Anthem for Doomed Youth Read online

  He grimaced. ‘Medical reports. Spilsbury – Sir Bernard, the Home Office pathologist – has been working on our corpses all day. We can’t start much in the way of an investigation until we’ve identified them, and we can’t identify them without some idea of ages, appearances and dates of death to match against missing persons lists.’

  ‘No, you can’t very well go door-to-door asking people if they saw anything suspicious in the past year!’

  ‘Especially as there aren’t any doors within half a mile and thousands of people visit the Forest whenever the sun shines.’

  ‘There’s not much to get your teeth into, is there.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling that the bit of paper is significant and might help, if only we could decipher it. Any thoughts on the subject?’

  ‘Only that it represents a target – that’s obvious – and they were shot in revenge for what the killer perceives as an injustice.’

  ‘Or else the killer wants us to think that was his motive,’ Alec said gloomily.

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. How difficult! I bet the local police were happy to pass on the case to the experts.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no. The chief constable was, presumably, but the Essex inspector is about as resentful and uncooperative as a man can be.’

  ‘How silly of him. If you’re finding it a hard slog, he probably wouldn’t have the foggiest idea where to start.’

  ‘The hard slog has yet to come.’ Alec took a sheaf of papers out of the case.

  ‘Has Sir Bernard done all three autopsies?’

  ‘Not yet. The last, or rather the earliest, he’ll do tomorrow. I haven’t read the reports in detail yet, just skimmed them.’

  ‘Do you know what kind of gun they were shot with? Shouldn’t you be able to trace it?’

  ‘Sounds easy when you put it that way! They weren’t shot from close enough range to be sure but Sir Bernard thinks the weapon was a pistol. There are plenty of those floating around since the war, issued and not turned in, or German guns acquired as souvenirs. Needless to say, they’re mostly unregistered. Not many men brought home ammunition as well, but a few are bound to have picked up a full magazine. If we knew where they were shot, we might be able to find bullets that would help identify the make, at least.’

  ‘I’m sure reading medical reports would thoroughly put you off your meal. I hope you’re going to leave that gruesome stuff till after dinner.’

  ‘You asked.’

  ‘Yes, sorry. I’m finished here except for sticking everything in an envelope. Come and have a drink.’

  Daisy’s intention was to take his mind off the case for a while, but as she sipped her Cinzano and soda, she found herself wondering about something he had said. She tried to think of a way to phrase her question so that he wouldn’t be able to accuse her of meddling.

  No bright idea occurred to her.

  Of course Alec noticed her abstraction. ‘What’s on your mind? Have you come up with some sort of link?’

  ‘Link?’

  ‘Between the paper target and – oh, anything at all. I’m certain it has some meaning beyond the obvious.’

  ‘’Fraid not. I was just thinking about something you said—’

  ‘Don’t ask me about the case. I’ve already told you far more than I ought.’

  ‘It’s not specifically about this case. Just a sort of general question.’

  ‘Come off it, love. This case is all we’ve been talking about.’

  ‘No, honestly. It’s a question arising out of what you said about the case but not specific to it. Just – I suppose you’d call it general procedure.’

  ‘Well, ask away, but—’

  ‘—You don’t promise to answer. I know. It’s just that you said, or implied, that once you know when the victims were killed, you could consult the missing persons list and you’d know who they were. It can’t be that simple. Nothing ever is. It seems to me, at best that would tell you who they might be.’

  ‘You’re quite right. But once we have possible names and some idea where they might have come from, we can start checking dental records, laundry marks, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I take it none of them had any useful documents on them.’

  ‘Daisy, that is most definitely specific to this particular case! If you start interfering …’

  ‘I don’t see how I can, darling. I don’t know the victims, let alone anyone who might be a suspect. But wouldn’t it be strange if one of them turned out to be an acquaintance—’

  ‘Daisy!’ Alec swallowed the remains of his Scotch and soda, and set down the glass with a bit of a thump. ‘I’m going up to see the twins, who can be guaranteed not to be acquainted with anyone remotely concerned and not to start asking awkward questions.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Daisy.

