A Donation of Murder (5 page)

‘Still a bit cool for my liking,' Dody said as she and Daphne helped the striking red-headed woman to dress. ‘I'm going to take you to my townhouse to recuperate. It'll be much more conducive to your recovery than here. Our spare room has a roaring fire and our maid is very handy with the bed warmer.'

Margaret Doyle looked stunned. ‘That's truly generous, Doctor, very kind. But I couldn't impose myself on you like that.'

‘It's no imposition, I promise you. Besides, have you anywhere else to go?'

‘I was planning on going back to my house in Dalston.'

‘To John, who beats you? You are in no condition to withstand a beating.'

‘I exaggerated. He hit me once — and he apologised to me afterwards with a bunch of carnations.'

‘How kind of him,' Daphne said, her expression suggesting a sip of sour milk.

‘Daphne,' said Dody, ‘I think you should see how Mrs Smith is faring, don't you?'

Collar turned up, scarf tight against the stinging sleet, Pike followed the blood trail east until he came across two frustrated policemen standing by the side of Commercial Road. The thoroughfare was chaotic with people, horse-drawn carriages and motorcars trying to escape the weather. The road was a river of slush and ground-up horse dung, and the policemen appeared to be debating whether to cross or not.

‘The trail's cold, sir,' one of the officers told Pike when he approached. ‘Lost in the muck of the road. He could have gone in any direction.'

Pike drove a fist into his hand and looked across the street. As if at a magic signal, pandemonium broke out. A motorcar slewed from one side of the icy road to the other, sliding into the covered back of a goods wagon pulled by a pair of spavined horses. The nags reared and the wagon driver jumped from his seat to calm them. A motorised omnibus missed the wagoner by a matter of inches. As the bus swerved, it hit the rear of the motorcar. The driver let off a string of obscenities, and threw a crank at the bus, missing it and hitting a bicycle ridden by a delivery boy. The boy wobbled but maintained his balance. Not so a box of apples resting on the handlebars, which tipped off, spilling fruit across the road. A horse stopped dead in its tracks in order to reach the tasty bonus and pitched its rider onto the street.

Pike had played piano accompaniment for a moving picture less amusing than this. Shame he was in no mood to appreciate it.

With nothing but a tilt of his head, he indicated the fracas.

‘Yes, sir,' the policemen said in unison, stepping into the street to direct the traffic and prevent the road users from throttling one another.

What a day.

Pike turned his back on Commercial Road and retraced his steps to the tenement in Brushfield Street. A few police vans remained. The men, earlier anxious to get people out of the building, were now holding back a crowd desperate to return to the meagre warmth of their rooms. Pike instructed one of the uniformed sergeants to assure the tenants they would be able to return once night had fallen, and the thieves' bodies had been removed. Before he'd set off in pursuit of Tommy, he'd left specific instructions that the bodies were to be left alone, posting a guard outside the door until he could return with the police surgeon. But not just any police surgeon would
do, he thought wryly as he crossed the road and made his way through the smoke of the local public house.

He phoned Dody's home number. Annie, the maid, answered and he asked to speak to her mistress. When Dody at last picked up the telephone she sounded distracted, which was most unlike her. They both usually jumped at the opportunity to work on a case together. God knew how little they saw of one another and how precious each moment was — even if there was often a dead body lying between them.

‘You want me to meet you at Brushfield Street, right now?' she asked.

Pike picked up the reluctance in her tone. ‘It might be the only chance we'll get to see each other in a while.'

‘I will not be able to see you tonight?'

‘I'm not sure. If at all, it will be late. Once I've finished here I'll have to report to Shepherd and work out an operational plan. This case will be on the front page of the newspapers tomorrow and could keep me busy for weeks.'

‘Oh, I understand.' She paused. ‘You see, Matthew, I have a visitor whom I'm reluctant to leave.'

‘Don't tell me Florence is back?'

‘No,' Dody said, ‘though I wish she were.'

‘In that case don't worry, I'll send for the police surgeon,' Pike said, reasonably, ‘and you'll get the bodies tomorrow in the mortuary once he's finished with them.' The police surgeons were often accused of being heavy handed by the Home Office Pathology department. But with Spilsbury away, and Dody unwilling, Pike had little choice. ‘It's bitterly cold out and best you stay in anyway,' he added. ‘Take care, my love. I'll call you when I can.'

