Fall of Angels Read online

  It started off factually, if quirkily:

  A delighted audience in the Chapel of St. Barnabas was treated to a memorable concert by two up-and-coming young musicians. Miss Proudfoot (trumpet) wore a gown by Captain Molyneux of London and Paris. Doctor Coote (organ) wore a gown by Messrs. Ede and Ravenscroft of Trumpington Street, Cambridge.

  MacFarlane considered this. No words wasted here. But—“gown by Ede and Ravenscroft”? The University outfitters? Purveyors of ermine-lined hoods and long-sleeved academical dress? This was what the well-dressed organist-about-Cambridge was wearing this season? What the hell had got into Scrivener? Was he auditioning for a transfer to the Ladies’ Modes page? He read on. This was more like it:

  A Christmas cornucopia of ancient music by composers from Albinoni to Zieleński was much enjoyed. The evening ended with a rousing rendition by soloists and audience of that old favourite: “Hark The Herald Angels.”

  He should have stopped right there. ’Nuff said. A balancing piece on the annual Advent concert for the elderly and needy by the Sally Bash in the Market Place would have been welcome, but MacFarlane read on and growled in dismay.

  The audience—of which your reporter was a member—might surely have expected to walk out into the December night with the joyful tunes ringing in its ears? Alas, it was the disturbing—nay, shocking—sound of an unfortunate girl’s screams of pain that rang out as the crowd left. Not just any girl: the soloist herself, trumpeter par excellence, who had only moments earlier been smiling in appreciation of the audience’s delight in her performance, mysteriously lost her footing as she descended the stairs from the organ loft. She came crashing down, screaming for help as she bumped from stair tread to stair tread down to the bottom.

  Her bloodied, seemingly lifeless body was stopped in its fall at the last moment by the stalwart frame of none other than Detective Inspector Redfyre of the Cambridge Police Force, who, by a stroke of extreme good fortune, was right on the spot. He had occupied a front-row seat at the foot of the organ loft, ostensibly to enjoy the music. So, it is to a taste for classical music on the part of its guardians that the town may attribute the speediness of the setting-up of an official police enquiry.

  Indeed, so concerned was this officer to discover the cause of the lady’s non-fatal fall that the scene was cordoned off, a medical officer called in and members of the audience (including the master of the college himself) detained for questioning.

  MacFarlane tutted critically. He appreciated the “flowers of rhetoric” as much as the next man—they’d been beaten into him in English grammar classes at his northern, penny-a-day grammar school. He knew his nonne from his num; he could identify a spot of litotes and hypotaxis when he came across them. But the unintentional result of this severe schoolmastering had been a determination on the part of the pupil to avoid at all cost using the verbal tricks he’d learned. He left that sort of elitist nonsense to soft, overeducated southerners.

  There was only one flower that MacFarlane had plucked from that bouquet of rhetoric and sported defiantly in his buttonhole, and that was a little beauty called parataxis. Keep it short. Be clear. Avoid subordinate clauses. His own reports were couched in hand-thrown prose. They left nothing to the imagination. Proper and frequent use was made of the full stop. His puritan ways with prose were extended to his staff; he’d had occasion to take that cavalier wordsmith DI Redfyre to task for committing acts of wilful alliteration. And the superintendent had nothing but scorn for the way Scrivener, this weasel of the press, was using innocent words to misdirect and inflame his readers. He forged on, his suspicions growing darker by the line:

  One of these witnesses suggested to your reporter that this was not the heavy-handed and over-officious reaction it might at first appear. In his view, the police were right to be suspicious. Did she fall, or was she pushed? Tripped? Doubtless all will be made clear, but those of us who heard her pitiful screams were left in a state of extreme unease. An attempt on the life of a gallant and beautiful young woman had been made, some felt. Possibly an organised attempt. A conspiracy? But why could anyone possibly wish to destroy such talent? Unless, it has been whispered, the coils of masculine envy and hatred had been stirred into venomous, possibly collegiate action, roused by the question of her sex. No one objects to beauty and courage, but many—very many in this town and further afield—object to the display of a talent which has hitherto been regarded as the province of the male sex.

