The Fox in the Forest

by Gregson, J. M.

  Cyril Burgess had found the autopsy less fun with Rushton than when he had Lambert’s delicate sensibilities to play on. It was in any case one of his less interesting examinations, as far as he was concerned. As an enthusiast for the detective fiction of the ‘thirties and ‘forties, he looked for complexity in the corpses he dissected. But he was usually disappointed, and this shattered cadaver seemed unlikely to disturb the pattern.

  Rushton said, “We shan’t have Dr Burgess’s report until the twenty-seventh, because of the holiday, but he warned me that it will almost certainly add nothing to what he was able to tell me this afternoon.” Rushton found it regrettable that even murder had to defer to the demands of Christmas and Boxing Day. Lambert had stood down all but a skeleton staff of the murder team over the Bank Holiday. Rushton disapproved, because he suspected that the Chief would use it as an excuse to become even more involved than usual in the direct business of the investigation.

  “No doubt the irrepressible Cyril brandished various organs before your very eyes,” said Lambert, suppressing a shudder of distaste at the thought.

  “Not quite, sir, but he didn’t spare me much of the detail.”

  “Well, spare it for me, Chris. Let’s concentrate on the important things for the investigation. Was Barton killed where he was found?”

  “Yes, sir. Almost certainly. Burgess says there is no evidence that the body has been moved. The hypostasis indicated the body had fallen where it was found, and had been there for some time.”

  Lambert was confirming what he already suspected. It would have been a bonus for the team if the body had been moved, for the killer or his accomplice might well have left a trace of himself or his clothing on the flesh or clothes of the deceased. The simplest deaths were usually those most difficult of investigation.

  Rushton looked at his notes. “Details of the injury. A shotgun, as we surmised, sir. A twelve-bore, I’m afraid.” This was bad news on both counts. If the weapon had been a rifle, the bullet would have left evidence which was often as individual as a fingerprint. A rifle could be identified from its ammunition easily enough, and there were many fewer rifles than shotguns around. They were much easier for the police to trace, even though shotguns had now to be licensed. Shotguns were nothing like so distinctive, and much more widely held. And the twelve-bore was the most common of all.

  “What about time of death?”

  “The body had been there for some time before it was found. Burgess hazards between eighteen and twenty-four hours, but he warned me that he wouldn’t be pinned to that in court. He went on at some length about the digestive organs and the stomach contents, though, sir.”

  Lambert wished he could prevent the younger man calling him ‘sir’ so persistently, especially with no one else around. It was more his own fault than Rushton’s. Why did the moment never seem right to tell him to drop the formality? He watched the Inspector studying his neat, flowing handwriting again. Rushton was only thirty-two, a representative of that younger generation which would eventually ease — or thrust

  men like Lambert and Hook into retirement. The Superintendent was well aware that a little at least of his resentment had its origin in that.

  Rushton was one of the few officers who did not look like a policeman in plain clothes. When he wore a suit, as he did now, he could have been a confident young industrialist. His dark brown hair had no hint of grey; on the third finger of his left hand, he wore the broad band of wedding gold which Lambert had never affected. He said, “I think if we put what Burgess will report about the stomach contents together with our own inquiries about the Reverend Barton’s last movements, we should be able to establish the time of death fairly accurately, sir.”

  “What do we know so far about his final movements?”

  Rushton looked again at his notes, though Lambert was sure that he did not need them for this. “He was dropped off in Ashbridge to visit a Mrs Wheeler. We’ve seen her. She confirms that he attended a shortish meeting at her house to organize a fund for famine relief in Ethiopia. Apparently he was going to mention it in all three of the churches he serviced at Christmas and he wanted the organization set up before then.”

  “You say he was dropped off in Ashbridge. Didn’t he have his own car?”

  “No. He owned a car, but he didn’t have the use of it that day, apparently. We should know why that was by tonight.” Always when a victim’s normal routine had been disturbed before a murder there was a possibility that it was connected with the crime. In this case the removal of his car had left a man walking through the forest at night.

  “What time did his meeting finish?”

  “About five, Mrs Wheeler thinks. There were other people there, who should confirm that. The door-to-door team have a note to check it.”

  “And Barton chose to walk home through the forest, in darkness?” It was not a journey that Lambert would willingly have made. But then, he had been brought up in London; his earliest memory was of his grandmother’s dead arm across his face when their house had come down in the Blitz. Even when he had become familiar with it as a young policeman, he had never learned to relish the dark. He tried unsuccessfully to remember whether there had been a moon on the night when Barton died.

  Rushton shrugged. “Apparently there was nothing unusual in the vicar walking around alone. He would have been home in about forty minutes that way: it’s three times as far by road. The track through the forest was a route he used quite often, though no doubt usually in daylight. But he had a torch with him: the Scene of Crime boys found it near the body.”

  “How near, Chris?”

  For once, Rushton did not riffle though his papers for the answer. “Five metres. It was switched on, though the battery had run out, of course. So presumably he was using it at the time he was shot. The print boys got a good set of dabs from it, but they’re Barton’s of course.”

