Denial of Murder

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘I see. Thank you.’ Penny Yewdall sat back in her chair. ‘I’ll read his file.’

  ‘There’s not much to read.’ Harry Vicary also reclined in his chair. ‘Like I said, he’s got a few petty offences against his name which are useful only for his fingerprints and his DNA, but he is believed to be behind a lot of very heavy numbers and serious crimes which have gone down in this town over the years: Class A drug supply, contract killings, people smuggling, theft of high-end cars for export to the Middle East. But can we pin anything substantial on him? Can we ever? He’s always in the background. We have three murders, the murder of Janet Frost, the murder of Gordon Cogan and the murder of Cherry Quoshie, all being mentioned in the same sentences, and now Tony Smith’s pestilential breath is blowing over the case like a miasma, that’s just him. “Pestilence” Smith.’

  ‘I see.’ Yewdall spoke softly.

  ‘Like a bad odour in the background. Silent. Unseen. But there, and deadly,’ Vicary further explained. ‘Now he’s in the mix. So read his file anyway, but as I say, it won’t take you very long at all.’

  ‘I will,’ Penny Yewdall nodded gently, ‘I definitely will.’

  ‘Well …’ Vicary placed his hands on his desk, ‘at least now we know who we might be up against. If he’s in the background then we will probably find that folk are unwilling to talk. It’s therefore going to be an uphill struggle. So what’s for action?’

  Frankie Brunnie raised his hand by a few inches.

  ‘Yes, Frankie?’ Vicary addressed him.

  ‘It’s just something that Victor and I want to float. It may have no bearing on the investigation, and we left it out of our report …’

  ‘Frankie,’ Vicary’s voice continued in a note of despair, ‘Detective Sergeant, you know what I feel about anything being left out of reports … all observations, all suspicions … it all goes into the pot, all of it.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but on this occasion we both felt we ought to be …’ Brunnie’s voice faltered.

  ‘Circumspect,’ Swannell offered. ‘I think that’s the word. We both felt that a little diplomacy was in order before we committed our thoughts to print. That was our thinking, boss.’

  ‘Oh …’ Vicary glanced at Swannell, and then at Brunnie, ‘is this something we should be worried about?’

  ‘Well,’ Brunnie leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together, ‘in a nutshell, it transpires that Gordon Cogan was convicted of the murder of Janet Frost based solely on DNA evidence.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Vicary asked, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘Just DNA?’

  ‘Just DNA, yes, sir. It was before the rules of evidence changed. He was convicted back in the day when people thought DNA was as safe as houses, before its shortcomings were known.’

  ‘Oh …’ Vicary groaned, ‘I don’t think I like where this is going.’

  ‘No one who knew Gordon Cogan had said that he was capable of murder. We would expect to hear that sentiment from his family but yesterday even the sister of his victim, Janet Frost’s sister, who met Gordon Cogan before the murder of her sister – even she said she thought him incapable of murder. She even went so far as to say that when she sat through the trial and Gordon Cogan pleaded “not guilty”, a part of her believed him.’

  ‘A wrongful conviction,’ Vicary stated, bluntly, ‘is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Possibly, sir. Possibly a wrongful conviction, no evidence yet, but Gordon Cogan had no motivation to murder Janet Frost and the police in Acton didn’t dust Janet Frost’s room for his fingerprints,’ Brunnie added.

  ‘They didn’t!’ Vicary gasped.

  ‘No, sir,’ Swannell confirmed, ‘they didn’t. To them that house, that crime scene, was just a vipers’ nest full of lowlifes. One left his DNA over the dead body of another when he murdered her whilst under the influence of vodka so that explained, they assumed, why he has no recollection of the incident. “Open and shut”, they said proudly. Just how they like ’em. Apparently.’

  ‘I see your reason for being diplomatic.’ Harry Vicary breathed deeply. ‘I am surprised that the Crown Prosecution Service ran with that.’

  ‘Well, fifteen years ago, sir,’ Swannell explained, ‘DNA was the magic bullet, DNA can do no wrong, it can be used to prove anything. Now we know it really only comes into its own when used to eliminate suspects, and is deeply flawed when it is used to convict, as you are aware.’

