The Waxwork Corpse: A legal thriller with a chilling twist (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 5)

by Simon Michael

  He hands a slip of paper to each of Charles and Barbara. They are identical and are headed The Official Secrets Act. Charles skims his as Jones explains.

  ‘In short, anything learned while this case is discussed will be covered by the Act. To reveal it to anyone — anyone at all — will constitute a breach of section two and will result in prosecution. I shall be obliged, Mrs McIntyre, if you would ensure that you and you alone deal with this case in the clerk’s room. Will that pose a problem?’

  Barbara and Charles exchange a glance, but she shakes her head. ‘I don’t see why it should.’

  ‘Fine. Are you both prepared to sign?’

  Charles nods to Barbara and they both sign their declarations and return them to the diminutive solicitor. He replaces them in his briefcase.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs McIntyre,’ says Jones, dismissing her. Barbara waits until Charles nods again at her, and departs. The men hear the “Engaged” sign being slid open on the outside of the door. Charles cannot resist the impulse to open the door again, stick his head out into the corridor and look up and down furtively for eavesdroppers. He closes the door again and turns to the men awaiting him.

  ‘Just checking,’ he says with a completely straight face. The two police officers stare at him in astonishment until Charles winks. Jones, busy unpacking his suitcase, misses the entire performance. Smith supresses a smile; Brown is stony-faced. Charles takes his seat behind the desk.

  ‘I know that it’s the Act which binds us, not a signature,’ says Jones, ‘but it does focus everyone’s mind on the paramount need for confidentiality.’

  ‘Of course,’ replies Charles with great seriousness.

  Jones finally sits and addresses Charles. ‘Three weeks ago, in Wastwater in the Lake District, the police found a body. They were looking for the French student who went missing —’

  ‘I read about that,’ confirms Charles. ‘“The Mystery of the Waxwork Corpse”,’ he says with relish, reciting the newspaper headlines.

  ‘That’s right. Wastwater’s the deepest lake in England. Under normal circumstances, a body dropped into it would never be found. In this case, by pure chance, it landed on a rocky outcrop known as Tiffen’s Rock which sticks up like a finger from the bottom of the lake. It’s invisible unless you’re thirty metres down. Furthermore, the body came to rest on a small ledge on the Rock — just high enough so it wasn’t completely covered in silt, and just deep enough that the temperature was within a degree or so of freezing year-round. As a result, she was almost perfectly preserved. Hence the “waxwork” tag in the newspapers.’ The solicitor shakes his head sadly. ‘I still find it incredible what your papers are allowed to write,’ he says.

  ‘Do I guess from your accent that you’re American?’ asks Charles.

  ‘No,’ replies Jones, bridling slightly. ‘Canadian. But I was born here and have a British passport. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. It was a chance in a million that the body was ever discovered.’

  ‘So it sounds. Someone was very unlucky,’ says Charles ironically, referring to the supposed murderer. Jones misunderstands him.

  ‘Yes, terribly sad to end one’s days in such a fashion.’

  Charles groans inwardly. Mr Jones evidently takes himself and his professional duties very seriously; he’s not going to be much fun to work with. Charles takes a deep breath and asks another question. ‘What do we know?’

  Jones hands Charles a document. It’s a draft statement. ‘Read that.’

  Charles pulls a clean sheet of paper before him, places his fountain pen on the desk next to it, and sits back to read.

  Draft deposition of Dr Marcus Butcher

  Occupation: Home Office Pathologist

  Magistrates’ Court Rules 1952: This deposition of Marcus Butcher, approved Home Office Pathologist, of West Cumberland Hospital, was sworn before me, Maj. Percival Fitzherbert, Justice of the Peace, on [ ] at [ ] Magistrates’ Court.

  Signed: Maj. Percival Fitzherbert

  Signature of deponent: M. Butcher

  Marcus Butcher WILL SAY AS FOLLOWS:

  I am Dr Marcus Butcher, and I am on the Home Office List of approved forensic pathologists covering Cumberland and Westmorland.

