Rennie Airth_John Madden 03 Read online

  past retirement age, or volunteered to do what amounted to

  war work, the orderly offered his opinion unprompted.

  'Hardly looks dead, does she?’

  It was true enough, Billy thought. Apart from a swelling

  on one side of her neck and a faint, livid mark in the same

  area the girl might have been asleep. As though it only needed

  a touch to awaken her. Glancing sideways at Cook, he saw

  the Bow Street inspector bending lower to peer at the white

  throat.

  'Can’t see that she was choked,’ he remarked.

  The two detectives had arrived at the hospital only to

  discover that the man they’d come to see wasn’t immediately

  available.

  'Dr Ransom’s busy with another autopsy,’ the receptionist

  informed them. 'A buzz bomb came down in Wandsworth

  last night, but they only dug out the bodies this morning.’

  Left to their own devices, they had found their way

  downstairs to the mortuary, a grisly sanctum whose green

  painted walls exuded a clammy cold unaffected by the change

  of seasons, where the orderly, at their request, had brought

  out Rosa Nowak’s remains from one of the refrigerators built

  into the walls of the echoing chamber.

  'You can wait if you like,’ he told them. 'The doctor

  should be here any time now.’

  Billy had been looking around. 'Are those her clothes?’ he

  asked, pointing to a pile of women’s garments on a table in

  the corner.

  The orderly nodded. 'Dr Ransom said you might want to

  see them.’

  Billy led his colleague over to the table and together they

  quickly solved the mystery of the loose buttons found at the

  scene of the murder. Examining the girl’s coat, which was

  made of dark blue wool and might have had a naval past,

  they found it was fitted with a removable hood of the same

  material attached by buttons sewn on to the collar. Only two

  of these were still in place. Loose cotton threads showed

  where three others had in all probability been ripped off.

  'I’d forgotten about the hood,’ Cook admitted. 'We didn’t

  see it at first. It was hidden beneath her body. I only noticed

  it when the ambulance men picked her up.’

  Other signs of deft needlework were visible on the young

  woman’s underclothes, which were undamaged but had

  obviously been darned and patched more than once. The

  embroidered blouse she’d been wearing, on the other hand,

  looked new, and to both detectives’ surprise proved to be

  made of silk.

  'What’s that?’ Billy’s eye had been caught by a saucer

  standing on a shelf above the table. He took it down.

  'Looks like a matchstick.’ Cook peered at the charred

  fragment of wood which was all the saucer contained.

  'Wonder what it’s doing there.’ Billy was still examining

  his find when the swing doors behind them opened and

  Ransom strode in, thrusting an arm into the sleeve of a white

  physician’s coat.

  'Sorry to keep you, gentlemen. We’re like the Windmill

  Theatre here. We never close. I’m afraid there’s another

  cadaver awaiting my attention, so this’ll have to be brief.

  Hello, Inspector.’ He nodded to Billy. “I didn’t know you

  were on the case.’

  'I’m not, strictly speaking, sir.’ Billy put down the saucer

  and went over to shake hands with the pathologist. 'Mr

  Cook’s in charge. But the chief inspector has an interest in it.

  I’m to report back to him.’

  'Sinclair, eh? Then we’d best be on our toes.’

  Ransom blew out his cheeks. A heavy-set man with jutting

  eyebrows, he had a reputation in the Met as a joker, famous

  for his bons mots.

  'You’ve seen the corpus delicti, I take it.’ He moved over

  to where the wheeled table stood. The two detectives followed.

  'There was little in the way of injuries to record. I

  dare say you noted the lividity on her neck and the swelling’ – he pointed to the slight disfigurement on the slender

  column of the throat. 'The only real bruises I found were on

  her knees. She must have gone down when he grabbed her.

  See . . .’

  He pulled the cloth off the girl’s legs, showing the purple

  marks on her bare kneecaps.

  'But that’s all, really. There was no evidence of a struggle.

  She didn’t get a chance to fight back. There was no skin

  under her nails, nothing of that sort. It was quick and clean.’

  Billy glanced at Cook, thinking he might want to handle

  the questioning, but found that his colleague had chosen that

  moment to fall into a doze. Lofty’s lack of sleep had finally

  caught up with him; he was swaying on his feet, his eyelids

  fluttering.

  'No evidence of a struggle, you say?’

  'That’s right, Inspector.’

  'He didn’t sexually assault her, then?’

  'Good heavens, no.’ Ransom frowned. 'Why on earth . . . ?

  Oh, yes, of course.’ He clicked his tongue. 'It did look that

  way last night when we found her. The inspector and I

  discussed the possibility.’ He nodded at Cook, who’d come

  awake with a start. “I checked for it, of course, when I made

  my examination, even though her underclothes weren’t disturbed.

  But she wasn’t touched. Not there, at any rate. In

  fact, she was virgo intacta. Not that it makes any difference

  now, I suppose.’ He shrugged.