Pike was about to hang up when Dody stopped him. ‘Wait, Matthew, wait. Where are you?'

‘The Red Lion in Cooper Street.'

‘I'll check on my visitor. If she's settled I'll meet you there in about half an hour. It's stopped snowing and I'm sure Fletcher will be able to drive me. I'll see you soon, I hope.'

Pike smiled as he replaced the earpiece. Whether her decision had been for him or for the intrigue of a new case was of no consequence — he'd most likely be seeing Dody soon.

*

Pike was waiting for her outside the Red Lion, stamping his feet and slapping his arms to keep warm. The evening gloom was already descending and the lamps had been lit. They embraced discreetly, just outside the street lamp's range. Pike smelled of smoke, and his ear, where it rested against her cheek, was like ice.

Dody peeled off her glove, desperate for the feel of skin on skin.

‘Matthew, you're frozen,' she said as she cupped his ears in her hands. ‘Where's your hat?'

‘In the street, stamped into a pancake by now, I suspect.'

‘What have you been up to?'

‘No heroics, if that's what's worrying you. Just doing my job, as you must now do yours.'

Without further explanation he picked up Dody's medical bag and escorted her across the street to a foreboding leviathan of a building about five storeys high.

‘The Disraeli building,' Pike explained, ‘home to about four hundred souls. Not long ago most of them were in the street. We've let them return home now — all, that is, except the occupants of the fifth floor, where the villains were holed up for most of the time.'

‘I think you should start at the beginning, Matthew.'

‘Right you are,' Pike said, pushing the scarred front door open for her.

Dody was immediately assailed by the stench of dirty baby nappies and greasy mutton. She turned to Pike. ‘I'd like some background information, please, Matthew. All you've said so far is that you have some bodies you want me to examine in situ.'

‘Certainly, Doctor,' Pike said as they climbed the stairs side by side. ‘Upon arriving early for work this morning, Mr Sachs, a jeweller, and his young assistant, Miss Ursula Levi, discovered their shop in the process of being robbed.'

He sounds as if he's addressing a courtroom, Dody thought. What is he hiding?

‘The thieves had dug a tunnel from the premises next door and surfaced in the safe room. They forced the jeweller to open the safe and then commenced to brutally pistol whip him. The shop girl escaped up some stairs and into the street where she ran screaming. One of the thieves shot her dead in front of witnesses. Then the thieves, carrying the contents of the safe in a small leather bag, tumbled into an idling motorcar and sped away. A vigilant bobby spotted them and hastened after them on
his bicycle. Once he'd managed to flag down some colleagues in a police van, a pursuit ensued.'

At the fourth floor landing they paused for breath. Pike rubbed his knee.

‘Your knee, Matthew —'

‘My ears, my knee, stop fussing,' he said with the flicker of a smile. Behind one of the closed doors, a baby began to wail. ‘The bobbies followed the men to this building and immediately laid siege. I arrived not long after that. The tenants were evacuated, but in the process . . .' Pike paused to clear his throat. ‘In the process there were casualties, a child and two policemen were wounded, one of them being Sergeant Singh.'

So that's what the courtroom tones were hiding. ‘Oh my goodness, are they all right?'

‘Both men's wounds were minor. But the child . . .' Pike was unable to continue.

Dody squeezed his arm. ‘Perhaps we should be getting on?'

He nodded and they carried on up to the fifth floor.

A policeman guarding a smoke-blackened door straightened to attention when he saw Pike. Nearby, a pair of heavy boots protruded from the end of a white sheet.

Pike pointed to the body. ‘They set fire to the place to cause a diversion, but I believe they underestimated the power of the smoke and were overcome by it. This one made it out of the room before he collapsed. There are two other bodies inside.'

‘Were the police shooting at them?' Dody asked.

‘Some gunfire was exchanged.' He turned to the policeman. ‘Has the photographer been and done his business, Constable?'

‘Yes, sir, left about 'arf an hour ago.'

‘And he didn't touch the bodies?'

‘Just photographed them where they lay. I didn't take me eyes off 'im. This one,' the constable nudged the protruding boots with his own steel-capped toe, ‘I covered with a sheet after he left. I hope that's acceptable, sir, I couldn't bear to 'ave to look at 'im.'

‘That's quite acceptable,' Pike said. ‘Good man.'

Pike introduced Dody as the Home Office Pathologist and led her into the room. ‘Set us up some lights, please, Constable,' he ordered as he removed a brand new, brass-fitted electric torch from his pocket.

