Authors: Laura Wilson
Chapter Seventy
‘She was choking. I tried to help her, but it wasn’t any good. Her face was blue. I couldn’t bear to see her like that … I had to tie a stocking round her neck and put her to sleep.’
As though Edna Backhouse were an animal, Stratton thought in disgust. He watched Backhouse flick a speck of dust from his lapel with a fastidious movement of his thumb and finger, and fought the urge to lunge across the table and swat his hand down. He could see, from the tight set of Ballard’s jaw as he bent over his notebook, that he was experiencing something similar.
‘You didn’t think of calling an ambulance?’
‘It was too late for that, Inspector. I could see that. She was convulsing – that’s the medical term, of course … I saw the empty bottle afterwards. Phenobarbitone. The doctor had given them to me because I couldn’t sleep from all the trouble with the coloureds upstairs, but I’d only taken two, so she must have had the rest. An overdose—’
‘There were no drugs found in your wife’s body, Mr Backhouse.’
‘Well, she’d taken them. I acted out of mercy, Inspector.’
Pull the other one, thought Stratton, it’s got bells on. ‘And what did you do after that?’ he asked.
‘I left her in bed for …’ Backhouse paused to consider. ‘Two days, I think, or three, because I didn’t know what to do. Such a shock.’ Here, his eyes widened and his mouth trembled slightly.
What does he expect, thought Stratton. Sympathy? Narrowing
his own eyes to show that none was forthcoming, he said, ‘Go on.’
‘It must have been then that I remembered the loose floorboards. I knew there was a space underneath so I took them up. I put her in a blanket and I tried to carry her over there, but she was too heavy, and with my fibrositis …’ Backhouse paused, shaking his head and then ducking it as if remembering a trial bravely borne.
‘Never mind your fibrositis,’ said Stratton. ‘Get on with it.’
‘Well, in the end I had to half-carry and half-drag her, and I put her in there and covered her with some earth. I felt,’ he added, sententiously, ‘that it was the best way to lay her to rest.’
Stratton glanced at Ballard, and saw that the sergeant was looking as if he might be sick. If you’re determined to keep playing it that way, Sunny Jim, he thought, let’s just see how you explain the tarts, shall we?
‘We have identified the three bodies found in the alcove at your former home as Iris Manning, Kathleen McKinnon and Mary Dwyer,’ he said. ‘Can you tell us about them?’
Backhouse frowned and took off his spectacles, rubbing his forehead and pinching the top of his nose, giving the impression of one valiantly trying to solve a problem that was not of his making. ‘I’ll help you if I can, Inspector,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to keep it straight in my mind.’
‘Let
me
help
you
,’ said Stratton. ‘You killed those women and you’re going to tell us how you did it. So, the first one, Miss Manning?’
Backhouse repeated the head-rubbing, nose-pinching, you-know-I’m-trying-to-help-you act. ‘If you say that they were in my flat,’ he said, ‘then I suppose I must have had something to do with it.’ Resting his arms on the table, he frowned, thoughtfully. Then, seeing that this was making no impression on his stony-faced audience, he said, ‘I believe … yes, that’s it. I met her in a café by the station. She must have come up to me … I think she asked me for a cigarette and then started a conversation. She mentioned that
she had nowhere to live. It was some story about a friend who’d let her down – I can’t remember the details.’ Backhouse ran his tongue over his lips. ‘I’m not sure … I must have mentioned that I was thinking of moving, because she asked if she could see my flat. She wanted to come that evening and have a look – that was her suggestion. I said that would be all right …’ Backhouse tailed off and his eyes darted furtively round the room as if seeking something.
‘And then …?’ prompted Stratton.
‘Well, she came along. We had a cup of tea together … That’s right. A little cup of tea.’ He indicated the littleness of the tea with his hand, accompanying it with a small, tight smile. ‘She said she’d like to take the flat. I said that was up to the landlord, he’d have to give his permission. She asked me if she could stay for a few days until it was sorted out. She indicated – said to me – that we could have sexual intercourse if I put in a good word for her, about the flat. Well …’ Backhouse leant forward, an expression of theatrically outraged horror on his face. ‘I told her that sort of thing didn’t interest me. She got into quite a temper when she saw there was nothing doing and said I was accusing her of things, all sorts of stuff. I told her she was talking a lot of nonsense and asked her to leave, but she wouldn’t. I got hold of her arm and tried to lead her out of the kitchen, but she started struggling and then … then …’ Backhouse’s voice had sunk to a whisper. After swallowing several times and fingering his collar, he continued, ‘It seemed that she was on the floor at one point … I don’t know – there was something … it’s in the back of my mind. A picture, but I’m not sure … Perhaps it’ll come back to me. If it does,’ he added, ingratiatingly, ‘I shall tell you straight away.’
