Death in Leamington (13 page)

‘That’s really heavy stuff. Alice is such a great girl. Damn Eddie for nailing that franchise. However, you’ll get over it. Life goes on. You still up for the rugby?’

Hugh sighed.

‘Bas, you really are a jerk. But you’re right, maybe it will do me good to shout at a bunch of grown up children throwing leather balls around rather than mull on all this gory stuff I’ve been through this morning.’

‘Great, that’s my man. If we hurry we’ll be able to get a pie and a couple of pints in first.’

*

At Warwick Hospital, Alice had by early afternoon already finished the first steps of the autopsy under the close direction of her boss, the senior consultant pathologist. She had of course been with the scenes of crime officer while he was taking photographs of Nariman’s corpse, and had helped in the measurement of the head and abdominal wounds in situ immediately after death. Now, in the lab, she marked out the entrance wounds under post-mortem conditions. She also measured the bullet wounds again in order to gauge the closeness of the assailant to the victim and also to try and establish what kind of gun was used in the attack. The exit wound of course was huge; the bullet had shattered the whole side of Nariman’s skull. In terms of weapons, they already had the knife, and had found the remains of a .22 calibre bullet that was now with ballistics for rifling analysis. Other officers were still searching the areas for more clues, but had not yet identified any spent shell casings in the vicinity.

Throughout the process she made audio notes and photographs with the help of an assistant, as well as written notes for the detailed autopsy report. Once the external examination was complete she moved on to the internal organs.

Before she even started the important Y-incision, she noted again the details both of the knife wound and the previous scarring on the victim’s chest. The shape was distinctive; it was almost as if someone has carved a red letter
A
into his skin sometime in the past. She proceeded to cut from the shoulders to the lower end of the sternum and then downwards in a straight line across the abdomen to the pubis in order to gain access to Nariman’s major organs.

Next, she removed the organs and her assistant weighed each of them while Alice took additional blood samples. It was standard practice to test for signs of poisoning using toxicology, even when there were obvious physical injuries manifesting themselves. She then checked the abdomen and took tissue samples for analysis before examining the contents of the stomach; these were consistent with the reports that he had not eaten breakfast. She had seen the ripe fig he had taken from the breakfast table drop from his hand and splatter on the pavement uneaten as he fell to the ground. She also took further samples of bile, eye fluid, liver tissue and urine; again for toxicology.

After this was complete, she turned her attention to his head, which showed the small entrance wound in his forehead and the massive exit wound behind. She removed what was left of the brain for a more thorough inspection. This seemed pretty straightforward, all the more so having witnessed the attack herself. Within an hour she had reported her preliminary findings back to the police team and was moving on to the examination of the two assailants. It would be a long day and she would be more than glad to see her bed at the end of it. It was all in the pursuit of truth, one version of the truth, the virtue of unity.

Wikipedia,
The Una

*

Like Hugh, Eddie had also decided that a sporting distraction might be the best plan to get the events of the morning out of his mind. Alice was at the hospital and he didn’t expect her back anytime soon. Instead he decided to do the father-daughter thing and take Carrie to watch the women’s tournament at the local tennis club. During a break between matches, one of the lady professionals gave Carrie some basic tuition on how to hold the racket and showed her the slicing action required to serve the ball onto the court’s hazard roofs. ‘She’s very good, Eddie but watch you don’t take anybody’s head off with that racket, young lady!’ Carrie seemed to have a real feel for it and more importantly for Eddie she seemed to be quite taken by the game. So much so that Eddie promised her he would take her down to the beginners’ session the following weekend, to give it a try for real. ‘And by the way,’ said Carrie, ‘I’ll need my own racket please and a proper tennis outfit.’ He was cool with that; actually he was rather keen on the idea.

*

Returning to the investigation, another member of Detective Sergeant Jones’ team had managed to track down the possible location of the cab they had been looking for. It turned out that a black cab usually driven by one of the Sikh community in Coventry had been loaned out to another driver for the summer. The owner usually did airport runs, but was due to be off work for several weeks with a broken leg, and had rented his cab out. From this information, they quickly tracked the other driver down, also a Sikh, but this time living in South Leamington.

The address they were given was in an area of insalubrious terraced housing that was renowned as being quite dodgy after dark. When Detective Sergeant Jones and two armed uniformed officers arrived outside the driver’s house in a marked police car, they were immediately conscious of the inquisitive faces appearing at the windows of the houses opposite. They signalled to these neighbourly observers to keep away. The road had a dejected feel to it, with rubbish piled up in a couple of the gardens and dogs barking behind fenced cages. There was a car with Warwick District taxi plates on the road outside the house.