  'But if he strangled her . . .’

  'Strangled?’ Ransom’s bushy eyebrows rose in exaggerated

  amazement. 'Did I say that?’

  'Yes, sir, you did.’ Angry with himself for having drifted

  off, Cook spoke sharply. 'Last night, at the murder scene.’

  'Then I apologize. It was a hasty judgement.’ Ransom

  spread his hands in a gesture of appeasement. 'Put not your

  trust in pathologists. Particularly those called out in the

  blackout and made to examine bodies by torchlight. No, she

  wasn’t choked. Her neck was broken. It’s clear from the

  evidence. Let me show you.’ He removed the cloth from

  the girl’s head and shoulders again. 'Do you see the swelling

  on her neck and that mark on the side? It shows that the

  killer grabbed her from behind, slipped his right arm around

  her neck and snapped her spinal column. And to anticipate

  your question, yes, he was a strong man, but it wouldn’t have

  required any special skill, particularly if she wasn’t expecting

  it. Just a good wrench of the head. The whole business would

  have been over in a second.’

  He covered the girl’s head and shoulders again and then

  waited to see if the two detectives had any questions. A frown

  had appeared on Cook’s face as he’d listened and he caught

  Billy’s eye.

  'So what you’re saying is, he must have meant to kill her.’

  'It would seem so.’ Ransom shrugged. 'It’s hard to see

  what other purpose he could have had in mind.’

  'But . . . but that doesn’t make sense.’ Cook spoke before

  he could stop himself.

  'Possibly.’ The pathologist looked owlish
. 'But that’s your

  department, Inspector, not mine. Now, if you’ve no more

  questions . . .’ He stood poised to leave.

  'One moment, sir.’ Billy spoke up. 'That matchstick on

  the shelf over there. The one in the saucer. Where does it

  come from?’

  'What matchstick where?’ Ransom’s eyes swivelled in the

  direction of his pointing finger. 'Oh, that. Yes, I found it

  tangled in her hair. Blown there by the wind, I dare say. She’d

  been lying on the ground for some time. Why do you ask?’

  'We found others at the scene. It looked like somebody

  had been trying to light one.’

  'The killer, do you mean?’ Ransom showed renewed

  interest.

  'Perhaps. But we can’t be sure.’ Billy glanced at Cook. His

  jerk of the head suggested it was time they too departed.

  'Yes, but . . . but why would he have done that?’ The

  pathologist was clearly intrigued by the notion. 'If it was him,

  I mean.’

  'I’ve no idea.’ Billy’s shrug was noncommittal. 'But he

  may have been looking for something – something he thought

  she had on her.’

  'She was a dear girl, very likeable. But so hard to get to

  know. Still grieving, I fear.’

  Helen Madden mused on her words. Seated on a settee

  facing the fire that her husband had lit in the drawing-room

  a short while before, she turned her gaze on the flickering

  flames.

  'She kept surprising us with her talents. Soon after she

  came I gave her a piece of parachute silk that had come my

  way and she made two embroidered blouses from it. They

  were quite beautiful. She was wearing one of them the day

  she went up to London, I remember.’

  Helen glanced across at Sinclair, who was seated in an

  armchair on one side of the wide fireplace.

  'And then we only discovered a week ago that she was a

  pianist. There was a call for volunteers to perform at a concert

  for the patients at Stratton Hall and Rosa came forward. She

  played two Chopin nocturnes and you could have heard a

  pin drop. I asked her afterwards where she had learned and

  she said her father had taught her. He was the schoolmaster

  in the village where she grew up. He must have been a

  remarkable man.’

  Again she paused.

  'But these are just odd details. We didn’t really know her.

  She was so quiet. So withdrawn.’

  Sinclair frowned. 'You said “still grieving”. What did you

  mean?’

  Helen looked at him. 'Are you aware she was Jewish?’ she

  asked.

  Sinclair nodded.

  'It so happened she was in France when the Germans

  invaded Poland. Or perhaps it wasn’t by chance. Her father

  had arranged the trip for her. He sent her to stay with an old

  university friend of his in Tours; it may be that he saw what

  was coming and wanted her out of the country. In any event

  she never heard from her parents again, nor her two younger

  brothers, though of course she kept hoping. For as long as

  she could. Until the truth came out.’

  Helen regarded the chief inspector for a moment, then

  turned her gaze to the fire, where the heaped logs flamed and

  cackled, sending sparks flying up the chimney. Sinclair, too,

  remained silent. Two years had passed since the Foreign

  Secretary had risen in the House of Commons to confirm the

  reports that had been circulating for some time of the wholesale

  massacre of Jews in occupied Europe. He recalled a

  phrase from the joint declaration issued by the Allies, which

  had named Poland 'the principal slaughterhouse’.

  'We only talked once, properly, I mean.’ Helen put a hand

  to her brow. 'But I could see how much the thought of her

  family, and of what must have happened to them, had affected

  her.’

