A Timely Death

by Janet Neel

  ‘Well, you can’t do that again. I closed it on Friday and redirected my salary.’

  He winced. ‘It’s not an excuse, but I used it to get Francis out of trouble. No, I didn’t buy him drugs, but he was going to get very seriously hurt unless he paid for the ones he’d had. So I paid his debts.’

  ‘You mean I did.’

  She watched with interest the pink flush on his cheekbones which had always meant she was pushing him further than was safe. ‘I’m afraid that’s true, so on Friday I had the conversation with my father I ought to have had years ago and I’ll write you a cheque now.’ He looked away from her. ‘Or get you cash if you don’t want me to know where your bank is. I’d understand that.’

  ‘I need all my things – my handbag, my clothes and so on.’

  ‘I’ll bring them.’ He checked. ‘Sorry, I mean, you must come and fetch them any time you like. I’ll help you.’

  ‘I’ll come when you’re not there, with a friend to help.’

  The Refuge had taught her that and she watched it go home as he leant his head on his hands. ‘I know I deserve all this but it isn’t easy after five years.’

  ‘No.’ She felt a childish sense of triumph at seeing him so reduced, and was then instantly worried that she was being so unkind that she would lose him for ever. She buried her face in the coffee cup, trying to keep her mind on the hopeless women and the wild children she had tended.

  ‘Can we make a deal? I’ll give you the key – I’ve got your handbag in the car because I knew you’d need it. You let yourself in when you want and move your stuff, but you meet me for dinner on Friday, when you’ve had a few days to think. We could have dinner every Friday, just so I see you and get a chance to prove I have done some thinking.’

  She thought about it, with a delicious sense of triumph competing uneasily with mistrust. After all, it couldn’t hurt to have dinner. She picked up the cheque. ‘Will this clear?’

  ‘I’m not silly, Annabelle. Behaved appallingly, I agree, but it wouldn’t help, would it, if the cheque bounced?’

  ‘I’ll come and get my handbag – I’m late for surgery. And I’ll ring you about Friday.’

  He looked so defeated that she wanted to touch him, but pushed the cheque into a pocket instead and followed him to the car, standing well away from it as her sisters at the Refuge had so urgently advised. He reached and handed her the familiar navy leather bag which he had bought her for her last birthday, and they both looked at it.

  ‘It may seem pretty strange,’ he said, painfully, ‘but I love you and I need you, and I am truly sorry.’ He reached a hand towards her and she stepped back sharply. His face crumpled. ‘Annabelle, don’t cut me off.’

  ‘I’ll ring you,’ she said, near to weeping herself, and turned to walk blindly through the surgery door.

  3

  Monday, 11 April

  ‘The AC wants you, John. At once.’

  There went the prospect of coffee, but he was pleased at the prospect of action, after a week of meeting colleagues and sorting out staff.

  ‘Nice to see you, John. Many kind words said round here about your work in Hull.’

  This was pleasing; his investigations into the police force of East Yorkshire had produced four resignations and eight disciplinary hearings, and had left that force with not much defence to three civil actions for wrongful arrest. But the stables had been thoroughly cleaned with the minimum fuss, and it was nice to know that his fellow professionals approved.

  ‘Thank you, Commissioner.’

  ‘Right. Got one for you. Brand new.’

  ‘What, already?’

  ‘We don’t hang around here, John. One of our lads goes and does one if we’re short of work.’ There was never any need to manufacture employment for C Division, responsible as it was for the investigation of murders that had features suggesting they might relate to another murder, or were particularly difficult in any unspecified way.

  ‘Bit early in the morning.’

  ‘Not committed today. The preliminary report suggests Friday. Your old manor – Kensington Church Street.’

  ‘Is that why we’ve got it?’ It couldn’t be, but Gerry Yates was uncharacteristically tight-lipped and he felt the need to fill the gap.

  ‘No. It’s a nasty. The dead man was engaged in auto asphyxia.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The getting of sexual satisfaction by half strangling yourself, or so they tell me.’

