The Art of Murder (15 page)

As a boy, Pendragon had seen Sammy Samson around Stepney. Even then, the lapsed aristocrat had been a local celebrity. So it was perhaps not surprising that when Jack took the job at Brick Lane, Sammy had been one of the first people he had asked after. When he discovered the man was very much alive and an active police snout, he had reached out to him. Sammy always kept an ear to the ground, and what he did not know about the goings-on in the East End crime world was not worth pursuing. Now in his mid-sixties, Sammy looked seventy-five. He was pretty much broken beyond repair, surviving from day to day. Pendragon liked him a lot.

‘So what may I do for you, Pendragon?’ Sammy asked, knocking back his drink in one. ‘Might there be value in my enlightened observations on recent unhappy goings-on?’

‘I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Sammy. You always were an astute man.’

‘Ah, my dear boy, flattery will get you everywhere.’

Pendragon signalled to the barman, and a few moments later another brandy appeared at Sammy Samson’s elbow. ‘Very gracious of you,’ the old man said and raised the glass, downing only half its contents this time.

Pendragon looked around. They could not be overheard here. ‘To be specific,’ he said as Sammy eyed the rest of the brandy, ‘we’re trying to piece together a
modus operandi
for our local killer. I can’t go into details, but the murders don’t take place where we find the bodies. In fact, I’m looking for a large work space the killer is using. I don’t think it’s their home. I’m pursuing the idea our man is renting somewhere anonymous but near here.’

Sammy considered Pendragon with intelligent eyes. ‘An office? Something of that nature?’

‘No. Larger. More industrial.’

‘A derelict factory or school?’

‘Maybe, or a warehouse perhaps.’

‘I see,’ Sammy said slowly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs. Pendragon noted the holes in the soles of his decades-old handmade brogues. ‘I will have to give that some thought,’ he said. ‘Ask around. What … er … what sort of remuneration are we thinking of, Pendragon? Only, you understand, I’ll have expenses to consider.’

He gave the older man a brief smile. ‘Don’t worry, Sammy. I’ve always looked after you, haven’t I?’

‘Indeed you have, dear boy. Indeed you have. While we’re on the subject of Mammon, I may already have some snippets of information concerning the case under investigation.’

‘Snippets of information?’ Pendragon gave him a crooked smile.

Sammy nodded and a glint came to his eyes. ‘I should remind you I was once given the epithet “the eyes and ears of Stepney”.’

Pendragon laughed and shook his head. ‘Honestly, Sammy, you’re worth every penny for the sheer entertainment value.’

Sammy’s ravaged face broke into an indignant expression. ‘Well, I suppose I must consider that a compliment.’

‘What have you heard?’

‘That depends. How entertaining have I been?’

Pendragon sighed, withdrew his wallet from his inside pocket and pulled out a £20 note. Sammy took it and pushed his glass forward an inch. Pendragon nudged it back. ‘Let’s hear it first, Sammy.’

‘Well, how should I put this? Your first victim, the gallery owner … he was very friendly with the descendants of my former associates.’

Pendragon fixed the old man with his eyes. ‘Kingsley Berrick had gangland connections?’

Sammy Samson nodded.

‘What sort of connections?’

‘That’s the limit of my current knowledge on the subject, Chief Inspector.’

‘Come on, Sammy.’

‘God’s honest … as my local friends would put it.’ And he held his hands up, palms out.

Pendragon gave him a sceptical look. ‘So you’re telling me you’ve just heard it through the grapevine? No details?’

‘You now know everything I do.’

Brick Lane, Stepney, Saturday

‘All right, Jack. Let’s have an update.’

They were in the Super’s office. Jill Hughes sat at one end of the leather sofa, Pendragon at the other. Hughes was nursing a cup of tea. The door was closed, keeping out the noise from the station. The clock on the desk told them it had just passed midday.

‘Well, so far we’ve got a miscellaneous collection of facts. All useful, but none of it seems to fit together.’

‘Explain.’

‘First, we have the forensics and path reports. Turner and I had a thorough debriefing from Jones and Newman over at Lambeth this morning. Appears that both victims died from a massive heroin overdose. No,’ Pendragon added quickly, seeing the Super’s expression, ‘I don’t think either of them was an addict. The heroin was injected straight into their brains. That’s what killed them. They also found Thursk’s DNA in Berrick’s remains.’

