‘There’ll be a bit of a wait, Doc,’ said the DI. ‘We’re held up for the photographer.’
‘Don’t you think I ought to see if she’s dead?’
Carren hastened to answer, to show he was not neglecting his job. ‘She’s dead all right, I …’ He stopped. Too late, he realised the question had been a facetious one, made because the girl was so very dead. ‘Where the goddamn hell’s that photographer?’
‘Superintendent’s coming, sir,’ said Vernon suddenly.
The DI walked hastily forward. He and the uniformed superintendent, in charge of the division, met and came to a halt fifteen feet along the ride.
The police surgeon took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it to Vernon and Rusk. He flicked open a gas lighter. ‘This must be the first murder in the division for quite a time? I don’t remember one since that half-wit pushed his sister down the well to teach her how to swim.’
‘It’s my first in this part of the world,’ said Rusk. ‘My third since I joined.’
The doctor puffed at the cigarette. ‘It’s a sex job, or I’m a Dutchman, and that means you’re dealing with anything from an idiot to an over-intelligent brain. Odd what the brain can do to the body, and vice versa. I treated a chap once who was very charming and very cultured and quite the darling of all the prim and proper matrons of the district … he lifted up the curtain on part of his sex life. I told him he was boasting and trying to shock me, but he swore he wasn’t.’
‘It needed a twisted brain to do this job,’ remarked Vernon.
The doctor shook his head. ‘Not as twisted as you’d obviously like to think. The plain if unpalatable fact is, it’s in all of us and whether it ever explodes depends on how deep down below the layers of civilisation it’s buried. I have a theory which I’ll be very glad to expand to any audience as captive as you are at the moment. After dealing for many years with sex criminals, it’s my considered opinion that …’ His words were interrupted by the superintendent and the DI.
‘’Morning, Doctor. ’Morning, Rusk, Vernon.’
Superintendent Fearson was a very large man, far larger than Carren, but he was sufficiently big-boned to carry his sixteen stone and yet appear well proportioned. He was an even-tempered martinet, a quality that ensured he was respected but often admiringly disliked.
‘We’re still waiting for the photographer, sir,’ said Carren.
‘So you said.’ The superintendent gestured vaguely with his right hand. ‘We’ll need the army in if we don’t find the knife right away. Drop it in this mess of brambles and bracken and you could walk straight over it a dozen times.’
‘That’s all too true, sir.’
‘Must make for nice shooting in the season.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir,’ said Carren unnecessarily.
The superintendent seemed to smile briefly. ‘Never had time for such sport, of course?’
‘Never had the money, sir.’
‘You don’t need that — just useful ground that’s not too difficult to poach. There’s nothing to touch the taste of a bird that’s cost you two hours’ hard work and a near brush with the head keeper … Here’s Plane.’
They turned and watched the detective-sergeant who doubled as photographic and fingerprint expert.
‘You’ve been one hell of a time,’ snapped the DI. He looked at his watch yet again. ‘Did someone invite you in for a drink on the way?’
Plane was unruffled. ‘I was doing very well, sir, until the local traffic boys didn’t recognise me and tried to pull me in for speeding. They kept waving me down and I gave ’em the old two fingers for luck. Seemed to upset them and took a bit of time to cool ’em down once we were all stopped.’ He put down his suitcase and laid the photographic equipment on top of it. ‘Usual routine, sir?’
‘Yes, and make it snappy.’
‘Snappy photographs coming up, sir. Two and six each, guaranteed to make old men young and young men frantic.’
‘Get on with the job, Sergeant.’
Rusk walked back along the ride to the road. A journalist he vaguely knew stopped him. ‘What’s the story, Sergeant?’
‘One dead girl. For anything more, listen in to the one o’clock news.’
‘Let’s have some meat. You do the job properly and I’ll guarantee you a good write-up with a photograph.’