  ‘And he overdid it?’

  ‘Not exactly. He used a heavy table to support himself, but it moved, leaving him dangling. And the house was turned over.’

  None of this quite explained why C Division rather than Notting Dale, with its well-staffed detective division, should be involved, and McLeish waited patiently.

  ‘Gentleman who found him is a Member of Parliament.’

  ‘Close friend, was he?’

  ‘Get your mind out of the gutter, John. Deceased was married, it says here, and nothing like that known of the Member. Quite the contrary, indeed, Special Branch tell me.’ He passed the single piece of paper across the table. ‘You’d better get over there before your old mates trample on the evidence. Or upset the Member even further.’

  The last was the point; the AC presumably did not suppose that the well-trained Notting Dale detective force would fail to collect and safeguard everything at the scene of the crime. But a Member of Parliament might easily be treated without the particular deference to which they all felt entitled.

  ‘Francesca well? And the little ‘un?’

  ‘William. He’s teething, but apart from that he’s fine. Francesca sends her regards.’

  ‘Does she now? Doesn’t sound like her at all.’

  Nor had he reported her accurately, John acknowledged, trying to keep his face straight. What she had actually said, at six thirty that morning in a distracted farewell, was that the blasted Gerry Yates had better not keep him late doing futile chores.

  ‘And the rest of the family?’

  The AC had cause to know about his four brothers-in-law; one was a rock star and another had been rescued from the New York police following a drugs charge three years ago.

  ‘All away, thank the Lord. Perry is doing a film in America, Charlie is in Hong Kong, Tristram’s touring Eastern Europe with an opera group, and even Jeremy is away – in Japan.’

  ‘Francesca misses them, I expect.’

  She did, of course, however pleased he was to have her attention not deflected by four talented, dependent, demanding siblings. He was not however going to discuss this with the AC.

  ‘I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Don’t let the Member bug you.’

  ‘I won’t. Which is it?’

  ‘Ah. London bloke, it’s on the paper. Richmond – the constituency, not his name. Miles Arnold. Not a lot known, but not particularly anti-us for once. Said to be on the way up. Your man Davidson is down there already holding the fort, but it needs someone senior quickly.’

  ‘Indeed,’ McLeish agreed. ‘I’ll report later when I’ve got the strength.’

  He slid into the waiting car and looked through the notes. The deceased appeared to be called William Price, and had been found, hanged, in his office which was part of his house. His secretary, who had found Miles Arnold MP on the doorstep, had let them both in to be confronted by a corpse. And a nasty one, McLeish added mentally, if the estimated time of death was three days earlier. There was a phone number on the paper and he rang it to announce his likely arrival within the next quarter of an hour, traffic permitting.

  The voice at the other end warmed as he announced himself.

  ‘Bruce. Glad you’re on your way, Chief Superintendent.’ The pinched Glasgow vowels were peculiarly distinctive on the telephone. ‘Would you like to speak to Mr Arnold, who found the body? He’s eager to be away to fulfil his parliamentary duties, but mebbe you could have a word over the telephone.’

  You would have to know Bruce Davidso
n well to know that his patience was seriously frayed. It was not an ideal way to make the first steps in a relationship with a touchy MP, whingeing to get away from the scene of a crime, but there appeared to be no choice.

  ‘Miles Arnold here. And you are who?’

  ‘Detective Chief Superintendent John McLeish. I am coming from C Division at Scotland Yard to take charge of the case. I’m sorry you’ve had a shock.’

  ‘Well. Yes. It was. Look, do I need to stay? I’ve told your people here everything I know, and I’m late for an appointment at the House – the House of Commons – already.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hold you up but it is important to talk at once to the person who found the body, at the scene of the crime, where I can go through in detail what you saw. I’m not more than five minutes away.’

  This was being seriously economical with the truth, but it was effective; you could hear the man weighing his idea of what was due to his consequence against how it would look to have left the scene of a crime five minutes ahead of a senior policeman. He agreed grudgingly to wait. Bruce Davidson came back on the phone.

