A Late Phoenix Page 7

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  The pathologist acknowledged this gloomily. “I don’t know that we’re likely to pick up any other clues as to who the poor creature was. Just the teeth and perhaps the pregnancy.” He turned his attention back to the rest of the skull. “No fractures. Cranium normal. No fracture or dislocation of the cervical vertebrae.” He poked and probed. “No fractures of upper limbs, shoulder blades, sternum—rib cage complete except for …” his voice died away as he peered forward.

  “Except for what, Doctor?”

  “Except for her left fifth rib which appears to have been chipped by something.”

  “Chipped?”

  “Look. The upper aspect has been damaged. There’s a bit missing.”

  “Yesterday’s digging,” suggested Sloan. “After all, they didn’t know she was there.”

  “No.” Dabbe shook his head and said firmly, “This is an old chip.”

  “What does it mean?” asked Sloan.

  “Something hit it from an angle.” Dabbe picked up the nearest instrument to hand. A wicked-looking bone saw. He reproduced the angle of the chip with the saw. “Like this. See? And whatever did it chipped a bit out of the bone. Interesting.”

  The pathologist’s idea of what was interesting wasn’t Sloan’s. “That little chip wouldn’t have killed her, Doctor, surely? I mean, if the whole house came down on her in an air raid it would have been more than just …”

  “It’s what caused the chip. Not the chip itself. A retractor, Burns, here and here, please.”

  His assistant moved obediently forward.

  With unexpected gentleness Dr. Dabbe adjusted the angle of the rib cage. “Now a light …”

  Instead of peering between the ribs the pathologist was squinting up under them from where the deceased’s stomach had been.

  “Mirror,” he said tersely.

  Burns supplied it.

  “Probe.”

  “Probe.”

  Dr. Dabbe’s head had almost disappeared now. “Forceps.”

  “Forceps coming.”

  “Not these, Burns. Give me a Spencer Wells.”

  Burns selected a different pair. “Spencer Wells, Doctor.”

  “Got to get a grip,” came the muffled voice of the pathologist. “Ahah …” he gave a long drawn out sigh. “I thought so.”

  “What, Doctor?”

  With the air of a conjuror drawing a white rabbit out of an empty top hat the pathologist withdrew his hand from the rib cage, straightened up, and waved the forceps in front of Sloan. “Here’s your cause of death, Inspector.”

  It was a bullet.

  Strain the pulp

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “A bullet, Sloan?” echoed Superintendent Leeyes over the telephone.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A German bullet? Were they machine-gunning too, then?”

  Sloan cleared his throat. “A British bullet, sir.”

  There was a pause. Then.

  “I see, Sloan. Not death by action of the King’s enemies after all.”

  “No, sir, I’m afraid not. Not the—er—common enemy at all, sir, but a personal one, I should say. Dr. Dabbe thinks the point of entry was the upper aspect of the fifth left rib.”

  Leeyes grunted down the line. “Trying for the heart.”

  “It lodged in the spinal vertebrae anyway, sir. That’s where Dr. Dabbe found it.”

  “This bullet …”

  “A .303, sir.”

  “Ha! That’s a good clue, Sloan.”

  “Is it, sir?”

  “Dad’s Army.”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Dad’s Army, Sloan.”

  “That’s what I thought you said, sir. What,” asked Sloan cautiously, “was Dad’s Army?”

  “Don’t you remember, Sloan?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What did you do in the war then?”

  “Went to school, sir.”

  “What? Good Lord, Sloan, are you as young as all that?”

  “Not as young as all that,” murmured Sloan demurely, “but not old enough to know about Dad’s Army.”

  “The Home Guard, man. In case of invasion. The people who came after the Local Defense Volunteers. L.D.V.’s they were known as at first.” He chuckled sardonically. “The Look, Duck, and Vanish brigade we called them at the time.”

  “Really, sir?” That must have been a great encouragement.

  “The Home Guard had .303s to begin with. They had some Canadian issue rifles later but it was .303s first.”

  Sloan wrote that down. Dr. Dabbe had promised him a full report on the bullet as soon as possible but all information was grist to a good detective’s mill.

  “After the pikes and pitchforks,” said Leeyes reminiscently. “You’d be surprised how many pillars of society reckoned they could take someone with them when they went.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Gentle old ladies talking fit to make your blood run cold. It’ll be different next time.” He grunted. “What else have you discovered?”

  “The skeleton was recovered from the cellar of a bombed house occupied by some people called Waite and later sold to a man, Gilbert Hodge. I’m on my way to see him now. It had been buried roughly the same length of time as the house has been bombed …”

  “You’re getting pedantic, Sloan.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sloan went sturdily on. “Neither son of the house was married at the time of the bombing though both were of marriageable age then …”

  “Were they?”

  “There were no daughters. The woman could have been another relative or a friend …”

  “Very friendly she must have been, Sloan, seeing as how you said she was pregnant …”

  “Or she might have had no connection with the Waite family at all and been buried in the ruins later.”

  “Just good friends, Sloan,” declared Leeyes. “That’s what you’ll find it will have been. It always is.”

