Corpse
Philip McCutchan
© Philip McCutchan 1980
Charles Spencer has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1980 by Hodder & Stoughton.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
Twelve
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
ONE
The girl was stone cold dead; so much was obvious at first glance, even the casual glance that in the red glow had revealed the body to me as I waited at some traffic lights on the outskirts of Peterborough. I was alongside a building site. It was, I thought, a hell of a place to be found dead, and not just the fact of the building site either: Peterborough is a fine old cathedral sadly isolated in a glut of any-old-High-Street shop names over featureless fronts. It was late at night and not much traffic around. I reversed until I was clear of the lights, parked, and ran back to the body. It had been some while dead. I scrabbled away at what looked like the contents of several generations of dustbins, all mixed in with broken bricks, mortar, wood and concrete, what the building industry uses as a sort of basic filler to make a foundation. At first only the girl’s head and chest had been visible to my torch, but I cleared enough rubble to see the cause of death staring me in the face: the stomach had been penetrated by three evenly-spaced bullets.
I stood up, breathing deep. I had an immense fellow-feeling for that girl. It wasn’t so long since I’d fought a battle with a building site down in Woolwich, only I’d been intended to suffocate below ground and had been lucky enough to be rescued by the friendly neighbourhood bulldozer. This looked different. There being nothing else I could do, I went back to my car and went in search of the nick, where I identified myself and quoted 6D2 at the law, stressing that I was tired and wanted to go to bed. They said they would investigate right away, and where could I be found if needed?
“Talbot House Hotel, Oundle,” I said.
“Under your own name, Commander Shaw?”
I laughed at that. “6D2’s not MI5 or whatever. Inspector. Often enough we’re cloak-and-dagger, but not when on leave.”
I saw the law note down ‘on leave’. A few minutes later I was driving out of Peterborough again, back past the awful anonymity of Boots, Dolcis, Currys, The Co-op, various building societies, and Freeman, Hardy and Willis, with the cathedral spire rising rather pathetically over the dismal view. Oundle was thankfully different: ancient serenity unruined by progress, with a first-class hotel complete with old courtyard and walled garden alongside the calm cloisters of the famous school. Oundle was dignity, charm and individuality … I was thinking about that girl, though. Dignity had been far away from her at the end, and it had been impossible to tell whether she had had charm or not the police were going to have a hell of a job of identification, though she just might check with their list of missing persons.
I went up to bed: the bar had closed long since. I passed Felicity’s room, hesitated, but didn’t knock. I knew Miss Mandrake would be willing, because Miss Mandrake nearly always was, but with that pathetic young body on my mind I couldn’t raise the enthusiasm. To us. the field men of 6D2, the dead come, I suppose, easy, for they’re largely our stock-in-trade: but when they’re young and female it’s different and not all the women’s libbers in the world will ever alter that fact. One still does not associate girls with violent death and never mind the swelling ranks of rapists who provide the statistics that prove the opposite …
In my room bed beckoned but the telephone burred and it was Peterborough police. “Commander Shaw? You’d better come over, sir, if you don’t mind. Something’s come up.”
*
Leave is given, and leave is all too often taken away when the world’s affairs beckon. Focal House — the HQ building of 6D2 Britain — was on the line early. After virtually no sleep because of the police — and following upon a bachelor party earlier that night with a former 6D2 man in Grantham — I didn’t fancy driving all the way to London, so Felicity Mandrake drove the Scimitar while I filled her in on the night’s events.
“Why,” she asked as she headed out of Oundle towards the A1, “the police phone summons? Come to that, why Focal House?”
I said, “I’m not sure about FH. The police … they found a brand mark. Burned in with a red-hot branding iron.”
“On the body?”
“Yes. Beneath the right breast. Before or after death, I don’t know. CORPSE, in capital letters.”
She gave a hard laugh, no humour. “Appropriate!”
“You could say so. She was far gone,” I added. “It was only just visible. I missed it, first time round.” I paused. “The other body was a lot fresher.”
She turned and stared. “Another body?”
“Yes. With CORPSE, just below the right nipple. Stabbed in four places. A man this time, in a car parked in the town.”
“What does it mean — CORPSE?”
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea at all. Felicity.”
“I don’t suppose it means anything in our sense. Does it?”
I said, “I don’t know, but it could be why FH wants me. We’ll know about that soon.”
Felicity frowned, and shifted gear as she came up behind a mobile haystack blocking the road, which was narrow. I liked Miss Mandrake when she frowned — liked her at any time, but somehow the furrowed brow added something, I don’t know why. I hadn’t met her until she’d been assigned to me on my last job — assigned as my field assistant, notionally secretary, although she in fact outranked me in the 6D2 hierarchy, which was something she was apt to dwell upon at times. Since getting back from the Chinese mainland, though we hadn’t worked together again, she’d become a habit in off-duty hours. Max, Executive Head of 6D2 Britain, hadn’t commented; but his general sourness and his forebearing looks indicated that he knew, all right. Miss Mandrake spurted in third past the farm vehicle and raced up the road, swinging back in just before a corner; I didn’t really like her driving, but never mind … She asked, “Had the police any ideas?”
