Dark Rooms

Chapter Seven

Jane opened her handbag and took out her compact, dabbing her nose and cheeks with powder, then combing her hair. She had just closed her handbag again when DC Taylor walked in, accompanied by a very handsome and exceedingly well-dressed man. He was wearing a pinstripe suit, and his tanned face and sun-bleached blond hair made it obvious that this must be Jason Thorpe. Before DC Taylor could introduce them, Jane stood up.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Jane Tennison, and you must be Jason Thorpe?’

‘Yes. How very nice to meet you. Just sad it’s under such distressing circumstances.’

‘Do sit down,’ Jane said, nodding at Tim to leave the room.

Jason opened his wallet and handed Jane his business card, showing he was head of a wine import company in New South Wales.

‘I would have come in earlier this morning, but I had a meeting to attend,’ he said.

‘Yes, the site foreman said you were with the developer,’ Jane said, eager to gauge his reaction.

He looked surprised. ‘Although I no longer own the property, having sold it to the developer, I was concerned that I might in some way be held accountable for what had been discovered and be presented with costs over the delays. I was relieved to hear they had permission to continue work at the site.’

Jane smiled, wondering if he was hiding something from her. ‘Yes, I believe today they were given clearance to demolish the shelter, where we made our tragic discoveries.’

Without asking permission, Jason opened a silver case from his suit pocket, pulled out a cigarette and tapped it on the closed case. He then took out what appeared to be a solid gold lighter and lit the cigarette.

‘Although I’m not privy to all the facts, what I’ve been told via my lawyer, Mr Hadley, is that the victim had been imprisoned inside the shelter by her own father.’ He exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke. ‘But I really have no further information to give you. I was just overseeing the eviction of the tenants with Mr Forgham when this horrific incident must have occurred.’

Jane couldn’t help feeling there was a rehearsed quality to what Mr Thorpe was telling her. She opened her notebook.

‘Yes, we know about the eviction of the tenants. The reason the poor girl was not discovered was because after Mr Forgham’s murder, and the final eviction, the house was boarded up and left empty.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s correct.’ By now the ash on his cigarette was almost an inch long and Jason peered around the room as if looking for an ashtray. Jane, who rarely smoked, opened a drawer and took one out, putting it on the desk in front of him.

‘Mr Thorpe, could I ask the reason for the long delay between the final eviction and you selling the property eighteen months ago?’

Jason tapped the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘My aunt, who actually owned the house, had always refused for it to be sold. I was able to persuade her that it would be financially beneficial to divide the house into flats, with the income from the rents sufficient to keep it in a reasonable condition. As it transpired, because it had been left empty for many years, it was not in the end that cost effective. Once the house had been divided up there was still considerable maintenance and repairs to be done. When these became too costly, I suggested to my aunt and her lawyer that it would be financially better to sell.’

‘So, it was your aunt who had always owned the property?’

‘Yes, she had been left it by her father.’

‘And it was your aunt who agreed for you to convert it into flats?’

‘Yes. I was obviously paid a certain amount to manage it and to hire a reliable maintenance man who would deal with all the problems.’

Jane noticed his hesitancy as he stubbed out his cigarette.

‘So after leaving the house empty, when did your aunt agree that it should be sold?’

‘My aunt became ill, and gave me power of attorney, so I acted in her best interests. By that time the house was in a bad state of disrepair; in fact, it was becoming quite dangerous.’

Jane made some notes as Jason Thorpe sat back in his chair. He was wearing strong aftershave which she was beginning to find rather overpowering.

‘Do you need me for anything further?’ he said. ‘I’m only here for a fleeting visit and I’ve got lots of meetings scheduled. Plus, I still need to see Mr Hadley.’

‘I won’t keep you much longer,’ Jane said, ‘but I do have a couple more important questions.’

Jason frowned. ‘I assure you that Mr Hadley can verify everything I have just told you. He has been my aunt’s lawyer for many years.’

Jane ignored him. ‘Mr Thorpe, did you insist that the basement should never be rented out?’

He blinked rapidly. ‘That was my aunt’s decision.’

‘Were you aware of a tunnel which led from the basement to the old shelter?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I had absolutely no idea about that. To be perfectly honest, I was only ever at the property for short periods of time, and I can’t really recall ever even seeing the shelter. My aunt was rather obsessive about her refusal to allow the basement to be used, as well as no tenant being allowed into the garden.’ He smiled. ‘As her nephew, I just did as I was told.’

Jane lowered her eyes as if concentrating on her notes. She was fully aware that Mr Thorpe had to have known there was a shelter in the garden as it was on all the council plans. However, she decided not to press the matter and was relieved when Barbara knocked and brought in two cups of tea, along with a bowl of sugar cubes and a teaspoon.

‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long, ma’am, but it’s lunchtime in the canteen.’

Jane didn’t thank her as she took the tray, placing it on her desk. Barbara gave Jason Thorpe a very obvious once-over.

‘If you need anything else, ma’am, just call.’

‘I will,’ Jane snapped, as Barbara left.

‘Mr Thorpe, I now have to tell you about a very distressing detail which you may not yet be privy to.’

She handed him his teacup and he waved his hand as she offered him sugar. He sipped the rather milky liquid with a look of distaste and Jane suspected that it was already tepid.

‘In the shelter we also discovered two slabs of concrete tied together with a leather strap. The slabs may have, at one time, surrounded some kind of water pipe,’ she stated.

Mr Thorpe appeared not to pay much attention as he put his teacup back down on the tray. Jane continued.

‘Mr Thorpe, wrapped in a blanket and a waterproof cloth, we discovered the mummified corpse of a baby.’

Jason’s jaw dropped open. ‘What?’

‘It has been estimated to have been in the shelter for possibly twenty-five to thirty years.’

‘Dear God! I don’t believe this...’

‘We have further disturbing information, I’m afraid. Apparently, the baby, possibly a newborn, had been buried alive.’

Jason seemed to be genuinely shocked. He leaned forward.

‘Surely you don’t think that any member of my family could have had anything to do with this dreadful thing?’

‘You must understand our situation, Mr Thorpe. We need to question your aunt as soon as possible in order to eliminate that possibility. We will also need your help in listing which family members lived at the property twenty to thirty years ago. But the first person I will need to talk to is your aunt, Helena Lanark.’

Jason stood up abruptly. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, but I really need to talk to my lawyer. I’m perfectly willing to assist you in every possible way, but my aunt is in a fragile state, not only physically but mentally, and I am deeply concerned about how this might affect her.’

Jane made a note and looked up. ‘I do understand your concerns, of course, Mr Thorpe. How long has your aunt been in a fragile state?’

‘For some considerable time.’

‘Is this when she gave you power of attorney over her property and finances?’ Jane asked.

It was as if she had hit a sore point. Jason Thorpe’s mouth turned down and he suddenly looked tense.

‘Detective, I really don’t like what you’re inferring. As I’ve just said, I’m perfectly willing to have a further discussion with you, but it is imperative that I now pass on to my lawyer all you have just told me.’

Jane stood up. There was no way she could actually stop Jason Thorpe from leaving the station. He wasn’t under suspicion, or even assisting police inquiries. However, his reaction had indicated to Jane that perhaps this wealthy young man had not acted entirely in his aunt’s best interests regarding the disposal of the house.

DS Hunt and DC Tim Taylor had already spent over an hour working through the Lanarks’ family tree. Jane had also requested that they contact births, deaths and marriages, and if needs be they should go in person to double check the facts. Meanwhile, Jane had contacted Mr Hadley and had been told that he was ‘unavoidably detained’, but that he would return her call as soon as possible.

DS Lawrence was becoming exceedingly irritated by the mortuary assistant’s attitude. The young man claimed that the two concrete slabs the infant’s corpse had been wedged between were no longer at the mortuary, and told Lawrence that he thought they had been removed a few days ago.

‘Are you serious?’ Lawrence said incredulously. ‘Have you checked with SOCO to see if they have retrieved them?’

‘I don’t know,’ the assistant said dismissively. ‘They were just two concrete slabs!’

Lawrence sighed, asking if he could be given access to the infant’s remains, which he knew had been delivered back to the mortuary from the pathology lab. They were held in a fridge in a very large plastic container that had been taped down to make it airtight. Lawrence looked down at his list.

‘Apparently there was a leather belt, as well. Do you know where this is now?’

The assistant shrugged. ‘No, I’ve got no idea. It may have been left over at the mortuary. I think you should ask the pathologist or the forensic expert, Miss Saddell. They would have arranged for it to be taken over there when it came in.’

Lawrence shook his head in frustration, surprised that Jane had not made sure the leather belt was retained for examination, given its potential forensic significance.

Lawrence signed out the large plastic container and carried it to his car, placing it carefully in the boot. He had not yet examined a mummified corpse, and if necessary, he was prepared to spend his own free time doing so and bringing in an anthropologist to help with his findings.

At the station Jane was perched on the edge of her desk whilst Sergeant Hunt went over what he had been able to discover about the Lanark family. The property had been inherited by a Charles Henry Lanark in 1923 from his father, also named Charles. Along with the property was a substantial fortune made from very successful printing companies. At the age of twenty-nine he had married Muriel Petrukhin, aged nineteen, and they had three children: Helena, Beatrice and Marjorie.

