A June of Ordinary Murders (25 page)

He might have added, a G-man who's in enough trouble already, Swallow thought darkly.

Lafeyre gestured to the body on the steel table. ‘I won't prejudge anything until I've completed the post mortem. But as I said up at Portobello this morning, what I've seen so far looks like foul play to me – and brutal at that. Three of these in one week is more than we usually bargain for.'

He laid the scalpel aside.

‘I'll wait a few minutes to see if this McDonald arrives. Better not to give him any excuse if you feel he might hesitate over a positive identification.'

Swallow nodded in agreement. Lafeyre was a first-rate examiner, but he still thought like the practical policeman he had been when he served in Africa. He understood how evidence had to be secured and put together in order to have it admitted in a criminal court.

‘By the way,' Lafeyre said cheerily, ‘I have tickets for the Queen's Royal Theatre on Friday evening. It's a new comic opera called
La Fille de Madame Angot.
Would you and Maria like to join Lily and myself? We could have dinner together later?'

Swallow was not a theatre enthusiast. It rarely fitted in with his work schedule, and he reckoned that he saw enough tragedy in real life without spending his evenings watching more of it on the stage. But a little light opera might be enjoyable. And it was always good to see how Maria and her younger sister relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.

‘That would be a good idea,' he heard himself say, even as his mind ran forward to a week which looked increasingly certain to be dominated by three problematic murder investigations.

‘Maria would love it. I'll let her know so she can have the two barmen in to look after the business on the night.'

Mick Feore came through the door, perspiring from the heat of the day. He carried a new murder book, freshly drawn from the stationery stores at Exchange Court. He nodded politely to Lafeyre.

‘The short report is done and gone to Chief Mallon, Sir,' he told Swallow.

‘And I've got everything else started here in the book.'

Swallow nodded with satisfaction. The big detective's bulk might give the impression of a man who would be slow in his movements, but by God he could write fast.

Lafeyre's assistant, Scollan, appeared at the door of the examination room. James McDonald was standing behind him.

‘Witness here to do the identification, Docthor,' Scollan croaked. ‘Sent in be Sergeant Swalla'.'

‘Come this way please,' Swallow waved McDonald towards the table.

Mick Feore formally noted McDonald's attendance in his murder book. Swallow countersigned the entry.

He turned to McDonald.

‘Mr McDonald, look at the remains on the table beside Doctor Lafeyre please and tell us if you can identify this woman.'

Swallow thought he looked uneasy and nervous. His face was filmy from the day's heat. Beads of perspiration were suspended on the untidy ends of his grey hair. He had changed from his morning suit to a heavy tweed jacket and dark flannel trousers. Swallow tried to think how uncomfortable it had to be in the heat of the day. He was surprised to find himself feeling a twinge of pity for the man.

McDonald stared unblinking for a long moment at the dead woman.

‘Tha's her all right. Wha' in the name o' God happened to her?'

‘That's who, Mr McDonald, please?' Swallow asked. ‘If you know her, state her name so that Detective Officer Feore can write it down.'

‘It's Sarah Hannin. She's … she was … a housemaid at my master's house, Mr Thomas Fitzpatrick, Number 106, Merrion Square.'

He turned to Lafeyre. ‘You know that Mr Fitzpatrick is an Alderman of the City Corporation,' he said solemnly. Swallow knew that he was delivering a message to the medical examiner.

‘You're sure it's her body?' Swallow asked.

McDonald's face had lost its colour, accentuating the sheen of perspiration. He swallowed nervously and rubbed the palms of his hands across the sleeves of his tweed jacket. He seemed to be genuinely affected by the sight of the dead woman.

‘Of course I'm sure. I supervised the girl at work for wha'… more than a year maybe. Do you know wha' happened to her?'

‘She was found in the Grand Canal at Portobello Bridge this morning by a barge crew,' Feore said. ‘Have you any idea how she might have got there or what happened to her?'

McDonald stepped closer to the examination table and craned his neck forward. He focused on the gaping wound on the dead woman's forehead. It seemed for a moment that he would not answer Feore's question.

