DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We had the best education, and all that was needed to succeed in life. After that, we were on our own. Our father did not believe in children sponging off the parents, no matter how much money they had. He was all into character building, finding your own way in the world.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I went to university, studied medicine. I met Desmond while I was studying and we were married. I still practise, three days a week. You can check. You’ll find what I’ve told you to be true.’

  ‘If he believed in his children finding their way, then why will you and your brother inherit?’

  ‘Our mother believed that we should, but our father was circumspect. But he was a great believer in the family, and there’s nowhere else he could leave it to. Don’t get me wrong. He was a firm but fair father, and I loved him.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Not as much as my father, but now…’

  ‘We’ve no proof of death. The room is almost as if it’s a shrine to her.’

  ‘Mrs Dickson and one other,’ Grant Meston said as he came around the corner.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Very well. Mrs Dickson, you cannot touch the body, is that clear?’

  ‘I’ve seen dead bodies before.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s her?’

  ‘Not totally, but the body is in your parents’ room. She’s dressed in one of her nightdresses.’

  Larry stood back, as did Desmond Dickson. ‘I could do with a cigarette. This place gives me the creeps,’ Dickson said.

  ‘I’ll join you. Have you been here before?’

  ‘Once. Gilbert was pleasant. I remember that well enough.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Dorothy, Caroline’s mother, was exceedingly gracious. An attractive woman, beautifully dressed. Caroline’s not so keen on dressing up to the nines, but her mother was.’

  ‘Ralph Lawrence?’

  ‘Gilbert had no time for him, neither did I. We’ve not seen him for a few years, and last time, he wasn’t looking so good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’d put on weight, and, as usual, he was only one step ahead of the debt collectors. No money, but it didn’t stop him driving a late-model Mercedes, a woman on his arm.’

  ‘What sort of woman?’

  ‘The sort who are impressed by money. Attractive in a tarty way, no doubt a lot of fun.’

  Before entering the house, Caroline Dickson was required to sign some forms. After that, a lecture on the procedure to be followed at a crime scene. She nodded her head, said yes and no as appropriate.

  The three entered through the back door of the house and moved through the kitchen. ‘I’m not so sure now,’ Caroline said.

  ‘It’s not too late,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I want to see her, whatever happens.’

  One of the CSEs was standing to one side of the main entrance. An elaborate and vast staircase was on the other side. ‘We used to slide down the bannister when we were young.’

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘Ralph fell off once and broke his leg. After that, we weren’t allowed. Ralph was mischievous. No doubt why we got on so well.’

  ‘Was your father a humorous man?’

  ‘Not father. He thrived on his work ethic. We rarely saw him relax, and he wasn’t the sort of parent who’d come and read us a bedtime story.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘She would.’

  ‘Are you sure about this, Mrs Dickson?’ Meston said. ‘Most relatives have a bad enough time when we conduct a formal identification, but there we’ve had a chance to make it more congenial.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Is it familiar?’

  ‘Apart from the decay.’

  Upstairs, another of the CSEs had strung crime scene tape across the entrance to the door of the main bedroom.

  ‘Anything?’ Meston asked the young woman.

  ‘No sign of cause of death.’

  Caroline Dickson stood transfixed as she looked into the room. She remembered it when it had been bright and smelt of her mother’s perfume. Now it was dark and musty after decades of neglect. ‘What about the putrefaction, the pungent smell, the rotting carpet, the sign of insect infestation?’ she said.

  Isaac looked; the woman was right.

  ‘Your mother was only put there after the process had completed,’ Meston said.

  ‘Then where was she?’

  ‘We’re checking the cellar now.’

  ‘I want to see.’

  ‘It may help your investigation,’ Isaac said to Meston.

  ‘As part of my time at university, I spent a month with a pathologist,’ Caroline said. ‘There was one murder, an old man who had been shot. I was friendly with the crime scene team. They allowed me to go along.’

  ‘A family member is not the same as an old man you never knew.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sick to my stomach. What went on here? What had my father done? And what about my mother? It’s as if my whole belief system has been destroyed.’

  ‘It’s not confirmed as murder yet.’

  ‘My father is, though. Why kill him?’

  ‘Because of your mother?’

  ‘But who knew? We never did.’

  ***

  ‘My father’s wine cellar. Also, the boiler for the hot water used to be down here,’ Caroline said.

  A wooden staircase led down – it creaked. At the bottom, the crime scene team had set up a floodlight, which gave an eerie glow throughout the cavernous area. On either side, a row of wine racks. ‘Some of the wines are worth a lot of money,’ Caroline said. ‘My brother and I used to sneak down here and help ourselves to a bottle occasionally.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘He knew, but he never said anything, as long as we didn’t take the vintage wines.’

  From one end of the basement, ‘Over here,’ one of the CSIs said.

  The three visitors walked over to where the man was standing. ‘What is it?’ Meston said.

  ‘The soil’s been disturbed here. A long time ago, but we believe this is where the body was.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Caroline said. ‘We searched the house for days afterwards.’

  ‘Did you?’ Isaac said.

