Recalled to Death

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Age?’

  Sullivan glanced back at the man. ‘Oh, I’d say somewhere between forty and fifty, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Randall nodded. ‘Can you say categorically that the cut throat was the cause of death?’

  Sullivan met the detective’s hazel eyes with a touch of amusement. ‘Ninety per cent of me says yes, Alex, but wait until I’ve done the post-mortem.’ He made another attempt at levity. ‘Just in case he had a heart attack halfway through.’

  ‘Right to left or left to right?’

  The pathologist winced. ‘Again, I’m guessing,’ he said. ‘But it looks like right to left.’ He forestalled the detective’s next question. ‘And judging by the spray on the ceiling, he was standing about here and was looking up to see who was coming.’ He moved towards the base of the steps. ‘The assault looks …’ again he stressed the word, ‘like it was done by a right-handed man, and it was committed from the front.’ He met the detective’s eyes. Neither man needed to point out the fact that the assailant’s clothes must have been splashed with a considerable amount of blood.

  ‘Any idea when the PM will be?’ Randall asked the question almost casually. He had already exerted enough pressure on Dr Sullivan.

  ‘I can fit him in first thing Monday morning, Alex. Have you let Martha know?’

  Randall nodded and Mark Sullivan picked up on something – embarrassment? He scrutinized his colleague. DI Randall was well known for being a very private man. Little was known about his personal life. He didn’t even know if the detective was married – or not. And Martha had been widowed more than fifteen years ago. Sullivan narrowed his eyes. Were the detective’s interests lying in that direction? Now that was interesting. But then Martha was a very attractive woman with a sparky character to match her flaming red hair. For himself, Dr Sullivan was feeling pretty jaunty. After some wretched years of marriage to the alcoholic who had dragged him into her pit of vipers, he had finally broken free. For almost a year he had been so relieved to be rid of her that he had simply revelled in his freedom.

  And then … Sullivan smiled to himself. It was early days yet but he had a feeling. Oh, the internet was a wonderful thing. After kissing a few female frogs he had met someone who right from the very start had felt special. He fingered his mobile phone. On silent mode, he had felt it vibrate and was certain there was a message from her. Instant messaging meant instant happiness. Something which had eluded him until now.

  He looked sharply at the DI, trying to read his mind. ‘I’ll ring Martha if you like,’ he said kindly, ‘and leave a message with Jericho about my initial findings.’

  Randall nodded and Sullivan left to return to the hospital or the mortuary, his more familiar stomping grounds.

  It was time for the initial briefing. Randall turned around and headed for the Incident Room.

  He currently had only a small number of officers working with him. It was early days yet. More would arrive if or rather when needed. They could all hope for an early conclusion but he already had a feeling this case would turn out to be complicated.

  He cleared his throat and the room stilled.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We have an unidentified male aged somewhere between forty and fifty. Medium height, medium build, brown hair streaked with grey. No ID. Apparently no personal belongings. Looks as if he’s been sleeping rough for some time.’ Randall recalled ragged nails, neglected stubble, the general air of the unwashed. A scent as powerful, repellent and unmistakable as that of putrefaction. ‘Apparent cause of death a single slash across the throat. Obviously this’ll be confirmed or refuted by a post-mortem which is provisionally scheduled for Monday morning.’

  He wrote a list of priorities on the whiteboard. Time enough to ask for reinforcements, if the case turned out to warrant it. His personal instinct was that the most likely scenario was that this was a random killing, someone with a grudge against vagrants in general. The next possibility was that their unfortunate victim had stumbled across something more sinister, perhaps a drug deal. Failing that the third and, in his mind, least likely scenario was that this was a personal assault deliberately directed at their victim, in which case once they’d found out the man’s identity the perpetrator would soon be found, possibly amongst the shifting population of the rootless. But the priority now was to await the results of the post-mortem, then to try and establish the man’s identity so he could at least be named and his relatives contacted. Then he could be buried decently, with his name on a headstone. So, along with gleaning every single shred of forensic evidence from the man’s clothes, body and the crime scene, their first problem was to find out who he was.

