The Distant Dead

by Lesley Thomson

  Luck played its part. Northcote was at the right crime scene at the right time. The 1933 Triplets in the Lake Murders came in while Northcote’s boss was holidaying in France. His discovery of a thumbprint on one of the bodies led police to the father and Northcote to stardom. He sent Giles to Harrow, bought two palatial homes, the London one and Cloisters House in Tewkesbury, where, on 22 November 1963, Professor Aleck Northcote was beaten to death aged sixty-two.

  From newspaper articles Jack traced Northcote’s London house to Ravenscourt Square. The seasick feeling had begun as he combed the fine print in volumes of the electoral roll from 1933 onwards until he finally found the Northcotes at the Laburnums – too posh for a house number. After 1941 Julia’s name was no longer there. And from 1942, the Laburnums was occupied by the Smith family. On Street View, Jack found the house a disappointment, just visible through a lychgate with a pitched roof that better belonged on a village church. Had the Northcotes divorced? It happened during the Second World War, Julia could have been killed by a bomb. Although he knew nothing about her, Jack hoped she’d gone on ahead to Tewkesbury. His interest piqued, he dug deeper and in an article printed in the News of the World, got a shock.

  Police were called to a respectable London square on New Year’s Day Eve after reports of a man causing a disturbance. They arrived to find eminent Home Office pathologist Professor Aleck Northcote distraught, being comforted on the kerb by neighbours. Northcote led them upstairs to where he had found his wife of fifteen years dangling lifeless from a length of rope.

  A week later the Daily Mirror reported the inquest at which Professor Northcote was a key witness. He told the court that recently he’d suspected that the balance of his wife’s mind was disturbed. The coroner, the weirdly named Wolsey Banks, ruled suicide although no note had apparently been found.

  Jack felt unaccountably flat. His motivation for being at the Archives – that he clung to – was the slimmest chance he might win Stella back. Personally, he doubted Roddy March’s theory that Giles was innocent, and he’d been annoyed by Stella referring to the dead podcaster as ‘Roddy’. As if they had been friends. If anything, this made Jack more inclined to think Giles Northcote had murdered his father. Having had little love for his own father, Jack could put himself there.

  However, Jack did know that where murder was concerned, more than one person often paid. It could be the judge who had dished out the sentence, or the barrister whose defence had fallen short, so why not the pathologist who delivered incriminating evidence in what The Times called a mellifluous baritone?

  Whether the person in the dock was guilty or innocent, Jack knew only too well that the relatives of victims nursed grudges for decades. Until one day they instituted punishment of their own.

  Giles Northcote may have been framed. And what sweet revenge if, before bludgeoning him with his own poker, his killer had paused to tell the pathologist that Giles would hang for Northcote’s murder.

  The more Jack read, the more he began to suspect the truth about the murders of Northcote and the podcaster lay in the past. Events often came in threes. If this was a chain reaction, then who was murdered first? Or who would be murdered next?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  2019

  Stella

  When Janet suggested they meet at the bookshop on the high street at 4 p.m. precisely, Stella pictured a shop like the various Waterstones she had cleaned over the years, bright, colourful with a coffee shop. The New Leaf, oddly named as it sold second-hand books, occupied a sixteenth-century half-timbered building squeezed between an Indian takeaway and a shop selling bric-a-brac.

  Leading Stanley around two women browsing crime paperbacks that were heaped in tottering towers along a stone-flagged passage, Stella ascended a rickety staircase, then another. On the third floor she was again relieved to find she was there before Janet. She needed time to prepare her befuddled mind for Janet’s rapier-sharp questions.

  Six foot in height, Stella had to stoop beneath exposed ceiling joists. A sloping floor gave her the impression that a stack might topple on to her. The damp air smelled of plaster and old books and old dust. It would be a challenge to clean. Stella sighed as she considered again how she needed another cleaning job. Surely not every company would see her knack of coming across dead bodies – only twice – as an obstacle to employing her.

  Stella scanned the subject labels on the shelves: ontology, divinology, graphology… her mind became more befuddled. No café, she noted. After the Death Café, she’d had it with cafés. Although since seeing Jack and existing on scant sleep, she craved caffeine.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, it’s crazy at work.’ Janet did a circuit of the room establishing that they were alone which, watching her opening a cupboard under the eaves at one end of the room, Stella thought she should have done.