  ‘Bruce, give the man another coffee and hold his hand. I’m at Marble Arch and the traffic is solid.’

  ‘Ah well, you’re not far away,’ Bruce said, obviously for the benefit of the audience at his end, and John McLeish grinned in acknowledgement.

  ‘Put the siren on,’ he said and the big car pulled out to the right, siren blaring, clearing a path against the oncoming traffic which reluctantly edged over, or stopped, or tucked itself behind the immovable buses.

  It took them nearer fifteen minutes, but McLeish still took his time getting himself out of the car and telling the driver where to wait. If you hurried you missed things and the first observations you made were all-important. Bruce Davidson materialised on the pavement to greet him.

  ‘I’ve sealed the room. It’s the kitchen, so we couldna even make a cup of coffee. Doc’s just arrived. Be nice to move the body.’

  Bruce was not given to hyperbole and McLeish winced. ‘Heating on, was it?’

  ‘It’s on a clock, so not all the time. But enough, if you take my meaning.’

  McLeish did; decomposition would be gathering pace after forty-eight hours in a reasonably warm room. ‘I’ll go in with the doc. Have we got a scene-of-crime squad?’

  ‘Changing into whites.’

  There was always a danger that the scene-of-crime squad – the group charged with collecting every piece of physical evidence from the scene of a crime – might accidentally contaminate the samples. It had taken a surprisingly long time to absorb this fact, but now most forces insisted that the squads wore sterilised white tracksuits, boots, gloves, and Balaclavas to cover their hair.

  ‘Who is in charge?’

  ‘Macdonald. Ye remember him? Older bloke. Inspector now.’

  Which would make three Scots in key positions in this investigation, but that was not unusual in the Met; by analogy with the Battle of Waterloo, fought on the pikes of Scottish regiments, crime in London is substantially opposed by the brains and bodies of Scottish-born policemen.

  ‘Get him down. I’ll look at the scene and get them started.’

  ‘Could you have a wee word with Mr Arnold first?’

  ‘No, tell him what I’m doing, explain I had to get the body away. I dare say he’ll see the sense of that.’

  ‘If he’s using his nose he will,’ Davidson said, dourly, and went off to do his bidding.

  John McLeish stood on the edge of the pavement and looked around him carefully. It was an odd place, this bit of Kensington Church Street, with the typical sizeable Victorian houses now subverted to commercial purposes. This particular house, like the others in the row, was approached by a flight of steps leading to a wide porch. There was a basement, entered from a side entrance, and three floors above. He stood for a moment trying to remember who had been telling him about Kensington Church Street, and saw Catherine’s beautiful face in his mind’s eye. He made an involuntary startled noise, yes, the chap she was telling him about had been called Price. He walked up the steps to be met by Macdonald, a small man in his thirties with the light step of the runner.

  ‘Sir. Nice to see you back.’ He glanced at a closed door just to the right inside the front door.

  ‘Hang on a second before we go down. A bell just rang. You had a burglary here, right, some months ago?’

  ‘Yes. I looked it up before I came. How did you know?’

  ‘A detective inspector in the Fraud Squad was telling me last week. They were involved.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He watched as Macdonald worked his way through this thought. ‘Yes. Well. I just haven’t had time to notify them yet.’ He looked hopefully at McLeish. ‘Thought I ought to get a few facts first.’

  ‘Oh indeed. I only happened to remember this conversation. Leave the call till I’ve seen what’s to do. We’ll go down then.’

  They had put the impatient MP in the front room, McLeish deduced. He followed Macdonald down the wide stairs, stone, with a good carpet down the centre. Macdonald stopped at the door directly facing them, which had been sealed with paper tape, and as he stopped the door to the left of the stairs opened to reveal Dr Middleton, a forensic pathologist whom he knew. They paused to say hello, and in that moment McLeish caught a familiar smell. It was odd, it was not as if he had had to inspect many decomposing bodies, in most cases the corpse would hardly be cold by the time he got there, but the smell was unmistakable and instantly familiar.

