A Capital Crime (22 page)

Given that there was no medical evidence whatsoever to back up Davies’s cock and bull story about Backhouse killing Muriel in the performance of an unsuccessful abortion – not to mention a single reason why Backhouse should want to kill the baby – Stratton
was surprised that nobody had tried to talk the little man out of issuing instructions that would be bound to fail, but he could see that they had bugger-all else to go on.

The questions from Ronstadt were a piece of cake. After a brief pause, filled with a lot more coughing and wheezing from the gallery, Shillingworth stood up and started taking Stratton through the statements Davies had made at West End Central, with a lot of questions about the timings and who’d said what to whom and when. Stratton could see the point of these – Shillingworth was trying to find out if they’d put words into Davies’s mouth about the circumstances in which the bodies were found. This had given him a couple of sleepless nights before the trial started, but when it came to the point it was all pretty straightforward and he hadn’t needed to check his notebook once. This wasn’t something he liked doing, because it called up the image of the comedy plod, shuffling and thumb-licking, and the bloody lawyers were quite condescending enough already, thanks very much, without all that.

After that, Shillingworth started on the timber used to hide the bodies from view. ‘He told us he’d concealed his wife’s body behind timber in the washhouse, sir.’

‘He said that, did he?’ asked Shillingworth. ‘“Concealed behind timber”?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The moment he’d spoken he realised that he wasn’t actually sure that Davies had used those words – in fact, he had a distinct memory of saying them himself when he’d cautioned the man – but Shillingworth moved on to another question and it was too late to go back. Not that he wanted to go back, of course, and besides, Davies had known about the timber because of the workmen, hadn’t he, so … Trying to clarify it all in his mind, Stratton failed to hear Shillingworth’s next question and had to ask for it to be repeated. Bloody well
concentrate
, he told himself. Just get through the next ten minutes without landing on your arse, and we’re laughing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After a break for lunch, during which Stratton and Ballard, who’d followed him into the witness box, toyed with two pieces of very dead plaice, they sat together at the back of the court. They’d found, on checking their notebooks, that Stratton
had
mentioned the timber in the caution, but, Ballard having agreed with him that Davies knew about the timber because he knew about the workmen, he’d felt reassured. In any case, the moment had passed, and it was only one tiny thing … Something in the back of his mind told him that that wasn’t the only incidence where they’d put words into Davies’s mouth, but it had been so bloody hard to untangle the truth from all the lies the man had told. And he’d confessed, hadn’t he? So why did he, Stratton, feel the need to justify his actions? Why did it bother him? Irritable with himself, he put the thoughts from his mind and concentrated on Davies, who was giving evidence.

Shillingworth was taking Davies through the statements he’d given in Wales, his allegations about Backhouse, and the stuff about selling his furniture. Standing alone in the dock, clutching the rail with white knuckles, Davies looked more insignificant than ever, as if struggling against the onslaught of some remorseless force of nature against which he was powerless. This, thought Stratton, was entirely true, even if the bloke was supposed to be acting for him. As for when Ronstadt got to his feet … Stratton scribbled ‘What do you think?’ in his notebook, tore out the page
and pushed it towards Ballard. After a moment, the answer came back. ‘Hasn’t got a prayer.’

‘What happened when you got to West End Central police station?’ asked Shillingworth.

‘Inspector Stratton told me my wife and baby were dead, sir.’

‘Did he say where?’

‘Yes, sir. At number ten Paradise Street in the washhouse, and he said he thought I’d done it.’

‘Did he say how it appeared they died?’

‘Yes, sir, by strangulation.’

‘Did he say with what?’

Puffy-eyed and squinting with concentration, Davies said, ‘With a rope, sir, and my daughter had been strangled with a tie.’

‘Did I say she’d been strangled with a tie?’ whispered Stratton to Ballard.

The sergeant looked through his notebook. ‘No, sir, but the tie was in the Charge Room with the rest of the stuff.’

‘Was anything shown to you at that time?’ said Shillingworth.

‘Yes, sir. The clothing of my wife and daughter.’

‘Before Inspector Stratton told you, had you any idea that anything had happened to your daughter?’

