by Graham Ison
Hardcastle walked towards the workshop and, for a minute or two, stared at the ground. Then he turned. ‘Something tells me, Marriott, that it’s no coincidence that only two buildings were set fire to. Catto here has found what looks like bloodstains on the floor of the office, and the other fire was started in this workshop. Why?’
‘D’you think we might find Captain Stoner’s body buried there, sir?’ asked Catto, before Marriott had the opportunity of replying.
‘It’s a possibility,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but first get someone to take that heap of rubbish apart.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Catto turned to DCs Proctor and Vickers. ‘Right, you heard what the guv’nor said. Get to it.’
‘What are we looking for specifically, Henry?’ asked James Proctor.
‘It’s “Sergeant” to you, Proctor,’ snapped Catto furiously. ‘And you’ll know when you find it.’
Hardcastle nodded. ‘I think you’re right, Marriott,’ he said, and then, out of Catto’s hearing, added, ‘Our new sergeant seems to have benefited from his time at Vine Street, but then I knew he would.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott. There was nothing else he could say. He was just grateful that the DDI had not pointed out, yet again, that he had once served there.
Reluctantly, Proctor and Vickers began to dismantle the heap of rubbish. Much of it consisted of oily rags and other waste connected with the abortive garage business set up by the two proprietors.
‘There’s a shovel here, Sergeant,’ said Proctor, after ten minutes’ searching, ‘but it looks as though the handle’s been burned off.’
‘Bring it here,’ said Hardcastle, who was standing next to Catto.
‘I don’t know if I’m right, sir, but there’s a mark along the cutting edge that could be blood.’ Proctor held up his find. The blade was intact, although blackened, but only an inch or two of the wooden shaft protruded above the metal socket. And it had clearly been burned.
‘It might be blood,’ said Hardcastle, not wishing to commit himself. ‘But in this tip of a place, it could be anything. I think it’s time we got a scientist to look at it, and at the stain on the floor of what’s left of the office, Marriott.’
‘I can telephone from Ditton nick, sir.’
‘Possibly,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but we’ll finish the search first. Has anyone searched the workshop, Catto?’
‘Not yet, sir. That was going to be the next job.’
‘Sir!’ Vickers, up to his knees in filth and rubbish, was holding a large biscuit tin aloft.
‘What are you all in a sweat about, lad? It’s an old tin,’ said Hardcastle.
‘It’s heavy, sir.’
‘Bring it here, then,’ said Hardcastle wearily.
Vickers walked across to where the DDI was standing and placed the tin on the ground.
‘Well, don’t stand there looking at it, Vickers,’ snapped Hardcastle. ‘Take the bloody lid off.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Vickers, as he peered closer. The biscuit tin contained a human head.
‘If you’re going to throw up, Vickers,’ said Catto, ‘don’t do it over the evidence.’
‘I was in the bloody war, Sergeant,’ said Vickers, ‘and I survived the first day of the Somme. You don’t think a nice clean head’s going to worry me, do you?’
Henry Catto, who had not been in the war, said nothing. He had momentarily overlooked the fact that quite a few policemen had joined after the war as soon as they had been discharged from the army. It was a legacy of that terrible war that too many of them had seen a surfeit of dead bodies, in some cases to the extent that death merely caused a shrug of the shoulders.
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ said Hardcastle calmly, ‘that is the head of Captain Guy Stoner.’
‘What’s next, sir?’ asked Marriott, choosing not to query how the DDI seemed to be sure it was Stoner’s head. It certainly bore little resemblance to the photograph that he had obtained from the Reverend Percy Stoner.
‘Get down to Ditton nick and arrange for Sir Bernard to come here.’ Hardcastle paused. ‘No, wait a moment. We’ll have a look in the workshop before we bother him.’
Sir Bernard Spilsbury was regarded as the foremost forensic pathologist in the country. In court, his persuasive evidence was rarely disputed and had been instrumental in sending a string of infamous murderers to the scaffold.
