Three

‘After you.’

‘No, after you.’

‘For God’s sake, pour it, you wally.’

They were four deep around the coffee machine, uniforms and suits fighting over the sugar and the milk jug. They were in a hurry. Seating in the generally unused conference room was restricted, and nobody wanted to be late for this one.

‘It’s a bit soon for a case conference, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what the Super wants.’

‘I’d say it’s a bit soon.’

The conference room was in the new extension of Stamford Central police station, all Formica and strip lighting and the hum of the heating system. The head of the CID, Superintendent Bill Day, had called the meeting for 11.45 on the morning that the bodies had been discovered. Blinds were pulled up, revealing an office building opposite, whose mirrored windows reflected a bright winter sky. An overhead projector and a video recorder were pushed into the far corner. Plastic chairs were peeled from stacks against the wall and crammed around the long table.

Detective Inspector Frank ‘Rupert’ Baird edged his way through the ruck of officers – he towered over most of them – and took his seat at the end. He dumped some files on the table in front of him and looked at his watch, fingering his moustache reflectively. Bill Day and a senior uniformed man came into the room, which at once became silent, attentive. Day went and sat near Rupert Baird, but the uniformed man pointedly remained standing, just to one side of the door, leaning lightly back against the wall. Bill Day spoke first.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘And ladies,’ he added, catching the ironic eye of WPC MacAllister down at the far end of the table. ‘We won’t keep you long. This is just a preliminary meeting.’ He paused, scanning the faces around the table. ‘Look, lads. We need to get this one right. No pissing about.’ There were nods of acknowledgement. ‘I’d like to take the chance to introduce Chief Superintendent Anthony Cavan, who’ll be new to most of you.’

The uniformed man by the door nodded at the heads turned towards him.

‘Thanks, Bill,’ he said. ‘Good morning, everybody. I’m here for the press conference, but I wanted to put my head round the door, show some encouragement. Pretend I’m not here.’

‘Yes,’ said Bill Day, with a thin smile. ‘I’ve asked Detective Inspector Baird to chair the meeting. Rupert?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Baird, and he shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him with a purposeful air. ‘The point of this introductory meeting is to establish clarity right from the outset. Stamford CID is going to be under the spotlight. Let’s not make fools of ourselves. Remember the Porter case.’ Everybody knew the Porter case, if only by repute: the TV documentaries, the appeal, the books, the early retirements, reassignments. The atmosphere became noticeably chillier. ‘I’ll try to cover the ground as quickly as I can. Ask any questions. I want everybody to get all this straight.’ He put his reading spectacles on and looked down at his notes. ‘The bodies were found at about eight-thirty this morning. Thursday the eighteenth of January. The victims are Leopold Victor Mackenzie and his wife. Elizabeth. Mr Mackenzie was the chairman of Mackenzie & Carlow. They made medicines, drugs, that sort of thing. Their daughter, Fiona, was taken to Stamford General.’

‘Will she live?’

‘I haven’t heard. We’ve got her in a fully secure room at the hospital with minimum access. Her own doctor insisted on it and we think he’s right. A couple of PCs are standing by.’

‘Has she said anything?’

‘No. The emergency call was made by the family’s Spanish cleaning lady, a Mrs Juana Ferrer, shortly after half-past eight. The scene was secured within ten minutes. Mrs Ferrers is downstairs at the moment.’

‘Did she see anything?’

‘Apparently not, she…’

Baird paused and looked up as the door opened. A middle-aged man with unbrushed hair and wire-framed spectacles stepped into the room. He was carrying a bulging briefcase and he was panting.

‘Philip, thanks for stopping by,’ said Baird. ‘Could somebody give him a chair?’

‘Haven’t got time. I’ve just come from the house and I’m on my way to Farrow Street. I want to walk the bodies straight through. I can give you about one minute. Anyway, I don’t think I’m much use to you here.’

‘This is Dr Philip Kale, the Home Office pathologist,’ Baird explained to the meeting. ‘What can you tell us?’