  “I couldn’t begin to say, sir,” said Sloan austerely.

  “Not at this stage.”

  “Well,” said Leeyes irritably, “you’d better find out.”

  “I’m afraid there’s something else, sir,” said Sloan, and told him about the museum curator’s pegs having been moved.

  The response was immediate.

  “Are you trying to tell me, Sloan,” roared the superintendent down the telephone from the police station, “That there’s still some monkey business going on on that site now?”

  “I don’t really know, sir, yet,” admitted Sloan unhappily. He had barely taken in what the pathologist had said before the implications of the archeologist’s moved pegs started to hit him.

  “Well, why haven’t you …”

  “I’ve only been able so far to have a word with this young chap Colin Rigden on the telephone at his work.” The pathology laboratory telephone wasn’t the most convenient one in the world either: though there was no use saying so to the superintendent. If your eyes so much as strayed from the telephone they saw something very nasty in a bottle. Pickled.

  “Well?”

  “He swears the dig was all pegged out for him when he got to Lamb Lane early on Saturday morning with his friends—just like Mr. Fowkes had said it would be.”

  “But away from this wall you were talking about?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the museum man says he left it all pegged out near the wall?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “On the Friday afternoon …”

  “Yes, sir. He and his caretaker got back to the museum about four o’clock. And then he went off to London.”

  “Confirmed?”

  “Not yet, sir.” Sloan took a breath. “So no wonder this Rigden fellow didn’t find any late Saxon remains …”

  “And no wonder,” snarled Superintendent Leeyes nastily, “that he didn’t find any late English ones either.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You r
ealize what this means, Sloan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That somebody knew this skeleton was there and didn’t want it found.”

  “Somebody around now.”

  “Exactly.” Leeyes grunted. “Blows the case right open again, doesn’t it?”

  “Narrows it a bit, too,” pointed out Sloan, “to those people who knew about Fowkes and his pegs and who were free late Friday night or early Saturday morning to do a bit of alteration work.”

  “There’s your next move then,” said Leeyes. “Find out who moved the pegs and why and you’re more than halfway there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Detection in two easy lessons?

  “Someone,” pronounced the superintendent pontifically, “has obviously been taking a keen interest in this particular development.” Suddenly his voice changed.

  “Good God, Sloan …”

  “What, sir?” urgently.

  “Dick’s Dive …”

  “What about it?”

  “There’s a man—a man, mark you, Sloan—just come out with a necklace on and …” the superintendent choked, “he’s carrying a ladies’ handbag.”

  Inspector Sloan telephoned Mark Reddley and Associates (Developers) Ltd from the pathology laboratory too.

  He was put through by an efficient switchboard girl who unobtrusively held him at bay while she established who Sloan was.

  “Mr. Reddley’s just coming on the line now, sir …”

  “Inspector?” That was Reddley’s voice now. Swift and economical without being abrupt.

  Sloan said, “I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I can’t give you the go-ahead in Lamb Lane just yet after all.”

  “Why not?”

  “We haven’t completed our investigations into the site.” Formulae did have their uses sometimes. He was aware of an impatient sigh at the other end of the line.

  “Inspector, this delay is costing a great deal of money.”

  “I’m sure it is, sir,” he said sympathetically. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  “A great deal of money,” repeated Reddley. “Garton has hired machines on a daily contract basis and we have a schedule to keep.”

  “I can understand that, sir.”

  “There must be a reason for this delay …”

  “Yes, sir, there is.”

  Mark Reddley waited. “Well?”

  Inspector Sloan cleared his throat and changed the formula. “We’re still—er—pursuing our enquiries, sir.”

  “You are? Then perhaps you can tell me how much longer you expect to be pursuing them at such great cost.”

  “No, not precisely, sir.” Sloan was not a man to be stampeded. “I’m not really in a position to say at this point.”

  “It sounds,” said Reddley savagely, “as if all I can do then, Inspector, is to wish you luck …”

  “You could put it like that, sir,” agreed Sloan meekly. “You could perhaps also help me with your memory.”

  “My memory?”

  “We’re naturally very interested in all we can learn about Lamb Lane at the time of the bombing. Were you in Berebury then?”

  “Me? Oh, yes, I was here all right. I’m a Berebury man. I was at Corton’s all through the war, Inspector. I worked in their drawing office …”

  “I see, sir,” said Sloan.

  He did, too. It was an easy step when you came to think about it.

  Drawing board to developer.

  Rags to riches, too?

  “It was a reserved occupation, of course,” went on Reddley. “I kept on trying to join up but they wouldn’t let me.”

  “I should imagine Berebury itself was pretty front line …”

  The developer’s voice sounded amused. “You can say that again, Inspector. More like a target area some nights. I think the Lamb Lane corner went in June 1941 …”

  “That’s right, sir. That would have been the Wednesday.”

  “But I must say I hadn’t realized that there was anyone missing from there at the time.”

  “I don’t think anyone had, sir,” said Sloan mendaciously.

  Someone had known perfectly well.

  He knew that now.

  “Usually,” said Reddley, “there was quite a hue and cry, you know, if the Rescue people thought there was anyone still buried …”

  “I’m sure there was, sir.” Sloan didn’t say quite how well buried the woman had been.

