Body of a Girl (9 page)

“Could he describe the men?”

“He can't.”

“Can't, or won't?”

“Does it matter which?”

“I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end,” said Mercer. “Tell me, did you happen to notice a lush looking character in a Panama hat, smoking a big cigar, coming up your stretch of the river?”

Mrs. Prior said, slowly, “Yes. I think so. The day you came. I didn't notice the man particularly, but I noticed the boat. A twenty-footer with a diesel engine.”

“That sounds like the one. Where would anyone hire a boat like that?”

“It's not a local boat. Up-river at Staines or Windsor. Or down at Teddington or Richmond. Or even further. It could have come up from London, or down from Henley.”

Mercer said, “Thanks for coming to see me, Mrs. Prior. And will you give your husband a message. I shan't trouble either of you again. You've told me all you could tell me, and I guess these men knew it.”

“Then why did they do it?”

“It was an exercise in fancy brutality. It's their speciality. It was meant as a warning.”

“I still don't understand. If there's nothing more he can tell you, and they knew that, what was the point of warning him?”

“It wasn't him they were warning,” said Mercer. “It was me.”

He stopped at the pay-desk on the way out and asked the manageress if he could use her telephone. She said, “You're our new policeman, aren't you? I thought so. The phone's in my office. Help yourself.”

Mercer dialled the number of the Carcroft factory at Staines and asked for the manager. The manager said, “I'm afraid you can't speak to Beardoe. He's in hospital.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Not too bad. He broke his wrist.”

“How come?”

“He fell downstairs. Concussed himself. Messed his face up a bit too. If you want him badly, he should be able to see you in a day or two.”

“Well, thanks,” said Mercer. He made a note of the name of the hospital, paid for the call, and walked out into the High Street. On his way back to the station he found himself doing things which had been second nature in Southwark, but had been left behind him when he came to Stoneferry. Like walking in the middle of the pavement, and taking an occasional look in a shop window to see whether anyone was crowding him.

The C.I.D. room was empty. There was a message, in Rye's vile handwriting, on a piece of paper pinned to the front of his table by a paper knife. It said, ‘The boss wants you. Panic stations.'

Mercer looked at the message for a long minute, his eyes abstracted, his thick body rocking gently, from heel to toe and back again. Then he drifted out, along the passage, and into Bob Clark's room. The Superintendent said, “There you are. I've been looking for you. We're in a mess.”

Mercer said, “Oh?”

“We've got the adjourned inquest on that girl coming up on Monday and we've lost our main witness.”

“Lost?”

“Dr. Champion. He died this morning. He collapsed at home. Just after breakfast. He was dead before they could get him to hospital.”

“Do they know what it was?”

“An acute coronary, they think. It wasn't entirely unexpected. He'd got high blood pressure, and he'd been overworking for years. He was due to retire next month, actually.”

Mercer said, “Poor old sod. Anyway, it was quick.”

“Yes,” said Clark. “And it's left us in a devil of a mess.”

“I'm sorry,” said Mercer. “But I don't see it. Naturally we can ask for a further adjournment now.”

“Certainly. But what are we going to do with Hedges meanwhile?”

“Ah,” said Mercer. “I take your point.”

“If the inquest had gone as planned we'd have got a positive identification. That would have been enough to justify holding him. But if we're going to charge him with murder, we've got to do it next time he comes up. Otherwise we can't possibly oppose bail. There's a lot of feeling about that already. And once he's out, God knows if we shall ever see him again.”

“I don't think we
should
see him again.”

Clark looked at Mercer. He said, “And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“I've never believed that Hedges murdered Sweetie, but I think he knows something about it. Either he had a hand in it, or he saw her being killed. Or being buried. Or thought he did. As long as he was taking the rap, as long as he was locked up here, he was safe. Let him out and I wouldn't give you sixpence for his chances.”

“I think you're exaggerating,” said Clark. But he didn't sound happy.

“Could we run him in for assault and put him inside for a month?”

“I might have a word with Murray Talbot. He'd help us if he could. The trouble is, Hedges is something of a public character. The local paper has taken up his case. Did you see the article yesterday? Raking up all the old history.”

“I saw it.”

“There's talk of briefing counsel to defend him. If they put up a real fight, I wouldn't guarantee we could put him away. Throwing a punch at a policeman. It isn't as serious as all that.”

