The House on Downshire Hill

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  “Karen, has anything come to light in all those papers?” Metcalfe asked.

  “Nothing much that I can see. I’m pretty much finished now by the way. In particular, there is absolutely nothing which might throw any light on why the family went, or why.”

  “I’m just waiting for SOCO’s final report,” Metcalfe observed. “Unfortunately what we have so far doesn’t help us very much. They found five different DNA patterns in the front room. Three have been identified as Helen Barnes, Jack Rowbotham, and DS Desai. So it seems likely that the remaining two are Taylor and Raj, but we’re checking that. Interestingly there are very faint traces of a possible sixth person, but it’s faint and corrupted so it’s possible we may never get a definite match. I suppose it could be old DNA from Colin McKenzie, but that’s just conjecture on my part.”

  “Excuse me, guv, but there was one more thing,” Desai interjected. “Colin McKenzie apparently heard gossip in the local pub to the effect that the deceased had on at least one occasion frequented the gay area of Hampstead Heath. I’ve passed this on to the gay liaison officer, but he hasn’t been able to turn anything up. He has been showing the photo around local pubs, but with no result.”

  “Is that everything, Bob?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, well we have Raj in custody and I think we must continue to treat him as our prime suspect. We have only his word for how he discovered the body, and the fact that he fled the crime scene and continued to draw money out of the deceased’s bank account may be more than enough to support a prosecution. We can take advice on that in due course. But we need to try to sort out these loose ends. Is there a mystery about the disappearance of the Schneider family? If not, if someone comes forward to explain what happened to them and where they are today, then fine. But if we can’t track them down then we have to ask ourselves if there might be some connection between their disappearance and Taylor’s murder, even separated by a couple of decades.”

  “Right, folks, please check your assignments with DS Desai. I think that’s everything.”

  “Let’s go upstairs, Bob,” Collison said as he passed him. “I want to call Philip Newby.”

  •

  “Good morning, sir,” he began the conversation, “this is Simon Collison. I have Bob Metcalfe with me.”

  “Good morning, good morning. Yes, now then, I’ve been looking at this transcript you sent over. It’s unfortunate, to say the least.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m beginning to think I should have conducted the interview with Bob, at least until we knew what Raj was going to say.”

  “On balance I think you should, but let’s not cry over spilt milk. I suppose this transcript went on the system in the usual way, so that the whole team have access to it?”

  “Yes they do, but there are under strict instructions to be even more careful than usual about maintaining absolute confidentiality.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s the best we can hope for. But anyway, I suppose you want to know whether any of this stuff is true?”

  “Yes please, sir.”

  “Well, this is all slightly embarrassing, but the basic answer is no. One of our chaps did meet briefly with Raj when he first came into the country. The context was that, as you know, we had been asked to provide assistance if necessary to the Singapore police who wanted to run Raj as an undercover agent within the UK end of the passport racket. Five were supporting the request because they were worried the same route could be used by terrorists to get into the UK.”

  “May I ask if the Special Branch officer was alone at this meeting?”

  “No, he wasn’t. He was accompanied by someone from the Singapore embassy in London. Officially he was on a temporary posting as a trade attaché. In reality, he was a Singapore police officer who specialises in running undercover agents. Well, the long and short of it is that our Branch chap was unconvinced by Raj. He found him insincere and evasive. He brought the meeting to an end so that he could discuss his concerns with our friend from Singapore. They arranged to see Raj again a few days later, but that second meeting never took place as he absconded from his hostel and was never seen again.”

  “I see. And how much of this could actually be made public, sir?”

  “Absolutely none of it. HMG could never admit to allowing overseas police forces to run undercover operations in the UK. Nor could either Five or ourselves allow any suggestion that Raj was somehow an agent of ours. He wasn’t, of course, he was part of the Singaporean set-up.”

  “That could be tricky, sir. Right now Raj is our prime suspect in a murder enquiry. What happens if it goes to trial and he tries to repeat these allegations?”

  “I’ve been discussing that with a chum of mine with the Attorney General. He seems confident that we could persuade the judge to hold parts of the trial in camera.”

  “In camera, sir? A murder trial?”

  “Of course, I was forgetting,” Newby said dryly. “You studied law didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did, and I’m not aware that any murder trial in the UK has ever been held in camera before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything, Simon. When national security is at stake you’d be surprised just how amenable a judge can be. Anyway, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. The important thing is that at the moment he’s just making vague statements which we can easily refute. What will be interesting to see is if he starts to get into any of the specifics of the passport operation. Personally, I doubt he will. After all, he jumped ship on his mission and his handers, so it wouldn’t show him in a very good light now would it?”

  “There’s something else, sir. One of the neighbours has told us that just before the time of Taylor’s murder he had a mysterious male visitor who had already tried to gain access to Taylor’s house before going round to the neighbour and asking if Taylor still lived there. Is there any way you could check at your end to see if that visit was prompted either by you or your Singaporean friends?”

  “I’ll do what I can. Off the top of my head I would say the answer is almost certainly ‘no’. They say they had no idea where Raj was living, and I’m inclined to believe them.”

