Blood and Judgement (13 page)

“I think it’s marvellous that you should have got anything out of it at all.”

“It’s a man called Bancroft.”

The name meant nothing to Petrella.

“I found it in the Aged File. The man was a soldier. Age given on the card as eighteen. It was a charge of assault and robbery, but apparently the robbery was dropped, and it was heard as simple assault. I’d guess he was on leave on a spree, or something.”

“What year was all this?”

“1918.”

“1918!” said Petrella. “You’re sure it wasn’t 1818?”

“The science of fingerprinting had not been developed in 1818,” said Sergeant Blinder coldly. “I’ll send the details round in the course of the morning.”

Petrella passed this on to Superintendent Haxtell who was in the middle of a third unsuccessful attempt to get hold of Kellaway. He said, “I don’t think there’s much point in passing this little titbit on to the DPP until we know a little more about it. When are we going to get it?”

“Blinder said, in the course of the morning.”

“Which probably means teatime,” said Haxtell. “Hullo, what’s this?”

His office window commanded the courtyard where the police cars stood. A police cadet motorcyclist was propping his machine up. He had a large brown envelope in his hand.

“Something tells me,” said Haxtell, “that this is it.”

Petrella ran down the stairs, collected the envelope, signed for it, and came back with it.

“Quick work, for once,” he said. “Now perhaps we shall find out something about Mr Bancroft. Do you suppose–”

He broke off.

Superintendent Haxtell was staring at the contents of the envelope in complete silence. From where he stood Petrella could see two photographs, and clipped to them a memorandum sheet, headed Fingerprint Section, New Scotland Yard, and covered with typescript.

Haxtell finished reading the memorandum; turned it over to see if there was anything further on the back, and then parcelled it up with the photographs and put it slowly back in the envelope. Not until then did he say, “This is nothing to do with the gun. This is the report on the man you pulled out of the reservoir last night.”

“I recalled you, Superintendent,” said the judge, “because I wanted you to assist me, and the jury, over one small point which has not emerged quite clearly from the evidence.”

“I’ll do what I can, my Lord.”

“I’m sure you will. It is this cottage. The reservoir cottage, it is called. As I understand the matter, in the ordinary way it would be occupied by an employee of the Metropolitan Water Board.”

“That is so.”

“And had been so occupied up to the supposed day of the murder.”

“I think the last time anyone actually saw him, my Lord, was the afternoon before.”

The judge studied his notes carefully, and said, “I think you are right. The Water Board foreman, Mr Stokes, when giving evidence, said that he had spoken to Ricketts the night before. But what I wanted to know was this: did the police attach any particular significance to the coincidence that Ricketts should have walked out of his cottage on the day of – or possibly the day before – the killing of Mrs Ritchie?”

“We thought about it a good deal, my Lord. But we did not, in the end, conclude that there was any connection between the two events.”

“There is no reason why they should be connected,” agreed the judge. “I take it that efforts were made to get hold of Ricketts?”

“Certainly.”

“And he has not come forward? Even though the case has now received considerable publicity.”

“To the best of my knowledge, my Lord, Ricketts has not come forward at all. Certainly he has made no effort to contact the police–”

“I’m afraid,” said the man on the telephone courteously, “that no one can speak to Superintendent Kellaway just at this moment. He is in the witness box.”

“In the witness box?”

‘The judge asked for him to be recalled. He had some questions to put to him before he commenced summing up.”

“I see. Could a message be got to him, just as soon as he’s out of the box, that Chief Superintendent Barstow and Superintendent Haxtell want to see him urgently. They are on their way down to the court now.”

“Chief Superintendent Barstow and Superintendent Haxtell. Very good, sir. I’ll see if I can get a message to him as soon as he’s free.”

“It’s most important.”

“I got the first half of your message all right,” said Kellaway. “Jumped straight into a car and went back to Crown Road. When I got there, they told me you were down at the court. So I came straight back again. We must have passed each other on the way. I gather, incidentally, that Sergeant Petrella has been putting in some more overtime.”

He didn’t say it angrily. There was a cool undertone of amusement in his voice.

“Yes,” said Barstow. He, too, was being unusually restrained. The situation was pregnant with difficulty, and at this stage probably the less said the better.