  Randall’s second pressing problem was that access to the site wasn’t great – a single track road with few passing places and some pretty treacherous pot holes. Bringing the forensic support van up here had been a nightmare, meeting farmers who were unwilling and unable to reverse their own unwieldy, huge trailers. Unless it was unavoidable it was better not to get too expansive with personnel in these initial stages. It would clog up the entire road system and annoy the few inhabitants of Moreton Corbet village.

  He eyed the assembled officers. All tried and tested, male and female. Familiar faces. Trusted colleagues. Not a weak link amongst them, though there were a few dark horses and quite a few more family dramas lurking in the background, including his own. There’d be time to explore those issues in the future when events were less pressing. For now they needed to work together, as a team, without distraction.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘we need to liaise with English Heritage. The site will be closed to the general public until further notice. DC Shaw, perhaps you’ll see to that?’

  PC Delia Shaw nodded and made notes.

  ‘Talith, you can work with Roddie Hughes supervising the crime scene and chain of custody of any forensic evidence.’

  Like his colleague, Detective Sergeant Paul Talith nodded without comment. He too knew exactly what was expected of him.

  Randall continued, addressing PC Gary Coleman next. ‘Coleman, start on the house-to-house, will you, speak to the neighbours, find out if this gentlemen was from around here or if they’ve seen him before.’ He frowned. ‘Or, for that matter, any other vagrants hanging around the place.

  ‘PC Tinsley, get some artist’s impressions of our man and get them to the press. Finding out this man’s identity is of paramount importance. It may not lead us straight to his killer but it gives him the dignity of a name and maybe relatives who can supervise his funeral arrangements. See if you can get any witness statements.’ He addressed the entire room. ‘That goes for all of you. He must have got here somehow. His coat was dry but it’s been raining intermittently for two days. We’re eight miles from Shrewsbury, the nearest town. Perhaps our man hitch-hiked his way out here, in which case a couple of boards asking for information out on the main road might not go amiss. Or had he been here for more than two days?’ He frowned, seeing the flaw in his argument already. He couldn’t picture John Hyde failing to spot him on his almost daily visits.

  PC Lara Tinsley smiled but she too said nothing.

  ‘See if you can get Dane Banks to draw some artist’s impressions and get those out on the internet, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Dane Banks was a fairly new acquisition, adept at taking likenesses from the dead in order to make the public aware. His pictures told a thousand words, or so his website advertised.

  ‘PC Dart …’ Randall’s eyes rested on him thoughtfully. Now this was the wild card in his pack. PC Dart had come from Yorkshire with a personal request for an urgent transfer. And DI Randall reflected that if he, the SIO, had a secret backstory, then so did this junior officer, who similarly kept himself to himself, did not mix with his fellow officers or fraternize with his colleagues, or give out any personal information. PC Sean Dart returned his look coolly, almost bouncing back a challenge.

  You keep your secrets, sir, and I get to keep mine.

  Randall
cleared his throat and continued to address the waiting officers. ‘Get on the missing persons’ website and see if you can come up with something, please? It would be nice to give this fellow a name.’

  Dart merely nodded. Made no notes, Randall saw. He felt he needed to add something – to justify this directive.

  ‘He may only have died sometime yesterday evening but if he was a vagrant he may have been reported missing in the past. He must have come from somewhere.’

  Dart interrupted. ‘Do we have a time of death, sir?’

  Randall grimaced. ‘Do we ever? Sometime between five and eleven p.m. last night.’

  Dart smirked but Randall was frowning. As usual, he was trying to piece together the little they knew about the case so far. The man’s coat had been dry. But yesterday it had rained heavily and steadily. It had been a dull, dark, thoroughly unpleasant evening, one where curtains would have been closed early, shutting everything out.

  Great night for a murder, he thought and moved on, addressing the unfortunate PC Gethin Roberts next, who was still deathly pale.

  ‘Roberts.’

