The Suitcase Murderer

by James Andrew

Alfred’s expression was now one of controlled indignation. ‘A spiteful thing to tell her, I thought, but predictable enough.’

  ‘Especially as you’re still married,’ Peacock said.

  ‘So, where’s this going?’ Alfred asked.

  ‘Can I ask you again when the last time was that you saw Emma?’ Blades asked.

  Alfred pursed his brows in thought, and Blades did wonder why he would have to consider the answer quite so carefully.

  ‘Three weeks ago,’ he said. ‘When Emma told me that she was finishing with me, following her mother’s advice. We were in the park. It was raining. She walked out on me and told me to leave her alone. I did.’

  ‘Which is two weeks before she disappeared?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘We do tend to ask a lot of questions, and we ask them of a lot of people. If we discover you saw her later than that, it’ll look suspicious.’

  ‘Will it?’ The expression on Duggan’s face was now one of bland disinterest. Blades might have thought Duggan had been asked a question about the weather. Blades wondered what had made him apparently so less wary. And why the need for such defensiveness in the first place?

  ‘Why did you deny knowing Emma Simpson when you so obviously do?’ Peacock asked.

  ‘You’re the police. I knew something was up. I didn’t know what it was.’

  The bloodstain still preyed on Blades’ mind, but he supposed none of this did necessarily mean Duggan had done anything to Emma. He had a record for liking women too much, not for violence. The man was probably just a habitual liar. That would fit with what Blades supposed of his lifestyle.

  ‘We would like a statement from you about your relationship with Miss Emma Simpson and in particular the place and time of your last meeting with her.’

  The look on Duggan’s face was now indecipherable, but Blades noticed something had switched off that luminosity in the eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was a heavy silence while Peacock drove them away from the lodging house. As if replying to Peacock’s thoughts, Blades said, ‘It’s women who fall for him, not men.’

  Peacock gave Blades a questioning glance. ‘You’re right. I’m one man who didn’t like the look of him,’ he said. ‘You wonder what women see in a man like that.’

  ‘Some young women bend over backwards to convince themselves about a man when he’s as good-looking as Alfred Duggan, and I daresay he has charm.’

  ‘I can’t say I come across that reaction from them,’ Peacock said, with a look that suggested some misjustice might be afoot.

  Blades laughed. ‘You’re the trustworthy sort. That’s not what the kind of woman who falls for the Duggans of this world is attracted to. But the real question is: does he know anything about where Emma is, and did he have anything to do with her disappearance? He’s ruthless with women. That’s written all over him – but is he dangerous?’

  ‘We can’t rule it out.’

  ‘No, but we can’t rule out anything or anybody else either. When was the last time Emma was seen?’

  ‘By the Roots on the day they left for their trip away.’

  ‘So, she disappeared at the same time they did, which was the Saturday. Is that a bit much of a coincidence?’

  ‘I don’t like those.’

  ‘So, there’s a chance they were the cause of her disappearance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stop the car here,’ Blades said. ‘We’ll talk this through.’

  They were on the seafront by then and Peacock pulled the car up at a spot overlooking the pier, which stretched its long sweep out into a wind-driven sea. Blades took out some Woodbines and offered one to Peacock. Pulling out a Vesta case, he struck a match and lit Peacock’s cigarette then his own. Blades drew in a lungful of smoke and revelled in the acridness.

  ‘There was something unconvincing about Mr Root,’ Blades said. ‘Why was he so slow in asking about Emma? When he found us in his house, the first thing he should have done is ask about her.’

  ‘Drapers are odd people.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s what everyone says. They have to pander to women all the time, find out their tastes and indulge them. And they have to dress themselves to suit their trade, in other words, above their class. A friend of mine was a draper’s assistant once, not that he made the grade. He’s much happier working as a mechanic, covered in engine oil all the time instead of hair oil.’

  Blades laughed. ‘The trade wouldn’t suit everyone – but Mr Root himself is not an effeminate man.’

