Remains to be Seen Page 7

  Lucy Blake said sharply, ‘You think this fire was started deliberately?’

  Jack Chadwick shrugged his experienced shoulders. ‘The fire-service boys do. All unofficial, as yet. Their expert is coming out here later this afternoon.’

  They looked round at the blackened floors and the charred stumps of what had yesterday been desirable living accommodation. At that moment, a big Mercedes drew almost silently to a stop behind them. ‘The pathologist,’ explained Peach as he looked round. ‘I arranged that he should meet me here at two thirty. As we both had to come here, I thought it might save a bit of time if I could get his initial reactions today straight away.’

  The police preoccupation with speed was automatic; it stemmed from the knowledge that crimes which were not solved quickly were often not solved at all. The pathologist was a heavily built older man with sandy hair and thick-lensed glasses. Jack Chadwick wondered if he would ever meet one of the young and glamorous women pathologists who seemed to be so prominent among the crime series he saw on television.

  The new arrival stood for a moment and surveyed the scene of desolation around Jack Chadwick and his two CID colleagues. Serious fires always leave the area looking like a miniature war zone, so complete is the ruin they cause. All of them had experienced this smell before; it included charred wood, ancient mortar, dampness, decay, the chemicals of the firemen’s sprays and other, unidentifiable, disturbing elements. The combination was not as strong or overwhelming here as in some instances, because the roof had gone and the place was open to the air. There was no need now for masks; the impact was more melancholy than disgusting. The prevailing effects were of destruction and decay.

  Each of them felt the depression, the sense of one small piece of life lost for ever, but none of them voiced it. The pathologist allowed himself the unprofessional luxury of a sigh before he said simply, ‘Where is it?’ and then followed Jack Chadwick, the only one of the four who had so far seen the corpse, away to his right.

  The thing was still an anonymous ‘it’. Lucy pondered on how a death like this drained away all humanity. This thing did not even have a gender yet, let alone an age, or the complex network of human emotions and relationships with others which made a man or woman human. Yet not long ago it had probably been a lively human being, laughing, talking, raging, beset with all the complex intricacies of life.

  They would need to bring as much as they could of that person back, through other people’s memories, if this was indeed a suspicious death. She followed the three men through broken walls, stepping carefully over the detritus of bricks and charcoal, until all four of them stopped abruptly and instinctively.

  It was so badly burned that it should have lost its humanity. It was totally black, with no hint of skin or flesh or blood in what they could see. Yet its shape told that it had been a person once. The appalled Lucy Blake distinguished first a trunk, and then the vestiges of what must have been arms and legs.

  The corpse lay against the wall, in a position which no living human could have adopted and held for more than a second or two. ‘We think she’s fallen through from the room above when the ceiling collapsed with the fire,’ said Jack Chadwick quietly.

  Why did people, especially professionals, always assume that victims were female? For the same reason that they assumed that criminals were male, perhaps. Because of probabilities, because of the statistics they confronted every day, thought Lucy gloomily. She moved forward a little, to where the top of the remains lay in deepest shadow at the corner of the room, then recoiled with a gasp. The front of the head had retained what was clearly recognizable as a face, even with the hair, the eyes and almost all the flesh burned away. The lips had gone, but the teeth they had once concealed were twisted into an awful, incongruous grin, as if their revulsion and puzzlement were being mocked by the thing at the centre of them.

  The pathologist set about restoring some professional detachment to what the four of them were staring at. He lowered himself ponderously on to one knee beside the corpse, as if genuflecting before some sacrificial altar. ‘I won’t be able to learn a lot here. I’ll need this on the table at the mortuary before I can tell you much.’ As the medical man began the preliminary examination which was all he could conduct on site, the other three turned away from him, as if to allow the thing which had once been human some last, vestigial dignity.

  Jack Chadwick, who had discovered that dreadful object in the room beyond them many hours earlier, spoke to Peach and Blake as if they were grieving relatives rather than police officers who had seen worse than this. ‘I’m sure she – if it is a she – died of suffocation from the smoke, long before the flames got at her. She’d have been able to get out, you see, otherwise: she wouldn’t have been trapped, in the early stages of the fire. She probably didn’t feel anything.’

  Sergeant Chadwick found he suddenly needed to talk, after maintaining his detached front for many hours with the civilian photographers and junior policemen who made up his SOCO team. Jack found himself saying things you would say to relatives, rather than to fellow officers, just to relieve his own emotions. He had seen all sorts of corpses in his time, but he found that the blackened remnant next door was disturbing him more than any of them.

  Peach walked to the other end of the crime scene site delineated by the plastic ribbons to what seemed to have been the source of the fire, and conducted a discussion with his colleague of many years about the possibilities that this fire had been started by a human hand rather than accidentally. Lucy Blake watched and listened, wondering whether Peach was deliberately distracting Chadwick’s attention from the charred thing next door which seemed to be upsetting him. Percy would have ridiculed the notion of such sensitivity, but she had seen it in him before, and usually when she least expected it.

  Such thoughts were abruptly dispelled by the news the pathologist brought when he emerged from beyond the shattered and blackened internal walls. Jack Chadwick had been wrong about both the gender of the corpse and the way it had died.

