Deathly Affair

by Leigh Russell

  ‘What’s that?’ one of the volunteers asked him.

  ‘That coat, the one the dead man’s wearing.’

  ‘What about it? What are you talking about?’ another rough sleeper asked.

  The volunteer approached Malcolm and addressed him in an undertone. ‘Do you know something about this?’

  Malcolm shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about anything so you can leave me alone, all of you!’

  ‘He’s been on the bottle,’ someone else said as several of them laughed, not unkindly. ‘You know what he gets like when he’s had one too many.’

  ‘Bit early in the day for that,’ someone commented.

  Malcolm was not rambling this time. On the contrary, he was perfectly lucid, and he was convinced he was right. His old coat had an oily stain down the front that he now recognised on the coat worn by the dead man. By some dreadful coincidence, his old coat had ended up on the latest victim. The woman who had taken it from him had told him it was going to be used in a play, but somehow it had ended up on a dead body. But he was not about to blab about it. He had learned from experience that it was best to avoid any contact with the police. Strangely disturbed by his discovery, he was only half listening to the conversation taking place around him.

  ‘I just hope he never slept in the same doorway as me,’ one of the women was saying. ‘The last thing I want is for the police to come sniffing around.’

  ‘How would they know, you daft cow?’

  ‘Who are you calling daft? Haven’t you heard of DNA? If that stranger so much as sat down where one of us had been sleeping, our DNA would be all over his backside. And if the police have your DNA on their database, you could be in the shit, is all I’m saying. Bloody hell.’

  A cold feeling ran down Malcolm’s back as he registered the significance of the discussion. His own DNA would be all over that coat. Cursing the woman who had taken it from him, he hurried away from the group still having their breakfast. As he looked for a place to hide, he considered how he was going to avoid the police who were probably already out scouring the streets for him. If they found him they were bound to think he had killed the stiff for his coat. He should have kept his trap shut at the breakfast club. He hoped no one there would talk. He would go along for breakfast the following morning but if there was any sign of the police at the church, or any strangers there, he would scarper before anyone noticed him.

  47

  While a family liaison officer was being arranged, it fell to Geraldine to break the news of David’s death to his wife. She hated this part of her job, dealing with an outpouring of grief from the recently bereaved. It was by far the worst of her duties. At least the dead were beyond suffering. Miserably she made her way to the victim’s address. David lived in a well-maintained semi-detached house. After pausing briefly to admire the neat front garden, she rang the bell and the door was opened by a dainty blond woman, almost waif-like in her figure. Her large blue eyes seemed to shine with unshed tears even before she knew the reason for Geraldine’s visit. She looked about twenty years younger than David and could have been either his wife or his daughter.

  ‘I’m looking for Ann Rawson,’ Geraldine said, after introducing herself.

  The young woman’s blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘Yes, I’m Ann Rawson. What do you want with me? What’s this about, please?’

  ‘Is your husband’s name David?’

  ‘Yes, David. That’s right. Why? Has something happened to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. You might want to sit down to hear it.’

  Ann’s hand flew to her open mouth. ‘Is it about Aimee? Has she – has something happened to her?’

  ‘No, this isn’t about your daughter,’ Geraldine replied. She could hardly say it had nothing to do with Aimee when her father had just been murdered. ‘May I come in?’

  Ann nodded and led the way into a small living room. As they sat down, Geraldine realised that the shiny quality of Ann’s eyes had been merely a trick of the light when she was standing on the doorstep. All the same, she was undeniably beautiful in a delicate kind of way.

  ‘I’m afraid something’s happened to your husband,’ Geraldine said gently.

  ‘My husband? What about him? Is he all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you this. He’s dead.’

  Ann immediately dropped her head into her hands, concealing her face. It was frustrating that Geraldine could not observe her expression, but she had to wait until the other woman regained sufficient composure to speak. As far as anyone knew, David’s widow had been robbed of her husband by a violent stranger. There was nothing to suggest his wife might have been involved in causing his death. But Geraldine was aware that in a case of murder, the victim’s loved ones were inevitably included on the list of suspects, and were only too often proved guilty of murder, or at least to have been complicit in it. Unlikely as it seemed, even this fragile-looking woman could be a killer.

  Ann raised a tear-stained face. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you he was murdered. Are you going to be all right? Is there someone who can come and keep you company?’

  Ann’s voice trembled. ‘My daughter will be home from school soon,’ she whispered.

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She’s fifteen.’

  Ann put her head in her hands again, mumbling. ‘How am I going to tell her?’ She looked up. ‘Oh my God, she’s only fifteen. How am I going to tell her? What am I supposed to say to her?’

  It did not escape Geraldine’s notice that the recently widowed woman seemed concerned only about the impact of her husband’s death on their teenage daughter. Making a mental note to mention her impression to the family liaison officer, Geraldine asked her again if she was all right and Ann nodded. Geraldine offered to stay and talk to Aimee, but Ann shook her head and said she would speak to her daughter herself. There was nothing more to be gained from questioning the widow so Geraldine left.