Hardcastle led his team of detectives across to the workshop. The fire appeared to have gone halfway up the wooden walls and charred them badly without actually destroying them. The workbench, however, was a different story; it had been completely destroyed, leaving a collection of tools lying among the ashes.
‘There is a car-jack handle down there, sir,’ said Stuart Ritchie, ‘and a machete and a saw. I wonder if the jack handle was used as a murder weapon, and the saw and the machete used to cut off the head Vickers found.’
‘You could be right, er …’ Hardcastle paused. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
‘Ritchie, sir.’
‘Of course it is, Ritchie, but we won’t touch anything until we can get hold of someone who knows how to move that sort of stuff without damaging any evidence that there might be on it. The dirt floor of this barn could be worth investigating. However, we’ll wait for Dr Spilsbury before we do anything else. What’s the time, Marriott?’
Marriott glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Just gone half past twelve, sir.’ It was another of Hardcastle’s idiosyncrasies that he frequently asked Marriott the time, despite having a watch of his own.
‘Good. In that case, we’ll have some lunch, Marriott. There’s what looked like a half-decent pub just down the road. Proctor and Ritchie, you can take a break. Vickers …’ Hardcastle paused thoughtfully. ‘You are Vickers, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Yes, of course you are. You’ll remain here to guard the site, and one of the other two will relieve you as soon as possible. Back here by half past one. Catto? Where’s Catto?’
‘Here, sir.’
‘Go to Ditton nick and call Cannon Row. See if they can get Sir Bernard Spilsbury to come down here as quickly as possible. Tell them what we’ve found. Once you’ve done that, you can join Sergeant Marriott and me, and you’ll have the privilege of buying me a pint to celebrate your promotion and return to the Royal A Division.’
It was almost three o’clock when Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s Rolls-Royce drew to a standstill at the entrance to the abandoned land that had once been a chicken farm, then an arable farm, and finally a garage, all of which enterprises had failed.
Immaculate in morning dress, top hat and spats, he sported a bloom in his buttonhole. He immediately spotted the DDI.
‘My dear Hardcastle. Good to see you. You’re rather a long way away from your customary haunt.’
‘Indeed, Sir Bernard, but the DDI of V Division is off sick.’
‘Sorry to hear that. Fitnam, isn’t it?’
‘That’s correct, Sir Bernard. So I’m dealing with what’s beginning to look like a murder.’
‘You’d better show me what your fellows have found. The telephone call said something about a severed head in a biscuit tin.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’ll get one of the lads to bring it over.’
‘No, no. Leave it where it is.’ Spilsbury looked around. ‘What is this place? Looks like a chicken farm.’
‘It was to start with,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but it went bankrupt.’
‘What an extraordinary coincidence,’ began Spilsbury, shaking his head. ‘I was concerned with a case in Sussex in … now let me see … yes, it was in 1925. Fellow called Thorne ran a chicken farm and murdered his fiancée. He put her head in a biscuit tin, too. No imagination, murderers, you know, Hardcastle.’
‘You don’t suppose this Thorne was responsible for my murder, do you, Sir Bernard?’
‘Shouldn’t think so.’ Spilsbury chuckled at the thought. ‘Thanks to my evidence, he was hanged at Wandsworth Pris
on two years ago. It wasn’t in the Metropolitan area, of course, although the police in Sussex called on the Yard for assistance.’
‘Couldn’t have been him, then,’ said Hardcastle in all seriousness. ‘The man whose head we think we’ve found was last in touch with his uncle in Norfolk about three or four weeks ago. Incidentally, Sir Bernard, we’ve found what appears to be the murder weapon.’
‘I’d better make a start.’ Spilsbury took off his top hat and tail coat and handed them to DC Vickers. He crossed the yard to where DC Ritchie was standing guard over the biscuit tin.
Spilsbury bent down and lifted the lid. ‘That can go up to St Mary’s Hospital as it is, Hardcastle. No point in examining it here.’ Next, he followed most of the detectives across to what remained of the workshop.
