Deep Cover (7 page)

‘Well . . . since you put it like that, sir . . .'

‘Nothing is the answer. Nothing.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And the next PM we will be doing today, just a lassie, barely in her teens. I've seen her corpse . . . wasted wee soul; she was brought in last night – almost like a skeleton covered in parchment. So context, Billy . . . context.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And if it's being cut open after you are dead that scares you?'

‘Yes, sir . . . those shiny instruments.'

‘I've told you before; the chances are it won't happen.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Right.' Shaftoe reached for the microphone at the end of the anglepoise arm and switched it on. ‘The corpse is that of a well-nourished adult of the male sex who has been positively identified as one Michael Dalkeith of Palmers Green, who had also been resident in Kilburn. All details are with the police. The interested police officer is Detective Inspector Harry Vicary of the Murder and Serious Crime Squad of New Scotland Yard.' Shaftoe paused. ‘There are no evident injuries. The deceased was found in an exposed place when the recent snow thawed, giving the clear indication that he had succumbed to hypothermia.' He took a scalpel, and placing it at the throat of the deceased, drew it downwards over the chest to the stomach and then divided the incision to the left and the right, thus forming an inverted ‘Y' on the man's torso. ‘I am performing a standard midline incision,' he said calmly for the benefit of the tape. Shaftoe peeled the skin back, exposing the internal organs. ‘Better take a deep breath, Billy,' Shaftoe said as he pressed the tip of the scalpel into the stomach. He also took a deep breath and turned his head away as the stomach gasses hissed upon their release. He waved his hand in the air and took a step backwards. ‘I've smelled worse,' he said, smiling, ‘a lot worse.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Actually, that is not bad.' Shaftoe peered into the stomach, ‘Oh, one hungry boy. He hadn't eaten anything for . . . for probably forty-eight hours before he died, certainly twenty-four . . . but he is so healthy, so well-nourished, yet the empty stomach would have made it even more difficult for him to withstand the cold. That is quite strange.'

Shaftoe took an electrically powered circular saw and cut down the centre of the ribcage, thus separating the ribs. ‘The heart appears healthy.' Using the scalpel, he separated the organ from the body and placed it on a set of scales. ‘Heart is age/weight proportional. I'll dissect it later but I am sure it was healthy.' Shaftoe took the circular saw and cut round the circumference of the skull, just above the ears, and then lifted the top of the skull away. It separated with a loud sucking sound. ‘Similarly,' Shaftoe said for the benefit of the microphone, ‘the brain appears healthy. Nice thick skull also . . . lucky man. You know, Billy, I once did a PM on a young lad, just eight years old, who died of a fractured skull which led to brain damage. The story was that his dad had clipped him round the ear for being cheeky to his mum . . . and succeeded in killing him. Turned out that the poor lad had an eggshell skull, so called, no thicker than a single sheet of newspaper. I told the inquest that any minor blow to the head could – in fact, would – have been fatal. If he played soccer and had headed the ball, he would then have lost his life. The poor lad was just a fatal accident waiting to happen. Any rough and tumble with his mates, any accidental knock to the head would have killed him. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death, which was a fair verdict but the boy's father was beside himself with grief and guilt. So that's something else to measure your life against, Billy. Context . . . context.'

‘Yes, sir.'

Shaftoe took the brain and weighed it. ‘The brain is of normal weight for the age of the deceased.' He placed the brain on the working surface and, taking a knife, he sliced it thinly. ‘All healthy,' he said, ‘no stroke victim he. I will send a blood sample for a toxicology examination, but in the absence of poison, I will record a finding of death due to hypothermia, compounded by the empty stomach and insufficient clothing at the time of death. The empty stomach is puzzling though, very puzzling given his overall well-nourished state. This PM might not yet be complete. See what the toxicology test reveals, if anything.'

Hollow Hill, Virginia Water, Surrey. Large houses, large in any man's language, were set back from the road, each house separated from the neighbouring property by small stands of woodland; large front gardens, larger back gardens, which gave way to an area of woodland. Vicary at the wheel, and Brunnie beside him in the passenger seat, sat in silence, though both men thought the same: here be money. Big money.

