Breaking the Circle, page 14
Crawford didn’t disabuse her. He knew the ‘stiff not getting stiffer’ rule and knew how lucky she had been.
‘The nurses tell me I was kicked violently in my back and sides. Even my …’ she blushed and looked away, ‘… personal parts are bruised. My leg and arm were broken by blows from a heavy object.’ She now began to cry in earnest. ‘I don’t know what I could have done to deserve such cruelty.’
Crawford could reconstruct the attack in his head without needing to ask more questions. Whoever it was had hoped that the blow to the head would be the coup de grâce, but when it failed to finish her off, had kicked her, hard and repeatedly, in the hope that shock would do its work. And if PC Boggs had not come along when he did, then it would probably have been a hope which would come true.
‘I don’t think you have done anything, Miss Plunkett,’ he said kindly, putting a hand over hers as it lay, trembling slightly, by her side. The slight flinch she gave made him sad for all small, frightened things. ‘Do you know a Miss Plinlimmon? From the Circle?’
The woman nodded and smiled a little. ‘She seems very nice,’ she said. ‘She …’ Her eyes opened as wide as they could. ‘She looks a lot like me, doesn’t she? Do you mean that someone mistook me for her?’
‘We think that that is possible,’ Crawford said and felt her hand clench.
‘Whatever has she done? What could make anyone hate another person so much?’
‘It’s not hate,’ Crawford said, half to himself. ‘It’s fear.’
Late May evenings were not the Spiritualist’s friend. There was something about the light as the year raced towards the longest day that made it hard to create the right ambience. Thick curtains helped, of course, keeping the room dark, but the sheer exuberance of spring outside could not be completely kept at bay. The birds sang late into the night and a blackbird was singing his heart out in the nearby branches of a plane tree outside. Florence Rook lit a lamp in the corner and shaded it with a crimson shawl thrown over a couple of carefully placed statuettes of dancing nymphs. The room was suitably dark and just the tiniest bit stuffy.
When Florence had been learning her trade as a girl, Spiritualism was still very much the thing, mediums were in great demand at country house parties and suburban homes alike. There was a good living to be made, as long as you could avoid the attentions of those intent on upsetting the apple cart, such as the dreaded Society for Psychical Research – charlatans all – and Florence could hardly forbear to spit as they crossed her mind. Busybodies and killjoys every one of them. Florence’s mentor, the wonderful and talented Mrs Cook, on whom she modelled herself, had been ruined by them. Florence stood quietly for a moment, eyes closed and arms extended to the Great Beyond, centring herself and re-establishing her link to her spirit guide, the great and powerful Osthryth, a queen of Mercia when England had been not one kingdom but seven. Friends in the business tried to get her to contact a Plains Indian chief – they were, apparently, the coming thing – but Osthryth, though somewhat of a challenge to anyone with a denture, had done her proud over the twenty years she had been bringing the bereaved into contact with their loved ones, and Florence was sticking with what she knew.
The glory days were gone, she knew that, but there were still enough enlightened people, in London especially, who knew that Death was simply a Veil. Her sitting tonight was very exclusive. She had been approached after a séance with a group in Hammersmith by an extremely soignée woman in a veiled hat who had asked for a private consultation. She had lost a very dear friend just a few days before, another medium, and she just knew, she had said, that her friend was desperate to reach through the Veil.
Florence was flattered and also rather touched. She had heard of the death of two mediums in the last few weeks – who hadn’t, in her line of work? – and was thrilled to think she might be the one to not only talk to a recently departed who knew how many beans made five, but also that she might be able to crack the case. Imagine the publicity. Newspapers. Periodicals. She closed her eyes but this time with the excitement of it all. Talking to a proper Spirit – imagine it. She clapped her hands in ecstasy. It was the culmination of her career – if this was her last séance, she would die happy!
The cats’-meat man’s day was already over and it was barely nine o’clock in the morning. Say this about the denizens of Rose and Crown Yard, Westminster, they were cat-lovers all and nothing was spared in providing the very best horsemeat for their furry friends.
