This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel

by Elizabeth George

  She chuckled wearily. She leaned back in the seat and shook her head. Then she seemed to examine the car itself. The Healey Elliott was a saloon with room for four, and she squirmed round for a look in the back. She noted, “This’s the first time I’ve been in your new motor.”

  “The first of many, I hope, as long as you don’t smoke.”

  “Wouldn’t dare. But I can’t promise I won’t eat. Nice bit of fish and chips to make the insides smell sweet. You know what I mean. What’s this then? Up for some light reading?” She fished something from the backseat and brought it to the front. It was, he saw, the copy of Hello! he’d had from Deborah St. James. Havers looked from it to him and cocked her head. “Checking up on the social scene, are you? Not what I’d expect you to do ’less you take this with you when you go for your manicures. You know. Something to read while the nails are being buffed?”

  “It’s Deborah’s,” he said. “I wanted to have a look at the photos from the Portrait Gallery opening.”

  “And?”

  “Lots of people holding champagne glasses and looking well turned out. That’s about it.”

  “Ah. Not my crowd, then?” Havers opened the magazine and began flipping through it. She found the appropriate set of pages, where the photos of the portrait competition’s opening show were spread out. “Right,” she said, “not a hoisted pint anywhere, more’s the pity. ’Cause a decent ale’s better than some thimbleful of champagne any day of the—” Her hand tightened on the magazine. She said, “Holy hell,” and she turned to him.

  “What is it?” Lynley asked.

  “Frazer Chaplin was there,” Havers said, “and in the picture—”

  “Was he?” Then Lynley remembered how in person Frazer had seemed so familiar to him. That was it, then. He’d obviously seen the Irishman in one of the pictures of the Gallery opening, forgetting about it later. Lynley glanced at the magazine and saw that Havers was indeed indicating a photo of Frazer. He’d been the swarthy man in the picture of Sidney St. James. “More evidence he was involved with Jemima,” Lynley said, “no matter that he’s posing with Sidney.”

  “No, no,” Havers said. “Frazer’s not the point. It’s her. Her.”

  “Sidney?”

  “Not Sidney. Her.” Havers pointed to the rest of the crowd and specifically to another woman, this one young, blond, and very attractive. Some socialite, he reckoned, the wife or daughter of a gallery sponsor, likely. But Havers disabused him of that notion when next she spoke. “It’s Gina Dickens, Inspector,” she said, and she added unnecessarily, because at that point he knew quite well who Gina Dickens was, “She lives in Hampshire, with Gordon Jossie.”

  Much has been made not only of the British criminal justice system but also of the trial that followed the boys’ confessions. Words such as barbaric, Byzantine, archaic, and inhuman have been used, and commentators around the globe have taken strong positions on both sides of the matter, some of them passionately arguing that inhumanity, no matter its source, should be met with like inhumanity (invoking Hammurabi), and others of them just as passionately contending that nothing is served by the public pillorying of children and, indeed, further damage is done to them. What remains is this singular fact: Governed by a law that makes children responsible for their behaviour at the age of ten in the case of capital crimes, Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker had to be tried as adults. Thus, they faced trial by judge and jury.

  What is also worthy of note is that, when a serious crime has been committed by children, they are forbidden by law to have any therapeutic access to psychiatrists or psychologists prior to trial. While such professionals are tangentially involved in the developing proceedings against children, their examination of the accused is strictly limited to determining two things: whether the child in question was—at the time of the crime—capable of distinguishing between right and wrong and whether such child was responsible for his acts.

  Six child psychiatrists and three psychologists examined the boys. Interestingly, they reached identical conclusions: Michael Spargo, Ian Barker, and Reggie Arnold were of average to above-average intelligence; they were fully cognizant of the difference between right and wrong; they were well aware of the notion of personal responsibility, despite (or perhaps because of) their attempts to blame each other for John Dresser’s torture and death.

