by M J Porter
Chapter 17
They arrived in a convoy. Smythe had deemed it worthless to simply go by train to Cambridge. He’d decided that whatever they found there, whatever it might be, would be brought to Erdington police station. The back room was no longer the preserve of Sam and O’Rourke. Now there was a steady stream of men and a few women who’d been sent there by the Chief Superintendent. Everything was to be categorised in a certain way. There was to be order from the chaos of the lost lives. The work that Sam and O’Rourke had completed had been deemed ‘adequate.’ Sam had tried not to take offence. After all, whether it was ‘adequate’ or not, it had still solved ten murder cases.
“Nearly there,” O’Rourke spoke, her words jolting Sam from his deep thoughts. He came to and stared out of the windows, mud-encrusted by now. It had rained heavily for at least half of the distance, but now it was just brown and black mud as far as the eye could see. He was glad he’d brought his wellingtons with him. It had been Annie’s suggestion, and one he’d thought was a bit over the top, but he’d thank her now.
“We’ll be met by the Chief Inspector from Cambridge, along with his team of officers. We’ll be going through everything carefully.” It was Hamish who spoke, his Scottish accent a counter-part to their duller ones.
“Yes, if there’s any of it still there. His niece, if that’s who it is, might have emptied the place.” O’Rourke had become increasingly despondent on the journey.
“She might yes, or it might be abandoned. No one has been to see because Smythe didn’t want to give away what we’re about.”
“Smythe, he surprises me,” O’Rourke admitted, her voice hesitant to make the admission.
“He’s surprised me too. I just thought he was a pencil pusher, but evidently not.”
“I almost expected him to come with us,” Hamish laughed as he spoke from his place in the rear of the police car. He didn’t seem at all concerned that some might assume he was the one under arrest.
“I think he would have done if Superintendent Hosean had decided to get involved,” Sam stated quickly.
“Here we are,” and the police truck they’d brought along for the occasion rumbled to a stop in front of a picturesque cottage, close to the road, but up a slight hill. Trees shielded the property, and Sam felt a shiver of apprehension down his spine. What would they find, if anything, hidden away inside the house?
“It looks empty,” O’Rourke commented, opening the door and jumping down, only to land with a soft squelch. “Be careful,” she called next. “There’s mud up to your blinking elbows down here.” She sounded like a city person, her distaste evident to hear.
Sam nodded, swallowed down his unease, and joined her while Hamish had to struggle through the row of front seats to exit the truck. Sam could hear the other vehicles pulling up behind them, twisting their way along the country road, which seemed as deserted as the house. They were hardly quiet.
He looked at the property. Perhaps, on a day less grim than this one, it might have looked inviting. But the looming grey clouds, and his knowledge of the person who’d once lived there, drove away any enjoyment he might have taken in the small rock garden snaking to the front door and the clean, white net curtains hanging in the bay windows.
“Do we go in?” O’Rourke asked. Hamish seemed content to wait for someone to tell him what to do.
“No, we have to wait for the others,” Sam stated, peering along the road, in the direction from which he thought the Cambridge lot might appear. In the distance, the land gently undulated before falling flat. He could see a river, murky with the mud that must have poured into it from the torrential downpour. “It makes little sense. I mean, if there’s anyone inside, they’ll have seen all the cars pull up. They’ll know something is going on, but we have to work together with the locals on this one.”
O’Rourke sighed softly, and Sam shared her frustration, even though he didn’t speak. Hamish didn’t have quite the same restraint.
“It’s always the same. You solve the case, and some other big-wig wants to take all the glory.”
Sam agreed with him. What, after all, had been the point in ensuring they arrived at exactly noon if Hosean and the Cambridge officers weren’t going to appear then?
By now, more of their fellow officers had joined them, six altogether. They were officially under the command of Smythe, but their loyalty was to the Chief Superintendent, and Sam had his reservations about them and their motivations. Yet, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t in this for the glory. No, he wanted to solve it and absolve Fullerton from his failure, even if the man had been dead these last few years.