  “If you could just doublecheck, sir, I would be very grateful. As I’m sure you’ll understand, we are trying to eliminate this man from our enquiries.”

  “Yes, of course. Well, I’ll do what I can, Simon. Best of luck with it now.”

  As Newby rang off Metcalfe and Collison looked at each other. Collison shrugged his shoulders. As he did so, there came a tap on the door.

  “Beg pardon, guv,” Desai said as she came in uncertainly, “but SOCO has just come up with something which I wanted to share with you both immediately.”

  “Yes, Priya, what is it?” Collison asked.

  “Well, they decided to put a dog in. One that’s trained to sniff out human remains. They thought it would be easier than taking all the floorboards up. Anyway, they drew a blank in the house but then decided that since the dog was there anyway they may as well give it a try in the garden, the back garden that is.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, they took it all over the garden with no success but then just as they were about to call it off, the dog suddenly went ape-shit – sorry, sir, but that’s how they described it – barking and scrabbling away at the side fence. The fence that divides the garden at Wentworth House from Mr Rowbotham’s garden. So they went round to ask if he would let them in, but he was out.”

  “So, let me get this right. The dog seems to think that there is a corpse buried in Jack Rowbotham’s garden?”

  “Yes, that’s right, guv. And I got to thinking about something he told me. He said that while the building works were being done there was quite a long period with no fence between the gardens, so anybody from next door could have walked in – at night, say – and have done whatever they wanted, because Rowbotham wasn’t there to see them. He wasn’t living at the house, you see.”

  There was a p
ause while the three of them looked at each other.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Metcalfe asked.

  “If you mean that we may have found the family, yes I am,” Collison replied grimly. “Priya, get hold of Rowbotham anyway you can. We need access to that garden – and tell uniform to bring some shovels.”

  CHAPTER 18

  It was a sombre and slightly sinister group that assembled in the garden of Jack Rowbotham’s house the next morning. First the dog was allowed to run free in the garden. After sniffing every part of it quickly it ran instantly back to the side flowerbed and started barking determinedly. The dog was then called off by its handler and dispatched to the front of the house and put back in its van while SOCO erected a tent over the whole of the flowerbed. Four uniform officers stood by with shovels. Rowbotham himself had been banished to the house but was gazing curiously out of the window. Collison shrugged; he could hardly order a man not to look out of his own living room.

  “OK, guys, we’re ready for you,” one of the white-suited SOCO personnel called out, and soon the rhythmic sound of spade on London clay began to be heard. Collison, Metcalfe, Willis, and Desai stood uncertainly on the patio trying hard to look as though they witnessed a scene like this every day of the week. Fortunately they did not have to try for very long, as a shout from inside the tent prompted a cessation in the shovelling efforts. Uniform emerged from the tent, their shovels and boots encased in wet clay. Tom Bellamy followed them, and now approached Collison, removing his mask.

  “It’s a corpse right enough, guv. Too early to be specific because there’s still a lot of earth that needs to be moved, but we need to do that gently by hand from now on.”

  “OK, thank you, Tom. How soon do you think you’ll be able to let me know any more?”

  “Difficult to say. Some hours certainly. As soon as we expose the body properly I’ll call Brian Williams.”

  “All right. Sounds like there’s not much point us hanging around here then?”

  “I’d say that’s right, sir. I’ll keep you posted of course.”

  Collison considered briefly how best to proceed.

  “I think I’ll get back to the nick, Bob. Some of us clearly need to stay here and re-interview Rowbotham, but I leave it to you to decide how best to do that.”

  “Well, Priya and I have had the contact with him so far, guv, so probably best to play it that way again.”

  “Fine. In that case Karen and I will slip away.”

  Metcalfe knocked on the back door. Rowbotham let them in at once, his face ashen.

  “Have they found something? They have, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. I think we’d better sit down, Mr Rowbotham, if that’s all right.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  They sat down in the living room, Priya balancing her notebook on her knee.

  “It’s too early to be specific, Mr Rowbotham, but we have unearthed what we believe to be human remains in your back garden. In the circumstances I am obviously obliged to ask you if you know anything about how they might have got there.”

  Desai smiled to herself at the thought of how Metcalfe was steadily beginning to sound more and more like Collison.

  “No, I have absolutely no idea. Who is it? Who was it, I should say?”

  “As I said, it’s too early to be specific. Now, just to confirm my own impressions, Mr Rowbotham, is there any access to the garden other than through this house?”

  “Not now, no. There is access round the side of the house but I had a security gate fitted when I had my building works done and I’ve always made sure to keep it in good repair; we get a lot of burglaries round here as you probably know.”

  “But that hasn’t always been the case, has it?”

  “If you’re talking about the period before I actually moved in, no it wasn’t. The side gate was one of the last things to be done, as the builders were using it to move things in and out of the house. And for a while – quite a long while actually – there wasn’t even a fence closing off the garden from the house next door.”

