The Suitcase Murderer

by James Andrew

  ‘Is there anywhere private we can speak, sir?’ Blades asked.

  ‘I can go,’ the other man said, and rose from his desk. ‘Don’t mind me. I can catch up with this later. It’s about time to start my round for today anyway.’

  So, Blades and Peacock were left alone with Parkes, who had not had the time to compose himself into the pose of dashing young man they had encountered before. His face held a frown, and there was a flustered look in his eyes. Blades allowed himself to stare at those. Russell Parkes had an attractive face with black hair and high cheekbones, and the deep brown eyes would be considered equally attractive by a young woman, Blades supposed, and not in the least ‘funny’ by anybody, which was a pity as Parkes fitted the description given by witnesses in terms of height and body build. The only thing striking about him was the gold tooth, which gleamed in the light from the window, but no witness had described someone with that feature. Parkes gathered his composure, leaned back in his seat and gestured to an empty chair. He gave a careful smile, as the tooth glinted again.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he said, and the tone was welcoming, if the run-of-the-mill eyes looked cold.

  ‘You knew Emma Simpson rather better than you said.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘If you tell the truth straight away instead of being caught out in lies, it’s a lot less suspicious,’ Peacock said.

  Parkes’ eyes swivelled to meet those of Peacock, before he turned to Blades.

  ‘Who have you been talking to?’ he asked Blades.

  ‘We’ll ask the questions,’ Blades said. ‘We would like you to tell us the exact details of your relationship with the murdered woman.’

  ‘Fully and frankly,’ Peacock added.

  ‘As I’ve told you before, there isn’t much to tell.’

  ‘You only met up with her twice?’ Peacock said, and his face held a measure of contempt that Blades considered ought to be intimidating enough.

  Parkes shrugged in an over-deliberate attempt at continuing his nonchalance. ‘So, it was three times?’ His eyes did succeed in holding those of Blades.

  ‘Much more than that,’ Blades replied.

  Then Parkes did look away.

  ‘I would consider your answers more carefully,’ Peacock said.

  Parkes considered.

  ‘All right, we had a shared interest in music,’ he said. ‘We used to meet up and play for each other.’

  ‘Very proper,’ Peacock said.

  ‘It was. She came around to my parents’ house several times and we played music for each other. I play the violin and Emma played the piano.’

  ‘And were your parents there at the time?’ Blades asked.

  ‘Usually.’

  ‘But not always.’

  ‘They were out once.’

  ‘So, an intimate relationship?’ Blades asked.

  ‘Not in the sense you mean.’

  ‘But if you had turned up at the Roots’ house when Emma was by herself, she would have admitted you?’ Blades said.

  ‘That’s not what happened.’ There was now a fierce expression in Russell Parkes’ eyes, and his jaw was set at a defiant angle.

  ‘We know you have debts,’ Blades said. ‘You didn’t go around in the hope of getting any money out of Emma?’

  Now Parkes laughed. ‘She didn’t have any.’

  ‘But there might have been money in the Roots’ house,’ Peacock said.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Parkes said.

  ‘You didn’t happen to have an argument with Emma about that, I suppose?’ Blades asked.

  ‘That ended up in killing her? Certainly not. I think you should drop this, and try to find the person responsible for Emma’s disappearance, don’t you?’

  Blades noted that Parkes’ voice had risen. He looked at Parkes’ face and tried to read the mind behind. Had Parkes killed her?

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about your other conviction, Mr Parkes?’ Blades asked. Now there was not the slightest look of the debonair about Russell Parkes. ‘Just because it took place elsewhere didn’t mean we wouldn’t find out about it.’

  ‘You assaulted a young woman,’ Peacock said.

  ‘I don’t sexually assault women. Women find me attractive. Why would I do that?’

  ‘As you know, it wasn’t a sexual assault,’ Blades said.

  ‘It was an argument about money,’ Peacock added.

  ‘You were in debt again,’ Blades said, ‘and the young woman wouldn’t agree to hand over savings to you.’

