Recalled to Death

by Priscilla Masters

  What had brought the man here? he wondered. The area wasn’t exactly popular, except with historians and on summer afternoons when families would picnic here. Out of hours few people would venture here by chance, particularly on a wet September evening. Courting couples, maybe. But would a courting couple slit the throat of a peeping Tom? The man had been concealed in the cellar, not chased there. Had he been chased there surely he would have been stabbed in the back, not had his throat cut … unless he had turned to face his attacker. So had the man come here purely by chance? Had the murder also been by chance? Who would want to slit the throat of a vagrant? Why? And why here? This was a small, rural hamlet – a church, a farmhouse, a few pretty cottages. Why had this man come here in the first place? Shelter? Had he come here deliberately? Had there been an assignation? Had someone lured him here? There was, of course, another possibility. What if there had been a drug deal which their dead man had stumbled across? Randall scratched his head, frowning. To his knowledge this was not a known place for drug swaps. But there was a first time for everything. Was there any significance in the fact that his body had been found here, in these particular ruins? Who was he? How had he got here?

  Wandering around, he studied the environs. Moreton Corbet Castle was in an area roughly the size of a field. It was reached via a small gate thickly hedged from the road. To the west was farmland. Cattle were currently grazing there. To the east was a church and a pretty cottage which had once been the vicarage. The site itself was interesting, particularly to historians. There was a twelfth-century tower, a sixteenth-century kitchen and garderobe and a late sixteenth-century dining chamber. The cellar was on the south side of this, reached over a small mound.

  The Elizabethan facade had come later but was never finished, and by the eighteenth century Moreton Corbet Castle was nothing but a ruin, as it was today.

  Randall’s mind started working, trying to track back and work out the events leading to this murder. And as usual he started by making lists, planning the action and allocations of suitable officers. First port of call was to speak to the person who lived in the cottage. Then the farmer who lived in that wonderful black-and-white house opposite. He returned to the cellar, where lights had been set up, and studied the dead man’s face in more detail. He looked to be somewhere in his late forties/early fifties. It was hard to judge when the wound and death had distorted his features but his hair, though long and uncombed, was dark with only streaks of grey, and he was unkempt. Randall frowned. If he had been a vagrant, there were places for the homeless in Shrewsbury, rooms available where they could have a hot meal, a wash – even use as an address when applying for a job. But there was never enough help and support. Besides, many of the homeless didn’t want help. They liked the anonymity the life of a vagrant gave them. They didn’t want an identity. They wanted to escape. Well, this one hadn’t. Many of the homeless in the town camped in the meadows which bordered the river. Silks Meadow or Frankwell, which was not only prone to flooding but also had a dark history of furtive crime, footpads and smuggling. Cut throats. Randall was thoughtful. The phrase had stuck in his mind. Cut throats.

  Some of the homeless were drug addicts; others had mental disorders and some of them … well. They just didn’t want an average life, wife, home, mortgage, two-point-four children. Randall gave a wry smile. Come to that, neither did he. He wondered if this unidentified man fitted in to this category. Could he be an escapee, or a fugitive?

  A lot of the homeless ended up sitting out the night not in shop doorways or under bridges but underneath the comfortable, warm, golden double arch of McDonald’s, where the staff sometimes gave them free chips and a hot drink. Not exactly the usual clichéd image of a fast food company. In general, the homeless in Shrewsbury caused few problems. They tended to keep themselves to themselves. Sometimes they were bothered by drunks or drug addicts or simply the general public who resented their state, but mostly the vagrants shuffled around the town ignored and ignoring people themselves. They neither caused bother, nor attracted it.

  He turned away from the man and ascended the steps, back out into the welcome light and fresh air, gazed back towards the gate and wondered as he watched the English Heritage gatekeeper. As always, he had to consider all options and, like Roberts, his thoughts settled on Hyde. Now that his initial shock at discovering the crime had abated, his impression was that the caretaker was affronted at the intrusion. It was as though this place was his own personal possession. Randall had seen this phenomenon for himself when visiting stately homes. The people who worked there appeared to feel a personal responsibility and protectiveness towards their charges, not only for the people but also towards the property itself. It was natural that Hyde would resent someone, particularly someone like their victim, trespassing on the property he appeared to think of as his own. He would have taken it as an insult, an affront to the ruined mansion’s dignity that this person should doss out in its grounds.

  Randall looked at the upright, bearing and uncompromising features of the caretaker. He might be a little rigid, but was it really possible that he would resent a vagrant’s intrusion that much? Enough to cut his throat? Surely not. But then Randall decided that this was the point from where they would begin their investigation, with the caretaker of Moreton Corbet Castle.

  Hyde gazed back at him. Pale but resolute, saying nothing but very wary.

  ‘OK,’ Randall said to Talith, who had been watching him, waiting for him to start directing the operations. ‘It is fairly obviously a suspicious death so we set the wheels in motion.’

  Gethin Roberts was startled into action and activity.