  ‘We weren’t professionals.’

  ‘It depends what happened. It’s possible your mother died elsewhere. Would you suspect your father of killing your mother?’

  ‘No. They were devoted.’

  ‘We’ll follow through,’ Meston said. ‘It’s a cold case at the present time. Your father is more immediate.’

  ‘It will be nice to give our mother a proper burial. I can never believe that my father acted other than honourably towards my mother.’

  ‘It’s best that way,’ Isaac said. If, as appeared to be the case, Gilbert Lawrence had been the only person in the closed-off part of the house since the door was bolted, it did not bode well for the man.

  Chapter 3

  Emma Lawrence arrived at Challis Street Police Station two days after her brother, Gilbert, had died. It was early morning, and it was raining heavily. ‘I demand to see someone,’ she said.

  ‘Miss Lawrence, finally,’ Isaac said as he met her at reception.

  ‘Why wasn’t I informed?’

  ‘We had no idea where you were.’

  ‘I am in the phone book. And besides, you’re the police. You should have been able to find me.’

  ‘We had three addresses for you from Caroline Dickson, plus a couple of phone numbers. We checked them all.’

  Isaac knew the woman to be seventy-nine, and not close to her brother. She had also remained elusive for some years, not that anyone had gone looking for her. She was colourfully dressed, not like her brother who had adopted drab and dreary as his fashion statement. Lawrence’s body was with Pathology, and so far, there
was nothing more than the usual. A knife wound in the back, heart failure coupled with blood loss, exposure to the cold weather.

  Emma Lawrence, an articulate woman, even if her repetitions about why she hadn’t been contacted were annoying, was someone that Homicide had wanted to meet. She was of the same generation as Gilbert and Dorothy Lawrence, and her knowledge of the pair could well be more useful.

  Wendy Gladstone, Isaac Cook’s sergeant, and in her fifties, could sympathise with the old woman who walked with the aid of a stick, the effects of arthritis. Wendy instinctively liked a woman who still maintained a resilience about her, a woman who did not allow age or infirmity to impede her any more than necessary. It was Wendy who put her close to a heater and gave her a hot mug of tea.

  Once Emma Lawrence was settled, Isaac and Wendy questioned her about her brother and his wife.

  ‘I’m sad that he’s dead, even though we have not seen each other for many years,’ Miss Lawrence said.

  ‘Is there any reason why not?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘As children, Gilbert was always intense, always wanting more, not wanting to share.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I was easier going, more like my mother. That’s why I embraced the hippy movement, an original flower child, even if I was older than most.’

  ‘Free love,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Plenty of that back then. Alas, nowadays nothing is free, and as for love, that’s a faded memory.’

  ‘You’re still active for your age.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but life has a finality. Soon, I’ll be reunited with Gilbert and his wife. Then we can get back to what we did best.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Arguing.’

  ‘Is that why you hadn’t seen him for so long?’

  ‘A stupid dispute over our father’s inheritance.’

  ‘Did your father have money?’

  ‘Not as much as Gilbert, but we were wealthy. Our father owned an engineering firm, and we lived well. When he died, the money was to be divided between the two of us.’

  ‘And there was a dispute?’

  ‘Isn’t there always?’

  ‘Not always, but money often causes conflict.’

  ‘Our father divided his assets between Gilbert and me, fifty-fifty. Our mother had passed away by then. Gilbert reneged on the agreement, only paid me a quarter.’

  ‘Any reason why?’

  ‘I was irresponsible. He was right, of course. I was always falling in love, always falling out. I had racked up an appreciable debt by then, and Gilbert had always bailed me out.’

  ‘Why not your father?’

  ‘We weren’t talking when he died. I was close to Gilbert, even if we quarrelled, and he’d complain, but he always helped.’

  ‘I take it that it changed,’ Isaac said.

  ‘He changed when he took control of our father’s money. Up until then, Gilbert had been buying properties, renovating them and then selling. He was doing well, but once he had the cash injection from our father, he became a different man. Always arguing the cost of everything, checking that nothing was wasted. No throwing out a pot of jam or honey unless it was licked clean.’

  ‘Licked?’

  ‘You know what I mean. The man became a skinflint.’

  ‘Dorothy, your sister-in-law?’

  ‘It was remarkable. Gilbert met her two years after our father died. She was working in an estate agent’s office. For whatever reason, my brother fell for her, she for him. They were married within months, and then Ralph and Caroline came along.’

  ‘Did you go to the wedding?’

  ‘I did, not that I could forgive Gilbert.’

  ‘Did you need money from him?’

  ‘Not any more. At that time, I had embraced minimalism, and I was living in a commune. Gilbert didn’t approve, and he knew even if he helped, that I’d give it to them.’

  ‘Was he right?’

  ‘Yes. It was silly really, and now I live on my own in a modest flat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I have all I need, and I don’t need any of Gilbert’s money.’

  ‘No reason to wish him dead?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Tell us about Dorothy,’ Wendy said.

  ‘They worshipped each other and the children. With them, Gilbert was generous and made sure they had everything they wanted. You’ve seen the house, met Caroline.’