  “So there was a period when pretty much anybody could have sneaked into your garden – perhaps at night – and there would have been nobody here in the house to observe them?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sure we’ll want to talk to you again, Mr Rowbotham, particularly when we’ve managed to identify whoever that is in your flowerbed out there, but for the time being I think we can leave it there.”

  As they rose to leave, and Priya put her notebook back in her shoulder bag, Metcalfe remembered the mystery visitor.

  “I don’t suppose,” he asked without much hope, “that you might have remembered anything more about that man who came calling on you about the time of Conrad Taylor’s death?”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “And he didn’t say anything except to ask if Conrad Taylor still lived next door?”

  “I wasn’t exactly keen to engage in lengthy conversation,” Rowbotham said with a smile. “To tell the truth there was something menacing about him that made me nervous. He was a big man, you know, and I live on my own here.”

  “Do you have a burglar alarm as a matter of interest?”

  “I do. I had to get one for the insurance company, but I keep it switched off. Naughty, I know, but I’m terrified of the thing going off in the middle of the night.”

  “I see. Well, thank you very much.”

  •

  “I don’t mean to pry,” Collison said as they walked back up Downshire Hill, “but how are things with Bob and Lisa?”

  “If you mean how were things romantically, they’re fine; they’re very happy together. If you mean how were things as regards Lisa’s health, I’m not too sure. She seems to be going for test after test without them finding anything specific wrong. Peter and I are both quite worried about her, as a matter of fact. One of his friends is a neurosurgeon and he says that a fractured skull can have effects – sometimes way in the future – that nobody really understands. You know she developed epilepsy?”

  “Yes, Bob told me about that.”

  He paused, unsure of how to express what he wanted to say next.

  “Do you think that Bob perhaps…”

  “Feels guilty for what happened? Of course he does. How do you expect him to feel? He’ll never be able to get away from the thought that if he’d taken some backup with him the attack wouldn’t have happened. Silly, of course. The way he describes it there wouldn’t have been time for anybody to do anything, no matter how many people had been in the room.”

  “Yes, I agree. Rotten business, isn’t it?”

  “Funny,” she said, but in a way which was far from humorous, “that’s exactly the phrase Peter uses about it.”

  There was an awkward pause as they completed their brief journey.

  “So what have you got on today?” Collison enquired as they reached the side door.

  “I’m waiting for Bob to reassign me to something, actually. I finally finished all those papers, I’m happy to say. By the middle of each day I was already starting to feel really itchy with the amount of dust that was still on them. And at the end of it all, what did they tell us? Absolutely nothing.”

  “Well, that’s police work for you. Most of our efforts come to nothing. It’s just a matter of eliminating that and then moving onto the next possibility.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s right. Not quite so glamorous as it seemed before we joined, eh?”

  He was about to say ‘not as glamorous as you, certainly’ but stopped himself just in time. Even with someone he knew as well as he did Karen you couldn’t be too careful these days.

  “Tell you what,” he said instead, “when Bob and Priya get back why don’t we convene in my office, just the four of us, and review where we are?”

  •

  “So,” he commented an hour or so later, “a rather dramatic new development.”

&
nbsp; “Dramatic indeed,” Metcalfe agreed. “By the way, I spoke to Tom Bellamy before we came away. He said purely unofficially that he’s pretty sure it’s the body of a young woman. She doesn’t seem to have been wrapped up in any way. A pink material which they originally thought might have been a bag or something turned out to be a raincoat. Because it was made from some synthetic – nylon, they think – it’s survived in the ground pretty much intact.”

  “If she wasn’t wrapped up,” Willis observed, “that suggests she hadn’t been carried any great distance. Which in turn suggests that she was killed close to where she was buried.”

  “Agreed,” Collison said, “which in turn suggests that she may well have been killed in or around Wentworth House and then buried in Rowbotham’s garden by someone who took advantage of the fact that the fence had been taken away.”

  “Are you suggesting, guv,” Desai asked, “that the body could be that of Elizabeth Taylor, or Schneider I should say?”

  “I think it seems a sensible assumption to be making, until we know more,” Collison said cautiously.

  “But in that case what about the rest of the family?” Willis asked. “Surely the wife and son wouldn’t just up and leave knowing that the girl had been murdered? Wouldn’t they have gone to the police, or at least have confided in someone? One of the neighbours perhaps?”

  “All good questions, Karen. It does sound weird and no mistake. To be honest, I was rather expecting to find three bodies in the garden, not just one. But you saw the dog’s reaction. It was definitely interested in that spot and no other.”

  “And it didn’t show any interest in the garden of Wentworth House itself,” Desai pointed out, “so we can rule out them having been buried there.”

  “All of which suggests that the mother and son left Wentworth House alive,” Collison mused, “and presumably voluntarily.”

  “You mean there’s the chance they might have been abducted?” Metcalfe ventured.

  “In theory, yes, but it’s all a bit far-fetched isn’t it? Anyway, we know the son was a strong and fairly violent lad. It’s difficult to imagine him going quietly. No, there’s something that doesn’t make sense here, and we need to find what it is.”