by Graham Ison
‘Hello, Harry.’ Linda Mitchell and her team of forensic scientists were standing outside the chalet that was the centre of police attention.
‘What have we got, Linda?’ It was the standard opening question to the crime-scene manager, and what she had to say very often put me on the right track to solving a murder or, rather, prevented me from wasting time by going in the wrong direction.
‘The victim is Robert Sharp. He’s reckoned to be in his thirties and had joined the club about a year ago. He wasn’t due to check out and, according to one of the staff, he came fairly regularly and usually stayed for just a few days. This time he hadn’t committed himself to a specific period.’
At that point, Dr Henry Mortlock, the Home Office pathologist, joined us. ‘This is a grave disruption of my social life, you know, Harry. I was looking forward to watching the Open on television.’
‘You can always see it on catch-up, Doctor,’ suggested Dave.
Mortlock took off his pince-nez and polished them with his top-pocket handkerchief while giving Dave the sort of silent withering glare he usually reserved for incompetents who failed to follow his opinion of the cause of death. It was not unusual for Mortlock to display a short temper despite having the outward appearance of a rather overweight, cuddly family doctor in whom one could confide. Dave once described him as going up like a can of petrol in a thunderstorm. It was an oddly contradictory analogy from someone with a degree in the English language.
‘What’s your verdict, Henry?’ I asked, before Dave dug himself deeper.
‘Come with me, Harry. I think you’ll find it’s fairly obvious.’
I followed Mortlock as far as the crime-scene tapes surrounding the chalet occupied by the late Robert Sharp. The badly charred body of the victim was lying on its back.
‘Before you ask, Harry, I haven’t the faintest idea when he died, and right now, I don’t know the cause of death. I would surmise that he was either very heavily drugged to the extent that he was in a coma, or he was already dead. Personally, I favour the latter. If I can get his remains to my mortuary without bits of him falling off, I may be able to tell you more.’
‘Is it all right for Linda to start a crime-scene examination, Henry?’ I asked.
‘I’ll have to wait until the fire-scene investigator has done his bit, Harry,’ said Linda. ‘But I’ll be here when he does.’
‘This is all very inconvenient, you know, Chief Inspector.’
‘Particularly for the late Mr Sharp,’ I said. I had at last found a member of staff who told me where the general manager had his office. The small brick-built structure overlooked the floodlit pool in which there were one or two people swimming, even at this late hour, having been given the all-clear by the fire brigade to return. Presumably as an acknowledgment to our presence, the general manager had put a red towel around his waist, which was just as well. Lydia once said that some men look more sexually attractive in evening dress than they do when naked. I’m not sure that this balding, pot-bellied individual would have looked good whatever he was or was not wearing. His preposterous appearance was not improved by the cast he had in one eye. Heavy horn-rimmed spectacles suspended on a gilt chain around his neck must have created an even more bizarre figure when trying to visualize him without his towel.
‘Yes, yes, of course, very sad, very sad, but how long are the police likely to be here?’ he demanded.
‘Who are you?’ asked Dave, pocketbook at the ready.
‘I’m the general manager.’ The man pushed out his chest and for one awful moment I was worried that this physical contortion might cause his towel to fall off.
‘I know,’ said Dave. ‘It says that on the door. But what’s your name?’
‘Mr Cotton,’ said the general manager pompously, clutching at his towel just in time.
‘First name?’
‘Cyril.’
‘Well, Mr Cyril Cotton, I’m afraid we’ll be here for as long as it takes,’ said Dave. ‘One of your members has died in suspicious circumstances and it’s our job to find out who was responsible or to satisfy ourselves that it was an accidental death.’
‘This is all very inconvenient,’ mumbled Cotton again, shaking his head. ‘And we have more members arriving tomorrow.’
‘Well, that’s something to look forward to.’ Dave put his pocket book away. ‘As a matter of interest, why is this club called the Pretext Club? What is the real reason behind the name?’