Hughes looked suitably surprised. ‘So they were obviously well acquainted,’ she said dryly. ‘And Berrick’s business partner, Mr Price, reckons that Berrick and Norman Hedridge were a couple at one time?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’re leaning towards this being a sexually motivated murder? A jealous ex-partner, perhaps?’

‘No, I’m not. I don’t think there’s anything in that idea at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘The murders are all too elaborate, ma’am. Too staged. I think the killer is clearly warped, but my gut tells me this has nothing to do with sex.’

‘The Surrealist link?’

‘Yes.’

‘Couldn’t it be some sort of in-joke? A very black joke? Maybe the motive has something to do with the sexual relationships between these men, but they were each involved in the art world, remember.’

‘Well, it’s possible, but I’m a great believer in Occam’s razor.’

‘That the truest answer is always the one based on the fewest assumptions?’

Pendragon nodded.

‘Okay. What else do we have? What other assumptions can we make?’

‘Newman and Jones found some fibres of tarpaulin and some flecks of paint in two colurs, green and white. We’re thinking a van or other motor vehicle for the white sample but the green …’

‘The cherry-picker. I was shown the CCTV footage earlier. And the tarpaulin would have been used to wrap the flattened remains of Thursk. That’s the cylindrical object you can see in the cage of the picker.’

‘I think that’s correct,’ Pendragon said. ‘The killer must
have bumped off Thursk with the heroin jab, mutilated the body, then used the cherry-picker under cover of dark to get the remains to the tree and into position. One person could do it.’

‘Dr Newman’s hunch that the murders were carried out some distance from the place the bodies were found looks spot on. With Berrick’s murder they used a wheelchair to transport the body through the gallery, and with Thursk they drove the cherry-picker. I don’t suppose you’ve found any CCTV footage of a vehicle close to the gallery on Wednesday morning?’

‘Afraid not. There’re no cameras close by. Whoever committed the murders must have transported Berrick’s body to the gallery in the early hours, but I don’t think it would help much if we could get some footage. The person responsible for these crimes wouldn’t let anything slip. The number plate would be obscured. They would be disguised.’

‘So what about this Francis Arcade character?’

‘Yes, him. I’m pretty convinced he knows a great deal about what’s going on, but he shows no interest in sharing anything with us.’

‘Could he be our killer?’

‘I don’t think so, ma’am, though he certainly hated the two victims. He’s never disguised that fact. You’ve seen the podcast?’

‘Yes. Pretty incriminating if you ask me.’

‘He has an alibi.’

‘And it checks out?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘In that case we’ll have to let him go.’

‘I know. I’ll leave it to the last second, though. There is one other thing. I had a chat with Sammy Samson.’

‘That old wreck? I don’t understand why you bother with him.’

‘Actually, he’s been pretty useful before now,’ Pendragon said defensively.

‘Okay, Jack. I’ll take your word for it. What golden nugget has he given you this time?’

Pendragon gave the Super a wan smile. ‘He tells me our Mr Kingsley Berrick was involved with the local gangs.’

‘And you believe him?’

Pendragon paused for a moment and took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s worth following up.’

Hughes looked intently at him and decided to concede the point. ‘Yes, you’re right, Jack. We can’t leave any stone …’ She was interrupted by a rap on the door. It was Turner. He looked excited.

‘Sorry to interrupt, ma’am,’ he said, looking directly at the Super. ‘Just had a call. We’ve got another one.’

To Mrs Sonia Thomson
14 October 1888

June was a very busy month. I was obliged to organise my family affairs in Hemel Hempstead, bury my father, and help the authorities with their investigation into the fire at Fellwick Manor. I was aware of a few suspicious voices being raised, but nobody came out with any clear accusations and there was no evidence to incriminate Yours Truly. Naturally, I played the role of grieving son beautifully. My father had few friends and we had no remaining family connections. His unmarried elder brother had died of cholera some ten years ago, and Mother, like myself, had been an only child. I inherited everything.

