The Murder Book Read online

  George tidied himself up as best he could and headed back into town, back towards his last address. He would talk to their old neighbours, find the landlord and see where his wife and child had gone, but first he needed something to eat, something to sober him up. Then he’d find Mary and Ruby tell them that life was going to change from now on.

  The story of the murder was all over town but George had not heard it, at first being too concerned with getting some food inside him. By early afternoon, though, he was back at the rooms where he’d lived with his wife a few weeks before and he was banging on doors asking for news. The neighbours said she’d left in the night. Typical, George thought. One thought she’d gone to Brigg, another off to Lincoln. One said she may have gone to stay with her brother – she’d talked about doing that. The butcher said she owed him money, as did the grocers on the corner, and George assured both he would settle with them later, though he knew it would eat heavily into what he’d brought home. He almost dreaded meeting up with the landlord – no doubt Mary owed him too. Then, on the corner, he heard two women gossiping about a murder – three murders. A family, they said. George paused to question them. A woman and a child and a man, they told him. The police had come up from London – a murder detective and his sergeant.

  ‘Where?’ George asked them. ‘Do you know who it was, only …’

  ‘A family, that’s all we heard. A man and a woman and a little child. Who would do something like that?’

  A man, woman and child: alarm bells rang in George’s head but he told himself it could not be Mary – she would never have a man living with her. He made his way to the street the women had mentioned and stood at the end of it, not daring to go and speak to the policeman on duty outside the house. He went into the shop on the corner to ask there but beyond being told the woman owed them money they could tell him nothing.

  ‘Her name?’ George asked. ‘You must know her name.’

  The woman behind the counter looked puzzled. ‘And why would you want to know?’ She sighed; another customer had come in and this one might actually want to buy something. In the act of dismissing George, she said, ‘Fields – Mary, I think. Had a little girl called Ruby, sweet little thing.’ Turning to her new customer, she dismissed George from her mind. George reeled out of the shop. At 3.15 on the afternoon of 26 June his universe tumbled around him.

  ELEVEN

  It was as well, Henry thought as the waiter showed him to his seat, that he had insisted the bodies be left untouched and that his orders had been followed. All too often he and his colleagues arrived at a scene days or on occasion even weeks after the murder had been discovered. The trail had gone cold or the scene tidied up by well-meaning neighbours who were trying to save the family more upset or even by the local constable on one memorable occasion.

  Taking his seat at the table, Henry ordered a whisky and then settled down to wait for his sergeant to arrive. He took his book from his pocket and opened it at the page marked by a blue ribbon. It was worn and faded but had been his bookmark now for twelve years. He uncapped his Waterman fountain pen, running his fingers across the name inscribed on the barrel – a name that was not his own. The he began to write in what Mickey termed his ‘Murder Book’.

  The woman, Mary Fields, lay on her back, head at an angle, and my immediate assumption is death by strangulation. Despite the mud and stones still partly covering the body it was still possible to tell that she was dressed either for going out or for receiving guests. This, by all accounts, was not a wealthy woman – she worked for what she had and there are hints from the neighbours that she supplemented her income as many in her situation have done before. Was she expecting a man on the night she died?

  Note: inspect the clothes carefully. He paused. He had already sent a note to the hospital that they were to be dried and kept.

  The child was killed by a blow to the head. I would be very surprised if we unearth any other cause. Her skull was all but caved in and the damage must have been massive and instant. The angle of the neck might indicate a fracture but might simply be an artefact of the burial. The post-mortem will tell us more, I hope.

  She was dressed for bed.

  Did she know about her mother’s visitor? Was she used to men coming to the house late at night? The neighbours will tell us eventually but it strikes me that this is a street where the curtains are closed early and the families retreat to the middle room at night. I doubt there will be many sitting in the front parlour. If this street is anything like the ones I know in the working-class districts of London the front room will be used on high days and holidays and for special visitors.

  Did the dead woman use the front parlour for her business? Sergeant Hitchens will tell me that when he has finished with his inspection of the scene.

  Henry glanced up from his writing and looked towards the door but there was still no sign of his sergeant. The waiter, noticing the movement, came over and asked if he was ready to order.

  ‘In a moment,’ Henry told him, ‘when my colleague arrives.’

  The waiter withdrew but his curiosity was palpable. Henry doubted there was anyone in this part of town who didn’t know who he was and why he was there or who had not passed judgement about the situation.

  He returned to his writing.

  The young man seems like an anomaly. From what I could observe he was dressed in a working man’s clothes and his hands were calloused. He was buried in the shallowest grave and closest to the gate, as though the murderer might either have less interest in him or might simply have become exhausted by the carrying and the digging. It was possible to see evidence of a blow to the head, across the right temple. This body, at first glance, seems also to have been in the worst condition. The rats had got to his face and to some of his fingers, whereas the woman and child had been more thoroughly covered by, according to the workmen who found them, an old carpet and a stack of wood and cobbles. It seems they noticed that the rubbish in the yard had been moved two or three days ago but thought nothing of it at the time. This observation, however, may be helpful in pinpointing the time of the murder or at least of the burials.

