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

by Simon Michael

  The inspector looks across at his superior and smiles. He takes out a notebook and makes some notes. ‘Good idea,’ he says quietly.

  Charles senses that this last contribution is an avenue not thought of by the visitors. What else can I add? he wonders. He’s never been involved at the ground floor of an investigation before; he’s starting to enjoy himself. ‘What do we know about their relationship? The judge and his wife.’

  ‘Not much,’ says Jones. ‘More or less what’s in Who’s Who.’

  ‘We should remedy that. If a man in public life is going to risk all to murder his wife, he must have good reasons. Maybe he did it for money — a bit unlikely, I concede —’

  ‘Very unlikely in this case,’ intervenes Smith. ‘If the ID holds up, she was black and from a very poor family in Martinique, most of whom are now dead. Her maiden name was Lise Bonseigneur.’

  Charles’s eyebrows rise in surprise and he pauses for a moment, picturing the Court of Appeal judges one after another, wondering which of them might have once been married to a poor black woman. Even now, in the mid-sixties, that would be extremely unusual; back in the forties it must’ve been positively scandalous. Charles half-smiles with respect for the unknown judge; whatever he may have done, he was obviously no racist, and to Charles — the daily butt of racist and religious prejudice — that’s a mark in his favour.

  ‘Well,’ continues Charles, ‘if not for money, then, perhaps, for love? Or maybe he hated her. Whatever; we need to establish a motive. For example, did he know about the lovers? We need to interview the neighbours, servants, gardeners, window cleaners — anyone who saw them in their ordinary lives. I don’t suppose we can interview his colleagues if we’re being all cloak and dagger, but what about hers? If she was working, someone will surely be able to say something about her relationship with her husband.’

  There’s another pause while the inspector’s pen scratches away.

  ‘How’s that for starters?’ asks Charles.

  Jones looks to the two policemen. DI Smith smiles with approval; the Detective Superintendent nods reluctantly and his thick lips twitch into what might, possibly, have been the muscle-memory of a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Holborne,’ concludes Jones, shutting his briefcase. ‘That’s given us some fresh ideas. I shall be in touch by telephone in the next couple of days. Then we may need to meet again.’

  Charles shakes hands with the three men again and shows them out. Money for old rope, he thinks to himself.

  CHAPTER 4

  Charles clears a space on his desk and drops the new bundle of papers, tied with white ribbon, with a thump. In centuries past, briefs would arrive in ribbon of one of many colours — green, blue, pink, white — a different colour for each field of law. Now there were only three. Charles’s top desk drawer is stuffed with a tangled spaghetti of pink ribbon, testament to the building of his reputation as a defence “brief” over the last fifteen years. Recently, however, he has begun to move into a much more establishment practice, prosecuting a selection of high-profile murderers, rapists and armed robbers for the Crown, and it is no longer a surprise to receive briefs tied in white ribbon. This one is headed, as promised, In the Matter of a Possible Prosecution and the actual Instructions are short and to the point.

  Counsel is aware of the facts of this matter having advised in conference. Statements taken from the witnesses suggested by Counsel will be found herewith. When Counsel has had the opportunity to read and digest the same, would he please telephone Mr Jones to discuss?

  Charles smiles to himself. The brevity of the Instructions and the careful avoidance of any names of witnesses is scarcely warranted. Charles takes out a new pad, sharpens his pencil, opens the bundle of witness statements and settles down to read. At the top of each statement is a section normally completed with the witness’s name, address and date of birth. Unusually, however, the witnesses are shown here as “Witness A”, “Witness B” and so on, and where their signatures should have been inserted, there are the typed words “Signature verified”. Charles flicks ahead. The last one is headed “Witness T”. He returns to Witness A.