“I gather he’s found Ricketts,” said Kellaway. “I don’t suppose it would have made much difference to this case, except as confirmatory evidence. I have always had it in mind that Ricketts may have got in the way of Howton that night, and stopped the second bullet – and been dumped along with the gun.”

“No doubt,” said Barstow. “Only it wasn’t Ricketts he found. It was Monk Ritchie.”

Kellaway stared at him.

“That’s right. A perfectly clear identification of both hands. No doubt about it at all.”

The door opened quietly and a uniformed attendant looked in.

“The jury are back, gentlemen,” he said. “Guilty. His Lordship is pronouncing sentence now.”

“I’ve been forty years in the Metropolitan Police Force,” said Barstow, “and I can’t remember anything like it.”

“It’s a pretty good tangle,” agreed Haxtell.

They were in Haxtell’s office at Crown Road. A week had gone by since a jury had found Howton guilty of capital murder and Mr Justice Rowan had pronounced sentence of death on him; an event which had attracted the routine amount of press comment and the routine protests, but no more. Even the most ardent opponents of capital punishment had not felt Boot Howton to be a very promising martyr.

“The story about us finding the second body got into the local papers,” said Haxtell. “Somebody saw the ambulance driving away with it and put two and two together. Naturally they all jumped to the conclusion that it was Ricketts who had been found. And we haven’t taken any steps to undeceive them, yet.”

“They weren’t the only people who thought it was Ricketts,” said Barstow.

“No, indeed.”

“I suppose there’s no doubt about
that.”

“Of all the facts in this case, sir,” said Haxtell, “that seems to be one of the few stone-cold certainties. The fingerprints alone, of course, were conclusive.”

Barstow said, “There have been moments in this case when my belief in the infallibility of our fingerprint system has been rudely shaken. But go on.”

“Even without the prints there was quite enough secondary evidence for a normal identification. The medical and dental particulars from the prison records all tallied. He was even wearing his prison underclothes, with his prison number on them. And now we have the Reverend Platt.”

“Who the devil is he?”

“The Reverend Platt came into a small legacy last summer and decided to broaden his mind by continental travel. He found it very much to his taste, and returned regretfully to this country on Christmas Day, that being the last day for which his return ticket was valid. Several weeks later it occurred to British Railways that there had been an inquiry about this particular ticket, so they got hold of me, and I called on the Reverend Platt. In a sort of way he doesn’t look unlike Monk Ritchie. I can quite see how the mistake arose. A clergyman, in mufti, out to enjoy his first continental holiday would tend to look rather like an escaping criminal, don’t you think?”

Barstow grunted. In his view, the whole case was a deplorable shambles, and a warning against inviting the interference of the Central Authority into district matters. However, there was a point of procedure which had to be cleared up.

He said, “I’ve seen the DPP’s office. As far as I could understand the young gentleman in striped trousers that I spoke to – and who sounded as if he’d got a hot potato in his mouth – they’re supremely uninterested in Monk Ritchie. They’re assuming that Howton shot him, too, which, of course, he may have done. And since Howton’s been nicely convicted for the first killing, why should they lose any sleep over the second one?”

“Except, of course–”

“Thank you, I can see the feebleness of that point of view perfectly well myself. However, two can play at that game. If they’re sticking to the book, I’m sticking to the book too. A dead man’s been found, in my manor. No one’s been charged yet with his death. Therefore it’s my job to carry out an investigation. Right?”

“Right,” said Haxtell. There were rare moments when he found Barstow refreshing, and this was one of them.

“I’m putting you in charge. We won’t assume that this case is anything to do with the other killing. In fact, we won’t assume any damn thing at all.”

“Splendid,” said Haxtell. “I suppose, as it’s an ordinary routine investigation, there’s no reason I shouldn’t use Sergeant Petrella on it.”

“Ah,” said Barstow. “Petrella.”

There was an unhappy pause.

“Yes,” said Barstow again. “Petrella.”

He swallowed deeply. The air was heavy with unanswered questions.

Then he said, “It would certainly be sensible to use him. He knows more about the background than anyone else. The blasted young idiot.”

“Did Kellaway insist on his pound of flesh?”

“He put in a report, yes. Direct refusal to obey orders. I’ve seen a copy. It’s quite fair as far as it goes. There’s bound to be a disciplinary board. They can’t overlook it.”