And the last thing you want is a Press crusade against you on the eve of your retirement, thought Mercer. Aloud, he said, “I've got a better idea. If you got a positive identification at the inquest, you think we could justify a charge?”

“Coupled with the sale of the girl's ring and what we've got by way of a confession. Yes.”

“All right. We'll ask Dr. Summerson to come down from Guy's. He's seen all the evidence. I sent him duplicates of everything, in case there was a laboratory angle to it. He's seen all the photographs, and Dr. Champion's notes.”

“Summerson,” said Clark. “Summerson. Yes. That should do the trick. Do you know, Mercer, I think that's rather a good idea.”

Chapter Nine

“And now, Dr. Summerson,” said the coroner, “are there any points with regard to the sex, height, age or physical condition of the victim which might help the jury to arrive at some firm conclusions as to her identity?”

“I'll deal with those points separately if I may, sir,” said Dr. Summerson. The Home Office Pathologist was a slight, spare, middle-aged man, nondescript at first sight, remarkable only when he began to speak.

Most of the spectators had recognised him from his appearances in the Press. They were disappointed to see him step into the box without an assortment of gruesome anatomical specimens and armed only with a single sheet of paper.

“I take it that there was no doubt as to sex?”

“None at all. I entirely agree with the very careful notes on the subject made by the late Dr. Champion. The light build of the skull with its feeble superciliary arches and thin orbital margins would have been almost conclusive in itself. Taken in conjunction with the measurements of the femur and the humerus – particularly the head of the humerus – they place the matter beyond any reasonable doubt.”

“Does he mean,” said the foreman of the jury, “that she was a woman?”

The coroner, who was hardened to the ways of juries said, “That's right. She was a woman.” The foreman made a note. The lady next to him had started feeling her forehead with the tips of her fingers. She was evidently worried about her orbital margins.

“As to height,” said Dr. Summerson, “again, I see no reason to differ from Dr. Champion. He refrained, quite rightly in my view, from any attempt to measure the skeletal remains as a whole, but applied Trotter and Gleser's tables to the respective lengths of the humerus, radius, tibia and femur. Where all four of these bones are present and in unbroken condition the results have usually proved remarkably accurate.”

“Dr. Champion said, between five foot three and five foot four.”

“I would myself put the standing height as nearer to the latter.”

“Five feet four inches high,” said the coroner, and the foreman wrote this down, too.

“Fortunately for her,” said Dr. Summerson, “but unfortunately so far as the chances of identifying her are concerned, the body evidenced very few abnormalities or weaknesses. As you have heard, the teeth are in perfect order and show no sign of filling or capping. There is slight evidence that the two top incisors may at some time have been braced. However, there was one point which could assist. I observed that the first phalanx of the big toe of the right foot was deviated outwards and there was considerable exostosis of the outer side of the head of the first metatarsal bone.”

The foreman looked pathetically at the coroner, who said, “She had a bony lump on the outside of her big toe.”

“Something like a bunion?”

“Not actually a bunion,” said Dr. Summerson kindly. “But there might have been a bunion there too. Very likely there was.”

“Your point, I take it, Doctor, is that this deformity might have been noticeable in her shoe sizes.”

“I think so. It must have been very difficult for her to find a standard pair of shoes which fitted both feet. She could, of course, have had them specially made. But failing that, she would have been driven to buy a different fitting for her right foot.”

Superintendent Clark passed a note across to Mercer. “Anything on this yet? Local shops?”

Mercer scribbled back, “I only got it from Summerson this morning. I'm sending a circular out today.”

The coroner said, “Thank you, Doctor. Was there anything else?”

The pathologist looked down deliberately at his notes. As he did so, Mercer, who was watching him closely, experienced an irrational feeling of alarm. Dr. Summerson had given evidence so often, before so many different tribunals, that he was, by now, a totally experienced performer, an expert witness, expert not only in his own field, but expert in the presentation of evidence, weighing the value of the flat statement, the full exposition, the one word reply and the throwaway line.

He said, “There
was
one other point, sir. And that was the age of the victim. I mention it because it is the only point at which I find myself at variance with Dr. Champion. He placed her age, you will remember, as between eighteen and twenty-five. His notes make it clear that he based this on the closing of the sutures in the skull. As I expect you know, the skull, in youth, does not present a continuous expanse of bone. It is divided into sections, and the gaps between the sections are filled with a comparatively soft, gristly substance.”