  “Ladies do not play trumpets.” That very warning was, according to a close friend of the injured girl, sent to Miss Proudfoot anonymously before the event. With typical bravery, she insisted on continuing with the recital. She had been denied a platform for her talents on every other college and musical stage in the city, and this appearance at St. Barnabas, playing alongside its world-famous organ, was her first chance of revealing her skills to the world.

  Could it be that some interests had decided that it should be her last?

  Readers will remember that, hitherto without exception, the male colleges of the university have consistently voted to deny the granting of a degree to female students, however outstanding their talent.

  Miss Proudfoot is at present being treated for her injuries at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, where she is expected to make a complete recovery.

  Bloody Hell! Was this idiot trying to start a civic war? How much of this guff was actionable? Better get a lawyer to look at it. This slimy Scrivener had just managed, by deceitful flattery, to avoid overt criticism of the police force, but he’d surely trodden on someone’s toes? The notoriously sensitive toes of a powerful academic institution, one of the wealthiest and most powerful colleges in the university? St. Barnabas was not an establishment to take such an accusation lying down. And if anyone was going to be handing out accusations of attempted murder and collegiate conspiracy, it was going to be Superintendent MacFarlane, CID, in his own good time.

  Raging, MacFarlane called downstairs to the desk. “Get me a squad car! No drivers? Sod it! I’ll drive the bugger myself! Tell anyone who’s interested I’ve gone down to the river. To chuck myself in,” he yelled, delivering his communication in decidedly parataxical style.

  Chapter 7

  In the gray murk of pre-dawn, Redfyre became aware of a small group of people huddling disconsolately around a tumble of clothes and limbs a few yards away from the towpath. A copper in uniform confirmed he was expected by waggling his torch about excitedly. The PC greeted him and came forward to take his bicycle.

  “Who’ve we got officiating, constable?” Redfyre asked before joining the group.

  “Doctor Beaufort. The best, sir. Two blokes from the hospital standing by with a stretcher and the bloke who discovered the body—a sewage worker out walking his dog—awkward old so-and-so.”

  “Inevitably!” Redfyre smiled. “Where would detection be without dog walkers?”

  The copper handed over his notebook. “All there, sir. All that’s known, anyhow—names, addresses, times, initial statements, geographical location, the usual.”

  Redfyre took it and read the single page by the light of the officer’s torch, appreciating the brevity and neat handwriting. He handed it back with a nod and unhooked his murder bag from the carrier on his bike. He cast an eye over the group, kneeling uncomfortably on the frost-covered grass.

  “We won’t bother defining the crime scene,” he instructed the constable. “We haven’t got enough tape to cordon off a whole common, river bank and half a dozen boathouses! It would probably attract gawpers, anyway. Look, I’ve asked for reinforcements. Until they arrive, I’d like you to stand by the towpath and direct traffic past. There’s no one about at the moment, but in an hour there’ll be cyclists and people going to work. I’ll be taking a look at the body first, then organizing a sweep search of the immediate area as soon as we have light enough to see what we’re treading on.”

  “Sir. Yes, sir!”


  A stocky, short-legged figure in a trilby hat broke from the group as he approached and hailed him with a disrespectful “Oi! You! ’Bout time too! Officer, are you? I need permission to take my hound home for his breakfast.” He pulled forward a forlorn-looking dog that echoed its master in general physical makeup. On cue, it uttered a pitiful whine and scrabbled in the grass with frozen paws. “Your bloke in uniform has been damned difficult! If Toby turns up another corpse, I shall tell him to just leave it! And we’ll pass on by. Let some other fool suffer a police interrogation for a full hour on an empty stomach.”

  “Good morning, sir! Mr. Hanley, I believe? Manager of the sewage works?”

  “That’s director of the pumping station to you.”