  He glanced up again as a chair was drawn out and his sergeant plonked himself down with a deep sigh.

  Henry closed his book and put away his pen. ‘Tell me what you found,’ he said.

  ‘I think we should order first,’ Mickey Hitchens replied. ‘I’m famished and you’ve not eaten since morning.’ He nodded towards the empty glass. ‘Whisky won’t satisfy. You need meat.’

  Henry Johnstone sat back in his chair and observed as his sergeant interrogated the waiter and made the decisions.

  ‘What have you ordered?’ he asked.

  ‘Supposedly a local delicacy. Stuffed chine of beef. Constable Parkin suggested we give it a go. He’s been assisting me. Bright boy. And you’ll eat it,’ he added sternly.

  Henry Johnstone allowed himself a smile. ‘You’re a mother hen, you know that, Mickey?’

  ‘Someone has to be. Now.’ He had hung his jacket on the back of his chair and now felt in the pocket and withdrew his own notebook. The murder bag, Henry noted, had been parked beneath the table. Mickey laid the notebook down open at a sketch of the bedroom.

  ‘The way I read the scene,’ he said, ‘this is where the bodies lay.’

  ‘They were all killed in the same room? I saw no blood elsewhere in the house.’

  ‘It looks that way and it looks as though they were left for a time too.’

  A polite cough caused Mickey to close the book and sweep it aside. Their food had arrived, carried by a disapproving waiter. He set plates down in front of both men and took drinks from a young woman who had followed him over.

  ‘Molly, I’ll be serving the gentlemen,’ Henry heard him tell her quietly as they moved away.

  Mickey smiled wryly. ‘Let’s eat and then find somewhere we can talk in peace,’ he said. ‘There’s a pub down the road with a snug that looks like a likely spot.’

&nbs
p; Henry nodded and picked up his fork. He prodded at the meat, suddenly aware that he was in fact really hungry. He was also aware of Mickey watching him, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.

  ‘It’s good,’ Henry said. Hunger always took him by surprise.

  ‘And you’ll have pudding too,’ Mickey told him. ‘Something to soak up the beer we’ll be drinking later.’

  It was almost another hour by the time they took up their position in the snug. It was clear from the looks of the other customers and the quiet gossip that went on behind their backs that everybody knew who they were. Two men who’d been occupying the snug before they arrived quickly departed and they had the small space to themselves. Mickey pulled up a second table and took the photographs out of the bag. ‘The way I read it is this,’ he said. ‘The woman had a visitor and she took him upstairs into her room. The bed was messed up, signs of probable sexual activity. But I’m guessing he got violent with her pretty quickly and maybe the kiddie heard, came in worried about her mum and this mystery visitor attacked her. There’s blood on the wall like he shoved or even threw little Ruby against it then she slid down. And there’s more blood on the floor, next to the wall, like he hit her again and her head maybe slapped into the floor. I went up to the mortuary and took some initial pictures.’ He handed the second bundle of pictures to Henry. ‘The doc sent word he’ll be ready for you bright and early. I told him you’d be there for eight.’ Mickey grinned. ‘I get the feeling he didn’t think it would be that early.’

  Mickey paused as Henry shuffled through the photographs. The bodies had been stripped naked and the wounds were now clear. Henry was satisfied to see that the bodies had not yet been washed.

  ‘His assistant wasn’t happy when I told him to leave the mud on and not to wash the blood away,’ Mickey Hitchens said. ‘Reckoned it was disrespectful. I told him it was more disrespectful if that meant that we couldn’t find out who killed them because he’d washed the evidence down the drain. He shut up after that but you can expect a few grumbles in the morning.’

  ‘The child’s head and shoulder.’ He pointed at the photo. ‘Looks like the hair’s matted with blood and what looks like bruising on the shoulder, but if she’s been left lying on her side it might just as easily be post-mortem lividity.’

  ‘Then we will have to do what Sydney Smith advises and get the doctor to take sections of the bruising.’

  ‘That’s if your doctor here knows how to identify the difference.’

  ‘We’ll have to hope the best, won’t we?’

  Mickey nodded. ‘Mary Fields would appear to have been strangled. The finger marks on the throat are well-developed – the post-mortem should verify that. The young man, on the other hand, appears to have been hit with something hard and heavy, probably what was also used on the child. At first sight it looks like something with hard edges and angles to it and possibly a pattern of ridges. There was something missing from the bedside table, something with a square profile. Might be a candlestick, maybe a lamp base. Whatever it was, there is substantial damage to the skull and what looked like defensive wounds on the arms.’

  Henry returned to the photographs of the crime scene and pointed to the bloodstains by the side of the bed. ‘So we are presuming this is where the young man lay.’

  ‘That’s the way I read it anyway,’ Mickey said.

  Henry Johnstone nodded thoughtfully. Sergeant Hitchens was good at reading a scene and Henry doubted he’d be very far wrong. ‘As you know, I came back to the scene after I’d finished with Inspector Carrington and I spoke to the neighbours again and to the officers who’d done the initial interviews. Carrington, I think, regrets calling us in.’

