No Known Grave (11 page)

“Sorry to disturb you, Sister, but we can’t settle Miss Broadbent down. She is quite hysterical. I think she needs an injection.”

The almoner got to her feet quickly. “Thank you, Sister Rachel. I’ll be right there. Excuse me, Inspector.”

The two women hurried away.

Tyler made some notes. As well as the three in the Rub-a-Dub Club – the actor, the former
WREN
, and the mute – there were five other people in the
ABLE
column.

1. The Polish flyer. Bobik. Shell-shock case. Mental?

2. Isaac Farber. Doesn’t move but no physical determining cause. Mental?

3. Graham Coates. Some sight. Mobile. Also depressed.

4. Mrs. Carol Bowman. No physical injuries. Mental?

5. Miss Susan Broadbent. No physical injuries. Could walk but doesn’t?

Eight in total.

Add to this the two Welsh orderlies, the cook and her adult son, and the five members of the Community of Mary Magdalene. Tyler thought – that is, he hoped – he could exclude Jock’s wife, daughter, and younger son. All together then, he had seventeen potential suspects. Not to mention a possibly suicidal pigeon. Wonderful.

He added, WHY? Then he underlined the word several times.

Sister Rebecca returned just then.

“Everything under control?” he asked.

“For the time being.”

“All right then, Sister. I’m waiting for Dr. Murnaghan to arrive, and as soon as I’ve heard what he has to say, we can begin the interviews. Can I leave you to organize that? We’ll meet in here, shall we? Assure them this is regular procedure. I’ll start with the five massage students. As you say, they were the ones who had the most contact with McHattie. Then I’ll go through the remaining residents in the
ABLE
group. I promise I shall take
their mental states into consideration. And if it is possible I will ask you to sit in on the interviews when necessary.”

“Of course, Inspector.”

There was another brisk knock on the door and a man came in. “Breezed in” would be a good way to describe it. Brisk, moustached, formally dressed in a grey wool suit, everything about him said doctor, even without the telltale black bag he carried.

He stretched out his hand immediately.

“I was told I’d find you in here, Tyler. Came as soon as I could.”

Tyler shook hands. “Dr. Murnaghan, this is Sister Rebecca Meade. She is the almoner of the hospital.”

They, too, shook hands, then Murnaghan turned back to Tyler.

“Thanks for inviting me. Bit boring being retired, I must admit. Bit of excitement always welcome.”

Tyler grinned. He knew the coroner well enough to know he wasn’t being ghoulish. He was just a very capable man who loved his work.

15.

A
NERVOUS-LOOKING YOUNG CONSTABLE GREETED
them at the door to the cottage.

“Nothing happening, sir. Silent as the grave.” Tyler and Murnaghan exchanged a look. The chap didn’t seem to realize what an unfortunate choice of expression this was.

“Come on, Doctor,” said Tyler as he led the way inside and up to the bedroom. With the curtains and windows closed, the house was heating up. He could hear the flies.

“Bodies are in here.”

Dr. Murnaghan entered the room and stood for a moment. Then he went to Ben, knelt down, and placed his medical bag on the floor. Rigor mortis had advanced, and when Murnaghan attempted to move the boy’s chin, he was unable to do so.

“I concur with your opinion, Tyler. I’d say death occurred about five or six hours ago.” He squinted at the underside of one arm. “Lividity is intact. The body has not been moved.” Dr. Murnaghan tended to talk as if he were addressing a class of aspiring medical students. He took a large magnifying glass from his bag and focused it on the bullet hole in the forehead.

“It’s a large wound, and we can see from the sooty residue that the gun was fired at close range. Perhaps less than a foot away.”

Carefully, he raised the boy’s head enough to see underneath. “No exit wound, so the bullet is still in the skull. I’ll examine the calibre and so on when I do the post. Have you found any casings?”

Tyler shook his head.

“Must have been a revolver then.”

“A younger boy survived. According to him, the killer came to his door and the boy described a gun with a long barrel. He thought it was a rifle, but I’d guess he was looking at a silencer.”

“All right. The bullet should tell us.”

The doctor stood up. He tapped the cricket bat with his toe. “Poor chappie brought a weapon, I see.”