Hardcastle explained about the fire, the fact that the insurance company’s investigator found two seats of fire, and finally the apparent disappearance of the two former owners. He also outlined what he had learned from the Reverend Percy Stoner.
‘In that case, Hardcastle, I strongly recommend that you dig up the floor of the workshop.’
‘Well, Catto, you heard what Sir Bernard said. Get to it.’
‘I’ll just get a couple of shovels, sir,’ said Catto, and before the DDI was able to ask where he would get them, he had sped away to a hardware shop he had noticed a little way down the road.
‘I hope you got a receipt for those,’ said Hardcastle, when Catto returned with two new shovels.
‘Didn’t need to, sir. I told him to send his account to Scotland Yard.’
Hardcastle nodded his approval. ‘I told you he’d learn a lot by being at Vine Street, Marriott.’
The three DCs, supervised by Catto, began carefully to dig up the floor of the workshop. It was not long before they discovered an arm.
‘Take it carefully now, gentlemen,’ advised Spilsbury.
Slowly, a second arm, two legs and a torso were discovered over an area of about four square yards.
‘I’ll send a scientist down here to supervise the removal of these body parts to my laboratory, Hardcastle,’ said Spilsbury. ‘I really can’t understand why the Metropolitan Police doesn’t have a scientific laboratory to deal with that sort of routine stuff. However, if you can direct me to a telephone, I’ll arrange it immediately. The post-mortem examination will be tomorrow morning.’
‘Thank you, Sir Bernard. I shall be there. Of course, the site will be guarded until your man gets here.’
‘Excellent. I think your men have found the victim, Hardcastle. All you have to do now is find his killer.’
‘It certainly looks like it, Sir Bernard.’
In that regard, however, Hardcastle was to be disappointed. The finding of the body parts in Ditton turned out only to be the start of a complex murder enquiry.
‘Come in, Hardcastle, and you too, Marriott.’
The two detectives entered the mortuary room at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.
‘There is evidence of a severe blow with a blunt instrument, Hardcastle, sufficient to have caused a fracture of the skull,’ Spilsbury began. ‘The injury is compatible with the blow having been struck by the car-jack handle you showed me.’
‘I suspect that the victim is Captain Guy Stoner, late of the Royal Field Artillery, Sir Bernard.’
‘You may be right, Hardcastle,’ said Spilsbury, ‘but that, of course, is your department rather than mine. However, there is a complication.’
‘Oh! What might that be, sir?’ Hardcastle frowned.
‘One arm and one leg did not come from the torso that your chaps found.’
For a moment or two, Hardcastle remained in stunned silence. ‘It’s likely that there are more body parts at that site, then, Sir Bernard?’
Spilsbury smiled. ‘So it would appear, unless for some reason they’ve been removed to some other place.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Hardcastle gloomily. It was not an outcome that he had anticipated and was one he could certainly do without. Ever since interviewing the Reverend Percy Stoner and his nephew’s bank manager, he had assumed that Captain Rupert Holroyd had plundered Guy Stoner’s bank account and then murdered him. But now he had to consider the possibility that Holroyd, too, had been murdered. On the other hand, of course, it could still be the case that Holroyd was the murderer he was looking for. But that, in turn, raised the question: who was the person whose arm and leg had been found?
‘I have no wish to distress you further,’ Spilsbury continued, ‘but I am ninety per cent sure that the other arm and leg are those of a female.’
Oddly enough, Hardcastle’s reaction was to laugh. ‘I must say, Sir Bernard, I began to wonder if I’d misread the calendar, and that today was All Fool’s Day.’
‘Well, Marriott, it’s time to put our thinking caps on.’ Hardcastle reached for his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
‘Did you have anything particular in mind, sir?’ asked Marriott.
‘It looks as though we’ll have to return to the site and do some more digging.’
‘We didn’t look at the disused chicken run, sir, and as Sir Bernard mentioned the 1925 Norman Thorne case in Sussex where Thorne buried his woman friend’s body parts under his chicken run, it might be an idea to dig that up.’