  ‘All right,’ Parkes replied. ‘That happened then. It didn’t happen with Emma Simpson.’ Now his eyes looked desperate. ‘Oh, go bother somebody else,’ he said. ‘Don’t keep on hounding me about something that happened in the past.’

  ‘We’re not hounding you,’ Blades said. ‘We’re exploring your connection with a murdered woman, Emma Simpson.’

  It was a nice theory was what Blades was thinking. But there had been no signs on the Roots’ premises of any hunt for money, and no report from the Roots about any missing, nor had there been any present on the property, which didn’t mean Parkes and Emma hadn’t argued about money. Had he wanted Emma to get some for him?

  ‘Well, you know about it now. We shared an interest in music.’

  He glared back at Blades who returned the look. Russell Parkes could have done this or not, but he had lied. And, in Blades’ experience, people who told untruths in murder investigations had something to hide.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Moffat’s threatening to call off the search for the body in Birtleby.’

  When Blades had walked into the office, tossed his hat onto the coat-stand, and sloughed off his overcoat before discarding it in the same place, Peacock had studied him with alarm. Blades’ mood was written all over him and it was not good.

  ‘Don’t let him, sir,’ Peacock replied.

  ‘We can’t. We haven’t covered half the area,’ Blades said.

  Peacock grunted. He also knew how much they needed to find that body.

  ‘Is he ending it?’ Peacock asked Blades.

  ‘At the moment, it’s a threat,’ Blades said. ‘Some helpful pressure.’ Blades walked over to his desk and slumped into his seat. His eyes swept over the papers sitting there, before he directed his gaze at Peacock, seated at his desk.

  ‘How about the search between Birtleby and Ramshead?’ Peacock asked.

  ‘That’s under threat as well,’ Blades said, ‘though he might give it longer as we’re covering a wider area.’

  ‘He thinks it more likely the Roots did it than Duggan?’

  ‘He didn’t say that, but he doesn’t think we’ve paid enough attention to them.’

  ‘We’ve no real evidence the Roots had anything to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing else has turned up to incriminate them but that might not mean anything. Something could have been going on between Thomas Root and Emma – which led to an argument, which led to Emma’s death.’

  ‘And a cover-up which we don’t think Amelia Root would agree to be complicit in?’ Peacock said.

  ‘It’s not likely,’ Blades replied. ‘Though how likely is anything? Nobody who was acting in a sensible way would kill anyone.’

  ‘Do we have corroboration for any naughty business between Thomas and Emma? Nobody’s come forward with information there was anything going on between them.’

  ‘Who’s been asked?’ Blades said, before answering his question himself. ‘The daily maid was interviewed.’ He lifted a file from the shelf behind his desk and sifted through it. ‘Here it is. Sergeant Ryan talked with her. Louisa Fleetwood, twenty-four, 18 Northcliffe Road.’

  ‘Why didn’t we see her ourselves?’

  ‘We were too busy. We were following up on Russell Parkes as we’d been told by Musgrave and Duggan.’

  ‘Helpful of them.’

  ‘There’s a full statement from Louisa, though, from what I remember, there’s little in it.’ Blades ran his eyes ov
er it again. ‘She says, “Thomas Root’s a model employer who treats staff with respect and courtesy, pays on time, and doesn’t give employees excessive workloads.” Not a whiff of complaint about him in anything she said.’

  ‘Not one moan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not about Amelia either?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, what did she say about Emma?’

  Blades perused the page. ‘She did have a go at her. Thought she was a bit flighty and had ideas above her station. She was up to no good with that Alfred Duggan. Everyone knew all about that.’

  ‘When she said that everyone knew, did that include anyone who spoke to us?’

  ‘The Roots?’

  ‘But nobody else. So, what was she on about?’

  ‘You might ask.’ Blades looked thoughtfully at Peacock. ‘Louisa is Thomas Root’s second cousin on his mother’s side.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘She might defend the good Thomas as he’s family.’