  In the climate that surrounded the investigation into John Dresser’s abduction and murder, what other conclusions could have been drawn? As has already been noted, “Blood will have blood.” Yet the sheer enormity of what was done to John Dresser begged for a disinterested approach from all parties involved in the investigation, the arrest, and the trial. Without that kind of approach in these matters, we are doomed to cling to our ignorance, believing that the torture and murder of children by children is somehow normal, when no rational mind would accept this as the case.

  We do not need to forgive the crime, nor do we need to excuse it. But we do need to see the reason for it so as to prevent its ever occurring again. Yet whatever the true cause was that lay at the root of the three boys’ heinous behaviour that day, it was not presented at their trial because it did not need to be presented. The police’s function was not to delve into the psychological makeup of the boys once they were arrested. Rather, their function was to make that arrest and to organise the evidence, the witnesses’ statements, and the boys’ confessions for the prosecution. For their part, the prosecution’s function was to obtain a conviction. And because any therapeutic psychological or psychiatric attention to the boys prior to their trial was forbidden by law, whatever defence could be mounted on their behalf had to rely upon their counsels’ attempts to shift blame from one boy on to another or to chip away at what testimony and evidence the CPS presented to the jury.

  In the end, of course, none of this mattered. The preponderance of evidence against the three boys made the outcome of their trial ineluctable.

  Abused children carry abuse forward through time. This is the unthinkable gift that keeps on giving. Study after study underscores this conclusion, yet that salient piece of information was not part of the trial of Reggie Arnold, Michael Spargo, and Ian Barker. It could not have been, based not only on criminal law but also on the thirst (we might call it “blood thirst”) for some form of justice to be handed down. Someone had to pay for what had happened to little John Dresser. The trial established guilt beyond any doubt. It was up to the judge to determine punishment.

  Unlike many more socially advanced countries in which children accused of crimes are remanded into the custody of their parents, foster parents, or some sort of care pending what is usually a hearing held in camera, child criminals in the UK are placed in “secure units” designed to house them prior to facing a court of law. During their trial, the three boys daily came and went from three separate secure units—in three armed vans that had to be protected from surging crowds waiting for them at the Royal Court of Justice—and while court was in session, they sat in the company of their individual social workers inside a dock designed especially for them and built so that they could see over the side in order to watch the proceedings. They were well behaved throughout, although occasionally restless. Reggie Arnold had been given a colouring book with which to entertain himself during tedious moments; the other boys had pads of paper and pencils. Ian Barker was stoic throughout the first week, but by the end of the second week, he continually looked around the courtroom as if seeking his mother or grandmother. Michael Spargo spoke frequently to his social worker, who often had her arm around him and who allowed him to rest his head on her shoulder. Reggie Arnold cried. Frequently, as testimony was given, members of the jury observed the accused. Sworn to do their duty, they could not have helped wondering what exactly their duty was in the situation they faced.

  The verdict of guilty took only four hours. The decision on punishment would take two weeks.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE PONY LAY THRASHING ON THE GROUN
D ON MILL LANE, which was just outside Burley. It writhed on the ground with both of its back legs broken, desperately attempting to rise and run from the group of people who gathered at the rear end of the car that had hit it. Every few moments it shrieked horribly as it arched its back and flailed its legs.

  Robbie Hastings pulled over to the narrow bit of verge. He told Frank to stay, and he got out of the vehicle and into the noise: pony, conversation, cries. As he approached the scene, one of the group broke away and strode to meet him, a man in jeans, Wellingtons, and T-shirt. The jeans were worn and stained brown at the knees.

  Rob recognised him from his occasional nights at the Queen’s Head. Billy Rodin, he was called, and he worked as a full-time gardener at one of the large homes along the road. Rob didn’t know which one.

  “American.” Billy winced at the noise from the stallion and jerked his thumb at the rest of the group. There were four of them: two middle-aged couples. One of the women was crying, and the other had turned her back on the scene and was biting her hand. “Got confused, is what happened.”

