A Capital Crime

by Laura Wilson

  ‘Well, she came along. We had a cup of tea together … That’s right. A little cup of tea.’ He indicated the littleness of the tea with his hand, accompanying it with a small, tight smile. ‘She said she’d like to take the flat. I said that was up to the landlord, he’d have to give his permission. She asked me if she could stay for a few days until it was sorted out. She indicated – said to me – that we could have sexual intercourse if I put in a good word for her, about the flat. Well …’ Backhouse leant forward, an expression of theatrically outraged horror on his face. ‘I told her that sort of thing didn’t interest me. She got into quite a temper when she saw there was nothing doing and said I was accusing her of things, all sorts of stuff. I told her she was talking a lot of nonsense and asked her to leave, but she wouldn’t. I got hold of her arm and tried to lead her out of the kitchen, but she started struggling and then … then …’ Backhouse’s voice had sunk to a whisper. After swallowing several times and fingering his collar, he continued, ‘It seemed that she was on the floor at one point … I don’t know – there was something … it’s in the back of my mind. A picture, but I’m not sure … Perhaps it’ll come back to me. If it does,’ he added, ingratiatingly, ‘I shall tell you straight away.’

  ‘Iris Manning was six months pregnant,’ said Stratton. ‘Did you know that?’

  Backhouse made the odd sucking movement with his mouth that Stratton remembered from before. ‘That is unfortunate. Most regrettable.’ It was obvious to Stratton that what was regrettable to Backhouse was the fact that Manning was unmarried, not that he’d murdered both her and her unborn child.

  ‘Did you offer your services as an abortionist?’

  Backhouse blinked at him, his mouth silently framing words as if trying them out, then shook his head sadly and whispered, ‘Oh, no … As I told you, Inspector, I don’t know about that sort of thing.’

  Stratton contented himself with raising his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘We’ll come back to that in due course,’ he said. ‘Tell us about Kathleen McKinnon.’

  Backhouse looked puzzled. ‘Kathleen McKinnon,’ repeated Stratton, glancing down at his notebook. ‘Five feet three inches in height, brown hair, brown eyes, full lips … Quite a looker – when she was alive, that is. Before she became the second body in your alcove. Didn’t you know her name?’

  ‘I don’t think …’ Backhouse shook his head. ‘No. She didn’t introduce herself.’

  Give me strength, thought Stratton, closing his eyes momentarily. Anyone would think they were talking about a fucking garden party. ‘That was her name,’ he said. ‘Kathleen McKinnon.’

  ‘She came up to me in the street,’ said Backhouse. ‘I’d gone to get some fish and chips for my dog and cat …’ He must have seen the look of puzzlement cross Stratton’s face, because he said, ‘A tabby cat. I was very fond of her.’ Remembering the animal he’d seen in the garden the night they’d found Muriel and the baby, Stratton nodded for him to continue.

  ‘I was on my way home when the woman – McKinnon, you said – came up and propositioned me. I could see,’ he added, reprovingly, ‘that she was drunk. I don’t like that sort of thing.’ He paused, looking from Stratton to Ballard as if expecting agreement that they didn’t like that sort of thing, either.

  ‘I was annoyed, Inspector. I’m well known in the area and I didn’t want a scene. She wanted a pound for me to take her round the corner. I told her I wasn’t interested, and she began threatening me.’ The upright citizen act all over again, thought Stratton, wearily. ‘She followed me home, shouting at the top of her voice, and the whole thing was most unpleasant. She forced her way into the house and started fighting. I remember she picked up a frying pan and tried to hit me with it, so I got hold of her … There was quite a struggle, and she kept shouting that she’d get the police down to me. I must have pushed her at some point, because there’s an impression in my mind that she fell onto the deckchair. There was a piece of rope – I suppose it must have been on the chair, but I’m not sure … I’m finding this very difficult, Inspector.’ He paused; this time, Stratton thought, in search of sympathy. He stared, trying to keep his face impassive, as Backhouse polished his glasses and fussed with his handkerchief. The precise fastidiousness of the man’s movements enraged him.

  ‘How did you kill her?’