  Blades could almost see thoughts racing through Peacock’s mind now. ‘Did she have a prejudice against Emma? She didn’t have a thing about Thomas herself, did she?’

  ‘And Thomas was interested in Emma but not her?’ Blades suggested.

  ‘And Louisa was piqued about that.’

  Then Blades closed the file with a snap. There was a look of disgust on his face. ‘We’re speculating. There’s nothing in the files that gives us any more to question Thomas Root about. Which is what Moffat wants us to do, but we would need something else to give us a way in, or the interview would go the way of the previous one – nowhere. If body parts were turned up en route, that would help.’

  ‘Their car was clean when it was searched?’

  Blades shuffled some more of the papers on his desk.

  ‘Absolutely. Of course, we don’t suspect the murder was carried out in the car. We only think the body might have been transported in it – in suitcases maybe – and they could have had a tarpaulin down under that.’

  ‘There wasn’t one in the car?’

  ‘No, but that could have been dumped with the cases.’

  Blades peered again at the papers on his desk. There were enough of them. He could hope one of them would help.

  ‘There’s no report from anyone of seeing a suspicious-looking couple dumping anything from a car between Birtleby and Ramshead?’ Peacock asked.

  ‘No.’

  Blades took out a packet of Woodbines, offered one to Peacock, and lit his own and Peacock’s. He breathed in smoke and allowed it to fill the lungs fully before he exhaled. He allowed his eyes to dwell on his sergeant. He supposed the expression on his own face mirrored that on Peacock’s – baffled frustration.

  ‘We’ll interview Louisa again,’ Blades said. ‘That might give us something to task Thomas Root with.’

  ‘I look forward to that,’ Peacock said.

  Both men drew in smoke from their cigarettes as they pursued their own thoughts.

  ‘How much longer is Moffat allowing for the search?’ Peacock asked.

  ‘He didn’t say. I wouldn’t give it any more than a couple of days.’

  ‘It probably won’t matter. The most likely thing is that the body has been washed far out to sea by now,’ Peacock said.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘We’ve done due diligence, but I’m sure you’ve worked out as well as I have the best way to get rid of a body around here is at the mouth of the river where it will be carried out to the North Sea.’

  ‘And without a body, how do we progress?’ Blades said. He drew in some more cigarette smoke and gave his attention to that, but, despite himself, his thoughts continued to race. Without a corpse, what proof was there a murder had been committed? Could they even show conclusively someone had been killed? His eyes swept over the papers on his desk. There often was a point in a case when they came to the end of their ideas. Usually, they worked their way past it, but he wondered if they would this time. He thought of Emma’s parents. They had wanted Emma to be found alive. He stubbed the cigarette out in the metal ashtray on the desk in irritation.

  ‘We should have met up with Louisa Fleetwood and talked to her before now,’ he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Louisa Fleetwood was in the middle of scrubbing the kitchen floor. How did floors get so dirty when maids like her were down on their hands and knees scrubbing at them so regularly? If Amelia Root employed a cook there wouldn’t be so much mess. Cooks cleaned up after themselves and hated a dirty kitchen. She had heard Amelia going on to her precious Thomas that her sister had a cook, so shouldn’t she have one? Weren’t the meals divine when they visited them?

  If Mr Root wasn’t so interested in saving money for that prosperous retirement he was always talking about, perhaps they could have a prosperous here and now? Louisa Fleetwood agreed with her. Then she might be paid more than starvation wages, and there might be less work for a maid to do when they did call her in. She only came in to do them a favour, she told herself. Her gran thought this was helping out one of her favourites in the family. Thomas was the only one of them all who had done half well. And Gran thought it was helping out Louisa too, which it might have been, though Louisa was sure there must be better jobs around.

