The Body in the River Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – The Body in the River

  Chapter 2 – The Autopsy

  Chapter 3 – The Identification

  Chapter 4 – Joan Wilson

  Chapter 5 – The Crime Scene

  Chapter 6 – The Full Monty

  Chapter 7 – The Third Day

  Chapter 8 – The Fourth Day

  Chapter 9 – The Fleming interview

  Chapter 10 – A Time for Action

  Chapter 11 – The Running Hare

  Chapter 12 – On Martinique

  Chapter 13 – London

  Chapter 14 – Bananas in Pyjamas

  Chapter 15 – Help from Above

  Chapter 16 – On Grand Cayman

  Chapter 17 – Landfall

  Chapter 18 – Showdown in Georgetown

  Chapter 19 – Home Safe

  Chapter 20 – Get Silver

  Chapter 21 – What do we know so far?

  Chapter 22 – The Magistrate’s Court

  Chapter 23 – What Next?

  Chapter 24 – Rat on the Run

  Chapter 25 – A Plan

  Chapter 26 – The Deeds

  Chapter 27 – Temper, Temper

  Chapter 28 – A Crossroads

  Chapter 29 – A Time For Action

  Chapter 30 – Loose Ends

  Note from the Author

  Kindle edition

  © 2016 T J Walter

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written per- mission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  Book cover copyright @ Stephen Walter

  New Parliament 2000

  Typeset for Kindle by Electric Reads

  www.electricreads.com

  Chapter 1 – The Body in the River

  ‘He hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows,’

  William Shakespeare – The Tempest

  The Thames, London.

  The tide was ebbing fast. On the inside of the bend above Limehouse Reach, water swirled in an eddy alongside the pilings lining the bank. The woman’s body swung back and forth at the pull of opposing forces. Her long blonde hair had become snagged on a jagged piece of metal protruding from one of the pilings while the falling tide was tugging the corpse downstream.

  The helmsman of a passing police launch caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and recognized it for what it was; a woman’s blouse. Throttling back, he turned excitedly to his companion.

  Pointing with a forefinger, he said, ‘Sarg, look at that.’

  His companion, Sergeant Rob Williamson of London’s Met Police, Thames Division, had spent most of his adult life on the river, first as a Thames lighter-man, then as a police officer. There was little that happened on the river that surprised him.

  He replied calmly, ‘It’s a floater. Give me the helm and get the boathook ready.’

  The two changed places, and Williamson turned the launch out of the main stream and towards the bank. Using the throttle to combat the current, he manoeuvred the launch close to the corpse; for a corpse it undoubtedly was, its face bloated, its eyes glazed.

  The less experienced PC Ben Childs clumsily felt for somewhere to attach the hook, finally snagging the waist of the skirt worn by the corpse.

  Pulling at it, he exclaimed, ‘Shit! Her hair’s snagged, I can’t get it loose.’

  ‘Well un-snag it, you idiot; you can’t hurt her now, she’s dead.’

  Reluctantly, Childs yanked at the hair with the hook. Suddenly, the woman’s body came loose and floated away in the current – but Williamson was ready and manoeuvred the launch alongside it again. It took all Childs’ strength to get the sodden form over the gunwale and into the boat.

  ‘Oh my god!’ he said. ‘She’s got a stocking round her neck, she’s been strangled.’

  ‘OK. Now stop gawking, man. Cover her with a tarp and get on the radio. Get Leman Street CID to meet us at Wapping.’

  *

  Wapping was one of the oldest police stations in the country, dating back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But it was no ordinary station; its function was to provide a base for the police launches that patrolled this part of the busy River Thames. It had a small front office to receive enquiries from members of the public but none of the other facilities of a fully operational police station.

  The woman’s body was laid out on a plain wooden table in a small room behind the front office. She was incongruously dressed in a black formal skirt, white blouse, and an old green woollen cardigan. Her feet and legs were bare. A small group of police officers stood around the corpse, each with a suitably grim expression on his face.

  They were watching a slightly-built man in his fifties, wearing a dinner suit and black tie, who was examining the woman’s body. He was Doctor Francis Bryce-Phillips, a Home Office pathologist. He’d pulled medical examiner’s gloves onto his hands and was poking and pulling at the body.

  Finally he stepped back and snapped off his gloves. ‘For the record, I can confirm life is extinct. I’d say she’s been in the water for no more than twenty-four hours. I’ve no doubt the cause of death will prove to be strangulation. Apart from the tights around her neck, the capillaries in the corneas of both eyes are burst and her tongue is swollen and protruding. These symptoms are consistent with strangulation. The gash on her cheek is post-mortem; probably caused by her coming into contact with something sharp in the river. So too were the flesh wounds to her scalp and the loss of hair, which I understand were the result of the hair being snagged on something.’

  He looked at PS Williamson for confirmation, who nodded without speaking.

  The pathologist continued, ‘More than that I won’t be able to tell you until I perform the autopsy. I’ll do that first thing in the morning. Now, I must get off; I’ve a function to attend.’

  He addressed his words to a tall man dressed in a dark business suit and raincoat.