‘No, sir. No idea at all.’

Stratton and Ballard exchanged glances, and Ballard grimaced and rolled his eyes. Taking this line, Stratton supposed, was a bit like the business of accusing Backhouse. Shillingworth was bound to take Davies’s instructions, even if they were ridiculous.

‘Did he tell you,’ continued Shillingworth, ‘when he said the bodies had been found in the washhouse, whether they had been concealed or not?’

‘He told me they had been concealed by timber.’

Stratton and Ballard exchanged glances again.

‘When Inspector Stratton said he had reason to believe that you were responsible for the deaths of your wife and daughter, what did you say?’ asked Shillingworth.

‘I said, “Yes”.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, when I found out about my daughter being dead, I was upset. I didn’t care what happened to me then.’

‘Was there any other reason why you said “Yes” as well as the fact that you gave up everything when you heard that your daughter was dead?’

‘Yes, sir. I was frightened at the time.’

‘Why were you frightened?’

‘I thought that if I did not make a statement the police would take me downstairs and start knocking me about.’

‘Did you then make this statement saying that your wife was incurring one debt after another: “I could not stand it any longer so I strangled her with a piece of rope”?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And later that you had strangled the baby on the Thursday evening with your tie?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is it your tie which is Exhibit Three in this case?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Had you ever seen the tie before you were shown it by the Inspector?’

‘No, sir.’

‘That’s nonsense, sir,’ murmured Ballard to Stratton. ‘He told us at least twice that he’d strangled the baby with it.’

Stratton nodded, and would have dismissed the matter, but something occurred to him. ‘Did we ever ask him to identify the tie?’ he whispered.

Ballard shook his head. ‘Not after he’d seen it in the Charge Room. He picked it up, remember? But then he’s a great one for changing his mind … Anyway,’ he added, after a moment’s thought, ‘Backhouse identified it for us, didn’t he?’

‘That’s true enough.’ But, thought Stratton, Davies had never been able to explain to them
why
he killed the baby, had he? Oh,
pull yourself together, he told himself – it wasn’t as if it could have been anyone else, and you’re a policeman, not a bloody trick cyclist. Rubbing his face, he suddenly realised quite how much he wanted the trial to be over and done.

‘Is it true that your wife was incurring debts?’ asked Shillingworth.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But untrue that you strangled her?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why, if you had not committed these murders, did you say that you had?’

‘I was upset. I don’t think I knew what I was saying. I was afraid that the police would take me downstairs.’

‘Is that why you told a lie to them?’

‘Yes, sir. I was upset pretty bad. I had been believing my daughter was still alive.’

Davies was doing surprisingly well, thought Stratton. In fact, his part in these exchanges was so prompt and fluent that it must surely have been rehearsed many times. All the same, he couldn’t help thinking it was a bit daft of Shillingworth to try and let Davies have it both ways – it was one thing if the man hadn’t known what he was saying because he was upset, but quite another if he had deliberately confessed because he’d been scared. Which, Stratton thought, he had been – after all, he’d been caught, hadn’t he?

‘Trying to have his cake and eat it,’ whispered Ballard, confirming his thoughts. In the hiatus that followed when Shillingworth had concluded and the prosecution was readying itself, Ballard added, ‘Ronstadt’s going to make mincemeat of him.’

Stratton looked round the courtroom and, after a moment, picked out the neat, upright form of Davies’s mother from the rows of people in the gallery. What must she be thinking? Her baby granddaughter was dead and her son was a murderer twice over – three times, if you counted the baby Muriel had on the way. For
a moment, the elderly woman’s pinched little face became Jenny’s, and Stratton, blinking rapidly, looked away.

The Backhouses were sitting together on the other side, a solid, respectable unit of two. Edna Backhouse, in a dark coat with a matching hat firmly planted on her head, had her lips pursed and her hands primly folded over the capacious bag in her lap. Backhouse, next to her, bent over to polish his glasses, the light reflecting off his domed, bald head. Stratton hadn’t warmed to the man, and he certainly thought he was laying it on with a trowel about his various ailments, but the sort of ordeal the poor sod had been through in court was something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, never mind the fact that he and his wife were having to live in a house where murder had been committed.

