Omens of Death

by Nicholas Rhea

  The press loved him; they wanted lots of pictures of him at the Druids’ Circle complete with magnifying glass in a sort of Sherlock Holmes scenario, but he resisted, saying this was a serious matter and it was a description of the girl they should be publishing. He knew that the story of her death would create useful publicity, even if it was of tabloid standard and content.

  There was no doubt the story would be elevated from a routine piece of news about a puzzling death to something salacious laced with mystery and magic in an abstruse setting. The journalists who were present would ensure the story reached the nationals, while those editors who had not bothered to despatch a journalist would now be regretting it. Some were even forecasting that if the investigation did become a long runner, Montague Pluke would become a TV star. On those occasions when there was no further news about the investigation, they would concentrate on the life and work of Montague Pluke. At this stage, of course, they knew nothing of his horse trough expertise. That alone might make a TV series ...

  When the journalists asked Montague to specify the cause of death, however, he truthfully said he did not know and that a post-mortem was to be conducted, although he did confirm that it was suspicious. To add words to their stories, he told them that fifty detectives were engaged upon the enquiry, many of whom would be making house-to-house enquiries in Crickledale and the neighbouring villages. As questions were asked about the Druids’ Circle, he found himself stressing that witchcraft, a black mass sacrifice and a ritualistic killing were unlikely, although death resulting from sexual activity could not be ruled out. Having said all that, he qualified it by adding, ‘We are keeping an open mind.’

  Even though Montague emphasised that the Circle was a fake, a couple of photographers persisted in their desire to take pictures of it, some with Montague standing either at or near the phallic symbol or at the entrance to the cavern or near the sacrificial altar, but he declined every invitation.

  He had no wish to trivialise the enquiry, but the Force press officer agreed to accompany the photographers to the scene for a picture session without Montague Pluke. Their presence could be tolerated under supervision, even while examination of the scene was under way. In fact, a photograph of police officers searching the scene would make a good picture, while the necessary scientific restrictions would be heeded. In all Montague felt, it was a good and useful news conference and the resultant publicity might produce someone who could identify the deceased. Surely that lovely girl had been missed by her family and friends?

  Very soon after the journalists had departed to meet their deadlines, the result of the post-mortem was telephoned to Montague. It produced a dilemma because Mr Meredith could not determine what had caused her death, which meant that further tests would be necessary. Some of her organs would have to be despatched for forensic analysis, or at least a second opinion.

  ‘Are you saying she’s been poisoned?’ Pluke asked Mr Meredith.

  ‘I’m not saying that because I do not know,’ admitted Meredith. ‘Drugs, poison, some other cause. You need an expert analysis, Mr Pluke. All I can say is that I can find no evidence of an unnatural death. It seems she died from natural causes, that is what I am saying, but I need a second opinion. Provisionally, I believe she was asthmatic but do not know if that would cause her death. There was no evidence of sexual assault, she was not pregnant and she had never given birth to a child, although she was not a virgin.’

  He went on to say that there were no external or internal injuries, she appeared to have been a healthy young woman aged between twenty-five and thirty, around one and a half metres tall (five foot four) and of average build, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She had kept herself in a spotless condition; every part of her body was remarkably clean and she had good natural teeth. There was no foreign matter beneath her fingernails such as the assailant’s skin or hair, nor anything such as earth, dough, food or paint to provide a clue to her occupation or hobbies. Her last meal had been a salad comprising ham, lettuce, tomato and spring onions, and she took a size 5 in shoes.

  ‘I am sorry not to be of more help, Mr Pluke,’ apologised Meredith.

  ‘We do have something.’ Pluke smiled, admittedly baffled by this outcome. ‘We know her death is suspicious — the method of disposal of the body tells us that. But thanks for your efforts. You’ll let me have the usual written report?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Montague Pluke returned to the Incident Room to ensure these findings were entered in the file and on the computer, and to inform his officers. Even without a known cause of death the investigations would continue and in any case it would soon be time for the first conference of detectives. A check with Mrs Plumpton revealed that all had now arrived in response to their call-out; most had gone to the canteen for something to eat before their evening’s duty, but they could be assembled in the Incident Room within a few minutes. Pluke suggested a meeting at six o’clock; it was amazing how the afternoon had flown, and as he glanced at his own watch he realised that Millicent would have his evening meal ready.

  He also realised he had not told her of his unexpected commitment, so he decided to hurry home before the conference of detectives.

  There was just enough time to do that and he told Wayne Wain of his intention.

  *

  ‘Had a nice day, dear?’ asked Millicent as he walked into the kitchen to plant his routine kiss upon her cheek, taking care, as always, to stand in front of her in order to achieve this display of purest love. To kiss someone upon the nose, even accidentally, is said to bring trouble between the pair, and to kiss someone while leaning over that person’s shoulder was tantamount to stabbing him or her in the back. And Montague had no desire to create trouble between himself and Millicent, nor did he wish to imply he wanted to murder her.