  Randall decided to summon Dr Mark Sullivan, Home Office pathologist, to the scene rather than the police surgeon. Delyth Fontaine was good enough at her job but this was a case for the pathologist. The trouble was it meant further delay. Mark Sullivan was currently at the hospital mortuary performing a post-mortem on a patient who had died while under surgery, so they had to wait for him to arrive. It was an ironic fact that a body, however patently dead it was, could not be moved until a medical practitioner had certified death.

  And he had to inform the coroner.

  Leaving Talith to organize a forensic van, he pulled out his mobile phone and connected, spoke briefly to Jericho and was put straight through to Martha. It took him just minutes to describe the scene and she authorised the removal of the body once the appropriate certification had been completed. ‘When you’re ready, Alex,’ she said pleasantly.

  ‘It looks like a random killing,’ Alex said, ‘and the man appears to be a vagrant.’

  ‘A tramp?’

  ‘Yes. It looks like it.’

  ‘Have you had any other assaults on vagrants in this area?’

  In spite of the circumstances, Randall smiled. He was used to Martha’s curiosity into the police perspective. ‘No.’

  ‘So this is an isolated assault – a vicious one.’

  ‘It would appear so,’ he said cautiously. ‘I certainly hope so.’ He paused. ‘I only hope this isn’t going to be the start of attacks on the homeless but I can’t think of a reason why anyone would target a tramp unless they held a grudge against him personally rather than resenting them collectively. Other attacks on the homeless in other areas have proved to be random. But this will, of course, make our job harder.’

  ‘You’re not giving up before you start, are you, Alex?’ she teased.

  He took it in good spirit. ‘No, I’m not, but I can foresee problems.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll try to find out what his background is and why he took the path into homelessness.’

  ‘It’s usually drink or drugs.’

  ‘Or mental illness.’

  On the other end of the line, unseen by the coroner, Alex Randall winced as, oblivious, Martha continued, ‘Do you think … is it possible the reasons behind his vagrancy might be the reason he was killed?’

  ‘You mean someone who had a grudge against people with dri
nk or drug problems or someone with a mental illness?’

  ‘Well, ye-es.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Or else someone who knew him. Someone who was related to his previous life.’

  ‘In which case he would be a specific target, but I’ve learned not to be too optimistic. My fear is that our man simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘When there was a marauding homicidal throat-cutting maniac on the loose?’

  Alex chuckled. ‘Something like that. Anyway.’ He hid behind the usual statements. ‘We’ll be considering all options and I promise, Martha, to keep you informed and well up to date.’

  Martha couldn’t resist a chuckle. She knew that the detective was well aware of her interest in crime, of her feeling of responsibility towards justice for those who had died violently, that she felt as though she was both their representative and mouthpiece.

  There was a pause while Martha pictured the scene herself. She knew Moreton Corbet Castle well. She’d taken the children there on picnics many times. Like other children, Sam and Sukey had played Roundheads and Cavaliers in and out of the ruins, re-enacting its violent and troubled past. Or else they had pretended to be the castle’s ghost, modelling their role on Paul Homlyard, who had cursed the castle when evicted by Vincent Corbet on account of his Puritan beliefs. In order to prolong the game she had spent hours delaying her discovery of the twins amongst the ruins, rounding the tumbled walls, searching in and out of the nooks and crannies in the Great Tower, finally finding them hiding in the fireplace of the dining chamber or down the steps in the cellar, so she could visualize the scene of the murder only too well – the huddled body of a murdered vagrant hidden just there where her own precious kids had watched and chuckled and waited for her to find them. Typical twins, they had always hidden together. And though she was a coroner and dealt in the business of death, Martha Gunn had a particular horror of death by a cut throat. Murder was barbaric enough, but throat cutting seemed particularly so. She realized then that Alex Randall was still on the other end of the line. She had expected him to ring off, but he hadn’t. He had waited, kept the line open.

  ‘Alex,’ she prompted.

  ‘Martha.’ There seemed to be an appeal in his voice.

  ‘Alex?’ she said again.

  ‘I – this is an imposition.’

  She decided to take the bull by the horns then. Lead him onwards. ‘Look, Alex,’ she said. ‘We’re friends. If you want to talk to me about something unrelated to our work together that’s perfectly OK with me. Understand?’

  He exhaled. ‘It’s still an imposition.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘My ears are open. I mean it sincerely. You want to talk? I’m happy to listen.’

  His response was a humble, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘OK. Now keep me up to date with your case.’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll be starting with the usual haunts of the homeless and the people of Moreton Corbet. See if any of them saw anything.’

  ‘OK,’ Martha said. ‘Keep in touch. And Alex,’ she added, ‘remember what I said. If you want to offload something my ears are open and attuned. Understand?’

  Somehow she knew that the detective was smiling as he put the phone down.

  Leaving PC Sean Dart to take down Hyde’s details, Randall returned to the cellar, lit now by brilliant arc lights mercilessly illuminating each rounded corner. An access corridor had been searched, cleared of evidence and marked out with tape. It wasn’t a large area, no more than eight by eight feet. The spots on the steps were ringed with chalk. The sprays on the ceiling had small markers indicating them and detailed photographs had been taken of the spray pattern. Randall knew enough about forensic science to recognize the fan of droplets as being the result of an artery being severed. Arteries spurt, veins ooze. Blood is under pressure in an artery and spurts with great force if that artery is severed. If the perpetrator had been facing their man at the time of the assault he would have been covered in blood. If, however, he had come up behind him, he would not. But Randall was working on the assumption that the assault had been from a frontal position. He thought it through again. It looked as though their man had come to the bottom of the steps to see who was there and, after the assault, had staggered backwards against the wall and collapsed in the corner. Where their man was still sitting, there was a significant pool of blood. So … the questions were still unanswered. Had he come here last night, out of the rain, and been followed or accidentally stumbled upon?