‘It’s a play on words,’ said Cotton. ‘Pre-textile, or pretext for short, is the state you’re in when you’re born and before you start wearing textiles. And we enjoy being in that state.’
‘Good grief,’ said Dave, who hated people who messed about with the English language. ‘Now, to start with, I want a list of all the people who were here today, including those who have already left.’
‘What?’ For a moment it appeared that Cotton was on the verge of having an apoplectic fit; his eyes certainly bulged a little more. ‘Out of the question. Our list is confidential. It’s the Data Protection Act, you see. Anyway, I doubt if our members would want their neighbours to know that they were practising naturists.’
‘I don’t see why they should be ashamed of it, but in any case, we’re not going to call on their neighbours and tell them,’ said Dave with, for him, commendable restraint. ‘That said, I can assure you that we will get a Crown Court warrant to search this place from top to bottom and, knowing my chief inspector, he’s probably already considering arresting you for obstructing him in the execution of his duty. I’m sure you don’t want to go to the police station dressed like that.’ He waved nonchalantly at the general manager’s red towel. ‘And the Health and Safety Executive will certainly want to see the list,’ he added.
Under threat of arrest and a visit from the HSE, Cotton yielded immediately, but his sort always did. It saved us the time it would take to obtain a Crown Court judge’s warrant, which would certainly be granted. ‘I’ll get on to it straight away,’ he said. ‘But I must ask you to be discreet.’
‘We are discretion personified,’ said Dave, holding out his hand. ‘The list?’
‘And we’d like a copy of your staff list together with their home addresses,’ I said.
Cotton’s jaw dropped. ‘Surely you don’t think that one of our people had anything to do with this terrible tragedy. It was just a fire, surely?’
‘Not just a fire. A man died. The question is, therefore, are you prepared to swear on oath that none of them was involved?’
‘Well, no, I suppose not,’ Cotton admitted reluctantly.
‘A copy of the staff list, then.’
Within minutes, the general manager had booted up his computer and printed off details of all the club’s members, and the members of staff who, surprisingly, amounted to nearly forty.
‘Perhaps you would put a cross next to those members who were not here after, say, nine o’clock this morning.’ I knew the time the fire brigade had been called but decided that I would cover at least six hours before that.
Cotton spent a few minutes comparing his list with another, which I presumed showed those who had been here before that time.
‘There we are, Chief Inspector,’ said Cotton, handing me the list. ‘Of those who were here, eleven went earlier today, but thirteen are still here. As far as the staff are concerned, I’ve crossed off those who were not on duty today.’
‘Well, you can put them back on,’ I said. ‘I shall want to talk to all of them, even if they weren’t here today.’ I ran my eye quickly down the names. As Cotton had said, thirteen club members were still here and had been here at the time of the fire. That figure included the deceased Robert Sharp.
‘D’you know if Mr Sharp arrived with anyone, Mr Cotton? I see that he’d been here for five days.’
‘I don’t know. Rosemary is my deputy and she takes care of the reception duties. She welcomes the members and allocates them their accommodation. She knows most of them by sight.
’
‘In that case, I need to have a word with her. Perhaps you would ask her to join us.’
Cotton tapped out a three-digit number on his phone. ‘Rosemary, love, would you come over to the office. The police would like a word.’
TWO
The woman who arrived a few minutes later was wearing a white towelling dressing gown, flip-flops and an excessive amount of make-up. She was heavily built and middle-aged, and the expression on her face made her appear ready to start an argument.
‘I’m Rosemary,’ she said, glaring at me.
‘That would be Mrs Rosemary Crane, would it?’ asked Dave, having glanced at the staff list.
‘Yes, that’s my name. How did you know?’ she demanded, in a hostile tone of voice.
‘I had to give the police a list of the staff, Rosemary, love,’ said Cotton in an apologetically whining voice. ‘They insisted. They also wanted the membership list.’