He went over to the bed. Jock’s corpse, too, was much stiffened, and his face was crawling with flies come to do their job. Shooing them away, Murnaghan scrutinized this wound too with his magnifying glass. “I’d say the gun was actually pressed against the man’s temple. That’s why there’s a lot of powder burn.” He checked the back of McHattie’s head. “There is an exit wound here, Tyler. By the look of the pillow, the bullet will be lodged in there. I’ll take the pillow with me and extract it. Do an examination of the brain tissue at the same time.” He nodded in the direction of the dish with the glass eye balls. “Good fakes, aren’t they. From the appearance of the eye sockets, I’d say the man suffered burns. Was that the case?”

“Apparently so. Sister Rebecca said McHattie was wounded in the Great War.”

“What a shame to end his days like this.” Murnaghan straightened up. “He was caught completely unawares. The assailant got right up to him without his waking up. But the boy came into the room.”

“His brother said Ben heard something and went to investigate. That’s why he’s got a cricket bat.”

“But what I’m puzzled about, Tyler, is why he didn’t turn and run as soon as he realized what had happened?”

“I wondered the same thing. It was dark in here, but there’s a night light in the hall that would have given off some light.”

“The killer obviously reached him because he fired at close range. Perhaps he was already on his way out of the room.”

“Let’s try it,” said Tyler.

He walked back towards the door and stood next to where Ben lay. The coroner was by the head of the bed, left side.

“Approach me, would you, Doctor. From where you are.”

Murnaghan did as he asked, moving quickly. In a fraction of a second he was within a foot of Tyler. He raised an imaginary gun and pulled the trigger.

“You’re quite right,” said Tyler. “Unless he practically bumped into the killer, Ben would’ve had time to at least turn his head. In which case the bullet would have hit him much more to the side, near the temple. As it was, it hit him directly in the middle of his forehead. Let’s do that move again.”

Again the coroner did as he asked and went to the door, meeting Tyler more or less at the same spot.

“According to the account I’ve got from the younger boy, there was a short space of time between when Ben woke up, got his cricket bat, and went out to see what was happening. We don’t know for sure what woke him. The stairs creak. Maybe it was that. It’s also possible he heard the first shot. He enters his parents’ room. He doesn’t call out for his father – perhaps doesn’t have time. The killer is on him right away. There is a soft
phuft
sound, then Ben falls to the floor. The assassin goes across the landing to Charlie’s door, where he stands. If the boy’s perception is to be trusted, it took him about twelve seconds to reach the boys’ room. Why so long?”

Dr. Murnaghan blinked. “I’m sure you are making an important point, Inspector, but I don’t quite follow you.”

“It would take a matter of three or four seconds at the most to step over the body, exit the room, and cross the landing to the room opposite. Apparently, it took him almost twelve seconds. It suggests to me the murderer lingered after he shot
Ben and before he crossed the landing. Why? Did he stand and look down at the boy for a few moments? Contemplating the horror of what he had just done?”

Murnaghan frowned. “I suppose we can’t rule out robbery. Perhaps the killer intended to go in search of loot, although God knows what he’d find in an ordinary household like this.”

“I don’t think so. There’s absolutely no sign that he disturbed anything downstairs. He seems to have come in, gone directly upstairs to Jock’s room, walked over to the bed, and shot him. Then he’s surprised by the young lad and he shoots him too.”

“Why do that?” said Murnaghan. “Ben wasn’t big. Even with a bat, he couldn’t have been much of a threat. Surely it would have been easy to knock him down and make a getaway? Do we know if our assassin was masked?”

“From Charlie’s description, I’d say he most likely was.”

“No real need to kill Ben then. He couldn’t be a witness.”

“He also didn’t need to go and stand in the other boy’s doorway, but he did.”

Murnaghan shook his head. “I don’t understand it.”

Tyler looked at the two bodies again.

“Can we go back to Ben’s entrance for a moment? Would you mind re-enacting the possible scenario? Mime firing down at the sleeping man.
Phuft
. Somewhere in here, Ben enters the room. You see me and come towards me.”

Murnaghan came forward swiftly until there were only a few inches separating them.

“Why don’t I turn?” asked Tyler. “I still have time to try to make a run for it.”

He suited his actions to his words.

Suddenly Murnaghan hissed. “Tom!”

