Lethal Waves Page 17

  FIFTEEN

  ‘It’s not suicide,’ Gaye announced. ‘There is no evidence that Clements ever held that gun.’

  Uckfield glared at her. Bang went his neat and tidy end to the investigation.

  ‘Let me explain.’ She perched on a desk at the front of the incident suite and addressed them. The phones were still ringing and being answered by civilians and officers but Uckfield had called Marsden and Somerfield over and Horton and his team had been joined by Bliss, Dennings and Trueman.

  ‘When the deceased contemplates suicide, he or she usually holds the gun for a while, leaving a yellow- to orange-brown area of discolouration on the skin in the palm of the hand. With Clements there is no evidence of this or of residue on the back of the firing hand or of back spatter – blood droplets – there or on the other hand which is sometimes used to steady the muzzle. I called George McGann, the ballistics expert, who confirms that there is no blood or tissue on the gun either outside on the muzzle or inside the barrel, which doesn’t preclude it being fired at close contact but that, along with the other factors, confirms it was fired from an intermediary range.’

  ‘As in the Freedman case?’ asked Cantelli.

  ‘Yes, between two to three feet.’

  Horton stretched out his arm as he said, ‘That’s pretty close quarters – arm’s length. The killer must have been looking Clements in the eye.’

  ‘Yes. It took some nerve. And this time I found the bullet embedded in the skull, which I’ve despatched to McGann – the bullet, that is, not the skull – and he’ll be able to confirm if the barrelling on it matches that of the Robert Adams’ revolver found at the scene. The shape of the wound in this victim matches that of the first. I can’t say for certain though that they were both killed with the same gun. McGann will need to confirm that.’

  Uckfield said, ‘So Clements’ death was made to look like suicide in order to make us believe he’d killed Freedman and then couldn’t live with that knowledge.’

  Bliss said, ‘Perhaps Vivian Clements killed Freedman, told his wife about it and she killed him.’

  ‘But why would she lure him to Milton Common to do so?’ ventured Horton.

  ‘Because it was dark and no one would see or hear them.’

  ‘So she said, “let’s take a walk on the common, darling, in the dark and rain” and he said, “oh, yes, please”?’ Uckfield mocked, drawing a grin from Dennings and a scowl from Bliss.

  Undaunted, Bliss continued, ‘He obviously arranged to meet someone there, someone he wasn’t afraid of and who had a strong enough hold on him to get him there. And who he faced with a gun. He didn’t turn or run away.’ She glanced at Gaye to confirm this.

  ‘He didn’t.’

  Dennings said, ‘He might have stood there and pleaded with his killer for his life.’

  Gaye answered, ‘He didn’t put his hands across his face or in front of him to instinctively protect himself. However, the gun might have been raised and fired at the last moment and taken the victim by surprise.’

  Recalling Clements’ manner, Horton said, ‘He might not have considered it possible that this person had the nerve to fire the gun. Or maybe seeing the type of gun being pointed at him, he felt confident the killer wouldn’t have ammunition for it. We’ve no evidence that it was Clements’ gun. He could have gone there to meet someone who told him he had the Robert Adams for sale. Or perhaps Clements was supplying antique, or almost antique, guns to a criminal. Clements got scared when he saw he’d been robbed and told this crook he wanted out. Clements had become a liability so was shot.’

  ‘You’re saying Freedman’s killer is not the same person who killed Clements? And we’ve got two nutters running around the city shooting people!’ cried Uckfield, horrified.

  Horton shrugged. He sincerely hoped not but it was possible. If ballistics came back with the evidence that the same gun had been used to kill both men then it would rule out the two-killer theory but not necessarily a criminal who had expertise in weaponry. And if that was the case then somehow and somewhere along the line, Freedman was connected with it. It was possible it was someone he had met in prison. Someone he might have met while a vagrant who he’d then met again in prison. Perhaps that explained why he’d been dressed as a tramp. He said as much but Bliss wasn’t going to give up on her theory of Constance Clements as the killer.

  ‘She could have telephoned her husband using a payphone, disguising her voice, saying she knew the robbery was phoney and that Freedman had been shot with one of his guns, and that unless he met her on Milton Common she’d tell the police. Then she shot him.’

  Cantelli said, ‘From what I’ve seen of Vivian Clements, I don’t think he’d believe for one moment that his wife was capable of firing a pistol. He would have stood there mocking her, telling her not to be stupid. And bang.’ Cantelli fired two fingers. ‘But her shock seemed genuine when we told her about her husband’s death and she held up well when we questioned her.’

  ‘See if she cracks when she views the body. When can she do that?’ Uckfield addressed Gaye.

  ‘Tomorrow, whenever you’re ready.’

  ‘And tomorrow we’ll have a search warrant for her premises. See to it, Trueman. DCI Bliss, you can front the media tomorrow – we’ll discuss the statement. I can’t face the TV cameras looking like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.’

  Bliss followed Uckfield into his office. Gaye stopped to talk to Trueman. Horton headed down the stairs with Walters and Cantelli. There was nothing more they could do that night. He told Cantelli and Walters to go home. As he reached the bottom of the stairs his name was called and he turned to see Gaye behind him.