  The pathologist tried to speak with the heavy, unemotional calm that would match his own bulk and his years of experience. But he knew the implications of what he had to communicate, and he could not keep the drama out of his voice as he said, ‘Your body is male. And my first impression is that he didn’t die in this fire. I hope there’s enough of him left for me to confirm this and give you some more details when I get him on the table.’

  Eight

  Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker was at his most affable with the TV make-up girl. ‘Just cut out as many of the wrinkles as you can!’ he said as she powdered him lightly. Modesty always impressed these young women, he thought. And his confidence would show her that he was now an old hand at this television and radio business.

  His press-relations officer had not been able to arrange the media conference before five o’clock. No matter: that had given him more time to prepare and allowed him a covert visit to his hairdresser. He was at his best now, he felt, urbane and handsome in the perfectly tailored uniform he always adopted for these public occasions, his regular features groomed enough to suggest a man still full of energy, yet with the gravitas a senior officer needed. He looked like a man fitted to weigh and respond to the most serious crimes visited upon the citizens of Brunton and its surrounding areas.

  He smiled benignly at the collection of four microphones which he would once have found daunting. ‘I am happy to announce a major victory in our unceasing war against crime and those who practise it,’ he began. ‘Last night a raid was conducted under my direction at Marton Towers.’

  The young interviewer from Granada had been carefully briefed by him on the questions she should put. ‘Our understanding is that you succeeded in apprehending some very significant criminal figures, Chief Superintendent Tucker.’

  He nodded sagely during a calculated pause, which allowed him a slight, benign smile at his questioner and the wider world beyond the cameras. ‘You will understand be
tter than most that there are limits to what I can say at this moment, Carol. Under our splendid English legal system, even the worst of villains are innocent until proved guilty.’ He snorted with amused derision at the thought of that. A swipe at the law and a sense of humour always went down well with the viewers.

  Then Tucker leaned forward, as if imparting a significant confidence which was designed for his interviewer alone, but which his audience might be permitted to catch. ‘My own view is that we arrested some very big villains indeed last night. I don’t mind volunteering that thought to you, because I am quite certain that my opinions will be borne out whenever we bring these people to trial.’

  ‘Would I be right in assuming that the major fish you netted in last night’s raid were drug barons?’

  He smiled benignly, a man in control of the situation and happy to encourage youthful enthusiasm. He said impishly, ‘I think that will prove to be correct. “Drug barons” is indeed the popular phrase, though some of us working coppers are sometimes tempted towards more industrial language. Your sources of information are very sound, Carol.’ As indeed they should be, since he had planted the question with her only ten minutes earlier.

  ‘And you were present yourself at this highly successful raid, Superintendent Tucker?’

  He frowned a little, despite his determined panache: he hadn’t planted that one. ‘On this occasion, I could regrettably not be present in person to make the actual arrests. I wanted to be, of course, but I was prevailed upon to take a more complete and overall view of our strategy. It is one of the penalties of office that one cannot be directly involved in the action and feel as many collars as one used to do. However, I think you would agree that on this occasion the strategy proved to be faultless.’

  He had been waffling there, and his interviewer was intelligent enough to sense it. But it wasn’t her brief to be controversial. This was a news item, and the man wasn’t a politician. She offered him a few more of the questions he had asked for, and elicited the information that eleven people had been arrested at Marton Towers, that three of them had flown into Ringway on the previous day, that he was confident that these and two other men were very big scalps indeed for the relatively small Brunton CID section. Then her director gave the signal to cut and the cameras ceased recording.

  Television presenters are always at least as much concerned with their own performance as with that of the interviewee. When the press took over the questioning, there were some among them who had no such concerns. Alf Houldsworth, the one-eyed and aged reporter for the local Evening Dispatch, had for many years been the crime correspondent of the Daily Express; as a young man, he had experienced the last great days of Fleet Street and its legendary drinkers, corruption in the Metropolitan Police and the mayhem of the Krays.

  Alf Houldsworth had a keen eye for pretension, a keen ear for evasions and a keen nose for bullshit. He had detected all of these in Superintendent Tommy Bloody Tucker a long time ago. He now said, ‘The public will indeed be gratified to hear of the apprehension of major figures in an evil trade. But was this not in fact a Serious Crime Squad operation?’

  Tucker knew immediately that he had overplayed his hand. But at least the television cameras had ceased to roll, and he was pretty sure that the radio mikes were off as well. He could afford to give this tiresome man short shrift. ‘The Serious Crime Squad was indeed involved. But surely—’

  ‘As were the Drugs Squad, I’m sure.’

  Tucker wondered where this irritant in the smoothly running wheel of his world got his information. Houldsworth had been known to drink pints with Percy Peach, on occasion, but there surely hadn’t been time for that here. He gave Houldsworth a benign and tolerant smile. ‘I’m sure that the public are not concerned with the petty details of who did what. The important thing for them and for any right-thinking person is that serious criminals are now safely under lock and key.’

  ‘Were the Armed Response Unit involved last night?’