  ‘Yes … yes …’ Vicary nodded, ‘you were right not to record that. We will keep this to ourselves for the time being, but if we do get evidence of a wrongful conviction, then we expose it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Swannell replied, smiling in agreement, as did Frankie Brunnie.

  ‘But only if we get evidence.’ Vicary paused. ‘Right, so what is for action? Tom and Penny …’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I want you two to stay teamed up,’ Vicary announced.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Find out what you can about Cherry Quoshie,’ Vicary directed. ‘Find out what you can about her and look for a link with Gordon Cogan.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ainsclough replied.

  ‘Then go and visit Philip Dawson, whoever he is, and see what he wants to tell us.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ainsclough replied again.

  ‘Frankie and Victor.’

  ‘Yes, boss?’ Brunnie smiled.

  ‘It’s a drive down to Hampshire for you two.’ Vicary grinned. ‘Lucky you two, you get to go out of the city and into the country, some nice, breathable country air for you both to enjoy.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  ‘Then, upon your return, I want you to call on the man himself, Tony “the Pestilence” Smith. Apparently he lives up in Southgate. You know the form … just to say hello … does he know that the man who abducted and raped his daughter has been murdered? Just so he knows that we have made the connection. I think he can also know that we are connecting Gordon Cogan’s murder with the murder of Cherry Quoshie because they were murdered in the same, identical manner, and because their bodies were dumped in the same place … twenty-four hours apart but at the same location … and you can let him know that we know about Scythe Brook Cottage in Micheldever. If he has any involvement, which my waters say he has, then that will unnerve him. It might cause him to trip himself up quite nicely.’

  Brunnie and Swannell drove south-west out of London and into Hampshire. The two men spoke seldom during the journey and so for the most part the drive was passed in a contented and a relaxed silence generated by two men who respected each other and who seemed to know what each other was thinking. Swannell was happy to let Brunnie drive and he greatly enjoyed the journey from the passenger seat, glancing as much to his left as he did the road ahead. Swannell was able to escape London only on infrequent occasions and he found the gentle, lush green landscape they encountered once they were beyond Guildford to be uplifting. Brunnie joined the A33, and then, fifteen minutes later, following Swannell’s clearly given directions whilst consulting the road atlas, turned right, off the A33 and on to Duke Street, towards Micheldever, Hants, SO12. Brunnie slowed the car and raised a finger, pointing to a hand-painted sign which had been nailed to a tree and which read ‘Scythe Brook Cottage’.

  Swannell grinned. ‘Well spotted,’ he said, slowing the car as he read the white on green sign, ‘I would have missed that. So here we are with no need to enquire at the post office after all.’

  ‘None, it seems.’ Brunnie turned left and put the car at what revealed itself to be an unmettled track with wheel indentations either side of a grassy moraine which ran down its centre. Hawthorn hedgerows lined the track up to a height of approximately four feet, Brunnie estimated, though in places the level of the hedge undulated above and below the average height. After about a quarter of a mile a second sign which also read ‘Scythe Brook Cottage’ was noticed. The second sign pointed to the right and just beyond it the hedgerow stopped and was interrupted by a rai
sed grass lawn, upon which stood a small detached house about fifty feet from the roadway. The house itself stood in generous grounds, mostly beyond the building as it was viewed from the road, and covered what Swannell guessed to be about one-third of an acre. A gravel drive ran from the track to the side of the cottage. The track itself continued on beyond the cottage and seemed, so far as the officers could tell, to lead to a line of cottages, about six in all, whose red roofs could be seen about half a mile distant. Both officers remained in the car and looked at Scythe Brook Cottage. It was made of brick, white painted, with a red tiled roof. At the end of the gravel drive stood a dull, grey-coloured two-car garage of a prefabricated design, and beyond the garage the stream could be followed by walking along a line of shrubs which grew thickly along both banks.