  “Well, thank you for reporting the find and cooperating with my constable. PC Somerton tells me you have been very helpful and patient. I’ve read your statement.” He bent to fondle the long velvet ears of the puzzled-looking basset hound. “You’re a clever chap, aren’t you? Finding a body in the dark? Ready for brekky, old mate? Aren’t we all?” He straightened and addressed Hanley again. “Do feel free to go home now, both of you. I have your details in case I need to bother you again. I’ll take it from here.”

  He began to turn away.

  Mr. Hanley was suddenly disposed to linger. “’Ere! ’Arf a mo’! Don’t you want to know how he came to find her?”

  “I’d love to hear, but don’t let me keep you.”

  “’Cos he’s a hound, that’s why.”

  “I noticed. A basset, I believe. Good noses on them, bassets!”

  “Right on! Best scent hounds in the business! One minute he’s pulling for home, the next he’s dragging me over to the river, howling and whining. Lucky I had my torch with me.” Even in the gloom, Redfyre saw the bluff face tighten at the memory of the discovery. “Your man marked the spot. Stuck, she was, snagged and frozen up against that old wrecked punt. Can’t have traveled far downstream—there’s not much of a flow in this freeze-up.” He began to back away. “Well, must be off—got a works to run. Must keep the filth flowing, mustn’t we?

  “We must indeed! You and me both. Thank you again, Mr. Hanley. Enjoy your breakfast! And have an extra sausage for me!”

  Redfyre’s smile was returned, to his surprise, and a hesitant hand extended to shake his. Muttering a quick promise of help if there was something else he could do, the dog walker made off down the towpath.

  Doctor Beaufort’s greeting was brisk and affable, and then he fell silent. The two men had dealt with each other to mutual satisfaction on several occasions. The doctor knew it was wise and time-saving in the long run to hold his report until Redfyre had studied the body and the surroundings. He looked on as the detective—young, he knew, but looking older than his years—approached the body. The doctor conceded that the situations in which the man chose to put himself were hardly conducive to a fresh, unwrinkled face; he saw distress, concern, enquiry and resolve chase each other across the handsome features as he watched. “Cause of death, doctor?” the inspector finally asked.

  Beaufort pointed to the throat of the young girl. “Bruising here and here. Thumb marks?” He had learned to skip all the business of slathering his speech with concessive clauses of a “provided that . . . unless . . . later examination may show . . .” nature, designed to cover any misunderstanding or initial misdiagnosis. With Redfyre, he was confident that there would be no unfair retribution for that. He knew he was dealing with a soldierly outlook on the task at hand. One that decided on the objective and went straight for it. “There may be water in the lungs, but I doubt it’s of drowning that she died. I’d say she was killed by someone taller than herself, and considerably stronger, who attacked her from the front, strangled her and threw her into the river. With this cold weather I shall have to make a few calculations in the lab to tell you when she died, but the initial estimate, and a vague one, is sometime late last night or early this morning. Honestly, John, it’ll be not much more than guesswork.”

  “Wristwatch? Have you looked? Surely it would have frozen up at the critical time?”

  “She’s not wearing one.” He added lugubriously, “Or perhaps she was and the perpetrator took it off her body. Robbery? Or to keep the time of her death a mystery? Perhaps that’s why he took the trouble of heaving her into the river? To foul up the usual methods of calculating time of death? Well, I must say he knew what he was doing. The river iced over in the night—coldest evening in half a century, they say. Poor chicken! I wonder whose daughter she is?”

  “Any indicators of her identity, doc?”

  “Nothing apparent. She must have had a bag at one point, but it’s not on the body. It may be in the water wherever she was chucked in. Some poor sod will have to go in there after it.”

  Both men looked gloomily at the crusted, grey-green murk just sliding into view in the dawn hour and shivered.

  Redfyre could put off the moment no longer. He knelt by the body, thankful that the doctor had closed her eyes and arranged her as decorously as possible in this ghastly scene. The face was stiff with death and hoarfrost and told him little. Her youthful features seemed at odds with the silvering on the black strands of hair that had trailed across her face, frozen there like a mask. To him, she was Edmund Dulac’s Snow Queen: chilling in her beauty, as distant as a star and as mysterious.