  I used to live at [ ] with my wife and three children. Quite shortly after we moved in, a family by the name of [ ] moved into the house which adjoined the end of our garden. They had one child at that time, a son. He was the same age as our oldest, and so we came to know them quite well. As I worked away a lot, I saw less of the family than my wife did, but Mr [ ] seemed to be a quiet pleasant man, devoted to his son. I knew he was a barrister and was away on cases quite a bit. My recollection of Mrs [ ] was that she was always rather loud and excitable. My work meant that I was sometimes at home in the afternoons, and I would often see her arrive at her house in a red sports car with a man who looked younger than she. These visits were always when Mr [ ] was out. They would go up to the bedroom for several hours. I was able to see this because all the bedrooms of their house overlooked the gardens and I would see her draw the curtains. Not long after they moved into the house, Mrs [ ] started bringing their son round to us in the evenings for us to babysit for her. She used to say that her husband was away and that she had to go out. We were at first happy to do it, but it became such a frequent occurrence (three or four nights a week) that once I made the comment that she should bring his birth certificate round too and I would adopt him.

  This situation continued until shortly before she gave birth to their second child, a girl. I must say that I didn’t think it was right from the boy’s point of view, and I was very alarmed once when I learned that she had taken the child with a friend only a year or so older for a camping holiday and had returned, leaving them both in a tent on their own overnight. In fact, Mr [ ] returned from a case the next day and went to fetch the boys back. This showed me that she had no sense of responsibility, and I clearly remember on a number of occasions her saying that she hadn’t wanted the children, and that they were a hindrance.

  After their daughter was born, the family had a succession of nannies and housekeepers to look after the children. None but the last stayed very long, and my wife and I used to joke about whether there was any job in the world we would like less than being an employee of Mrs [ ]. My wife used to say that Mrs [ ] was a man’s woman and that she did not like or get on with other women. In the years during which we were neighbours, we and they held numerous parties to which the other family would be invited. Mrs [ ] would always like to be the centre of attention, and if other women were about, especially those she did not know, it was like a challenge to her. She would play up to their husbands and flirt with them. Sometimes she went too far and there would be a row. After a while, my wife and I decided not to invite them to our parties anymore, although we did stay on talking terms. I was then posted abroad and we moved away.

  Charles makes some notes, marks two or three passages in the statement, and turns to Witness B.

  I used to be employed as a housekeeper to Mr [ ] and his wife. At that time, they had two children, a boy and a girl aged 5 and 1. I worked for the family for six months. I left because I was unable to get on with Mrs [ ]. She was a very difficult person to work for. She used to have temper tantrums for no reason at all and would throw things around the room and scream at me. I did not think that that was a proper way to treat staff. There was one occasion when she complained that a cake I had baked had too little fruit in it, and she threw it at me and wrecked the kitchen. It was not long after that incident that I gave my notice. I only stayed on as long as I did because I liked Mr [ ] and the children. I felt particularly sorry for the little boy, as the wife seemed to hate him and used to treat him terribly. I never saw her hit him, but she was very sarcastic and hurtful to him and blamed him for everything that happened in the house, even when it was nothing to do with him. It was a real shock to see a mother treat one of her children in that manner. On more than one occasion I saw her hit her husband. He never retaliated at all. He used to hold her by the wrists until she calmed down
, which she would do after a while. Then she would apologise, and kiss and hug everyone, even me, and she would be all right until the next time.

  In the six months that I worked at the house, I know that Mrs [ ] had affairs with at least two men. She was completely shameless about them. One of the men worked at a local pub and I knew him by sight. I came home from shopping one afternoon and found this man in the bath. Mrs [ ] walked up to me in her underwear, as bold as you like, and announced she had a guest. Then she closed the bathroom door and I went to collect the boy from nursery school. I never met the other man, but he used to telephone asking for Mrs [ ]. He had an Irish accent.