‘I’ve been over at the general registry office at St Catherine’s House, but it’s really complicated going that far back and I’m not that certain I have the correct dates.’

Jane was making notes and held up her pen. ‘How old are the three daughters now?’

‘Helena sixty-one, Beatrice is fifty-six, and Marjorie died aged twenty-two.’

‘Do we have the date of her death?’ Jane asked.

‘April 1955.’

Jane flicked through her notebook. ‘What about cause of death?’

He shook his head. ‘But the time frame means that the child could have been Marjorie’s.’ He frowned. ‘It could also have been either of the other daughters. We have the mother deceased aged fifty-five, and the father five years after that. She was very young when they married...’

Jane pursed her lips. ‘Well, we’ll have to check all this out. So, when Charles Henry Lanark died, do we have any information on his heirs?’

‘All we have been able to come up with so far is that his eldest daughter Helena was the main beneficiary. As you know, she retained ownership of the Stockwell property until it was sold by her nephew.’

‘What about the printing works that all the money came from?’

‘I believe they’ve long gone. But we really need more time to clarify everything... and this has taken up hours already.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Jane said. ‘And I think you’ve done a good job. My next thing will be a visit to Helena Lanark. I’ve been waiting on a return call from her lawyer, Mr Hadley. Thank you for all this. I’ll let you know what else I’d like you to work on.’

Detective Sergeant Hunt raised an eyebrow and headed for the door. ‘I think DCI Carter is back. Do you want me to run this by him?’

Jane frowned. ‘I’ll have a conversation with DCI Carter when I’m ready,’ she said curtly.

DS Lawrence had carefully removed the mummified infant, who remained encased in the blanket and waterproof wrapping. He placed the remains on the table, which had been covered with white paper, alongside an instrument tray. He checked through the pathologist’s notes, stating where he had cut the waterproof wrap and the time he had done so. The material was still pliable and reminded Lawrence of an old Burberry rainproof coat his father had worn. It even had the same almost greenish hue to the material.

The second note Johnson had made was regarding the blue blanket, which he judged to be fine cashmere. To Lawrence’s irritation, the blanket had been partly unfolded and cut away from the remains of the infant. Lawrence now paid more attention to the second page of notes. Johnson had identified the remains of the umbilical cord, which therefore indicated that the infant was a newborn. He also estimated that the baby had probably weighed six to seven pounds at birth and appeared to have no physical deformities or injuries. An underlined note stated that by opening the rib cage, thus losing the outer level of mummification, he had discovered minute fibres of the blue blanket. He had also discovered similar fibres at the back of the infant’s throat and nasal passages, indicating that the baby had been alive when it had been wrapped in the blue blanket.

Lawrence physically jumped when Emra Saddell tapped him on the shoulder.

‘So, you’ve got it now? I did a bit of a sidestep, to be honest, because I really didn’t fancy having to work on this little soul. I doubt that there can be any firm conclusion due to its age... and I believe Professor Johnson was of the same opinion.’

Lawrence gave her a small smile. ‘I’ve heard you’re working on that banker’s murder case. I always find it invigorating to be working on a fresh murder, but I’m really keen to find out just how much more information I can come up with on this old case. For example, someone cut this waterproof square to wrap around the child. Someone also must have owned this fine cashmere blanket which was wrapped around the baby so tightly shortly after the birth.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Emra said. ‘As sad as it is, it could all be a waste of time.’

Lawrence really wished Saddell would just leave him in peace if she was not going to say anything more positive. He then remembered the missing belt. ‘Did you ever see a belt, or whatever it was that was tied around the two blocks of cement?’

She nodded. ‘I did see it somewhere, but I don’t recall where it went. I believe Detective Inspector Tennison was with the foreman when he cut the leather strap at the building site, but I’ve got no idea if it’s still at the mortuary, or perhaps it was brought into the lab here.’

Lawrence shook his head. ‘I find this totally unacceptable. All exhibits seized by the police should be recorded in an exhibits book, with a reference number so the items can be tracked.’

‘OK, well, I’ll make some inquiries,’ Saddell said with a shrug. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

The incident room was a hive of activity. There had been a spate of burglaries and a shop keeper had been held at gunpoint; in addition, a local man had been found hanged and a woman had been reported as missing from a nearby nursing home. Samantha Forgham and the dead baby seemed to have been long forgotten as officers busily worked the phones and updated the incident board.

Jane knocked on DCI Carter’s door, but before she could even announce herself, the door swung open and Carter was standing in the doorway, rolling up his shirt sleeves.

‘I don’t believe this! I go out to have a meeting with the super and all hell breaks loose.’