He fumbled for a moment looking for the switch. ‘It's the first time I've used one of these things, it runs on energy cells,' he said. ‘Let's see if they're as good as everyone says they are.' He found the switch and clicked the torch on, playing it about the walls and floors like a theatrical spotlight. Dody was impressed. The gadget was new to her too, and sure to prove useful.

‘Watch your feet,' Pike said. The torch beam picked up sundry items of rubbish, ripped-up floorboards and broken crockery strewn about the floor, and a half-burnt bonfire of household goods.

‘The items in that bonfire would have produced a particularly thick smoke,' Dody commented. ‘These men seem so brutal, so desperate. All this for the contents of a jeweller's safe?'

‘Not even all the contents of the safe; as far as I know just one pouch was taken. Shepherd has not yet briefed me on the details, but I'm sure all will be revealed soon. The first body is over here.' Pike led Dody towards a shattered window and pointed to the body of a young man lying face up on the floor a few feet away.

‘Would you be so kind as to proceed with the examination, Doctor?' Pike asked.

‘Certainly.'

The constable from the front door joined them, lighting then placing several bulls-eye lanterns around the body. With the addition of Pike's unwavering torch beam, the light was reasonable enough for a preliminary examination. Dody found no signs of injury on the front of the body, though the man's nostrils were black from smoke. Perhaps Pike was correct, Dody thought, perhaps he did die from smoke inhalation.

The constable helped Dody turn the body into a prone position and she ran her bare hands from his feet up his legs and back to feel for injuries and broken bones. A sticky spot at the base of the victim's head caught her attention. She pulled her hand away and examined her shining fingers under the light.

‘Blood,' she said.

Pike squatted beside her and shone his beam onto the man's head. Dody eased apart a clump of matted hair.

‘This man has been shot in the back of the head,' she said to Pike as she wiped her hands on his proffered handkerchief. ‘The exit wound is at the top of his forehead, above the hairline, which makes it difficult to see.'

‘Extraordinary shot, hardly any blood at all,' Pike remarked. ‘I had no idea we had such a marksman in the force.'

‘Luck, perhaps,' Dody replied. ‘Gunshots to the head don't bleed profusely when death is instantaneous. Surrounding tissue also provides a barrier.'

‘You'll need to look for the bullet, Constable,' Pike said.

‘I've already got it sir,' the young man said, handing the bullet to Pike. ‘It was tangled in the rag mat.'

‘Good work.'

The young man glowed at Pike's compliment. Pike turned the flattened lead between his fingers. ‘Looks like a 22,' he said as he slipped it into his inside coat pocket.

‘Show me the other bodies, please, Chief Inspector,' Dody said.

The second man was positioned near the door. He too had been shot through the back of the head, the bullet passing through the skull and burying itself in the doorframe. The constable took out his penknife and prised it from the splintered wood. Pike put it into his pocket with the other one.

The third man, the one on the landing, was heavily bearded with a tangled thatch of thick hair. His wound appeared more severe than the other two, the back of his head all but shattered. Pike winced when he saw the damage.

‘Tell the men below they can collect the bodies now,' he ordered the constable, ‘and have them taken to Paddington Mortuary — I trust this would be your preference, Doctor McCleland?'

‘Yes, please,' Dody replied as she straightened from her kneeling position.

Neither spoke again until the constable's footsteps on the stairs had begun to fade.

‘Is the last bullet, the one in the bearded man, still in situ?' Pike asked Dody. He shone his torch around the floor and walls of the landing. ‘There's no sign of it here.'

‘I believe so, I can see no evidence of an exit wound. I can be more thorough in the mortuary tomorrow.'

‘I'd like to see it, if and when it is found.'

‘Of course.'

Pike rubbed his chin and stared at the floor. Downstairs a baby began to wail. Cooking smells wafted up the stairwell as the occupants got on with their lives.

‘What is it, Matthew?' Dody asked at last.

‘This man here.' Pike glanced at the dead man at their feet. ‘Can you see him running out of the room and onto the landing with half of his head missing?'

‘I very much doubt he would do anything except immediately fall to the floor. Why, what is it?'

‘Smoke inhalation, that's what I thought when I first ran past the bodies, although I didn't get much of a look at them at the time—'

‘You mean you were up here, Matthew,' Dody's voice rose, ‘with the robbers, when the place was on fire—'