“When it comes to the point,” said Haxtell grimly, “I should like to put in a report too.”

“If you do,” said Barstow, “I shall tear it up. We’ve had too many damned reports and notes and minutes altogether. What do you think we are? The Civil Service? What you’ve got to do is get on and sort this mess out. Use Petrella as much as you like, and anyone else you like, and let’s stop behaving like a lot of bloody old women.”

“That suits me,” said Haxtell.

As soon as Barstow had stumped off, Haxtell sent for Petrella. He gave him an edited version of what had occurred.

“One thing’s quite clear,” he said. “We’ve got to find Ricketts. And so far there’s only one place we know he
isn’t.
That’s in the reservoir.”

This was quite true. The reservoir had now been officially searched from end to end, and side to side, and so thoroughly that a bent sixpence could hardly have escaped notice.

“We’ve got to set about this logically. First, let’s assume that Ricketts had nothing to do with the killing and see where that gets us. It would mean that he had strong, but private, reasons for clearing out. And that it was a fluke that he happened to clear out that day. If that’s right, then it was Howton who took the boat out, and dumped Ritchie and the gun.”

“Having weighted Ritchie down with three pieces of marble fender which we now find came
from the cottage.”

“Yes. But we know Howton was in the cottage, anyway. The prints on the window show that.”

“We don’t know
why
he was in the cottage.”

“Well – presumably it was his base of operations.”

“If he was working from the cottage, why didn’t he bring the boat back and put it quietly away where he found it?”

“There are plenty of loose ends,” agreed Haxtell. “But let’s go on with it and see where it takes us.
If
Ricketts had nothing to do with it, where is he now? From all accounts he was an independent, solitary sort of man. No family ties. Went where he liked, did what he liked.”

“He was a rolling stone, all right,” agreed Petrella.

“Then there’s nothing impossible in the idea that he’s rolled off somewhere and is living quietly under another name. As long as we don’t bother him, he’s not going to put himself forward. Particularly in a messy sort of murder case.”

Petrella thought about it. Then he said, “It sounds all right, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I’m not sure that I believe it myself. But what’s the alternative?”

“The alternative,” said Petrella, “is that Ricketts shot both Rosa and Monk.”

“Yes. And why?”

“I haven’t any idea,” said Petrella. “Perhaps they were disturbing the swans. Anyway, he leaves Rosa where she is, being fairly happy that she won’t be found. And dumps Monk in the deepest part of the reservoir, along with the gun he used for the killings.”

“Which was a souvenir he’d had from his army days. That’s why it was so deep in grease.”

“Right. And–” concluded Petrella triumphantly, “he couldn’t go back to the cottage and the landing stage, because by that time
Howton and the boys were in possession.”

They looked at each other.

“It’s got possibilities,” agreed Haxtell. “We still want a lot of answers. If it’s right, then the print on the gun
must
be Ricketts’. It couldn’t be anyone else. Only it appears to belong to a character called Bancroft, who got into trouble, once and once only, when on leave from the army in the First World War.”

“Ricketts was just old enough to be in that war. Lundgren said so. He said he lied about his age to get in. That would make him – what? Seventeen in the last year of that war. And in his late fifties now.”

“Which ties up all right with our man.”

“So all we’ve got to do is to prove that Bancroft is Ricketts and we’re home and dry.”

“We’ve got to do a lot more than that,” said Haxtell. “We’ve got to show some connection between Bancroft, Ricketts and the Howtons and the Ritchies.” He thought for a moment. “This seems to split itself up into two jobs, doesn’t it? Suppose I get Mote onto the Bancroft end. He can start down at the Fingerprint Section. Get what details they can give him there, and work his way forward. You tackle the Ricketts side. See Lundgren again. He’ll know the name of Ricketts’ army pals. Work through them. And don’t waste any time. You’ve got a deadline of eight days.”

Petrella stared at him.

Haxtell said, “Howton’s case comes up before the Court of Criminal Appeal tomorrow week. I’ve just heard. It’s been expedited.”

Detective Constable Mote, whose hobby of photography has already been mentioned, was a conscientious young cockney with curly hair, who had come to the police via the lower deck of the Royal Navy. He was a painstaking performer, and this was as well, for there was tribulation in store for him.