  Backhouse opened his mouth and put his hand up to his throat as if trying to force sound from it. ‘I don’t remember,’ he whispered. ‘I must have gone haywire. The next thing I remember she was lying on the chair with the rope round her neck. I must have put her in the alcove, because then I made a cup of tea for myself and fed the animals.’

  ‘Did you gas the women before you killed them?’

  ‘Gas?’ Backhouse looked perplexed.

  ‘Their blood samples contained carbon monoxide,’ said Stratton. ‘All three of them.’

  ‘Well, if … Yes, I suppose I must have. It’s not clear in my mind.’

  ‘You’re telling us you don’t remember, are you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m not sure. If it comes back to me …’

  ‘Poor Mr Backhouse,’ said Ballard, when they stopped for lunch. ‘Just think, all those dirty women throwing themselves at him.’

  ‘Most regrettable,’ mimicked Stratton. ‘And him so virtuous. Course, he couldn’t say that about a respectable woman like his wife, so it had to be a mercy killing … but, do you know, I think he believes it.’

  Ballard looked surprised. ‘Really, sir?’

  ‘Well …’ Stratton picked up his sandwich, which was beginning to curl at the edges, inspected it closely, then, disheartened, returned it to the plate. ‘In a way, I do. He wants to be on our side, doesn’t he? Former police reservist, pillar of the local community and all that. That’s how he sees himself. He doesn’t want to remember how he gassed and strangled those women because he doesn’t want to lose his self-respect. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a trick cyclist, but that’s how it seems to me … It’s the way he talks about it, as if it doesn’t have anything to do with him … What was it, “an impression that she was in the deckchair”, or something like that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ballard consulted his notebook. ‘And when he was talking about Manning he said, “It seemed that she was on the floor.” As if he were watching it happen.’

  ‘And he didn’t admit to gassing them. Or ravishing them.’

  ‘Hardly that, sir. I mean, if they were toms, they probably agreed to it. The sex bit, anyway.’

  ‘That’s true. We’ll leave the gassing for later, once he’s been remanded. I’ve got a fair idea his account of killing Dwyer is going to be more of the same – all her fault.’

  ‘I wonder why he killed his wife,’ said Ballard. ‘I mean, if she knew about Muriel Davies, why wait so long? Unless she’d found out, somehow, and was threatening to tell us.’

  ‘Or perhaps he just wanted her out of the way. I don’t think she’d have come to us even if she had suspected. Too much under his thumb.’

  ‘She can’t have had much of a life, poor woman. Remember the neighbour? She made it sound as if watching Andy Pandy was the high spot of her week.’

  ‘That neighbour told us she was scared of the black tenants, didn’t she? Perhaps she’d got so fed up she told Backhouse she was going back up north to wherever it was – she’d already done it once, remember, before the war. Maybe he thought that if she was with her family she might start talking about what she suspected.’

  ‘Or perhaps she’d taken to digging in the garden.’

  ‘You know, I still don’t understand about that bloody dog … God, you can just imagine it, can’t you? Nice cosy scene, him feeding his pets with fish and chips and a dead tart still warm in the cupboard not three feet away.’

  ‘I’ve been trying not to, sir.’ Ballard pushed his plate from him. But for a single bite, his sandwich was untouched.

  ‘Not hungry?’

  Ballard shook his head, then shuddered. ‘He makes me feel sick. Have you noticed,
sir, that when it’s something he doesn’t mind talking about his voice is quite normal, but when you ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer he goes all whispery?’

  ‘Yes …’ Stratton considered this. ‘You’re right. So much for the old war wound. I suppose he must have done the same when he was in court, only we never cottoned onto it.’

  ‘Can’t remember, sir. I remember him bursting into tears though, straight after.’

  ‘Relief, I suppose. He’d got away with it, hadn’t he?’

  ‘I was thinking about that, sir. About six months ago, I was down at Pentonville – one of those safe-breakers, I think it was – and one of the warders I spoke to had been in the cell with Davies when they told him the appeal had failed. They’d been playing cards, and this bloke said that he just stared at the governor for a minute and then sat down to get on with the game. Said he wondered afterwards if Davies understood what the governor was telling him. Made me wonder how much he’d understood at all. That’s not to say,’ he added hastily, ‘that he didn’t do it, of course, but—’

  ‘But it’s not very likely, is it? That’ll depend on what Backhouse has to tell us. I thought I’d leave it till last. I’d say that when he learns how much we know, he might be more likely to confess. I get the impression that he’s not going to tell us anything he doesn’t have to – all that stuff about wanting to help but not being able to remember. He isn’t stupid …’

  The words ‘unlike Davies’ hovered, unspoken, in the air between them, until Ballard said, ‘Still fancies himself with the medical stuff, doesn’t he, sir?’