  Seated at her desk later that afternoon, Geraldine read through a report which had just been sent in by the pathologist. She was slightly frustrated that the information had not arrived before she had gone to the mortuary, as it was often more useful hearing such details from Jonah in person so that she could quiz him about what it all meant. Now she went through the report thoughtfully, several times, trying to read between the lines and imagine what Jonah might have said to her had he been privy to this new information before she had seen him. Not long after she finished reading, her phone rang.

  ‘I’m writing my report now,’ Jonah said, ‘but I thought you might want to know straight away that the tox report mentions alcohol and diazepam.’

  ‘Yes, I’m reading it right now. I saw that.’

  ‘Well, it looks as though the diazepam was crushed before ingestion as there were particles lodged in the victim’s trachea.’

  Geraldine thought she grasped his meaning, but wanted to be certain she had understood him correctly.

  ‘What’s the significance of that? Spell it out for me, please.’

  ‘The particles hadn’t been broken down by digestion, so they must have been ground into powder before he swallowed them. It’s unlikely he would have crunched them with his teeth, because that would have tasted disgusting. Of course it’s possible. Alternatively, he could have crushed them into powder himself before swallowing them.’

  ‘But equally someone else could have given them to him, powdered and concealed in food or drink?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, exactly.’

  ‘So you’re saying David might have been drugged without his knowledge?’

  Jonah hesitated. ‘I’m saying that’s possible.’

  ‘But we don’t know if he was drugged by someone else, because he could have crushed the pills himself?’

  ‘Yes, that may have been the case, al
though the taste would have been very bitter. But the taste could be masked, with sugar for example, so yes, the drug could have been administered by anyone, the victim included.’

  ‘So you’re saying anything’s possible.’ Geraldine sighed. ‘I suppose there’s no way of finding out who crushed the pills?’

  Jonah gave a short laugh. ‘I’m not a magician, Geraldine. To establish that, you would need to travel back in time and see what happened. All I can do is report the facts of an assault insofar as I can discover them after the event, and assess the physical consequences that remain. Clever detection of the truth is your job. And good luck with that,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Thanks very much. I value your appreciation of the intelligence that goes into our efforts.’

  ‘Well, keep me posted, will you?’

  ‘Sure. And please call me any time if you think of anything else.’

  ‘I certainly will. This is a curious case all right, and I have to say I’m intrigued.’

  ‘Well, like I said, if you do think of anything else –’

  ‘Oh, I’m always thinking of something else when you’re around,’ he laughed. ‘If my hands weren’t plastered in gore up to the elbows, you wouldn’t be safe anywhere near me.’

  ‘Oh, behave yourself,’ she replied as she hung up, still laughing at his idiotic banter.

  She supposed Jonah needed to make light of his work. Her sister claimed to be genuinely baffled at how Geraldine coped with murder cases. Now Geraldine found herself wondering, in her turn, how Jonah could bear the horrors he had not only to view, but to handle, on a regular basis. Each to his own, she thought. Jonah was intrigued by the physical puzzle of a cadaver and the answers it could provide. What fascinated Geraldine was what went on inside people’s heads. So while Jonah might be satisfied with establishing how a victim had been killed, Geraldine only wanted that information to help her discover why that had happened and, most importantly, who had perpetrated the crime.

  ‘So this time the murder looks quite different,’ Ian said, when the team had gathered to discuss the case. ‘The killer used a different noose, and the victim wasn’t a rough sleeper, although he was wearing a dirty old coat over his decent clothes, and he had been drinking alcohol and taking sleeping pills, whether self-administered or not we don’t yet know.’

  The noose was not conclusive. It was possible the killer had lost his red tie or whatever it was he had been using, and picked up a length of rope instead. But the sleeping pills, that was a new departure.

  ‘It could be the same killer,’ Ariadne said. ‘The victim was strangled.’

  ‘After knocking himself out,’ Geraldine added.

  ‘So let’s say he drank alcohol on top of taking sleeping pills, whether knowingly or not we haven’t yet established. He might have fallen over as a result, and been found by the killer who decided to finish him off.’

  ‘And the coat?’ Ian asked.

  It was decided that David’s death would be treated as part of the existing case, since David appeared to have been strangled on the street, although, apart from the manner of his death, nothing about it matched the other recent murders.

  ‘He wasn’t a rough sleeper,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Nor was Mark,’ Ian pointed out.

  Somehow the case seemed to be growing more confusing by the day, and new victims were being added to their load on an almost weekly basis.

  All that seemed clear was that this looked like a copycat murder. A second murderer had been caught up in the media hype, and had tried to emulate the Tramp Killer, but not very well.

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ a young constable said.

  ‘Such as?’ Eileen asked, sounding slightly peeved, as though the constable was criticising the investigation.

  ‘Is there anything to link the four victims?’ Geraldine asked.

