A Capital Crime

by Laura Wilson

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Just as well there are some wiser heads, then. Wiser than mine, anyway. Tell you what, let’s see if we can get some breakfast, shall we? Round the corner – I don’t know about you, but I could do with getting out of here for a bit. Oh, and it’s on me.’

  Fortified by a cooked breakfast and several cups of strong tea, he felt much better, and things improved still more when the sun began to come out as they returned to the station, where he took a telephone call from Dr Sutherland, the Principal Medical Officer at Pentonville. Stratton, who’d had previous dealings with Sutherland, pictured him in his office – a man with suspiciously luxuriant hair and the square, determined jaw of the sort of film actor who stands about radiating quiet strength before performing heroic and morally impeccable acts. ‘You’ll be glad to know that Davies is fit to plead,’ said Sutherland. ‘We went through the family history, personal history and so on … He spoke quite freely. Told me he’d killed his wife on the seventh, and the infant on the ninth, and put the bodies in a washhouse at the back of the property.’

  ‘He said that, did he?’ Stratton was surprised. Sutherland’s job was to make sure that Davies was fit to plead and stand trial, not to take confessions.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t question him about it – in fact, I warned him I’d have to report it, but he carried on …’ Sutherland paused, and Stratton wondered if he was radiating a spot of quiet strength at the fixtures and fittings. ‘Davies said it distressed him to think about it, but he seemed more shocked than distressed to me. Understandable in the circumstances, I think. He seemed worn out, which again is understandable. Low intelligence quotient – sixty-eight, and I’d estimate a mental age of about twelve to thirteen years.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I’d say so. That seems to be largely an educational defect and not an innate one – he missed a lot of schooling because of an infected foot – but it’s an inadequate personality, psychopathic in the sense of wanting his own way, acting without thought, and a clear lack of understanding about the consequences of his actions, coupled, of course, with an absence of reasoning power. However, there are no insane impulses or delusions, and observations made on the ward suggest that he’s reasonably cheerful and talkative, gets along with others and so on. I’ll put it all in the report, anyway.’

  ‘Do you think,’ asked Stratton, ‘that he was telling the truth?’

  Another pause – for a bit more radiating, presumably – and then the doctor said, ‘Yes. I believe he was. He did show some emotion talking about his daughter. I had the impression he loved her very much.’

  IQ 68, Stratton scribbled in his notebook. Mental Age 12–13 years. That meant that if Davies were found guilty, they’d be hanging someone who was, in all but years, a child. He tried to remember what Monica and Pete were like when they were twelve or thirteen, and found it surprisingly difficult. That was probably, he thought dully, because they’d been evacuated and he hadn’t seen much of them. Maybe that was why he and Pete never seemed to hit it off – they’d missed some vital stage that could never be got back …

  Grove appeared and rumbled over to his desk, followed closely by Ballard with a cup of tea and a sheaf of notes, both of which he deposited under Stratton’s nose. ‘Thought you might need this, sir.’

  ‘Oh? Why? And what’s that lot?’

  ‘Backhouse’s record, sir. Turns out he’s not the golden boy we took him for.’

  ‘That’s all we need. What’s he done?’

  ‘Well, in nineteen twenty-one he was sentenced to three concurrent terms of three months for stealing postal orders, and in nineteen twenty-nine he assaulted a prostitute. He was living with her, apparently, in Battersea, and—’

  ‘Hold on. What about Mrs Backhouse? He’d been married a few years by then, hadn’t he?’

  Raising his head from his paperwork, Grove said, ‘She was away. Up north, staying with relatives, and he was down here. She was away during the war, as well.’

  Stratton flicked through his notes. ‘Assaulted the woman with a cricket bat – must have been pretty bad, because he got six months’ hard labour.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s the same bloke?’ asked Grove.

  ‘Afraid so, sir,’ said Ballard. ‘He told the court he was just practising his strokes. You know, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.’

  ‘I’ll bet Dennis Compton does it all the time.’ Remembering Backhouse’s smug gentility, Stratton added, ‘Dishonesty and violence – what a pious little hypocrite.’