The lady next to the foreman was now running the tip of her finger across the top of her head. She thought she detected a soft spot, and missed a good deal of the evidence.

“As you grow older, these sutures close and calcify, and since the closing takes place in more or less regular sequence, it can be a good guide to the age of a body. But it is only a rough guide. An error of five or even seven years would not be impossible. Recently, however, the work of such a pioneer as Gustafson has enabled us to be a great deal more accurate. Particularly if the teeth are in good condition, as was the case here. An estimate can be made which is dependent on six separate dental factors, perhaps the most important being the closing of the root canal and the increasing translucency of the tooth root. I have prepared a full note, sir, in case the matter wants looking into further on another occasion, but I fear the jury might find some of the technical terms confusing—”

The coroner said, “I fear the jury are somewhat out of their depth already, Dr. Summerson. We should be very happy if, for the moment, you would simply present us with your conclusions.”

Dr. Summerson glanced down at his notes again, and then said, “I find it impossible to believe that this girl was less than twenty-three. I should be inclined to think that she was even older. Twenty-five or twenty-six at least.”

Chapter Ten

“So what the hell,” said Superintendent Clark, “do we do now?”

“We start again,” said Mercer.

“I suppose there's no chance of upsetting Summerson. After all, it's only his opinion. Dr. Champion said eighteen to twenty-five.”

Mercer looked at him curiously. One of the tricks which growing older played on you was to make you less flexible. It stiffened up your mind as well as your joints. You couldn't turn about as quickly as you used to. He said, “What good would it do? No one would believe it. We shouldn't believe it ourselves. Besides, I've had a word with the shoe shop. Sweetie had perfect feet. She took a narrow fitting in number five shoes.”

“So all the work we've done so far is wasted?”

“I wouldn't say wasted. It's been aimed at the wrong target, that's all. I'd still very much like to know who was dating Sweetie during the last month of her life.”

“What the hell does it matter who was dating Sweetie? It's not her murder we're investigating.”

“Aren't we?”

Clark stared at him. His face was an ugly mottled colour. Frustration and anger fought with curiosity. Before he could say anything, Mercer added, “You haven't forgotten that we found her handbag, half-buried, on the island.”

“I suppose it
was
her handbag.”

“It's been identified half a dozen ways. The bag and the contents. When we thought the body was Sweetie, we thought about it one way. Now we've got to think about it another.”

“You're paid to do the thinking round here.”

“That's right,” said Mercer, with his sudden mirthless smile.

“
And
I've been doing some. You can work it out three different ways. It was an accident that the bag got left there. Let's say she was fooling round on the island and she dropped it, and she didn't bother to go back and look for it. Or to report its loss. Me, I don't believe a word of it. For a start, it had all her keys in it.”

“So?”

“Second idea. She went into the river, higher up. Over the weir, perhaps. And the bag was washed up on the island.”

“Then you think she's dead?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mercer bleakly. “She's dead all right. There's very little doubt about that.
And
her father knew it. That's why he wasn't afraid to sell the ring.”

“When bodies go into the river, nine times out of ten they turn up again. They float to the top and someone sees them and pulls them out.”

“Right. And that brings us to the third possibility. The man who killed Sweetie may have thought about that. He may not have wanted her body to turn up. If it had surfaced too soon it could have been identified. It might have shown how she was killed. It might have led back to him.”

“Then what would he do?”

“What he did with the other one,” said Mercer. “He'd bury her.”

There was a long silence. When Clark spoke his colour and his voice were both back to normal. “You seem to have worked all this out very clearly,” he said. “Have you got as far as thinking out where he'd put her?”

“Murderers haven't got a surprising lot of imagination. Look at Christie. He buried all his girlfriends in the same garden.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I should start by digging up the island. Not just prodding it this time. Digging it right up.”

“The whole island?”

“The whole island. Trench it across. Put half a dozen men on to it and we could do it in a day. Less than that if they worked intelligently. Stop digging as soon as they came to a layer of packed stone or hard earth. Concentrate on the soft parts.”

“The Press would have a field day.”

“The whole thing would be over before they got there.”

But the Superintendent was pursuing a fresh line of thought. He said, “What are we going to do about Hedges?”

“Ask for an adjournment on the assault charge. Don't oppose bail. I suppose he can raise it.”

“We've had three people come forward already offering bail.”

“Fine. Let him go. But keep a careful eye on him.”

“If we keep any sort of eye on him,” said Clark, “we shall be accused of hounding him. He's a public figure.”