Bill Molton was wheeling his empty cart towards the Mall and his attention was taken momentarily by a troop of the Life Guards clattering towards Horse Guards Parade, the morning sun flashing on their helmets and breastplates.
‘One of them would fetch in the crowds to your cart, Bill.’
Harry was a regular. He and Bill went back, seeing as how they serviced the same locale. Bill brought the cats’ meat; Harry cleaned the windows. ‘What d’ya reckon?’ Harry went on, hauling his buckets on to his shoulder. ‘Sixteen hands of thoroughbred’d keep a whole herd of cats going indefinitely, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not the greedy bastards I deal with,’ Bill grunted. ‘And that’s a gluttony, by the way.’
‘What is?’
‘Cats. It’s not a herd of cats; it’s a gluttony of cats.’
‘As you wish,’ Harry laughed and turned towards his next house.
Bill Molton had just stashed all his sacks away and was rinsing his bloody fingers at the stand-pipe when he heard a most un-window-cleanerly shriek coming from his old oppo behind him. He spun round, assuming that Harry had fallen off his ladder. In fact, he was still four rungs up, his right arm pointing rigidly ahead through the window.
The cats’-meat man was at the ladder’s foot in seconds.
‘What’s up, Bill?’ He’d never seen the man look so pale.
‘It’s the missus,’ Harry gasped, his voice barely a whisper.
‘Your missus?’ Bill was confused.
‘No,’ Harry snapped. ‘Not my missus. The missus what lives here. I think she’s dead.’
Technically, it was M Division’s patch, but Superintendent Mason of that august group of gentlemen was all too happy to pass the buck to headquarters. That was the problem with his Division’s boundaries – he had to know what was going on both sides of the river.
So it was that Detective Sergeant Crawford, from A Division, was the second policeman on the scene that morning; the first being Constable Mather.
Crawford had met Mather before; the man had never met a cliché he didn’t like. ‘Who found the body?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Him, over there. Harry Cheviot. Salt of the earth is Harry. Honest as the day is long.’
‘Quite.’
‘There was another bloke, too. Cats’-meat man, name of Molton, but he had to bugger off. I’ve got his address, though.’
‘Good. Plant your size elevens on that doorstep, Constable. Once I’m inside, nobody comes in.’
‘Got it, sir,’ Mather said. ‘If the commissioner himself were to arrive, I’d have to exercise my constabulary duty nonetheless. There’s no such thing as one law for us and another for them.’
Crawford clapped the man on the shoulder and crossed the road to where the window cleaner sat disconsolately on the kerb, his ladders against the wall, his buckets neatly stacked. ‘Detective Sergeant Crawford,’ he said. ‘Are you Harry Cheviot?’
‘To tell you the truth, sir, after what I just seen, I don’t rightly know.’
‘Yes,’ Crawford nodded, sitting beside the man on the kerbstone. He winced; London pavements were like iron. ‘Distressing. Did you know the deceased?’
‘Only to get money orff of her – in the line of duty, you understand.’
‘Do you know what she did for a living?’
‘More of a dying,’ Harry said, ‘if you’ll excuse the pun at a time like this. She was a medium, was Mrs Rook, clairvoyant, teller of fortunes. Funny what fortune had in store for her, wasn’t it?’
‘How often did you clean her windows?’
‘Once a month, guv. Back and front. Outside only, of course. No hanky-panky with Mrs Rook. Proper, she was.’
‘Hanky-panky?’ Crawford raised an eyebrow.
Harry looked from right to left. ‘In my calling,’ he said, under his breath, ‘you get to see things. Well, it goes with the territory, really. There’s some women get pretty bored. Well, you know how it is, hubby’s away at the office. They’ve got no kids and they can’t vote, ’cept in local councils and how much fun is that? None, is how much. So, some of ’em … well, a handsome young window cleaner comes along and he’s a breath of fresh air, ain’t he? A bit of what the doctor ordered.’
‘But Mrs Rook didn’t require your services … doctor?’ Crawford checked.