  ‘There’s more, sir. In nineteen thirty-three he stole a car. From a Roman Catholic priest, of all people.’

  Stratton groaned. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. He got three months for it, but the good news is, he’s been straight ever since. Wife came back to him after – maybe that had something to do with it.’

  ‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it? Why the hell didn’t they find out about this when he applied to be a special?’

  ‘I suppose they didn’t check, sir, and he wasn’t going to tell them, was he? And what with everything else going on, I suppose it got overlooked.’

  Stratton groaned again, louder. ‘Bloody hell! It would have only taken one telephone call … I’ll have to tell Lamb about this – it was this station, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he somehow comes to the conclusion that I’m personally responsible for not checking. Type it all up, could you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ballard scooped up the papers and left.

  Stratton could easily imagine Backhouse going to a prostitute – the usual dreary story of the reserved, cautious man, seeking to gratify a timid itch for amorous adventure, guilty in anticipation, remembering halfway through the fumbled act all the dire, lurid warnings he’d ever heard about chancres and insanity, and becoming impotent and creeping apologetically away … All that he could see happening, but living with – and therefore, presumably, off – a prostitute? And hitting her? That was an entirely different kettle of fish …

  ‘Grove?’

  The older policeman looked up and, with a deft movement of his jaw, transferred his – currently unlit – pipe from one side of his mouth to the other. ‘Mmmph?’

  ‘You don’t think it’s possible that Davies didn’t do it, do you? Just,’ Stratton added quickly, seeing Grove’s normally placid features take on an exasperated cast, ‘for the sake of argument, I mean …’

  Grove took his pipe out of his mouth, then peered at it and poked the bowl with his finger before applying a match. ‘You’re thinking about Backhouse walloping that tart, aren’t you?’ he asked, between puffs.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Bit of a turn-up, I grant you. Not the sort of thing you’d expect.’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  Squinting at Stratton through a dense cloud of smoke, Grove said, ‘Surprised me, too. But when all’s said and done, it was over twenty years ago, and he’s been as good as gold for the last … what? seventeen-odd years. No reason for him to start murdering people, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not, but I was just thinking …’

  ‘I can guess what you’re thinking. You can’t help liking Davies – or at least feeling sorry for him, in spite of what he’s done – and you don’t like Backhouse.’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘I found myself liking him, too. Davies, I mean – when we were bringing him back. Same as the kids we get in here sometimes, the delinquents. You know they’re villains all right, but you can’t help feeling sorry for the little sods. And from what I’ve seen of Backhouse, well … I don’t know if you remember him from when he was a special, but I had a few dealings with him and he was a proper little Hitler, I can tell you. Uniform went straight to his head.’

  ‘I don’t remember him, but Ballard said something similar.’

  ‘Well, he’s right. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d taken a few favours off a few of the girls, but nothing
more—’

  ‘Well, apart from bashing one of them senseless.’

  ‘Yes – years ago. But it doesn’t mean he’d suddenly strangle his neighbour’s wife for no reason at all. He’s a nasty piece of work, but he’s not a murderer. You’ve got your case: Davies is bang to rights and what’s more, he’s confessed. Apart from anything else, you start suggesting that to Lamb—’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Stratton hastily.

  ‘Good. Because if you did, he’d have your head on a plate and you know it. And he may be an irascible old … you know … but in this case, he’d be right. You take it from me, mate. I’ve seen it all.’

  ‘You’re right, of course.’ Stratton sighed. Grove was right. Not only that, but he was as sensible a copper as you could hope to find. It was him, looking at things cock-eyed – he was as bad as those blokes who’d painted the pictures in Monica’s book. There was no reason for Backhouse to have killed either Muriel or the baby, whereas Davies. . . In any case, Backhouse having a record wasn’t a disaster. Far from it. As Grove had pointed out, the man had been as good as gold for years, and any half-decent barrister would have no trouble at all in presenting their best witness as a man who’d learnt from his mistakes and was now firmly on the straight and narrow.

