Stop Dead

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Apsley was irritated that the Mercedes had been left right outside his garage, so he checked it out. At first he thought the man in the driver’s seat was asleep, probably drunk, but after a while he realised something was wrong – he noticed blood outside the vehicle and wasn’t able to rouse the man, so he called it in. That seems to be the extent of his involvement.’

  ‘Why did it take him so long to call us?’ someone wanted to know.

  Geraldine shrugged.

  ‘That part of his statement’s not altogether clear. He claims he didn’t realise straight away that there was anything wrong. He didn’t notice the body in the morning.’

  ‘Didn’t notice it?’

  ‘Yes sir– Reg. The thing is, it’s possible, because the car’s got tinted windows. I believe him. He was in a hurry to get off to work and thought he could leave it till later to deal with. He was hoping someone would come and remove the car by the time he got home yesterday evening.’

  Samantha Haley shook her head impatiently and looked as though she was about to speak, but Reg turned to a detective constable who had been doing some research into the witness. He wanted to share some facts before listening to any more speculation about whether or not he was telling the truth.

  ‘Has he got form?’

  ‘No. There’s nothing on him or his wife. Both working, nothing on either of them.’

  Reg turned to another constable who had been looking into the victim’s background. It was similarly uneventful.

  ‘Not so much as a parking ticket, and that’s quite a feat considering they live in Hampstead. He wasn’t born to money. Grew up on a council estate in South London.’

  ‘So the money came from his wife?’

  The constable shook his head.

  ‘Patrick Henshaw was a self-made man. In his twenties he made some very lucrative investments – shrewd or lucky, maybe both. Anyway, he made himself a tidy packet. By the time he reached forty, he was worth millions. When he married Amy he was forty-five and she was just twenty. He retired from business when they married then five years ago he bought a swanky restaurant in Soho. God knows why, he didn’t need the money.’

  ‘Perhaps he was bored,’ Reg suggested. ‘So his wife’s twenty-five years younger than him which would make her forty. He was more than double her age when he married her.’

  ‘Yes, she’s forty. She must be a very wealthy woman now.’

  Sam broke in briskly.

  ‘Which makes it more likely it’s a crime of passion, something to do with his wife. Why else would the killer have been so violent? And if she’s inherited a fortune –’

  Reg turned to her with a nod to indicate he was listening.

  ‘I don’t think we should be writing Keith Apsley off just yet. I think he might somehow be involved in it.’

  Eagerly she outlined the reason for her suspicion, the body having arrived outside Keith Apsley’s house just when his wife was away.

  ‘It just seems a bit of a coincidence. It’s possible Keith Apsley was having an affair with Amy Henshaw. What if he killed her husband so they could get his money?’ she concluded triumphantly.

  ‘We’re not ruling anything out for now,’ Reg replied. ‘Not until we know more about what happened, but I agree it sounds as though Apsley might be implicated.’

  ‘You haven’t even spoken to him,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘As I said, I’m not ruling anything out just yet,’ he repeated, a trifle sharply.

  He considered Sam’s suggestion. On the face of it, the idea seemed reasonable. It was certainly an odd coincidence, a man’s body appearing outside the Apsleys’ garage just when Keith’s wife was away. But Geraldine’s explanation was equally plausible. He had only worked with her on one case, but her gut feeling then had proved spot on. He wondered if that had just been luck, or if she was one of those rare officers who possessed an uncanny instinct for the truth. There was no doubt she had an impressive track record.

  ‘Well,’ he concluded. ‘We’ll keep our minds open and carry on. See what we can find out.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Geraldine was annoyed that Reg had taken Sam’s theory seriously. Reg hadn’t even met Apsley, and they had found nothing to suggest he was having an affair with Amy Henshaw. She hoped the investigation wouldn’t be led astray by fanciful speculation. As her mentor, Geraldine had already warned the sergeant against unsubstantiated speculation. She had another go at impressing on Sam the importance of resisting committing to a theory without any evidence.

  ‘So you think I’ve got it all wrong, is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  ‘I’m just saying we need to keep an open mind. Cases can throw up all sorts of surprises.’

  ‘I have got an open mind,’ Sam replied crossly and they drove the rest of the way to the morgue in silence.

  Geraldine arrived at the morgue irritated with Sam, and even more annoyed with herself for handling the situation so clumsily. The pathologist met them with a smile. He had clear hazel eyes and light brown hair tinged with red. Although he must have been older, he looked about twenty.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said with a hint of impatience in his voice.

  He introduced himself as Miles Fellows. While Geraldine responded to the friendly greeting, Sam stepped forward for a sight of the body. She flinched and Geraldine threw the sergeant a sympathetic glance, aware that Sam felt queasy around corpses.

  ‘I’m afraid he was a bit of a mess when he was brought in,’ the pathologist began, sounding apologetic, as though he was somehow responsible for the victim’s injuries. Horrified, Geraldine and Sam studied the cadaver. The dead man’s face was bloodless, the effect emphasised by his dark staring eyes and gaping mouth. From one side his face was white and intact. With curiously angular features, he looked like an android. As Geraldine approached she saw a deep weal on his left temple surrounded by a bruise that extended from the edge of his straight eyebrow to disappear beneath his hair. But that wasn’t what held her attention.