  “But the Wednesday was just about the worst raid of the lot,” said Reddley. “That was the same night they got Corton’s workshop.”

  “Was it?”

  “They’d been trying to get it for weeks, as I remember. People said they were after the houses but we knew better. It was Corton’s they wanted and in the end it was Corton’s they got. Took two days to get the fire out …”

  “Did it, sir?” said Sloan.

  “We started off,” said Reddley neatly, “by fire-watching for fires but I’m afraid we ended up by just watching one big fire.”

  Sloan got Gilbert Hodge’s address from the sergeant on duty at the police station.

  “Number 19, Glebe Street, St. Luke’s, sir.”

  “Nothing known?”

  “Not officially, sir, yet for all that he’s made a mint of money …”

  “Don’t be cynical, Sergeant.”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir. I’m told he started from nothing and climbed up.”

  “There’s nothing wrong in that. What’s his line?”

  “Buying cheap and selling dear,” retorted the sergeant, “though,” he added thoughtfully, “I’d say not all his deals were as simple as that.”

  “Clever,” decided Sloan, putting down the telephone.

  He did not mean it as a compliment.

  Gilbert Hodge gave Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby an equally cautious reception.

  They found him in his builders’ merchant’s yard in his shirt sleeves. The shirt was not conspicuously clean: his fingernails were positively dirty. Two deeply ingrained lines ran from the corners of his mouth down into his chin. The rest of his face was pointed; sharp.

  Somewhere not very far away a railway train shunted.

  Sloan told him about the skeleton. “I expect you’ve heard already.”

  He nodded. “Garton told me. He was round here.”

  “We understand you own the site …”

  “I do now. I didn’t before. Bought it off Harold Waite when he decided to sling his hook.”

  “Why?”

  Hodge shrugged his shoulders. “Corner site. Bound to improve in value. Did a fair bit of that sort of buying at the time. People wanted to sell then.”

  “You’ve had a long wait.”

  Hodge grinned. His teeth weren’t very good. “Haven’t lost, Inspector.”

  “The rest of the site …”

  Hodge grinned again. “Mine. Bought it up as it came on the market. It’s going to look nice. Reddley’s made a good job of the plans. Did them himself. Shops with offices on top. Unusual design though. Didn’t like it meself.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not my choice. Reddley’s. He did something really fancy before but the council wouldn’t wear it.”

  “Really?” Sloan made a note of that.

  Hodge jerked his shoulder. “Though don’t ask me what that lot know about design.”

  “No …”

  “Anyway Reddley says you’ve got to keep up to date these days and he should know what he’s talking about.”

  Sloan nodded. Up to date meant concrete and glass and twiddly bits.

  “But none of this here sculpture,” declared Hodge. “He wanted to put something on the wall. Symbolic, he called it.”

  “Did he?” Symbolic wasn’t a word that the police had a lot of use for. It was too popular with other people for that. People like psychiatrists and demonstrators.

  “I told him,” said Hodge, “I wasn’t having fancy bits of old iron dressed up as art. I’m old-fashioned meself.”


  “Yes …”

  “The scrap yard’s the place for that.” He shrugged. “Still, the design can’t be too bad. Three of the places are let already.”

  Sloan nodded again. The proof of the commercial pudding was always in the eating—which made for a certain simplicity.

  “This skeleton …” he said.

  Hodge cocked his head to one side. “That’s Garton’s worry, Inspector. Not mine. He’s building the place.”

  “It’s my worry, too,” said Sloan firmly, “and nobody’s building anything until I’ve sorted it out.”

  Hodge waved a hand. “I shan’t press Garton …”

  “He gets his stuff through you …”

  Hodge bared his teeth again in a semblance of a smile. “Well, now, Inspector, you wouldn’t expect him to get it from anyone else, would you?”

  “No, Mr. Hodge, I don’t know that I would.”

  “And it’s in the contract to make sure,” said Hodge with satisfaction. “Never was one for gentlemen’s agreements meself.”

  “No …” Sloan wouldn’t have expected him to have been. You didn’t get rich that way.

  “That doesn’t mean to say,” said Hodge cheerfully, “that Reddley isn’t pressing him. If he’s got three tenants already I expect he is.”

  Sloan began to get a glimmer of why Garton seemed so anxious to please. He was caught between Reddley and Hodge for a start. He hoped he knew what he was doing because for Sloan’s money both of the other two did.

  “The Waite boys,” he said. “I suppose you know them too?”

  “Lord, yes,” said Hodge. “We were all youngsters round here together. Harold was always stuffy but Leslie …” He leered at Sloan. “Leslie was a right lad.”

  “We’re on our way to see him now.”

  The Tarts

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “All missing persons, sir?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Since 1941?”

  “Since 1941,” said Sloan grimly. He’d got to start his routine somewhere and the bombing of the house was as good a beginning as any other.

  He was talking to an elderly, dyspeptic and very, very slow constable in the records department of Berebury Police Station who was known as Lightning Brown while Detective Constable Crosby went in search of Leslie Waite’s present address.