A Capital Crime

by Laura Wilson

  Backhouse thought for a moment, then said, ‘I have a manual from the St John’s Ambulance. I had it when I did first aid, during the war. I also,’ he added, with a touch of pride, ‘have two certificates. But I don’t see …’ Turning to Mrs Backhouse, he said, ‘Would you have shown the book to Davies for some reason?’

  Edna Backhouse shook her head in bewilderment. She was, thought Stratton, on the verge of tears.

  ‘This is all made up,’ said Backhouse. ‘I don’t know why he’s saying these things.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Stratton soothingly. ‘I’m sorry we had to disturb you, but that’s everything – at least for the time being.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, Inspector.’ Backhouse began to struggle out of the deckchair, but Stratton put up a restraining hand.

  ‘Don’t worry, we can see ourselves out.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector. If there’s anything else, we’re always glad to oblige.’

  ‘Nice dog,’ said Stratton, as they made their way back to the station. ‘Didn’t see her before. You certainly couldn’t hide a body in there for three weeks without her knowing about it. Even if you buried it in the garden she’d have it up in no time.’

  ‘Unless she’s lost her sense of smell,’ said Ballard. ‘If that’s possible.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said Stratton. ‘What do you think of the Backhouses?’

  ‘She seems a bit cowed by him, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Well, he certainly did the talking for both of them, but that’s not unusual – not where we’re concerned, anyway – and she’s obviously pretty bothered about the whole thing, which is understandable. What a mess … I don’t know about you, but last time I looked at a St John’s Ambulance handbook, it didn’t say anything about how to perform an abortion.’

  ‘Another fairy story, sir.’

  ‘Seems like it. Anyway, we need to know what the hell is going on, and I think it’s high time we brought Davies to London. We can have him for that briefcase, if nothing else – I’d be willing to bet a hefty sum that it’s been pinched. I’ll speak to DCI Lamb when we get back.’

  Ballard grimaced. ‘Best of luck with that, sir.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Stratton. ‘I’ve a feeling I’m going to need it.’

  Chapter Six

  DCI Lamb let out a gusty sigh. Stratton was familiar with the man’s repertoire of noises indicative of exasperation and forbearance, and recognised this one as meaning that the person in front of him – in this case, himself – was arsing about, wasting time, and generally testing his superior’s patience to the limit. Lamb, whose resemblance to George Formby seemed actually to be increasing as he grew older, took any deviation from by-the-book policing as a personal insult, and had long regarded him, Stratton, as the chief culprit. In his lighter moments, Stratton had often wondered if what his superior would really like would be for him to arrest himself, lock himself in a cell and beat himself up while he was at it.

  ‘Let me get this clear,’ said Lamb. ‘You’ve no idea where this woman’s body is – assuming that she is actually dead – and, more importantly, the baby’s disappeared and you have no clue as to where she is, and everyone you’ve spoken to, including his own mother, thinks that Davies is off his head. Besides which, the chances of Backhouse and his wife failing to notice that they are sharing a house with a corpse are – to say the least – slender.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, sir.’

  ‘And Backhouse was a special constable, for God’s sake! If he says Davies is off his rocker … Incidentally, Stratton, I hope you’re treating him with a bit of respect.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  Lamb sighed again, looking more put-upon than ever. ‘Nothing’s ever straightforward with you, is it, Stratton?’

  ‘With respect, sir—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Lamb waved a hand in irritable dismissal. ‘Let’s just get this sorted out as soon as possible, shall we? You say that the briefcase has been reported as stolen, so get Davies up here for that.’

  ‘Right away, sir.’

  ‘Wait. On second thoughts, I’ll send someone else to Merthyr Tydfil for Davies. You’re to search the house, and for God’s sake make sure you do it thoroughly.’

  ‘Now, sir?’

  ‘Yes, now!’

  ‘It’s going to be difficult in the garden, sir. In the dark.’

  ‘Take a bloody torch, man. I want a full report on my desk before Davies is brought in.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Stratton tried to compose his features into a semblance of eager obedience.

  ‘Don’t stand there making faces – get over to Marlborough Street for the warrant.’

