Deep Cover

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Police.’ Vicary showed his ID.

  ‘Oh.’ The man, J.J. Dunwoodie by the nameplate on his desk, paled. ‘No bother, I hope?’

  ‘Plenty.’ Vicary smiled. ‘Always, always, always plenty of bother . . . no shortage of bother at all, keeps us in gainful employment, but we are here only to seek a little information.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dunwoodie indicated two easy chairs with wooden arms that stood in front of his desk. The officers took a seat, and only when they were seated did the young Dunwoodie also sit. He was, thought Vicary, a young man who seemed conscientious and took his job very seriously, although working for a private landlord would, he mused, offer limited potential for advancement and would not have the generous conditions of the service enjoyed by public or civil servants. He said to himself, ‘You can do better than this, young Dunwoodie. Much, much better,’ but he said aloud, ‘We understand that WLM Rents owns a property near here, specifically on Claremont Road, by the railway, particularly number 123; can’t forget that house number. Very convenient.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘You seem to know it?’ Vicary noticed Brunnie take his notepad from his coat pocket and a pen from the inside pocket of his sports jacket.

  ‘Yes, I do, I know it well, but it is not typical of WLM Rents.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Oh, not at all, WLM is more upmarket than 123. We rent to young, professional people. Number 123 is one of our ancillary properties.’

  ‘Ancillary properties?’

  ‘It will be developed soon, when Mr William is ready. It has been an ancillary property for a year or two.’

  ‘And you have permission from the local authority to use it as business premises?’

  ‘Yes, all legal and proper. It was derelict and Mr William negotiated the change on the deeds as part of the condition of undertaking its development. It was a real eyesore; in fact an oak tree was growing up from the basement. So the local authority was pleased when someone was prepared to take on the renovation. It gave Mr William a bit of leverage you might say, to negotiate the change to the deeds.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So . . . 123 is awaiting development, then we’ll rent it to the young professionals. Kilburn is very convenient for the City so we have a lot of bankers and stockbrokers on our books. I mean, direct tube to central London, just one change to reach the Square Mile; our tenants are between university and their first mortgage. That’s how Mr William made his fortune.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a stockbroker. He made a killing about twenty years ago and he used his money to buy up as much of Kilburn as he could. He saw the potential of the area. He knew it would be gentrified and he was right, money came in from rents and he bought more houses, and he now has over one hundred properties . . . all in Kilburn. He is known as the King of Kilburn.’

  ‘How interesting.’

  ‘Yes. He has done well.’ Dunwoodie beamed.

  ‘So tell us about the house on Claremont Road?’

  ‘Yes . . . well, run down . . . can’t rent it as it is, not to the sort of person we want to deal with. So it’s used for storing furniture, but we also use it as a grace and favour residence for people who do the occasional odd job for the company.’

  ‘Grace and favour?’

  ‘Yes, it’s hardly a St James’s Palace sort of grace and favour residence but it keeps the squatters out. The people in the ancillary properties don’t pay rent but Mr William asks them for favours from time to time.’

  ‘And if they say “no” they’ll be in the street?’

  Dunwoodie looked uncomfortable. ‘Well . . .’ he stammered.

  ‘How many such properties does he have?’

  ‘About ten ancillaries . . . mostly young women are in them, some young men.’

  Vicary and Brunnie glanced at each other. Vicary then looked back at Dunwoodie. ‘So where do we find Mr William?’

  ‘At home . . . sometimes he calls in here to water the plants.’

  ‘The plants?’

  ‘Yes, he’s quite green-fingered.’ Dunwoodie pointed to a line of potted plants which stood on a series of red filing cabinets. ‘He likes to keep the plants watered. It gets hot and dry in here. I could do it, the watering can is there, but he likes to do it. But mostly he works at home.’

  ‘What is his home address?’

  ‘His main home is in Virginia Water.’