  ‘Been here the last few weeks,’ Mickey said. ‘I think he’s just offended that a murder should happen on his watch. So how did you get on with the neighbours? Anything new?’

  ‘Mostly they just confirmed what we had already learnt. Mary Fields, thirty years old, described as quiet, and most emphasized the little girl was always clean and neat and well fed. I get the feeling that mattered to most of the neighbours more than what Mrs Fields might get up to while her husband was away. It seemed the mother and child have only lived there for a short time so we need to look at previous addresses. I’ve done an initial interview with her previous landlord but it needs to be followed up.’

  ‘Addresses?’

  ‘The family had very little money. He was having trouble getting work and she was making ends meet the best way she knew how. No landlord wants a prostitute on the premises or a woman with a reputation. It reflects badly on him. So my guess was that they had moved often and into cheaper and cheaper accommodation and I was proved right. The last place they lived was only a few streets away and they had rented rooms above the shop. They’d been there almost four months. The landlord states that she owed him money, that she paid a part of it two days before they left and that she and the child had then done a flit. He knew where she’d gone, of course. This isn’t that big a town. And he’d been round to her new place, said he demanded she pay him and the neighbours remember that he made a bit of a scene. She paid off some more of her debt and he went away. He told me he was prepared to leave it at that but I don’t believe him. It’s my belief that he’d have gone back and had payment either in cash or in kind.’

  ‘Reckon him for a suspect?’

  Henry Johnstone shook his head. ‘No, I reckon him for a bully who makes a lot of noise in public but wouldn’t have the stomach for three murders. Too messy, too personal, but we’ll look into his dealings with the Fields anyway.’

  ‘So they went from the flat to a house. A step up?’

  ‘A house that was due to be demolished. You’ve seen the damp in the kitchen and the rotting floorboards in the hall, so no, not a step up – the landlord was probably just glad to get a few weeks’ rent out of the place before he pulled it down to extend to the shop next door. The family would have been moving on again.’

  ‘And the husband?’

  ‘By all accounts at sea but expected back any day.’

  ‘Which shouldn’t be too hard to prove, one way or another.’ Mickey picked up his pint and sank half of it. ‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot of thinking to do.’

  Henry Johnstone obediently took a few swallows then set his glass back down. Mickey Hitchens shook his head despairingly. ‘From what I heard there’s no other family round here. The woman wasn’t local – blew in from Lincoln and Newark before that, worked at a hotel in her teens and then met her husband when he was still on the canals. Tough life no matter how you look at it.’

  Henry Johnstone nodded. ‘And a brutal end to it. Fingerprints?’

  ‘A whole collection of them – she wasn’t much for dusting. I took sample prints from the three deceased and I’ll get the glass on the prints and do comparisons when I get back to my room tonight. See what we can eliminate.’

  ‘That’s good. Anything else?’

  ‘A few sample fibres and a button. Probably from a shirt and torn off in the struggle. If you take the fibres and the button with you tomorrow you might be able to borrow a microscope and do a comparison, but from what I saw it was nothing the woman or the child was wearing. There were no shirts in the drawers or wardrobe that the button might have come from and it seems unlikely it had laid there since the husband went away, so it could prove important. Do we know who the boy is yet?’

  ‘Not certainly, but one of the neighbours thinks that a cousin of George Fields used to call round quite a lot and sometimes stayed overnight. Walter Fields, nineteen years old or thereabouts, who did something for the local bus company. They think he might have been a mechanic. There was no identification on the body?’

  ‘A bit of loose change in his pocket handkerchief.’

  ‘The neighbours think he had his own key.’

  ‘There was no key on the body and I didn’t find one anywhere else in the house. The killer may have taken it and used it to get back into the ho
use when he moved the bodies.’

  Henry shuffled thoughtfully through the photographs and Mickey, giving up on his boss, went to get himself another pint. Henry looked at the faces of the three victims. The child was seven, Henry remembered, but looked much younger. Decomposition had already begun to slacken the features and affect the skin. He wondered if a photograph existed of Ruby Fields or of her mother. Perhaps there was a wedding picture of the mother or perhaps a school photograph of Ruby. And the young man … Henry could see that he might be about nineteen from what was left of his face but the side of his skull had been so badly battered, there’d been a blow across the eye and his temple had been disfigured on one side, which made it hard to guess what he might once have looked like. The attack had been vicious, furious. Whoever had attacked him had intended to kill.

  Henry thought about it. Had the killer gone with the intention of killing the child and the young man or only the woman? The killing of the child might simply have been a chance event if she had interrupted him, the young man an even more chance encounter, perhaps.

  Not that it really mattered, Henry considered. All three were dead and the only recompense Henry could think of was to have their killer hanged.

  TWELVE

  Another man might have gone straight to the constable outside the house and declared himself, but George was suspicious of the police and at that point had been overwhelmed with emotion. He’d staggered away back down towards the canal and for a time stood on the towpath on the point of throwing himself in. He told himself that they could be wrong, that the woman might have got the name wrong, but in his heart of hearts he knew there was little chance of that. George was possessed of few coping mechanisms and after a time he decided on the easiest one and found the nearest pub.