  “Wrong side of the road?”

  “’Bout it, yeah. Car coming towards’m too fast round that curve.” Billy gestured the way Rob himself had come. “Startled them. They veered right instead of left and then tried to correct, and the stallion was there. Wanted to give ’em a piece of my mind, but lookit ’em, eh?”

  “Where’s the other vehicle?”

  “Just kept going.”

  “Number plates?”

  “Didn’t get ’em. I was over there.” Billy pointed towards one of the many brick walls on the lane, this one some fifty yards away.

  Rob nodded and went to look at the stallion. The pony screamed. One of the two American men came towards him. He wore dark glasses and a golf shirt with a logo, Bermuda shorts, and sandals. He said, “God damn, I’m sorry. C’n I help you get him into the trailer or something?”

  Rob said, “Eh?”

  “The trailer. Maybe if we support his rump … ?”

  Rob realised that the man actually thought he’d brought the horse trailer for this poor creature on the ground in front of them, perhaps to drive him to some veterinary surgery. He shook his head. “Got to destroy him.”

  “We can’t … ? There’s no vet around? Oh shit. Oh damn. Did that guy tell you what happened? There was this other car and I totally blew it because—”

  “He told me.” Rob squatted to take a closer look at the pony, whose eyes were rolling and from whose mouth a froth was issuing. He hated the fact that it was one of the stallions. He recognised this one since he and three others had only been moved into Rob’s area to service the mares this past year: a strong young bay with a blaze on his forehead. He should have lived more than twenty years.

  “Listen, do we have to stay while you … ?” the man asked. “I only want to know because Cath is upset enough and if she has to watch you kill that horse …She’s a real animal person. This pretty much ruins our vacation anyway—not to mention the front end of the car—and we only got to England three days ago.”

  “Go into the village.” Rob told the man how to get there. “Wait for me at the Queen’s Head. You’ll see it on the right. I expect there’re phone calls you need to make anyway, about the car.”

  “Look, how bad a trouble’re we in? C’n I make this right somehow?”

  “You’re not in trouble. There are just formalities—”

  The pony neighed wildly. It sounded like a scream.

  “Do something, do something,” one of the women cried.

  The American nodded and said, “Queen’s Head. Okay,” and then to the others, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  They made short work of vacating the scene, leaving Rob, the stallion, and Billy Rodin on the side of the lane. “Worst part of the job, eh?” Billy said. “Poor dumb brute.”

  Rob wasn’t sure which of them the phrase suited best: the American, the stallion, or himself. He said, “Happens too often, especially in summer.”

  “Need my help?”

  Rob told him he didn’t. He would dispatch the poor animal and ring New Forest Hounds to pick up the body. “You needn’t stay,” he told him.

  “Right then,” Billy Rodin said, and he headed back to the gardening from which he’d come on the run.

  This left Rob to deal with the stallion, and he went to his Land Rover to fetch the pistol. Two ponies in less than a week, he thought. Things were getting worse and worse. His charge was to protect the animals on the forest—especially the ponies—but he didn’t see how he could do it if people didn’t learn to value them. He didn’t blame the poor foolish Americans. Likely they hadn’t been driving fast anyway. Here to see the countryside and to gawk at its beauties, they might have been momentarily distracted by one vista or another, but he suspected that had it not been for the surprise of the other vehicle coming at them, none of this would have happened. He told Frank once more to stay as he jerked open the Land Rover’s door and reached in the back.

  The pistol was gone. He saw this at once, and for an unnerving moment, he thought ridiculously that somehow one of the Americans had got it since they’d driven right by the Land Rover on their way towards Burley. Then he thought of the children at Gritnam while he was unloading the two ponies into the woodland just a short time ago. That consideration made his stomach churn and drove him to thrust himself into the Land Rover and begin a frantic search. He always kept the pistol secured behind the driver’s seat in a disguised holster fashioned for just this purpose, but it wasn’t there. It hadn’t fallen to the floor, it wasn’t under the seat, nor was it under the passenger’s seat. He thought about the last time he’d used it—the day the two Scotland Yard detectives had found him on the side of the road with another injured pony—and he considered briefly that one of them …perhaps the black man because he was black …And then he realised how horrible a thought it was and what it said about him that he even considered it …and behind him the stallion continued to thrash and shriek.