Harry nudged him in the ribs and immediately regretted his forwardness. ‘No, no. No how’s your father at all. Unlike Mrs Hipcress at Number Sixty-Three. There was one time …’ but something in Crawford’s face made the window cleaner’s happy memories fade away. ‘Poor Mrs Rook, though, eh? What a bugger.’
‘What time did you start work?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Half past six – usual,’ Harry said. ‘I start at the top and work down.’
‘Did you see anybody in the yard during that time?’
‘Only old Bill Molton, the cats’-meat man, and some blokes from the Life Guards.’
‘We may need to talk to you again,’ Crawford said, and crossed to the threshold of the murder scene. The last he saw of the outside world was Constable Mather folding his arms and blocking the front door like a juggernaut at rest.
There was blood in the passageway and Crawford was careful to step around it. He squatted over one particularly large blob, but there were no footprints or anything helpful like that. He checked the kitchen to his right. All was in order, with no sign of disturbance. There were two bedrooms on the first floor, both containing double beds, both made up. On the second floor was a boxroom under the eaves that had been converted recently into a bathroom. There was dry soap on the washbasin and dry towels on their rail.
Crawford went back downstairs. To his immediate right, a sitting room lay in semi-darkness. He hitched up the blinds which gave him a view of the tiny garden and, beyond the angles of various buildings, a distant and disappointing view of Horse Guards Parade.
He took a deep breath and entered the crime scene itself. Florence Rook, the medium, sat at her table, shattered glass over the purple velvet cloth and the swirling patterns of the carpeted floor. Her hands were stretched out in front of her and her head, what was left of it, was face down on the table. Crawford knew he should have waited for Stockley Collins and his photographer, and he also guessed that Constable Mather had already traipsed over the place in his size elevens. Still, he sensed that time was of the essence. This was the third medium to die in as many weeks and, judging by the devastation to the back of the head, the level of violence was escalating. Gingerly, he lifted the woman’s head and looked at her deathly white face. Her eyes were closed, puffy and purple with bruising, and several of her teeth lay on the tablecloth where they had been smashed from her mouth. Dark brown blood ran in rivulets down her forehead, skirting her nostrils and accentuating the lines around her mouth and chin. Crawford carefully placed the head back as it was and checked the woman’s clothing. Buttons were in place and fastened. Nothing had been tampered with.
He paced the room with a grim sense of déjà vu. The scrying ball had been shattered and may have been used to demolish the woman’s skull. On the sideboard lay a planchette, one of those gadgets used in spirit writing and, alongside it, the newfangled Ouija board, made in Berlin. Briefly, he looked through cupboards and drawers, looking for any sign of disturbance and found none. Everything was meticulously clean and neat. Except for the woman who had been the cause of it all. And whatever story she had to tell, she wasn’t talking.
NINE
John Kane had not been convinced when the first medium died but he needed no convincing now. He had seen the crime-scene sketches and could see at a glance that here was someone who needed stopping and the sooner the better. But the world of the medium was a shadowy one. In some ways, they trod a line which was often on the wrong side of the law and there was a thickish file among the shoeboxes in the basement which contained the names and details of mediums who had had complaints made against them and – perhaps more importantly at this stage – those who had made the complaints. If one name cropped up more than once, it would give them somewhere to start from because, at the moment, they couldn’t find one single set of facts which tied the women together.
Kane sighed and leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair and ending by rubbing his eyes. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Sergeant,’ he said, keeping it formal, ‘that I am at my wits’ end with this one. If I have one more raddled old constable taking me aside in the canteen and telling me that it’s the Ripper all over again, I swear to you I will swing for the old bastard.’
Crawford was young enough to be indulgent. ‘It was their most exciting time,’ he said. ‘My grandfather-in-law is the same about the Wairau Affray.’
Kane dropped his hands to the desk and cocked his head interrogatively. ‘The do what now?’
‘Exactly. He was sent to New Zealand when they were having trouble with the Maoris. He didn’t see any other action and when he came home, he resigned his commission and went into the family business.’