  CHAPTER 3

  As Alec had expected, the most recently buried of the three bodies was the first to be identified.

  ‘This looks like it, Chief,’ Tom reported. ‘Vincent Halliday, age forty-five. Eldest son and heir of Sir Daniel Halliday, Baronet, of Quigden Manor, Ayot St. Paul, Herts. He runs said Bart’s estate. Generally popular with tenants – keeps a proper distance but no “side” to him – and local gentry. Reported missing Sunday the sixth, by his teenaged daughter.’

  ‘Not his wife? Or is there no wife?’

  Tom checked his notes. ‘There’s a wife, and the missing man’s mother is still alive as well as his father, the Bart. The sergeant who took the girl’s report checked with the family, of course, and got the impression that they were all annoyed with her for making a fuss about his absence. They made out that he had gone off for the weekend on private business and forgotten to tell anyone where he could be reached.’

  Alec raised his eyebrows.

  ‘He didn’t see anything in that – Sergeant Lear, I mean. They’re the stiff-upper-lip sort, he said, that wouldn’t let on if something was wrong. He reckoned they were afraid Mr Halliday had gone off to have a bit of a fling, though by all accounts he was a pretty steady chap. Still, Lear went back a couple of days later. By then Halliday had been gone for four days, without a word, and the rest of the family were getting anxious.’

  ‘Though preserving the stiff upper lip?’

  ‘He doesn’t mention that, Chief.’

  ‘Well, I hope they manage to keep it in place if we have to go and tell them we’ve had his body since the sixteenth. Twelve days – Spilsbury said ten to fourteen. Circumstances of the disappearance?’

  ‘He walked to the village pub for a drink before dinner, as was his habit on a Friday. Plenty of witnesses to his arrival, and to his departure about an hour later, but he never arrived home.’

  ‘And the family … ?’

  ‘When the dinner gong rang and he hadn’t yet come home to change his clothes, they agreed that it was tiresome of him to have lost track of the time and went ahead without him.’

  ‘“Like a well-conducted person, went on cutting bread and butter,”’ Alec muttered.

  ‘What’s that, Chief?’ asked Ernie Piper.

  ‘Oh, nothing. A poetic commentary on the sang-froid of the upper-classes in the face of disaster. But not really fair to the Hallidays, because they couldn’t have known he was in trouble.’

  ‘From a poem, is it?’ Tom said indulgently. ‘Must be catching.’

  ‘Catching?’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Fletcher does. Things remind her of bits of poetry, and out they pop.’ He grinned. ‘Charming habit, I’ve always thought. Adds a bit of tone to the conversation, wouldn’t you say, Ernie?’

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself, Sarge.’

  ‘This is gross insubordination! All right, I apologise, the office is no place for raising the tone of the conversation, however inadvertently. Back to business: what was Halliday wearing?’

  ‘Fawn whipcord breeches and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Shirt, tie, shoes, cap, all match what we’ve got.’
r />   ‘It’s him,’ said Ernie.

  ‘Not much room for doubt,’ Alec agreed.

  ‘What you said, about the family couldn’t know he was in trouble, Chief,’ said Tom, ‘you’re counting them out, then?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, don’t you? If it was only Halliday, they’d top the list, of course.’

  ‘But with three corpses littering the case, this isn’t a nice little domestic murder. I’d lay odds on that!’

  ‘Much more complicated. That’s why I’m going to have to leave Ernie here, to collate information as it comes in. We’ve got to find something in common between the three victims.’

  ‘The lad’s got a good eye for details and patterns,’ Tom agreed.

  ‘And you’ve got a way with barmaids, so you can deal with the pub end of things while I see what I can find out about him from the family. What was the name of the village?’

  ‘Ayot St. Paul.’

  ‘There’s an Ayot St. Peter and an Ayot Lawrence, too,’ Piper observed. ‘And Ayot Green.’ He had already consulted a gazetteer. ‘Nearest station Welwyn.’ He reached for Bradshaw.

  ‘Can’t wait to get rid of us, eh, lad?’