Dr Kale placed his bag on the floor and frowned.

‘As you know, one of my responsibilities as a forensic pathologist is not to construct premature theories. But…’ He began to count off his fingers, ‘… based on examination of the bodies at the scene, the two cases seem strikingly similar. Cause of death: anaemic anoxia, due to the incised wounds in the throats, which some of you have seen. Manner of death: their throats were cut with a blade, possibly non-serrated, of at least two centimetres in length. It could be anything from a Stanley knife to a carving knife. Mode of death: homicide.’

‘Can you tell us the time of death?’

‘Not with precision. You must understand that anything I say about this is very preliminary.’ He paused for a moment. ‘When I examined the bodies at the scene, hypostasis had commenced but was not fully developed. I would estimate that the deaths occurred more than two hours before they were found and not more than, say, five or six hours. Definitely not more than six.’

‘The daughter couldn’t have survived five hours with her throat cut, could she?’

Dr Kale paused for thought.

‘I haven’t seen her. Possibly not.’

‘Anything else you can tell us? Anything about the murder?’

Dr Kale gave the smallest hint of a smile.

‘The person who wielded the knife was using his or her right hand and has no disabling aversion to blood. And now I must go. The autopsies should be complete by mid afternoon. You’ll have a report.’

There was a hum of conversation in the moments after his departure, silenced by a rap of Baird’s knuckles on the desk.

‘Is there anything from the crime-scene people?’

There was a shaking of heads.

‘I talked to the cleaning woman.’

It was Detective Chris Angeloglou who had spoken.

‘Yes?’

‘She said that the day before yesterday Mrs Mackenzie gave a party in the house. There were two hundred people there. Bad news. Sorry.’

‘Christ.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll just have to let them get on with it. We’ll need a list of who was there.’

‘I’m already on to it.’

‘Good. We haven’t found any signs of forced entry as yet. But it’s early days. Anyway, you could open their front door with a credit card, a plastic ruler, anything. A cursory survey of the contents showed some rifling of drawers, cupboards. Lots of damage. Photographs torn and smashed.’

‘Looking for something?’

‘We’ll leave the theories until we’ve gathered the information and collated it. I don’t want officers looking for evidence to prove a theory. I want all the evidence. You can start thinking after that.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘What else is there? There was the writing on the wall, in Mrs Mackenzie’s lipstick. “Piggies.”’

‘Manson,’ said DC Angeloglou.

‘What’s that?’

‘Isn’t that what the Manson gang wrote on the wall in blood, when they killed all those people in California? “Death to Pigs.” It’s from a Beatles song.’

‘All right, Chris. Look into it. Don’t get carried away. It’s probably a blind alley. So that’s where we are now, which isn’t anywhere much. I’m going to wind up in a moment. If you pop round to Christine afterwards, you can get a copy of the roster. The investigation is going to involve searching every inch of the house, knocking on doors in the area, talking to Mackenzie & whatever the company’s called and interviewing people who were at the party. We’ve already got officers at the railway station and roadblocks on the Tyle road asking for witnesses. I hope we’ll catch the bastard inside twenty-four hours. If we don’t, I want a lot of information to fall back on. Any questions?’

‘Did they have any enemies?’

‘That’s why we’re having an inquiry.’

‘Were there a lot of valuables in the house?’

‘Go and find out. You’re a policeman.’

‘It may just be very simple, sir.’

Baird’s bushy eyebrows rose to a forty-five degree angle. Everybody turned to Pam MacAllister down at the far end.

‘Enlighten us WPC MacAllister.’

‘If she survives, the daughter may be able to tell us.’

‘Yes,’ said Baird drily. ‘Meanwhile, until she is fit to give a statement, we could pretend that we’re policemen. Or policewomen. I will if you will.’

Pam McAllister reddened but said nothing.

‘Right,’ said Baird, grabbing his papers and standing.

‘If you come across anything significant, see me. But don’t waste my time.’