  Witness C:

  My name and address are as above, and I live there with my husband. When we moved in, about ten years ago, there was a family called [ ] living opposite us at number [ ]. They had only been there for a year or so, having moved from somewhere closer to London. They had three children, two boys and a girl. The youngest was a baby, only a few weeks old. I did not know the husband very well, but I knew the wife. She made our lives a misery for two years, and we were very pleased when she ran off. In the months before she left she was frequently drunk, and the noise of her screaming and shouting and throwing things around her house could be heard throughout the street. She and her behaviour were the subject of gossip in the village. She had a succession of boyfriends, but with one she always seemed to be in trouble of one sort or another. She claimed that he beat her up, although I never saw any signs of it on her. She was always saying things to make herself the centre of attention, and so I was unsure whether to believe her or not. I said to her once that if any man hit me, I’d stop seeing him and tell the police, but she laughed and said that she loved him and that I wouldn’t understand. Matters came to a head when she had a fight with this man in the street outside our house. Someone did call the police. She assumed it was my husband and me, which it was not, and from then on she conducted a feud against us. On one occasion a brick came through our living room window, and on another she let down the tyres on our car.

  I have been asked about the character of the husband. I felt sorry for him. He was a quiet type, and he seemed terribly embarrassed by his wife’s behaviour. My husband and I used to wonder why he didn’t leave her. Then she disappeared. It was rumoured in the village that she’d gone off with a boyfriend, not the one who was supposedly violent to her, but another local man. I don’t know his name, but I knew his wife to say “hello” to from church. When she finally left, the street returned to normal. The husband stayed at home more, and the children seemed much happier. The older boy who had been at boarding school came home, and I used to see him cycling to the village school. After about a year the family moved to [ ], a nearby village. We stayed in touch with them and were invited to the party given by the husband when he became a QC, and you could see how happy the family was by then.

  Witness D:

  I am the person named above, and I live at the above address. About fifteen years ago, I retired from full-time employment. However, I soon found that I was bored, and I thought about doing some part-time work. I saw an advert in a local shop for a part-time assistant in an antiques business, in which I had many years’ experience. The advert wanted someone available two days a week to work in a small shop owned by Mrs [ ]. The job was very convenient and so I applied and was appointed. My understanding was that the shop had been purchased for Mrs [ ] by her husband, but he took no part in running it.

  After I’d started I mentioned the job to my brother, who was a retired county court judge and he said knew of Mr [ ]. My brother warned me that Mrs [ ] was a difficult woman and that she had been a thorn in Mr [ ]’s side, even to the point that she was holding back his career. It was rumoured in the village that before the family moved into the area, Mrs [ ] had been having an affair. In fact, people used to say that the youngest child was not the husband’s and, after I got to know her a bit, Mrs [ ] actually confided to me that she had indeed been having an affair and wasn’t sure who the child’s father was. She said that the move away from their previous area had been her husband’s idea so as to make a fresh start.

  I soon realised that Mrs [ ] was not in the least interested in the business. When she took me on, she told me that the job would be temporary as she expected the shop to fail. I thought at the time that she was joking, but after a few weeks it became apparent that she was quite serious, as she made no effort to run the shop, and on the days I didn’t work, it remained closed.

  After a while, however, I began to make the occasional good sale and Mrs [ ] allowed me to do some purchasing on her behalf. At that stage, she began to show an interest in the business, but only to the extent that she would spend everything we made. On more than one occasion, she ran into the shop in high spirits and raided the till, once leaving me with no money in it at all. After a while I discovered she was conducting an affair. She even gave her lover a job in the shop for a short while and it was apparent that he knew nothing about antiques or running a shop. He would sit about all day talking on the telephone until Mrs [ ] came in and then they would disappear, ostensibly for lunch, but more often than not for the rest of the day.

