The Sedgemoor Strangler and Other Stories of Crime

Interior, with Corpse

Her chestnut brown hair curved in an S shape across the carpet, around a gleaming pool of blood. She was wearing an old-fashioned petticoat, white with thin shoulder straps. The lace hem had been drawn up her thigh, exposing stocking-tops and suspenders. The stockings had seams. Her shoes, too, dated the incident; black suede, with Louis heels. One of them had fallen off and lay on its side, close to the edge of a stone fireplace. The hearthstones were streaked with crimson and a blood-stained poker had been dropped there.

But what really shocked was the location. Beyond any doubt, this was Wing Commander Ashton’s living room. Anyone who had been to the house would recognise the picture above the fireplace of a Spitfire shooting down a Messerschmitt over the fields of Kent in the sunshine of an August afternoon in 1940. They would spot the squadron insignia and medals mounted on black velvet in the glass display cabinet attached to the wall; the miniature aircraft carved in ebony and ranged along the mantelpiece. His favourite armchair stood in its usual place to the right of the hearth. Beside it, the old-fashioned standard lamp and the small rosewood table with his collection of family photographs. True, some things had altered; these days the carpet was not an Axminster, but some man-made fibre thing in dark blue, fitted wall-to-wall. And one or two bits of furniture had gone, notably a writing desk that would have been called a bureau, with a manual typewriter on it — an Imperial — and the paper and carbons under the platen. It was now replaced with a TV set and stand.

DI John Brandon stared at the scene in its gilt frame, vibrated his lips, stepped closer and peered at the detail. He had to act. Calls had been coming in all morning about the picture in the window of Mason’s Fine Art Gallery. Some, outraged, wanted it removed. Others, more cautious, enquired if the police were aware of it.

They were now. Brandon understood why people were upset. He’d drunk sherry in the Wing Commander’s house many times. This oil painting was a near-perfect rendering of the old fellow’s living room. Interior, with corpse.

Brandon wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Defamation, possibly. But defamation is usually libel or slander. This was only a picture. Nothing defamatory had been said or written down.

He went into the gallery and showed his ID to Justin Mason, the owner, a mild, decent man with no more on his conscience than a liking for spotted bow-ties.

“That painting in the window, the one with the woman lying in a pool of blood.”

“The Davey Park? Strong subject, but one of his finest pieces.”

“Park? He’s the artist?”

“Yes. Did you know him? Local man. Died at the end of last year. He had his studio in that barn behind the Esso station. When I say ‘studio’, it was his home as well.”

“Did he give the picture a title?”

“I’ve no idea, inspector. He wasn’t very organised. It was left with a few others among his things. The executors decided to put them up for sale, and this was the only piece I cared for. The only finished piece, in fact.”

“How long ago was it painted?”

“Couldn’t tell you. He kept no records. He had some postcards made of it. They’re poor quality black and white jobs, nineteen-fiftyish, I’d say.”

“You realise what it shows?”

“A murder, obviously. You think it’s too gory for the High Street? I was in two minds myself, and then I remembered that series of paintings by Walter Sickert on the subject of the Camden Town murder.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Brandon admitted.

“I only mention them to show that it’s not without precedent, murder as the subject of a painting, I mean.”

“This is a real location.”

“Is it? So was Sickert’s, I believe.”

“It’s Wing Commander Ashton’s living room.”

Mason twitched and turned pale.

“Take my word for it.” said Brandon. “I’ve been there several times.”

“Oh, good Lord!”

“People have been phoning us.”

“I’ll remove it right away. I had no idea. I’d hate to cause offence to Wing Commander Ashton. Why, if it weren’t for men like him, none of us would be living in freedom.”

“I’ll have to take possession of it. You can have a receipt. Tell me some more about the artist.”

“Park? A competent professional. Landscapes usually. Never a big seller, but rubbed along, as they do. Not an easy man to deal with. We expect some eccentricity in artists, don’t we?”

“In what way?”

“He drank himself to death, so far as I can make out. Was well known in the Crown. Amusing up to a point, and then after a few more beers he would get loud-mouthed and abusive. He was more than once banned from the pub.”

“Doesn’t sound like a chum of the Wing Commander’s,” Brandon commented. The Battle of Britain veteran, not far short of his ninetieth birthday now, was eminently respectable, a school governor, ex-chairman of the parish council and founder of the Town Heritage Society. He’d written Scramble, Chaps, reputed to be the best personal account of the Battle of Britain. “They knew each other in years past, I believe, but they hadn’t spoken for years. There must have been an incident, one of Davey’s outbursts, I suppose. I couldn’t tell you the details.”

