Fall of Angels Read online

  Redfyre looked again at the left hand, gnarled and useless, and remembered Doctor Beaufort’s summary: “Left-handed? Right-handed? Impossible to say. Equal and great pressure exerted by two strong thumbs.” And on the throat of a very strong girl. A girl who only had to whimper to call up the savage protection of a fierce and devoted dog.

  He picked up Bruno’s lead and offered his arm to Benson. “I do apologise, sir. Allow me to get you home in time for breakfast. Can you manage if we crawl along? And, as we crawl, perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what I may expect to discover when the results of certain lab tests land on my desk. Tests being carried out to establish forensically the composition of medicaments produced by your company.”

  Chapter 17

  Sunday morning. Before dawn.

  PC Toseland shivered under his thick police cape and kicked an empty fag packet into the gutter while he waited in the Market Place to hear the six o’clock chime from Great St. Mary’s Church. A stickler for routine and cussed with it, he made a point of starting his beat on the first stroke and finishing it on the last eight hours later. Old Mary was well into her count before some of the lesser college bells woke up and joined in the clamour, and by then, Toseland’s long stride had carried him halfway down Market Hill. Not that there was anyone around to see him moving into action or to note how meticulously he performed his duties this morning. No one would remark the freshly pressed uniform, the smooth-shaven cheeks, still ruddy and glowing from the porridge his old ma always got up early to cook for his breakfast.

  A deserted square, filled with litter from last night’s Christmas jollifications, presented no challenge to an officer of the law. This was a dull shift, but he rather enjoyed his solitary condition. It gave him a feeling of power, or something very like it, to stride about the city as though he owned it. And he wasn’t all that alone. One blast on his police whistle would be heard at a surprising distance across the quiet town, and two or three of his fellow coppers would be at his side in seconds. There’d be Gilligan on Trinity Street, keeping an eye on the colleges—always quiet on a Sunday morning—and Edwardes over by Parker’s Piece, freezing his balls off in that exposed acreage of wilderness. Whichever way you turned in that godforsaken desert, you got the blast of the wind in your face.

  He was thankful he hadn’t been given the King Street-Maids Causeway duty. That always went to the more experienced uniformed coppers, anyway. Pubs and houses of ill repute every few yards. Every chance of favours in kind handed out, of course, to officers willing to take advantage of the hospitality. It used to be looked on as a perk, that beat—before the war. Not so much since the police cleanup. That old bugger, MacFarlane, in cahoots with the Chief Constable, tolerated no slackers. No second chances in the Cambridge force.

  There were to be no temptations on the beat he had this morning. No market. Not even a breezy exchange of ribaldry with stall-holders arriving early to set up their striped awnings and pile up their pyramids of apples and oranges. The square looked jaded and desolate. Toseland clicked into motion. Worst first, he reckoned, was always a good idea. Pick the green jelly baby out of the bag first, eat the sprouts from your dinner plate and leave the real pleasures to be savoured later with a feeling of duty done. In pursuit of the glow of righteousness, he marched over to the ornate stone statement that was the canopy announcing the public conveniences: the gents. Stinking underground urinals they were, but sometimes you caught a tramp sleeping rough down there and had to move him out and on. What a lady did if she was caught short in the town centre, Toseland had no idea, and was glad no one had ever had the indelicacy to ask him.

  He drew a lucky blank in the lavatories and decided to treat himself to a breath of fresh air by walking down past the Senate House in front of Caius College and proceeding on down Garret Hostel Lane to reach the river.

  The narrow cobbled lane between the grey dignity of the Senate House and the forbidding stonework of the run of college buildings he always found intimidating. Quiet, secretive. Pass through if you must, but be discreet. Be invisible. You are not welcome here, these walls said to him. PC Toseland unconsciously responded to the spirit of the place, stopped whistling and quickened his pace to make his run through.

  The bundle of clothes crammed into the base of the archway on his right alerted him to an unwanted presence and slowed his step.

