The Queen v. Karl Mullen

by Michael Gilbert

  “Which is, of course, why I recommended that particular treatment.”

  “Certainly. But can you explain why, when this treatment was used yesterday, it had exactly the opposite effect? The bougie, far from softening the scar, would appear to have burst it open.”

  “Not necessarily. It is quite possible that the oedema which had been forming in the gullet had spread to such an extent that it caused a corresponding blockage in the windpipe. That would account for the spasmodic difficulty in breathing.”

  “But surely, the process you are describing is quite a slow one. This was quick – and fatal.”

  “I can see,” said Moy-Williams coldly, “that you have a solution to propound. Might I hear it?”

  “The only answer that makes any sense to me is that there was some other substance on the bougie. Something added, perhaps to the olive oil in the jar. Something strong enough to break down the scar altogether and precipitate oedema into the windpipe.”

  For a moment Moy-Williams seemed to find difficulty in speaking. Then he said, in a voice which anger and disbelief had reduced almost to inaudibility, “No doubt, since you are producing such ingenious theories, you would like to go a little further and suggest what member of this household could have done such a thing. You have a restricted choice. Mrs. Katanga or the girl, Anna. Or perhaps you would like to add me to the list.”

  It was Thorn’s turn to look surprised. He said, “I thought you had questioned Mrs. Katanga about the events of yesterday.”

  “Certainly. She told me that the first sign of trouble was when her husband refused his lunch—”

  “But nothing about the earlier part of the morning.”

  “I saw no reason—”

  “So you were not aware that Karl Mullen – you know who I am talking about?”

  “Of course.”

  “You were not aware that he telephoned at about ten o’clock and that Anna told him that Katanga was out, at a meeting with his publishers and his wife was out shopping? She told him that both of them were expected back at about midday. Mullen thanked her and rang off. But it seems that he took care to arrive in very good time. In fact, he was here before half past eleven. Anna let him in. Having done so, she naturally retired to the kitchen.”

  “Leaving Mullen alone in this room.”

  It was clear from the tone of voice in which Moy-Williams said this that he was being driven from the defensive. It was not yet a medical alliance, but it was approaching it.

  “Exactly. And I hope that answers your question.”

  “It is suggestive, though not, I think, conclusive. I have been following the Mullen case in the papers – in so far as they were allowed to report anything – and it seems clear that Mullen had pressing reason to—well—to hope that Katanga would not be in a position to give evidence against him.”

  “If you mean,” said Thorn, with youthful brutality, “that he had every reason to finish him off, why not say so?”

  “Possibly because I am an older man than you,” said Moy-Williams. “And therefore slower to jump to conclusions. Tell me, if you happen to know. What excuse, if any, did Mullen give for calling?”

  “Yes, as it happens, I do know that. But let me continue with what Mrs. Katanga told me. Her husband got back to the house ahead of her and by the time she arrived he was already in deep discussion with Mullen in here. So she joined Anna in the kitchen. As you may have noticed there is only the thinnest of partitions between kitchen and living-room. The two women were able to hear almost everything that was said. After a few insincere civilities Mullen came straight to the point. Katanga’s mother and his two sisters had been arrested and were being held by the police in Pretoria on charges of suspected terrorist activity. Evidence had been found. Here, it seems, Katanga interrupted to say ‘or planted’. Mullen brushed this aside. He said the evidence would no doubt be supported by statements made, eventually, by the women. The way in which he said this admitted of no doubt as to what was in store for them.”

  “Unless Katanga did what he was told.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what did Katanga do?”

  “He told Mullen to go to hell. Mullen said, ‘On your head be it’, or words to that effect. As it was clear that the meeting was breaking up, Anna went out to open the front door. The two men left the room together. When they were out in the hall Mrs. Katanga couldn’t hear clearly what they said, though Anna, no doubt, could. Anyway, they went down the front path, still arguing. Anna watched them from the front door. She saw them stop, once or twice, to continue their argument – ‘both very angry’, she said. Finally Mullen got into his car and drove off. Katanga came back. Anna shut the door and went into the kitchen.”

  Dr. Moy-Williams was not a man whose mind moved very quickly, or very clearly. He was trying to grasp the implications of what he had been told and was finding it difficult. One step at a time was enough for him.

  He said, “How do you suppose that a man in Mullen’s position would get hold of poison?”

  “Unfortunately there are poisons which are only too easy to get hold of. I was admiring the garden and the way the paths had been cleared. No one nowadays bothers about weeding by hand. They just go to a gardening shop and ask for the latest weedkiller. They used to be nicotine-based. Now they’re even more deadly. Paradol is one I use myself. It’s based on paraquat. A touch of anything of that sort on the bougie would break down the scar at once and a mass of oedema would penetrate the windpipe with immediately fatal results.”

  “Yes,” said Moy-Williams. He said it reluctantly. The things that were being discussed were still possibilities, not probabilities. None the less, if matters did develop in the way Thorn was suggesting, everything they now did and said would come under the microscope of the law. Action might be fatal. Inaction might be even more so. He said, “So what do you suggest?”

  It was an armistice proposal.