  In his late forties, the man’s dark hair was tinged with grey. His face was heavily lined, his brown eyes piercing. Detective Superintendent John Horatio Brookes, a twenty-five year veteran detective in charge of ‘H’ Division CID, nodded thoughtfully and said,

  ‘Thank you, Doctor. Can you say at this stage if she has been sexually assaulted?’

  Doctor Bryce-Phillips shook his head impatiently. ‘There’s no way I can tell without a proper examination. Her underwear appears to be intact but that’s all I can say.’

  ‘What about other injuries?’

  ‘None obvious. But I don’t have time to examine her thoroughly. I have to go; I’ve told you I’m late already.’

  ‘And I must launch a murder enquiry, Doctor; I need to know as much as possible as soon as possible.’ His words were blunt, his tone barely within the bounds of politeness.

  ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can tell you at this stage. I’ll start the PM at nine am sharp. Now, good day to you, Superintendent.’ He swept out of the room without another word.

  Brookes turned to the uniform standing beside him. ‘It’s Sergeant Williamson, isn’t it?’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How well do you know the river, Sergeant?’

  ‘Pretty well, sir, I’ve spent most of my working life on it.’

  ‘Good; assuming she’s been in the river for about twenty-four hours, tell me where you think she might have been put in.’

  Williamson blew out his chee
ks. ‘Do you know the river at all, sir?’

  ‘Not that well. Assume I know nothing, tell me what you think.’

  ‘Well, sir, the Thames here has a way all of its own; I’m sure you know it’s tidal, even this far up river.’

  Brookes nodded, ‘Go on.’

  ‘There is a main channel where the water runs fast, ebbing and flowing. But that channel doesn’t always follow the centre of the river; there are too many bends. Despite those, the water tries to travel in a straight line, so when it comes to a bend it rushes into the bank and then changes direction. Now this leaves eddies and slack water on the inside of the bends. In addition to that there’s a big undertow in the mainstream; water at the bottom flows at a different pace to that on the surface.’

  He paused again to make sure Brookes was still with him.

  This time more impatiently, Brookes said, ‘Yes, carry on.’

  ‘Now, if she hasn’t been in the water for more than twenty-four hours and the body wasn’t weighed down with anything, it’s likely that it stayed near the surface. And she would likely have been thrown out of the main current at some stage at one or more of the bends. I’ve looked at the tide tables. I’d guess that she won’t have travelled far with the tides going back and forth. Probably no more than a mile or two off where we found her. We found her at the top of Limehouse Reach, so that puts her point of entry somewhere between Canning Town and Tower Bridge. But it’s not an exact science, sir, more an educated guess.’

  ‘You mean she could have come further?’

  ‘It’s possible but unlikely. Of course, if someone threw her off a boat in mid-stream, anything’s possible.’

  ‘She doesn’t look dressed for a boat trip, does she?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But we can’t discount the possibility?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘OK, that’s useful. Thanks, Sergeant. I understand that you guys will take her fingerprints?’

  Williamson nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Brookes continued. ‘Please do that before you leave – and let me have your statements.’

  Turning to the DS by his side, Fred Middlemiss, he said,

  ‘OK, Fred. She’s young, mid-twenties, and she doesn’t look like a drop-out. Someone must know she’s missing. Get Press Bureau to issue a description but leave out the pantyhose; we’ll keep that to ourselves for the time being. We’ve lost a day already and can’t afford to lose any more time. Phone DI Short and get him to set up the incident room at Leman Street and get the rest of the team together. I want them all there at eight in the morning. I’ll attend the PM with you. I doubt forensics will come up with much from her clothing after it’s been in the water this long, but get them to have a look anyway. Anything else you can think of that needs doing tonight?’

  ‘No, boss. Just one thing that’s bugging me: the way she’s dressed.’

  ‘Me too, Fred; it’s sort of half-formal, half-casual. As if she got home from work, took off her coat, and slipped on a warm cardigan. And it’s October, too cold for her to go out dressed like that of her own accord. But I don’t see what we can do about that until we find out who she is and where she lived. Get Press Bureau onto it and put out an all-stations bulletin; I think that’s all we can do tonight.’

  *

  Brookes drove towards his small flat in Limehouse; he was an East Ender by birth and was comfortable there. Whilst he was good at his job, he hadn’t had much success with relationships: married once to the mother of his two children, then in a series of relationships, all of which had ended after brief periods of happiness. His most recent, with a university lecturer, Lisa Rushmore, had lasted six months then fizzled out, thanks mainly to his dedication to the job.

  He was hungry, having only pecked at the lunch he’d had with his two teenaged children; their mood had taken away his appetite. But he knew there was nothing to eat in his fridge and his favourite restaurant was closed. He stopped at a kebab house on his way and ordered a takeaway donner kebab and chips.

  Arriving home, he switched on the TV to watch the evening news whilst he ate. Middlemiss had been busy; there was a story about the floater and a description of her. He knew that the phones would already be buzzing at Leman Street; hopefully by the morning they would have her identity. He sat watching the TV for an hour with a glass of whisky by his side, from which he took the occasional sip. But he had difficulty concentrating, his mind still busy with thoughts of the murdered girl.