  Millicent was a tall lady and rather slim, although the clothes she wore — old-fashioned cover-up-everything pinnies, shapeless skirts and home-made jumpers when in the domestic mood — obliterated any shape of which she might be proud. With grey hair, curled and worn short above the ruddy-red cheeks of a countrywoman, plus rounded, tortoiseshell-framed spectacles which had thick lenses to compensate for her short-sightedness, she was not a very handsome woman. But she loved Montague, even to the extent of tolerating his dress sense.

  ‘Very interesting, dear,’ said Montague, having delivered his kiss and hung up his hat. ‘I found a new horse trough.’

  ‘How exciting,’ she bubbled as she took the casserole from the oven. ‘That must be number 350? You’ll soon reach your target of 500 at this rate! That is good news, I am so pleased for you ... you must tell me about it.’

  ‘I won’t have much time,’ he apologised. ‘I have to go back to work this evening.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Is it important?’

  ‘A young girl has been found dead in very suspicious circumstances and I am in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘A murder? And you are in charge? Oh what a huge responsibility, Montague. And how awful for you, for the town. I hope it doesn’t stop the tourists coming. What dreadful things happen these days.’ She began to spoon the contents of her dish upon his plate. ‘You do work so hard, Montague, you could do without this sort of thing when you are trying to keep crime down.’

  ‘I am not referring to it as a murder, dear, it is merely a suspicious death, but it will be quite interesting, I believe,’ he said, sitting at the table and tucking his serviette into his collar. ‘But I must admit, it would be nice to catch the killer, Millicent, if in fact that is what emerges. I am sure she met her death unlawfully.’

  ‘Well, you must not work too hard, and remember you promised to lecture to the Local History Society tomorrow night. You cannot let them down, they are looking forward to your visit. Now, you mustn’t go working overtime and wearing yourself out, Montague. Do sit down and relax for a while.’

  As he chomped at the squares of beef in her stew, his mind was going over the events of recent days, an
d he asked, ‘Millicent, dear. Have you heard any more about the Crowthers? You said they were on holiday?’

  ‘Yes, they are. Two weeks in Majorca. May told me they were going when I saw her at the Embroidery Club. I thought I had mentioned it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just that I hadn’t seen either of them around for a while. I was passing the end of their Grove this morning and realised how long it had been ...’

  Montague had no desire to tell Millicent about the crow and its message, so he smiled his appreciation of the news she had imparted as she continued, ‘I should think we should be getting a postcard from them soon. She has a niece, you know, who’s looking after the house while they’re away. It seems she has friends in Crickledale too, lots of them go round to visit her. She’s been having parties there.’ And she went on to tell Montague about the observations made by her circle of friends, concluding with, ‘Now, dear, do tell me about the horse trough.’

  It had long been a rule of Montague’s that he did not mix his police work with his domestic life, so he pondered her words for a while, then said, ‘Yes, that could be a very interesting discovery and I intend to give it a closer examination before too long. It’s near the Druids’ Circle, that folly in the woods, close to where the body was found. I was lucky to notice it in the ditch, we’ve been past before without me seeing it. I find it very interesting that horse troughs were used on that part of the moor ...’

  A little more than half an hour later, Montague Pluke was back in the Incident Room, suitably refreshed and ready to conduct his first conference of detectives. His hat was sitting on a peg beside his famous overcoat; he was now resplendent in his tight-fitting jacket with its breast pocket full of pens and pencils, his blue bow-tie, his silky waistcoat and half-mast trousers which revealed his spats.

  He let it be known to the Incident Room staff that he was pleased to note that brief details of the deceased had been written on a blackboard for all to see, that photographs of her face with front and side elevations were already on display on the notice-board and that a video of the scene showing both the corpse and the surrounds was available. Wayne Wain had been busy.

  Also on the notice-board was a photograph and description of the gentleman’s glove with a request that officers attempt to find the owner or, more immediately, the left-hand glove which completed the pair. Montague had issued an order that news of the discovery of the glove was not to be given to the press at this stage, since he did not want the killer to dispose of its mate. Having checked the efficiency of his teams, Montague was ready to address them.

  When the group of fifty noisy, cheerful and hardened detectives gathered in the muster room for their address by Montague, he felt somewhat nervous. Most of them were very experienced hunters of murderers; most, if not all, were drafted on to every major investigation within the county, but this was the first time he had been in command of so many officers in such an important and difficult case. Montague, however, was determined not to be overawed by the drama of the occasion.

  As Wayne Wain moved supportingly to his side, Montague stood on a chair, shouted in his loudest voice and, surprisingly, found that everyone lapsed into a respectful silence. Recalling Swinburne’s words that ‘Silence is most noble’, he began his address. The first part was easy. He told them of Winton’s discovery, he told them about Winton and his work, he explained how the body had been positioned in the chamber and gave a detailed description of the deceased with the local pathologist’s inconclusive assessment. He added that the body would now be subjected to forensic examination and provided a brief history of the Druids’ Circle. He referred to recent police photographs depicting what was there now, including shots of the body and the rubbish in the chamber. He mentioned the glove, showed them photographs of it and said it was the only evidence to hand at this stage — that unintentional joke resulted in a ripple of laughter in the room. It was good-natured laughter — they thought his joke was intentional. He laughed with them — it was a good moment.