  Madden stirred in his chair. He was sitting across the

  fireplace from the chief inspector, his face half-hidden by

  the deepening shadows in the room.

  'There’s not much more we can tell you, Angus,’ he said.

  'The last time I saw Rosa was at the farm on Thursday, just

  before Helen arrived to drive her to the station. She was

  weighed down with her bag and a basket of food I’d given

  her to take up to her aunt, and she kept trying to thank me

  for them. She wasn’t a high-spirited girl. Reflective, rather, as

  Helen says. But she seemed cheerful enough that day; she

  was looking forward to seeing her aunt.’ He paused for a

  moment, then spoke again: 'Tell us a little more about the

  murder itself. From what you said first, it sounded like a

  chance crime. Is that still your opinion?’

  'Yes and no. Which is to say, there’s now a question mark

  hanging over the case.’ The chief inspector grimaced. 'It all

  revolves around the injury she suffered, the manner in which

  she was killed. But it’s a bit like trying to make bricks without

  straw. There just isn’t enough evidence to be certain, one

  way or the other. But I’ll lay it all out for you and you can

  tell me what you think. What you both think,’ he added,

  with a glance at Helen. 'Just give me a moment to collect my

  thoughts.’

  Though inured like all by now to the rigours of wartime

  travel, to the misery of unheated carriages, overcrowded

  compartments and the mingled smell of bodily odours and

  stale tobacco, he was still recovering from his trip down

  from London that afternoon when for two hours he had

  sat wedged in a window seat, gazing out at a countryside

  that offered little relief to eyes weary of the sight of dust

  and rubble, of the never-ending vista of ruined streets and

  bombed-out houses which the capital presented. Stripped to

  the bone by one of the coldest winters in recent memory,

  the fields and hedgerows through which they crawled had a

  lifeless air, while the sky above, grey as metal, had seemed to

  press on the barren earth. Scanning the paper he had bought

  at Waterloo, four pages of rationed newsprint filled mostly

  with war dispatches, his eye had lit on a single paragraph

  reporting the discovery of the body of a young Polish woman

  in Bloomsbury whose death was being treated by the police

  as suspicious. An account of the crime that Billy Styles had

  compiled and handed to him the day before was in his

  overnight case on the luggage rack above. The chief inspector

  had reviewed its contents a number of times without being

  able to come to any conclusion, an admission he had made to

  Madden when they had spoken on the telephone the previous

  evening.

  'It’s not exactly a puzzle, John,’ Sinclair had told his old

  partner. 'To quote Styles, it’s more of a conundrum. I’ll tell

  you more when I come down tomorrow. I’m hoping you can

  help me with it.’

  A frequent guest, the chief inspector’s visit had been

  arranged some time before, and he’d been looking forward

  not so much to the break from his duties it offered, which

  would be brief,
but to the prospect of spending a few hours

  with friends who over the years had become dearer to him

  than any. The knowledge that his stay would now be overshadowed

  by a brutal crime, one to which they were connected,

  if only by circumstance, had darkened his mood, and

  it was not until his train was drawing into Highfield station

  and he glimpsed the familiar figure of his hostess waiting for

  him on the platform that his spirits had begun to recover.

  'Dear Angus . . .’

  The disagreeable image he retained of the past two hours

  had evaporated with the kiss of greeting Helen had given

  him. Still slender, seemingly ageless, and with the movements

  and gestures of a woman on happy sensuous terms with her

  life, she had the gift of lending grace to any occasion, even

  one as commonplace as this – or so the chief inspector had

  always thought – and the whiff of jasmine he caught as her

  cheek touched his brought with it the memory of happier

  days in the past.

  'I’ve so many questions to ask you. But it’ll be better if

  we wait. I know it’s John you want to talk to about this.’

  'Not only him. I want your thoughts, too.’

  'Why, Angus, I’m flattered.’ Her teasing smile had lightened

  the moment between them. 'I’m not used to being

  included in your old policemen’s confidences.’

  Though quite baseless, the assertion, as intended, had

  brought a flush to Sinclair’s cheeks. John Madden’s decision

  to quit the force, made twenty years before, had come as a

  keen disappointment to him, and for a while at least he had

  found it difficult to overlook the role his colleague’s wife

  had played in bringing this about. Her remark now was an

  affectionate reminder of a time when they had not always

  seen eye to eye: his reaction to it a tacit acknowledgement

  of the power she continued to wield over him. A beauty

  in her day, and to Sinclair’s eyes still a woman of extraordinary

  appeal, she had always had the capacity to disturb his

  equanimity; to unsettle his sense of himself. It was a

  measure of their friendship and of the deep admiration he

  had for her that far from resenting this he took it as a sign

  that age and an increasing tendency towards crustiness had

  not yet reduced him to the status of old curmudgeon.

  The train of recollection set off by her words had continued

  to occupy the chief inspector’s thoughts during the