  Finally, he got up and went into his bedroom. Setting his alarm for six-thirty, he undressed and flopped onto the bed. Without a woman in his life, he didn’t even bother to clean his teeth; that could wait till the morning.

  *

  Chapter 2 – The Autopsy

  'We must know,

  We will know.’

  David Hilbert 1862-1943

  Poplar Hospital was a huge Victorian edifice, built in the mid-nineteenth century, but it had seen better days. Its crumbling brickwork bore the grime of a hundred and fifty years of neglect. It stood opposite the old East India Dock and, surprisingly, had withstood the bombing of two world wars.

  It was to here that Brookes and his DS went to observe the post mortem examination of the body of the woman recovered from the Thames.

  The mortuary was located in the basement; its white tiled walls and sloping concrete floor with a drain in the centre were much as they had been when the place was first built. Only the equipment had been updated; the corpse lay on a shiny stainless steel table.

  Knowing of Bryce-Phillips’ obsession with punctuality, Brookes had made sure they arrived ten minutes early. But the pathologist was already standing beside the body, waiting to start his examination.

  He greeted them huffily and began his grisly task.

  Each of the detectives had donned a medical examiner’s robe and face mask. Despite the masks and the efforts of extraction fans, the smell of death and formaldehyde was almost overpowering. They stood off to one side to watch and listen.

  Having gone through the usual formalities of formally identifying the corpse as that seen at Wapping the previous day and thereby establishing the chain of evidence, he started his examination.

  Despite the sharpness of some of their exchanges, he and Brookes respected each other’s fields of expertise. The pathologist gave a running commentary as he worked, using layman’s terms so that his audience could understand his comments. He was highly competent and knew his role was to help them solve crime and not baffle them with science. He was anyway confident enough in his own field not to feel the need to impress others with his knowledge.

  ‘The body is that of a female, probably in her late twenties. She is five feet five inches tall and of slim build. She is a natural blonde. There is a ragged four inch long gash to her left cheek, just below the cheekbone. There is no blood around the wound, indicating it occurred post mortem. There are what appear to be tiny fragments of rust in the wound; no doubt from the piece of metal that caused it.

  ‘Her hair is shoulder length. There is evidence of some having been torn from the scalp. This would be consistent with the hair having been entangled with some obstacle in the water, as this too appears to be post mortem. There are also several gashes in the scalp, probably from contact with the same object, therefore also post mortem.

  ‘There are several burst capillaries in the corneas of both eyes. The tongue is swollen and protruding from the mouth. Both are consistent with asphyxiation.’ He looked up and pulled the overhead lamp on a moving bracket down, before opening the mouth. ‘Hmm; she has a perfect set of teeth with some expensive dental work. There appear to be no foreign objects in the mouth or throat.’

  Moving to her neck, he said to the assistant beside him, ‘Have you taken all the photographs you need?’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes, Doctor, all done.’

  ‘Good, pass me a scalpel.’ With it, he carefully cut through the hose tied around her neck. As it fell away, he held it aloft.

>   ‘I’ve no doubt you’ve examined the knot, Superintendent?’

  ‘Yes, I have indeed. An old-fashioned granny knot tied at the front, which suggests he was facing her when he tied it?’

  ‘It does indeed; provided always that it was a he and not a she.’

  Brookes gave him a look. ‘Well, I’m pleased you at least dismiss the possibility of an ‘it’, so that narrows the field a little.’

  Bryce-Phillips smiled without comment and lowered the tights into a clear plastic evidence bag held out by his assistant.

  ‘Don’t forget to label it, George, will you?’ he said.

  The assistant murmured a no.

  Bryce-Phillips moved on to the torso. Something caught his attention and he lowered the light, focussing it on a point below her breasts. Glancing at Brookes, he said,

  ‘Have a look at this.’

  Following his pointing finger, Brookes saw a discolouring under the skin.

  ‘What is it, some kind of a bruise?’

  ‘It is indeed. Hmm, I’d say he knelt on her chest whilst he applied the ligature. I couldn’t swear to it, but it looks like it was made by a knee. Wouldn’t you say so?’

  Brookes gave him an ironic smile. ‘You’re the expert; I’ll take your word for it. What about defence wounds; are there any?’

  Bryce-Phillips picked up the hands one at a time and examined them carefully under the lamp. ‘No. Not a thing. Her nails are well-manicured and there appears to be nothing under them. I’ll take some scrapings later just to be sure. But there is no sign of a struggle, nothing at all.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you say that’s unusual if she was conscious during the attack?’

  ‘Yes I would, but please don’t interrupt.’

  Brooks smiled and said nothing more.

  Bryce-Phillips moved further down the torso, poking and prodding at the bare flesh. Pulling the lamp closer, he examined her pubic region.

  ‘Hmm, no sign of bruising. I’ll comb the pubic hair later to see if there are any foreign ones mixed in. But there’s nothing to suggest a sexual assault. We may be able to ascertain if she had sex in the hours before her death once I’m inside. But if she did, it looks very much as if she either consented or submitted to it.’