  It was one of his favourite parts of the city, this mysterious little architectural flourish. A strong wooden door, fortified with a pattern of studded nails, was outlined by a moulding that cascaded elegantly from a carved entablature no higher than a copper’s helmet. It flowed down to a generously wide sill at pavement level, six feet long and two feet wide, the whole space capacious enough to accommodate a hammock, a coffin or a reasonably sized dosser who’d slipped into the wrong part of town. As far as Toseland was aware, the gate was never used. He had no idea which of the colleges it gave access to, if indeed there was a college behind it. It could well give on to the pig-swill bins at the rear of the kitchens; it could equally give on to some magical rose garden. Quiet, sheltered from wind and rain, the space had been cleared at the point of Toseland’s boot with a joking, “’Ello, ’ello, ’ello! ’Oo’s left the laundry lying about, eh?” several times since the summer.

  The constable shone his torch and peered down at the tumble of garments, trying to work out which end was which. Mostly the sleepers aligned themselves in an unconscious calculation with feet to the east. He looked to the east end and saw a small foot wearing a high-heeled shoe. A female. Toseland drew back in dismay. These confrontations with women never ended well for the investigating officer; they inevitably turned into reportable cases. No respect shown to the law—ever. Men would swear and shuffle off, no bother, but the women—at best, they’d launch spit and abuse at you, and at worst, they’d lodge an accusation of molestation. As if! But the paperwork they threw up could be never-ending.

  He peered more closely, keeping his hands behind his back. No manhandling! He’d learned the hard way to avoid trouble. He’d encountered women roughs before now, all right—even escorted some of them all the way to the Salvation Army Reception Centre. Not that he’d noted it particularly at the time, but he knew that they’d all been wearing dirty old shoes. Those that weren’t wearing their bedroom slippers, having dashed into the street to flee a violent husband.

  None of the women he’d encountered had worn silk stockings and high-heeled kid shoes.

  He found a shoulder to shake, swathed in a thick wool coat, damp and cold, and he shook it. “Madam!” he said in his policeman’s voice. “I shall have to ask you to move on! Are you in need of assistance?”

  He’d never come across a corpse before. Apart from the waxen features of his old granny, glimpsed in her coffin across a crowded front parlour before they nailed the lid down. But there was no mistaking one when you had it by the shoulder.

  What was he supposed to do now? He quelled his rising panic and began to think. Perhaps she wasn’t dead, but just frozen up because of the weather? Perhaps she was unconscious, drugged, drunk, but still alive. Lord! Suppose this was the master’s wife, returning after some clandestine outing and scrabbling unsuccessfully to sneak back in to College through a side gate? Did masters have wives? Mothers? Always check, never assume, he told himself. He had to find a pulse, and remembered from training where to hunt for one.

  The throat.

  He stripped the gloves from his icy fingers and poked about until he’d revealed her face and neck. When he saw the bruising and absorbed its meaning, he shot up in horror. He fumbled at his belt to find his police whistle and, with no thought for the quiet of the place, he gave it a blast. And another and another. Until, in the distance he heard the faint double echo of his own shrill appeal. Two notes, repeated. Notes that told him: Received and understood. Am on my way.

  Redfyre heard the telephone ringing as he opened his front door and dashed to answe
r.

  “Do you know what time this is?” an irritated voice asked him.

  “Seven-thirty. Which is at least two hours before a halfway decent super has the right to call a copper on his day off. And that being a Sunday! Were you afraid I was going to be late for Mass, sir?”

  “Some of us have been up for hours fighting crime, Inspector. Listen. I’m booked in to lose a game of golf with the Chief Constable later this morning. Sorry about that! Sorrier than you can imagine. The Chief’s preferred partner backed out at the last minute with a nasty bout of the ’flu, so I’m alerting you. As highest-ranking officer left in charge—gawd ’elp us!—you are to assume overall responsibility until I can get back. Shouldn’t be long, what with the weather and the state of my golf.”

  “Sir, surely this weather will mean suspended play? I’m surprised they don’t have a closed season for the wretched game.”