  Going down the corridor to collect Ballard, Stratton relieved his feelings by singing ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ in a voice that he judged to be almost – but not quite – audible in his superior’s office.

  Having secured an emergency warrant from the magistrate’s court, Stratton and Ballard made their way back to Paradise Street. By the time they reached number ten, it was after nine o’clock. ‘Let’s hope the poor sods aren’t having an early night,’ said Stratton grimly as they waited, stamping their feet in the cold, for the door to be answered.

  When Backhouse answered the door he was dressed, as before, in a collarless shirt, and trousers held up in the old-fashioned way with braces and a belt. He did the bad ventriloquist thing with his mouth, then took off his pebble glasses and polished them on a handkerchief, blinking myopically. Behind him, in the gloom of the hallway, stood Mrs Backhouse, who had taken off her overall to reveal a dark-green frock.

  ‘Sorry to call back at this late hour, Mr Backhouse. We have a warrant to search the premises.’

  Backhouse jammed his glasses back on his nose and stared at the two of them. ‘Now?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir.’ Stratton produced the paper. ‘May we come in? We’re anxious to get this matter cleared up – as I’m sure you are.’

  ‘It’s all very unpleasant.’ Backhouse grimaced and rubbed the small of his back with both hands. ‘My wife’s nerves … she was just about to take a sleeping pill and go off to bed.’

  Behind him, Edna Backhouse nodded in tearful confirmation of this.

  ‘We’ll be as quick as we can, I assure you,’ said Stratton soothingly.

  They started at the top of the house, in the two rooms which had been the Davies’s flat, then moved downstairs to Mr Gardiner’s flat on the first floor. Sparsely furnished, it yielded nothing apart from the fact that its tenant had once worked on the railways and was a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party.

  They returned down the narrow staircase and, watched in silence by Backhouse and Edna, they inspected first the ground-floor living room, which faced the street – utility furniture, a radiogram, a few books and a dejected-looking plant, as well as the framed first aid certificates Backhouse had mentioned and a photograph of him, smiling proudly, in his police uniform – then the bedroom at the back, and finally, the kitchen. There was, as Stratton had predicted, nothing at all to suggest that Muriel Davies had ever been there, alive or otherwise. ‘Now, if you don’t mind,’ said Stratton, turning to Backhouse, ‘we’ll need to see the garden. Is the back door unlocked?’

  Backhouse looked puzzled. ‘Yes, it’s always unlocked, but there’s only the lavatory and the washhouse out there, and there’s no light. I can assure you—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Stratton firmly, ‘but we do have to look.’ He pulled his torch from his overcoat pocket. ‘If you’ll keep the dog inside for the time being …’

  The ‘garden’, which consisted of a yard and a muddy patch of lawn strewn with broken bricks and the corrugated iron remains of an Anderson shelter, was no more than thirty feet by twelve. By the light of the torch, Stratton made out a lopsided washing-line post, the rusty shell of a dustbin, old newspapers, some gnawed bones that looked like chops, a lot of weeds, some dusty-looking bushes and the sooty wall of the goods yard. On the
top of it a cat, disturbed by the noise and light, fled with dainty tightropewalker’s steps into the darkness beyond.

  Stratton checked the lavatory and, finding it empty, turned his attention to the fractionally larger washhouse beside it. ‘These are used by all the tenants, are they?’ he asked Backhouse, who was walking up and down the yard, rubbing his back and biting his lip as if in pain.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Bit stiff.’ Stratton tried, and failed, to open the washhouse door.

  ‘It gets jammed,’ said Backhouse. Turning to his wife, who was standing on the threshold of the back door, shoulders hunched and arms crossed against the cold, he said, ‘Fetch a knife, Edna.’

  Edna Backhouse disappeared and returned a moment later with a kitchen knife which she inserted into the lock, and, after wiggling it for a few moments, managed to open the door. Shining his torch in, Stratton saw a room of about five feet square with an old copper covered by a plank of wood on which stood several tins of paint and varnish, presumably left behind by the builders Backhouse had mentioned. Next to it was a square stone sink with a single tap. A row of battered-looking planks of wood was propped up vertically in front of it.