The turbaned man who answered the bell at the address they were given looked nervously through the chained half-open door at the two burly officers standing in front of him. The hallway was untidy and there was a strong smell of Asian cooking coming from within. After a moment’s pause to clear his throat, Sergeant Jones wasted no time in beginning to question him. The man unchained the door and stepped forward onto the doorstep, carefully closing the door behind him.

‘Good afternoon sir, would you be Mr Gurvinder Singh?’

The man nodded without saying a word.

‘And is this your taxi cab sitting on the drive?’

He nodded again, Jones noticed that his eyes appeared bloodshot as if he has been up all night.

‘Mr Singh, we are investigating an incident earlier this morning in the centre of town involving a black taxi cab and we have reports that you may be using such a vehicle,’ he pointed across the lawn to the saloon car standing on the driveway. ‘Is it correct that you are using a black cab at the moment instead of your normal car?’ The man shrugged as if he did not understand, however Jones noticed a slight twitch of his neck as if involuntarily he was acknowledging the factual accuracy of the question.

‘Is that a yes or a no, sir?’

‘Yes, it’s in the garage, I haven’t used it for a few days.’ The man replied. He looked behind him into the house; there was an energised woman’s voice coming from inside. He shouted something to her in his native language and she quietened down.

‘I’d really like to see that other vehicle, sir.’

The man shrugged again and went back into the house to fetch a bunch of keys. He shouted something else to the woman inside, who yelled back and then stepped out and closed the front door behind him. He walked across to the door of his garage and undid two large padlocks with the set of keys that he now had hanging around his neck. As he opened the door he mumbled something about using the black cab to do a number of minicab jobs for local businessmen. He explained that he was only using it to put off doing some expensive repairs that were needed on his own car until he had saved enough money to pay for them.

The police officers understood immediately from this that he had probably been moonlighting as a minicab driver, something strictly outside the conditions of his license. That could be useful. On inspecting the cab, it became clear that there were some dents and some very recent repairs to the front end, as if he had hit something and tried to hide the evidence.

‘You had an accident or something?’ asked one of the constables who had accompanied Jones.

‘Just hit a lamppost, I’m not used to the turning circle,’ the man replied unconvincingly.

‘Mmm, just a lamppost you say, you sure?’ asked Jones.

‘Of course sir, please I am a poor man, I’m only trying to make enough money to keep my family, please don’t report me. I don’t make any trouble.’

‘Look at these, Sir.’ The constable had been looking around the back of the car. He pointed to a sack propped up against the back wall and opened one of them, ‘Number plates.’ The man’s face looked crestfallen, like he had tasted a particularly strong lemon.

‘What’s this about, Mr Singh?’

‘They’re just old plates; I meant to throw them away.’

‘They don’t look particularly old sir, if you don’t mind my saying – ‘BU51 MAB’,’ he read. ‘Now that is a very interesting plate isn’t it, and practically brand new?’

‘I think you’d better come with us to the station, Sir, and we are going to need to take the car away for a while,’ said Sergeant Jones. As they left the house in the police car, the constable alerted the sergeant to the renewed shrieking in the house as they left. ‘That seems to have given her indoors something to think about, Sir.’

Paul Windridge, experimental film maker, from his website

Jack the director walked past the police lines at the corner of Clarendon Square, the scene of the horrendous accident and murder earlier in the day. He had been working on an episode of
Sherlock
with the crew all week, his bulldog Dan keeping them amused with his antics between takes, but the incidents that morning had forced them to abandon filming. He had therefore spent some time in his own studio that afternoon, working on one of his personal short film projects but now was free for their regular early evening stroll. He took the road down towards the river, turning right just before they reached the bridge; past the Sea Scout hut ‘T.S. Satyrane’ and then walked directly along the river path. The river was lit perfectly by the late afternoon sun. Dan, now off his lead, was in and out of bushes, chasing ghosts of ducks and other wildlife, in his own mysterious doggy world.

Jack Sinclair, or ‘Mad Jack’ as he is affectionately known, is renowned in the film world for being as nutty as a fruitcake but a seriously good indie filmmaker. He lives in a large penthouse flat near the town centre, in the building where Sir Malcolm Sayer, inventor of the E-type Jaguar used to live. He shares Sir Malcolm’s enthusiasm for fast cars but that is not his main love. He is a movie man. In his spare time, he experiments with video and music, making films with few words but memorable imagery. He also keeps his collection of Wurlitzer organs and even more prized collection of taxidermy cases there, many of them from the celebrated Leamington firm of Peter Spicer & Sons that was situated on the corner of Victoria Terrace near the post office.