‘Sorry, I’m strictly non-photogenic.’ Rusk walked round the other. He disliked journalists as a tribe because they interfered with privacy. He reached the road and noticed the newly arrived police caravan which was being backed into the field opposite. Post office officials would soon connect the telephone within it to the nearest lines to make direct communication with Ashford possible.
He walked along the road for thirty feet and then turned left into the rearing-field. Dunn was in the middle of it, watering the movable pens. Rusk crossed the grass, taking time off to watch the bees busy around flowering white clover.
Dunn looked up once, then opened the door of the pen before him, leaned forward slowly in order not to disturb too greatly the birds inside, and brought out a drinking fountain. He closed the door.
‘Don’t come any nearer. They’ll take fright of strangers and smash ’emselves against the netting.’
Rusk watched the pheasant poults jump up and down from the corner perches that were also the handles by which the pens were moved. ‘Nice birds.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
‘Has it been a good year?’
‘Could be better.’ Dunn filled up the metal drinking fountain, then replaced it in the pen. He stood up and studied the poults for any signs of droopiness or hunchiness.
‘Much disease this year?’ asked Rusk. ‘Not yet.’
‘That makes it sound as though you were expecting some.’
‘Always expecting it, often gets it.’
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Rusk.’
‘I didn’t reckon you was from the corn merchants.’
‘Got time for a few questions?’
‘When I’ve finished me watering. Give us a hand and pick up t’other tin over there.’
They moved along the rows of pens and Dunn added water to the drinking fountain of each. In the last pen but one was a poult hunched up in the near corner. Dunn picked it out, examined it. ‘You was drooping yesterday, weren’t you?’ Suddenly, he smacked its head down on the wooden top of the pen. ‘If only they’d do that to us humans when we went drooping.’
At the end of the job, Dunn reached into his pocket and took out a tin. He opened it and began to roll a cigarette. ‘You smoke tailoreds, I wouldn’t doubt?’
‘I’ll take a rolled if I’m offered it.’ Dunn finished rolling the paper round the tobacco, handed Rusk the cigarette ungummed. ‘You’ll prefer your own spit.’ Rusk licked the paper, stuck it down, and lit the cigarette.
‘What are they doing in there?’ asked Dunn. He jerked his hand towards the wood.
‘Searching, examining.’
‘And to hell with the nesting birds?’
‘They’re way down in the list of priorities … Ever seen the dead girl before?’
‘Never.’
‘Quite certain?’
‘Wouldn’t have spoken otherwise.’ Dunn turned and whistled and his dog came thundering across the field from the spot where it had been made to wait. He patted the dog’s head.
‘Were you round this part of the woods at all last night?’
‘I was round most parts.’
Rusk knocked the ash from the tip of the cigarette. ‘What’s riling you — our big feet?’
‘Aye. I could have done without ’em, and that’s straight. But then I could lose you people altogether.’
‘Why especially?’
‘You took the book to court, didn’t you?’
‘Book?’
‘I was friendly with a widow of the village.’ Dunn stared across the fields with half shut eyes. ‘Her own house and furniture, very solid and c
omfortable. But she reads. Me, I don’t have time. Sunday newspaper, maybe, and not even that during the rearing season. Come the time I had a half-day and we went for a walk. “I’ve a proposition to make to you,” I says. “Have you,” she says. I wanted to do it proper so I picked a bunch of daisies. I knowed they weren’t orchids, but I was tryin’ to do it correct … She saw what I was doing, and she started. Told me my proposition was so disgusting she’d never speak to me again … And she hasn’t. Going round with the pub-keeper.’
Rusk realised what the name of the book had been.
CHAPTER 3
Photographs had been taken, sketches made. The search of the ground about the body was completed and the body had been carried away on a stretcher to the undertaker’s van waiting on the road.
There were two marks in the ground by the side of the place where the body had laid: marks that had remained because at that point there were no brambles or bracken, and the ground was relatively damp. In shape, they were rather like a croquet hoop and they varied in depth from an inch and a half at the top end to nothing at the point where their form became lost.
