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Authors: The Companion

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‘And death is inconvenient,’ I said.
This time he didn’t trouble to give me that sharp look. He just pursed his mouth before countering with, ‘You can see for yourself the unstable nature of the buildings behind you. We must proceed to bring them down in the approved manner. If not, they will fall by themselves and there is great risk of injury if not further death.’
This was true. But I ignored him to turn to the foreman. ‘What is your name?’
‘Adams, sir.’ He was chewing on something as he spoke, probably a piece of tobacco. He shifted it to the other cheek and continued to stare at me in that bovine way.
‘Before the workmen entered the property this morning and found the dead woman, who last entered it and when?’
‘How should I know?’ he retorted. ‘Before we started work on this row of houses, no one went in there. Why should they? Everything was taken out of them weeks ago.’
‘And when did you start to demolish this row of houses?’
‘Two days ago. They came down easy. We had no trouble until we got here and found her.’
‘The men are superstitious,’ put in Fletcher fretfully. ‘When word spread that a body had been found, they all stopped work on the entire site.’
Unexpectedly Adams took a different view. ‘They showed respect, gentlemen. Respect for the dead. It wasn’t decent to work on and her lying there.’
Also, I thought to myself, they feared one of them might be accused of the deed. In the face of this they had closed ranks.
‘So the workmen found her. They sent for you and you sent for
the police, is that it?’ I kept my tone matter-of-fact. It wouldn’t do to let Adams see I was affected by the atmosphere.
‘That’s it,’ Adams returned. ‘And there’s been one of your fellows standing guard on the place since, that one there with the pudding basin on his head, mostly.’ He nodded towards poor Biddle. For all his expressed scorn, wariness had entered his otherwise stolid expression. Ours was a silent duel. We were like chess players.
‘And then I received word,’ Fletcher put in, determined to have his version of events heard and oblivious of my unexpressed tussle with the foreman. ‘I hurried here immediately. Not a brick was being moved. Not a cart. I saw at once that she must be removed so I sent word to my superiors. Besides,’ he added, realising that I cared nothing for delays to his schedule, ‘to preserve the body for your inspection it was necessary to bring it out. The unsafe condition—’
‘I know all that!’ I interrupted him, wearied at having the same tale dinned into my ears over and over again. Morris, Adams, Fletcher and any other Tom, Dick or Harry who might have anything to say would sing the same tune. The fact was, the body had been moved. I could do nothing about it and they all knew it. ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned you can start work here again,’ I said.
Fletcher looked relieved and took out his pocket watch to calculate just how much time had been lost. Adams turned and trudged off to summon back his workmen, I assumed. I sensed he was glad to be free of me.
‘What about Biddle and Jenkins, sir?’ Morris asked.
‘They can begin by questioning everyone working here, beginning with Mr Fletcher and Adams. I want to know the pattern the work here follows.’
‘But there are hundreds of them, sir!’ burst out Biddle, indicating the workmen around us.
‘I will see every available constable is sent down to help you.’
Biddle and Jenkins looked resigned and glum.
‘You and I, Sergeant, have an appointment at a mortuary. The coroner has given the order for the body to be investigated by a surgeon.’
Biddle and Jenkins cheered up and exchanged glances of satisfaction. Rather their tedious job than ours.
 