  ‘Oh my God, what happened to him?’ Sam asked.

  ‘This was a vicious attack,’ Miles replied quietly. ‘The attack began with an injury to the side of the head.’

  He pointed to the gash on the victim’s temple.

  ‘It may appear superficial, but the internal damage is considerable, a single blow inflicted with considerable force at close range. It would probably have been enough to stun the victim, if not knock him unconscious. And after that – as you can see – the victim was severely battered.’

  No one spoke for a few seconds as they stared at the dead man’s pulverised genitals, a mess of bloody flesh.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Sam muttered at last.

  Her voice sounded thick and slurred, as though it was an effort for her to move her lips.

  ‘There was a hell of a lot of blood in the car where he was found,’ Geraldine said. ‘Would it all have been the victim’s or –’

  It seemed too much to hope the killer might have left his DNA at the scene.

  ‘The blow to his head might well have knocked him out, or at least it would have dazed him for a few seconds, but he was still alive when the other injuries were inflicted. I can’t imagine he would have remained conscious for long and the shock and blood loss would have finished him off pretty quickly even if he’d weathered the blow to his temple. But between the two injuries that could well account for very extensive bleeding,’ Miles told them.

  There was another pause.

  ‘I daresay you already know a great deal about the victim. He was well nourished, worked out or exercised regularly, and looked after himself. My first impression was that we were looking at a man in his mid-fifties, but closer examination suggests he was past sixty.’

  Geraldine said Henshaw was sixty-five when he died.

  ‘Can you give us an estimated time of death?’

  ‘Sunday night between ten thirty and eleven thirty.’

  Sam had been stari
ng in horror at the victim’s injuries.

  ‘Why on earth would anyone do that? The killer must’ve really hated the victim, so he must’ve known him.’

  ‘Some hatred,’ Geraldine muttered.

  ‘At any rate, the killer must have known him,’ Sam insisted. ‘If you ask me it was a jealous rival who did this. Either Henshaw was sleeping with the killer’s wife, or the killer was sleeping with Henshaw’s wife. Nothing else explains this.’

  She pointed at the victim’s mutilated genitals.

  ‘It’s an act of revenge. And if it’s Henshaw’s wife they were fighting over, there’s money at stake as well.’

  ‘That’s two possibilities certainly,’ Geraldine agreed cautiously, ‘but it’s just guesswork.’

  A sulky expression crossed Sam’s face as Geraldine continued.

  ‘All we can say with any certainty so far is that his name was Patrick Henshaw, he was sixty-five, married, with no children that we know of.’

  ‘He was a heavy drinker,’ the pathologist told them. ‘He’d been drinking shortly before he was killed. I’ve not got the toxicology report yet but I could smell it on his breath and his stomach contents. He’d eaten a couple of hours before he died – steak and salad – and he’d been drinking too. I’m pretty sure I smelt beer and I’d hazard a guess at whisky too.’

  ‘OK, we’ll check his credit card payments, see if we can find out if he was on his own that evening.’

  ‘What was the actual cause of death?’

  ‘That was a nasty wound on his head. Resultant internal bleeding would probably have caused permanent damage, if it hadn’t in itself proved fatal, but as for the actual cause of death, that was blood loss, compounded by shock.’

  He nodded his head in the direction of the injuries to the victim’s body.

  ‘What if he’d been found earlier? Could he have been bleeding to death for a while?’ Geraldine asked.

  ‘Placing the time of the attack earlier than the time of death, you mean? No, there’s no way he was going to survive those injuries for very long. He would have bled profusely over a short period of time, ten or maybe twenty minutes at the most.’

  ‘It had to be a jealous rival,’ Sam insisted. ‘Why else would anyone do something like that? Nothing else makes sense.’

  ‘It’s a vulnerable area,’ Geraldine said. ‘Is it possible the murderer wanted to be certain the victim was dead? I mean, I’d have thought that was a pretty good way of making sure.’

  She addressed her question to the pathologist who shook his head.

  ‘It was certainly a frenzied attack,’ he agreed. ‘But as for the motive, that’s for you to discuss. Now, is there anything else I can tell you?’

  ‘We’re looking at a vicious murder all right,’ Geraldine said as the two detectives arrived back at her office.

  ‘Horrible,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘Murder most foul, is it?’ Nick asked with a smile.

  Geraldine was surprised to hear him quote Shakespeare and picked him up on it.

  ‘You a Shakespeare boffin then?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You quoted Hamlet just now.’

  ‘And you recognised it. Does that mean we’re both boffins?’ he replied and they both laughed.

  Sam turned away and it occurred to Geraldine that Sam might resent her rapport with Nick. Geraldine turned to her.

  ‘Let’s go and get a coffee and mull over what we know.’

  Sam’s face immediately brightened. Geraldine would need to handle her efficient young sergeant sensitively.

  Sam was still convinced they were dealing with a crime of passion.

  ‘It makes sense, Geraldine. Henshaw is playing around with another woman, her husband finds out and – there you are. It explains the injury. Revenge by a jealous husband. I’ll bet he was having it off with Keith Apsley’s wife!’