  ‘Those are from the hall,’ said Backhouse. ‘The builders gave them to me for firewood.’

  Stratton nudged the plank a few inches and peered into the copper, but saw nothing except dust. ‘We don’t use the washhouse any more,’ Backhouse explained. ‘Only for storing things and emptying slops … there’s nothing more to see.’

  Stratton pulled back one of the planks standing before the sink and shone his torch into the space behind. The beam illuminated what appeared to be a green-and-white-checked tablecloth, tied round with sash cord. He pulled a couple more of the planks away and saw that it was wrapped round a large parcel. Standing back, he motioned to Mrs Backhouse. ‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked. ‘Is it your tablecloth?’

  Edna Backhouse bent forward and peered at the bundle for a moment. Straightening up, she said, ‘It’s not one of mine. I’ve no idea what’s in it.’

  ‘Well, let’s have it out.’ Aided by Ballard, Stratton pulled the bundle – which was heavy – into the yard. ‘You don’t mind if we cut the cord?’ he asked Mrs Backhouse.

  Frowning, shaking her head, she said, ‘No. I told you, it’s not mine.’

  Stratton took out his pocket knife and, his torch held steady between his teeth, cut the sash cord. As soon as it was loosened, one end of the green cloth raised itself up and, with jerky acceleration as of some ghastly mechanical toy, a pair of female feet and legs slid out onto the cement of the yard.

  There was a sharp indrawn breath from Edna Backhouse, then silence, thick as a fog. After a long moment during which no-one moved, spoke or even seemed to breathe, Ballard’s voice came from inside the washhouse. ‘That’s not all, sir. There’s a baby.’

  Chapter Seven

  Diana’s high heels echoed on the stone floor as she walked into the hall of Hambeyn House, startling a pair of wood pigeons so that they flapped upwards and away through the broken window at the top of the main staircase. The lower windows – those that had retained their glass – were opaque with dirt, and their decorative plasterwork surrounds were yellowing and crumbly like stale cake icing.

  Shivering, she pulled the collar of her fur coat close around her neck and skirted the evidence of the birds’ occupancy – by the look of things, there had been more than just two pigeons – to stand at the bottom of the staircase. The curved iron banister looked like the ribs of a dinosaur and, halfway up, a thin ray of winter sunlight illuminated an obscenity scrawled across the khakipainted wall – left there, presumably, by a departing soldier. The words, Diana thought, were indicative of the fact that her childhood home, and what it symbolised, were obsolete in the new, post-war world.

  Sitting in the train on the way up to Gloucestershire, the burst of confidence she’d felt on leaving Guy had ebbed away, and, in an attempt to lift her spirits, she’d convinced herself that somebody – a school, a nursing home, even an asylum – would want to buy the place. This hope had been all but demolished when the driver of the station taxi, hearing her destination, had looked aghast and said, ‘You sure, miss?’ Even so, she hadn’t expected it to look quite so derelict. The house was a wreck, and she’d heard enough tales of woe from the owners of other properties requisitioned by the forces to know that whatever compensation she might be awarded would be too little to do much about it. Besides, it seemed to her that it was already too late.

  It was hard to believe she’d ever lived here. The place was like an abandoned stage set for a play so long out of fashion that it was impossible to imagine how anyone could have enjoyed it. Not daring to go up the stairs, she recrossed the hall and walked down the corridor to the dining room, where she found more khaki and grey paint, loose – and in some places, missing – floorboards and heaps of rubbish in the once magnificent fireplaces. Gingerly, she made her way over to the windows and stood looking out over the terrace. Weeds had sprung up between the flagstones, and piles of cigarette ends in the bowls of the long-disused ornamental fountains had combined with rainwater to create a few inches of brownish nicotine soup. The lawn beyond was rutted with tyre tracks and the flowerbeds claimed by banks of nettles.