‘Yes. See to it, Marriott. Send Catto and a couple of DCs down there and …’ Hardcastle paused. ‘On second thoughts, I’ll get on to the sub-divisional inspector at Surbiton and ask him to send a couple of uniformed men down there to work under Catto’s supervision. You know what to tell them, if they find what we’re looking for.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott was amazed that the DDI didn’t give him advice on exactly what he should do. It might be that Marriott’s impending promotion had led Hardcastle to believe that his sergeant really did not need guidance on such matters. On the other hand, perhaps Hardcastle was getting tired, and was considering retirement. He was, after all, fifty-five years of age, and already had thirty-six years’ police service behind him.
‘Right, then, d’you two lads know what to do?’ Catto addressed the two young constables that the ‘sub’ at Surbiton had assigned to Hardcastle’s investigation.
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ chorused both constables.
‘If you come across any body parts, stop digging straight away, and tell me. Have either of you dealt with bits of a human body before?’
‘No, Sergeant.’
‘Right, well if you do find any, I don’t want to know that you’ve vomited all over them. That, I can assure you, will make my DDI very cross indeed. Making my DDI cross is a very unwise thing to do, and I speak from experience. Right, lads, get on with it.’ Catto found part of a wall to sit on, took out the pipe he had recently taken to smoking, and filled it with Sweet Crop tobacco. Had Hardcastle seen it, he would have dismissed it as boys’ tobacco.
It was at about four o’clock when two very tired constables found what Hardcastle had hoped they would find.
‘I think you should come and have a look at this, Sergeant,’ said the senior of the two constables. ‘We’ve found some more body parts.’
Catto walked across the chicken run and gazed into the depression in the ground where the policemen had been digging. There was another leg and an arm.
‘Very good. Now keep going but be very careful. I don’t want any of that evidence damaged because one of you has thrust the blade of a shovel into it.’
It took another hour before a torso, this time with the head attached, and a second arm and another leg were assembled at the edge of the dig.
‘I wouldn’t mind betting that one of those legs and one of the arms belongs to the other body we found yesterday,’ said Catto, half to himself.
‘It’s a very exciting job you’ve got, Sergeant,’ said one of the young constables enthusiastically. ‘I’m thinking of applying for the CID when I’ve got two years’ service.’
‘It’s not all that exciting,’ said Catto, knocking his pipe out on
the heel of his shoe. ‘You’d be surprised how much report-writing you have to do with a job like this. Which reminds me, I’ll need reports from you two, and you’ll be responsible for handing over those bits of body you found to the scientist who comes to collect them. And don’t forget to get him to sign for them; it’s called continuity of evidence.’
FIVE
At Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s request, Hardcastle and Marriott returned to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington the following morning.
‘No doubt you’ve already been informed by one of your men, my dear Hardcastle, that the second torso found at Ditton is indeed that of a woman.’
‘Yes, Sir Bernard. Detective Sergeant Catto told me as much.’
‘Having carried out further tests,’ continued Spilsbury, ‘the arm and the leg that were found with the first set of body parts are those of the woman whose torso was found in the chicken run.’
‘So, now I’ve got two murders on my hands, and I don’t know who either of the victims is.’ Hardcastle sounded extremely depressed about the problem facing him. Marriott was also depressed, because he knew who would be doing most of the work.
Hardcastle’s gloomy mood was still apparent when he and Marriott returned to Cannon Row police station.
‘Holroyd, Marriott.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. What d’you mean?’
‘That must be Stoner’s body we found, and Holroyd’s got to be the killer. There’s no other explanation.’
‘But do we know for certain that the body parts are those of Stoner, sir? And we don’t have any idea who the woman is.’
‘Have you heard anything from Cox, the man who runs that excuse for an accommodation address?’ Hardcastle did not intend to expound on his identification theory, probably because he knew that it was untenable without further evidence.
‘No, sir,’ said Marriott. ‘But might I make a suggestion?’ He was always loath to offer opinions to the DDI, although many another DDI was grateful for any assistance offered by his sergeant. But Hardcastle was not like other DDIs.