  “Not on your Nellie! It’s a Scottish invention, remember, Redfyre. Those hairy buggers’ll play through a blizzard with the wind up their kilts! Still, most of the action takes place in the clubhouse, they tell me. All you have to do, Redfyre, is sit in the station filing your nails and making sure that my arrangements are being adhered to.” His voice faltered for a moment, and then he went on more briskly. “You’d think it was safe to just let things take their own smooth course for four hours on a quiet Sunday, but better safe than sorry, eh? Fact is, it’s all hands on deck this bright a.m. We, er—”

  His indecisive vagueness was driving Redfyre mad. What was wrong with the man?

  Finally, “We seem to have got another one of those,” MacFarlane admitted.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. Another one of what?”

  “Murder, chump! Do wake up! Would I call you to tell you that Mrs. Honeywell has lost her Chihuahua for the fourth time? Some poor lass has been strangled to death in the middle of the city in the night, five minutes’ walk from you,” he added accusingly.

  Redfyre sighed. “I seem to be the centre of a deadly vortex lately! But where? When? Who is she?”

  “Calm down. It’s in good hands—I’ve put Thoday in charge. He’s down there now. Pathologist is on his way. Just be around, will you? Make yourself available, in case the sergeant gets out of his depth. You’ve still got one and a half murders on your books, and pernickety bastard that you are, you’ve already turned loose two perfectly acceptable suspects. Tyrrell and Vaudrey both blowing freely in the wind, laughing their socks off, they tell me.”

  “Not that freely, sir! Vaudrey is reporting to the Sheffield police headquarters twice a day and Tyrrell is back in his digs under surveillance.” He reined in his objections to challenge once again his boss’s annoying prevarications. “Strangled, you say? Any connection with the Lawrence case?”

  “Hardly! Lawrence and the trumpet girl—your assignments—are both girls of a certain class and uppity with it. Respectable, with influential friends and family. Need careful handling. But a connection? Not on your Nellie! There’s no conceivable link between them and this woman. Didn’t I say? This victim is a prostitute, plying her trade in a part of the town where she oughtn’t. Thoday can cover it. He’ll come up with some answers in five minutes if he goes into the right pubs—King Street’s his home turf. And wasn’t he in the raiding party that dismantled that brothel on Maids Causeway? Old Ma Mumford’s Den of Iniquity? That syphilitic swamp.”

  Redfyre stirred uneasily. His boss was dangerously near the verge of one of his rants. He decided to cut him short with a rant of his own. “Indeed, sir. To the embarrassment of certain local dignitaries who were discovered in a very undignified posture. The gentlemen were released unscathed and unnamed—escorted, if I’m not mistaken, to the nearest back exit by our helpful lads, while the ladies—and Mrs. Mumford—were subjected to a physical checkup and overhaul. And the madam put in jug for six months.”

  “Hah! Fat lot of good it did! The enterprise just packed its bags and moved next door under the new management of Mrs. Mumford’s daughter. We never learn.”

  “But they do. And they take better precautions against further raids, including shoring up clandestine support from the debagged dignitaries. They continue because the demand never ceases. Their clients take risks in spite of the dire consequences. Perhaps next time, we should attack the problem from a different angle and arrest the customers, sir?”

  “What! And bring half the local council, a good slice of the university hierarchy and a fair selection of His Majesty’s boys in blue into disrepute? That’s enough moralising, Inspector—you’re wasting my time. Get down there and instruct Thoday. He can have a modest allocation of the readies for information. Never hurts to grease a palm—they’d turn their granny in to us for a ten-bob note, some of these low-lifers. And the last thing we’d want is a cellful of screeching old biddies. Old age doesn’t confer sanctity and a good character, you know, Redfyre.”

  “Something I notice every day, sir. But tell me, where was the body discovered?”

  “Down the Senate House Passage. That narrow bit of cobbled road some of the sprightlier undergraduates dare each other to jump across, wall to wall.”

  “I know the one.”

  “Do you know that little niche under the arched doorway on the right?”

  “Yes, a hidey-hole for tramps. Out of the wind and rain, and out of view from either end of the passage. No idea what the door opens on to. If, indeed, it does open. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it in use. I always assumed it was just for show. An interesting bit of architecture to relieve a stretch of rather austere walling.”