  The PC responded sharply. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Go to the haunts of the homeless. Speak to the nuns at the convent. They give the vagrants a meal and the chance of some soap and hot water to wash in – if they choose to use it. See if they knew him. And don’t forget McDonald’s. The girls there can be pretty helpful and sympathetic towards their night visitors. They too may remember him.

  ‘And Coleman, perhaps you’ll see to the boards on the A53 and talk to the natives, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I think that’s it?’ Randall scanned the room in case there were any forthcoming ideas but they all looked back at him steadily and he nodded. It was early days yet. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Report back here at eight p.m. If any of you have anything urgent or significant to report ring me on my mobile. Otherwise, wait until then. Off you go. Get on with it. Don’t waste any more time.’ His final bidding was spoken like an infant school teacher dismissing his class, with a note of indulgent admonishment lightening his instruction.

  He watched them go. Hopefully one of his leads would at least lead them to the man’s identity. And from there to the killer should be an easy step. He stood, staring at his whiteboard, and mused. What bothered him was the injury. A cut throat was hardly the result of a tramps’ squabble, and the crime scene did not support the theory of a drunkard stumbling on an intruder when he had thought he would be sleeping alone. Again, Randall wondered: could a courting couple have turned on him, thinking he was a peeping Tom? Randall shook his head. The assault spoke of extreme violence. For his money he would bet on a couple of drug dealers. This had the mark of their form of violent crime. But surveillance of the general area around Shrewsbury was quite good. And to his knowledge this sort of drug dealer would not be found here but in the big cities: Stoke, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow rather than here.

  None of these scenarios quite fitted with a cut throat. Had their tramp not carried a knife with him – and Randall had yet to come across a vagrant who did – the assailant must have been armed, weapon at the ready as he descended the steps. He shook his head, frustrated already. A cut throat was an unusual method of murder. The act had more connections with the Taliban or organized crime who liked gruesome methods of execution to warn off anyone who might challenge their authority.

  A cut throat, in the criminal world, commanded respect.

  His thoughts began to track away as he exercised his powers of observation and recollection. The man had been thin but not emaciated. Someone had been feeding him. The nuns provided one hot meal a day, McDonald’s maybe more, but it was a precarious existence.

  The coat had been a typical garment bought from a charity shop. Probably given away by a generous benefactor. Charity shop personnel were equally as likely as the nuns and the staff at McDonald’s to be free with their gifts. After all, who wore these herringbone tweed thick wool coats these days? Expensive when new, unwanted second hand. Get caught out in the rain in one of these and they became instantly as heavy as a lead tabard, the ones the radiographers used to protect themselves from radiation. These days people tended to rely on anoraks or specialized outdoor clothing designed to breathe. Light, warm, waterproof, breathable as a pair of lungs. Randall’s mouth twisted. He could almost spit out the adverts.

  Now the area was as busy as a building site PC Gary Coleman could wander across the road and knock on the farmhouse door opposite the spectacular ruin which reminded him of the house in the final chapters of Jane Eyre. Thornfield Hall. That was it. He could imagine a mad woman dancing on the ramparts as it had burned. But then this place hadn’t had a fire, had it? It just hadn’t ever quite been finished. And that, according to the stories, was all due to superstition. Coleman spluttered derisively. A curse. He was modernist, a computer lover. For him curses didn’t exist, but even so he wouldn’t like to confront this spooky old ruin every time he opened his front door.

  As he waited for the farm door to be answered he looked up at the black-and-white walls of the farmhouse. Farmers were always protesting that they were poor. He gave a huff of disagreement. It didn’t look like that to him. If this was poor, what the hell was he? Working his balls off to afford a small semi in the town, saving for the dream wedding he’d always wanted. Oh, yes. Patty would have it. A big diamond, the perfect wedding and then a year or two later, when he’d paid it all off, a little one on the way? He scratched his chin and banged on the door again.

  It was pulled open by a tall, thin man with sharp eyes and a beaky nose. He was dressed in an old navy sweater and olive-green corduroy trousers. His feet were encased in cream woollen socks. He was wearing no shoes and his facial expression was politely inquisitive. ‘Yes?’