  “On the assumption that your certificate may have to be amended, we must put the coroner in the picture. We shall have to agree to an autopsy. The best person to carry it out would be my old chief at Guy’s, Dr. Summerson. If he’s available, he’d do it at once.”

  “We must tell Mr. Larch to suspend any preparation of the body and ask him to transfer it to the mortuary. I’d better do that. He’s more likely to accept instructions from me.”

  “Right. You do that first. I’ll tackle the coroner and Summerson.”

  In the kitchen Anna had her ear unashamedly pressed to the door. She did not grasp everything that had been said. She spoke English better than she understood it and some of the technical terms had gone over her head. But she had heard enough to make her both excited and worried.

  She heard the doctors go out into the hall and the sound of dialling; then one of them, the fat doctor she thought, saying, “Mr. Larch? Moy-Williams here. Look, there have been developments—”

  17

  Dr. Summerson was one of the honorary Home Office pathologists who shared the workload that had killed Sir Bernard Spilsbury forty years before. He was reputed to be the most meticulous and the most cold-blooded of the three. He picked up the telephone.

  The number that he dialled was unlisted. It bypassed both operator and receptionist and took him straight to the desk of Trevor Underhill, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions. Both men were aware of the explosive potentiality of the names Mullen and Katanga and it took Dr. Summerson very few minutes to explain what had happened and his own involvement in it.

  He said, “I’m not throwing any stones at the family doctor, an old buffer called Moy-Williams. His professional qualifications aren’t staggering, but knowing what he did about the earlier accident it was quite a reasonable conclusion to come to – that cumulative oedema in the gullet might have exerted pressure on the windpipe. What he had overlooked was some severe blistering at the back of the mouth and tongue and in the oesophagus.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t look for it.”

  “Mayb
e not. But remember that until he heard about Mullen inviting himself round there on Thursday morning he had no grounds for suspicion.”

  Underhill grinned. One doctor sticking up for another. He said, “Point taken. What next?”

  “I’ve made sections of the oesophagus, the larynx, the trachea and the stomach. I gather that speed is important in this case.”

  “No question about that.”

  “I did think of carrying out the analysis in my own laboratory at the hospital. Or of bringing in the Metropolitan Police Laboratory. But I rejected both ideas. Though the Police Laboratory will strenuously deny this, we’re neither of us as well equipped as the Home Office Central Research Establishment at Aldermaston. I propose to send them the sections, along with the glass jar of olive oil and the bougie.”

  “Fingerprints?” said Underhill.

  “I tested them myself.”

  “The jar and the bougie?”

  “Yes. Several sets muddled and overlapping on the bougie. One plain set on the jar. They all looked to me to be from the same hand. The Police Laboratory will tell us when they see my photographs.”

  “Will sending the stuff to Aldermaston involve delay?”

  “No. I shall take it up by car myself. I know Gadney, the doctor in charge, very well. He’ll co-operate. In fact, I’m sure he’ll work all night if necessary. You shall have a preliminary report by tomorrow midday at the latest.”

  “Very well.” Underhill consulted his diary. “I’ll fix up an appointment with the Director for three o’clock.”

  “You haven’t forgotten that tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “In view of the background to this case,” said Underhill drily, “I think that even Saturday golf will have to take second place.”

  The Coroner’s Officer at Putney who was in charge of the Putney Mortuary was an ex-policeman. His service, only recently concluded, had been with the Roehampton sub-station of the Putney Division. This meant that he still felt some loyalty to his previous superior, Inspector Blanchard. Accordingly, as soon as Dr. Summerson had left the mortuary building it seemed natural for him to telephone the Inspector and bring him up to date. It was Blanchard who had posted a man in West Mead Close. He was aware that the ground he was treading on was sown with mines.

  He said, “I don’t suppose Summerson said anything to you?”

  “He didn’t say anything, sir. You wouldn’t expect it with a cold fish like that. But he took away a lot of bits and pieces, including a glass jar with a sort of implement in it. And I heard him telephoning Aldermaston to expect him. I couldn’t help thinking, what’s the hurry?”

  “The less you think about it the better, my son,” said Blanchard. But after he had rung off he did some thinking himself.

  If death had not been from natural causes, if poison had been involved – and the likelihood of this seemed to be growing – then there were two possibilities. Death might, of course, have been the result of an accident. Was there not some history of a previous accident? On the other hand it might have been caused deliberately. In either case, ought not the house to be searched as soon as possible? As against this sensible course of action stood the objection that he would not get a search warrant in time to be of any use to him. But there might be a way round that.

  One thing which influenced his thinking was the fact that in that district dustbins were emptied on Monday mornings.

  Dr. Summerson looked with envy at the gleaming array of apparatus on the bench. He remembered the primitive quartz spectrographs of his own early years. These had been followed by the first gas chromatographs, which had been considered the most useful weapon in the investigative armoury, and now even these were yielding place to the ion-ray chromatograph which could, used with patience and a modicum of luck, isolate the smallest constituents in any sample.

  “I wouldn’t do it for anyone but you,” growled Dr. Gadney, who still looked like the formidable rugby player he had once been.