  ‘When it suits him. He’s strangely unforthcoming on the matter of backstreet abortions … Look, changing the subject for a moment, I still haven’t thanked you properly for what you did last night.’

  ‘It’s nothing, sir.’ The tips of the sergeant’s ears had gone faintly pink. ‘I hope Monica’s recovered.’ Apart from a brief exchange that morning, when Stratton explained that Monica was safely home, they hadn’t had time to discuss it. Lamb had insisted that Stratton spoke to the press, which he hated. There were policemen who’d speak to the newspapers at any opportunity, but he’d never been one of them. It was too much like showing off and in any case, journalists were better kept at arm’s length. Besides which, they seemed to regard it as a foregone conclusion that Davies was innocent and had asked a lot of questions that he was in no position to answer. He’d hardly covered himself in glory, but Lamb was so relieved that Backhouse had been caught that Stratton reckoned he’d have forgiven him if he’d recited ‘Humpty Dumpty’.

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Stratton. ‘I hope that …’ he stalled, realising that he had no idea what former-Policewoman Gaines’s Christian name was, ‘your wife—’

  ‘Pauline, sir.’

  ‘Pauline wasn’t too put out.’

  ‘She understood, sir. If it had been Katy …’

  Seeking to display some degree of knowledge about – and therefore interest in – Ballard’s family, Stratton said, ‘Walking now, is she?’

  Ballard grinned. ‘Walking, talking, the lot. She’s three, sir.’

  ‘Yes, of course, she would be. I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Actually, we’ve got another on the way. Only a few months, now.’

  ‘Congratulations. Another reason for me to buy you a drink when all this is over.’

  As Stratton had suspected, it was more self-justification over Mary Dwyer – this time, her clothes had become caught around her neck in the struggle. After that, they got onto the two skeletons in the garden. Backhouse confirmed that the women had been killed sometime in forty-three or forty-four, while Edna was staying with her family in Sheffield. His account of the first, whom he remembered as being called Else Kircher or Kirchner, an Austrian – which explained the foreign fillings in the teeth – was markedly similar to his stories about the other prostitutes. The second – who turned out, as Ballard had suspected, to be May Drinkwater – obviously caused him more of a problem because, not being a whore, he couldn’t claim that she’d thrown herself at him. Instead, he recounted a story about luring her to the house on the pretext of treating her catarrh and getting her to inhale a mixture of Friar’s Balsam and gas.

  ‘I may have had intercourse at that time, but I’m not sure,’ he finished, frowning. ‘Or it might have been the other one. I can’t remember …’

  How very convenient, thought Stratton. Hard on the heels of this came the thought that it was entirely possible that a man like Backhouse might not remember; at least, not clearly. His desires gratified, he’d dispose of the bodies and go on to the next … It occurred to him then, that for all Backhouse’s greater intelligence, he had just as little thought for the consequences of his actions as had Davies. ‘Were there others during that period?’ he asked.

  ‘Others?’ came the whisper.

  ‘Other women you killed at that time?’

  Backhouse looked momentarily thoughtful, then said, ‘I don’t think so. That is, I can’t remember. If you say I did, then …’

  In other words, thought Stratton, produce the evidence. ‘We found your souvenirs,’ he said. ‘A tobacco tin with four samples of pubic hair. Now, assuming you didn’t go around asking living women to help you with your collection’ – Backhouse looked outraged at this idea – ‘then you must have taken them from dead women. Women you’d killed. A little something to remember them by, was it?’ Stratton deliberately kept his tone conversational, as if asking a perfectly reasonable question. ‘Those tender moments when you put a stocking round their necks and strangled them and fucked them while you were doing it?’