  He grabbed up the shotgun. God, he didn’t want to have to do it this way, but he had no choice. He loaded the thing and approached the poor pony, but all the time his mind was feverishly casting up images of the past few days, of all the people who’d been near enough to the Land Rover …

  He should have been removing the pistol and the shotgun from the vehicle every evening. He’d been too distracted: Meredith, the Scotland Yard detectives, his own visit to the local police, Gordon Jossie, Gina Dickens …When had he last removed the pistol and the shotgun as he was meant to do anyway? He couldn’t say.

  But there was a single certainty and he damn well knew it. He had to find that gun.

  MEREDITH POWELL FACED her boss, but she couldn’t look at him. He was in the right and she was in the wrong and there were no two ways about it. She had been off her stride. She had been enormously distracted. She had been ducking out of the office on the least pretext. She certainly couldn’t deny any of this, so what she did was nod. She felt as humiliated as she’d ever felt, even in the worst moments all those years ago in London when she’d had to face the fact that the man to whom she’d given her love had been merely a worthless object of a feminine fantasy long fed by the cinema, by certain novels, and by advertising agencies.

  “So I want to see a change,” Mr. Hudson was saying as a conclusion to his remarks. “Can you guarantee a change, Meredith?”

  Well, of course she could. That was what he expected her to say, so she said it. She added that her dearest and oldest friend had been murdered in London recently and that was causing her to be preoccupied, but she would pull herself together.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sorry about that,” Mr. Hudson said abruptly, as if he was already in possession of the facts surrounding Jemima’s death, as indeed he likely was. “Tragedy, it is. But life continues for the rest of us, and it’s not going to continue if we let the walls collapse round our ears, is it.”

  No, no, of course. He was right. She was sorry s
he’d not been pulling her weight round Gerber & Hudson, but she would resume doing so the very next day. That is, unless Mr. Hudson wanted her to remain into the evening to make up for lost time, which she would do except that she had a five-year-old at home and—

  “That won’t be necessary.” Mr. Hudson used a letter opener to clean beneath his fingernails, digging round industriously in a way that made Meredith feel rather faint. “As long as I see the old Meredith back here at her desk tomorrow.”

  He would, oh he would, Meredith vowed. Thank you, Mr. Hudson. I appreciate your confidence in me.

  When he dismissed her, she returned to her cubicle. End of the day, so she could go home. But to leave so soon on the heels of Mr. Hudson’s reprimand would not look good no matter how he’d concluded their interview. She knew that she ought to spend at least one hour longer than usual with her nose to the grindstone of whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing.

  Which, of course, she could not remember. Which, of course, had been Randall Hudson’s point.

  She had a pile of telephone messages on her desk, so she fingered through these in the hope of finding a clue. There were certainly names and there were pointed questions and ultimately she reckoned she could start looking a few things up since most everyone seemed to be concerned about how the designs for this and for that were coming along, according to the messages. But her heart wasn’t in it, and her mind would not cooperate at all. She had, she concluded, far more important subjects with which to be concerned than the colour scheme she would recommend for the advertisement of a local bookshop’s new reading group.

  She put the messages to one side. She used the time to straighten her desk. She made an effort to look industrious as her colleagues called out good-byes and faded into the late afternoon, but all the time her thoughts were like a flock of birds circling a food source, lighting upon it briefly and taking flight again. Instead of a food source, though, the flock of birds circled Gina Dickens, only to find out that there were far too many places for them to land without a single one offering either a decent foothold or safety from predation.