Instinctively, Tyler halted at the sound of his own name. It was a split second but quite long enough for the doctor to
raise his imaginary gun and aim it straight into the middle of Tyler’s forehead.

“Well, well,” exclaimed Dr. Murnaghan. “Looks like the killer knew the boy.”

“It’s one possibility. Not conclusive, but a possibility.”

16.

T
HE POLICE AMBULANCE, TOGETHER WITH FIVE MORE
constables, had arrived by the time they emerged from the cottage. Dr. Murnaghan supervised the photographing of the crime scene before the bodies were removed to the morgue in Whitchurch, where he had all his paraphernalia “at the ready,” as he put it.

Tyler made sure the carcass of the pigeon went with him. He dropped it into a brown bag he’d found in the McHattie kitchen and handed it to the coroner.

“Please find out everything you can about how this bird died, Doctor.”

Dr. Murnaghan grimaced. “I’ve done post-mortems on cows and sheep and a number of dogs. A pigeon will be my first avian. I presume you will enlighten me later as to why you want this?”

“I will.”

Each body had to be carried out to where the ambulance was parked. Ben’s body went first, a small mound underneath the covering sheet.

Tyler walked with the doctor to his car.

Murnaghan cleared his throat. “Always sad when a young life is taken so cruelly. I, for one, never get used to it.”

“Nor do I,” said Tyler. “I hope for that matter I never do. Get used to it, I mean.”

The doctor nodded. “You’re right there, Tyler. Glad to see you’re bearing up.” He got into his car. “I’ll get on the job right away.”

Tyler set the constables to work in the cottage. They were all men past conscription age, but they seemed capable enough.
Not tottering anyway. There was a vampire-ish quality to the war. It was gobbling up all the young men.

“Eaves, do you think you can handle the fingerprinting kit?”

The grey-haired constable was close to retirement but looked spry and fit.

“I’m not sure, sir. Never had much call to use it, to tell the truth.”

“Thieves just up and confessed, did they?”

“Summat like that, sir. They was turned in mostly. Everybody knows everybody else in these parts.”

“Do what you can. Pay particular attention to the door jambs front and back and the outside of the windowsill of the downstairs bedroom. I’m highly doubtful you’ll get anything, but we’ve got to rule it out. It’s likely the killer didn’t touch anything once he was inside the house, but you should give the door to the main bedroom a good going over. Constable Stanton, go with him and take photographs.”

This constable was younger but rotund and red-faced. The man had better watch his pressure, thought Tyler. One of the only good things you could say about rationing was that it was forcing the Brits to cut back on beer and roasts and slim down.

“When you’ve done that, you’ll have to get fingerprints from the residents. I warn you, some don’t
have
fingers and there are several who are blind. Use common sense. The almoner or one of the sisters will help you.”

The remaining four officers he directed to search the grounds.

“Are we looking for anything in particular, sir?” asked one of them whose name Tyler thought was Swindell. Or was it Swinfell? Another Shropshire man.

“Anything out of the ordinary that might give us a clue. Monogrammed hankies, foreign fag ends, an identity card.”

By the expression on the men’s faces, he thought his bit of sarcasm had gone completely over their heads.
We’re still getting to know each other, don’t forget. Serve him right if they did find something that obvious
.

“We’re getting reinforcements soon. They’ll join you.”

He was heading back to the main house to see if he could start his questioning when he met Sister Rebecca coming towards him.

“I’ve set up the order of your interviews, Inspector. We can start whenever you’re ready.”

Before he could reply, there was a sudden horrendous screeching. A black cat came dashing from the direction of the pigeon coop. A man was close behind it, an air gun in his hands. He paused briefly to take aim at the unfortunate creature, which, Tyler could see, was spurting blood from one of its rear legs. The pellet hit the ground a few feet away, and with another yowl, the cat turned and dived into the vegetable plot, where it disappeared.

Tyler yelled at the shooter. “Hey! Stop that. Stop that at once.”

Sister Rebecca called out as well.

“Alfie. What are you doing?”

Alfie swung the gun, and for a moment Tyler feared he was going to fire at him. He didn’t wait to hear the answer. In one swift move, he snatched the gun out of Alfie’s hands. The man staggered briefly, fell to the ground, and then began to wail. “He killed Prince. He killed my pigeon.”