When the knock came, Mr. Weatherman looked up with a frown from the complicated lease he was studying and growled, “Come in.” When he saw it was Mrs. Hall the frown changed to a smile. He approved of Mrs. Hall. She had only been with the firm for six months, but she had already shown that she was capable of doing the work which had been handled previously by a male cashier and an assistant. She worked hard, and talked very little; sovereign virtues in Mr. Weatherman's eyes.

“Well, well,” he said. “I hope you haven't come to tell me that our client account is in the red.”

“Nothing like that, sir. It was just that I was talking to young Jarvis.”

“More likely he was talking to you.”

Mrs. Hall smiled in turn, and said, “That's true. He does talk a good deal. What he said was that he had been reading about the inquest on that girl – the one they found on the island – and he was wondering if it might be Miss Dyson.”

Mr. Weatherman considered the matter, drawing his upper lip down over his teeth as though he was preparing to shave it. Then he said, “What makes him think that?”

“It was her feet. Something she once told him. That she had to take a different shoe fitting on each foot.”

“That's not uncommon.”

“And she did disappear rather suddenly. And it was about two years ago, which was the time they thought—”

“I recall that we made a number of enquiries at the time. It seems she simply packed up her things and went off up to London. She certainly gave us no notice here.”

“How did we know she went to London?”

“A policeman who knew her by sight saw her catching the evening train. She had her luggage with her. I can't think of any reason why she should come back here, in order to be murdered and buried. Can you?”

“It doesn't sound very likely,” agreed Mrs. Hall. “Why did she walk out on us?”

“I telephoned her previous employer. He told me she had played the same trick on him. She was a bird of passage, Mrs. Hall. I imagine she has done it half a dozen times. And left bad debts behind her, as she did here.”

“If she left bad debts behind,” agreed Mrs. Hall, “she wouldn't be very likely to come back.”

“I shouldn't give it another thought,” said Mr. Weatherman.

Despite this good advice, after Mrs. Hall had gone, he did not return at once to his lease. He lay back for a time in his chair, his long face abstracted.

At three o'clock that afternoon Hedges left the Stoneferry Magistrates Court, temporarily a free man. He accepted the congratulations of the middle-aged lady, the retired colonel and the Congregational minister who had between them organised his bail. But it was not congratulations he wanted. He wanted a drink. And the pubs were shut. He had a bottle at home. It had been carefully hidden, and might have escaped the attention of the policemen, pressmen and nosy-parkers who had, he suspected, been ransacking his barge.

When he reached the bridge which led to the island he was pleased to find that there was no one in sight. A light misty rain had started falling. Maybe that was discouraging sightseers. So much the better.

The police had put a new padlock on the door, and had supplied him with a key. He had it in his hand when he became aware that two men had materialised behind him. The shock this gave him made him drop the key. One of the men stooped down and picked it up, but made no move to hand it back.

“What do you want?” said Hedges, his voice squeaking oddly. The men both wore raincoats, the collars turned up and partly concealing their faces. He didn't like the look of them at all.

“Are you the man they call Sowthistle?”

“The kids made it up. It's just a bit of sauce.”

“It's not made up,” said the second man. “Sowthistle's a real plant. It grows on sour and marshy soil.”

“You give me back my key.”

“Surely,” said the first man, but made no move to hand it to him. “Would you like to give us a story?”

“Are you from the papers?”

“That's right.”

“London papers?”

“That's right.” He mentioned the name of the paper and Hedges smirked. He said, “You boys come inside. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Police brutality. Third degree. The lot.”

“That's fine,” said the first man, but still made no move. “Tell me, Mr. Sowthistle. That island where they found the body. My friend and me were just arguing. Can you actually see it from here?”

“Can you
see
it?”

“I said you can. He said it's impossible. Too many trees and bushes in the way.”

A look of deep cunning appeared on Sowthistle's face. This was the sort of talk he understood. He said, “How much would it be worth to you to win your bet, mister?”

“I always like winning my bets. It could be worth a quid.”

“Then you've won it. I'll show you.” He led the way, following a path through the dripping, knee-high undergrowth, to a point at the upstream end of the island. Here there was an apparently impregnable screen of overgrown elder, thorn and matted growth with a single scrub oak in the middle of it. The tree leaned out at an angle over the water, and the men could see that rough steps had been formed in it, and that there was a sort of platform near the top.

