Inspector Walsh replaced the telephone receiver and stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. Dr. Webster had been irritatingly unhelpful. "Can't prove it is Maybury, can't prove it isn't," he had said cheerfully along the wire, "but my professional guess is it isn't."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Too many discrepancies. I can't make a match on the hair for a kick-off, though I'm not saying that's the end of it. I've sent samples off to a friend of mine who claims to be an expert in these things but don't get your hopes up. He warned me that the sample you got off Maybury's hairbrush may have deteriorated too far. Certainly I couldn't do anything with it."
"What else?"
"Teeth. Did you notice our corpse was toothless? Not an incisor or molar in sight. Indications that he had dentures, but there were none with him. Looks like something or someone removed them. Now, Maybury on the other hand had all his teeth ten years ago and his records show they were in pretty good shape, only four fillings between them. That's a very different picture, George. He'd have to have suffered appalling gum disease to necessitate having all his teeth out within ten years."
Walsh pondered for a moment. "Let's say, for whatever reason, he wanted to lose his old identity. He could have had them taken out on purpose."
Webster chuckled good-humouredly. "Far-fetched though not impossible. But why would Ms. Maybury remove his dentures in that case, assuming she's our murderer? She, of all people, would know they couldn't identify him. To be honest, George, I'd say it's the other way round. Whoever murdered our chap in the ice house removed anything that would show he wasn't Maybury. He's had all his toes and fingertips mauled, for example, as if someone wanted to prevent us taking prints. Yet everyone at that house knows you didn't manage to lift a single workable print ten years ago."
"God damn it," exploded Walsh. "I thought I had the bastard at last. Are you sure, Jim? What about the missing fingers?"
"Well, they're certainly missing, but it looks as though they've been chopped off with a meat cleaver. I've compared them with the records of Maybury's amputations and they're nothing like. Maybury had lost the top two joints of both fingers. Our corpse has had his severed at the base of each finger."
"Doesn't prove it's not Maybury."
"I agree, but it does look as if someone who knew only that he'd lost his last two fingers has tried to make us think it's Maybury. To be honest, George, I'm not even positive at the moment that a human agency is involved. It is quite conceivable, if a little bizarre, that very sharp teeth have mutilated him in the way I've described. Take that filleting you pointed out. I've taken some close-ups of some furrows on the ribs and it's damned hard to say what they are. I can't rule out tooth marks."
"Blood group?"
"Yup, you've got a match there all right. Both O positive, just like fifty per cent of the population. And, talking of blood, you must find his clothes. There's very little in that mud we scraped off the floor."
"Great," Walsh had growled, "so what good news have you got for me?"
"I'm getting the report typed now, but I'll give you the gist. Male, white, five feet ten inches-give or take an inch on either side, both femurs have been well and truly smashed so I wouldn't be too dogmatic on that one-broad build probably running to fat, hair on chest and shoulder blades, indication of tattoo discolouration on right forearm, size eight shoe. No idea of hair colour but hair was probably dark brown before it went grey. Age, over fifty."
"Oh, for God's sake, Jim. Can't you be more precise?"
"It's not a precise science as people get older, George, and a few teeth would have helped. It's all a question of fusion between the skull plates, but somewhere between fifty and sixty is my guess at the moment. I'll come back to you when I've done some more homework."
"All right," said Walsh grudgingly. "When did he die?"
"I've taken some advice on this one. The consensus is, weighing the heat of the summer against the cool of the ice house-bearing in mind that the ambient temperature in the ice house may have been quite high if the door was open-and balancing that against the acceleration in decomposition after the scavengers had pulled him open and devoured him, plus possible mutilation by human agency but minus severe maggot infestation because the blowflies didn't lay in numbers, though I've sent some larvae off for further examination-"
"All right, all right, I didn't ask for a bloody biology lesson. How long's he been dead?"
"Eight to twelve weeks or two to three months, whichever you prefer."
"I don't prefer either of them. They're too vague. There's a month's difference. Which do you favour, eight or twelve?"
"Probably somewhere in the middle, but don't quote me."
"You'll be lucky," was Walsh's parting shot. He slammed the phone down crossly, then buzzed his secretary on the intercom. "Mary, love, could you get me all the details on a man who was reported missing about two months ago? Name: Daniel Thompson, address: somewhere in East Deller. I think you'll find Inspector Staley covered it. If he's free, ask him to give me five minutes, will you?"
"Sure thing," she breezed back.
His eyes strayed to the huge file on David Maybury which he'd resurrected from the archives that morning, and which, refurbished and glossy in its pristine new folder, sat now on the edge of his desk like a promise of spring. "You bastard!" said Chief Inspector Walsh.
10
Summoned by urgent telephone calls, Jonathan Maybury and Elizabeth Goode arrived early that afternoon in Jonathan's battered red Mini. As he drove it in through the gates and past the Lodge, Elizabeth turned to him with a worried frown. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" "Tell anyone what?"
"You know perfectly well. Promise me, Jon."
He shrugged. "OK, but I think you're mad. Much better to come clean now."
"No," she said firmly. "I know what I'm doing."
He glanced out of the window at the azaleas and rhododendrons, long past their best, which hedged the length of the driveway. "I wonder if you do. From where I stand, there's very little difference between your paranoia on the subject and your mother's. You'll have to find the guts to speak out sooner or later, Lizzie."
"Don't be an idiot," she snapped.
He slowed as the wide sweep of gravel in front of the house opened up before them. Two cars were already parked there. "Plainclothes police cars," he said with grim humour, drawing the mini alongside one of them. "I hope you're ready for the thumbscrews."
"Oh, for God's sake grow up," she exploded angrily, her worry and her uncertain temper getting the better of her. "There are times when I could quite happily murder you, Jon."
"We've found a pair of shoes, sir." DC Jones placed a transparent plastic bag on the ground at Walsh's feet.
Walsh, who was sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the woodland surrounding the ice house, leaned forward to peer at the bag's contents. The shoes were good quality brown leather with irregular cloudy patches on the surface where damp had penetrated and then dried. One shoe had a brown lace, the other a black lace. Walsh turned the bag over and looked at the soles.
"Interesting," he said. "New heels with metal studs. There's hardly a mark on them. What size are they?"
"Eights, sir." Jones pointed to the shoe with the brown, lace. "You can just make it out on that one."
Walsh nodded. "Tell one of your men to go up to the house and find out what size shoes Fred Phillips and Jonathan Maybury wear, then on down to the village to see how Robinson and his chaps are getting on. If they've finished, I want them up here."
"Righto," said Jones irreverently.
Walsh stood up. "I'll be at the ice house with Sergeant McLoughlin."
DS Robinson returned to the pub as the last customers left.