‘Iris Manning was six months pregnant,’ said Stratton. ‘Did you know that?’
Backhouse made the odd sucking movement with his mouth that Stratton remembered from before. ‘That is unfortunate.
Most
regrettable.’ It was obvious to Stratton that what was regrettable
to Backhouse was the fact that Manning was unmarried, not that he’d murdered both her and her unborn child.
‘Did you offer your services as an abortionist?’
Backhouse blinked at him, his mouth silently framing words as if trying them out, then shook his head sadly and whispered, ‘Oh, no … As I told you, Inspector, I don’t know about that sort of thing.’
Stratton contented himself with raising his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘We’ll come back to that in due course,’ he said. ‘Tell us about Kathleen McKinnon.’
Backhouse looked puzzled. ‘Kathleen McKinnon,’ repeated Stratton, glancing down at his notebook. ‘Five feet three inches in height, brown hair, brown eyes, full lips … Quite a looker – when she was alive, that is. Before she became the second body in your alcove. Didn’t you know her name?’
‘I don’t think …’ Backhouse shook his head. ‘No. She didn’t introduce herself.’
Give me strength, thought Stratton, closing his eyes momentarily. Anyone would think they were talking about a fucking garden party. ‘That was her name,’ he said. ‘Kathleen McKinnon.’
‘She came up to me in the street,’ said Backhouse. ‘I’d gone to get some fish and chips for my dog and cat …’ He must have seen the look of puzzlement cross Stratton’s face, because he said, ‘A tabby cat. I was very fond of her.’ Remembering the animal he’d seen in the garden the night they’d found Muriel and the baby, Stratton nodded for him to continue.
‘I was on my way home when the woman – McKinnon, you said – came up and propositioned me. I could see,’ he added, reprovingly, ‘that she was drunk. I don’t like that sort of thing.’ He paused, looking from Stratton to Ballard as if expecting agreement that they didn’t like that sort of thing, either.
‘I was annoyed, Inspector. I’m well known in the area and I didn’t want a scene. She wanted a pound for me to take her round the corner. I told her I wasn’t interested, and she began threatening me.’
The upright citizen act all over again, thought Stratton, wearily. ‘She followed me home, shouting at the top of her voice, and the whole thing was most unpleasant. She forced her way into the house and started fighting. I remember she picked up a frying pan and tried to hit me with it, so I got hold of her … There was quite a struggle, and she kept shouting that she’d get the police down to me. I must have pushed her at some point, because there’s an impression in my mind that she fell onto the deckchair. There was a piece of rope – I suppose it must have been on the chair, but I’m not sure … I’m finding this very difficult, Inspector.’ He paused; this time, Stratton thought, in search of sympathy. He stared, trying to keep his face impassive, as Backhouse polished his glasses and fussed with his handkerchief. The precise fastidiousness of the man’s movements enraged him.
‘How did you kill her?’
Backhouse opened his mouth and put his hand up to his throat as if trying to force sound from it. ‘I don’t remember,’ he whispered. ‘I must have gone haywire. The next thing I remember she was lying on the chair with the rope round her neck. I must have put her in the alcove, because then I made a cup of tea for myself and fed the animals.’
‘Did you gas the women before you killed them?’
‘Gas?’ Backhouse looked perplexed.
‘Their blood samples contained carbon monoxide,’ said Stratton. ‘All three of them.’
‘Well, if … Yes, I suppose I must have. It’s not clear in my mind.’
‘You’re telling us you don’t remember, are you?’
‘Yes. I’m not sure. If it comes back to me …’
‘Poor Mr Backhouse,’ said Ballard, when they stopped for lunch. ‘Just think, all those dirty women throwing themselves at him.’
‘Most regrettable,’ mimicked Stratton. ‘And him so virtuous. Course, he couldn’t say that about a respectable woman like his wife, so it had to be a mercy killing … but, do you know, I think he believes it.’
Ballard looked surprised. ‘Really, sir?’