  ‘We’ll drive. If the murderer’s got a little list, as seems probable, I don’t want to be sitting in a train when he strikes again.’

  ‘Wouldn’t look good on your report,’ Tom said, mock solemnly.

  Alec grinned. ‘That aspect hadn’t occurred to me, but you’re right, it wouldn’t. Though I should hope the questions in the House would concern insufficient provision of motor vehicles for the Metropolitan Police. Ernie, I can’t leave you in charge here, you haven’t the rank. But tell me who you’d like to work with – sergeant or inspector – and I’ll see if I can get hold of him.’

  ‘DS Mackinnon got his transfer from S Division. If he’s free …’

  ‘Good choice.’ Alec himself, after working with Mackinnon several times at the divisional level, had recommended his transfer to the Yard. ‘I’ll see what I can do. You’ll have to brief him. Tom, I must see the super right away. He knows what we’re working on so it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Before he finished speaking, Tom was on the telephone. A couple of minutes later, he reported, ‘The super’s with the AC, Chief, and they want to see you at once.’

  ‘Damn!’

  Alec gave the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) a brief outline of the case and was congratulated on so quickly identifying one of the victims. The AC agreed to contact the Hertfordshire police immediately and arrange for their cooperation.

  ‘I’ll have the chief constable – Sir George Cheriton, if I’m not mistaken – inform the family that you’ll be calling. Unless you’d prefer that he didn’t give them warning?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir, I’d rather they expected me, but I’d prefer that he not give them any further information, not even that the missing man is dead.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the AC said doubtfully, ‘but he may well know the family, so … I’ll see what I can do. As regards the press,’ he went on, ‘I’ll deal with them, but tell me what you’d like them to know. They’ve already got on to the triple burial, inevitably.’

  ‘If you’d tell them, sir, that we have the one identification – just to show we’re progressing – but I’d rather you didn’t give the name. They’ll find out soon enough, no doubt. When we have all three, it’ll be time to publish them and with any luck get helpful citizens suggesting connections between them.’

  ‘Good thinking, Fletcher, and I’m glad to hear “when” rather than “if”. You’ll be wanting a word with Mr Crane now. Every facility, Crane. The public don’t like mass murder. Thank you.’ He nodded dismissal.

  They repaired to the superintendent’s office, where Alec provided a little more detail, requested a car and driver, and asked for Mackinnon to work with DC Piper.

  ‘Every facility,’ Crane repeated. ‘I’ll see if he can be spared.’

  ‘We’re relying on Piper for spotting the correlations we’re going to need in this case, sir. I don’t want him distracted by working under someone he doesn’t know as well. He wanted Mackinnon.’

  ‘Bit of a prima donna, is he?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. A very able young man whom I hope to see make sergeant soon. But this sort of detail work, spotting patterns, is his particular strength. I need his full attention on it as information comes in.’

  ‘He shall have Mackinnon, if I can possibly manage it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘There’s one blessing: Mrs Fletcher can’t possibly get herself mixed up in this one.’ A horrid possibility struck him. ‘These Hallidays aren’t friends of hers, are they?’

  ‘I sincerely hope not. I don’t remember her ever mentioning them. She won’t hear the name from me.’

  ‘When it comes out in the papers …’ Crane said forebodingly.

  ‘I doubt that will be before Saturday at the earliest. She’s going to be away for the weekend, so she won’t be reading the papers.’

  ‘Good! So you’re off to Hertfordshire immediately? Keep in touch and never mind the telephone charges. I don’t need to tell you we’ve got to clear this one up quickly or the press are going to have a field day.’

  Ayot St. Paul did not boast its own resident constable, a single bobby with a bicycle serving for all the Ayots. They picked up PC Pickett in Ayot Lawrence, a tiny village famous – or infamous, depending on one’s political sympathies – for being home to the residence of George Bernard Shaw.

  Ayot St. Paul turned out to be even smaller. It was scarcely a hamlet, with two or three pleasant ‘gentleman’s residences’; two short rows of cottages, one brick, one white-washed, all tile-roofed; an ancient pub, the Goat and Compasses, that appeared to be crumbling into the ground; and a church so tiny it could surely never have aspired to being served by anyone more important than a neighbouring curate.