The house owned by the proprietor of WLM Rents sat well, it seemed to Vicary, with its neighbours. It was not significantly larger, nor markedly smaller than the other houses on the road. It blended, Vicary conceded, and did so neatly – painted in a soft green about the window frames and doors, faded brickwork under a brown tiled roof, with a double garage to the right-hand side. The broad driveway expanded into a wide courtyard in front of the house. To the left of the drive was a raised rockery of about ten feet high, which prevented any very occasional foot passenger passing along the pavement from looking into the house. The front door was enclosed within a solid wooden porch, with windows in the door and at either side. A small window at ground level to the left of the porch betrayed the existence of a cellar. Vicary turned into the driveway and halted the car beside the royal-blue Range Rover which was parked close to the door. ‘Dare say the Rolls-Royce is in the garage,' he remarked as he switched off the car's ignition.

‘Dare say it is –' Brunnie smiled as he unclipped his seat belt – ‘next to the Bentley. How much do you think it's worth?'

‘I wouldn't like to guess.' Vicary glanced at the house. ‘Well out of our league, that's for sure.' The house was clearly an inter-war building, modern in many respects, but built when houses were still being built to last. His father-in-law's warning of ‘Don't even look at anything built after 1939' had proved to be good advice for him and his wife.

Vicary and Brunnie left the car and walked up to the porch, but the door of the house opened before Vicary could press the doorbell. The man stepped forward and opened the porch door. He had a hard, humourless looking face, clean-shaven, cold blue eyes, close-cropped hair. He wore cream-coloured cavalry twill trousers and a white shirt, over which was a pale-blue woollen pullover. His feet were encased in highly polished brown shoes. The only jewellery was a Rolex on his left wrist.

‘You'll be the police,' he said. He spoke with a hard voice, almost, Vicary thought, a rasping sound, and both he and Brunnie recognized the type: a career criminal.

‘Yes, sir.' Vicary showed his ID. Brunnie did the same. ‘I'm DI Vicary. This is DC Brunnie. Scotland Yard.'

‘Scotland Yard? It must be serious . . . must be important. You'd better come in. My man only told me the police were calling to see me. He didn't mention Scotland Yard.'

The officers entered a wide entrance hall, thickly carpeted, with stained and polished panelling on the walls, and a wide staircase angling up to the first floor. From the entrance hall they were shown into a room just to the right of the front door, which was clearly used to entertain official visitors. Evidently only guests were allowed to enter the inner areas of the house. Officials, and especially police officers, were kept by the door. The room itself was spartan in the extreme, with no floor covering, though the floorboards had been sanded and varnished, and four inexpensive, office-style easy chairs stood round a glass-topped coffee table. Though the room was still larger, Brunnie guessed, than the living room of his flat in Walthamstow, E17. The wallcovering was of green embossed wallpaper, which seemed to Vicary to be of the same vintage as the house and, when needed, the illumination would come from a single light bulb, which hung from the ceiling and was enveloped in a yellow, bowl-like glass shade dating from the 1930s. The room seemed to Vicary to be deliberately arranged to be uncomfortable, cold, unwelcoming and very hostile, and it had, he thought, a hard cell-like quality, with nothing, nothing at all such as a print on the wall or a plant in a pot, to offer any form of softening.

‘Do take a seat, please.' The man spoke in a perfunctory manner. The words kept to the script, but the tone of voice was as cold and as hard as the room. Vicary, Brunnie and the householder sat down; Vicary and Brunnie side by side, the man opposite them, with the coffee table separating him and the officers. ‘So,' he said, ‘how can I help you, gentlemen?'

‘You are?'

‘William Pilcher.'

‘You own WLM Rents?'

‘Yes, WLM of course being derived from my given name.'

‘I see.'

‘And yes, WLM Rents is my little portfolio.' He smiled. ‘The stock market was . . . useful to me once.'

‘So we understand from Mr Dunwoodie.'