  ‘It would be,’ Brunnie growled. ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘I can phone him to ask him if I can give you his number.’

  ‘Address!’

  ‘I don’t know it, just his phone number. But I am not supposed to give it to anyone; he’s very clear on that point.’

  ‘We’re not anybody,’ Vicary snarled. ‘The number!’

  ‘Really, I am under strict instructions—’

  ‘You could be arrested and charged with obstruction. This is a murder enquiry.’

  ‘Murder!’ Dunwoodie gasped.

  ‘Yes. Murder. With a capital “M”.’

  J.J. Dunwoodie reached for the file index on his desk and began to thumb through it. ‘Old fashioned, I know, but so what, it works. Ah . . . here it is, Mr William Pilcher.’ He read out Pilcher’s phone number and Brunnie wrote it in his notebook. ‘I’ll have to phone Mr William and let him know that you called and demanded his phone number.’

  ‘Do that,’ Vicary replied. ‘And tell him to expect us very soon.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘As in just how long it will take us to drive from here to Virginia Water,’ Brunnie explained. ‘That sort of soon. Have a good day.’

  John Shaftoe pulled down the microphone until it was level with his mouth and cast a despairing eye at the trembling and twitching Billy Button, who looked at the corpse with undisguised fear.

  ‘You know, Billy,’ Shaftoe leaned on the stainless steel table, resting his fleshy hands on the raised lip, ‘you could do worse than put it all into context for yourself.’

  ‘Sir? What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Well . . . tell me . . . how old are you now?’

  ‘Me, sir, I’m fifty-seven, sir.’

  ‘Fifty-seven?’

  ‘Yes, sir, last July.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘So just three years short of your three score . . . just thirteen years short of your three score and ten . . .’

  ‘Suppose so, sir.’

  ‘And you’re still going strong.’

  ‘Suppose that too, sir.’

  ‘OK. Well, look at this fella here on the table.’ Shaftoe nodded to the corpse of Michael Dalkeith which lay face up on the table with a starched white towel draped over the genitalia. ‘How old do you think he is – or was – when he died?’

  Button shrugged. ‘Forty, sir?’

  ‘Probably younger than that, probably a lot younger. I saw the conditions he lived in: one room in a shared house in Kilburn across the street from the railway line. So do you want to swap places with him? Would you want his living conditions rather than your own?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘No, sir . . . right, sir, you’ve already lived longer than he has lived . . . lucky you. And you’ve a wife and a home to go back to each evening. He was born when you were already alive and you’re still alive now that he is no more. What have you . . . you and me both . . . what have we got to complain of?’

  ‘Well . . . since you put it like that, sir . . .’

  ‘Nothing is the answer. Nothing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And the next PM we will be doing today, just a lassie, barely in her teens. I’ve seen her corpse . . . wasted wee soul; she was brought in last night – almost like a skeleton covered in parchment. So context, Billy . . . context.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And if it’s being cut open after you are dead that scares you?’

  ‘Yes, sir . . . those shiny instruments.’

  ‘I’ve told you before; the chances are it w
on’t happen.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Right.’ Shaftoe reached for the microphone at the end of the anglepoise arm and switched it on. ‘The corpse is that of a well-nourished adult of the male sex who has been positively identified as one Michael Dalkeith of Palmers Green, who had also been resident in Kilburn. All details are with the police. The interested police officer is Detective Inspector Harry Vicary of the Murder and Serious Crime Squad of New Scotland Yard.’ Shaftoe paused. ‘There are no evident injuries. The deceased was found in an exposed place when the recent snow thawed, giving the clear indication that he had succumbed to hypothermia.’ He took a scalpel, and placing it at the throat of the deceased, drew it downwards over the chest to the stomach and then divided the incision to the left and the right, thus forming an inverted ‘Y’ on the man’s torso. ‘I am performing a standard midline incision,’ he said calmly for the benefit of the tape. Shaftoe peeled the skin back, exposing the internal organs. ‘Better take a deep breath, Billy,’ Shaftoe said as he pressed the tip of the scalpel into the stomach. He also took a deep breath and turned his head away as the stomach gasses hissed upon their release. He waved his hand in the air and took a step backwards. ‘I’ve smelled worse,’ he said, smiling, ‘a lot worse.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Actually, that is not bad.’ Shaftoe peered into the stomach, ‘Oh, one hungry boy. He hadn’t eaten anything for . . . for probably forty-eight hours before he died, certainly twenty-four . . . but he is so healthy, so well-nourished, yet the empty stomach would have made it even more difficult for him to withstand the cold. That is quite strange.’