Jane stepped aside. ‘I just wanted to run a few things by you, sir.’

‘Listen to me, Jane, I’ve had more things running by me in the past half hour than in the past six months. Do you know about these burglaries?’

‘I don’t have any of the facts yet, sir... but I just wanted to give you an update on the infant found in the shelter.’

He stopped in his tracks. ‘What about it?’

‘We’ve been tracing who owned the property thirty years ago. There were three women living there, and one of them may have given birth. In particular, I want to question Helena Lanark, who inherited the Stockwell property after her father’s death.’

Carter frowned. ‘What?’

‘It seems to me that a member of the family had to have been aware of the child in the shelter because the house had been deliberately left empty for many years. Then this Helena Lanark’s nephew gets power of attorney and had the house is turned into flats.’

‘Yes, yes, I read that. It was on the incident board,’ he said tersely.

‘My main concern is that no one was allowed to use the basement, and no tenant was allowed to use the garden. This is obviously rather suspicious...’

‘Suspicious? I tell you what, Jane, I wish to God whoever killed that baby had taken it out and buried it somewhere else.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘So, what do you want to do about it?’

‘I would like to proceed by interviewing Helena Lanark. And there is a possibility that there could even be a fraud involved.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing really adds up, sir. The owner’s nephew, Jason Thorpe, had power of attorney which allowed him to convert the house into flats, and when that was no longer financially viable, the tenants were evicted before Mr Thorpe sold it for a very high figure. It’s possible that Mr Thorpe may have filtered some of the money into his own account.’

DCI Carter folded his arms and leaned against the wall by his office door.

‘Tennison, you’ve gone from suspecting the women who lived at the house to now bringing in some nephew and adding in fraud. To be honest, it’s getting fucking out of control.’

The entire incident room went quiet as Carter raised his voice. Jane glanced at the officers, all trying to look as if they weren’t listening. She turned back to Carter.

‘I really don’t like the way you’re talking to me, sir. I am just doing my job, attempting to investigate the murder of that infant. To me, it seems quite obvious that the family must have known what was in that shelter. Just as they knew there was a tunnel from the house leading to it. That’s why no one was allowed in the basement or garden.’

Carter blew air out through his lips.

‘All right, all right... I apologise. I spoke out of turn, but I’ve got a lot of new cases to deal with and, as you are well aware, we work to a budget. This situation with the dead child has already been too costly. Do what you have to and get closure as quickly as possible. Right now, I could really use you on at least one of the other new cases that we’re trying to deal with.’ He walked off and banged through the double doors of the incident room.

Jane returned to her office. She didn’t hear exactly what anyone was saying but it was obvious that Carter’s lack of respect for her was now public knowledge.

As she closed her office door, her desk phone rang. It was Arnold Hadley, who apologised for taking such a long time to return her call. Jane tried to keep her voice under control, although she was still seething about the way Carter had spoken to her. She asked Mr Hadley if he could arrange for her to meet with Helena Lanark as soon as possible.

His reply was hesitant. ‘Well... she’s not in good health, to be honest. She’s in a care home in Hove.’

‘Can you give me the address, please?’ Jane said curtly. ‘And I’d like a meeting with you at your office tomorrow morning if that would be convenient.’

While she was on the phone, she calculated how long it would take for her to drive to Hove. She wanted to be back at home by seven to meet Eddie, and it was already two o’clock. Almost as an afterthought she asked Hadley about Beatrice Lanark. He told her that she was living in Australia with her son.

‘In fact, her son, Mr Thorpe, is here in London. I informed him about what had occurred in the shelter. I believe he’s discussing the situation at the Stockwell property with the developer.’

Jane’s suspicions concerning Jason Thorpe and the sale of the house were reignited. She made an effort to soften her tone. ‘Where does his mother, Beatrice, live?’ she asked.

‘Just outside Sydney... and Jason lives there with her.’

‘Thank you so much, Mr Hadley. Could I also just ask you about their younger sister, Marjorie? As far as we have been able to establish, she died very young? But we have no information on the cause of death.’

Mr Hadley paused, then spoke quietly.

‘I was obviously not representing the family in those days, but I believe that, very sadly, Marjorie took her own life... although I have no further details about the tragedy.’

‘Could I ask you how you knew about the suicide, Mr Hadley?’

‘My client, Helena Lanark, told me. She said that it had been a tragic and traumatic time in her life, but I know very little about the actual suicide.’

Jane thanked him for his time and ended the call. She realised that it was possible that Marjorie Lanark had given birth to the infant they had found and had then committed suicide. However, to date they had found no reference to the suicide, just a date of her death, and no details of an inquest. There was still a lot she needed to find out.