“Do they still observe local mean time in Cambridge?” Chief Inspector Roberts from the Birmingham station tried to joke, but there was an intensity to his words that assured Sam he was just as annoyed with the late arrival as he was.
“Aye, it’s thirteen minutes behind in Inverness,” Hamish stated, and O’Rourke smiled. Sam was pleased the other man had been allowed to come with them. Otherwise, it might have been far too gloomy a proposition
“All that bloody arguing about time and they’re not even here,” Roberts continued, only for an aggrieved, female voice to penetrate their conversation.
“Here, what are you doing on the road? There’ll be an accident.” Sam turned surprised eyes on the woman, making her way down the steep drive. She was about thirty years old, Sam decided, not unattractive, for all she was tightly wrapped in a drab brown cardigan, hair beneath a grey coloured scarf, but with a look about her, that brokered no arguments.
“Good day,” he stepped to intercept her. “My name’s Chief Inspector Mason. My officers and I are on official police business.”
“That’s as maybe,” she stated, her fierce grey eyes peering along the road, “but you’ll cause an accident, mark my words.”
“Mrs ?” Sam left the question hanging.
“Mrs Middlewick,” she quickly replied, her lips tightly pursed as she crouched beneath a mackintosh she’d thrown over her shoulders, the glimmering sky promising more rain yet.
“Is this your home?” he asked, indicating the house.
“Yes, it is. Why?”
“Would you mind if I came inside and spoke to you?” he diverted her. He didn’t want to have this conversation on the road, and certainly not when other, curious eyes were starting to appear from the line of cottages that hugged the road nearby. One young lad had even scampered onto his bicycle, so he could peddle quickly to determine the cause of the commotion. Damn the bloody Cambridge branch. Why couldn’t they have arrived on time?
Sam noticed with relief that Hamish turned to divert the bicycle rider. He could hear the lilting tones of the Scots man as he spoke to the boy.
“What is all this about?” Mrs Middlewick demanded to know, but Sam, with O’Rourke at his side, began to walk towards the open front door, offering her nothing but the option to follow them.
“If you would?” he stated, and Mrs Middlewick was swept along with them, Roberts behind them all. Hamish and some of Roberts’ people staying to divert the curious.
Mrs Middlewick stepped inside the open doorway, turning to glare once more at the line of police cars headed by the lorry O’Rourke had driven, her face a mask of unease. Sam hesitated, finding he had to force himself to cross the threshold of the home that had sheltered a fugitive from justice for so many years. It hardly mattered that the killer was dead.
But, he needn’t have feared. He could tell straight away that Mrs Middlewick had altered the house beyond anything Mr Rain from Sotheby’s had described. It was light and airy, a cheery fire warming the front room. It seemed they’d disturbed Mrs Middlewick at her lunch because a sandwich, made with thick-cut bread, sat waiting on a side table, a cup and saucer gently steaming, a book left open on the table close to the window. No doubt she’d been reading it when they’d arrived.
“Mrs Middlewick, I’d advise you to take a seat. What I’m about to tell you may disturb you.�
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Again, the hesitation, but she quickly sank into her chair, hands on her knees, as she sat slightly forward, coat discarded although her shoes remained in place.
“I’m investigating a series of unsolved crimes which have taken me from Erdington to Sotheby’s in London, and from there, to here. It concerns,”
But before he could finish his sentence, she spoke, her voice cold and filled with fury.
“My husband’s uncle.”
“Yes, it does.” Sam felt his forehead furrow. Could it be possible that Mrs Middlewick knew of her uncle by marriage’s depravations? Certainly, he’d expected her to faint away at the thought of being associated with some horrific crimes, and if not, then to argue vehemently.
“Very well. You’ll want his studio, at the top of the garden, and not the house. I’ve left the studio as I found it. I’ve been waiting for you to come ever since I saw the items in there. I had my husband contact the local police with my concerns, but of course, they ignored them.”