  Swannell and Brunnie glanced at each other and without a word being spoken Brunnie drove the car off the track and down the gravel drive, coming to a halt when he was level with the cottage. He switched off the car’s engine and he and Swannell opened their doors and stepped out of the vehicle. They breathed strong country air with great appreciation as they walked side by side up a stone-laid path to the front door of the cottage, which was enclosed by an evidently recently painted porch. On a shelf inside the porch, clearly visible, was a neatly written sign which read ‘all enquiries re. this building to 127 Rook Lane, Micheldever’. Brunnie rapped heavily on the door of the porch but, although his knocking was heard to echo loudly within the cottage, he could raise no response.

  ‘Dare say it would be too much to expect that there would be someone at home,’ Brunnie growled.

  Brunnie and Swannell turned away from the cottage and walked towards the garage. As they turned they noticed the remnants of a fire on the lawn beyond it. Brunnie nudged Swannell who said, ‘Yes, I see it, but the garage first.’ At the garage Swannell lifted the up and over door to reveal an empty building with just a work bench at the far end. Swannell closed the door and he and Brunnie walked across the lawn to the remnants of the fire. The scorched area was circular and surrounded by a series of stones.

  ‘Someone has been a boy scout,’ Brunnie remarked.

  ‘Indeed.’ Swannell looked down at the stone circle. ‘That fire would have made my old skip well happy, contained by stones like it was and not near anything combustible.’ He looked about him and noted tall trees surrounding the land in which the cottage stood. ‘The fire can’t be overlooked, hidden from the track as it is by the house … the nearest other houses are about half a mile away … a gag in Cherry Quoshie’s mouth and yes, a very good place to torture someone – a little far out of London for some reason, but nevertheless a good place indeed as a location to extract information from someone. Very good indeed.’

  ‘And the cottage will be a rented property, that is to say as in a holiday let,’ Brunnie added.

  ‘You think so?’ Swannell glanced at him.

  ‘Well, yes, don’t you? No one at home, not even one car in a double garage, the note in the porch directing any caller to another address … there will be nothing here to link the people who murdered Gordon Cogan and Cherry Quoshie to this building. And the cottage would have been rented under an assumed name, of that you can be sure.’

  ‘Reckon you’re right there.’ Swannell once again looked about him. ‘Of course it would. I mean, we don’t know for certain yet, but if we are dealing with “Pestilence” Smith, then he knows his stuff and his tracks will be well and truly covered. Very well and truly covered indeed. All right … to horse, to horse … so let’s make some inquiries about this property.’

  Frankie Brunnie turned the car around and drove back down the rutted track to Duke Street, then turned left towards Micheldever. They followed the narrow, high hedge which boarded Duke Street on either side and first encountered two white-painted, half-timbered houses, one on either side of the road, with thatched roofs, the timbers of which had been picked out in black gloss paint. The houses stood, thought Swannell, like two sentinels guarding the entrance to the village. Beyond the two black and white houses there was a break in the line of properties. Swannell noted open fields to the right leading out across a flat farmed landscape to a distant skyline, all under a blue sky with high clouds at, in RAF speak, three tenths. Brunnie drove slowly and carefully onwards and they seemed to enter the village itself, where they encountered an area of small houses on their left and a linear car park on their right. Beyond the car park was a row of small thatched cottages, once again painted white, and once again the timber frames were painted black, and each cottage possessed a small, neatly kept front garden. The officers drove past a small, brick bus shelter with a path leading from it up a grass bank towards a cluster of newly built houses. The war memorial with two benches beside it and one in front of it seemed, to Swannell, to be covered with an inordinately large number of names for a village so small and, by English standards, quite remote. Micheldever, he pondered, had clearly suffered the loss of many of its sons during the twentieth-century conflicts. Disproportionately so.