Kane remembered. ‘Scouring powder.’
‘The same. But you can see how fighting some largely invisible and scary warriors in a foreign country trumps selling scouring powder any day. We refight the arrests of Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata every Christmas, without fail. I’ve only seen it done using mustard pots and the remains of a goose, but it was apparently very exciting. It’s the same with these old constables. They’ve beaten the same bounds for decades – they don’t want to waste a moment if it comes to telling a whippersnapper where he’s going wrong.’
Kane chuckled. ‘I don’t feel much of a whippersnapper most mornings when I first think of getting out of bed,’ he said, ‘but you make a good point. It doesn’t help up with this case, though, does it? He’s ramping up the violence and I don’t know where it’s going to end.’
‘It will end with him being caught,’ Crawford said, decisively.
‘It must be a him, mustn’t it?’ Kane said. ‘I thought at first … poison, you know. Woman’s weapon and all that. But this.’ He glanced at the sketches again. ‘Surely, no woman is capable of such violence?’
‘In the normal run, I would say no,’ Crawford agreed. ‘But there seems to be a vein of what we have to call madness running through it all. The feather in Muriel Fazakerley’s mouth, the tarot card in Evadne Principal’s hand.’
‘And in this case?’
‘Nothing yet. But Florence Rook isn’t even on the slab yet. Something may turn up.’
Kane furrowed his brow. ‘Florence Rook? That rings a bell, doesn’t it?’
‘Almost,’ Crawford agreed. ‘Florence Cook was a famous medium. She was unmasked by the Society for Psychical Research back in the Sixties, I think it was. The victim had a picture of Cook’s spirit guide on her wall.’
‘A picture of a spirit guide? Bit tricky to have one of those, isn’t it? Aren’t they … well, aren’t they invisible?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ Crawford agreed. ‘But Florence Cook’s spirit was a girl called Katie King and she would appear almost every time she gave a sitting.’
‘Coo.’ Kane liked a bit of spooky as well as the next policeman.
‘Except, of course, Katie was Florence dressed up and when she was unmasked, the whole thing came crashing down. It did a lot of damage to the medium business and lots of women making good money had to turn their hands to something else.’
Kane raised an eyebrow.
‘Wriggling into and out of small spaces had made most of them very limber, if you get my drift,’ Crawford said. ‘And they had a lot of contacts, so they did all right.’
‘How do you know so much?’ Kane said, shuffling his papers, his usual precursor to getting his subordinates out of his office and on to the street.
‘I’ve been reading up on it,’ Crawford admitted. ‘Also, Angela’s mother is a bit of a follower, on the quiet. Angela’s father thinks it’s a load of old tosh.’
‘I should think scouring powder keeps a person’s credulity levels set rather high,’ Kane said, then paused. ‘Or do I mean low?’
‘He’s a hard man to fool, that’s true. But I don’t think this has anything to do with any supernatural element, no matter what the murderer is trying to make us believe. I think this has a very prosaic explanation, if we could only find it.’
‘I understand a woman from a Spiritualist Circle was injured the other night – how is she and is it connected?’
‘She seems to be coming out of the woods but has been left very nervy. I think it is connected.’ Crawford made an instant decision to leave Margaret Murray out of it. ‘But I don’t know how.’
‘Well,’ Kane said, getting up and ushering Crawford out. ‘I think we need to go back to basics. Go and visit the sister – I think Muriel Fazakerley had a sister, am I right?’
Crawford nodded.
‘And see where we go from there. Let me know how you get on.’
And without any obvious effort, Detective Sergeant Andrew Crawford found himself outside on the landing.
Maud Whitehouse was giving her front step a darned good larruping with a stone and some soapy water when Detective Sergeant Andrew Crawford arrived. Alone of the women of her street, Mrs Whitehouse kept her step in an almost constant state of perfection and so this was the second scrubbing it had had that morning, her husband having committed the almost mortal sin of stepping on it on his way out to work. She looked over her shoulder at Crawford and glared balefully.
