It was still there, an old-fashioned ADMIT ONE paper ticket of the kind that gets torn off the end of a roll by, say, volunteer guides at one of the smaller National Trust properties. A property like West Hill House in Highgate. I made notes but left the ticket where I found it. The Met gets pretty fundamentalist about chain of evidence in murder cases — not only does it help prevent any anomalies that might be exploited by a defence barrister, but it also removes any temptation to ‘improve’ the case by the investigating officers. Or at least makes it much harder than it used to be.
I took the time to check the sideboards in the work room and, with permission from DCI Duffy, checked the upstairs rooms — just in case Peter Mulkern had been an enthusiastic visitor of National Trust homes and had a pile of guidebooks stashed by his bed. Nothing. Although I did note a copy of Cloud Atlas on the bedside table.
Once I was satisfied I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself, I persuaded one of Duffy’s mob to run an IIP search looking for crimes at National Trust properties in London. The response was pretty instantaneous — a break in at West Hill House Highgate — unusual because the custodians didn’t know what was stolen. I was just noting down the crime number when Nightingale tooled up in the Jag. I went out to meet him and as we walked back to the house I filled him in as to how I got here.
He paused to examine the burnt hole in the front door.
‘Is this your handiwork Peter?’ he asked.
‘Yes sir,’ I said.
‘Well at least you didn’t set the door on fire this time,’ he said. But his smile faded as he stepped into the hall. He sniffed and I saw a flicker of memory on his face — quickly repressed.
‘I know that smell,’ he said and went up the stairs.
Negotiating the interface between the Folly and the rest of the police is always tricky, especially when it’s the murder squad. You don’t get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in scepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies. Nightingale says that in the good old days, which for him is before the war, the Folly got immediate and unquestioning co-operation. No doubt with plenty of forelock tugging and doffing of trilby hats. Even post war he said there just weren’t that many cases and the senior detectives back then were still much more relaxed about paperwork, procedures or, for that matter, evidence. But in modern times, where an SIO is expected to match up specific villains to specific crimes and faces an exterior case evaluation if they don’t, you have to use a certain amount of tact and charm. A detective chief inspector is, by definition, more charming than a constable. Which is why Nightingale went up the stairs to talk to Duffy. He wasn’t gone that long — I think it’s the posh accent that does it.
I asked him if it was definitely one of ours.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Judging from the smell I’d say he was cooked.’
‘Could you do that? I mean, do you know how?’
Nightingale glanced back up the stairs. ‘I could set you on fire,’ he said. ‘But in that case his clothes would have burnt as well.’
‘Was it magic?’
‘We won’t know until Dr Walid has had a chance to examine him,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t sense any vestigia on the body.’
‘How else could it have happened?’ I asked.
Nightingale gave me a grim smile. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘You of all people should know that it’s dangerous to reason ahead of your evidence. You say you sensed a vestigium at the door?’
I described what I’d felt — the cutthroat razor terror of it.
‘And you’re sure you recognised it?’
‘You’re the expert,’ I said. ‘You tell me. Is that likely?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to tell at your stage of apprenticeship. But I was only twelve at the time and easily distracted.’
‘Easily distracted by what?’
‘Peter!’
‘Sorry,’ I said and told him about the break in at West Hill House in Highgate.
‘A somewhat slender thread,’ said Nightingale.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But what if I was to tell you that West Hill House was the home of Erik Stromberg the famous architect and German expatriate.’
Nightingale’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think the book might have belonged to Stromberg?’
‘He got out before Hitler came to power,’ I said. ‘What if he brought some secrets with him? What if he was a member of the Weimar Academy?’
‘London was full of expatriates in the run up to the war,’ said Nightingale. ‘German or otherwise. You’d be surprised how few of them turned out to be practitioners.’
‘That book had to come from somewhere,’ I said.
‘True,’ said Nightingale. ‘But Whitehall had a bee in its bonnet about German infiltration and hence much of our manpower was devoted to spotting them and rounding them up.’
‘They were interned?’
‘They were given a choice,’ said Nightingale with a shrug. ‘They could join the war effort or be shipped over to Canada for the duration. A surprising number of them stayed. Most of the Jews and the Gypsies, of course.’
‘But you might have missed some?’
‘It’s possible — if they kept quiet.’
‘Perhaps that’s where Mr Nolfi’s mother learnt her party tricks,’ I said. ‘She might have been an expatriate. I didn’t think of asking in the hospital.’ Tracking down the exploding granddad’s antecedents was yet another thing that was still sitting in the low priority things-to-be-done pile. It might have to be moved up.
‘Indeed,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’d like you to have a look at the house.’
‘Today?’
‘If possible,’ said Nightingale which meant, yes absolutely today. ‘I’ll liaise with the Detective Chief Inspector and Dr Walid, when he arrives. Once you’ve done that you and Lesley can join us for the post-mortem — which I suspect will be instructive.’
‘Oh joy,’ I said.
6
I felt a bit weird on my way north and had to pull over on the Old Kent Road and take a breather.
I sat in the car for a while listening to the rain dinging off the roof of the Asbo and glaring at the red metal doors of the fire station.
When you’re a young copper, the old sweats like to scare you with the horrors of the Job. Eviscerated motorists, bloated floaters and little old ladies who had ended their days as a protein supplement for their house cats were common themes — and so was the smell of burnt human flesh.
‘You never get the stink out of your nostrils,’ the old sweats would say and then, without fail, go on to tell you that it was worse when you hadn’t had your dinner. ‘Because then your mouth starts watering and then you remember what it is exactly that you’re smelling.’
As it happens I was feeling a bit hungry and the memory of the smell was definitely taking the edge off my appetite. Still, I don’t work well on an empty stomach so I bailed at the Bricklayers Arms and found a place that sold industrial strength vegetable samosas — the kind that are spicy enough to anaesthetise your sinuses — and had a couple of those. While I ate, I looked up the National Trust on my phone and spent a fun ten minutes bouncing around their switchboard — they wanted to be helpful but nobody was sure what do with a call from a random police officer. I told them I’d be up at West Hill House within the hour and left them to sort it out. When in doubt, make it somebody else’s problem.