  I met Mr [ ] on several occasions as he would frequently come to the shop to look for his wife. When, as was more normal, she was not there, he would stop for a cup of coffee and discuss how the business was running. I found him to be a quiet, polite man, who seemed resigned to his wife’s attitude. I only heard Mr [ ] and Mrs [ ] argue on one occasion, and that was when Mr [ ] arrived unexpectedly to find his wife and her friend in the small room at the back of the shop. I heard things being thrown around the room and I thought a fight was going on, so I looked in to see if the police should be called. The boyfriend had gone and the rear door was still open. Mrs [ ] had thrown all the things that had been on my desk at her husband. He was surrounded by broken pieces of clock, stationery, correspondence and other odds and ends. He was holding his nose, which was bleeding profusely. When she saw me, Mrs [ ] walked past him to the door and left, but not without hitting him on the side of the head first. He did not respond or retaliate in any way.

  I found the entire scene astonishing. Mr [ ] was very apologetic and said that his wife was excitable, and asked me not to hold it against her. He begged me to stay on, but I wasn’t prepared to work for a woman like her, and I told him so. I helped him staunch the bleeding, and then I left. I did not go back.

  Charles laughs. ‘I wonder why not?’ he asks himself out loud.

  Witness E:

  My name and address are as above. I am the Headmaster of [ ] School, a private boarding school for boys from age 7 to 18 years. Until 1960 I was Housemaster of Churchill House, one of the schoolhouses, and in that capacity I knew [ ], the elder son of Mr and Mrs [ ]. He was with the school for two years. I fear that he did not have a happy time with us. I gathered that there were problems at home, and although Mr [ ] was reluctant to send him, Mrs [ ] was very keen. The boy showed definite signs of emotional problems and was referred to the educational psychologist. He suffered from a stammer which was markedly worse towards the beginning of term, and which I took to be related to whatever had transpired at home during the vacations. He was clearly an intelligent child, with a particular gift in art and music and some ability on the playing field, but he was never able to reach his potential. He only returned here for one term after the separation of his parents, but by the end of that term he was a different child. His stammer had almost disappeared, and his academic results in every subject had improved beyond recognition. He had also begun to take part in more of the school’s social activities. I was sorry in the circumstances that his father decided to remove him from the school at that stage.

  Charles reads on for another hour, but the story is always the same, from neighbours, business associates, parents of the children’s friends, even her own G.P: this woman was an absolute cow. Charles knows, from bitter personal experience, how a festering, unhappy marriage breeds hatre
d, and how irrationally and despicably otherwise perfectly well-balanced people behave. This woman however seemed to have had a propensity for being indiscriminately unpleasant to everyone.

  Two things seem clear to Charles: firstly, he is sure that the more the prosecution digs into the evidence, the more potential murder suspects they’ll find; the woman could make enemies as easily as he makes sandwiches. Secondly, and more importantly from Charles’s point of view, if her husband didn’t kill her, he was a saint.

  Charles now turns to a second bundle of papers. These are the statements of the police officers who found the body, the experts already instructed and, finally, the pathologist’s final deposition. The last he reads very carefully, making notes in the margins and on his notebook, but it is almost word for word the same as the draft he was shown in conference and tells him nothing new.

  An hour later he gets up and makes himself a cup of coffee, which he takes back to his desk. Then, as requested, he telephones Mr Jones.

  ‘Good morning,’ says Jones as Charles is put through. ‘Have you read the statements?’

  ‘I have,’ replies Charles.

  ‘They make interesting reading, don’t they? Let me bring you up to date on the fresh evidence. There are further statements on their way to you by courier, but I’d like your immediate opinion.’

  ‘Fine. Fire away.’

  ‘We have two important developments. Firstly, we’ve tracked down the last boyfriend. He’s moved to Manchester. He says that they spent two days together immediately before the deceased disappeared, in some cottage in the West Country. They drove home and arranged to meet that evening. He claims that he was going to tell her it was all over, and that he had actually done it several times before but she’d always persuaded him to give it one more go. These two days were a sort of farewell, although he was a bit vague as to whether she was aware of it. He says she had a great ability to ignore what she didn’t want to know. You’re not going to believe this, but the boyfriend’s wife knew all about the affair! Had done for ages. She even knew about this last holiday together.’