Dear Father
Since you were sleeping so soundly, I have taken the opportunity to go for a short walk. I feel the fresh air will do me good after such a long day.
Please do not worry, as I shall be back soon. I will look in on you on my return.
Your loving daughter
Elizabeth
The Chistleton Theatre was not an imposing building. Standing slightly back from the road, it was easy to miss unless you knew it was there. The frontage was narrow and bland, nothing like the decorated facades of the larger London theatres. It rarely boasted much of an audience, but the people who did come were keen and loyal.
Liz Oldfield barely glanced at the front of the building. It was dark and quiet — there was no performance this evening. A new play was in preparation, and Liz could just hear the sounds of the rehearsal. A deep voice was proclaiming loudly about the merits of afternoon tea, pausing at the end of each line of the script. She recognised it at once as the theatre’s leading man — Nigel Braithwaite. He was loud and brash and not talented enough to have made it in the larger theatres. But he was also intelligent and modest enough to recognise the fact. Despite his bluff manner, he was willing to listen to the producer’s advice and on the night he would be word perfect if not a hundred per cent convincing.
Braithwaite’s volume increased when Liz opened the door, and continued to grow as she made her way through the narrow backstage corridor towards the auditorium. She stood in the flies, just off stage, hoping not to be noticed as she watched Marcus Jessop attempt to tone down his star’s performance. Mary Manners was standing quietly beside Braithwaite on the stage, patient as ever.
‘And Mary,’ Jessop finished, ‘that was fine thank you.’
The woman smiled thinly. She was playing the leading lady, which meant that both the main characters were rather older than the author had intended. But they complemented each other well, Liz thought. If she felt a moment’s stab of regret that she had herself turned down Jessop’s offer of a leading role — again — then she did not admit it, even to herself. One day, she had promised, one day she would take up that offer. One day she would have the time to commit herself to the theatre. But she scarcely dared think when that might be, or of the events that would have to take place to give her that freedom.
Until then, she would swell the crowd scenes, help with the props, perhaps even serve as prompter. Jessop had promised her a walk-on part, and she hoped and prayed she would not have to let him down. He seemed to have faith in her and she had earned a round of applause for her brief appearance in the last play — to Mary Manners’s distinct annoyance and Nigel Braithwaite’s generous congratulation.
‘You’ve got something I have to admit that I haven’t,’ Braithwaite had said quietly to Liz in the wings after the last night’s performance. ‘Talent. Skill. The audience responds to you.’
Jessop’s voice jolted Liz back to the present: ‘Is that Miss Oldfield I see lurking in the wings there?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, stepping forward. ‘I ordered the dresses and the hats. They should be delivered later in the week.’
‘That’s terrific, thanks ever so much,’ Jessop told her. He ran down the centre aisle of the theatre from where he had been sitting half way back, and leaped on to the stage as if he was in his early twenties rather than his forties. ‘Sorry you’re reduced to helping with Wardrobe this time.’
Liz shook her head. ‘That’s all right. I’ll do anything I can.’
Jessop nodded sympathetically. He had thinning dark hair and thin-framed glasses that caught the lights as his head moved. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. He had a bushy moustache that bristled and twitched when he spoke, and Liz always found herself watching that instead of meeting his eyes. ‘Maybe next time, eh?’
‘Maybe,’ Liz said. It was what she always said, and at some point he would stop asking. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she told him. ‘I have to leave in a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that it is all in hand. And if there’s anything else I can do to help …?’
Jessop blew out a long sigh. ‘Not unless you have any idea how we can make that ashtray …’ He paused to indicate a silver-plated ashtray on a low wooden table on the stage beside them. ‘Make that ashtray fly across the room and land in Mr Braithwaite’s lap.’
Liz looked at the ashtray. Then she looked across the stage to where Braithwaite was sitting.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Like the policeman in the play, I haven’t a clue.’
‘Pity,’ Jessop said. He turned and made his way less enthusiastically back to the auditorium. ‘Still, I expect we’ll think of something.’ He did not sound convinced.
The mortuary was little more than a hut with a wooden table standing unevenly in the middle of the damp floor. Doctor Jones washed his hands in a cracked tin basin in the corner of the room and then turned his attention to the final job of the day.
The body was already on the table. Jones was annoyed that the clothes had been removed. Someone had washed the corpse, which made Jones doubly-angry. How many times had he told them that the deceased was not to be touched save by himself. To have the clothes removed was to take away possibly vital evidence. To clean the body was to wash away more evidence. Even though this one had been in the ground for a week, he would still have liked to have met the man in his original condition. Preferably still in the coffin.
This was not morbid fascination on the part of Jones. Rather, it was typical of the methodical and meticulous way he approached his work. He did not pretend to enjoy his work for the police, and would have been happy to go home after finishing his general practice. But he suffered from a sense of duty, and he was very aware that if he did not help out when necessary then in all probability no one would.
The least he could expect, then, was that the body he was due to examine should not be tampered with. That this one had been was obvious from the moment he started his examination. He double-checked the notes he had been given, but there was no mention of a previous autopsy. Perhaps the notes were wrong — certainly surgery had been performed after death.
But, Jones thought, it would take a physician more dedicated and conscientious than himself to open up a cadaver and then sew it back together so carefully. And the places where incisions had been made — there was no sense to it at all. Jones stepped back from the table and surveyed the body of Albert Wilkes. The scars were obvious to anyone with any training. They seemed to run the length of the limbs. There was evidence of incisions in the chest and even under the receding hairline. When he rolled the body on to its side he could see at once that the pattern of scars was repeated on the back of the corpse. But why? For what purpose?
Frowning and no longer tired or aware of the lateness of the hour, Jones set to work. Within minutes he was more puzzled than ever. After an hour he again stepped back from the table. He wiped his brow with his forearm. On the table beside the body was a long bone he had removed from the left leg. The flesh and skin that had surrounded it hung in loose flaps on the table. Jones just stared at it.
It did not take long for him to come to his decision. He opened the door of the small mortuary and called for the police constable who was posted to keep him company and lock up when he left.
‘You all done, sir?’ the constable asked hopefully. His hope visibly faded as he caught sight of Jones’s expression. ‘What is it, Doctor Jones?’