Sam felt his eyes bulge at the admission.
“I was sure that some of the items he had must have been illegal, no doubt from smuggling or some such. When the police refused to act, I had Sotheby’s come and value them. It was a disappointing return on the sales, but at least it removed the items from my proximity. All those naked statues he liked to collect and then draw. A strange man, not that I ever met him, I’ve only been able to make my decisions based on what he left behind after his death. I wish he’d had the time to get rid of some of the more unsettling items before his death. It was hardly a surprise for him. The doctor warned him he had only months to live.”
“Then I apologise for the extended delay in responding to your report. I can assure you, we’ll now conduct a thorough search of the studio, and I apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
“Just be careful where your vehicles are parked,” Mrs Middlewick worried; her concern more about that than what the police had come to find. “I’ve witnessed two terrible accidents in my few years here. Motorcars are dangerous when driven too fast along country lanes designed for horses and carts and not roaring engines.” She finished on an exclamation of horror. Sam could only imagine what drove her fears. He worried enough about cyclists and buses on the main road in Erdington. Here it would be even worse.
Mrs Middlewick settled back in her chair, moving to resume eating her sandwich, and Sam stood and looked out of the window. He could see that the Cambridge lot were finally starting to arrive, Hamish speaking with them.
“Please, if you have any questions, ask to speak to me, Chief Inspector Mason, or my constable, O’Rourke, here, or Hamish, the Scottish one.”
“Very well.” Only she stood again and moved her hand along the high stone mantlepiece. “You’ll need these to get inside. No one’s been in there for seven years. I dread to think what it’ll be like.”
“Thank you,” as he gripped the copper coloured key, Sam felt the tremor in her hand, and he offered a smile. This wasn’t her fault, not at all, and yet, she would have to live with the stigma of the revelations when they came. He felt a moment of remorse for her. When casting dispersion, people often forgot that the family weren’t responsible for the actions of the individual.
The neighbours were already curious enough. What they’d be like when everything was revealed, he could only imagine.
“What’s all this?” A gruff voice greeted Sam’s return to the outside world, the clouds hanging ever lower. It was going to rain, and then the mud would get stickier and sticker.
“Chief Inspector Hosean?” he responded with as much politeness as his anger allowed him.
“Yes.”
“You’re late,” Sam said nothing else but began to walk around the house, heading towards the squat wooden building at the top of the garden. It was a steep climb, and by the time he arrived, he could feel his old wound aching. He realised that he wouldn’t be able to do much, if any, of the carrying, not and be able to walk easily.
Sam hoped that the Cambridge Chief Inspector followed him, but he wasn’t about to check, his eyes focused on the building he could see beneath the reaching growths and blossoming fruit trees that stood starkly in the brown gloom. The years of neglect were easy to see. The brown creosote had started to peel back, revealing the grey of old wood beneath it. It was quite well hidden, and Sam appreciated that Mrs Middlewick had managed to mostly forget about its existence in the last seven years, until now.
He took the key and tried to insert it into the chunky padlock that sealed it. Only it was so rusted, he almost couldn’t force the key into the mechanism. For a moment, he struggled with it, cursing himself for not thinking to bring some oil to ease the movement, and then the key snapped.
“Bugger.”
“Here,” and Roberts stepped forward, making use of a huge pair of clippers to snap the lock free.
“Thank you,” Sam muttered, once more pausing to ensure he was ready for whatever they might find inside.
He pulled on the door, and for a moment, he thought nothing would happen. Only then it gave with a shrill shriek of outrage. The smell hit him first, the unmistakable scent of heat and damp and trapped air. Mrs Middlewick was surely right to say that no one had been inside for seven years.
The curtains had been closed, and only a thin beam of daylight slipped in between the gap between them, a second flood of muted light from the open door.
Sam flicked his torch on, and O’Rourke promptly sneezed.