  ‘How is it going?’ Glimpsing cleaning equipment in the cupboard, Stella regained solid ground.

  ‘If only Terry could see you now.’ Janet flashed her a smile and Stella saw that the older woman looked as tired as Stella felt. ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t torn up that police application Terry gave you for your eighteenth.’

  ‘The police are not for me.’ Ashamed of her teenage moment of temper, Stella knew if her dad had told Janet, it meant Stella ripping up the form had upset him even more than she’d suspected it had. And she had been a detective: Jack and she had worked as a team. Not any more. Even at eighteen, Stella had had the mind of a cleaner, not of a detective.

  ‘Yet here you are, ready to help me out.’ Janet dropped her voice.

  ‘I’m not sure I can.’ Stella did want to keep tabs on Roddy’s case. She’d been in at the beginning and she wanted to make up for not understanding his last words. And, she told herself in pompous defence, since Janet wished to use her as a sounding board, it was her civic duty to comply.

  ‘We found a mint imperial behind what you called a cadaver tomb. With traces of March’s DNA. Probably got knocked out of his mouth when he was attacked.’ Janet ran a forefinger along the book spines as if testing for dust. ‘Any more luck on what March said before he died? Car something?’

  ‘Car. Wo my, or mo. Or me.’ Stella snatched at the fading memory.

  ‘Car. He did have a jeep. We just found it parked on a yellow near the abbey, with a sheaf of tickets. Any chance he was trying to tell you that?’ Janet pulled a face. ‘Bit sad if his last words were fear of being nabbed by a traffic warden.’

  ‘What with the bells, I couldn’t hear,’ Stella said.

  ‘What bells?’

  ‘The abbey’s bells, they struck ten.’

  ‘That fits in with when you called the ambulance.’ So Janet had checked that Stella was telling the truth. Rummaging in her coat Janet waved a packet of mint imperials. Seeing Stella’s expression she clicked her tongue, ‘OK, so I’m suggestible. Want one?’ Stella shook her head. ‘We found Roddy March’s phone in a bin near the Rose Theatre. No SIM card. Rather than the magnificent Death Café seven – if we include you – more and more I’m erring on the side that this is robbery-murder.’

  ‘How were Roddy’s parents?’ Stella didn’t agree, but was that just because, as Janet had as good as said the day before in the tearoom, the solution to most murders was banal?

  ‘She was chatty, going on about a memoir she’s writing about her time in Africa before her parents moved to Australia. Frankly, that was weird. He was matter-of-fact, wanted to know if there was a will, did we have the key to Roderick’s lodgings. How much money was in his account and had it been tampered with.’

  ‘Maybe not having seen Roddy for five years, it felt remote.’ Stella imagined that if someone she loved died – her mum, her brother… Jack – she’d be in overdrive asking practical questions. Jack might talk about memoirs if she died.

  ‘I got the sense Roddy was the black sheep of an otherwise fluffy pristine white flock.’ Janet tossed another mint imperial in her mouth and, tucking it in her cheek with her tongue, said
, ‘His bedsit was a mess. Bed unmade, dirty clothes on the floor and he was literally living out of a suitcase.

  ‘What about his laptop?’ Stella asked.

  ‘We didn’t find a laptop. No phone, nor the notebook you mentioned. Still can’t find anything on any bloody cloud. As I said, those newspaper clippings on retro murders is all we have so far. It’s like he intentionally deleted his footprint.’

  ‘Or someone else did,’ Stella suggested.

  ‘He’d kept letters from four exes, two offered to kill him for dumping them by text. What an arse, would you believe it?’

  ‘Are they suspects?’ Having dumped an ex by text, Stella could believe it.

  ‘No, they all have alibis. As do your Death lot.’