Then he retorted urgently.

‘I told you … I told you earlier at the house. She went out last night and didn't come back. I can't be accountable when a housemaid gets into trouble like this.'

He stepped back from the table and pulled in agitation at the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Now … can I go back to work please?'

‘Are you sure she doesn't have any family? Or did she have particular friends? Is there a grandfather or a grandmother, any cousins to be notified?' Swallow asked. ‘Isn't there someone who can tell us about why this might have happened?'

‘I've told you already. She just worked at the house. I don't know where she came from or anythin' about her.'

‘What kind of person was she? Surely you got to know her enough to make some judgment of her character?'

‘She gave no trouble. She did her work well and she got on well wi' the other servants, if that's what you mean.'

‘Did she have a man-friend? Was she keeping company with anyone?'

‘I don't know.'

‘How long did she work at Fitzpatrick's?'

‘Like I said, she might have been there a year, maybe longer. I don't know.'

For all the appearances of stress, the man was stonewalling. Whatever he might know about Sarah Hannin he was not going to pass it on to the G-men. Swallow had perhaps one minor tactical advantage. He played it.

‘I think, Mr McDonald,' he said slowly, ‘that you know a servant by the name of Hetty Connors, a former employee at Alderman Fitzpatrick's.'

McDonald blinked as if trying to concentrate. ‘Yes, there was a kitchen maid by the name. She was insubordinate and lazy. I go' rid o' her. What's she go' to do wi' this?'

‘Well,' Swallow said, ‘To the best of my knowledge Hetty Connors was a friend of Sarah Hannin's. They kept contact after she had left her employment at Alderman Fitzpatrick's. I find it odd that you didn't mention her in connection with Miss Hannin even though I've asked you several times if she had any particular friends.'

McDonald threw his hands upwards.

‘I didn't know they stayed in contact wi' each other. If you tell me that they did, then you know more than I do. I'm sure that the servants have many friendships among themselves. I don' necessarily know about it, or care.'

‘Surely Sarah Hannin would have had to provide you with references before she was taken into employment?' Feore interjected, looking up from the murder book. ‘Somebody must have recommended her, testified as to her character, that sort of thing? Where did she work before?'

‘I don't know,' McDonald said. ‘Tha' sort of business would be dealt with by Mr Fitzpatrick.'

‘It seems as if what you don't know is a great deal more than anything you do know,' Swallow snapped, his earlier sympathy for McDonald starting to yield to frustration.

McDonald picked up his angry tone and glared. ‘I've come here an' I've done me duty in accordance wi' me employer's instructions.'

The Lowlands accent thickened. ‘I'm no' here by me own choice. Now I've done wha' is required of me and I'm goin' back to work.'

Swallow silently fumed. He had no authority to hold McDonald. He made a show of striding to the door of the examination room and flinging it open.

‘Right then,
Mister
McDonald,' he growled, sarcastically. ‘You can be assured that I'm coming back to that house. And by the time I'm done there I'll know more about you than you do yourself.'

It was as if the butler decided it was time to put on his own show of force. The perspiration had dried. The nervous plucking at his sleeves had stopped. He brought his face a foot from Swallow's.

‘Don't you threaten me, Swallow. You think you're a little God, wi' your wee cardboard badge and your han'cuffs. Maybe you're a good match for the beggars and thieves of the city, but Mr Fitzpatrick is a very powerful man.'

He stepped out into the corridor. Swallow shrugged.

‘I just wanted to frighten him a little. I started off feeling sorry for him, but that old bastard knows a lot more than he's telling us, I'm sure of it.'

‘I'd say you're right,' Lafeyre said. ‘But he doesn't seem to frighten easily. I've a post mortem to get on with. Are you sure you want to be here? I'm sure that Detective Feore can take a full note for you.'

‘I'd rather stay. Three sets of eyes are better than two.'

Feore took a seat on a high stool at the head of the table and poised his pencil to write. Lafeyre clad himself in a green surgical gown and heavy rubber apron. Then he got to work.