The DI knelt on a small square of wood and examined the marks. ‘There’s a fabric pattern and a couple of threads,’ he said.
‘The murderer knelt there as he said his prayers,’ said the doctor, as he packed his bag.
Carren muttered something. He had obviously been embarrassed by the reference and had it been made by a junior, he would have kicked up hell for blasphemy. Carren was not of the Establishment — he professed to despise it — but his behaviour was such as he subconsciously expected a member of the Establishment to display in similar circumstances.
The doctor had noticed the reaction to his words. ‘I’m not being funny.’ The hideous screech of a magpie sounded to the right. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll call in a damn’ good psychiatrist who can give you chapter and verse, but I know enough to say this much. The murderer probably dragged the girl here and then prayed for her soul in a frenzy of self-hatred and humiliation, and asked forgiveness for what he’d done.’ The doctor snapped the case shut. ‘And after that he left, and in next to no time he’ll be ready to meet the next victim.’
Carren stared briefly at the doctor, then shifted his gaze. He looked round. ‘Vernon, let’s have a couple of small bags.’
Vernon opened the imitation leather case that was in the centre of the ride and took from it two plastic bags a couple of inches square. He handed them to the DI.
The DI used a pair of blunt-ended tweezers to pry loose the two small threads that had been embedded in the right-hand knee print. He placed a thread in each of the plastic bags and sealed them. ‘Noted down what I’m doing?’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Vernon.
Carren took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘Have you put down that I found the threads in the right-hand mark?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Vernon spoke with a trace of weariness. The DI was never sufficiently confident of himself to allow that those under him could carry out their jobs using their own initiative.
‘Take casts of the two prints.’ The DI stood up and dusted the knees of his trousers. He always dressed carefully but never well because he had not learned to subdue his love of flamboyance.
Vernon waited until the DI had left, then took from the case a small spray gun, a rubber cup, a bag of powder, a metal canister filled with water, and a tin of talcum powder. Using the gun, he sprayed shellac over the nearer of the prints until a thin layer of the liquid had settled on it. He applied talcum powder to the top of the shellac; finally he prepared the plaster of Paris. The rubber cup was half-filled with water, after which the plaster of Paris was spread over the water and allowed to sink to the bottom, whereupon the procedure was repeated until the water was unable to absorb any more powder. He stirred the mixture thoroughly and poured it into the print to a depth of about a third of an inch. Strengthening, in the form of pieces of twine, was applied along the length of the print, and then he added another layer of plaster. When the plaster set it would be lifted out and would provide a permanent recording of the print.
*
The GPO men had connected up the police caravan to the telephone lines that served the scattered farmhouses. Apart from the telephone, the caravan contained a portable Elsan, a Calor gas ring, cupboards, a table and three chairs, a large map of the county on hardboard, and such general equipment as experience had shown was most likely to be needed.
The telephone rang and the duty constable answered it. ‘Mobile unit.’
‘We’ve checked missing persons and it looks as though we’ve got the girl. Brenda Elaine Ellery, aged twenty, lives in Vorley and works there as a shop assistant, that is when she isn’t assisting the boys. Round face …’
‘Hang on, chum, I never took a degree in shorthand.’
‘You ought to memorise the facts, like we had to in the old days.’
‘They’ve invented paper and pencil since then … O.K. She’s got a round face.’
‘Partly snub-nosed, blue eyes, even teeth, blonde by grace of Boots, tight curls. Five feet three tall, weight nine stone something. Birth-mark on left hip, which many of her boy-friends can identify. Last known to have worn blue cardigan, white blouse, very tight red skirt, red shoes, and seamless stockings. Probably had black plastic handbag.’
‘Went out last night with her latest and best to the pictures. In the interval she wanted orangeade and he would only buy her ice-cream so there was a row and she left. He says she was always like that and he wasn’t giving in to her no more, he wasn’t. Cave-man approach.’