  ‘Three have alibis, Felicity Branscombe was at home arguing with the vicar, or whatever he is, over choir music, Gladys Wren drove to the Morrisons out of town. She’s on their CCTV in the veg section. Clive Burgess walked home. He was seen by no one on his journey, but frankly he’s not high up there as a brutal killer. Andrea was seen by another lodger. So all in all, your Death Clubbers have no motive.’ Janet was swiping through her mobile, ‘We’ve got extra patrols in the town, I’m doing the telly news to warn the public not to approach anyone acting suspiciously… yadda yadda. Personally, I miss Crimewatch; decent coverage and we’d round up these shit-arses in no time.’ Janet crunched on the mint and, flapping her gloves at Stella, went to the stairs. ‘Catch you soon, Stella.’

  As Janet’s footsteps died away – she’d asked Stella to leave a couple of minutes after her to avoid them being seen together – Stella pondered if, after all, the mystery of Roddy’s murder was a nasty mugging gone wrong. Not the kind of death she imagined Roddy would have envisaged for himself. Stupid, because Roddy hadn’t expected to be murdered.

  Five minutes later Stella made her way down the uneven stairs out to the street.

  It was raining heavily, not the light shower forecast on her app, making the abbey a black ink sketch against the sky.

  ‘If it isn’t the Cleaning Detective.’ In a fur hat with earflaps, his threadbare overcoat buttoned to his chin and ski-boots, it was Clive the clockmaker. At the Death Café Clive had said time wasn’t on his side but, to Stella, the ruddy-cheek and glittering eyes promised years yet.

  Clive regarded her with a knowing, amused look from beneath the rim of his umbrella. Stella was struck with horror. Had he been in the bookshop? Had he listened to her conversation with Janet?

  ‘You never told us you’re a celebrity.’ He twirled the umbrella handle which, Stella noticed, was decorated with clock faces.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Modesty is unbecoming. I do hope you’re going to solve our little murder.’ Clive moved closer as Stella stepped back. He leaned confidentially towards her. ‘I’ve got a clue to get you started.’

  ‘You should tell the police.’

  ‘Think John Lennon.’

  ‘What have the Beatles to do with it?’ Stella hated riddles.

  ‘Who mentioned them? Consider when time ran out for John Lennon.’

  ‘If you know something you should go to the police,’ Stella repeated.

  ‘Take my advice, never get involved with the police.’ He put up his hands, the knuckles swollen, probably rheumatic. Stella wondered if he still mended clocks.

  ‘Come to my house tonight. Around eight. Address: 1 Stag Villas. Cross the weir at Fletcher’s bridge and turn right.’

  Before Stella could refuse, umbrella held high above evening shoppers, Clive Burgess had lurched away into the rainy darkness.

  The rain was pelting now. Her hair plastered to her head, Stella swept Stanley up and hurried along the street to the flat.

  In her staff cleaning manual for Clean Slate, Stella had written, Operatives must never enter premises without informing HQ of their location. Following her rule, if not her judgement, Stella decided to ask Lucie to go with her to 1 Stag Villas. She didn’t fancy being alone with Clive.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  2019

  Stella

  The Victoria Pleasure Gardens gleamed in sporadic moonlight. The river had risen above the banks, it lapped across the paths and lawns. Sharp gusts of wind drove forward the encroaching water, the surface pocked with yet more rain.

  In the daytime, the gardens were another of Stella’s refuges. She and Stanley wandered the paths soothed by the geometry and neat rows of winter planting. She sat on a bench watching the river, which made up for missing the Thames. Tonight – with no Stanley – each step felt like an advance into oblivion.

  ‘Wait for me.’ Never had Stella been so grateful to hear Lucie, tottering and slipping in high-heeled boots several metres behind. She stopped and, catching up, Lucie clawed at Stella’s sleeve. ‘Christ, will the rain ever stop? This town is underwater.’

  Lucie May’s dress-code was either war correspondent in cargo pants and combat jacket or an outfit in which she ‘dressed to kill, darling’. In tonight’s faux-fur jacket over a shimmering black dress that showed off her too-thin figure, she must be freezing.

  ‘This was a dumb shortcut with a murderer about.’ Lucie splashed into a deep puddle. She shouted over a distant rushing sound.

  It was dumb. Glad to have Lucie and striving to keep them both upright, Stella made for the gate by Fletcher’s Mill.