I have seen death many times but few times when it moved me to such pity. There had been one occasion to equal it, long ago when I’d been a boy. Now I was a police officer and all of us fancied we were hardened to the sight of what fellow men could do. Yet Morris, experienced man that he was, also seemed moved by the sight, shaking his grizzled head sadly.
Dr Carmichael stood to one side waiting patiently for us so that he could be about his grisly work. He at least showed a proper medical detachment. He was a tall, angular man with faded red hair and sharp little blue eyes. Like any surgeon working upon the living, he wore a dirty frock coat soiled with ancient blood and smears of viscera. This was his dissecting coat, to be donned when he went about his professional duties. He would change before he left and leave here smart as a pin with no passer-by guessing what he had been at.
I have read there is some medical man in Glasgow who is claiming a greater rate of success in his operating theatre through dousing everything and everyone there, including the unfortunate on the table, with a carbolic spray. This is because he believes infections spread by some kind of organism invisible to the naked eye. The idea of the existence of these organisms originates, so I understand, in the work of some Frenchman or other. But doughty Carmichael was of the old generation and I couldn’t imagine him fooling around with carbolic sprays. Anyway, all his patients were already dead.
The mortuary to which the body had been taken was the nearest available to the scene and was located in a cramped extension to
the rear of an undertaker’s premises. The mortal remains of the undertaker’s more respectable customers lay in superior surroundings next door.
Our unknown woman lay on the chipped porcelain tray well away from any chance sighting by the bereaved visiting those other dead. She had been stripped naked and revealed to be a tiny little thing although an adult female, not five feet in height and slender in build. Her flesh also resembled marble, the multi-coloured sort in which purples and pinks and reds all mingled like a crazy piece of patchwork, except above her stomach which was a uniform grey-green. There was a deep wound at her left temple and her features were so distorted that it was impossible to tell if she had once been pretty. But her long flaxen hair was spread out around her head in a glorious halo, untouched by the ravages of decay. Her small even teeth glimpsed through her parted lips looked perfect. I looked at her hands. She wore no wedding ring but that might have been stolen or removed to prevent identification. Such rings are sometimes engraved with personal messages. The fingers themselves were already marked by the onset of decomposition but the nails were neat. She had not been a working woman, in my opinion, or she’d have had roughened hands and missing or rotten teeth even at such an age.
‘How old?’ I asked Carmichael.
‘I’d say she was in her middle twenties,’ he returned.
We all spoke quietly as if we’d been in a church.
‘And how long dead?’
He hunched his shoulders. ‘That is difficult to say in the circumstances. Longer than a week but less than two? Let us say two weeks at the most.’
‘Is that the cause of death, would you say?’ I pointed to the head wound which showed fragments of skull protruding through the peeling skin.
‘You hardly need me to point that out to you,’ Carmichael returned in his dry, precise way. ‘I doubt the internal organs are
still in good enough state to tell us very much. I shall conduct a thorough examination, of course. But that head wound would certainly seem sufficient cause of death. She was severely battered with some heavy instrument.’
‘We found no weapon at the scene, sir,’ said Morris. ‘I had a proper search round made.’
He had contrived to find a corner into which to tuck himself but was still too near to the deceased for his liking. Morris sometimes displayed a prudishness unexpected in an officer of his many years’ service. I had noticed it before. He was genuinely embarrassed not just by the sight of her but at the thought of the desecration male hands were about to inflict on the young female’s body. Every line of his form and every crease of his face revealed his unhappiness.
‘That demolition site is full of potential weapons,’ I said. ‘Every man working there has a shovel or axe.’
Carmichael cleared his throat. ‘In my opinion the weapon was not of that sort. Judging by an examination of the wounds with a magnifying glass, they were caused by something long and fairly narrow.’ He produced the glass from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘See here, you may look for yourself.’
Morris pulled himself together, put aside his natural instincts, and edged forward to join me in closer examination. Given a specific task he was able to view the remains simply as a puzzle.
‘A poker?’ he suggested brightly after we had both peered through the glass at the wound.
‘Too narrow, more likely a walking stick or cane with a metal head to it,’ I gave as my opinion.
Behind us, Carmichael said, ‘It was wielded with considerable force. Her attacker meant to kill her. There are marks of at least five distinct blows.’
‘He was angry,’ I murmured. ‘Perhaps he was jealous.’
‘I can’t help you with his motivation,’ Carmichael observed, ‘only with the results of it.’
‘Quite so, Doctor. What do you say, Morris? He stood before her – so …’ I raised my arm. ‘And struck her thus …’ I brought my arm down but stopped short of the body. ‘He is right-handed, along with the vast majority of the population. Where are her garments?’
Carmichael, who had been watching my play-acting impassively, nodded towards the far side of the room. ‘On yon table.’
The woman’s clothing had been carefully removed and tidily folded and set out. Morris had been right in his judgement of them. A gown of lavender striped poplin of good quality. Petticoat, corset, a cotton chemise and drawers, stockings, kid boots; all these of good quality also and all of them were puzzling to me. They were grimy but of a superficial grubbiness. These were not clothes which were seldom if ever washed and in which the grime was engrained. The outer wear, that is to say the poplin gown, was the most dirtied, smeared with mud and something greenish. I peered at it more closely. It was mould of some sort and had got there when the garment was rubbed against some surface which had mould upon it. The material itself was not mouldy. The underwear was cleaner, only the cotton chemise much sweat-stained. I guessed the unfortunate soiling of the drawers had taken place on death.
I picked up the little boots and turned them over. The soles had not been mended. But the uppers were well moulded to the shape of her foot, so not new. A pair of good boots had lasted her a long time. That, together with the modest nature of her dress, suggested she had not belonged to that class of young women who walked the streets a great deal in search of custom. So, she had not done a lot of tramping on cobbles, just the occasional outing to shop or church, to pay a visit or two in the neighbourhood.
‘No bonnet or hat,’ I observed to Morris. ‘Nor any shawl. But these are not a poor woman’s clothes. Not a rich woman’s, either, but a respectable one’s. This is no ladybird.’
‘Who found her?’ called Carmichael. On being told that
workmen had done so, gave his opinion that, ‘they probably first took any bonnet or purse or shawl or indeed anything they might sell on. Then they raised the alarm.’
Morris ventured to contradict Carmichael’s jaundiced view of working men. ‘They struck me as both of them too distressed to think of it, sir.’
‘Whatever happened,’ I said, ‘we have only what we see here and these things tell us this is a young woman who in normal circumstances took some care over her appearance. The stockings are carefully darned although there is a small hole in one toe. I think, Sergeant, she did not die in that room. She died elsewhere, nearby perhaps, and the body was taken there. She’s of small build. There are handcarts and wheelbarrows all over that site. To have packed her into one and thrown something over her would not have been difficult.’
‘Someone would have seen something, sir.’
‘At night? I doubt the area is secured. There is nothing there worth stealing unless someone had a mind to take away a few doors or window frames and I don’t suppose the company would be worried about that. In fact, if you or I were walking by after dark and saw someone trundling along a barrow in a way suggesting he didn’t want to be too closely observed, wouldn’t we assume just that? He was making off with a few door locks or a chimney piece he might sell on?’
‘True, sir, but then, who is she? A decent young woman, well, she’d be missed.’
‘Exactly, and someone has missed her, I’ll be bound. We’ll have to check all reports of missing women received in the past six months. We’ll start with central London and, if necessary, spread outwards.’
‘She’ll not have been dead as long as that!’ Carmichael reminded us from the far side of the room.
‘Indeed, Doctor! But she may not have been killed at once. The clothing bothers me. Why did she wear the under-bodice for such
a long time that it became so stained with sweat? And look, the feet of the stockings are also quite stiff with sweat and wear. Why did she not darn the hole in the toe? This, I am sure, was someone who was normally neat and tidy, in the habit of mending her stockings, and would certainly have changed soiled linen. I wonder if she may have been held prisoner somewhere.’

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