  ‘How do you know we’ve met her?’

  ‘I read about Gilbert in the newspaper. I phoned her.’

  ‘You’ve had no contact with your brother for nearly thirty years, yet you knew how to contact Caroline.’

  ‘Why not? And besides, I always met with Dorothy once a year on my birthday. It was our little secret. She was devoted to Gilbert, but she never told him about us.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The reasons that separated Gilbert and me were never spoken about. I suppose we just drifted apart. Caroline contacted me a few years ago, and we’d meet occasionally. A lovely woman, similar to Dorothy, although Ralph hasn’t turned out too well.’

  ‘How much do you know about your brother’s death?’

  ‘I know about Dorothy upstairs in the house. Did Gilbert kill her?’

  ‘Why? Should he have?’

  ‘I’m not talking murder, but Dorothy, she would have these periods where she’d go a little crazy.’

  ‘What can you tell us?’

  ‘Manic-depressive. Not that it happened often, and very few knew outside of the house. Gilbert gave her the best medical treatment that money could buy, and after a few weeks, she’d be fine again. I know she never left the house during those times. That’s why there were shutters on every window, to keep her isolated from the influences outside, to keep people from peering.’

  ‘A virtual prisoner?’ Wendy said.

  ‘In her own home? I don’t think so. If she had been in a hospital, it would have been a straitjacket and isolation.’

  ‘She could be violent?’

  ‘Very. Whenever it happened, Ralph and Caroline would go and stay with friends. They may have known, but probably not the full story.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘Dorothy told me everything. The darkness she felt, the despair, the need to lash out or to sit and cry for hours. We became very close.’

  ‘Yet you never spoke to your brother.’

  ‘Never. I don’t know if he knew that Dorothy was meeting me, although he may have. Regardless, he never interfered. She could have flung herself down the stairs, broken her neck.’

  ‘Do you know this is what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what killed her. The only certainty is that my brother is not responsible.’

  ‘Let us go back to when Dorothy disappeared,’ Wendy said. ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘I remember trying to contact Gilbert, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I spoke to the housekeeper.’

  ‘Molly Dempster?’

  ‘That was it. She said that Gilbert did not want to have any contact with me.’

  ‘Were you surprised by his reaction?’

  ‘Not really. Gilbert was always a private man, and if Dorothy had disappeared, then he would deal with it himself.’

  ‘She could have been kidnapped, murdered.’

  ‘Molly said she hadn’t and my brother was convinced she had had one of her turns and would not be coming back.’

  ‘How could he be so sure?’

  ‘It’s too late to ask him now.’

  ‘Are you sad that he’s died?’

  ‘I would like to have become friends with him again. To have sat down and reminisced. We had a shared history, a devotion to Dorothy.’

  ‘Are you surprised that he kept her upstairs in the bedroom?’

  ‘He would not have wanted to be parted from her. He was a decent man, even though he had treated me poorly over the years. I had seen him walking out in the street once or twice, but he seemed a broken man.
I suppose having his dead wife upstairs in that house for all those years must have driven him crazy.’

  ‘He never spoke one word to anyone, apart from his solicitor.’

  ‘Leonard Dundas. He’ll know more than me.’

  ***

  Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Goddard, never far from Homicide when there was a murder, sat in Isaac’s office. ‘Tough one, the corpse upstairs,’ he said. He was a good man, even a friend, but he always seemed to come when Isaac was rushing out of the door.

  ‘We’re going back to the house,’ Isaac said, more by way of a hint than anything else. Although he had to admit that having Goddard back in charge was preferable to when Superintendent Caddick had been in Goddard’s office, and causing trouble with his incessant demand for reports, and his constant incompetent interfering. The man was now consigned out of London, far enough to no longer be a nuisance.

  ‘Macabre.’

  ‘It’s out of the ordinary, although Gilbert Lawrence is our priority.’

  ‘It could be related.’

  ‘Only if someone else knew what was upstairs, and if the husband had killed her.’

  ‘Speculation, but it’s worth considering. Any suspects?’

  Isaac had expected the inevitable question. The chief superintendent was always looking for a quick arrest, but so far there were no clues that led to a killer of Gilbert, no indication that anyone else had been involved with preserving the body of a long-dead woman.

  Once free of the superintendent, Isaac and Larry Hill drove over to the Lawrence house. On arrival they walked over to where Gordon Windsor was standing. This time, the man was on the footpath outside the home, coveralls were not required.

  ‘We’re convinced that Gilbert Lawrence buried his wife in the cellar for a few years. Once she had decomposed, he cleaned the bones and any loose skin with dermestid beetles,’ Windsor said.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Skin beetles. Taxidermists, museums, hunters, use them to clean the flesh off a body. They’ll only eat dead flesh. It takes time, and he would have had to buy them. We found a tank that he had used.’

  ‘By why clean the bones? The woman’s dead. Surely he’d want to see some semblance of her?’

  ‘How would I know? The man’s disturbed. He can’t bear to be parted from her, but if she was left to decay on her own, can you imagine the insects, the putrefaction, the smell?’