‘Yes, sir.’
Shaftoe took the brain and weighed it. ‘The brain is of normal weight for the age of the deceased.’ He placed the brain on the working surface and, taking a knife, he sliced it thinly. ‘All healthy,’ he said, ‘no stroke victim he. I will send a blood sample for a toxicology examination, but in the absence of poison, I will record a finding of death due to hypothermia, compounded by the empty stomach and insufficient clothing at the time of death. The empty stomach is puzzling though, very puzzling given his overall well-nourished state. This PM might not yet be complete. See what the toxicology test reveals, if anything.’
Hollow Hill, Virginia Water, Surrey. Large houses, large in any man’s language, were set back from the road, each house separated from the neighbouring property by small stands of woodland; large front gardens, larger back gardens, which gave way to an area of woodland. Vicary at the wheel, and Brunnie beside him in the passenger seat, sat in silence, though both men thought the same: here be money. Big money.
The house owned by the proprietor of WLM Rents sat well, it seemed to Vicary, with its neighbours. It was not significantly larger, nor markedly smaller than the other houses on the road. It blended, Vicary conceded, and did so neatly — painted in a soft green about the window frames and doors, faded brickwork under a brown tiled roof, with a double garage to the right-hand side. The broad driveway expanded into a wide courtyard in front of the house. To the left of the drive was a raised rockery of about ten feet high, which prevented any very occasional foot passenger passing along the pavement from looking into the house. The front door was enclosed within a solid wooden porch, with windows in the door and at either side. A small window at ground level to the left of the porch betrayed the existence of a cellar. Vicary turned into the driveway and halted the car beside the royal-blue Range Rover which was parked close to the door. ‘Dare say the Rolls-Royce is in the garage,’ he remarked as he switched off the car’s ignition.
‘Dare say it is — ’ Brunnie smiled as he unclipped his seat belt — ‘next to the Bentley. How much do you think it’s worth?’
‘I wouldn’t like to guess.’ Vicary glanced at the house. ‘Well out of our league, that’s for sure.’ The house was clearly an inter-war building, modern in many respects, but built when houses were still being built to last. His father-in-law’s warning of ‘Don’t even look at anything built after 1939’ had proved to be good advice for him and his wife.
Vicary and Brunnie left the car and walked up to the porch, but the door of the house opened before Vicary could press the doorbell. The man stepped forward and opened the porch door. He had a hard, humourless looking face, clean-shaven, cold blue eyes, close-cropped hair. He wore cream-coloured cavalry twill trousers and a white shirt, over which was a pale-blue woollen pullover. His feet were encased in highly polished brown shoes. The only jewellery was a Rolex on his left wrist.
‘You’ll be the police,’ he said. He spoke with a hard voice, almost, Vicary thought, a rasping sound, and both he and Brunnie recognized the type: a career criminal.
‘Yes, sir.’ Vicary showed his ID. Brunnie did the same. ‘I’m DI Vicary. This is DC Brunnie. Scotland Yard.’
‘Scotland Yard? It must be serious. . must be important. You’d better come in. My man only told me the police were calling to see me. He didn’t mention Scotland Yard.’
The officers entered a wide entrance hall, thickly carpeted, with stained and polished panelling on the walls, and a wide staircase angling up to the first floor. From the entrance hall they were shown into a room just to the right of the front door, which was clearly used to entertain official visitors. Evidently only guests were allowed to enter the inner areas of the house. Officials, and especially police officers, were kept by the door. The room itself was spartan in the extreme, with no floor covering, though the floorboards had been sanded and varnished, and four inexpensive, office-style easy chairs stood round a glass-topped coffee table. Though the room was still larger, Brunnie guessed, than the living room of his flat in Walthamstow, E17. The wallcovering was of green embossed wallpaper, which seemed to Vicary to be of the same vintage as the house and, when needed, the illumination would come from a single light bulb, which hung from the ceiling and was enveloped in a yellow, bowl-like glass shade dating from the 1930s. The room seemed to Vicary to be deliberately arranged to be uncomfortable, cold, unwelcoming and very hostile, and it had, he thought, a hard cell-like quality, with nothing, nothing at all such as a print on the wall or a plant in a pot, to offer any form of softening.
‘Do take a seat, please.’ The man spoke in a perfunctory manner. The words kept to the script, but the tone of voice was as cold and as hard as the room. Vicary, Brunnie and the householder sat down; Vicary and Brunnie side by side, the man opposite them, with the coffee table separating him and the officers. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how can I help you, gentlemen?’
‘You are?’
‘William Pilcher.’
‘You own WLM Rents?’
‘Yes, WLM of course being derived from my given name.’
‘I see.’
‘And yes, WLM Rents is my little portfolio.’ He smiled. ‘The stock market was. . useful to me once.’
‘So we understand from Mr Dunwoodie.’
‘J.J. Yes, he’s a good little beaver to have working for me. So, how can I help you?’
‘We are particularly interested in one of your properties in Kilburn.’
‘They are all in Kilburn. I began buying up Kilburn when I realized the properties were undervalued and the area was set for gentrification. Close enough to fall into the spill of the beam from Hampstead and Golders Green.’
‘The property on Claremont Road, 123 Claremont Road; Mr Dunwoodie described it as an ancillary property.’
‘Yes, awaiting development.’
‘Mr Dunwoodie described it as a “grace and favour” house.’
‘He did?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘He does tend to be. . don’t know the word. . but yes, I let people live there and they work for me, low-grade gofers really. They pay no rent, but if I need a favour, they oblige.’
‘So Mr Dunwoodie explained.’
‘Did he?’ A menacing growl entered Pilcher’s voice to the extent that Vicary felt a sudden chill of fear for the welfare of J.J. Dunwoodie. Working for Pilcher evidently did not mean you enjoyed the man’s protection.
‘We are making enquiries into a man called Michael Dalkeith.’
‘Irish Mickey? What about him?’
‘He is deceased.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I knew he had gone, seemed that he did a moonlight, but he didn’t owe me any money so I wasn’t too upset.’
‘So how did you know him? In what capacity did you know him?’
Pilcher shrugged in an uninterested way. Vicary thought that he did not seem at all concerned about the death of Michael ‘Irish Mickey’ Dalkeith. ‘He was an odd-job man. He did a little work now and then. He was no craftsman, just the old donkey jobs.’
‘Donkey jobs?’
‘Fetching and carrying, tidying up, making the tea for the working crew. . that number.’
‘You paid him in cash?’
‘Yes, he preferred it that way.’
‘So he could claim dole money?’
‘Yes, the old, black economy number.’ Pilcher paused. ‘Mind you, it was peanuts, his pay really was his rent-free accommodation, and that was worth a few hundred pounds a week.’