‘Well …’ Stratton picked up his sandwich, which was beginning to curl at the edges, inspected it closely, then, disheartened, returned it to the plate. ‘In a way, I do. He wants to be on our side, doesn’t he? Former police reservist, pillar of the local community and all that. That’s how he sees himself. He doesn’t want to remember how he gassed and strangled those women because he doesn’t want to lose his self-respect. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a trick cyclist, but that’s how it seems to me … It’s the way he talks about it, as if it doesn’t have anything to do with him … What was it, “an impression that she was in the deckchair”, or something like that?’
‘Yes.’ Ballard consulted his notebook. ‘And when he was talking about Manning he said, “It seemed that she was on the floor.” As if he were watching it happen.’
‘And he didn’t admit to gassing them. Or ravishing them.’
‘Hardly that, sir. I mean, if they were toms, they probably agreed to it. The sex bit, anyway.’
‘That’s true. We’ll leave the gassing for later, once he’s been remanded. I’ve got a fair idea his account of killing Dwyer is going to be more of the same – all her fault.’
‘I wonder why he killed his wife,’ said Ballard. ‘I mean, if she knew about Muriel Davies, why wait so long? Unless she’d found out, somehow, and was threatening to tell us.’
‘Or perhaps he just wanted her out of the way. I don’t think she’d have come to us even if she had suspected. Too much under his thumb.’
‘She can’t have had much of a life, poor woman. Remember the neighbour? She made it sound as if watching
Andy Pandy
was the high spot of her week.’
‘That neighbour told us she was scared of the black tenants, didn’t she? Perhaps she’d got so fed up she told Backhouse she was going back up north to wherever it was – she’d already done it once, remember, before the war. Maybe he thought that if she was with her family she might start talking about what she suspected.’
‘Or perhaps she’d taken to digging in the garden.’
‘You know, I still don’t understand about that bloody dog … God, you can just imagine it, can’t you? Nice cosy scene, him feeding his pets with fish and chips and a dead tart still warm in the cupboard not three feet away.’
‘I’ve been trying not to, sir.’ Ballard pushed his plate from him. But for a single bite, his sandwich was untouched.
‘Not hungry?’
Ballard shook his head, then shuddered. ‘He makes me feel sick. Have you noticed, sir, that when it’s something he doesn’t mind talking about his voice is quite normal, but when you ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer he goes all whispery?’
‘Yes …’ Stratton considered this. ‘You’re right. So much for the old war wound. I suppose he must have done the same when he was in court, only we never cottoned onto it.’
‘Can’t remember, sir. I remember him bursting into tears though, straight after.’
‘Relief, I suppose. He’d got away with it, hadn’t he?’
‘I was thinking about that, sir. About six months ago, I was down at Pentonville – one of those safe-breakers, I think it was – and one of the warders I spoke to had been in the cell with Davies when they told him the appeal had failed. They’d been playing cards, and this bloke said that he just stared at the governor for a minute and then sat down to get on with the game. Said he wondered afterwards if Davies understood what the governor was telling him. Made me wonder how much he’d understood at all. That’s not to say,’ he added hastily, ‘that he didn’t do it, of course, but—’
‘But it’s not very likely, is it? That’ll depend on what Backhouse has to tell us. I thought I’d leave it till last. I’d say that when he learns how much we know, he might be more likely to confess. I get the impression that he’s not going to tell us anything he doesn’t have to – all that stuff about wanting to help but not being able to remember. He isn’t stupid …’
The words ‘unlike Davies’ hovered, unspoken, in the air between them, until Ballard said, ‘Still fancies himself with the medical stuff, doesn’t he, sir?’
‘When it suits him. He’s strangely unforthcoming on the matter of backstreet abortions … Look, changing the subject for a moment, I still haven’t thanked you properly for what you did last night.’
‘It’s nothing, sir.’ The tips of the sergeant’s ears had gone faintly pink. ‘I hope Monica’s recovered.’ Apart from a brief exchange that morning, when Stratton explained that Monica was safely home, they hadn’t had time to discuss it. Lamb had insisted that Stratton spoke to the press, which he hated. There were policemen who’d speak to the newspapers at any opportunity, but he’d never been one of them. It was too much like showing off and in any case, journalists were better kept at arm’s length. Besides which, they seemed to regard it as a foregone conclusion that Davies was innocent and had asked a lot of questions that he was in no position to answer. He’d hardly covered himself in glory, but Lamb was so relieved that Backhouse had been caught that Stratton reckoned he’d have forgiven him if he’d recited ‘Humpty Dumpty’.