  ‘You look tired,’ he said as she joined him.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Would a drink help?’

  She smiled wearily. ‘I’m whacked but—’

  ‘Another time,’ Horton said hastily.

  ‘Coffee is rarely refused, though. It’s just I can’t be bothered to go home and change and then go out to a pub and I don’t fancy any of the ones around here.’

  Horton understood. He wasn’t keen on being seen in a tête-à-tête with her either by any of his colleagues who happened to be in the local pubs. Not because he was ashamed – on the contrary – but he knew the gossip it would fuel. Here on the premises, though, it was different. It would be classed as work. ‘The canteen?’

  ‘Perfect.’ She smiled and his heart lifted.

  He bought them both coffee and they installed themselves at a table in the far corner. He thought it unlikely that Bliss would poke her beaky nose in here but Uckfield could saunter down, although his latest conquest, Alison, wasn’t working and his cold was still raging so maybe he’d simply go home, a fact that was confirmed as Horton took their coffee to the table and saw Uckfield’s car leave through the slightly steamed-up windows.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten I owe you a dinner.’

  ‘Probably several.’

  ‘When you get back from Europe?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  He was pleased. She sounded as though she meant it.

  She added, ‘Let’s hope no more suspicious deaths prevent it.’

  He hoped so too.

  She said, ‘OK, so you wanted to know about the fire at the Goldsmith Psychiatric Hospital in 1968.’

  ‘How did you know?’ he said, startled.

  ‘You mentioned it earlier on Milton Common.’

  ‘Not the name of the hospital, I didn’t.’ Through his mind flashed the thought that Eames must have told her, then equally rapidly he dismissed the idea as ludicrous. Why would Eames discuss it with her? ‘How do you know about it?’ he asked warily.

  ‘I could ask you the same question but I won’t, for now,’ she added. She sipped her coffee. ‘Everyone in my line of business knows about it. But I have an extra-special reason for being interested.’

  Horton’s heart seemed to skip several beats. What possible involvement could Gaye Clayton have in J
ennifer’s past? His mind raced with thoughts, each one seemingly more outlandish than the last. He wanted to trust her. Surely he could. He didn’t have to tell her everything anyway – certainly nothing about the photograph from 1967.

  Seeing him hesitate, she continued, ‘It was a case that fascinated my father.’

  Horton hid his surprise. If the fire had intrigued Dr Samuel Ryedon, an eminent Home Office forensic pathologist and a living legend in police circles, it meant there was a great deal more to it than the inquiry had found.

  Concealing his excitement, he said, ‘I didn’t see his name mentioned in the inquiry or the autopsy reports.’

  ‘That’s because it wasn’t. He was in America at the time. He didn’t return to the UK until 1974, long after the inquiry had been concluded. It was one of the cases he looked at while researching for one of his books.’

  Horton’s interest quickened. He should have looked that up. He cursed himself for not researching it more thoroughly.

  ‘I’ve examined the case myself and my father and I discussed it many times before he died. That and other notable autopsies.’ He could see from her tired eyes that she was recalling those days with her father with tenderness.

  He thought of Bernard and Eileen Litchfield. ‘You must miss him a lot,’ he said gently.

  ‘I do. It would have been good to talk over my cases with him.’

  Did she talk them over with someone? he wondered. A boyfriend, a partner? He didn’t know and hadn’t asked. She’d told him once that she had been married, but not for long, and that was all she’d said. He hadn’t questioned her about it. It was none of his business.

  He sat forward eagerly. ‘I’d like to know how thoroughly the autopsies were conducted.’

  ‘Not very. It wasn’t necessarily the pathologist’s fault – there was only one appointed along with three morticians and it was a huge workload. The pathologist, Dr Jocelyn Jennings, was under extreme strain and things were overlooked. He died three months after completing the examinations.’

  ‘How?’ asked Horton.

  ‘Car accident in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. No other vehicle was involved.’

  Horton took a breath. He hadn’t discovered that information anywhere. The Brecon Beacons was an isolated spot where bad weather could descend in an instant. Had it really been an accident or designed to look like one?

  She continued, ‘Dr Jennings was an experienced forensic pathologist but he was suffering from depression following the death of his only child, a son, aged fourteen. Dr Jennings found his son hanging from a tree in their garden.’

  Horton stifled a shudder and his thoughts flicked to his daughter, Emma. ‘The poor man.’

  ‘He should never have been appointed. At the inquest following the car accident it was discovered he’d been drinking heavily. But despite that he should never have been left to handle such a huge workload alone and that was just one of the cock-ups.’

  But Horton was beginning to wonder if Jennings’ appointment was a genuine error. Perhaps someone had made sure that a vulnerable man had been chosen, a man under pressure. And therefore a man who could make mistakes or find what he’d been told to find.

