2. I worked alongside Dr. Hanley for two and half years-from September '79, to March '82, when he retired-and I am sorry to say that I had serious reservations about his competence from the beginning. It is, of course, impossible for me to comment on a postmortem that a) took place before I joined the team and b) has no supporting documentation on file; however, it is my considered opinion that Dr. Hanley's alcoholism would certainly have affected his judgment in November '78.
3. I have no precise knowledge of Dr. Hanley's relationship with PS Drury of Richmond Police, nor can I validate your contention that: "Dr. Hanley may have taken direction from PS Drury and produced a report that suited Richmond Police." However, I expressed concern on several occasions that Dr. Hanley was compromising the independence of his department by writing postmortem reports that appeared to mimic the police version of affairs. Two of these incidents are now under official investigation. In defense of Dr. Hanley, I do not believe there was any malicious intent behind his actions, simply a recognition that he could no longer cope with the demands of his job and a compensatory willingness to place too much confidence in the "hunches" of certain police officers. I should say that in most cases this would not be a cause for concern-most of the deaths we see are "natural"-but clearly it could create problems where facts are disputed.
4. I can say with absolute certainty that Dr. Hanley would have had no racist motive for ignoring evidence of murder in the case of Miss Butts. I am black myself and never experienced any sort of prejudice at his hands. He was a kindly man who had no interest in politics and clearly found his job distressing, particularly when he was obliged to open the chest cavities of women and children, which he began to see as an "unnecessary mutilation."
5. In the absence of a file, I am afraid there is very little assistance I can give you other than to support Professor Webber's interpretation of the photographs. As mentioned above, nine sets of case notes seem to be missing and there is some evidence that Dr. Hanley destroyed them himself prior to leaving the department. In view of his long service record, a decision was taken to allow him to "work out" a three-month notice and we believe he used that time to remove any files that he believed to contain questionable findings. Sadly, he appeared to become deeply confused about the "examiner's" role in society and consistently questioned the value of "righteous judges." However, there is no proof of this and any such speculation could never be used in court.
In conclusion, I am happy to give my permission for this letter to be used as supporting evidence for the deterioration in Dr. Hanley's performance and standard of work during the years I worked with him, all of which is already in the public domain. Beyond that, I can only advise you to gather as much supporting evidence as you can, from whichever source, in order to present a tight and compelling argument for a reopening of the investigation into Miss Butts's death.
Trusting this is of help,
With all best wishes,
A. Deverill
Dr. Anthony Deverill
*14*
I took the train to London on my own the following Monday. It caused a row because I refused to tell Sam where I was going or what I was planning to do, and he drove off in a huff after dropping me at Dorchester South station at eight o'clock in the morning. His mood had been depressed since Danny's throwaway line about rats jumping ship-It wasn't like that ... I needed time to get my head together ... Jock was on my back all the time trying to persuade me to make you take those flaming tranquillizers ... He said you needed help ... he said you'd flipped ... he said ... he said-and his temper was not improved by my sour comment that if Jock was such a guru he should be talking to him and not to me.
I didn't keep tabs on him, so when I set out on Monday morning I had no idea if he'd taken my advice or not. I thought it unlikely. Sam wasn't the type to poke a sleeping dog unnecessarily, particularly when he was the most afraid of being bitten.
I found Graham Road changed beyond recognition that August morning. It had become a one-way street with speed bumps down the center. Parking was restricted to permit holders only, and trucks were banned. The houses were smarter than I remembered, the pavements wider, the sunlight brighter and more diffuse. It had lived for so long in my memory as a dark, foreboding place that I found myself wondering what else my mind had poisoned over the years. Or perhaps it wasn't my memory that was at fault? Perhaps Annie's death had actually achieved something?
I glanced at number 5 as I passed and was put to shame by its natty appearance. Someone had lavished the love and care on it that we should have done. Window boxes splashed the front with brilliant color, a new stained wood door had taken the place of our elderly blue one and the tiny front garden, barely three feet deep, boasted a neat brick wall, tubs of scarlet petunias and a semicircle of clipped green grass beside the path to the door. Nor was it alone. Here and there, untidy front gardens and peeling paintwork spoke of residents who were unable or unwilling to conform, but for the most part the road had moved decisively upmarket and made sense of Jock's statement that property prices had skyrocketed.
I guessed that some of that was due to the sale of the council-owned properties, which had stood out like sore thumbs twenty years before because of their uniform yellow doors. Now it was impossible to distinguish them from those that had always been in the private sector, and I wondered how many of them were still owned by the council tenants who had bought at rock-bottom prices. If Wendy Stanhope was to be believed, most of them had sold up within a year to achieve a 100 percent return on their investment, but the wiser ones had stayed and watched their investments grow.
I crossed the road and paused beside Sharon Percy's gate. Her house was almost as natty as ours, with Austrian blinds in the windows and a clump of Pampas grass in the front garden, but I couldn't believe she hadn't cut and run the minute she saw a profit. I knew she'd bought the house because Libby's letters had ranted on for months about how Jock's thirty quid a week had paid for Sharon's bedroom, but I found it difficult to equate the new subdued classiness of number 28 with the simpering peroxide blonde in Wendy's photograph.
I looked into her downstairs window-more curious than expectant--and was taken aback when her flour-white face, slashed red lips and heavily outlined eyes appeared briefly behind the pane. I recalled Libby's nickname for her, "the bleached vampire," but she looked more pathetic than predatory that morning. An aging woman trying to paint away the ravages of time. Was Geoffrey Spalding still with her? Or had his infatuation died along with her sex appeal? I felt an absurd desire to raise my hand in greeting before I remembered that we'd never spoken and that, if she'd known me at all twenty years ago, she certainly wouldn't recognize me now.
I barely glanced at Annie's house as I moved on to number 32. Even when I'd stood in front of her boarded-up house in the months following her death, her ghost had never troubled me, and I certainly didn't expect to be bothered by it now.
In the end, the only ghosts that lingered here were lonely mothers..
Maureen Slater opened her door before I could knock, and thrust out a miniature hand to pull me inside. "I don't want anyone to see you," she said.
"They won't know who I am."
"They'll guess. Everyone talks."
I wondered why that mattered when there was no one left who remembered Annie, and decided that by "everyone" she meant Sharon. I thought it would be counterproductive to say I'd already been seen, and followed her down the corridor to the kitchen, catching glimpses of the two ground-floor rooms as I passed their open doors.