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Authors: Siân Busby
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was no evidence that he could see of anyone having been dragged through the scrub and the dust.
“Looks like she came in here of her own accord.”
Lucas nodded in agreement.
“There’s hardly a woman in London who doesn’t have a secret. Bastard kids and VD – that’s the real legacy of the war for you.”
Cooper puffed on his pipe in a non-committal way and looked about him once more, mentally tracing the route they might have taken towards the tree. Spotting something, he stooped to inspect a patch of ground a few yards in front of the body, two or three feet square, beside a pile of stones. The vegetation beneath the shelter of the tree was well trodden.
“I’d say they came to a stop here,” he said. The grass and plants were only just beginning to wilt, and among the pile of stones scattered about here and there was a large piece of limestone, part of the foundations of the bombed house, he assumed. Squinting against the plume of smoke from his pipe, he squatted beside it. “Probably stood here for a while before lying down on the ground.”
“And doing the business,” said Lucas.
There were a couple of blades of grass on the surface of the stone, most likely transferred from the ground. Without being asked, Lucas handed him a pair of tweezers, then unrolled a leather strip from the murder bag and selected a glass test tube. He held it out towards Cooper and received a blade of grass from the tweezers.
Cooper now shifted his focus to two cigarette stubs that were lying in close proximity to a couple of used prophylactics , beneath the thicket that had grown up around the base of the tree. He picked up one with the tweezers and examined it closely. The end was coated in dark red lipstick.
“That looks like the same shade she’s painted her nails to me,” he observed. “What do you think?” Lucas nodded, unconcerned one way or the other, and deposited the stubs into another test tube. Cooper was examining the soles of the dead woman’s shoes, from where he had retrieved another blade of grass.
“So,” said Lucas, “they came in over there and walked up to the tree; stood here for a while; shared a fag. She removes her drawers, they spread out the mackintosh; she asks him for the money; he tells her she must be joking; they have a bit of a fight; he forces himself upon her and strangles her. And then he took her handbag.”
Cooper pondered this scenario.
“Something about it doesn’t seem right,” he said.
“I don’t know; seems routine to me, sir.”
Cooper leaned back on his heels and fanned himself with his hat, looking about him all the while for anything else that might supply a clue, the significance of which he had yet to, might never, discern. He stood up and crossed to the remains of wall on either side of the corrugated iron, scratching at the pointing, scraping particles of brick dust with the blunt end of the tweezers into yet another glass phial.
The little things are the most important, he told himself. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes had not seen the things he had seen, but that did not detract from the truth of the observation . A blade of grass, a scraping of brick dust, might be all it took to hang a man. It never failed to astonish him.
Dejection came upon him suddenly. Who was he fooling? Not himself. He was gathering these fragments of information not because he was some sort of latter-day genius of detection , but because he did not know what else to do. That was the unpalatable truth of it.
“The trouble is,” Lucas said as if reading his thoughts, “a detective needs information, and you know as well as I do, sir, there’s never any information in a case like this. Know thine enemy – that’s what it says in the Bible, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I think it’s Sun Tzu –
The Art of War
.”
“Know thine enemy. That could have been written by a detective. Trouble is, I’m not sure I want to get to know the sort of blighter who strangles a woman
“Looks like she came in here of her own accord.”
Lucas nodded in agreement.
“There’s hardly a woman in London who doesn’t have a secret. Bastard kids and VD – that’s the real legacy of the war for you.”
Cooper puffed on his pipe in a non-committal way and looked about him once more, mentally tracing the route they might have taken towards the tree. Spotting something, he stooped to inspect a patch of ground a few yards in front of the body, two or three feet square, beside a pile of stones. The vegetation beneath the shelter of the tree was well trodden.
“I’d say they came to a stop here,” he said. The grass and plants were only just beginning to wilt, and among the pile of stones scattered about here and there was a large piece of limestone, part of the foundations of the bombed house, he assumed. Squinting against the plume of smoke from his pipe, he squatted beside it. “Probably stood here for a while before lying down on the ground.”
“And doing the business,” said Lucas.
There were a couple of blades of grass on the surface of the stone, most likely transferred from the ground. Without being asked, Lucas handed him a pair of tweezers, then unrolled a leather strip from the murder bag and selected a glass test tube. He held it out towards Cooper and received a blade of grass from the tweezers.
Cooper now shifted his focus to two cigarette stubs that were lying in close proximity to a couple of used prophylactics , beneath the thicket that had grown up around the base of the tree. He picked up one with the tweezers and examined it closely. The end was coated in dark red lipstick.
“That looks like the same shade she’s painted her nails to me,” he observed. “What do you think?” Lucas nodded, unconcerned one way or the other, and deposited the stubs into another test tube. Cooper was examining the soles of the dead woman’s shoes, from where he had retrieved another blade of grass.
“So,” said Lucas, “they came in over there and walked up to the tree; stood here for a while; shared a fag. She removes her drawers, they spread out the mackintosh; she asks him for the money; he tells her she must be joking; they have a bit of a fight; he forces himself upon her and strangles her. And then he took her handbag.”
Cooper pondered this scenario.
“Something about it doesn’t seem right,” he said.
“I don’t know; seems routine to me, sir.”
Cooper leaned back on his heels and fanned himself with his hat, looking about him all the while for anything else that might supply a clue, the significance of which he had yet to, might never, discern. He stood up and crossed to the remains of wall on either side of the corrugated iron, scratching at the pointing, scraping particles of brick dust with the blunt end of the tweezers into yet another glass phial.
The little things are the most important, he told himself. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes had not seen the things he had seen, but that did not detract from the truth of the observation . A blade of grass, a scraping of brick dust, might be all it took to hang a man. It never failed to astonish him.
Dejection came upon him suddenly. Who was he fooling? Not himself. He was gathering these fragments of information not because he was some sort of latter-day genius of detection , but because he did not know what else to do. That was the unpalatable truth of it.
“The trouble is,” Lucas said as if reading his thoughts, “a detective needs information, and you know as well as I do, sir, there’s never any information in a case like this. Know thine enemy – that’s what it says in the Bible, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I think it’s Sun Tzu –
The Art of War
.”
“Know thine enemy. That could have been written by a detective. Trouble is, I’m not sure I want to get to know the sort of blighter who strangles a woman
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