  ‘They were all strangled,’ a constable replied.

  ‘All we can do for now is keep gathering evidence, widen the net of potential witnesses to question, and wait for the forensic lab to come up with a new lead. They’ll find something,’ Geraldine said. ‘They have to,’ she added under her breath.

  ‘Yes, we’ll get him,’ Eileen echoed Geraldine’s show of optimism. ‘Our killer’s been busy, but he can’t keep this up for long without making a mistake. The chances are he’ll become cocky, and that will make him careless.’

  ‘But how many more people is he going to kill before that happens?’ the constable asked.

  Eileen moved on briskly. ‘What about the description of the awkward gait of the man Molly saw in Nether Hornpot Lane? Have we got anywhere with that?’

  No one answered. They all knew the description might be useful as evidence once they apprehended the killer, but it was impossible to trace an individual from his gait alone. They needed more information.

  ‘He’s bound to slip up sooner or later,’ Eileen said. She sounded slightly plaintive.

  48

  One of the volunteers from the church that hosted breakfasts for the homeless phoned the police station to report that one of their regulars had information that might help the police enquiry. He was referred to the team investigating the murders, and Geraldine took the call.

  ‘What sort of information do you have?’ she asked, instantly alert.

  She did not add that they were desperate for a new lead in an investigation that currently seemed to be going round in circles, with suspect after suspect being released.

  ‘He said he recognised the coat the victim was wearing,’ the caller explained.

  He described how an old rough sleeper had turned up for breakfast one morning in an expensive new coat which he claimed had been given to him in exchange for his own dirty old mac.

  ‘He saw a picture of his old coat in the paper. It was the one the latest victim was wearing when he was found.’

  ‘Do you think he was telling the truth?’ Geraldine asked.

  ‘I don’t know, but he must have got his new coat from somewhere. You can ask him about it yourself if you come along to the church tomorrow morning. Malcolm’s one of our regulars.’

  ‘Do you know where I can find him before then?’

  ‘No, sorry. He’ll be around, dossing in a doorway, God knows where. Your best bet is to come along in the morning. You’ll spot him straight away because of his new coat, it’s long and fawn and obviously expensive. He might not want to talk to you,’ he added. ‘I’d appreciate it if you kept quiet about my speaking to you. The rough sleepers feel safe with us. They talk to one another, and if just one of them gets wind of the fact that I talked to you, we’ll lose their trust. I shouldn’t really have spoken to you at all, only it being a murder investigation, I thought I should pass on what I heard.’

  Early the next morning Geraldine went to the church and found a group of rough sleepers gathered around the breakfast table. She was not sure which of the volunteer helpers had called the police station, but it was easy to identify an elderly man wearing a smart new coat. His wizened face was leathery from living outdoors, his straggly hair was in need of a trim, and his long fingernails were black with grime. When she sat beside him and introduced herself he seemed to close in on himself, like a tortoise. Without turning his head away, he refused to meet her eye, and he could have been deaf for all the response her words elicited. It was hardly surprising that he was reluctant to talk to her. Somehow she had to persuade him that she needed him to help her catch the killer who was targeting rough sleepers.

  ‘You could be his next victim,’ she muttered earnestly. ‘So, is there anything you can tell us that might help us track him down?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘This was given to me,’ he said, whining in outrage. ‘You got no right to take it off me. It’s mine now.’

  The other people at the table were turning to stare at them so Geraldine suggested
they move away from the group and talk discreetly in a corner of the room. Grumbling under his breath, the old man heaved himself to his feet, wheezing, and followed her, stumbling as he walked.

  ‘No one wants to take your coat away, but we need to know who gave it to you. Whoever it was might be able to help us find the person who’s killing rough sleepers like you.’ She lowered her voice and glanced around the room. ‘You, or any one of your friends here, could be next. I know you don’t want that to happen. So you have to help us find this killer.’

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ he replied in a voice that was slightly slurred.

  ‘Malcolm, you have to help us.’

  As she leaned towards him, Geraldine was not surprised to detect a strong whiff of alcohol on his breath.

  ‘I don’t know who it was. And even if I know, I don’t have to tell you.’

  Sensing his advantage, he looked at her with a sly grin. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘The knowledge that you’re not going to be strangled in your sleep tonight. Withholding information from the police is a serious offence, especially in a murder enquiry.’

  He shrugged and turned away.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed, showing him a couple of notes. ‘That’s all you’re getting. Now talk, unless you want to accompany me to the police station and be questioned there.’

  He reached for the money but she slipped it in her pocket.

  ‘First, you talk to me.’

  Scowling, the old man began talking.

  ‘She told me her husband was dead, and she wanted to give me his coat so it would go to someone who needed it. That’s all I know. Now, where’s my money?’

  ‘She?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Are you telling me it was a woman who gave you this coat?’

  He grunted in assent.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  The old man turned away from her. ‘I may be old but I can still tell the difference between a man and a woman.’