Jack knew Eddie from the Woodbine music studio, they had worked together to produce videos for a local rock/Kerala-fusion band and recently Eddie had also been helping him out with some of the music for his film projects. Jack had inherited great wealth and an old hall house out near the Long Mynd in the Shropshire hills, remote from anything, where he often disappeared for weeks on end. Eddie, Alice and Carrie had spent weekends with him there, and had the disconcerting experience of wandering the rooms and corridors of the Elizabethan mansion at the dead of night, alone with no other sounds apart from the hooting of owls and Mad Jack’s gothic music-making rasping below in his studio.

In Jack’s younger days, he had indulged in all sorts of stupid pranks and drunk far too much port. For a bet, he had once ridden his motorbike up the stairs of the hotel opposite the Town Hall, out on to the balcony. Then, still seated on the bike, he had accelerated and leapt through the glass plate window of the restaurant, onto the Parade below. He’d survived the bike hadn’t. He was also a fanatical soccer supporter and player. In his twenties he had allegedly been sent off several times for fighting with rival players and twice for biting opponent’s ears, fortunately he was a little calmer now. His early life had been described by one friend as ‘a series of failed suicide attempts’.

Although he has matured since his younger days, in some ways his antics have not grown any more normal. With Dan his constant companion, he often goes out at night into the countryside around Leamington or on to the Staffordshire moors to hunt ducks and rodents, often in the middle of cold winter nights, reputedly sometimes dressed only in a deerstalker, coat and boots. In fact, the students at one of the local universities, the one that he had attended before he was thrown out, now run an annual mixed streaking event in his honour on the first day of class following Easter, despite the best attempts of campus security to stop it. The irony is that he was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the same university in recognition of his avant-garde filmmaking. He suspects that no one had put two and two together.

The Leam is a tributary of the River Avon that flows through rural Warwickshire and Leamington Spa on its way to meet up with its big sister near Warwick. It is usually slow flowing, meandering through low lying farm land, however there have been occasions in the past when it has flooded; achieving particularly high water levels in 1998 and 2007. That day, it was relatively quiet and low after a dry summer and Jack remarked on the peaceful state of the riverbank compared to the din from the emergency service sirens and hectic police helicopter activity that had filled the town all morning.

There was a loud splash in the reeds and Jack turned to see that Dan had slipped down the mud of the steep bank into the river and was now paddling back towards him upstream to find a landing place. After a few minutes, Jack heard his rejoicing bark on landing and thought to himself,
Echo Bravo Golf, I challenge anyone to make a short film of that!

As Dan approached, Jack saw that he was carrying something man-made in his mouth.

‘What have you got there, boy?’

Spenser,
The Faerie Queene

The dog dropped the package at his feet. It was a plastic bag, tightly sealed with gaffer tape, with an envelope inside. Jack could see it was stuffed with fifty-pound notes, but realised at once that he should not open it for fear of contaminating evidence.

He got on his mobile to the local police straight away.

*

When the call came in, Hunter and I were already on our way to see Sir William, but hearing the news on the radio, decided to divert to the riverbank instead. When we got there, the uniformed officers were already at the scene.

As Hunter gingerly inspected the bag, I was really hoping that in his enthusiasm, he would not open it until the forensics team had had a chance to take a proper look. It might of course have had nothing to do with this murder, but if it did it could turn out to be a critical breakthrough.

‘It doesn’t look like it’s been in the river very long. I wonder if there’s any connection to the two lads Alice saw last night down by the river?’ I asked, anxiously keeping an eye on what my boss was up to.

‘My thoughts exactly, Penny, especially given that your friend Hugh saw a package changing hands in the car park that night. I can’t see any marking on the banknotes from outside, however,’ he said.

‘Well, let me get it checked out as soon as possible,’ I replied, quickly taking the bag back off him before he attempted to open it, already convinced that we would find something inside, a chance to prove myself in his eyes.

As we left the scene, Hunter saw Lucy Fleming, the reporter from the local paper, who clearly must have been monitoring our radio traffic to get there so quickly. Hunter murmured that he had forgotten to follow up with her; we had been so busy during the day. He went over to her and gave her a briefing on the general situation without getting too specific on evidence. He thought she might be useful later, and was still keen to keep her onside as someone he could trust.

‘Thanks, Inspector, we never did have that drink did we?’ she said, flirting with him just a little.

*

Betjeman,
Death in Leamington

In the early evening, Izzie and Penn returned to Sherridge House to visit Winnie before the home shut to visitors. Winnie was not in her room. Izzie inspected the bottles on the tray and looked quizzical.