  They were silent for a moment, picturing the scene on that bitter night, with the torch bobbing through the shadows of the trees, making the man who carried it an easy target for the killer who lay in wait for him in the blackness beyond its faltering beam.

  Then Rushton, as though determined to bring them back abruptly to police practicalities, said, “Burgess said the stomach contents indicate some food taken roughly three hours before death. According to Mrs Wheeler, the vicar only had a cup of tea in Ashbridge. Said he’d had tea and fresh scones immediately before he arrived, in Woodford. The stomach analysis confirms that.”

  “So that would give us a time of about five-thirty for the shooting. On his way home from Ashbridge.”

  Rushton knew where his chief’s thinking was leading, and was anxious to show that he did. “Yes. That indicates that the body lay where it fell for approximately twenty-one hours before the children found it. Burgess says his thermometer readings would support that. Rigor hadn’t set in, but the body temperature had declined to that of the environment.” The DI was back in his notes again.

  “So why did no one report the vicar’s absence in those hours?”

  “We should know that by the end of the day. It seems Barton’s wife was away at the time of his death. We got that much from the WPC who went round to break the news of the death.”

  “Has the wife been interviewed yet?”

  “No, sir. She had to identify the body. And she was so distressed that —”

  “I’ll see her myself. Tonight, probably.”

  “Yes, sir.” For once, Rushton was glad to see the older man becoming so directly involved. His wife would not relish his absence from their neighbours’ party on Christmas Eve. He wondered if Lambert even realized for the moment what day it was, so immersed did he become at this stage of an investigation. Well, let the old devil see the bereaved wife: that was always the most difficult of the interviews, where the police presence seemed most intrusive. Like all CID men, Rushton knew how high a percentage of killings had a domestic origin. But surely not this time, with a clergyman’s wife?

>   A thought was nagging at Lambert’s mind, but for the moment he dismissed it. Facts first, he always told his juniors; speculation only when facts have been exhausted. Who had the opportunity came always .before who had a motive, because opportunity was clear fact. Lambert could be a Gradgrind about facts until all the available ones had been established. He began to tick off the remaining ones. “Any money in Barton’s pockets?”

  “Two pounds and forty pence. What seems to have been quite an expensive presentation pen in his inside pocket. Blown apart by the impact of the cartridge, actually.” Both of them looked automatically towards the cabinet where these grisly trivia were filed.

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Almost certainly nothing of interest, sir. I’ve mentioned the torch. There are a few other prints around the area, including one quite good set from a plastic bottle, but it had almost certainly been there well before the murder. We’re checking it, of course, and we’ll keep it as evidence against an arrest. My guess is that it will turn out to be totally unconnected with this.”

  “What else, Chris?” Lambert fed in the Christian name rather self-consciously, hoping to breach the formalities which lay between them, but he still could not give the simple command to drop the ‘sir’.

  “Not much, sir. The photographer came up with a couple of interesting footprints as well as eliminating those which belonged to the children.” He gestured towards the pinboard away to their left. “I’ve got my doubts, though. Quite a few other people use that road through the woods.”

  “You must have a pretty good idea by now where the murderer stood. I thought I could have made a fairly accurate guess even when I was there, without a body.”

  “Yes, sir. The police surgeon gave us a fair idea, and Dr Burgess confirmed it after a detailed examination of the death wound.” He turned to the relevant page of his notes. “Twelve-bore shotgun. The spread of the pellets indicates it was fired from three to four metres. Fired from the front right of the victim. I had a good look myself at the scene of the crime, before the SOCO took over completely, and it seemed pretty obvious where the assailant had stood.”

  “But you found nothing of interest?”

  “No. Certainly no sign of a footprint, though the top half-inch of the ground was quite soft. It’s possible he’s worn polythene bags or something similar over his feet.”

  “Or her feet. No sign of a weapon, needless to say?”

  “Not so far, sir. Nothing in the immediate scene of crime area, certainly. We’re checking around the villages for shotguns, but I’m afraid there’ll be plenty of twelve-bore shotguns in an area like this.”

  “Any cartridge cases?”

  “No, sir. Certainly not in the area round the corpse.”

  “So he — or she probably covered his feet, and almost certainly picked up the empty cartridge cases before he left.” A carefully planned crime, with no panic afterwards by the perpetrator. Not an encouraging scenario, for those charged with detection.

  Lambert returned reluctantly to the less specific consideration which had remained patiently at the back of his mind. “I know it’s early days, but have you turned up anyone yet with a motive for getting rid of Peter Barton?”

  Rushton paused a moment before he shook his head. He would dearly have liked to suggest a line of inquiry which others had missed, but there was no possibility of that this time. “No, sir. So far, he seems to be that creature we’re often told about but rarely discover, the man without enemies.” He allowed himself a small, sardonic smile at his own expense: only policemen could find a man without enemies a depressing prospect. “But there are obviously a lot of people who know a vicar, people we haven’t even begun to eliminate from the inquiry yet. We may get some pointers in the next day or two.” He was asserting his right to be around, even if it was Christmas.