  Hambeyn House was dead. Nothing – not repairs or fresh paint, even supposing these could be got, nor the joyful barking of dogs or even the laughter of children – could bring it back to life. At least, thought Diana, I don’t feel sentimental about it. Being a lonely only child – her sole sibling, a boy, had not survived babyhood – with a distant father, an aloof mother and a series of nannies with cold, perfunctory hands had seen to that. She dredged her memory for anything that would kindle a spark of feeling, but nothing came. At least, she thought, turning away from the window, there are no death duties, because there’s certainly no money to pay them. Her spendthrift father, who’d sold off parcel after parcel of land in his lifetime, had left her only a few thousand pounds, and as for what she’d get from Guy …

  But I don’t want to depend on anybody, she thought. For the first time in my life, I want to stand on my own two feet.

  She would go to London. When she was dreaming of escape from Guy and Evie, that had always been her plan, but now, for the first time, she began to give it a practical form – impossible before, as Evie had a nasty habit of opening other people’s letters ‘by accident’ and Diana knew, from bitter experience, just how vengeful her mother-in-law could be.

  At least she’d had the good sense to ask the taxi to wait. She’d return to the station, collect her bags, and telephone to her friend Lally before she boarded the train. Lally, who’d been a fellow MI5 agent during the war, and was now married to another old colleague, Jock Anderson, would surely let her stay while she found herself a job. Jock, who still worked for the Secret Service, might be able to help her with that. There was their former boss, too, Colonel Forbes-James – he might know of something. She’d find herself a small flat like the one she’d had in Tite Street during the war, and she’d make a brand new start.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘A well-nourished adult woman, five feet two inches in height, estimated weight seven and a half stone. The body has been tied up in a tablecloth. It is dressed in a blue woollen jacket, a spotted cotton blouse and a black skirt. The skirt has been disarranged so that the lower parts are exposed. Knickers and stockings are absent …’

  Dr McNally, the pathologist, looked like a clergyman – spare and ascetic in his white gown and rubber apron, with spectacles perched on his nose – and as he solemnly intoned the words, dictating to his secretary, Miss Lynn, he sounded like one, too. The Middlesex Hospital mortuary, to which both bodies had been removed, was a cold, low-ceilinged abattoir, its tiles and metal and porcelain surfaces gleaming in the harsh overhead light. It smelt of a mixture of decomposition and disinfectant. A tap dripped, and bronchitic coughing could be heard, intermittently, from somewhere in th
e basement corridor outside.

  The pathologist turned to his assistant, a wizened little man called Higgs, who had been there for as long as Stratton could remember, working for McNally’s predecessor, Dr Byrne, who had been murdered in 1944. ‘You may begin removing the clothes.’ To Stratton, he said, ‘You’ll be making a list, I trust.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Ballard produced his notebook and pencil, and wrote down each piece of clothing as it was removed. Finally naked, lying flat on the slab, neck resting on a wooden block and head tilted back on a white towel, the woman – confirmed as Muriel Davies by the Backhouses, but not yet formally identified – looked as though she were snarling like a dog. The woman in the older Mrs Davies’s photograph had been quite a looker, but now her upper lip was puffy and slightly drawn back from the teeth and there was a dark area – bruising and dried blood – around her nose and mouth. That, thought Stratton, explained the ‘bleeding from the mouth’ comment in Davies’s second statement – the bastard had thumped her first. Her eyes were closed, and one was blackened. Stratton could see that her neck was bruised, and that the body contours were beginning to disappear. There were maggots clustered on the mound of her left breast, as if suckling. Averting his eyes from this, Stratton noticed that her left hand was unadorned. ‘You didn’t remove her wedding ring, did you?’ he asked Higgs.

  The assistant shook his head. ‘Never touch nothing till I’m told.’

  ‘She was married, was she?’ asked McNally.

  ‘So we understand,’ said Stratton. ‘Perhaps she’d taken it off for some reason. Sorry to interrupt. Please …’ He gestured at the pathologist to continue his work.

  McNally had been dictating for some time, medical terminology, most of which Stratton didn’t understand, letting it wash over him and deliberately keeping his eyes off the baby, who, lying on the slab next door to the mother, made a pathetically small shape under the white sheet. Ballard, he could see, was doing the same. Worse for him, thought Stratton, with a baby daughter himself. Something McNally said caught his attention. ‘…There are a series of abrasions three and a half inches long on the right side of the throat, varying from one and a quarter inches in width to three-eighths of an inch. On the left side of the back of the neck is another group of abrasions …’