After an appropriate length of time I was able to escape to Oxford where I had still to attend to the matter of satisfying my professors that I was worthy of a good degree. You may wonder why on earth this would matter to me; but, you see, I’m one of those people who, once something has been started, likes to finish it in style. This I succeeded in doing, and in June, I was ready to make my farewells to the
university town that had opened up so many new opportunities for me.

But, for some reason, I could not quite bring myself to board the train. I lingered for two days. Most of the students had left and the place began to feel unnaturally quiet. Before dawn on the third morning, as I lay in bed, I realised what it was that was holding me back. I packed a bag with some bread and a bottle of ale, and headed south past Christ Church and over Folly Bridge.

The sun had been up for an hour by the time I reached Boars Hill and the day was already warming up. After leaving the track at the edge of the city and passing into the fields close to Boars Hill, I neither saw nor heard another soul. The only sound was the buzzing of insects. Clancy Hall was surrounded by a fence on three sides and a wall on the other. The driveway was gated but I found a way over the wall to the east of the gate, close to a copse of trees, and traipsed across a patch of knee-high grass that led me to the edge of the carefully manicured gardens close to the house.

I sensed the place was deserted long before I reached the double front doors and tried the bell. The windows were shuttered; the driveway empty and freshly raked. I tried the bell a few more times without really knowing why and then took a few paces back to the far edge of the driveway, to stare at the blank walls and shutters.

I was crossing the lawn to leave when I saw a solitary figure some fifty yards away: a gardener
working on one of the flowerbeds. He was wearing steel-capped boots and had thrust his spade into a heap of soil stacked high in a wheelbarrow. Arching his spine, he pushed back his cap, wiped his weathered face with a scrap of cloth and turned to watch my approach.

‘Good day,’ I said.

He gave me a suspicious look, his thick grey eyebrows knitting together. ‘Sir,’ he said, touching the front of his cap.

‘I’m a friend of the owner,’ I said, and nodded back towards the house. ‘My name is Mr Sandler.’

‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘I was surprised to see it all boarded up.’

‘Well, perhaps you haven’t been around for a bit, sir,’ the gardener said mildly. ‘Been this way for a while now.’

I was about to reply, but checked myself. I wiped my own sweaty brow with the sleeve of my jacket. ‘Any idea where Mr Oglebee has gone?’ I asked, staring the gardener directly in the eye.

‘Mr Oglebee?’

‘Yes, man,’ I snapped. ‘Mr Oglebee.’

The gardener shook his head slowly and I could feel the anger building up inside me. He clicked his tongue. ‘Don’t know about a Mr Oglebee, sir. Clancy Hall is owned by Lord and Lady Broadbent. Or at least it was. They died a few years back. Their son Charles is master of the estate now. But he lives in South Africa. Hasn’t been back for, oh … at least three years.’

I looked into the old man’s eyes, trying to see if there was any trace of artifice, but there was none. I simply thanked him, turned and walked back to Oxford.

Later, following the porters out through the gates of Exeter College and on to the Turl, I could not snap out of the puzzled reverie I had found myself in since leaving Clancy Hall. There was no one in Oxford to whom I could put the conundrum, and something inside told me that even if I were to mention what I had discovered, I would receive no satisfactory form of response. It was a little while later, as I sat alone in the train carriage allowing myself to be lulled to sleep, that I began to see the funny side of it and to accept what an amusing
divertimente
the whole thing had been. Oglebee, I realised, was even more of an enigma than I had suspected.

I had been to London on several occasions prior to that, always with my father. They had been solemn affairs; silent train journeys with me obediently tagging along. All those trips were to the more salubrious parts of the capital, on visits to lawyers and meetings with Father’s religious brethren. My plans now were very different.

The train pulled into Paddington Station with its usual cacophony and billows of steam. I followed the porter through a concourse milling with early-evening travellers. We stopped at Left Luggage and I gave the man a good tip. He doffed his cap and strode off with his trolley to find another customer.
In the gentlemen’s conveniences I changed, swapping my tailored suit for a pair of rough workmen’s trousers, an old collarless shirt, a flat cap and steel-tipped boots. Folding my smart clothes into one of my cases, I removed a ripped canvas bag and stuffed it with a few essentials. I also removed a black leather bag which contained my paints and materials as well as a collection of knives and a newly sharpened saw. After putting my two cases into storage, I headed out through the main doors on to the busy street.