  The DC who came hurriedly into the room after his token knock was as full of his news as a schoolboy. They knew from his very bearing that he brought good news. He tried unsuccessfully to keep the excitement out of his voice as he spoke. “The man in the woods reported by the helicopter, sir. White and Burrows have found him. They’re bringing him in now.”

  Rushton looked at his watch. It was twenty-six hours after the hour they had tentatively established as the time of the killing. All his training and experience bade him to keep an open mind. Yet something deep beneath those things told him insistently that they were about to talk to a murderer.

  11

  Although all of Woodford was stunned by the death of its vicar, the Davidsons were perhaps more shaken than anyone.

  Possibly it was something to do with their residence within the ivy-clad elevations of the Old Vicarage. A little guilt that new riches should have removed the building from its ecclesiastical owners still lurked in the recesses of Colonel Davidson’s psyche, though he would have been loath to admit as much, even to himself. He was a Gloucestershire man, with a deep consciousness of his Anglican heritage, even when he chose to ignore it.

  Probably the disturbance the Davidsons felt was more connected with the abrupt and brutal removal from their midst of a young man whom they liked and respected. The shock of the news was emphasized by the fact that only hours before his death Peter Barton had been with them in their house, enlisting their support for his efforts towards famine relief. Colonel Davidson let it be understood that he had seen death on a greater scale during his military career. Nevertheless, it was obvious that he was considerably shaken by the death of the cheerful young clergyman, who had seemed so at ease with them on the last occasion he had sat with them in this room.

  Harry Davidson had sent for Arthur Comstock, his chauffeur-handyman. While he waited for him, he stood by the big Victorian bay window of the drawing-room, his lips no more than a dark line against the grey-white flesh of his face as he turned to the light. The house was floodlit, partly for reasons of security. His brown, watchful eyes stared down the long expanse of lawn, its dull winter green now brighter in the artificial white light, to the stone wall beside the high wrought-iron gates. Behind them, the tops of the forest trees in the distance were invisible in the early winter darkness.

  Rachel Davidson studied him from her chair by the hearth. The room was high, but warm: the central heating system which her money had installed was more than adequate for the purpose. Yet she had twice caught herself shivering. Shock, she supposed; it was still no more than half an hour since the maid had come back in tears from the village with the news. She was more upset than she would have expected by this violent removal from their midst. Barton was a young man to whom she had accorded increasing respect as she had learned more of his work.

  Perhaps, she thought, as she pulled her woollen stole more closely about her shoulders, it had something to do with her race. Though she had been born and bred in Switzerland, her Jewish banking family had been an extensive one, and the Austrian branch had been almost wiped out in the holocaust. She had grown used as an adolescent to finding her mother in wet-eyed mourning on two or three days in the year. Perhaps this jolting distress she felt at the violent, unexplained removal of a young man in the prime of a blameless life was part of her heritage.

  She watched Arthur Comstock as he came into the room and walked over to stand facing her husband. To her surprise, he seemed to evince an unspoken aggression, as if he was determined no one was going to blame him for the extinction of this young life. Shock took people in different ways; perhaps its waves affected this normally quiet man in this way. She did not see a lot of him, but she had found him taciturn but accommodating in his dealings with her.

  Perhaps he had picked up something from her husband’s attitude, for Harry began as if he held Comstock personally responsible for the tragedy. “This is a bad business, Arthur. You should have seen him safely home to his house in the village. That’s what I asked you to do.”

  “That’s what I intended to do. It’s not my fault that it didn’t happen.” Comstock was taller than his employer by
a good four inches, and he held himself erect as a Guardsman. His small black moustache seemed to make his features more severe rather than relieving them.

  Davidson continued as if he had never spoken. “You weren’t asked to make your own arrangements. You were asked to t-take the Reverend Barton to Ashbridge, wait for him there until he had finished his business, and t-take him home. If you had done that, he wouldn’t have been killed in the forest.”

  Comstock breathed hard in the pause that followed, as if he were controlling himself for his reply. He said, “We don’t know yet that he was killed that evening. It was well into the next day when he was found.”

  “Come off it, Comstock. You and I have both heard where those boys found him. It’s on the route he would have t-taken home from Ashbridge.”

  Rachel had never heard her husband call this man or any other servant by his surname before: it was as though he was back in the Army. She deliberated whether it was yet another undiscovered byway in the labyrinth of the British class system she had striven so hard to negotiate. Watching the men breathing unevenly and staring into each other’s faces, she decided it was not.

  She said, “Surely we want to hear what Arthur has to say, Harry. Getting excited won’t bring Peter back.” She spoke diffidently, for her Swiss and Jewish background did not encourage her to interrupt the men of the household when they were about their business. Her friends found her reluctance to assert herself either amusing or irritating, according to the intensity of their feminism.

  The two men looked round at her as if they had almost forgotten her presence. For a moment, she thought Harry was going to make the situation worse by checking her for her interference. Then he said with a forced smile, “You’re right of course, dear. By all means t-tell us what happened, Arthur.” His stammer as always was more noticeable under the stress of emotion, and his use of the forename now seemed to necessitate a deliberate effort of will.