‘Yes, I would think the same.’
‘If he was strangled by someone much larger than he, then that would also help explain the absence of blood; he simply could not reach his attacker’s face and being a very small man that means that his attacker would not have to be abnormally tall. . he might have tried to pull his attacker’s hands off him but he wouldn’t have clawed at them. . people in that situation just don’t.’
‘I see.’
‘His kidneys have been damaged by alcohol consumption over many years and his liver showed signs of recovery from alcohol damage. Very useful organ is the liver, in that it can recover from sustained abuse. . the kidneys can’t. So he was a dried out alcoholic. His body was clean, he washed, but the kidney damage was unmissable, he had hit the bottle in his life and the bottle had hit back.’
‘Very well.’
‘So tell me,’ Dr D’Acre turned to Hennessey, ‘have you identified the last remaining unidentified corpse in the kitchen garden murders case?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘I see. . that will be another grave for me to visit.’
‘Another?’
‘Yes, I visit John Brown’s grave from time to time. . you recall the bloated floater?’
‘Ah, yes. . you evacuated this room, put on all extractor fans, took a deep breath, stabbed the stomach and ran for the door?’
‘Yes, that one. He was given a name and buried in a pauper’s grave in Fulford Cemetery, but he was somebody’s son, possibly somebody’s brother, maybe somebody’s father. . so they gave him a name and buried him, and I go and lay a flower on his grave every now and again. So I might be doing the same for that wretched woman. Just sufficient of her remained for me to be able to tell that her liver and kidneys were shot to hell; just a derelict bag lady, no one missed her. But she was somebody’s daughter, maybe somebody’s sister, and possibly somebody’s mother and no one reported her missing. She’ll be given a name and buried in the paupers section of the cemetery close to John Brown. . another grave for me to visit.’
Webster turned the key in the lock of James Post’s flat. Ventnor stood beside him. Both officers wore latex gloves. Without a word passing between them the two officers entered the flat, which was on the second floor of a block of low rise flats and accessed from a neatly kept common staircase. They proceeded with caution and with Webster announcing their presence by calling out ‘Police’. Receiving no answer, the officers stepped into the corridor carefully observing the six foot rule, that they must continually be within six feet of each other at all times to witness any findings of evidence, and to witness that neither was light-fingered should the householder or relative accuse the police of theft.
The flat had five rooms and a bathroom and a kitchen, three of the rooms being bedrooms. It was clearly not a flat intended for single person occupancy. The possibility which occurred to both Webster and Ventnor was that James Post was once married, his spouse and children had left and he had retained the tenancy, as would have been his right, and he would have resisted all moves by the Housing Department to accept a smaller flat, tenants rights being tenants rights.
The sitting room of the flat was found to be airless, with all windows closed, and in an untidy and unclean state. As so often, during the summer months, the fireplace had become a receptacle for all things inflammable, awaiting the first chill of autumn before being ignited. The furniture was inexpensive, covered with a fine layer of dust and the carpet was sticky to walk on. Two of the bedrooms had beds without bedding and wardrobes which proved, upon inspection, to be empty. The third, and largest, bedroom contained a double bed covered with crumpled sheets and there was male clothing strewn liberally about the floor and atop a chest of drawers.
‘Definitely a teenager,’ growled Webster.
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, the Chief’s recording stated he wore youthful clothing and footwear, and clearly still hasn’t learned to tidy his room.’
Ventnor laughed softly. ‘Reminds me of a sticker I once saw on a teenager’s bedroom door, “Why should I tidy my room when your generation has made such a mess of the world?”’
‘Hard to argue with that.’ Webster turned and stepped from the room and Ventnor followed, to complete the ‘sweep’ before commencing a detailed drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf, cupboard by cupboard, search of James Post’s home. The officers opened the door of the last of the rooms to be entered and stopped short at the threshold. The room was a small box room or store room close to the entrance of the flat. It had no natural light and smelled strongly of chemicals. Webster switched on the light which glowed a soft red. A bench ran across one wall containing phials of chemicals, film negatives hung by clothes pegs from a length of cord which was suspended from wall to wall across the room.
‘Well, now we know how he spent his free time,’ Webster commented.
‘Serious kit,’ Ventnor said.
‘The plastic tools?’
‘No. . that,’ Ventnor pointed to a camera lying on the bench furthest from the well, ‘a Nikon I think, very nice piece of kit.’
‘You’re a photographer?’
‘Hardly, just dabble in it, but I know enough to know I’d be hard pressed to afford a camera like that.’
‘I see.’
‘But it’s at odds with the rest of the contents of the flat, everything is cheap and tacky.’
‘Stolen, you think?’
‘Possibly, or he might have bought it, if he had a little undeclared business going on here. . printing naughty pics, the sort that folk wouldn’t want to send to the chemists. .’
‘Where would he keep any prints?’
‘Somewhere flat, like the inside of a drawer or an album. . even a large envelope, somewhere out of natural light which will make prints fade.’
A drawer underneath the bench on which the developing chemicals stood did indeed contain a number of large padded envelopes, which contained prints of a risque nature, as Ventnor suggested, not the sort of film one would send to the high street chemist to develop, but one envelope caught his eye, it was labelled ‘Bromyards’. He picked it up gingerly and pointed the label out to Ventnor, ‘Small world,’ he said.
‘Wheels within wheels,’ Ventnor gasped.
Webster took the photographs from the envelope. Each photograph was of one of the victims of the Bromyards kitchen garden murders, all were naked, all were attached by their ankle to the length of chain. Some of the victims had a blank expression as if accepting their fate, others displayed a look of extreme fear, others were pleading with their eyes. . and each was labelled by name on the reverse of the print, each with their full name: Angela Prebble. . Veronica Goodwin. . save for one which seemed to the officers to be a photograph of the one victim that had not been identified, who was known to Post as simply ‘Old Annie’. ‘Old Annie’ had clearly kept her identity a closely guarded secret, even to the end.
The two officers laid the photographs on the bench and withdrew from the room, and from the flat, touching as little as they could.
Webster went calmly but quickly down the stairs and out into the gardens at the front of the building to contact DCI Hennessey on his mobile phone, to notify him of the discovery in James Post’s flat and request his attendance and the attendance of scene of crime officers. Ventnor began to knock on the doors of the neighbours of James Post, and found he took an instant dislike to the first woman who opened her door upon his calling. It was her eyes, he thought, all in her eyes. The woman seemed to be smirking at him. So natural was her look that Ventnor guessed she would probably be smirking at the world, as if it was all a joke and all beneath her in some way, as though she was above all, superior to all; her and her little flat on the Tang Hall Estate of the city of York where the tourists never venture.
‘Don’t know much about him,’ she said, smiling with her eyes and her mouth as if she was giving an eager to please act, thought Ventnor, but he also sensed that she was about to burst into laughter at his expense, and she also seemed to know that she was annoying him and delighted in doing so. She was, he sensed, the sort of woman who would provoke any male partner to punch her. ‘He was just the little man across the landing who didn’t say much and who kept strange hours. . strange man with strange hours.’