  ‘Right.’ He put on the mask handed to him and waited while Macdonald took the tape off and pushed the door open, cautiously standing aside to let him through.

  He was ready for it but it was still a grim sight. There was a plastic bag over the head coming down to the shoulders, so there was no neck. From the corner of the bag a rope extended upwards into a hook set into the ceiling, the full weight of the body hanging leadenly, the toes extended, a good thirty inches off the floor. The body was swollen, the belly grotesquely distended as the gases of decomposition pushed it out. He walked closer, trying to breathe shallow, and saw that what he had taken for bruising were transparent black stockings without a suspender belt, the tops cutting deeply into the swollen flesh of the thighs. There was also a pair of black silk French knickers, the elastic waist sunk into the grossly extended belly.

  There was a current of air in the room, and he looked for the source. A curtain, narrowly open, hung over a French window which led out into the garden. It was closed, but one of the glass panels had been smashed giving access from the outside to the lock inside. He frowned at the space, not wanting to move the curtain. It was unlikely that in Central London this would be the only method of securing a door with direct access to the garden. Sure enough there were screw-in deadlocks at the top and bottom of each door, two of which must have been undone; the right-hand door was only pushed to. There was no sign the door had been forced, so the man hanging from the rope had not put on all the locks. McLeish considered this small fact. Surely, anyone wanting to engage in an activity in which an interruption would be both embarrassing and disruptive would secure the door first.

  He looked, breathing in carefully, at the hands, first the right, then the left. The nails were broken on both hands, and there were what looked like bits of fibre under them. He pointed them out to Macdonald who nodded.

  ‘Poor bugger tried to get the rope off likely,’ he observed, voice muffled by his mask.

  ‘Yes.’ The three men looked silently at an oblong oak table, lying askew on its side in the middle of the room, beyond the reach of the frenziedly kicking legs of a man trying to save himself from strangulation.

  McLeish walked round the body once again, looking for the mechanism that had held the rope so firmly inside the hook and failing at first to find it.

  ‘A ratchet, sir. In the fitting.’

  Yes, that was it. And it had held despite the fact that the dead man must have been of the order of fifteen st
one, much heavier than the light originally suspended from this fitting.

  ‘Get him down,’ he instructed. ‘But leave the rope up there so we can get a proper look. Unless you want anything, doc?’

  ‘No. I’ll go up and look as you cut him loose, but I need a table.’

  He meant, of course, a forensic operating table, but McLeish found himself looking again at the up-ended oak table for which the man’s nyloned feet must have scrabbled and kicked in vain.

  ‘How long, roughly, doc?’

  Dr Middleton walked round the body and considered it. ‘Difficult. More like three days – might be less. Tell you a bit more – perhaps – later.’

  ‘Not Saturday night though?’

  ‘No, no, not possibly, John. Too soon for the gases to get under way as they have. Friday night, perhaps earlier.’

  ‘Right. And we’ll need to decide if this could have been an accident.’

  Dr Middleton and Inspector Macdonald both stared at him over their masks and looked again at the table on its side. It was too heavy to have been moved by scrabbling feet, but if someone had come through that door, found the householder temporarily off his guard and kicked or pulled the table away, they would inevitably claim that the householder was already dead, having accidentally kicked over the table himself. Dr Middleton indicated that they might as well get the body cut down and removed for analysis. The small breeze from the broken window had made very little impact on the fetid atmosphere; the heavy curtain had kept most of it out and the heating had been on for much of the time.

  They closed the door after them and pulled off their masks gratefully. The corridor had filled with Macdonald’s scene-of-crime squad, in their whites, individuality stripped away by the white Balaclavas that covered them down to their eyebrows.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t open a window yet, Mac,’ John McLeish said, knowing the instruction to be redundant but wanting to give the squad fair warning. Macdonald nodded and gathered the squad around him for instructions, Dr Middleton waiting patiently to supervise the removal of the body.