  On 30 April 1965 I was asked by Det. Superintendent Wake of the Cumberland, Westmorland and Carlisle Constabulary to conduct a post-mortem examination on the body of a young woman identified by Tag No. 64/CW396 bearing the name “Jane Doe”. The examination was carried out at the new pathology wing of the West Cumberland Hospital. The body was that of a well-developed, well-nourished and quite unusually tall woman of about 35 years, weight 10 stones 7 lb, height 5’10”.

  The body was completely encased in thick plastic sheeting tied with diverse pieces of cable and rope. The head was additionally in a clear plastic bag, possibly a shopping bag. Plastic shopping bags were introduced to the UK market in the early 1950s, which suggests an earliest possible time for the deceased to have been placed into the water.

  Examination of the body revealed a female, age approximately 35 years. Her features were Caucasian although her skin colour was light Negroid, typical of South American countries. The skin colour and hair texture together suggested possible Amerindian ancestry. The body was wrapped in two separate sections of plastic sacking material. There were initials or words embossed into the plastic, namely, “Dillons Shipbuilders”. There was then a hole, but the writing continued “YM 245…” which may be a manufacturer’s code.

  The head, still attached to the torso, was in what remained of a separate clear plastic bag with a name in blue on it saying “Barkhurst”, possibly “Bathurst”, or even “Barthurst” and then “Green Village Store.”

  The body was fully-clothed in a pink dress with darker pink flowers. The dress was fastened. Although two of the buttons were missing, there was no sign of damage to the material. The two missing buttons were not contiguous, which one might expect if force had been applied to the front of the garment, and in my opinion the cotton fastening the buttons to the dress had simply deteriorated.

  The deceased wore stockings and suspenders, both of which were intact. Their style suggested the late forties or early fifties.

  The deceased’s knees were bent up to the abdomen, her right arm angled across her chest with the hand near the left side of the chin, and the left arm straight with the hand near the left calf. There was a hole in the plastic and the right foot was partially missing. The structures of the remaining ankle were merely powder and paste, which suggested not that the foot had been cut off but that it had deteriorated over time where the water had penetrated the plastic at that point.

  The body was tied in a complicated manner around the ankles, legs, trunk and neck with the following material. One, television aerial wire, two, black electrical wire, three, bluish rope, four, white rope with black thread in it, five, white clothes cord type of rope.

  The deceased’s full list of clothing is as follows: pink flowered dress with white cuffs, disintegrating. Underclothes: black suspenders and stockings. No underpants and no brassiere. No damage was found to any of the clothing. In particular although the stockings were clogged with silt, they were completely undamaged and still fastened by their clips to the suspenders.’

  Charles reaches for his pen and makes a few notes.

  ‘It’s very difficult to get the underpants off a woman who is resisting without damaging her stockings,’ he says in answer to Jones’s enquiring glance. ‘The weight of the body makes it difficult to lift the hips clear of the ground. And the suspender belt clips were still attached to the stockings. All of which suggests that she was not the victim of a struggle to remove her underwear.’

  He continues reading.

  The corpse had been preserved by the development of a condition known as adipocere, in which the fat of the body is changed to a waxy substance due to prolonged immersion in cold water. The external features were all fixed and to a certain extent preserved by this process, although the skin surface
was dirty, and brown/black patches had developed on the neck and upper chest due to putrefaction. The skin in those places was disintegrating. The body itself was hard to the touch, but was very friable and disintegrated completely on movement.

  I found faint black discolouration around the nose and mouth. The hair is shoulder-length, dark and very curly. I removed the jaws, which were washed. The flesh fell off with the pressure of the tap water, leaving two clean jaw bones in which the teeth stood out clearly. There was an upper partial denture present, bearing two upper right incisors and two left molars. The left central incisor is crowned. Several teeth had been filled and some removed, none recently before death. Twenty-four teeth remained. The workmanship was of a very high standard, suggesting private orthodontic treatment.

  I could find no external injuries. In particular there was no evidence of bruising on the upper thighs or around the genitalia.