‘J.J. Yes, he's a good little beaver to have working for me. So, how can I help you?'

‘We are particularly interested in one of your properties in Kilburn.'

‘They are all in Kilburn. I began buying up Kilburn when I realized the properties were undervalued and the area was set for gentrification. Close enough to fall into the spill of the beam from Hampstead and Golders Green.'

‘The property on Claremont Road, 123 Claremont Road; Mr Dunwoodie described it as an ancillary property.'

‘Yes, awaiting development.'

‘Mr Dunwoodie described it as a “grace and favour” house.'

‘He did?'

‘Yes, he did.'

‘He does tend to be . . . don't know the word . . . but yes, I let people live there and they work for me, low-grade gofers really. They pay no rent, but if I need a favour, they oblige.'

‘So Mr Dunwoodie explained.'

‘Did he?' A menacing growl entered Pilcher's voice to the extent that Vicary felt a sudden chill of fear for the welfare of J.J. Dunwoodie. Working for Pilcher evidently did not mean you enjoyed the man's protection.

‘We are making enquiries into a man called Michael Dalkeith.'

‘Irish Mickey? What about him?'

‘He is deceased.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I knew he had gone, seemed that he did a moonlight, but he didn't owe me any money so I wasn't too upset.'

‘So how did you know him? In what capacity did you know him?'

Pilcher shrugged in an uninterested way. Vicary thought that he did not seem at all concerned about the death of Michael ‘Irish Mickey' Dalkeith. ‘He was an odd-job man. He did a little work now and then. He was no craftsman, just the old donkey jobs.'

‘Donkey jobs?'

‘Fetching and carrying, tidying up, making the tea for the working crew . . . that number.'

‘You paid him in cash?'

‘Yes, he preferred it that way.'

‘So he could claim dole money?'

‘Yes, the old, black economy number.' Pilcher paused. ‘Mind you, it was peanuts, his pay really was his rent-free accommodation, and that was worth a few hundred pounds a week.'

‘How long did he live at Claremont Road?'

‘On and off for a good few months, possibly about a year. He took up with a woman in North London somewhere and then returned – kept a girl in the room so I believe. Really it was J.J. that handled it; I had more important issues to work on.'

‘Alright, we'll go back and have another chat with Dunwoodie, because you see there is a little more to it . . .'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes, the girl you mentioned . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Well, she is also deceased.'

‘Oh, my, what has been going on at that house?'

‘That's what we want to know; also the other tenants are in custody and won't be going anywhere soon. So, what do you know of the girl?'

‘Nothing about her. I heard that she was living with him but I have no interest in employees' private lives. The purpose of the people in the ancillary properties is to keep the squatters out and do some occasional unskilled work. Like I said, I am a businessman and I am focused on other issues. If that is all . . .'

Vicary and Brunnie stood. ‘Yes, that is all . . . for now.'

‘For now?' Pilcher also stood.

‘We never know what might develop, so yes, “for now”.' Vicary smiled and walked to the door. He then turned and said, ‘Oh, just one thing . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘When “Irish Mickey” Dalkeith died, face down in the snow on Hampstead Heath, he had no food in his stomach, yet the pathologist said he was well-nourished.'

‘So?'

‘So, a well-nourished man with no food in his stomach is a puzzle.'

‘It is?'

‘It suggests that he had been starved of food for a day or two before he died.'

‘Dare say it might suggest that.'

‘Well, it might mean something, it might not. Very early days yet and we're in no hurry, but we are very dogged, eh, DC Brunnie?'

‘We are that, sir.' Brunnie smiled at Pilcher. ‘Just as dogged as dogged can be. We don't give up easily.'

‘But you know, he did us a favour,' Vicary continued.

‘Oh?' Pilcher seemed attentive, more so than hitherto, thought Vicary.

‘Yes, you know, he fell down right on top of a shallow grave. Might just be a coincidence, but as one of our constables said, it might also be that he was leading us there, right to the grave . . . a young adult female, quite short, about five feet tall, been there a few years . . . ten to fifteen years buried, something like that.'