  Gaye eagerly continued, ‘There were other interesting factors. Not necessarily unusual for the period – this was 1968 and there was no sealing off the crime scene like there is today and, of course, this being a fire also made it difficult to amass evidence. The scene was contaminated from the start. The firemen, desperate to get the blaze under control, had poured water all over the place. That’s understandable – what else could they do? And although they found some charred remains of patients against the door, frantic to escape the flames, they’d walked over them and some of the other remains not realizing they were doing so. Some had perished in their beds.’

  ‘Drugged?’

  ‘Probably. To help them sleep. There were no toxicology tests carried out on the bones to determine if drugs had been used but it was common practice to sedate mentally ill patients and lock them in.’

  Horton had discovered that. He swallowed his coffee, noting that the canteen had emptied. It was getting late. He thought of that fire and the patients hammering on the door in desperation, terrified as the clawing black smoke of the fire constricted their throats and stung their eyes, as the heat burned their flesh before smoke inhalation mercifully overcame them. He didn’t know where Zachary Benham’s remains had been located.

  He said, ‘From what I’ve read of the reports, the remains of the victims were gathered up and taken away by the undertakers without any note of where they’d been found.’

  ‘Correct. The room was photographed after the event but after all the remains had been removed. So there was no telling who had been pounding the door and who had collapsed elsewhere in the room. Those who had died in bed could be identified by matching the bed with the patient allocated to it but who’s to say that one or two of them hadn’t got up and someone else had laid down on the bed? Unlikely, I know, but not impossible. The police should have photographed the remains in situ, even if the remains hadn’t been numbered and catalogued, but the inspector in charge gave instructions for the remains to be removed.’

  ‘And nobody questioned it,’ Horton said, surprised. ‘Not even the inquiry findings.’

  ‘No, because this was a mental health issue in the days when you didn’t discuss such things unless you had to, and even then mental health was something to be ashamed of. Mentally ill patients were locked away. Out of sight, out of mind. There’s still a terrible stigma surrounding mental health today – you can imagine how awful it was then. The issue of mental health coloured the case. It was said that the fire, although tragic, happened to those who had been locked up for their own good and that of the community. It was, shall we say, considered more an act of God than a crime.’

  ‘But why doesn’t the inquiry show which patients lay in which beds and which of them had been prescribed sedatives?’

  ‘Good question, and one my father asked. He felt the relatives had the right to know if their son, brother or father had died while already asleep but he was told the record was unavailable because the relatives of those poor souls who had beaten frantically against the door before being overcome by smoke and those screaming to be let out would be traumatized by the horror of it, though that was not the word used at the time. Upset was the term. So in the interest of all it was best left out. I did say this was 1968. The authorities could get away with a lot then.’

  So Horton had no idea if Benham had already been drugged or if he’d tried to find a way out, or if, in fact, he had been there in the first place. According to Dormand, he had, but could he believe the word of an assassin? If Dormand was telling the truth then who had Benham been sent to kill? Horton didn’t think he stood much chance of finding out by going through the list of patients in that ward – twenty-three of them if he excluded Benham. It would be a long and arduous task and someone would make sure he never got to the truth anyway.

  Gaye said, ‘Police officers arrived after the fire was extinguished and they inflicted more damage to the remains of those on the floor by trampling on the bones. Dr Jennings maintained that some of the fractures might have been be caused by the fire but they could equally have been caused by the firemen and police officers. There are gaps in the autopsy reports that wouldn’t be missed by any competent forensic pathologist today and should have been questioned then but, as I said, Dr Jennings was under considerable strain.’

  She drank her coffee.

  Horton felt a twinge of guilt at keeping her; there were dark circles under her eyes. But he continued, ‘I understand that the identity of the victims was compiled from the list of patients in that ward.’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t thought necessary to identify the patients through dental records because they knew who was in the ward and it had been locked at the start of the fire. There were no personal items or ID on the patients or in their lockers. They weren’t allowed any.’<
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  ‘But one of them was allowed cigarettes and matches. The inquiry found that the fire was started by a cigarette. Rather unusual, don’t you think, if they were all considered to be so mentally ill that they had to be locked in.’

  ‘They were locked in for the staff’s benefit rather than the patients’ welfare. It was to give the staff an easier night and there probably weren’t enough staff on duty anyway. But you’re right – although it was considered normal to smoke wherever and whenever you pleased in those days, both my father and I thought it unusual that one of these patients had been permitted cigarettes and matches when any one of them could have set fire to himself and the place. He could have stolen them, though, or perhaps they had been smuggled in by a relative or friend of the patient.’

  The latter seemed more likely to Horton, especially in light of what he’d discovered from Dormand.

  Gaye said, ‘No cigarettes or matches were found in the debris but then none of it was documented. It was a very sloppy job.’

  ‘You’d have thought someone would have asked questions.’

  ‘Maybe they did,’ she said, eyeing him over the rim of her cup, ‘and that someone was told to leave well alone.’

  Horton’s stomach tightened. He studied Gaye closely. ‘Your father?’

  ‘He never said as much and I can’t see him leaving something alone just because he was told to, unless it was imperative for him to do so.’ She drained her cup.

  Horton thought that perhaps Dr Ryedon had been told that it was for the good of the country that it was kept quiet. In 1968, Britain was deep into the Cold War. That would have been enough.