“I can’t tell you anything more about this print than I have done,” said Sergeant Blinder, when appealed to. “It seems to me everyone’s making a lot too much of it. If you’ll look at my report again you’ll see what I said.” He ran a finger down the typescript. “‘Much distorted.’ Well, you couldn’t expect anything else from a fingerprint made in mineral jelly. Mineral jelly’s not plaster of Paris, you know.”

Mote agreed that mineral jelly wasn’t plaster of Paris.

“If you ask me, it’s a miracle we picked it up at all. If anyone had told me a fingerprint could go underwater and come up six weeks later almost as good as new, I’d have called him a liar.”

Mote said that the whole thing reflected the greatest possible credit on the efficiency and technical skill of the Fingerprint Section and on Sergeant Blinder in particular.

“Mind you,” said Sergeant Blinder. “There’s five points of similarity between this print and the second, and I’d say that was quite enough to work on, particularly when one of them’s a reversed delta with a double inlet. But I couldn’t get up in court and swear to it. You want eight points or more for the court.”

Mote agreed that eight points were better than five. In common with most policemen, he understood very little about the niceties of fingerprint classification, having found the lectures on it boring. All that he really wanted was the details from the record and these, after ten minutes’ further mollification of Sergeant Blinder, he got.

In faded ink, on the yellowing form, he read the recorded particulars of Robert Lowry Bancroft who, forty years before, had stumbled into the path of the law. Age eighteen. Height five foot eight inches. Occupation, Armed Forces (Infantry). (They might at least have given his regiment, thought Mote.) Peculiarities and distinguishing marks, Nil. (Naturally!) Previous convictions, Nil. Aliases, Nil. And an address at 14 Culver Street, Battersea.

“And you can bet your bottom dollar,” said Mote, “that Culver Street’s been pulled down and a ruddy great block of flats put up.” It was one of those days.

Culver Street was still there. It looked as if it had been there forever. The bricks, red and yellow in their springtime, were now a deep and desperate black. The front gardens had merged into forecourts, and had then been trampled into the street itself. The occupants of No. 14 had been there since 1948. They knew nothing of the people who had had the house before them except that they had been “evacuated”. This was the word which greeted Mote at every turn. Evacuation. There had been a break, a severing of the historic development of the street, sharp and decisive as a landslip. The little families had been bundled out. Few had come back again.

Mote found one old lady whose memory went back beyond two wars. She remembered the Mafeking Day celebrations. But she remembered no Bancrofts.

Those tried friends of authority, the Housing Department, the Church, and the Labour Exchange, had nothing to offer. They, too, spoke of the evacuation, and of their records which had been destroyed in the blitz. Mote called it a day and went home.

The next day he tried the War Office. When they understood what he wanted they packed him off down to Staines where, in a disused motor-car factory, lay stored the documentary records of the British Army’s past.

“1918,” said the sergeant major clerk. “Why, certainly. We go back a lot further than that. What unit are you looking for?”

“Not a unit. A man.”

“And you don’t know what regiment he was in?”

“I’m afraid not. Just that he was in the infantry.”

“And all you know about him is his name?’’

“That’s right.”

“Well, it’s going to be a bit of a job, isn’t it?”

He led him along corridors, through transepts, down further corridors, all lined, above head height, with slatted racks, and, on the racks, boxes and boxes of paper. There were millions of them. Hundreds of thousands of millions of them.

“Haven’t you got some sort of index?” he said.

At this suggestion, the sergeant major clerk laughed, so loud that he roused a family of bats, which swooped across angrily, casting great shadows under the naked overhead lights.

Petrella, too, was encountering difficulties. He had found Lundgren in an unco-operative mood.

“I wish I’d never let you into my reservoir,” he said. “It’s been nothing but trouble.”

“I’m sure they’ve finished now.”

“I should hope so too. They wouldn’t like me to drain it for them, perhaps?”

“No. I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

After a time, he unbent so far as to admit that it probably wasn’t Petrella’s fault personally. But he hoped there wasn’t going to be any further bother. The Board were getting restive.

“This is nothing to do with the Metropolitan Water Board,” said Petrella. “It’s a bit of ancient history. I want to find out everything I can about Ricketts personally.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t been in touch with you. I should have thought he would have been bound to have read it all in the papers.”