  Grove was right about Lamb, too. For all his faults, the man had done a bloody good job, and people who lived in glass houses … because he wasn’t exactly a saint when it came to coercing witnesses, and neither was Grove or any other copper he knew, come to that. If you found a weak link in the chain of evidence, you replaced it with a stronger one – that was how things were done. Davies was guilty of a hideous, unforgivable crime and if the witnesses weren’t perfect, so be it. They were, Stratton thought, good enough, and that was what mattered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nineteenth-century Baker Street was rotting in the damp December air – much, Diana thought, like its real, twentieth-century counterpart. At the end of the row of quaint but peeling shopfronts stood a guillotine and, beside it, a weather-beaten pile of canoes which were leaning against what surely couldn’t be – no, actually was – a baby Sphinx. To the right stood a grey platform topped with a funnel-like structure, which Diana guessed was the upper part of a submarine.

  Her guide was a young man with a chalk-white face haloed by orange curls which, combined with a skewed, upstanding collar and expansive gestures, made her think of a painting she’d once seen of Queen Elizabeth rallying the troops at Tilbury. ‘We do try to economise,’ he said, ‘but we can’t re-use everything, and there isn’t room to store it all in the Scene Dock. The backlot’s over there by the river,’ he added, flinging out an arm so near Diana’s nose that she flinched involuntarily. ‘That’s for exterior stuff. We had two hundred Zulus camped out there last week – not real ones, black sailors from Cardiff. Mayhem! We’ve got fifteen stages – they’re so big you can’t miss them. The workshops,’ Queen Elizabeth, whose name was really Alex McPherson, gestured again, this time at a row of boxy, flat-roofed buildings across a concrete causeway, ‘are there – carpentry and so on – and the Cutting Rooms, where film is edited – you’ll see that later – and then there’s the Dressing Rooms and the Art Department and Viewing Theatre and what-have-you over to the right. The producers have offices in the old house, that-a-way,’ he spun round and waved a hand at a Victorian mansion, bits of which were visible behind a row of trees, ‘and the bar is there, as well.’ Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘Most important, as you’ll soon find out. The restaurant is in there, too. That’s for the units, of course. Extras and clerical staff and groundsmen and people like that eat in the big canteen,’ he spun round again, and jerked out a thumb, ‘down there.’

  While he was talking, several girls in pink tulle hurried past, shivering, followed by a boy carrying an elaborate Regency wig on a stand, and another in overalls, hauling on the leash of a goat which kept craning its neck to try and eat the wig, sending little puffs of powder into the air each time its nose brushed the horse-hair curls. Bringing up the rear was a ludicrously handsome man in tails, his hair held in place by kirby grips. Seeing Diana’s slack jaw and following her gaze, Alex said, ‘Oh, those won’t be in the shot. It’s just so it stays in place.’

  ‘And the goat?’

  ‘Background. They’re shooting a Victorian melodrama on C Stage. Humble farmer’s daughter, lusty young squire – doomed love affair with picturesque haystacks and beasts of the field dotted about the place. You know the sort of thing … Actually,’ Alex lowered his voice, ‘it’s been rather awful because Robert Monckton – that’s the leading man – has got this absolute horror of watching women eat. God knows why, but it’s holding everything up because there’s all this stuff with Jessica Miles biting into apples and things. You know, ripeness and bountiful nature and all the rest of it … So poor old Jessica is nibbling away, take after take, and he’s meant to be looming over her, all dark and brooding, but instead he looks as if he’s going to throw up at any moment. They had to do separate reaction shots in the end.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Diana.

  ‘Not really,’ said Alex. ‘They’re supposed to be madly in love, but they can’t stand the sight of each other and it doesn’t half show. Anyway, come and see the costumes.’

  Rounding a corner and ducking under a precarious-looking balustrade, complete with a swathe of artificial ivy, they entered a warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar, where, suspended from a hundred rails, Nazi uniforms cosied up to crinolines and poke bonnets and yokels’ smocks were crushed against angels’ wings and sailor suits. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it?’ said Alex. ‘Well, that’s really the end of the outside tour. I’d better show you the stages.’

  ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ said Diana. She was feeling rather giddy – there was so much to absorb, and most of her attention seemed to be taken up in keeping out of the way of Alex’s flailing arms.

  ‘Not at all.’ Alex raked a hand through the orange curls so that they sprang up even higher. ‘Follow me. You’ve got to get to know your way around if you’re going to work for Mr Carleton. You’re jolly lucky, you know. Most people get thrown in at the deep end, but I was told to take special care of you.’

  The job with Mr Carleton, a film director at Ashwood Studios, was Jock Anderson’s idea. She, Jock and Lally had been amongst the few who’d attended F-J’s funeral the week before. It had been an unconvivial affair, the hymn-singing faltering and the mourners avoiding each other’s eyes. The whole thing was conducted at a forced, slightly desperate pace, as if everyone present feared that the thin ice of distant politeness might give way between them at any moment. Mrs Forbes-James was absent, and after the service the congregation dispersed hastily, in the guilty manner of conspirators.

  At dinner afterwards, Jock, who’d been impressed by the speed and efficiency with which she’d typed his manuscript, had told her that he’d arranged a meeting for her with an old acquaintance, Julian Vernon, who was head of Ashwood Studios. Diana had liked Mr Vernon, but had left with only the vaguest idea of what she might be expected to do as assistant to Mr Carleton, whom she had not yet met, and Alex, who was Mr Vernon’s assistant, hadn’t enlightened her.

  ‘Supposing Mr Carleton doesn’t like me?’ she’d said to Lally after the meeting. ‘And what if I can’t do whatever it is I’m meant to do?’ Lally’d just laughed and told her she’d pick it up, adding that it was probably just fetching cups of coffee and looking decorative.

  Diana’s apprehension about being up to the job – whatever it turned out to be – took an instant and vertiginous hike when they entered the enormous studio where she’d be working. Inside, beyond a painfully brightly lit area which appeared to be where the action was about to take place, everything was dark and shadowy, but the entire building echoed with the din of a dozen men in brown overalls who were manhandling pieces of heavy ornate furniture, laying cables, getting in each other’s way and shouting almost continually. Thirty feet above he
r head were more shouting men, some perched precariously on rails angling giant lamps, while others lowered a vast, glittering chandelier into place. Still other men fussed over two enormous cameras on tracks, and groups of people in old-fashioned clothes stood in the shadows, patiently, like cattle. ‘Extras,’ murmured Alex, propelling her forwards. ‘Another Victorian melodrama, I’m afraid. We’ve had rather a run of them recently and they’re very tiresome. Lots of nonsense about historical accuracy when all they really want is grand clothes and a lot of flouncing about.’

  Diana laughed. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Trial at Midnight. I ask you!’ Alex rolled his eyes. ‘It’s about a bloke who’s trying to drive his wife mad so he can get his hands on her money. That’s him, there.’ He flapped a hand at an exhausted-looking individual in a frock coat who was slumped in a chair at the side of the set being fussed over by a make-up girl in a white smock. He appeared to take no notice of her at all, but sat listlessly, arms hanging down. His face, shiny with greasepaint, looked like a drying death mask, with the eyes like two black marbles pressed into wet plaster.

  ‘He looks ill.’

  ‘He is. His doctor forced him to go on the wagon a few months ago, and it doesn’t suit him.’

  The young make-up girl, apparently flustered by the direction of their gaze, looked up, dropping her sponge as she did so. ‘Then why is he doing it?’ asked Diana, turning away slightly to spare the girl’s embarrassment.

  ‘No choice,’ said Alex. ‘Not if he wants to stay alive, anyway. Although,’ he added sardonically, ‘I’d say that’s debatable at the moment.’

  Shocked by this flippancy, but trying not to show it, Diana said, ‘I meant, why is he doing the film?’

  ‘Last chance saloon. Five other actors turned it down because they’re sick and tired of moustache-twirling parts, and he’s turned down so many things himself that the studio threatened not to renew his contract. They won’t anyway, but …’ Alex shrugged.