  ‘That’s probably why his shop isn’t more successful. He doesn’t fit the mould.’

  ‘It’s a small business,’ Blades agreed.

  ‘It’s a surprise it survives alongside so many others in Birtleby. And the others are bigger and have a wider range of stock. That’s what people say anyway.’

  ‘We met him at an awkward moment, but he does look the bad-tempered sort. Alfred Duggan is all charm. The first thing you notice about him is his disarming smile, and the first thing that registers about Thomas Root is his frown. But is Root violent? And why would he do anything to Emma?’

  Blades and Peacock sat looking out to sea. Peacock raised his cigarette to his lips.

  ‘I wonder if he was tempted by her,’ Blades said. ‘Did he do anything to her? Rape her? And need to cover up afterwards? If there was blood all over the place, his wife must have known about what happened. I wonder if she would help him clear up.’

  ‘She looked mouse-like to me. Would she be capable of that?’

  ‘Would she be capable of disobeying her husband?’ Blades asked.

  Peacock thought about that. ‘I wouldn’t underestimate women who look meek,’ he said. ‘That look can hide a lot.’

  ‘We need that blood in the parlour confirmed, and we need to know what else we can discover about it.’ Yes, that was crucial, Blades thought, and there was a large part of him that hoped they would tell him it wasn’t blood. ‘And we need to examine that car of theirs.’

  ‘It could even have been Mrs Root who killed Emma,’ Peacock said. ‘She could have found out about an affair between her husband and the girl and killed her in rage.’

  Blades blew out some smoke and watched it drift away. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But with no body to examine, we don’t have any way of telling whether it was done by a man or a woman.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any chance Emma’s still alive?’

  ‘That would be good, but after a week? Why hasn’t she shown up somewhere? Why doesn’t she get in touch? It’s a lot more likely she isn’t.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’

  Peacock’s question hung in the air. Blades looked out at the waves but did not want to follow the obvious thought. If the body was out there somewhere, they might never find it. Hopefully, it wasn’t. ‘Where did the Roots go?’ he said. ‘That would be somewhere to search.’

  ‘And the whole of Birtleby,’ Peacock said. ‘If there’s a body, it could be anywhere around here. Where’s the best place to get rid of one in Birtleby?’

  ‘Back gardens, back yards? Middens?’

  ‘How easy is it to convict anyone without one?’ Peacock asked.

  Blades gave Peacock a quizzical look. ‘You haven’t heard of the “Campden Wonder” case?’

  Peacock shook his head.

  ‘It was a long time ago – in the 1660s. When a man disappeared, they assumed he had been murdered, don’t ask me why because I don’t know, but three men were found guilty and hanged for it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There was only one problem. He wasn’t dead. He turned up two years later, saying he had been abducted.’

  ‘Ah,’ Peacock said. ‘That was disastrous.’

  ‘Hence the rule – no body, no murder.’

  Blades took another draw from his cigarette and stared out to sea, before turning back to Peacock. ‘She might be alive. We might find her. Inquiries are being ma
de. We need to continue with those. But we need to search the Roots’ place again too. If she’s dead, there must be more proof there somewhere. There’s a lot of blood in a person. There ought to be more traces somewhere, a lot more than we’ve found so far. We could do with lifting everything, carpets, linoleum, the lot. And they’ve a back garden, an obvious place to bury a body, and it might have been done. Though we’ll need a court order before we could go ahead with all of that.’

  ‘Whoever did it has had a whole week,’ Peacock said. ‘They could even have cemented the basement floor over Emma.’

  ‘Not the Roots, if they were away all that time, which we should establish. Where was it they went?’

  ‘Ramshead.’

  Blades drew in deep on his cigarette again before exhaling slowly. He looked across at Peacock and took in the frown on his face.

  ‘I wasn’t sure about those marks on that bath,’ Peacock said.

  Blades thought about this.

  ‘The enamel’s worn,’ he said. ‘They need to re-enamel or replace.’

  ‘It was more than that, wasn’t it?’

  ‘In what way?’ Blades asked.