  The driver stopped at the pub. At a little before noon, the June day was already growing warm, and the door stood hospitably open. An ancient rustic sat basking on a bench against the wall, a pewter half-pint in one gnarled hand.

  ‘It’s all yours, Sergeant,’ said Alec. ‘I expect you’d prefer to work alone?’

  ‘Yes, sir, for a start anyway. Mr Pickett, you said there’s just the one bar?’

  ‘’Sright, and you’ll not likely find many there at this hour, Sergeant. It mostly serves the farms, and this weather, this time o’ day, they’ll all be hard at work. Fred Wright, the landlord, he’ll be happy to have someone to talk to ’sides the old geezers.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Absent Pickett and the driver, DC Ledbetter, Alec would have chaffed Tom on the apparent lack of a barmaid to chat up. Instead, he said, ‘You’ll probably be done before I will. Pickett, how far is it to Quigden Manor?’

  ‘A mile or thereabouts by the lanes, sir, but there’s a footpath cuts that by a third.’

  ‘I can see you know your district thoroughly. Tell Mr Tring how to find the footpath.’

  Pickett obliged.

  ‘Come along to the Manor, Sergeant, when you’re finished here. All right, Ledbetter, let’s go.’

  As they drove the short distance to the end of the village and turned into a narrow lane, Alec explained what he expected of his two remaining men. ‘At present the family and staff are not under suspicion, and we have no reason to suppose they ever will be. I don’t want any hint that we’re interrogating them. You two will go to the kitchen with some excuse – a glass of water, perhaps – and the chances are they’ll want to chat about the missing man.’

  ‘Can we let on he’s been found dead, sir?’ Ledbetter asked.

  ‘Certainly. I’ll be breaking the news to the family, though probably they’ve already guessed, when the chief constable rang up to tell them I was on my way. All you have to do is encourage the servants to talk about his character, friends and acquaintances, how he spends his time, in fact anything at all related to his life beyo
nd this household. We’ve no idea what may be useful. Don’t take notes. Or rather, only mental notes. I hope you’ve both got good memories.’

  Naturally both claimed excellent memories.

  ‘The cook’s my auntie,’ Pickett volunteered.

  ‘Excellent. You’ll know the best way to get her talking, then.’

  ‘It’s stopping her’ll be the problem. You don’t know my Auntie Flo.’

  ‘All the better. DC Ledbetter is in charge, though.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Here’s their drive, on the right there.’

  They passed between brick gateposts, devoid of gates and topped with simple stone balls rather than heraldic beasts. Ledbetter commented on this.

  ‘The Hallidays have never been ones to make a display,’ said Pickett, rather severely.

  Alec wondered whether, regardless of what Auntie Flo might reveal, it would be worthwhile turning to the constable for information about the family. As far as he knew, Sergeant Lear hadn’t consulted the village bobby when Halliday was reported missing.

  A couple of hundred yards of weed-free gravel drive brought them to the manor, a red brick Queen Anne house, not particularly large but attractive and well-kept amid smooth lawns. ‘Smugly prosperous’ was the phrase that sprang to Alec’s mind. So many small estates had been ravaged by high death duties since the war, but Quigden Manor seemed to have escaped. Of course, if the late Vincent Halliday had a teenaged daughter, his father, Sir Daniel, must be getting on in years, so there had been no recent death of a title-holder.

  Did Halliday leave a son as well as a daughter? If not, on the baronet’s demise the title and estate would doubtless pass to a more distant relative, just as Daisy’s father’s viscountcy and her childhood home had gone to a cousin she barely knew. Could this be a family affair after all? Was the murderer the next heir, the other two victims nearer heirs, or even red herrings?

  But he was theorising far ahead of his data. ‘Pickett, any other children?’

  ‘Two boys, sir, but they’ll be away at school. Miss Delia was sent home from school on account of an epidemic of scarlet fever.’