  Redfyre tore his eyes away and examined her left hand.

  “No wedding ring,” the doctor commented. “She’s quite young. I’ve looked at her teeth. Nothing much in the way of wisdom teeth. I’d say eighteen to early twenties. Well nourished. I removed her gloves. The hands, as you see, are well kept. I doubt this girl ever held a scrubbing brush; she was no working girl.” As Redfyre turned the left hand over and looked at the right hand as well, Beaufort added, “So, no signs that she defended herself. That’s a pity. No broken nails or skin under them to tell their tale.”

  “No visible signs of violence then, doctor, other than the strangulation marks?”

  “None. I’ve checked the fingers and wrists for sprains and breakage. Nothing. As far as I can tell, she put up no resistance. She may not have expected the attack.”

  “Or she might have been completely unafraid—trusting of whoever it was she came face-to-face with in this god-awful spot. She was a girl of some consequence, I’d say. And local, wouldn’t you think?” He looked about him at the lights beginning to twinkle through the gloom. “Someone will surely know she’s missing. Anyone . . . ?”

  “No missing person reported answering this description,” Redfyre said. “We’re in free fall. But doing well so far! Without her bag, we’re not likely to make much headway at the moment, but I do like to appear to be one step ahead of the grieving family. What else offers? Clothing—have you?”

  “Only to establish that she wasn’t the victim of a sexually driven attack. I thought I’d wait for you to take a look with me. I did notice a maker’s label—a London one—in the cape she’s got buttoned on around her shoulders, but there’s no name tag stitched in. Girls give up on those habits as soon as they leave school and swap their uniform gabardines for a mink.”

  Redfyre’s swift fingers checked the collars of her cape and dress and found nothing new. “Hang on a minute. It was a damned cold night, wasn’t it?” Digging more deeply, he grunted with satisfaction. “She’s got a vest on! Sensible creature. Chances are, it’s been bought locally. Girls don’t go to London to buy boring old vests; they pop into Eaden Lilley’s. And that store keeps good sales records. Look here! It’s a what-do-they-call-’em body protector, the sort they wore at school before the war.”

  “A liberty bodice!” the doctor corrected. “That’s what that is. They have to wear them at school, but some girls choose to keep wearing them on the quiet. Not so much as a ‘waste not, want not’ effort, but because they flatten the chest, and these days what every girl seems to want is a f
lat chest. According to my eldest, who swears by them,” he finished awkwardly. “Alice. She’s twenty now.” He gazed with barely concealed emotion at the dead girl’s face.

  “We’ll have him!” Redfyre placed a hand on the doctor’s shoulder in comfort. “Somewhere in the town, there’s a shite tucking into his bacon and eggs after his night’s work, one who’s going to be having his Christmas dinner behind bars.” Not professional or eloquent, but the doctor responded to the feeling expressed and nodded firmly, unable to speak.

  “And here’s a name tag! On the bodice,” Redfyre said, eager to reestablish calm procedure. “Thank God for Cash’s name tapes. They’ve been of inestimable help to the police over the years. And, woven as they are, they never run in water. She’s a Miss Shelley, Louise. Louise Lawrence Shelley.”

  “Hang on a minute.” The doctor flashed his torch over the letters again. “You missed the full stop after Lawrence. Cash’s never gets it wrong! Her name, or more accurately, the name of the owner of this piece of underwear is Louise Lawrence. Full stop. ‘Shelley’ is, I’d say with some confidence, having sewn on dozens of these over the years for my girls, the name of her house in school. Useful for laundry-sorting purposes. Mine were all in Raleigh House, after Sir Walter. They’re usually Englishmen, heroes of ‘our rough island-story’ . . . Percy Bysshe Shelley House, would you say? The poet?”

  Redfyre smiled. “No. I’d say Mary Shelley, his less famous wife. The novelist. And I think I can make a guess at the school. If we were to ring up the headmistress of an educational establishment just south of the river and ask her how she names her houses, she may tell us: Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Nightingale and probably bloody old Boadicea!”