‘But that’s confidential, Cyril,’ protested Rosemary, turning her hostile gaze on Cotton.
‘Not when we’re investigating a suspicious death, madam,’ said Dave, intervening quickly enough to save Cotton from having to defend himself against this formidable woman.
‘My interest at the moment, Mrs Crane,’ I began, ‘is the dead man, Robert Sharp. When did he arrive?’
‘Last Monday,’ said Rosemary. ‘That would’ve been the fifteenth of July.’ She’d had the foresight to bring her own list from the reception office.
‘Did he come alone?’
‘No, he was with a black girl.’ Rosemary glanced down at her list again. ‘A pretty little thing, she was. Name of Madison Bailey.’
‘Is she still here?’
‘No, she booked out first thing this morning.’
‘What time?’
Rosemary glanced back at the list in her hand. ‘Two minutes past eight.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Absolutely. The CCTV camera recorded the time her car left, and I processed her credit card myself. She didn’t even stay for breakfast.’
‘Was their arrival together a coincidence, d’you think, or did they appear to know each other?’
‘I’ve not the faintest idea,’ said Rosemary. ‘You’ll have to ask her.’
‘Did Mr Sharp arrive by car, Mrs Crane?’ I asked.
‘Yes, he did. I suppose you want the number.’ Rosemary displayed her list so that Dave could make a note of the vehicle’s registration number. ‘And it’s still in our car park. Presumably the police will remove it.’
‘I’ll arrange with Linda for a low-loader to take it for examination, sir,’ said Dave. ‘It might be worth examining the vehicle under secure conditions.’
‘Good idea, Dave. I’ll leave it to you to organize it,’ I said, and turned back to the general manager. ‘One other thing before we get on, Mr Cotton. Apart from the one at the gate, are there any CCTV cameras on the site?’
‘At the Pretext Club? Good heavens, no! It’s full of naturists. They’d just love being recorded on CCTV.’ Cotton’s face expressed shock, presumably at my having asked such a scandalous question. If he’d been wearing a monocle, it would have dropped out. ‘What’s more, we make sure that mobile phones and cameras are handed in on arrival and, for that matter, any other device that’s capable of taking photographs. This is a place of relaxation for like-minded people without interference from the stresses of the modern world. People come here to enjoy themselves, not to be made the subject of home movies.’ During this high-flown justification for the rule, Rosemary Crane was nodding furiously, like a frontbencher in the House of Commons agreeing with everything the prime minister was saying.
‘I appreciate that, Mr Cotton.’ For a moment, I thought he was trying to sell me membership. ‘I was thinking more of CCTV covering the perimeter. I imagine that your members will occasionally attract voyeurs.’
‘All too often,’ exclaimed Rosemary vehemently. ‘We’ve even caught the filthy-minded perverts trying to climb up the wall. That’s why Mr Cotton had those screens put up on the side of the swimming pool that faces the public road.’ She pointed out of Cotton’s office window at the unsightly canvas structures.
‘They’re only temporary, until we can get something more attractive,’ explained Cotton.
‘Time you got it done, then, Cyril,’ said Rosemary.
‘How long do you keep the gate CCTV tapes for, Mr Cotton?’ asked Dave.
‘A fortnight.’
‘We’d like to have the ones for yesterday and today.’
‘I’ll arrange it.’
‘As a matter of interest,’ I said, ‘do you have security of any description? Patrols or an on-site security officer? Anything like that?’
Cotton and Rosemary both shook their heads. ‘No, nothing like that,’ said Cotton, ‘but we do have a team of lifeguards, two of whom are on duty at the pool during swimming hours. It’s a health and safety thing. You never know when their inspectors might turn up, unheralded.’ He seemed obsessed with health and safety inspectors, or perhaps the fear of them.
‘One other question, Mrs Crane,’ said Dave. ‘Did Madison Bailey have anyone with her in her car when she left this morning?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rosemary.