  “Very kind of you to say so,” said Summerson, who had known him long enough not to be alarmed by him.

  “But if I’m going to lose a night’s sleep, you’re going to sit up with me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” said Summerson.

  “I hope you won’t think I’m butting in,” said Inspector Blanchard.

  He was a good-looking man, still on the right side of thirty, assets which he had found useful before when dealing with female witnesses.

  “When I heard about your husband’s death I took the liberty, as you’ll have seen, of posting one of my men at the end of the lane.”

  “It was very thoughtful of you,” said Dorothy.

  “And you must forgive me for calling on you at this unchristian hour—” It was still short of nine o’clock.

  “That’s quite all right,” said Dorothy. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ll tell you. It occurred to me that it was possible – just possible – that your husband’s death might have been the result of an accident.”

  “Yes,” said Dorothy faintly. Her mind was still running on what Anna had overheard and had poured out to her the night before.

  “And that being so, I thought it would be sensible to have a quick look round to see if any bottles or tins had been left lying about. I could only do so, you understand, if you agreed—”

  “Well, yes. I suppose there’d be no objection to that—”

  “Right,” said Blanchard. “Leave it to us.” He signalled to the Detective Sergeant who had been standing in the doorway. Two other men were visible behind him.

  The quick look round seemed to involve a lot of opening of cupboard doors, upstairs as well as downstairs, and the clanging of dustbin lids. Anna had come in from the kitchen and was saying, “You ought to stop them. They’ve got no right—” when Dr. Moy-Williams arrived.

  He said, “What on earth are those men doing ferreting round your dustbins?” And to Inspector Blanchard, who came in from the kitchen at this moment, “What the devil do you think you’re doing? Have you got a search warrant?”

  “No, but I’ve got Mrs Katanga’s permission—”

  She said faintly, “When he talked about a quick look round I’d no idea—”

  “Of course you hadn’t. The whole thing’s a try-on. Get out of here at once and take your men with you.”

  Blanchard looked at Dorothy, who said, “Yes. Please go.”

  “You understand that, I hope,” said the doctor. “Any consent which was given has been revoked. And don’t think that’s an end of the matter. I’m going to have a word with the Assistant Commissioner – I happen to know him personally – and we’ll see what he has got to say about it.”

  “Right,” said the Director of Public Prosecutions. He was a grey badger of a man, worn old and dry by the responsibilities of his post. “Oh, before I start, I’m not sure if you know Chief Superintendent Baron, doctor.”

  Dr. Summerson indicated, with a smile, that he did know the head of the Special Branch.

  “In view of the decision of the Divisional Court that Mullen is to be considered a consular agent, I felt that the matter came within the remit of his Branch.”

  Baron signified his agreement, unenthusiastically.

  “We can regard the doctor who originally examined Katanga with some sympathy—”

  “Well-meaning, but old-fashioned,” said Summerson. “In the circumstances it was natural that he gave the certificate which he did.”

  “Ye-e-s,” said the Director. “And but for the requirements of the Cremation Act Katanga would, by now, have been a handful of ashes. However, in this instance it worked to our advantage. Public opinion, and the press, have been diverted by the immediate announcement that death was from natural causes. As long as that verdict is unquestioned, it gives us a breathing-space.”

  “But not a very long one,” said Baron. “The shop-lifting charge comes up at Bow Street on Monday and as things stand now, it’s almost bound to be dismissed. Onc
e that happens, Mullen will be out of the country within twenty-four hours.”

  “Or less,” said Underhill.

  “I think we could give ourselves a little more time than that,” said the Director. “Lashmar will have to be instructed to apply for a short adjournment so as to consider the position brought about by Katanga’s death. If necessary the Attorney General could make the application in person. I had a word with the Home Secretary just before you came in. He fully appreciates the difficulty of the position.”

  Baron looked even less happy. Now it only needed the Prime Minister to step in, which he was quite capable of doing.

  “Then let us see where we stand. First we have Dr. Thorn’s account of the events of Thursday morning. And now the report – which they emphasise is only a preliminary report – from Aldermaston. Could we have your views on that, doctor?”

  “It establishes,” said Summerson slowly, “with reasonable certainty, the presence of paraquat in the mixture in the jar and on the bougie. Also what may be chlordane.”

  “Both of which are found in the weedkiller which is marketed as Paradol.”

  “Yes. But before they can speak with certainty there are a number of elimination tests to be made. However, they are working hard and should be in a position to let us have a further report quite soon.”

  “Which means?”

  “The elimination tests are delicate. They can’t be rushed. A week at the earliest. Probably more.”

  The Director thought about this. A legal time-limit and a medical time-limit. It was not a happy position for a man who liked to proceed with deliberation and had to be reasonably certain before he moved.

  Finally he said, “On the assumption that we can get at least a week’s adjournment of the shop-lifting case, we will reconvene this meeting on Wednesday. One other thing meanwhile. We shall have to call off the local police. I’ve had the Assistant Commissioner on the telephone. It seems they pushed in, without a warrant, and searched the house. If you’re going to handle the case, you’ll need rather more experienced help than that.”