  ‘So, this is the drill. You point me at Clive the Clock, stand back and watch me go. In no time at all he’ll be spilling his beans.’ Lucie stamped a booted foot, soaking them both. ‘Whoops, damn.’

  ‘Clive asked me to go there, I doubt he’ll need encouragement to talk.’ Having seen Clive Burgess’s chatty efforts with Gladys Wren and the surly Andrea at the Death Café, Stella doubted he’d need luring with Lucie’s particular charm. He could clam up.

  They stepped onto St Mary’s Road where, in the shifting shadows of scudding clouds, the row of higgledy-piggledy cottages seemed to jostle for their rightful place. The rushing intensified to a roar as they passed the weir. A thundering torrent, sheened moon-silver, streamed over the sluices into a cauldron mass below.

  Lucie’s heels caught on the planking as Stella attempted to guide her over the footbridge. Pausing to look over the side, Stella was instantly mesmerized. She imagined casting herself into the spume and being spun away by the relentless force.

  ‘Stella!’ Above the cacophony, Lucie’s cry was faint. Gripping the balustrade, she tugged Stella on across the bridge. On the other bank she grabbed her wrists and coming up close, yelled, ‘What in hell happened there?’

  Stella’s numbed lips were slick with spray, she could only shake her head.

  ‘You were about to throw yourself over.’ Lucie shook Stella. ‘Shit, girl, you gave me a fright. When you saw him last night, exactly what did Jack say? You’ve been a zombie ever since.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jack. I would never ki—’ Stella could not explain her reflexive urge to leap into the river was not suicide, but a bid for life.

  The clock on the abbey tower said two minutes to eight. Clive had said around eight. He’d said punctuality was a concept but it could do no harm to be on time.

  ‘It’s like all this water, the wind, all the elements, they defy time. We could be here in the past. Or in the future.’ Stella felt as though she was channelling words not her own.

  ‘One two three, back in the room.’ Lucie’s face loomed close. ‘We already have Jack out with the tooth fairies.’ She took Stella’s arm and, holding her tight, attempted to totter on along the towpath.

  The two cut a capering pair as they swayed and plunged along the river bank. The elderly clockmaker’s house was, as Clive Burgess had told Stella that afternoon, hard to miss.

  The reflection of Fletcher’s old mill in the treacle-black river cast an air of menace. A lamp-post outside the middle villa was out. The vanishing moonlight robbed the pale line of the towpath of dimension, sometimes it led forward then it climbed to the teeming heavens. The Avon was now
a lake, now a vast crater. The wind and the weir combined in an unmitigated roar.

  Battered and disorientated by the remorseless elements, Stella fought off the vision of the high-hedged country lane, the van door slowly opening. She huddled to Lucie, more than grateful for her stolid presence, as they battled against easy drowning.

  ‘One false step and we’ll be in the river.’ Lucie’s shout was one of those rare times when she had read Stella’s mind. ‘It takes no time to shove someone into turbulent waters and whoosh, they’re gone.’

  Not mind-reading, Lucie had once nearly drowned in a river. Jack would say she was re-enacting trauma.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Stella felt bad to have brought her.

  ‘Fine and dandy, Bubsy Bear.’ Head down, Lucie patted Stella’s arm as she ploughed forward. Two moments later she brought them up short and her mouth to Stella’s ear, ‘Wssst. What was that? Did you see it?’

  ‘No.’ Stella raked the rain-soaked darkness. Nothing. On the far bank a moored houseboat crouched in a wash of faint light.

  ‘I get the sense we’re being watched,’ Lucie said.

  ‘I don’t.’ Stella had forgotten Lucie’s tendency to crank up the suspense in life as well as in print.

  ‘Always assume you have a witness, take nothing for granted.’ Now Lucie was quoting Jack. If only he was here.

  ‘What if Roddy’s murderer knows we’re on their trail?’ Already on the qui vive, Stella was whisked into Lucie’s drama.

  ‘Trail? What trail?’ Lucie could also abandon her ship without notice. ‘If there was and she’s stalking us, we’ll get her.’

  ‘You think a woman murdered Roddy?’

  ‘Rodders sounds a bit of a bad boy with the ladies, doubtless there’s a queue with knives out.’ Suddenly, she shouted into the storm. ‘Who’s there?’