“Your private observation post, Dad?”

“That's right.”

“You're a dirty old voyeur. How much did you charge to let your customers watch the boys and girls having fun together?”

“I'm not admitting anything, son. Not if you're going to put it in your paper.”

The man looked at Sowthistle curiously. He was an experienced crime reporter, and had met, in the course of his duty, all sorts of criminals, perverts, and layabouts. He thought he had never encountered anyone quite as fantastic as the old man in the shiny blue suit who was jigging about in the mud beside him.

“Go on,” said Sowthistle. “You climb up and have a peep. You can see the whole bloody island. Every bloody bit of it.”

Treading carefully on the slippery trunk, and grabbing the hand-holds which presented themselves, the reporter hauled himself up onto the platform. He stood there for a moment, then came down a lot more quickly than he had gone up. He touched his companion on the arm, and doubled off up the path, slipping and stumbling as he went.

Sowthistle stared, open-mouthed, after the departing figure. Then he turned and started to climb the tree. As he did so, a sound of which he had been vaguely aware became clearer. It was the clink of metal on stone. There were men on Westhaugh Island. They wore black waterproof capes, and they were digging.

Sowthistle watched them for a moment. Then he clapped his hand to his pocket.

“God rot him,” he said, “he's gone off with my key. He never paid me that quid either.”

There were screens round the bed in the casualty ward. The sister said to Mercer, “We put them there because you asked us to. They're quite unnecessary really.”

“How is Beardoe?”

“He's all right. It was concussion and a few bruises. If it hadn't been for his wrist, we'd have treated him in out-patients.”

“We'd be obliged if you could keep the pretence up for a couple of days. Then we'll fix to take him off your hands.”

He edged past the screen and went in. Beardoe was sitting up in bed, reading a newspaper. There was a lurid bruise down the side of his face, and his left wrist was encased in plaster. He said “Hullo”, in an unfriendly voice.

Mercer said, “I'm sorry about all this. I ought to have warned you. I don't suppose it would have done much good, but you could have taken some simple precautions, like getting a pal to walk home with you, and not answering the door after dark.”

“What I want to know is, what the hell's it all about? What am I supposed to have done?” His blue eyes were puzzled, and angry.

Mercer sat down on the edge of the bed, and talked for five minutes. At the end of it, Beardoe said, “I'm not going to say anything about what happened. To tell you the truth, I don't remember a lot about it. There were two men. I couldn't describe them, and I'm not sure I would if I could. I don't want to get mixed up in that sort of thing.”

“Understood,” said Mercer.

“They tell me I got concussion. That means the old brain box was shook up. Right?”

“Right,” said Mercer, wondering what was coming.

“Then I'll tell you something funny. It shook me up so hard, I remembered something I thought I'd forgotten. The name of the garage that chap Taylor mentioned to me one night when he was pissed. You remember you were asking me about it.”

“Yes,” said Mercer softly, “I remember.”

“It was the Hexagon Garage in Baswell Street, Stepney.”

“I'm much obliged,” said Mercer. His heavy face was expressionless. Only the lips moved, as if he repeated something to himself. At last he said, “You'll get a bit of sick leave after this, won't you?”

“Can't go back to work with my wrist busted.”

“Have you got any friends you could go and stay with?”

Beardoe considered. “I've got an old aunt in the Isle of Wight. She's always on at me to go and see her.”

“Would she put you up for a fortnight?”

“I expect so.”

“Telephone her now. The ward sister will fix it for you. I'll send a police car for you tomorrow evening. Stay away for two weeks. That's all. After that, I reckon everyone will have forgotten about you.”

“I hope you're right,” said Beardoe. He was still angry.

Mercer had left his car parked in the hospital forecourt, in a section labelled ‘Consultant Gynaecologist'. He backed it out carefully, and drove back towards Stoneferry with one eye on the driving mirror. The dashboard clock was showing a quarter after five and it was still light. Too light for what he had to do. He pulled in at a small transport café a mile short of the town and had a mug of unpleasant tea. When he came out, it was beginning to get dark. The cars going past mostly had side lights on, but no headlights yet. Mercer got into his car, switched on his own side lights, and started back the way he had come. A few hundred yards along, picking his moment, he swung across the traffic into a side road, and immediately killed his side lights. It was a long, straight road of semi-detached houses and little shops. Near the end of it he turned into an even smaller road. Here he drew into the kerb and stopped.