‘They seem to have significantly increased her medication during the afternoon.’

She read the chart and frowned, checking the words on her iPhone.

‘Wow, Moban, I haven’t seen that drug before, it seems to be very powerful stuff. It’s certainly not something we would normally use, and this dosage just doesn’t seem right, the bottle’s half-empty.’

As she said the words she heard a sudden scream from along the corridor and set off immediately towards the bathrooms. A nurse rushed out from one of them and called to her for help. Izzie pushed past her then halted suddenly in shock. Underneath the foaming waters of a tepid bath, lay Winnie’s body, still, blue and quite motionless.

Izzie pulled the emergency cord and together, they pulled her out of the water to attempt resuscitation although it seemed like it might already be too late. Izzie could feel no pulse and her skin felt deathly cold.

‘How on earth did she get in here by herself?’ said Izzie.

‘I don’t know,’ the other nurse said defensively. ‘One of the consultants was here and I left him to it while I went and helped with the tea.’

‘Was he male or female?’

‘Male.’

‘You’re kidding me? You left her alone with a man? And how often do we see a consultant here on a Saturday?’

*

Downstairs, in the laundry room, a dark-skinned slightly portly man with gold-rimmed glasses pulled off the white coat he had been wearing and dumped it into the laundry basket. He exited the building unseen through the side entrance and over the fence into the back lane.

Betjeman,
Death in Leamington

*

It was now getting on for 6pm and at Hunter’s orders I had reconvened the crime squad in the incident room in Police HQ. During the afternoon, Detective Sergeant Jones had been directing most of the manpower in following up our various leads. I had been trying to get more answers from Asia before it was too late and chasing forensics on the autopsies, ballistics and now the package salvaged by Dan from the river.

As Sergeant Jones was about to start the briefing, he took a call and scowled.

‘Well now we have another body, Sir. Winifred Norbury, the actress, our witness, has just been found dead in a bath at the care home. There is nothing to indicate foul play but all the same.’

I gasped at the news; I had only seen her with Izzie a few hours earlier and although unbalanced she certainly did not seem to be near death’s door.

‘Please go on, Sergeant,’ urged Hunter, a little callously perhaps but keen to avoid the briefing getting derailed before they had more facts.

Jones summarised what we had found out so far from the autopsies and the search for the black cab. Although we did not yet have the full reports from the various bodies, the picture continued to build of a botched attempt to knife Nariman followed by a calculated assassination, probably from a moving car. Hunter whispered to me that he was also already wondering whether the Tamils were then run over deliberately to silence them.

‘DC Dore, anything yet on the bag we found in the river?’

‘There are no trace marks, Sir, the lab is taking a closer look but they are not hopeful – they look like random used notes. But they did find something else in the bag which is more promising.’ I pointed to a photo on the table of a small leather pouch that had been found inside the envelope contained with the money.

‘There are three newspaper cuttings in a Sinhalese script inside the pouch.’ I handed the photographs to Hunter. ‘We got Transtec to come in and help with a quick translation; apparently they are all about a factory accident in Tamil Nadu that killed a load of workers. I’ve done some more research: take a look, Sir.’

*

I had followed up immediately on the incident reported in the newspaper cuttings with further questions to the local authorities. However, given the time difference, I did not expect any answers until the following morning. A brief Internet search had revealed that several men of similar facial features to the assailants were wanted by the police as members of a terrorist organisation connected with these incidents. This organisation also had links to K-Company, a mafia ring that ran a large swathe of the underworld in Colombo. They had been responsible for one or two bombings and attacks on the property of a chemical company that was part of Arish Nariman’s empire. Further investigation had revealed that there were three sisters and a number of child workers that had been killed following an explosion in a local factory. The factory had poor safety and environmental standards but the company, with the involvement of the local police, had covered up the incident initially. The men’s involvement in the terrorist group dated from that time. They were brothers and uncles of the women and children who had died.

‘Forensics are analysing the fingerprints we found on the knife. If we can confirm that connection, then I think we might be quite close to a motive for the knife attack at least then, Sir?’ I volunteered.

‘This is excellent work, Dore. But I am not sure that retribution can be the only motive, where for instance did they get the money from to fly over here, and why did they do that rather than make an attempt on his life in Sri Lanka?’ pondered Hunter. I agreed that there must be more to this than a revenge attack by some embittered relatives but still thought this lead was important. He must have seen this on my face.

‘What are you thinking, Dore?’ he asked me in front of the whole squad. I was somewhat embarrassed that he had singled me out in front of a number of more senior officers.