  ‘If you were cutting up a body in there, you’d want to make sure it wasn’t obvious. You’d have some cloth, a tarpaulin, say, covering the bath before you started. But what if the saw cut through the oilcloth, not consistently but just when you couldn’t avoid it. Would that fit in with any of those marks?’

  Blades pondered this. ‘We need to do a full search,’ he said. ‘Though, if her body’s somewhere in the house, you’d expect to be able to smell it after this length of time.’

  ‘That depends on when she was killed,’ Peacock said.

  ‘There must be traces of blood in that bathroom if a body was cut up there,’ Blades said. ‘They would have scrubbed away at that lino, but it’s pretty worn. Some could have seeped through somewhere, the joins at least.’

  Blades rolled down his window and threw his cigarette stub out. ‘Loads of things to explore. Lots to do. We’re only at the beginning of this investigation,’ he said. ‘Drive on, Sergeant. It’s time we were back at the station.’

  And he was thinking that the start of an inquiry was not a bad place to be. It was at least invigorating to follow different trains of thought through to see where they led, to work out scenarios; and what had happened did not need to be the worst imaginable. They could find Emma alive.

  As Peacock drove the black police Model T Ford through the streets of Birtleby, Blades did his best to relax. He was pleased to have such a steady and skilful driver: Peacock’s eyes were everywhere, anticipating any hazard well in advance. Blades was able to survey his beloved Birtleby in calm fashion: these cobbled streets and simple brick-built houses; these strolling men and women; these working carts; these rumbling horse-drawn carriages; these flashing cars; these buses; these trams; these bikes – all this bustle and this movement to and fro. Birtleby was so alive. That was why he revelled in it. And he knew what he wanted to do in this case: prove Emma was alive too, full of her laughter and youth and hopes and foibles. Blades had never met her, but he wanted to. And when they searched the Roots’ place again, that would tell him surely which way this case was going to run.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The moment they arrived, a figure stepped out from under the blue lamp which announced ‘Police’ in unequivocal yellow letters above the shiny painted black door to the station. It was a tall man, who loomed in a way that seemed almost threatening. Blades recognized him straight away, John Musgrave, lead reporter with the Birtleby Times. There was no mistaking his fleshy face, or the broad felt hat and double-breasted overcoat, nor the perennial cheroot protruding from the thick-lipped mouth.

  ‘So, what gives with the murder?’ Musgrave said.

  Blades considered how to respond to this, and decided it was as well to be open about the case. Coverage could be useful. It might bring forward someone who had sighted Emma Simpson. But his first reply was a question.

  ‘What makes you think it’s a murder?’

  ‘It’s what people are saying.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Neighbours. The word in the street.’

  ‘They know better than I do. We have no body.’

  ‘But Emma Simpson is missing?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How do inquiries progress?’

  Blades and Peacock glanced across at each other. ‘You’d better go in and write up that report, Sergeant,’ Blades said. Then he turned back to Musgrave. Something about the man’s sardonic tone had put him on edge, but Blades did his best to ignore the reaction.

  ‘Inquiries are at an initial stage. We have a lot of questions but no answers.’

  ‘Were there definite signs in the house that there had been a struggle?’

  ‘There were what looked like bloodstains, which are still being analysed. Even if it’s blood, we don’t know if it’s human.’

  ‘But the scene was suspicious?’

  ‘When someone goes missing in mysterious circumstances, it always is.’

  ‘What’s the theory at the moment?’

  Blades decided to ignore that question. ‘We need to establish if anyone has seen Emma – in Birtleby, or elsewhere. It’s possible Emma went somewhere else. We don’t know why she would do that. Did she go with someone? If anyone has spotted her in the company of someone else – or by herself – it would be helpful.’

  ‘Can you give a description?’

  ‘Five foot four. Brunette, hair cut short. She dressed fashionably but we don’t know what she might be wearing. She’s slim, well proportioned. Twenty-three years old. She’s from Birtleby, so speaks with a North Yorkshire accent. She’s a war widow. She’s been missing for about a week – since last Saturday.’