‘Didn’t work very well.’
‘Don’t suppose it did, even when there were caves. The boy-friend stayed on for the second picture and then went home. Knows nothing more. The girl’s parents didn’t know she wasn’t in until they went to wake her this morning. Ma thought the very worst and went rushing round to the boy-friend’s house, and that’s when Ma discovered her daughter hadn’t disgraced the family like she thought she had. Ma came round to the police station and they got in touch with us. She’s gone home for photographs and after that she’s booked in for the morgue.’
‘I’ll let Old Smarmy know.’
‘How is our beloved DI?’
‘Doesn’t look ready for his coffin yet.’
‘You never can tell. It sometimes gets them quick. Be good.’
‘No chance to do anything else in this God-forsaken place. The natives must get ruddy bored in the wintertime.’
The connection was cut and the constable tore off the sheets of paper on which he had written the girl’s description. As he went to leave the caravan, Carren hurried in. ‘Tell the station we want at least a dozen more men out here.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘The super says to skim off some of the office boys. Also, get a line through to Maidstone. I want a word with Mr Ampforth.’
‘Right, sir … Just been a call from the station about a possible identification of the body. Girl by the name of Brenda Ellery.’
*
Plane carried the girl’s bag into the caravan, placed it on the table, and removed the plastic sheeting that had been wrapped round it. He opened the squat glass jar of fine white powder and brushed the powder over the surface of the bag. On the first side he gained only a jumble of marks but on the second, in the bottom right-hand corner, a print came into being. He used the tip of a feather to scatter the powder more evenly but, despite all the care he took, no more than a blurred pattern emerged. He studied the print. It came from the palm of a hand.
He set up his photographic equipment and after considerable swearing managed to take three photographs of the print.
The girl’s clothes had been left neatly folded in the order in which they had been removed. They were carefully unfolded and examined over a white sheet, then packed into plastic bags which were sealed and put ready for transportation to Scotland Yard’s forensic laboratory. Great car
e was taken to pass them on to the man who would deliver them to the laboratory: it was easier to prove in court a short chain of continuity of handling than a long one.
*
Rusk wondered whether every generation had, as an act of evolution, to lose touch with the next. Was that the only way the human race could make real progress? He stared at the girl he was questioning in the front room of her mother’s house.
Vivid make-up that defeated its object, straggling black hair that looked as though it needed a damn’ good wash, a nylon blouse that was made to accentuate the over-ripe breasts, and a short skirt that high-lighted ugly, almost misshapen knees.
‘You knew Brenda quite well?’ said Rusk.
‘I knew’er.’
‘What kind of girl was she?’
‘What d’you mean, what kind?’
‘Good-tempered, bad-tempered, thoughtful, kind, careless, retiring …’
‘’Er — retiring? Come off it. She was so dizzy she looped the loop.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You don’t know?’ The girl was staggered to find anyone so ignorant. ‘She was trouser-mad. Tell ’er there was a man in the next room and she was all of a dizzy.’
‘Would you say she had many affairs?’
‘Affairs!’ The girl laughed unpleasantly. ‘Look, I’m telling you. I was goin’ steady with Jim and he was squared with me. Then up she comes and waves all she’d got to wave, and before there’s time to repair me make-up Jim’s knocking on the door as hard as he can.’
‘Did you know she went out with Jim Porter last night?’
The girl pouted. ‘I knew he weren’t out with me.’
‘Would you say she was the kind of girl willingly to go out with someone she didn’t know?’
‘If she didn’t know’im, she couldn’t go out with ’im.’
Rusk wondered how much of the public’s money had been wasted on the girl’s eduction. ‘Suppose Brenda had left the cinema in a temper and a stranger had come up to her and suggested they went and had a drink together, d’you think she’d have accepted?’
Exhibit No. Thirteen Page 2