  The brain had retained its form but disintegrated upon touch. It was greenish in colour and extremely soft. No sign of cerebral haemorrhage, two halves equal in size.

  There was a distinct area of brown discolouration about half an inch in diameter in the tissues of the left side of the neck over the hyoid bone, which might have been a bruise. There were no fractures to any bones. In particular there was no sign of fracture of the hyoid bone or of the larynx which might have suggested strangulation.

  There was a large quantity of fluid in each side of the chest around the lungs. The lungs were soft, greyish in colour and degenerated due to putrefaction.

  There were no obvious internal or external injuries.

  There were no signs of drugs having been taken but a full laboratory analysis is awaited.

  ‘So,’ says Charles, looking up. ‘No clear cause of death.’

  ‘It’s a preliminary report, but that’s right. Dr Butcher was not able to identify any obvious cause of death.’

  ‘So why am I signing the Official Secrets Act over an unidentified female corpse without a clear cause of death?’

  ‘The code on the plastic mentioned by the pathologist. We’ve been able to trace it to a manufacturer of boats and boating equipment in Kent, long since out of business. We’ve checked the records of missing persons in Kent for a span of ten to twenty years, and have come up with an alarming possibility. The deceased matches the description of the wife of an eminent judge of the Court of Appeal. The judge reported his wife missing in 1953. It was presumed at the time that she went off with a lover.’

  Charles interrupts, addressing himself to the police officers. ‘Any evidence there was a lover?’

  Jones leafs through his papers for the details, but it is DI Smith who answers. ‘Yes, sir. Certainly one, and possibly more. Whether the others were current at that time we are still investigating.’

  Smith has a soft Geordie accent. He’s a good-looking man, Charles notes, with a warmth in his wide eyes and a ready smile that Charles thinks many women would find attractive.

  Jones continues, ‘You will appreciate that there are two principal suspects at the moment: the lover and the judge. Preliminary investigations suggest that the lover has an alibi for the days immediately before the deceased went missing.’

  ‘Are we talking about any old Court of Appeal judge, or a special one?’ asks Charles. There’s a long silence. ‘I see,’ says Charles.

  ‘It is critical that the name of the suspect is not revealed.’

  ‘At all? Are you suggesting that if there’s evidence, the Crown won’t prosecute?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ protests Jones, his shrill voice rising half an octave further in outrage. ‘If the evidence is there, we will certainly prosecute. The point is that until we’re sure the evidence exists, and that a prosecution stands the necessary chance of success, the name of the suspect must remain confidential. Otherwise, incalculable harm could be done to the administration of justice. For that reason, all the witness statements you’ll see will have the names and addresses of the witnesses removed. It’s likely however that the identity of the suspect will become known to you.’

  ‘If it hasn’t already,’ replies Charles dryly. ‘Why are you coming to me?’

  ‘It’s not unheard of for counsel to be involved, to assist in directing enquiries, even at this early stage. Look upon it as preliminary advice on evidence. We’ll be asking you to suggest avenues of enquiry but, more importantly, to consider the evidence and ensure it’s as firm and conclusive, one way or the other, as possible. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.’

  ‘No, you misunderstand my question. I mean, why me as against any other barrister? My reputation’s been built defence work, certainly until recently. I’m not in silk, and I’m hardly an establishment figure.’

  ‘There’s your answer. It can’t be an establishment figure. There can be no suggestion of sweeping this under the carpet. We want an entirely independent and thorough investigation. If it turns out our suspicions are unfounded or there’s insufficient evidence, we’ll all be very relieved. On the other hand, if there is the evidence, we will certainly go to trial. Members of my department also felt that to go to one of the recognised prosecution sets would risk a breach of security. The suspect was of course a barrister for years before going to the bench, so many of the senior silks know him personally. I took my colleagues’ advice. I’m new to the team and didn’t know the personalities involved. In fact, that’s why this file landed on my desk.’

  Charles nods. ‘OK. What do you want from me today?’