O’Rourke’s torch joined his, and standing in the doorway, they both flashed the beams over the space before them. Nothing untoward jumped out at them, and Sam shook himself and stepped inside, taking a careful path to open the distant curtains wider. Then he turned, curious to see what was there, and was startled by a loud gasp from O’Rourke and Hamish both.
His eyes flashed to O’Rourke’s and then to what had attracted the attention of his constable and Hamish.
In front of them, illuminated by the weak sunlight, was a considerable canvas placed on the wall. It had to be almost life-size, if not bigger, the frame, golden and flashy. The eyes peering from the massive artwork left Sam in no doubt if he’d had any, that they were in the correct place. Anthony McGovern stared down at them, or rather, laughed at them, his young face flung back, exposing his neck, caught in mid-flight as he chased a black and white striped ball in front of him, the image so realistic, it could have been a colour photograph.
Sam coughed, cleared the sudden thickness that settled in his throat, the sorrow at the knowledge of what had befallen Anthony weighing him once more. Hamish’s eyes didn’t leave the painting. Sam thought he was probably deciding how good an artist the killer had been. Only then did Sam give Roberts and Hosean an indication that they could continue their work.
“We need to find out all we can about him,” Sam muttered to O’Rourke and Hamish. O’Rourke nodded distractedly, whereas Hamish was still gazing at the painting, one hand almost reaching out to touch it, only to hover there, as though he couldn’t bring himself to disturb the dust on the frame.
“We do, yes, but what will we do with that?” Hamish asked, but Sam had turned aside. He couldn’t bear to look at it. So much life, stolen from Anthony, all so a man could take pleasure in it. It sickened him.
It felt as though a flood of police officers rushed through the door behind them. Sam was buffeted from side to side and watched with a strange detachment. Twenty years of his life had been spent trying to track down the murderer of Robert McFarlane, and yet he still felt unsettled. He might have answers, but they weren’t the ones he wanted, not yet. Knowing who had done it was different to understanding the why of it all.
Sam walked through the studio, trying to get a feel for the man, little more than a name, trying to understand what had driven him to commit such terrible acts of cruelty.
“I think you should see this,” O’Rourke spoke softly at Sam’s ear, directing him to a far corner of the studio. It was as though Sam ha
d walked into the storage area in Sotheby’s once more. The wooden crates on show were smaller, as they lined the far side of the studio, covered, most of the time, by great swathes of heavy fabric, but they had the address labels pasted onto them, the writing in bold ink, and Sam swallowed his unease.
“What are they?” he asked, but O’Rourke remained quiet, deciding, instead, to show him. Sam turned to look for Hamish, but he hadn’t moved from his position close to the door.
Sam was right to fear as he peered into the three crates that O’Rourke and Roberts had already opened.
“He sent these items to himself?” Sam shook his head, unease making him wish he had some water to drink.
“That’s what it looks like,” Roberts stated flatly. Sam admired the man for being able to keep his tone so neutral.
“There are more than ten of them,” Sam winced as his voice squeaked.
“Yes, there are. The three we’ve opened are the more recent ones, from 1931, 1932 and 1933. They all seem to contain the same items, a large white towel, gloves, a set of dark clothes, no doubt worn whilst the murder was taking place, and this,” Roberts held out a half-used bottle of bubble bath.
“So we’re finding out how he did it, then?” Sam spoke because he needed to do something normal to restore his composure.
“Yes, he was clearly very organised and had a set way of committing his crimes.”
“He took a risk in sending these to his home, though.”
“Yes, but it was probably all part of the thrill for him. To see if he could get away with it and then see if he could continue to get away with it. All these years, just waiting to be discovered, should someone come into his shed.”
“Yet, they’ve not been opened before now, not as far as I can tell,” Hamish commented. He’d finally arrived beside them and had been there long enough to understand the object of their conversation.
“Maybe he was ensuring he left nothing behind to identify him,” O’Rourke mused.