  The alternative was that their man had come here to meet someone. The use of a weapon would appear to support this theory. Unless their man had been murdered with his own weapon and the assailant had merely used it against him and taken it away with him.

  Suddenly feeling that something wasn’t quite right, Randall looked around him. What was it?

  Then he knew what it was. All vagrants have belongings. Usually a rucksack full of oddments that never leaves their side: tobacco, warmer clothing, a blanket, something waterproof – bin liner or mac. Where was this guy’s? Also, how had he got here? Shrewsbury was eight miles away. There was no bicycle outside. Had he walked all this way? Hitch-hiked? Last night had been cold and rainy but the man’s thick tweed coat had been bone dry. Not even a hint of damp. So how long had he been here? When did he come here? When did he die?

  As the incident van was manoeuvring into place and Talith was putting up signs, informing the public that Moreton Corbet Castle would be closed to visitors until further notice, Mark Sullivan, the Home Office pathologist, turned up in his black Mercedes. Randall went to meet him.

  FIVE

  Friday, 12 September, 12.30 p.m.

  In the past, Doctor Mark Sullivan, though a skilled Home Office pathologist, had had a drink problem. Both Martha and Alex Randall had noted his hands shaking on more than one occasion and worried about his future. One slip could mean the end of his career. But a year ago he had announced his divorce and this appeared to have resolved the problem. Since then he had gained in both competence and confidence and was much happier. Alex liked working with him and trusted his judgement. If not close friends, the two men were respectful, friendly colleagues.

  Having finished his work at the hospital, Sullivan had driven out to Moreton Corbet, enjoying the ride out of the town and the break from the mortuary. He pulled up behind the squad cars and the huge white incident van and donned his forensic suit, gloves and cap included. Then he pushed open the small gate and threaded his way along the narrow marked corridor towards DI Randall, giving him a warm smile. ‘So what have you got for me this time, Alex?’ He sounded jaunty.

  ‘Looks like a tramp with his throat cut. Poor guy.’ He couldn’t resist adding, ‘Some people have all the luck.’

  Mark Sullivan grinned. ‘Sure it’s not one of the local cottagers in their old gardening clothes having an accident with his hedge clippers?’

  Randall gave a token smirk. ‘Well, whoever he is hopefully we’ll soon find out.’

  ‘No ID on him?’

  Randall shook his head. ‘No. We haven’t done a proper search, though. Thought we’d leave that to you.’

  Sullivan’s good humour was undented. ‘Thank you.’

  Randall made an attempt at a joke. ‘Looks like we have Mr Nobody in there.’

  ‘Who came …’ Sullivan scanned the grand facade, ‘to this impressive place and got his throat cut. Well, if you’re going to be killed it may as well be in such a place. Lead on.’

  Alex Randall picked his way along the corridor of access, the pathologist practically stepping in his footsteps. They lifted the side of the white tent and entered.

  Sullivan was thorough in his approach. He was taking it all in as he entered the lower chamber and approached the steps that led to the cellar. He noted the spots of blood and looked up as though he knew what he was expecting to see – arcs of spray on the ceiling. He approached the corner of the cellar and hunkered down so his face w
as on the same level as their victim. Saying nothing, he spent a moment or two simply observing the dead man, studying the way he was propped up against the wall, looking at the pools of dried blood that stained his clothing. Then he reached out and touched the man’s neck, gloved fingers probing the neck wound quite gently. He examined both the man’s wrists and tried to flex his elbow. Even Randall could tell it was stiff.

  Sullivan spoke in a soft voice, as though to tag it to himself. ‘Rigor mortis is well established.’

  He spent more than half an hour making notes and taking photographs of his own. He took the man’s axillary temperature and then an ambient reading in the cellar, making as little disturbance of the clothes as possible before he finally stood up. ‘Not a lot of doubt about the cause of death, Alex,’ he said. ‘Throat cut.’ He made a face as he glanced back. ‘Quite an anatomy lesson. As you can see …’

  Alex Randall held his hands up. ‘OK, Mark,’ he said. ‘I get the picture. No need for gory detail. Any idea of …’

  Mark Sullivan cut him short. ‘Time of death,’ he said, anticipating the detective’s question, ‘will have been about eighteen hours ago. Give or take six hours.’

  Randall thought for a moment. ‘So probably sometime yesterday evening – between five and eleven p.m.?’

  ‘Roughly. Somewhere round there, anyway.’ He had the pathologists’ reluctance for being too precise about the time of death. He turned around, started to peel off his gloves and remove his cap, chucking them into the basket. ‘We’d better get the poor fellow to the mortuary and do a proper job.’