“None as yet,” I said. Last night could have been time wasted; on the other hand I had a feeling it wouldn’t rest there, and not just because I’d been ordered in to FH on the heels of it. It was the whole set-up and above all that curious brand. CORPSE in faded, decaying royal purple beneath the breast of a dead body is not commonplace. The fact of death does not normally require the literary support of a branded statement. We live in a world of silly initials: NATO, ASLEF, COMAIRPAC, NUPE … it all started after the last war, of course, probably as a direct result of SWALK. In my book, CORPSE had to mean something, and something nasty at that.
*
Miss Mandrake took the A1 at a hurtle and then the London traffic reined her in and we entered the City sedately and drove into the underground car park at Focal House, forty-two storeys below the helicopter landing pad on the reinforced roof. We were met by a uniformed commissionaire, one Horridge, late Company Sergeant-Major in the Black Watch. He was an elderly man with a wooden leg acquired in Aden when attached to the Argyll and Sutherland at Crater.
“Good morning, sir and madam.” Horridge saluted, real parade-ground smart. He still respected my naval commission, ex though I might be. “You’re wanted in the suite, sir,’’ he said, the ref
erence being to Max — who was known just as Max throughout 6D2, it not being his real name of course, but CSM Horridge had told me once that it went against the military grain to refer to a CO by a mere Christian name, so he’d found his own way round that one. “Word’s just come down.”
I asked irritably, “How did he know I’d got here?”
Horridge released a faint smile. “The suite, sir. has long ears.’’
“Plus built-in radar,’’ I said. “He’ll have noted Miss Mandrake breaking the speed limit all the way down the A1.”
Horridge coughed; he didn’t approve of officers criticising one another in front of NCOs. He asked formally, “Shall I inform the suite you’re on your way tip, sir?’’ He departed from attention for long enough to tweak at the ends of his moustache.
Gravely I said, “If you please, Horridge,’’ and he marched away to his official kiosk where he used the internal telephone. Miss Mandrake and I went into the network of corridors and staircases, lifts and offices that formed the vast warren of Focal House. I murmured the obvious to Miss Mandrake: the nick at Peterborough had been in touch with Max, so maybe something else had emerged. We went for a lift, walking past the underground armoury, the Physical Fitness Room known as the tough-up chamber, the sound-proofed firing range, the series of cell-like apartments, all padded, where the field men were put through the interrogation-accustoming routines in front of blinding lights. The lift hoisted us fast past the various floors where you could find the many sections that made up the Britain organisation: Foreign Office Liaison, Police Liaison, CIA Liaison, FBI, Interpol … you name it, we had a liaison officer plus team. We were big, yet we were strictly unofficial, non-Establishment, independent of but backed by the various Western governments, and all that gave us immense freedom in operation. No accounting to parliament or the People — that was 6D2 Britain, and the same went for 6D2 North America et cetera et cetera. And here in Britain, God was called Max and sat haloed upon a swivel throne of expensive tulipwood padded with plush velvet. He was well protected by five secretaries, the chief of whom was named, inaptly, Mrs Dodge the one thing you couldn’t do was to dodge her. But this morning she was in an ushering mood.
“Good morning, Commander Shaw, Max will see you right away.” She bustled to her intercom, spoke briefly to Max, then went to his door and swung it open and in I went. Miss Mandrake staying behind to take tea with Mrs Dodge unless and until sent for; she was really not germane to the Peterborough business but if there were to be developments I intended to ask for her services on personal attachment.
“Ah, Shaw.” Max didn’t get to his feet: his stomach was a heavy one and he tended to be ashamed of it. He kept it behind the desk, which was of tulipwood like the chair and was estimated to have cost at least fifty thousand pounds.
I asked, “Has Peterborough been in touch direct?”
“Yes,” he said. “Reason — and the reason why you’re here — is that the male body was a VIP. Or at any rate, a pretty high civil servant. More about that soon.” He fixed me with a look. “I don’t in fact have built-in radar,” he said, from which I knew he’d had his bug pressed, “so perhaps you’ll tell me what you’ve been up to with Miss Mandrake?”
I glared. “Do you really want to know?” I asked.
“No.” He waved a hand. “Sit down and fill me in, leave nothing out. About the bodies.”
“If the police — ”
“You heard what I said. I want your own words.”
I did as bid. Max listened closely, his piercing eyes on me all the time, not even a blink so far as I was aware. When I’d finished he sat back in his chair and stared at me over the tips of his interlaced fingers. He said, “CORPSE. Hmm.”
“Do we know what it means?” I asked.
“No. And I gather the police have no views. Or clues either.”
“Correct. It’s difficult to see what the girl would have looked like in life, of course, and up to the time I left the station after my second visit they hadn’t tied her in with any of their own missing persons. Or the man. It’s yet to be checked nationwide,” I added. “The man — ”
“Quite. And is being. I’ve been on to the Yard personally. All fingers out in regard to the girl.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Is she that big?”