  Tucker looked round the room, inviting others to come in, but saw only busily scribbling ball-pens. The reporters recognized in Houldsworth a man who knew his stuff; they were quite prepared to make full notes on any casualties which fell under his rain of bullets. The Chief Superintendent said stiffly, ‘The Armed Response Unit was indeed present last night; it may even have been reinforced with trained personnel from neighbouring areas. That is standard practice when one is conducting an important operation like this. And I think I may say that—’

  ‘So the Brunton CID section was in fact a very small part of a big operation.’

  ‘Look, Mr Houldsworth, you seem very concerned to denigrate what was in fact a very—’

  ‘Just anxious to get the facts correct, Superintendent Tucker. We newspaper men are so often accused of getting them wrong, you see.’ A small ripple of approving laughter moved through the bent heads of Alf Houldsworth’s fellow hacks as they scribbled. ‘So how many Brunton CID officers were actually involved?’

  ‘That is scarcely your business, and hardly a matter of public interest, I’d have thought.’

  ‘It’s confidential information?’ Houldsworth’s disbelief was apparent in every syllable.

  Tucker scowled the scowl which television had never seen. ‘I believe there were five of my officers involved.’

  ‘Amongst a total of how many?’ Alf Houldsworth made no secret of the fact that he was enjoying himself. That was easier because he was plainly giving much enjoyment to his fellow journalists.

  ‘This really is not relevant, you know.’ Tucker managed a sickly smile, looked desperately around the room for a more friendly questioner, saw only ranks of happy, expectant faces and accepted defeat. ‘I believe there were forty or fifty police personnel involved altogether. As I told you at the outset, this was a very important and a very successful operation.’

  ‘And your CID section made the arrests?’

  Tucker saw rescue at last: this bitter, beaten-up journo had surely overplayed his hand. ‘That was indeed our function. The key phase of the whole operation, if I may say so.’ He gave his audience a beam, hoping for answering and congratulatory smiles. It was the wrong audience.

  ‘At which you chose to be absent.’ Houldsworth nodded seriously and made a note.

  Tucker threw a patronizing smile at the bent grey head. ‘Mr Houldsworth obviously does not understand police procedures. My duties as Head of CID were to provide the strategy for success, to select the best team, to maintain an overview of the situation.’

  ‘So the tactics for this very successful series of arrests were yours, not DCI Peach’s?’ Houldsworth’s watery but experienced blue eyes were now lifted, wide and innocent, towards the man on the dais.

  Tucker wondered if his involuntary wince at the mention of Peach’s name had been apparent in the crowded room. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Peach is an able and experienced officer. I always give such men room for manoeuvre. They need to be able to react to swiftly changing events.’ The familiar phrases which should have slipped smoothly from his tongue felt dry in his mouth. ‘I really cannot reveal any more of the detail, you know. It might prejudice the success of future operations of this kind.’

  Houldsworth nodded an unexpected acceptance. Then the forty-year-old woman at his side, a former protégée of Alf’s at the Daily Express, looked up for the first time from her notes and said, ‘There was a serious fire at Marton Towers last night.’

  It was a statement, not a question, leaving Tucker no room for evasion. ‘I believe there was. It had nothing to do with our very successful capture of the drugs barons.’

  ‘You’re convinced of that, are you? Our latest information is that the origin of the fire may not be accidental.’

  Tucker regretted once again that he had not taken the latest briefing before going into the TV make-up room. Perhaps his visit to his hairdresser hadn’t been such a good idea, after all. It was no use asking this unsmiling, hatchet-faced woman where she had heard this; he’d get
the usual stuff about protecting her sources. The most direct of which was no doubt in this case the deplorable Alf Houldsworth. Tucker said stiffly, ‘That is the first suggestion I have heard that arson might be involved. However, I repeat that, as far as I am aware, the fire was totally unconnected with our very successful raid.’

  ‘As far as you are aware.’ Her brief nod over her notebook conveyed that this man did not seem to be aware of very much. She kept her voice studiously low-key as she put her final question. ‘And can you give us any further news on the body found at the scene of the fire?’

  Tucker was disconcerted that she should know of this, dismayed to see the looks he was getting from the television and radio teams, to whom he had said nothing of either the fire or the death. He said testily, ‘We do not yet know whether this is a suspicious death or not. I shall authorize a press release tomorrow, when we are fully acquainted with the facts.’

  But the buzz as the correspondents hurried from the room to file their stories was all about these last two questions and his non-answers, not about his calm and urbane television performance.

  Not for the first time, Thomas Bulstrode Tucker wondered quite how things could have gone so wrong.

  The radio and television broadcasts on that Thursday evening carried Tucker’s interview about the arrests of the major drugs criminals in the splendid but isolated setting at Marton Towers. It was news, good news, and stressed as such by the newsreader who introduced it.

  But the successful attack on a drugs empire might not have been the lead item on the national news without the two simple facts which gave it an electrifying postscript. There had been a major fire at the big house in Lancashire during the hours following these important arrests, with a speculation that arson might be involved. And the charred remnants of a human corpse had been found among the debris. A stark statement, with no further details. But a sensational statement: the newsreader’s satisfaction in that thought seeped into his professionally neutral tones.