  ‘Unless Henshaw’s wife was the one playing around,’ Geraldine said. ‘And had a jealous lover who wanted her husband out of the way.’

  ‘And Henshaw’s death leaves her a wealthy woman,’ Sam added, her eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘Maybe she put him up to it.’

  ‘They could have been in it together.’

  Despite herself, Geraldine was catching the sergeant’s fervour.

  Geraldine made a quick phone call and discovered Amy Henshaw had already been to the morgue to identify her husband’s body.

  ‘Damn,’ she said as she rang off. ‘I thought I might catch her there. Sometimes people let their guard down when they’ve seen the victim. She might’ve been more likely to talk. We’ll speak to her again soon. In the meantime, let’s see what else we can find out about the Henshaws, and if you discover one of them was having an affair, so much the better.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Petrie and Waterman’s door was sandwiched between a kitchen showroom and a beauty salon in Temple Fortune. Geraldine rang the bell and was buzzed in. A carpeted staircase led to the solicitors’ premises. She introduced herself to a receptionist who ushered her into a small, neatly furnished office where a distinguished-looking older man was seated behind a wooden desk.

  ‘A police inspector is here to see you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  The solicitor raised his eyebrows and half rose to his feet.

  ‘Please take a seat. I’m Jonathon Waterman. How can I help you?’

  He glanced at her warrant card as Geraldine sat down on a hard leather chair and introduced herself.

  ‘I’m enquiring about Patrick Henshaw’s will.’

  The solicitor looked suitably solemn.

  ‘Patrick Henshaw? He was my client. So you’re investigating his death?’

  Geraldine glanced around the office without responding. The room was at the back of the building, and strangely hushed after the London traffic to which she had grown accustomed. Horizontal white shutters at the window were open a crack to let in the daylight between the slats, but it wasn’t possible to see out.

  ‘I take it the circumstances of his death were suspicious?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Why else would you be here?’

  Geraldine smiled in acknowledgement before asking to hear the terms of the dead man’s will.

  ‘It was fairly straightforward as I recall,’ Jonathon Waterman said, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t divulge any details. We’re not reading the will until tomorrow so the beneficiaries don’t know the details yet.’

  Geraldine sighed and leaned forward in her chair.

  ‘Mr Waterman, I’m conducting a murder investigation. If you have any information that can assist us in our enquiries, it will of course be treated in confidence. Did he leave much?’

  She paused.

  ‘Mr Waterman, the sooner I can access this information, the more helpful it might prove.’

  A frown crossed Jonathon Waterman’s face.

  ‘I appreciate the position, and there are certain details I can let you know in advance of the reading of the will tomorrow. George Corless is already aware that he became sole owner of the jointly owned restaurant on Patrick Henshaw’s death under a contractual agreement between them, but the other details of the will are as yet confidential. However – ’ he hesitated. ‘Under the circumstances, given this is a murder enquiry –’

  Geraldine watched him cross the room, select a file from a metal cabinet and extract a document. Still standing, he scanned down the page before returning to his seat and reading aloud. Geraldine noted down the relevant details.

  ‘To summarise,’ he concluded, forthcoming now that he had begun, ‘Patrick named three people in his will. His share in the restaurant went to his business partner, George Corless, Miss Stella Hallett of Ladbroke Grove inherits his liquid assets, and he left his property to his wife, Amy.’

  ‘What can you tell me about the restaurant?’

  ‘Patrick part-owned Mireille – you may have heard of it. It’s a very prestigious restaurant in Soho. Very profitable.’

&nb
sp; Geraldine said she thought the name sounded familiar.

  ‘There was a television documentary about it recently. It focused mainly on the clientele. Mireille is patronised by celebrities and stars of the media, people of that sort, and the chef is himself well-known, of course, Henri Gilbert. I gather he’s something of a television personality in his own right.’

  He proceeded to name a string of pop stars, several of them well-known for their on-off relationships with high profile footballers.

  ‘My understanding was that the previous owner was struggling for some years and the place was rapidly going downhill when Patrick and his partner bought it. They turned it around and it became fashionable with the in crowd. It’s a real success story. Patrick had a talent for making money.’

  ‘So he didn’t leave his share in the restaurant to his widow?’

  ‘No, his share in Mireille went to his partner, George Corless, who now owns the place outright. That’s quite a goldmine he’s got his hands on.’

  He rubbed his manicured hands together and Geraldine wondered if Waterman acted for George Corless as well.

  ‘A real success for him as well then,’ Geraldine said.

  The solicitor looked thoughtful.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ Geraldine asked, seeing the look on his face. ‘Something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘The two men have been in business together for years. But George introduced other issues –’

  ‘Other issues?’

  ‘Patrick wasn’t a gambler until he went into business with George. Of course he was always a gambler in some sense, all successful businessmen take risks, but George spent a fortune making the bookies rich.’

  ‘And Patrick Henshaw followed his example? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I believe he invested in Mireille as a business venture because he was bored in his retirement. But there’s no doubt George was interested in Mireille to fund his habit, addiction you might call it, and Patrick was drawn into it.’