  Next, he said, was the long, tedious slog of routine enquiries in the town — door-to-door enquiries must be undertaken by teams of detectives, two officers per team. Montague stressed that the officers must interview the people at each house — if there was no response to their knocking, they must return to the house again and again until they got a response. No occupant must be left unvisited or unquestioned. He was thinking about the Crowthers’ house — whoever was living there had to be interviewed and seen to be alive.

  The enquiries might reveal the identity of the many visitors mentioned by Millicent, but in any case, the crow’s presence demanded that close attention be paid to No. 15 Padgett Grove. He also insisted that all the workers on the estate which contained the Druids’ Circle be interviewed to determine whether anyone had noticed anything or anyone suspicious at or near the Circle in recent days. Press coverage of the enquiry would produce ghoulish tourists and unwelcome visitors to the Circle; gamekeepers, poachers and trespassers would be traced where possible and quizzed about their movements. Sexual perverts and those with odd sexual tastes such as pimpers, flashers and their ilk would be interviewed — there was a good file on them at Crickledale Police Station. Woods and druids’ circles were the known haunts of some very weird people.

  ‘But,’ he said as he terminated the conference, ‘our main purpose is to identify the girl. Inspector Horsley will allocate appropriate actions to you — we will need to peruse all lists of missing women issued by every police force and to liaise with civilian registries of missing girls and women. Someone, somewhere will know who she is. Our first job is to find a name for the lady in the burial chamber. Inspector Horsley will provide maps of the town, so that a system of house-to-house enquiries can be established. And we need to be told of any found clothing, especially women’s items that might have belonged to the deceased. It is vital that we find her clothing and any jewellery she might have worn.’

  He went on to state that Stephen Winton’s antecedents would be studied, and that any cars seen entering the woodland area must be traced.

  Hikers, ramblers, nature students, bird watchers and those with similar pursuits must be tracked down and interviewed. Quite surprisingly, he did motivate the officers and finished by saying that each working day would be from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. That meant four hours’ overtime each day, but due to the Force’s dire financial straits, time off would be taken in lieu of payment. Today, the teams would finish duty at 9 p.m., which allowed a little time to make a vital impact on the town. Before the teams left, Pluke said that the video would be constantly available to those unfamiliar with the girl’s description or the scene. The teams left the Incident Room full of hope and ambition — each detective aspired to arrest a murderer and hoped this might provide that opportunity.

  Each team of two officers was given a specific briefing by Wayne Wain; their action had been entered into a register and allocated a reference number for subsequent cross-reference and checking when the statements began to flow in to the Incident Room files. Every statement would be read and cross-indexed by a team of statement readers who would enter data into HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System’s computer. From these efforts, the names of suspects would emerge for future interview.

  Having seen his men dash into action, and happy that Inspector Horsley would supervise and administer the Incident Room, Montague decided that, on his way home, he would revisit the Crowthers’ house. He must establish whether that niece of May’s was at home — he could not ignore the message of the lone crow and continued to ponder its significance in the light of recent developments.

  He realised that one of his teams would visit the house during the routine house-to-house enquiries. If they did their job properly, they would establish the holiday whereabouts of the Crowthers and the identity of May’s niece. But Montague felt his duty was rather more immediate and as the teams returned from their first, uneventful enquiries in town, he said to Wayne Wain, ‘I am going
home now, but en route I shall be visiting a house of some friends.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘They are away on holiday, so I am told on good authority, but as I saw a crow sitting on their roof yesterday, a sign that heralds a death, I felt I ought to call in.’

  ‘As part of this enquiry, you mean, sir?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that, Wayne, although there is no known link between the house and the dead girl. But yes, every enquiry in this town is now part of our murder investigation, surely?’

  ‘Might I ask why you wish to see the house?’ Wayne seemed to think that murder enquiry protocol was being breached.

  ‘I want to see whether there has been a death there.’

  ‘You mean the girl might have been killed at that house, sir?’

  ‘It is a possibility that I cannot ignore, Wayne. It has been troubling my mind. I know our teams will be visiting the house in due course, but in this case I have personal connections with the owners. So, do you wish to accompany me or are you going off duty?’

  ‘I’ll come with you, sir.’ Wayne had no intention of missing this. Pluke could be right, he might know something the others did not. After all, he was a local person with a very extensive local knowledge. As Pluke walked through the town, he received courteous greetings from the townspeople who were out and about, smiling, nodding and raising his hat where appropriate.

  ‘You know a lot of people, sir,’ commented Wayne Wain.

  ‘Indeed I do, Wayne, indeed I do. That is part of my job, but also part of the penalty of being a leading citizen in a small town. But in the case of my work, it is an enormous help — local knowledge is of paramount importance, Wayne, and it is one of the factors which has compelled me to return to the Crowthers’ house.’

  ‘Return, sir?’

  ‘I did make a quick visit this morning, Wayne, but learned nothing of great interest, except that there were indications of the presence of someone other than the Crowthers. My decision was made in the knowledge that a crow had settled on their roof, Wayne, not because of the girl’s death.’