eating him now?”

  “Haven’t you seen the evening papers?”

  “No.”

  “Then take a butcher’s.”

  It was on the front page. Maybe it wasn’t as big, or as black, as a headline announcing the Outbreak of War or a General Strike, but it certainly hit the eye. It said, ‘Death Island’. Underneath was a photograph. It had the blurred edges and foreshortened effect of a picture taken with a telephoto lens, and it showed a line of caped policemen, digging. Partly by luck, partly by professional judgement, the photographer had produced a very effective composition.

  “Good picture,” said Mercer.

  “Try telling that to Bob Clark.”

  “What’s wrong? It shows his men doing some work for a change.”

  “They were working all right. They took that island to pieces. But the point is, they didn’t turn anything up. Barring a few rusty cans and pieces of old iron. So what now? That’s what the Press of this country is clamouring to know. What were we looking for?”

  Superintendent Clark said the same thing more forcibly. He was really angry this time.

  “Look what you’ve let us in for,” he said. “Death Island! They’ll be running coach trips to it soon.”

  “I
t was just one of those things,” said Mercer. “I found out what happened. A couple of newspapermen were talking to Sowthistle. He showed them a spot on Easthaugh from which you can get a good view of Westhaugh. He used to stand there and watch the boys and girls having fun among the nettles on a summer night. Probably charged his customers to use it.”

  “I’m not interested in Hedges. It’s us I’m thinking about. You’ve made us look fools.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Well I’m saying it. You’ve mishandled this case from beginning to end.”

  “Is that an official reprimand?”

  “It’s unofficial at the moment, but I’ll make it official quickly enough if you don’t pull your finger out. If you don’t see the mess you’ve got into, it’s time someone pointed out the facts to you. Everyone knew we thought the body we found was the Hedges’ girl.”

  “We never said so.”

  “If we didn’t think so, why did we question all her boyfriends? It was obvious. It’s now equally obvious that we were wrong. Then we dig up the island. That means we still think she’s dead, but we don’t know where she is. Two girls missing. One we can’t identify and the other we can’t locate. I think it’s time we had someone down from Central to show us how to do the job.”

  “They may not oblige. They’re not too keen on picking other people’s chestnuts out of the fire for them.”

  “I’ve already had Division asking for a report. And it didn’t originate with them. It came down from District. What am I going to tell them?”

  “Tell them the truth. That we turn up a two-year-old body, with very little identification. We think it may be a local girl who disappeared about that time. We were wrong. But we’re still worried about her. Not only because she’s disappeared, but because there’s a murderer round these parts. And a man who’s killed one girl and got away with it is twice as likely to do it again.”

  Before Clark could say anything, the internal telephone on his desk rang. He seemed to be glad of the interruption. He listened for a moment. Then he said, “I’ve got Mercer here. I’ll tell him. It’s the Station Officer’s desk. They’ve had a message from a Mrs. Hall. She’s cashier at Weatherman’s, the solicitor’s. She thinks the body we dug up might be a Maureen Dyson, who worked there two years ago. If you got round there quickly, she says you could catch Mr. Weatherman before he goes.”