  The eyes glittered for a moment behind the glasses, and then Backhouse put his head into his hands. His shoulders heaved, and a snorting noise told Stratton that he was crying. ‘There’s something,’ he spluttered, ‘but I can’t get it. It’s forming a picture and then my head hurts and it gets all jumbled up again. It doesn’t get clear, but there’s something …’

  ‘I’ll say there is,’ said Stratton, ignoring the tears. ‘There’s Muriel Davies.’

  Backhouse sat up straight. Staring at Stratton, eyes wet and blurry behind the glasses, he seemed suddenly soft-bodied, as if, boneless, he’d assumed the shape of his chair.

  ‘Muriel?’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Stratton. ‘Muriel. Muriel Davies. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten her. And for God’s sake, speak up.’

  Backhouse cleared his throat. ‘There is something in my mind,’ he said, hesitantly, ‘about Mrs Davies, but I can’t quite remember …’

  Chapter Seventy-One

  ‘If he tells us he can’t remember once more,’ said Stratton, ‘I’m going to knock his block off.’

  ‘I know what you mean, sir.’ The report having arrived from the police lab, they’d adjourned, and were sitting in the office.

  ‘The ones in the garden, fair enough,’ said Stratton. ‘It was a while ago. But he bloody well does remember about Muriel Davies. In fact, Mrs Carleton said that he was about to show her an old newspaper cutting about a court case he’d been involved in, but then he changed his mind. Was it with his clothes when he came in?’

  ‘They’re checking them now, sir. I’ll find out.’

  ‘He told her he’d been a witness. And he told her that his name was Davies, too.’ Mentioning Diana, Stratton was aware of concentrating on negative things, like not turning red or spilling his tea.

  ‘She was the one with him when you found him, wasn’t she?’ Ballard, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss, spoke in a neutral tone.

  ‘That’s right.’ Stratton did not enlarge on this. His feelings were too confused to enunciate, and besides, as far as Diana was concerned, he didn’t want to make himself feel even more of a fool than he did already. ‘You know,’ he said, partly to change the subject and partly because he was genuinely puzzled, ‘I don’t see how he could have gassed those women. May Drinkwater, fair enough – he said he’d got some sort of device, didn
’t he? Presumably he put it over her nose and she let him because she thought it was going to help with the catarrh. But with the others, how did he persuade them? If he’d just left the tap open, he’d have been overcome himself, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps if he’d opened a window …’

  ‘But then the gas would have been dispelled. And surely they’d have smelt a rat if he’d suddenly stuck his head out of the window – unless he’d made some excuse, I suppose. But it’s a bit odd.’

  ‘Perhaps he persuaded them as some sort of game. We found tubing in the flat, remember, sir?’

  ‘Well, he certainly didn’t tie them up – there weren’t any marks.’

  ‘Mary Dwyer had her wrists tied in front of her with a handkerchief – that could have been part of a game – and McKinnon must have been pretty drunk, judging by the lab reports, so perhaps she didn’t realise what was happening to her.’

  ‘And Iris Manning was pregnant,’ concluded Stratton. ‘Backhouse denied offering to help her get rid of the baby, but if he had, he might have said the gas was to knock her out while he did it. That makes sense.’

  ‘He might have done that to Muriel Davies too, sir.’

  ‘It’s possible. We didn’t find anything like that device he mentioned, but he could easily have thrown it away.’

  Stratton pondered this for a moment before Ballard spoke again. ‘Last night, sir, when you telephoned, you said you were going to follow someone up … Did you find them, sir?’ The sergeant’s gaze was so penetrating that, for a horrible moment, Stratton thought the man must be clairvoyant and connected this to his earlier comments about Diana’s statement.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I had an idea they’d be somewhere near Victoria, but …’ He shrugged, hoping it looked realistically off-hand. ‘Anyway, turns out it didn’t matter.’

  Ballard looked at him carefully, a bit too much like a man who realised he’d been warned off for Stratton’s liking, but all he said was, ‘True enough, sir,’ then bent his head to the pile of paper in front of him. ‘There’s a whole list of stuff from the suitcase we fetched from the Rowton House at King’s Cross, sir. Ration books – his wife’s as well – identity card, ticket for the doss house, seven nights’ accommodation … That’s interesting. When Canning went to fetch the case they told him that he’d only stayed for one.’