  Still, there was something about Thomas that drew Louisa. He had a way with him, a sparkle in his eyes, a way of speaking so grandly – and he was a one sometimes. There were times when he caught her in a corner and didn’t half give her a cuddle. Of course, it couldn’t lead to more than that, and wouldn’t – they were related, and he was a married man – but she did sometimes wish she could meet someone like him for herself. All the young men she knew her own age were struggling and broke. They had their way to make and she had never had the luck to meet anyone eligible who had already done that. Forget about that, she thought. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Take a pride in this floor, girl, she told herself. Pay attention to what you’re doing instead of all this daydreaming. Then another voice in her head reminded her that people would walk all over it, so what was the point in taking too much care? There was the rapping on the front door, and she wondered why someone didn’t answer it, before reminding herself she was the maid. Everyone else was far too grand in that house to answer the door. She put her scrubbing brush to the side, pulled herself to her feet, straightened her back, and marched truculently to the door.

  There were two men there, neither of whom she recognized. They were both tall. One had a bowler and a tash, the other a flat cap and no tash. They both wore rumpled suits and had tired-looking eyes that gave her speculative looks. What was that about?

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘Mrs Root doesn’t speak to salesmen at the door, if that’s what you’re about.’

  ‘You’re Louisa Fleetwood?’ the man with the tash said.

  ‘So what if I am?’ Louisa said, ‘And what business is it of yours?’

  Moustache man smiled. It was an appeasing smile and Louisa wondered why he was flashing that at her. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a card that he held towards her, but, before she had the chance to read it, introduced himself anyway.

  ‘I’m Inspector Blades, this is Sergeant Peacock, and it’s not Mrs Root we want to speak to, it’s your good self. May we come in?’

  Then he pushed the door further open before she could say anything, and he and the other one walked straight past her. Louisa’s heart sank. Blades and Peacock. She had heard about them and thought she had been clever avoiding them before. There was something to be said for part-time work.

  ‘Where would the best place be to talk?’ Blades asked.

  ‘I didn’t say we could,’ Louisa said. ‘And I didn’t say you could come in either.’

  The other one, who must be Peacock, spoke now. ‘It’s police business,’ he said. ‘You want to keep in with the police, don’t you?’

  Louisa thought he had a face a bit like a weasel and didn’t take to him.

  ‘I’ve not done anyth
ing wrong,’ Louisa replied. ‘What do you mean?’

  Then the one who had said he was Inspector Blades put on that smile again, which Louisa decided looked more like a grimace, as if he was in pain about something, and, if he was, it was nothing to do with her. With any luck, maybe Mr Root would come down and throw the pair of them out, but until he did, she supposed there was nothing she could do but try and get through this.

  ‘The kitchen, I suppose,’ she muttered, and led them through. She’d noticed neither of them had wiped their feet on the mat on the way in and wondered how much mess they would make on the floor she had been working so hard on. But she gestured towards seats round the table and they seated themselves there, as she sat herself down opposite them. She could not help noticing the mud on the boots of the sharp-faced one with the flat cap.

  ‘I’ve work to do,’ she said, ‘and I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get it done. This won’t take long, will it?’

  That inspector Blades gave her an appeasing look and she tried not to mutter. Peacock weasel-face took out a notebook and pencil. Certainly not much like a peacock, she thought. He was dull grey from top to bottom, with that grey suit and cap, and shirt that had been white once, but seemed to be starting to turn grey too with age. Blades was the one who spoke again.

  ‘According to your statement, Mr Root is a model employer,’ he said.

  ‘It’s no crime to say that,’ she said. ‘And he’s all right to work for. He’s pleasant enough and he pays on time and doesn’t bother me.’

  She wished he would bother her a bit more, but that was hardly something to tell any stranger, never mind a policeman.

  ‘And how did he treat Emma?’ Blades asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Louisa replied. ‘I wasn’t in their company all the time, but Emma didn’t complain about him to me, and he was all right with her when I was around.’

  ‘Would you say Emma was an attractive young woman?’ Sergeant Peacock said.

  ‘She wasn’t ugly,’ Louisa said. ‘She did have a young man interested in her.’