  Brunnie slowed the car and asked an elderly lady in a white blouse and a heavy grey skirt, who was at that moment struggling with a knot which held up a banner advertising a fund-raising coffee morning, for the directions to Rook Lane. He received clear directions given in a warm and homely Hampshire accent and drove on, turning right, as directed, at a small roundabout in which a tree had been planted and surrounded by three, at that moment unoccupied, varnished wooden benches. The officers drove past the parish church, a low, pebble-dashed, brick-built building with a square tower which, Swannell thought, had most probably been built to replace an older building, and then entered a narrow lane of more white painted cottages which was Church Street. Rook Lane was right off Church Street and led to a collection of neatly kept houses. Number 127 revealed itself to be a brick-built house which blended into a row of similar houses. And that, thought Swannell with a wry smile as he and Brunnie got out of the car, is exactly the reason why one joins the police. It is not to fight crime and apprehend felons, nor is it to protect and serve the community, it is rather to visit, quite by chance, idyllic corners of rural England wherein one would not normally set foot. And get paid reasonably well for doing so. Not bad. Not a bad deal at all.

  Brunnie and Swannell left the car parked in the narrow thoroughfare that was Rook Lane, Micheldever, and walked calmly up the concrete path to the door of number 127. Swannell knocked reverentially, not loudly, not aggressively, but nonetheless, Brunnie noted, still with a certain assertiveness and self-confidence. The knocking upon the door caused a large-sounding dog to bark from somewhere within the property and a few moments later a short, frail-looking woman in a red blouse and a white skirt opened the door, showing no sign of fear of the two large, strange men who had suddenly called upon her. ‘Yes?’ she said, speaking in a strong Hampshire accent. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

  ‘Police,’ Swannell said as he and Brunnie showed the woman their warrant cards.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ The woman’s reaction seemed to both officers to be curious rather than alarmed or defensive. It was, they both felt, a reassuring sign.

  ‘We are calling in connection with the property known as Scythe Brook Cottage,’ Swannell explained. ‘A note in the porch window directed us to this address.’

  ‘Yes … yes,’ the woman replied, ‘I am the key holder and the caretaker, and I clean it now and again.’

  ‘Can you tell us who owns the property?’

  ‘No … no, I can’t,’ the woman informed the officers. ‘For many years it belonged to the Naylors, yes it did. The Naylors lived here for generations, yes they did, there’s Naylors everywhere in the cemetery and then the last Naylor died. Scythe Brook Cottage was sold but no one moved in on a permanent basis. It gets let out for weekends or a week sometimes, that sort of time period. It’s very popular with birdwatchers who go birdwatching in Micheldever Wood. The cottage is rented through an agency in Croydon, up in London – Fairley and Fairley. The
y let me know when someone is renting it and I have the key ready for them, yes I do. I check it before the guests arrive because we ask the ones who rent it to leave it clean and tidy. “Please leave the cottage as you would want to find it”, we say. There’s a sign up in the cottage saying just that, “Leave as you would want to find it”. But I check it anyway, yes I do, just to make certain and also to check for damage. I was about to go there this afternoon because the next people to rent it are arriving this evening. They’re renting it until Monday, yes they are.’

  ‘Not anymore they’re not.’ Brunnie smiled. ‘Sorry, madam.’

  ‘It’s a crime scene,’ Swannell explained, ‘and it will remain a crime scene for a few days to come.’

  ‘Oh my,’ the woman gasped, ‘oh my!’

  ‘You’ll have to contact Fairley and Fairley up in London, notify them and tell them to contact the next guests to stop them from travelling; otherwise they’ll be turned away from the cottage,’ Swannell said.

  ‘They will have had a wasted journey,’ Brunnie added.

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that, yes I will.’ The woman nodded. ‘Can I do that now? Excuse me.’ She turned and walked hurriedly into the shady interior of her house.

  Brunnie and Swannell waited in silence at the door of the house. Around them was rural Hampshire in full summer: heat, blue sky, bloom, rich foliage, birdsong and bees and other flying insects. Swannell particularly noticed the bees and was gratified to observe that they seemed healthy because the bees in London had been observed to be acting strangely as if beset by some illness, walking on pavements or just sitting motionless on brick walls, as if confused and disorientated, but here, in Micheldever, all seemed to be just as it should be with the bees flying with clear determination from flower to flower. The woman bustled rapidly back to the threshold of her house.