“How should I know — yet?” Max brought out a cigar case. He didn’t offer it to me, but lit up himself; the lighter was gold. He said over the smoke, “There are pointers that must be taken seriously.”
“Where do they point?” I asked.
Max shrugged. He said, “I’ll take the girl first. Peterborough police gave me their guess at what happened in her case — I’ll come back to that in a moment. Forensic had finished their autopsy — death took place a matter of weeks ago, they can’t be very specific but suggest three weeks. Cause clear enough: gunshot. The murder weapon — they found a bullet lodged in the spine — fired an A.22 cartridge, the standard small-bore target round. Many different types of gun could be involved as you’ll be aware, but the weapons experts believe this was fired from an automatic rifle made by Hammerli of Switzerland. Nothing new about it — ”
“I’m familiar with it,’’ I interrupted.
“What do you know about it?”
I said, “Weight forty ounces — ”
“We’ve gone metric.”
“I haven’t,” I said, “but if you insist, 1,134 grams, eighteen inches — forty-five centimetres — in length.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes,” I said, as it came to me all of a sudden. “A whopping great grip. When used criminally, it’s been strictly for assassination only. But if that’s what you’re getting at, then I don’t see why. Murder’s murder, and just because — ”
Max interrupted. “I’m not necessarily getting at anything, Shaw, but it has made me think, and what I think is this: the particular weapon used is not the sort any ordinary professional criminal would be likely to use, nor would a jealous boyfriend, nor would the common or garden amateur mugger. Added to which forensic is positive she hadn’t been killed on the building site. This does not look like any chance killing by a would-be rapist on the loose, according to Peterborough CID. Now here’s their guess: during the day before, deliveries of rubble are known to have been made by contractors who are probably being questioned at this moment. In recent months, recent weeks, a number of decayed properties have been demolished in Peterborough. The police view is that the unknown girl could have been killed in one of these properties, the body was left, the bulldozers moved in, and she was carted off in the rubble.”
“And just tipped?”
Max nodded. “Just tipped, Shaw, and almost certainly a matter of hours before you spotted her. It may be odd she wasn’t found sooner, but men delivering rubble to building sites are not customarily on the watch for bodies. And the rubble could have shifted on its own after work had packed up for the day.”
I said, “Yes, it holds together as a theory, all right. But I find nothing to suggest it’s our job rather than an ordinary police one except for CORPSE, that is, and we could be reading too much into that.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of CORPSE, Shaw. Let us now come to the male body.” He leaned forward, slabbing a finger at me. “I have an identification — it came in only just before you got here, made from the tailor’s labels in the suit — Savile Row, as you may have seen for yourself. His name was Chartner. He was forty-nine years of age … and he was a Deputy Secretary at the Department of Industry who’d been assigned to an investigation on a political level of a dispute affecting the Adger-Craby chemical complex at Corby.” Corby was in Northamptonshire, not so far from Peterborough. “The car, by the way, was not Chartner’s a check’s been made with Swansea’s wretched computer. I regard it as an accolade that it was made to work fast.”
*
It was to be, in Max’s words, what the police call a long slog. Already Max had been in touch with Whitehall’s
mandarins and 6D2 had been presented with the job. There would be a clamp on the press. There would be liaison with the police, but we’d been asked to take the responsibility, largely because of Max’s own expressed anxieties as to the meaning of CORPSE. Like me. his mind had flown to all those silly sets of initials, the laborious shuttling of words to make up something that stuck in the mind. No one would ever have heard of NATSOPA if it hadn’t juggled itself, though the AUEW seems to get away with it somehow. Anyway, CORPSE had began to have overtones of a political involvement and a nasty one, and I, aided at my request by Miss Mandrake, was to root it out and see what made it grow. A long slog, yes — many people to talk to, all manner of clues to follow up if and when they emerged, basically of course a police job and one that failed to engage my enthusiasm. But naturally at that stage I had no idea how far this thing had spread already, had no conception of what was involved, of what was to be dredged up from below the tip of the iceberg that had shown in Peterborough, of clandestine but world-wide movements taking place even then against the security of Britain and the continuance of life for so many millions of British people, of the insidious threat about to move in from somewhere that could be anywhere between the coasts of far Japan to the Statue of Liberty off Manhattan by way of the Middle East, from the frozen waste of the South Polar icecap up to the waters of the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland … CORPSE had gathered way unseen, silent behind the cloak of brilliant security.
I collected Miss Mandrake from Mrs Dodge. The two of them had been nattering away like grannies over their knitting, and Mrs Dodge remarked to me that Miss Mandrake looked bonny, with a healthy colour in her cheeks. “It must be the air out of London,” she said rather wistfully, and I agreed that indeed it must, though I knew of other things that gave Miss Mandrake that bonny look. We left Mrs Dodge to supervise her secretarial team and went down again in the lift. I gave Felicity the gist of my interview with Max and told her she was back on my personal staff, taking demotion to the field once again. She seemed happy enough; I believe I’d become a habit too.
Corpse (Commander Shaw Book 15) Page 1