  Shaftoe took an electrically powered circular saw and cut down the centre of the ribcage, thus separating the ribs. ‘The heart appears healthy.’ Using the scalpel, he separated the organ from the body and placed it on a set of scales. ‘Heart is age/weight proportional. I’ll dissect it later but I am sure it was healthy.’ Shaftoe took the circular saw and cut round the circumference of the skull, just above the ears, and then lifted the top of the skull away. It separated with a loud sucking sound. ‘Similarly,’ Shaftoe said for the benefit of the microphone, ‘the brain appears healthy. Nice thick skull also . . . lucky man. You know, Billy, I once did a PM on a young lad, just eight years old, who died of a fractured skull which led to brain damage. The story was that his dad had clipped him round the ear for being cheeky to his mum . . . and succeeded in killing him. Turned out that the poor lad had an eggshell skull, so called, no thicker than a single sheet of newspaper. I told the inquest that any minor blow to the head could – in fact, would – have been fatal. If he played soccer and had headed the ball, he would then have lost his life. The poor lad was just a fatal accident waiting to happen. Any rough and tumble with his mates, any accidental knock to the head would have killed him. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death, which was a fair verdict but the boy’s father was beside himself with grief and guilt. So that’s something else to measure your life against, Billy. Context . . . context.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Shaftoe took the brain and weighed it. ‘The brain is of normal weight for the age of the deceased.’ He placed the brain on the working surface and, taking a knife, he sliced it thinly. ‘All healthy,’ he said, ‘no stroke victim he. I will send a blood sample for a toxicology examination, but in the absence of poison, I will record a finding of death due to hypothermia, compounded by the empty stomach and insufficient clothing at the time of death. The empty stomach is puzzling though, very puzzling given his overall well-nourished state. This PM might not yet be complete. See what the toxicology test reveals, if anything.’

  Hollow Hill, Virginia Water, Surrey. Large houses, large in any man’s language, were set back from the road, each house separated from the neighbouring property by small stands of woodland; large front gardens, larger back gardens, which gave way to an area of woodland. Vicary at the wheel, and Brunnie beside him in the passenger seat, sat in silence, though both men thought the same: here be money. Big money.

  The house owned by the proprietor of WLM Rents sat well, it seemed to Vicary, with its neighbours. It was not significantly larger, nor markedly smaller than the other houses on the road. It blended, Vicary conceded, and did so neatly – painted in a soft green about the window frames and doors, faded brickwork under a brown tiled roof, with a double garage to the right-hand side. The broad driveway expanded into a wide courtyard in front of the house. To the left of the drive was a raised rockery of about ten feet high, which prevented any very occasional foot passenger passing along the pavement from looking into the house. The front door was enclosed within a solid wooden porch, with windows in the door and at either side. A small window at ground level to the left of the porch betrayed the existence of a cellar. Vicary turned into the driveway and halted the car beside the royal-blue Range Rover which was parked close to the door. ‘Dare say the Rolls-Royce is in the garage,’ he remarked as he switched off the car’s ignition.