Feeling that he was staring, he lowered his gaze. In the dock, the author of all the misery looked smaller and more pitiful than ever.

Chapter Thirty

‘Is it true,’ began Ronstadt, ‘that on five different occasions at different places and to different persons you have confessed to the murder of your wife and to the murder of your child?’

Stratton raised his eyebrows at Ballard. He couldn’t see how he’d arrived at
five
different occasions and thought that Shillingworth must be straight on his feet, but there was no objection.

‘Well …’ Davies hesitated, a baffled look on his face. Finally, he said, ‘I have confessed it, sir, but it isn’t true.’

‘But you did confess five times?’

Again, Stratton looked towards Shillingworth, but he remained in his seat.

Davies looked completely lost. Stratton could well imagine how lost – caught up in the vast tangle of the lies he’d told, he was trying to work out how to answer, and, of course, he wouldn’t have been able to rehearse any of this.

After some hesitation and in the voice of one giving up on an insurmountable challenge, Davis said, simply, ‘Yes, sir. I was upset.’

‘Are you saying,’ Ronstadt asked, in tones that rang with disbelief, ‘that on each of these occasions you were upset?’

‘Not all of them,’ said Davies, who now appeared to have taken the five occasions as gospel, ‘but the last one I was.’

‘If you were not upset on all of the five, why did you confess to wilful murder, unless it was true?’

Davies blinked rapidly several times, then said, ‘Well, I knew my wife was dead, but I didn’t know my daughter was dead.’

Ballard murmured, ‘Still sticking to it, then. Surprised he can remember, after all he’s said.’

‘You say you didn’t know your daughter was dead,’ said Ronstadt. ‘What had that got to do with it?’

‘It had a lot to do with it.’ Davies sounded petulant.

‘We’re on our way …’ Ballard murmured.

‘Is that a reason for pleading guilty to murder, that you are upset because your daughter is dead by someone else’s hand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it?’ It wasn’t only Ronstadt’s voice that was heavy with disbelief now, but the very air in the courtroom, as if all those present had somehow exhaled their thoughts.

‘Do you think that’s possible?’ Stratton asked Ballard out of the corner of his mouth.

Ballard, looking at him as if he’d suddenly grown an extra head, gave a firm shake of his own. ‘Sir, he’s making it up as he goes along. Look at him – he hasn’t got a clue what he’s saying.’

That was certainly true. Davies, in the dock, looked as if he barely knew where he was, let alone anything else. ‘Yes,’ he repeated, after a long pause.

‘I see,’ said Ronstadt, making it clear that he didn’t, at all. ‘Let’s just look at those occasions. You voluntarily went, did you not, to the police on November the thirtieth after having had read to you a letter from your mother to your aunt?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It was because in the letter your previous lies were exposed that you decided to go to the police, was it?’

‘It was not because of the lies,’ said Davies, suddenly truculent. ‘I was getting worried about my daughter.’

Ronstadt raised an elegant eyebrow. ‘Are you seriously telling the jury that you went to the police and confessed to murder because you were worried about the whereabouts of your daughter?’

At this, Shillingworth did get to his feet. ‘With respect,’ he said, ‘there was no confession of murder. He said, “I have disposed of my wife. I have put her down the drain.”’

‘It sounds very like murder,’ said the judge, dismissively.

‘Blimey, sir,’ whispered Ballard, in the short silence that followed. ‘That’s going a bit far.’

‘Blimey indeed,’ murmured Stratton. Despite the niggling worries, things were going better than he could possibly have imagined. Lamb, he thought, was going to be delighted.

‘I will amend my question,’ said Ronstadt, with an exaggerated air of patience. ‘Because you are upset about your daughter, who so far as you know is perfectly well, you go to the police and confess to the disposition of your dead wife’s body. Is that right?’

After a moment, during which Stratton wondered if Davies knew what ‘disposition’ meant, he said, ‘Yes, sir.’

Might as well give him a spade and tell him to dig his own grave, thought Stratton, scanning the jury members’ faces and seeing expressions that ran the gamut from incredulity to revulsion.