  Coleman displayed his ID and began in a roundabout way, ‘Mr …?’

  ‘Sharp,’ the man supplied crisply. ‘Rufus Sharp.’ To Coleman he sounded posh. He eased in gently to his narrative.

  ‘You may have noticed some activity at the castle, sir?’

  ‘I’d have to be bloody blind not to,’ Sharp barked. ‘What’s going on? Police cars everywhere, frightening the cattle.’

  Irritated now rather than curious, Coleman noted. ‘We’ve found a body in the cellar, sir.’

  The man frowned. ‘A body?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What – someone’s had a heart attack?’ He guffawed as though this was the funniest thing he could have said. ‘Overcome by the spectacular ruin that should have been pulled down years ago? Bloody dangerous place, if you ask me.’

  Coleman gaped. Everyone so far had been making a big thing about what a fantastic, historic, beautiful and wonderful place Moreton Corbet Castle was. And here was this man saying it should be pulled down? He didn’t get it.

  ‘We don’t think it was a heart attack,’ he said cautiously. ‘The pathologist thinks …’ He was skipping around the truth, trying to conceal what was not yet in the public domain. ‘He thinks the man probably didn’t die from natural causes.’ Inwardly Coleman was groaning at his ineptitude. It was always difficult at this early stage of the investigation to gauge just how much potential suspects should be told. Nothing if he had his way, he thought grumpily.

  ‘So what exactly did he die of?’ Sharp scrutinized him. ‘You’re not saying he was murdered, are you?’

  These were just the questions Coleman didn’t want to answer. Keep the buggers in the dark was his motto.

  The gentleman farmer glowered at him. ‘What exactly are you saying, Constable?’

  Coleman declined to answer, doggedly pursuing his own line of questioning. ‘Did you see anyone at the castle last night?’

  Sharp thought about it only briefly. ‘No,’ he said flatly, adding, ‘at least I don’t think so. But it was a rainy night and my living rooms all face the back.’ He gave a yellow-toothed grin. ‘So I wouldn’t have, would I?’

  Although riled Coleman answer
ed steadily, controlling his response. ‘Just asking, sir,’ he said woodenly.

  ‘Who was the man?’ Sharp at last showed delayed curiosity.

  ‘We don’t know his identity yet but …’ Coleman was struggling. ‘It’s possible he was a vagrant.’

  Sharp looked affronted. ‘A tramp?’

  ‘It’s possible, sir. Have you seen anyone looking like a vagrant hanging around there?’

  ‘No, I bloody haven’t,’ Sharp said. ‘If I had I’d have taken my blunderbuss to him.’

  Gary Coleman gaped and Sharp laughed. ‘Only a joke, Constable. Just a joke.’

  But looking at Sharp’s face, he wasn’t convinced.

  SIX

  PC Delia Shaw, in the meantime, was initially having an easier time speaking on the telephone to Gilbert Warrilow from English Heritage. He was proving much more amenable than Sharp.

  But then she, unlike Coleman, had had had some time to practise her lines because it had taken her a while to track him down.

  She began by introducing herself before launching into an explanation. ‘Unfortunately, sir, we’ve found a body in suspicious circumstances at Moreton Corbet Castle,’ she said, hurrying on to her point, ‘and so for the moment, I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep the entire site closed to the public.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Warrilow asked, ‘How long for?’

  Delia Shaw, who was tact personified, answered, ‘Regretfully, sir, until we have finished with the site.’ She paused. ‘I can’t say how long that will be.’ Maybe, she thought, she’d better prepare him. ‘It can take a few weeks, sir.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence before Warrilow gave a loud scraping of his throat. ‘Well,’ he harrumphed. ‘What will be will be. I don’t suppose there’s any point my objecting, is there, Constable Shaw? It won’t make any difference, will it? You’re hardly going to stop the investigation of a …’ he paused as though either doubting or mocking her initial words, ‘… suspicious death just because the site of the villainy is also a site of historic significance, are you?’ He gave a bark of uncertainty before saying crisply, ‘I take it you’ll be courteous enough to keep me informed of any developments?’