  ‘Dare say it is –’ Brunnie smiled as he unclipped his seat belt – ‘next to the Bentley. How much do you think it’s worth?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to guess.’ Vicary glanced at the house. ‘Well out of our league, that’s for sure.’ The house was clearly an inter-war building, modern in many respects, but built when houses were still being built to last. His father-in-law’s warning of ‘Don’t even look at anything built after 1939’ had proved to be good advice for him and his wife.

  Vicary and Brunnie left the car and walked up to the porch, but the door of the house opened before Vicary could press the doorbell. The man stepped forward and opened the porch door. He had a hard, humourless looking face, clean-shaven, cold blue eyes, close-cropped hair. He wore cream-coloured cavalry twill trousers and a white shirt, over which was a pale-blue woollen pullover. His feet were encased in highly polished brown shoes. The only jewellery was a Rolex on his left wrist.

  ‘You’ll be the police,’ he said. He spoke with a hard voice, almost, Vicary thought, a rasping sound, and both he and Brunnie recognized the type: a career criminal.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Vicary showed his ID. Brunnie did the same. ‘I’m DI Vicary. This is DC Brunnie. Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Scotland Yard? It must be serious . . . must be important. You’d better come in. My man only told me the police were calling to see me. He didn’t mention Scotland Yard.’

  The officers entered a wide entrance hall, thickly carpeted, with stained and polished panelling on the walls, and a wide staircase angling up to the first floor. From the entrance hall they were shown into a room just to the right of the front door, which was clearly used to entertain official visitors. Evidently only guests were allowed to enter the inner areas of the house. Officials, and especially police officers, were kept by the door. The room itself was spartan in the extreme, with no floor covering, though the floorboards had been sanded and varnished, and four inexpensive, office-style easy chairs stood round a glass-topped coffee table. Though the room was still larger, Brunnie guessed, than the living room of his flat in Walthamstow, E17. The wallcovering was of green embossed wallpaper, which seemed to Vicary to be of the same vintage as the house and, when needed, the illumination would come from a single light bulb, which hung from the ceiling and was enveloped in a yellow, bowl-like glass shade dating from the 1930s. The room seemed to Vicary to be deliberately arranged to be uncomfortable, cold, unwelcoming and very hostile, and it had, he thought, a hard cell-like quality, with nothing, nothing at all such as a print on the wall or a plant in a pot, to offer any form of softening.

  ‘Do take a seat, please.’ The man spoke in a perfunctory manner. The words kept to the script, but the tone of voice was as cold and as hard as the room. Vicary, Brunnie and the householder sat down; Vicary and Brunnie side by side, the man opposite them, with the coffee table separating him and the officers. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how can I help you, gentlemen?’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘William Pilcher.’r />
  ‘You own WLM Rents?’

  ‘Yes, WLM of course being derived from my given name.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And yes, WLM Rents is my little portfolio.’ He smiled. ‘The stock market was . . . useful to me once.’

  ‘So we understand from Mr Dunwoodie.’

  ‘J.J. Yes, he’s a good little beaver to have working for me. So, how can I help you?’

  ‘We are particularly interested in one of your properties in Kilburn.’

  ‘They are all in Kilburn. I began buying up Kilburn when I realized the properties were undervalued and the area was set for gentrification. Close enough to fall into the spill of the beam from Hampstead and Golders Green.’

  ‘The property on Claremont Road, 123 Claremont Road; Mr Dunwoodie described it as an ancillary property.’

  ‘Yes, awaiting development.’

  ‘Mr Dunwoodie described it as a “grace and favour” house.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘He does tend to be . . . don’t know the word . . . but yes, I let people live there and they work for me, low-grade gofers really. They pay no rent, but if I need a favour, they oblige.’

  ‘So Mr Dunwoodie explained.’

  ‘Did he?’ A menacing growl entered Pilcher’s voice to the extent that Vicary felt a sudden chill of fear for the welfare of J.J. Dunwoodie. Working for Pilcher evidently did not mean you enjoyed the man’s protection.

  ‘We are making enquiries into a man called Michael Dalkeith.’