‘The body is that of a female somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties. Height is 5 feet 4 inches. Weight is 7 stone, 2 pounds and 4 ounces. There are no visible abnormalities.'

Feore's pencil began to work vigorously across the page.

‘She appears adequately nourished. The teeth are strong and healthy. The limbs are well formed. The hair colour is fair and appears to be her natural colour. The eyes are light blue.'

He half rolled the body to its left side in order to allow Feore and Swallow to see the back and underside.

‘There are some marks on the back of the body and on both legs but it is likely that most of these were made post mortem, possibly by the body being dragged by the barge. There are abrasions, with some skin torn away – from the right lower leg, from the left shoulder-blade and from the face, around the chin and neck.'

Lafeyre reached for a steel spatula and depressed the skin around the wound on the forehead.

‘There is a bruise across the right cheekbone, extending to the eye socket, measuring approximately 3.5 inches by 3. It could be a blow from a fist or possibly a boot. However, the skin is unbroken so I am inclined to think it more likely to have been the former. The blow would not have been fatal although it would possibly have stunned.

‘Very much more seriously, there is a large and deep wound on the left, frontal area of the cranium. It measures approximately 2 inches across and 1.5 inches down. Bone and cerebral matter are visible through this. Small splinters of bone from the skull are splayed at the edges of the wound. This is a most serious injury and, even from an external examination, I can say that it would potentially be fatal.'

He turned to Scollan. ‘The sectioning saw, please.'

Scollan sectioned the forward skull, cutting through the cranium above the eyes and taking a perfect wedge of bone. He placed it in a steel kidney dish beside the examination table. Underneath, the dead woman's brain was a whitish grey.

The section under the wound was visibly different. There, a dull red, almost black inundation of the cerebral matter was apparent. Dark blood flooded the forward section of the brain.

Lafeyre resumed his narrative.

‘The left frontal lobe of the brain has sustained a severe trauma. There is extensive bleeding from a wound which appears to have been caused by an impact of very considerable force. The bone has been shattered and the brain matter to a depth of a quarter inch has been compressed and broken. There would have been an immediate loss of consciousness with such a blow and death would have followed within a very short time.'

The weight of the heavy surgical apron and his exertions with the corpse were causing Lafeyre to perspire. He passed the back of his sleeve across his forehead.

‘A blow was delivered with very great force. I would speculate that it was caused by a heavy, blunt-edged instrument such as a club or a bar.'

After that, it was a slow, painstaking process. Lafeyre opened the chest with the scalpel and brace, splitting the sternum and probing the lungs. There was a small amount of water, confirming Swallow's intuition and Lafeyre's own initial judgment that Sarah Hannin had not drowned and was dead before she entered the canal.

The stomach revealed little. The dead woman had eaten some bread and cereals a few hours before she died. Sectioning of the womb confirmed that she was not pregnant, but Lafeyre reckoned from his examination that she was sexually active.

‘Maybe Mr McDonald doesn't know anything about it or maybe he does and won't say, but it seems that Miss Hannin wasn't entirely a stranger to male company,' he told Mossop.

Lafeyre signalled to his assistant that he was finished and to clean up. He turned to Swallow.

‘She was killed with a massive blow to the head and then dropped in the canal. The water influences the processes of rigor mortis and I can't be sure but I'd say she was killed last night, Sunday, or in the early hours of this morning.'

Swallow grimaced. ‘You can see that I'm just overjoyed with all that information, Harry. Sure, it'll be a cinch clearing this one.'

Lafeyre grinned as he peeled off his green sterile overalls and the heavy apron.

‘Come on. Let me show you something that might amount to a bit of good news. Come up to the office while Mick tidies up his notes.'

He led Swallow to the first floor. The medical examiner's office was a large, rectangular room, not unlike his room in the Lower Yard of the Castle. Mahogany bookshelves lined one wall and a range of glass cases displaying a variety of specimens lined the other. A leather-topped desk stood against a corner. Beside it, a small table was topped by a bulky object hidden under a black, baize cloth.