I wondered if she did know, but was being awkward, although I had noted that the gate CCTV would only record the registration number of a vehicle. We left it at that. It was too late to start interviewing; that would have to wait until tomorrow.
Despite Linda Mitchell having earlier referred to the fire investigator as a man, it was a woman who arrived at just after eleven o’clock that evening. She introduced herself as Martina Dawson and immediately embarked upon a long and highly technical conversation with Linda and Dr Mortlock.
I later learned that the result of this exchange of views was that the badly charred body would be left where it was until the following day. Martina Dawson would require more light than was available now in order to conduct her preliminary survey and crossing the floor of the chalet to get at Robert Sharp’s remains might inadvertently contaminate the scene. We all knew that if that happened it could seriously jeopardize the outcome of the entire investigation, particularly when the case got to court. Although that was some way ahead, care has to be taken right from the start.
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Harry Brock,’ said Linda as she brought Martina Dawson across to where I was standing. ‘He’s the senior investigating officer.’
‘How d’you do?’ Dawson shook hands with a firm grip. I reckoned she must be at least fifty and her short black hair gave her a severe, schoolmarmish appearance, but I later learned that she had a good sense of humour. Her jeans, blue shirt and no-nonsense black shoes lent her an air of determination, emphasized by her slightly tinted rimless spectacles.
‘What’s the plan, Ms Dawson?’ I asked.
‘It’s Martina, but I’m known as Marty. I’ll return tomorrow morning and make a start. I’ll explain what I’m doing then.’
‘Good. Is there anything you want done to preserve the scene, Marty?’
‘I’ve had a good look from the outside and the roof of the chalet seems to be more or less intact, but I wouldn’t go any further than that. According to the weather forecast, it’s unlikely to rain. I’ll just have to take a chance on it, because throwing a tarp over the chalet roof might do more harm than good. It could bring down debris and, however slight, might lead us in entirely the wrong direction when it comes to analysis. I could send for a portable shelter but it would take time.’
‘We’re used to preserving crime scenes, Marty,’ said Linda. ‘My people can erect a marquee arrangement over it. It won’t touch any part of the structure and it’ll prevent any contamination. We’ve got all the kit with us.’
‘That’d be great, thanks, Linda. We’d normally do it ourselves, but it wasn’t until I arrived that I found the police were still here and treating it as a probable crime scene.’ Martina turned to me.
‘There is one other thing the police could do before tomorrow …’
‘Name it,’ I said. ‘We’re pleased to do anything at all to help. We’re on the same side, after all.’
‘I noticed that there is a public road on the other side of the screens next to the swimming pool. I’d be grateful if you could get someone to have a look round there. In fact, all around the perimeter on the outside would be even better. I don’t believe spontaneous combustion was the cause of the fire in this case, and arsonists – if that’s what we’re dealing with – sometimes chuck petrol containers over walls to get rid of them. They’d look a bit stupid leaving the scene of a fire and getting on a bus with an empty jerrycan. Might upset the health and safety people, to say nothing of the bus driver. And you never know, a member of the public might even notice. Mind you,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘arsonists are pretty stupid anyway.’
‘Take it as done, Marty.’ I briefed Kate to arrange for some of our uniformed colleagues to search the area around the club’s perimeter. ‘You must’ve been doing this job for quite a while, Marty,’ I said, turning back to Dawson.
For the first time since we’d met, Martina Dawson smiled, probably because I’d expressed an interest in her and her background rather than confining myself to posing questions about her assessment of the cause of the fire. ‘I’ve been at it for very nearly thirty years altogether,’ she said. ‘I started as a firefighter in the London Fire Brigade and got really interested in the technical side. I took an external degree – bloody hard work, that was – and started investigating the cause of fires when I found that to be more interesting than putting them out.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘See you tomorrow morning, about eight o’clock, Mr Brock.’
‘The name’s Harry,’ I said.