  ‘The fifteenth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is Alfred Duggan a suspect?’

  How did Musgrave know about Duggan, Blades wondered. Musgrave had been digging.

  ‘As we don’t know if anything has happened to her, no one is suspected of anything.’

  ‘But Alfred Duggan was hanging around her?’

  ‘Alfred Duggan was seeing her, yes.’

  ‘That’s the bigamist, Alfred Duggan.’

  Musgrave had worked out a story already, Blades thought, which was no surprise. He was a reporter with ambitions.

  ‘That’s the man,’ Blades agreed.

  ‘Could he have murdered her?’

  ‘We don’t know that she’s dead.’

  ‘She’s been missing a week and she’d been seeing a convicted criminal. You’re not suspicious he’s done anything to her?’

  ‘I might be suspicious of anyone who knew her, most of whom would be innocent.’

  Now why, Blades wondered, was he protecting Duggan? The man had not come across well to him. Perhaps he was reacting to Musgrave. He was allowing that cynical attitude of the journalist to annoy him. He supposed it felt as if Musgrave was trying to be a caricature of a hard-bitten reporter.

  ‘Is there any sign of a murder weapon?’ Musgrave asked.

  ‘As I keep on telling you, there’s no sign of a body,’ Blades replied, and an acid tone had crept into his voice. ‘If anyone comes across one, could they let us know?’ Then Blades laughed. That had sounded silly. ‘No. Seriously,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what’s happened to Emma. One possibility is that she’s dead. If she is, the murderer has the problem of disposing of the corpse. That’s difficult. At least if Emma’s body were found, we would know what happened to her. Obviously, we would prefer to find her alive, and the first line of inquiry assumes that she is. Has anyone seen her on public transport since the date of her disappearance? Has anyone seen her walking in the street? Has she taken up lodgings somewhere? Does a hotel owner or landlady recognize her from the description as someone who has recently taken up lodging with them? We need to try to locate her.’

  ‘And if anyone had seen her with Alfred Duggan since she was suppo
sed to have disappeared, that would help?’

  ‘If she’s been seen with anyone anywhere that will help.’

  Musgrave had a fascination with Duggan, Blades noticed. This story was going to be slanted. He supposed it was Musgrave’s journalistic taste for the lurid and sensational, and hoped the reporter’s stories wouldn’t lead the investigation. “Bigamist suspected of murdering young war widow” would make a good headline. He must try to make sure not to say anything that would corroborate that.

  ‘Have you tracked down Alfred Duggan?’ Musgrave asked.

  ‘We’ve spoken with him, just as we’ll speak with anyone who knew her. If any friends would come forward who’ve seen Emma in the last few weeks, we would like to talk with them, or with anyone who knew her even slightly and might be able to shed light on her feelings lately.’

  ‘Is it true that Alfred Duggan’s wife has decided to divorce him?’

  Blades blinked. That was news to him. Why would Duggan’s wife decide to do that now instead of when his bigamy came to light? But he would not be drawn into the world of Musgrave’s reasoning.

  ‘And when we have more information to give, we will announce it to the press,’ he said as he turned to leave. The inside of a police station had never felt so welcoming.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was Constables Flockhart and Rollins who had been trusted with door-to-door inquiries in Main Street where Roots the drapers was, and Sergeant Ryan was the person they reported to. They stood before him now in their contrasting shapes, the gangly Flockhart and the burly Rollins.

  ‘A weary job was it, lads?’ Ryan asked, surveying their tired expressions, as they appeared in front of him at the station desk.

  ‘Tiring enough,’ Rollins replied.

  ‘And taxing enough,’ Flockhart added.

  ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

  Flockhart and Rollins duly extracted notebooks from their top pockets. Flockhart flicked his open, perused it, then looked up at Ryan as he started to speak. ‘Directly opposite,’ he said, ‘live a pair of elderly sisters and you never saw such an odd pair. Thin as brush handles, with clothes even thinner.’