‘A down-and-out.’
‘Yes,’ Dr D’Acre replied with a solemn tone, ‘yet another person to be given a name and buried. I can determine stature and age at death to see if he matches any missing person reports. The credit card would put his burial at in excess of three years earlier than his remains were found. . though there, I encroach on your territory.’
‘Oh, please, as before, encroach all you like,’ Hennessey replied, having retreated to the wall of the pathology laboratory as protocol dictated.
‘Right, let’s get the remains of the clothing off shall we, Eric?’
Eric Filey reverentially stepped forward and assisted Dr D’Acre with the slow removal and cutting away of the clothing, many pieces of which crumbled to the touch.
‘Summer burial,’ Dr D’Acre said calmly.
‘Summer?’ Hennessey repeated questioningly.
‘I would think so, just a shirt and a vest under the duffel coat. A down-and-out would know where to obtain woollens, Salvation Army. . institutions like that.’
‘Yes. . good point.’
‘Easier to bury as well,’ Dr D’Acre added. ‘Easier to dig a shallow grave in summer time, the soil would be frozen in winter.’
‘Indeed.’
‘The trousers now, Eric,’ Dr D’Acre announced. ‘We’ll cut them away, I think.’
Filey turned and took a large pair of scissors from the tray of instruments and then slowly and methodically began to cut the trousers from the bottoms to the waist, and, as he did so, Dr D’Acre probed gingerly into the pockets.
‘Different socks also,’ Dr D’Acre pointed to the feet of the deceased, ‘one dark one and one white one. He really was a down-and-out. Hello. .’
‘You’ve seen something?’ Hennessey took an involuntary pace forward.
‘Probably. . probably,’ Dr D’Acre peeled the right-hand sock away from the partially decomposed remains of the lower leg. ‘This sock seems to be. . yes. . something has been pushed down here.’ She carefully extracted a plastic coin bag, Hennessey noted, of the type used in banks to contain a determined amount of the same type of coin. Dr D’Acre handed it to him and taking it from her he saw that it contained a piece of paper neatly folded up.
‘I’ll get this off to the forensic science lab at Wetherby. This will make interesting reading,’ Hennessey murmured as he gingerly unfolded the sheet of paper. ‘Well, well, it is a utility bill. Part of one. The part you keep. . sent to one R.E. Malpass of Hutton Cranswick. . and dated three years ago. Somebody is leaving us presents, indeed.’
‘Indeed.’ Dr D’Acre began a careful examination of the body. ‘It looks like murder,’ she said. ‘The stomach has been punctured.’
‘That’s of significance,’ Hennessey growled.
‘Yes, someone didn’t want the stomach gases to bloat and then burst the stomach. Usually it is done when a corpse is immersed in water to prevent it rising. A bloated corpse will rise and will even bring heavy weights to the surface with it, but if burying in a shallow grave it’s a good idea. . from the felon’s point of view that is, it’s a good idea to puncture the stomach to allow the gases to seep out because the stomach will expand and push away unconsolidated soil and then explode with such force that it could expose the grave. Someone did not want this old boy found, but who would want to go to such lengths to hide the body of a tramp?’
‘Someone who enjoyed murdering as an end in itself,’ Hennessey replied calmly. ‘Someone who didn’t want to be stopped until he had satisfied the need to take life.’
Dr D’Acre glanced at him. ‘The name on the card?’
‘Yes,’ Hennessey nodded, ‘the name on the card.’
‘But how would a tramp obtain the credit card of the person who was going to murder him? How would a tramp even know the significance of a credit card?’
Hennessey shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. . perhaps. . Malpass was taunting us. That is unlikely though, or perhaps a third person was leaving us a present, or perhaps a third person was maliciously implicating Malpass who is completely innocent. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. .’
‘No dental care to speak of, but that is in keeping with one of his lifestyle. No evident fractures, the skull appears to be uninjured, the skeleton is intact. Unless he died of natural causes, he was suffocated or strangled, and no evidence of same will have remained after being in the ground for in excess of ten years. As I said, an inconclusive post-mortem.’
‘But helpful,’ Hennessey held up the two sachets he held. ‘It’s going to be very helpful.’
The office was small, smaller than Carmen Pharoah expected it to be. It was neatly kept and clean, with no softenings that she could detect in her initial visual sweep of the room, no framed photographs or plants in pots, it was all very functional and to the point. The man behind the desk was well-built, and easily six feet tall, and thus seemed to make the room look even smaller,
‘Yes, I am aware of the safety deposit box, a yellow one, quite an unusual colour, and also quite the largest such box that can be obtained in the high street, strangely light as well, I have always thought.’
‘Light?’ Carmen Pharoah asked as a double-decker bus whirred past the building.
‘In terms of weight,’ the bank manager, ‘Edward Edwards’ by the nameplate on his desk, replied, ‘very large and very light. So whatever is in there, it’s not the family jewels or gold ingots. I am sorry to hear about the death of the customer; Mr Post, did you say? But I am afraid I can’t release the safety deposit box in question without authorization from his next-of-kin or a court order compelling me to do so.’
Carmen Pharoah smiled. She put her hand into her large leather handbag and extracted a manila envelope. ‘I anticipated you,’ she spoke triumphantly, ‘signed by a judge in chambers less than an hour ago.’
It was Monday, 14.35 hours.
Tuesday, 16.50 hours
Hennessey, Yellich, Ventnor, Webster and Pharoah passed the photographs between them in a solemn silence. It was little wonder, as Carmen had said, that the large yellow safety deposit box was so light, it contained nothing but photographic negatives; hundreds of them, and most of the victims of Ronald and Sylvia Malpass, clearly taken discreetly by James Post, and one or two showing the Malpasses in circumstances which linked them to the murders.
‘A very small camera without a flash attachment,’ Webster murmured as he handed two of the photographs, which were still damp from the developing process, to Ventnor.
‘Sorry?’ Hennessey queried.
‘Just a comment about the camera, sir,’ Webster explained, ‘the only way he could have taken these photographs was with a very small camera, small enough to conceal from Ronald Malpass, and one which would not flash when the shutter was pressed. He must have kept the aperture at its widest.’
‘Yes, he was determined to take them, the Malpasses, with him if they silenced him or if he was arrested. I bet it was Post who slid the credit card into the mouth of the tramp, and pushed the utility bill into the tramp’s sock ensuring it was preserved in the plastic coin bag. He told Furlong Freda that he had “insurance”. I bet you that was what he meant.’
Hennessey paused. ‘Still largely, if not wholly, circumstantial but this one,’ he turned the photograph he was holding around and showed it to the team, ‘this one I like muchly. Shows Ronald Malpass emerging from the kitchen garden. . broad daylight; it indicates that they left the women in the kitchen garden at Bromyards in the “quiet period” in the morning, thus avoiding telltale headlights going to and from Bromyards in the dead of night, and if seen would have taken to be legitimate callers to the house and the elderly Mr Housecarl. It seems to have been taken from a distance of a couple of hundred yards away so Malpass would not have heard the shutter click. He was taking out insurance all right.’