  “Well you said it, Redfyre: ‘Just for show.’ And that may prove to be a more acute remark than you realise. A common or garden lady of the night in this university neck of the woods? Nah! Traffic all goes the other way. They’d be nabbed right sharp by the college bulldogs if they set foot on hallowed ground. And they fear those bully-boys more than they fear us. If they get brought in here, there’s always a chance they’ll be given an interview and a cup of tea by one of our nice officers. At worst, he’ll threaten to tell their mum. No, they don’t risk it. They never stray far from the Four Lamps. And when they do get killed, the body’s left right there on the spot where the murder occurred. On Butt Green or some other nasty hole on the common. 1887, it was, a kid of sixteen had her throat cut on Butt Green and the newspapers went to town. Full front-page spread. The perpetrator turned up in a local pub, minutes later, bloodstained and carrying a dripping knife, announcing that he’d done the deed. Now, if DI Redfyre had been on duty that night, the lad would have been given a severe talking-to, handed sixpence for his bus fare home and let loose. Anyway, top and bottom is, I don’t want to see an associated front-page spread highlighting police incompetence this time. You were the hero of the hour on Saturday, Redfyre, with your outstretched arms, quick wits, and hifalutin musical tastes. Come Monday, you could be a blundering flatfoot with a tin ear.”

  “Understood, Superintendent. Six inches below the fold on page four will have to do. I’ll make sure the editor is aware of your wishes. Enjoy your golf, sir.”

  Redfyre put the phone down before he could utter the words that would have him in the police dock for insurrection and impertinence to a senior officer.

  Five minutes’ walk. He would have guessed seven, but he’d soon find out. He dashed into the bathroom.

  The uniformed constable sealing off the narrow alleyway reacted at once. He put up a hand to warn him off before recognising him and calling out a greeting. “Sorry, Inspector! It’s a bit gloomy for detecting around here. The gas lamps are still alight, and I’ve had a word with the bloke who sees to them. Asked him to make sure they stay on until further notice. You all right for a torch, sir? It’s thirty yards down on the right. The duty doctor was summoned; it’s Doctor Beaufort’s week. Also in attendance are Detective Sergeant Thoday and the constable who discovered the body, PC Toseland. The beat bobby. Two ot
her PCs were present, sir, alerted by police whistle, and the sarge has sent them both back on their beats.”

  Efficiently briefed, Redfyre went to present himself.

  Doctor Beaufort looked up as he approached. “Morning, Redfyre! Another cold and frosty one, another cold and frosty victim. A woman. Mid-twenties, killed during the night. You’d think they’d all be at home, filling the mince pies and hanging the mistletoe.”

  Sergeant Thoday, sensing a familiar and excluding double act about to break out over his head, hurried to assert himself. He drew Redfyre aside. “Sir! Superintendent MacFarlane has given me orders to—”

  Redfyre cut him short. “At ease, Sergeant! I’m aware. He’s spoken to me on the telephone and conveyed his instructions. I’m here to check in my interfering way whether there’s any connection between the death of this lady who is now your concern, and that of Miss Lawrence, whose death we are both investigating. Fill me in, will, you?”

  “Right. Body discovered at six-fifteen. PC Toseland here carried out the minimum of investigative manoeuvring necessary to ascertain that she was not, in fact, alive and in difficulties, but dead. He summoned assistance, and one of the responding officers ran to HQ with the news of the discovery just I was turning up for duty, so I came straight out here. Doctor Beaufort arrived ten minutes ago.”

  “Tell, me Thoday—the super tells me the girl is a prostitute. How could he possibly know that?”

  “I told him, sir,” Thoday explained. “I looked through her bag before I called it in.” He produced a slim clutch bag from his briefcase and handed it to Redfyre. “Everything would seem to be untouched. There’s a money purse with five one-pound notes and a few coins in it. Female effects: mirror, rouge, lipstick. And an address book cum diary. Complete with her own name and address and about fifty more names, some with addresses. All male. Some names clearly false. I mean, Charlie Chaplin? The Maharaja of Poona, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, all customers?”