  ‘Well, let’s assume that this is the judge’s wife. Dental checks are due in any day. What we need however is evidence proving — or disproving — the judge’s involvement. At the same time, we have to proceed with caution.’

  ‘If this were an ordinary suspect,’ intervenes Smith, ‘we’d simply arrest him and squeeze. We can’t do that here, so we need to approach the case with rather more…’

  ‘Finesse?’ suggests Charles.

  ‘Precisely, sir. Furthermore, we don’t want to alert him yet to the investigation.’

  ‘Does the judge have any connection with the Lake District?’

  ‘None we’ve established yet,’ answers Jones.

  ‘So it’s possible that this isn’t murder, merely concealment of a death.’

  The Detective Superintendent makes a scornful scoffing noise. He’s a large man in his early fifties with an impassive face, wobbling jowls, deep grooves beside his nose, and small deep-set darting eyes.

  ‘Possible, but unlikely,’ says Jones. ‘Someone went to an awful lot of trouble just to avoid an inquest.’

  ‘Is he or was he a sailor? Member of a sailing club? Did he live near the coast?’ Charles sees Jones frowning. ‘Well, how do you get a body to the centre of Wastwater? He must have used a boat, right? Not easy to do without being seen. I guess the place is usually swarming with tourists, climbers and divers. So it was probably done at night — more difficult still. That suggests some skill with a boat.’

  ‘Of course,’ answers the Superintendent with obvious irritation, still not making eye contact with Charles. ‘D’you think we’ve not thought of that?’

  ‘And I suppose you’ve already contacted the manufacturer of the plastic to see if the judge ever bought anything from them?’

  ‘Yes,’ replies Smith. ‘But the company went bust years ago; very few documents still in existence. The ex-M.D. is looking though.’

  The Superintendent tuts audibly and looks none too surreptitiously at his watch.

  Charles smiles, studying the bloodhound without rancour. I’ll bet you didn’t want to be dragged all the way down from the Lake District to see some flash London barrister, did you? he thinks. You’re being kept away from your investigation. And, to be honest, I can’t blame you. Charles steeples his fingers, closes his eyes for a moment, and starts thinking seriously. Time to earn your corn, Charlie.

  ‘He didn’t live particularly near the coast,’ adds Smith in a less aggressive tone, ‘but we could certainly
look into boat clubs. Maybe there were lakes or rivers near where he lived.’

  Charles can’t decide if the suggestion follows from his questions or if Smith is just being diplomatic to dampen the tension in the room.

  ‘Have you searched his home?’ asks Charles.

  Smith shakes his head. ‘He moved to his present home some years after she disappeared.’

  ‘I meant the one he shared with the missing woman,’ clarifies Charles. ‘Most domestic murders occur in the home, don’t they?’

  ‘What would we be looking for, so many years after the event?’ asks Jones.

  ‘Bloodstains might be nice,’ replies Charles, ‘but that’s rather hopeful.’

  ‘But the new owners would have reported anything suspicious,’ insists Jones. ‘Especially bloodstains. And he didn’t move for some years after the wife went missing, so there would’ve been lots of visitors to the house in the interim.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ says Charles quietly, thinking to himself. ‘But the variety in the ropes and cables used to truss up the body suggests it wasn’t planned. If it had been planned, he’d have got himself prepared, rather than rely on whatever he could find lying about. Where do people keep odds and ends of rope and cable? In the garage or garden shed. But when my parents moved to their present home, they found all sorts of odds and ends up in the loft, especially in the dark corners where it’s easy for the people moving out to miss something.’

  For the first time the Superintendent looks directly at Charles.

  ‘And you tell me that the rope and cord included a length of coaxial?’ continues Charles.

  ‘Yes,’ answers the Superintendent.

  ‘That’s the stuff used to connect televisions to their aerials, isn’t it? Well, if he used an off-cut when wrapping up the body, perhaps there’s a larger quantity of matching cable still there. It might even still be running from the roof down to the TV. And back then, it was much rarer than it is now. So easier to make a match.’