“I wonder who can — apart from the Wing Commander?”

Brandon left soon after with the painting well wrapped up. Back at the police station, he showed it to a couple of colleagues.

“Nasty,” said DS Makepeace.

“Who’s the woman supposed to be?” said DC Hurst.

“A figment of the artist’s imagination, I hope,” said Brandon. “If not, the Wing Commander has some awkward questions to face.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Not yet. It’s difficult. He’s frail. I’d hate to trigger a heart attack.”

“You’re going to have to ask him, guv.”

“He’s a war hero. A gentleman through and through. I’ve always respected him. I need more background before I take this on.”

“Try Henry at the Crown. He knew Davey Park better than anyone.”

Henry Chivers had been landlord for most of his life, and he was seventy now. He pulled a half of lager for the inspector and gave his take on Davey. “I heard about the painting this morning. A bit of a change from poppy fields and views of the church. Weird. Davey never mentioned it in here. He’d witter on about most things, including his work. He had an exhibition in the old Corn Exchange a year or so before he died. Bloody good artist. None of that modern trash. It was outdoor scenes, mostly. I’m sure this one with the woman wasn’t in the show. The whole town would have talked.”

“They’re talking now. He must have been inside the Wing Commander’s house, to paint it so accurately. It’s remarkable, the detail.”

“In years past they knew each other well. I’m talking about the fifties, now, half a century ago. They had interests in common — cricket, I think, and sports cars. Then they fell out over something pretty serious. Davey wouldn’t speak of it, and whenever the Wing Commander’s name was mentioned in the bar, he’d look up at the beam overhead as if he was trying to read the names on the tankards. Davey had opinions on most subjects, but he wouldn’t be drawn on the Wing Co.”

“Could it have been a woman?”

“The cause of the argument? Don’t know. Davey had any number of affairs — relationships, you’d call them now. The artistic temperament, isn’t it? A bit saucy for those days. But the Wing Co wasn’t like that. He was married.”

“When?”

“In the war, to one of those WAAFs who worked in the control rooms pushing little wooden markers across a map.”

“A plotter.”

“Right.”

“She must have died some years ago, then. I don’t remember her.”

“You wouldn’t. They separated. It wasn’t a happy marriage. He’s a grand old guy, but between you and me, he wouldn’t move on mentally. He was still locked into service life. Officially he was demobbed in 1945, and took a local job selling insurance, but he wouldn’t let go. RAF Association, British Legion, showing little boys his medals at the Air Training Corps. And of course he was writing that book about the Battle of Britain. I think Helen was suffocated.”

“Suffocated?”

“Not literally.”

“What became of her, then.”

“Nobody knows. She quit some time in the fifties, and no one has heard of her since.”

“That’s surprising, isn’t it?”

“Maybe she emigrated. Sweet young woman. Hope she had a good life.”

“Dark haired, was she?” Brandon asked. “Dark, long hair?”

“Now don’t go up that route, inspector. The old boy may have been a selfish husband, but he’s no murderer.”

Brandon let that pass. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“All right, she was a brunette. Usually had it fastened at the back in a ponytail, but I’ve seen it loose.”

“You said Davey Parks was a ladies’ man. Did he ever make a pass at Helen Ashton?”

Chivers pulled a face. “If he did, she wasn’t the sort to respond. Very loyal, she was. Out of the top drawer.”

“That’s nothing to go by,” said Brandon. “So-called well-brought-up girls were the goers in those days.”

“Take my word for it. Helen wouldn’t have given Davey the come-on, or anyone else.”

“She couldn’t have been all that loyal, or she’d never have left the Wing Commander.”

“I bet it wasn’t for another man,” said Chivers. “You’ll have to ask the old boy yourself, won’t you?”

Brandon could see it looming. How do you tell a ninety-year-old pillar of the community that half the town suspects he may have murdered his wife? Back at the police station, he studied that painting again, trying to decide if it represented a real incident, or was some morbid fantasy of the artist. The detail was so painstaking that you were tempted to think it must have been done from memory. The index and middle fingernails of the left hand, in the foreground, were torn, suggesting that the woman had put up a fight. The rest of the nails were finely manicured, making the contrast. Even the fingertips were smudged black from trying to protect herself from the sooty poker.

Yet clearly Davey Park couldn’t have set up his easel at a murder scene. The background stuff, the Spitfire picture, aircraft models and so on, could have been done from memory if he was used to visiting the house. The dead woman — whoever she was — must have been out of his imagination, unless Park had been there. Was the picture a confession — the artist’s way of owning up to a crime, deliberately left to be discovered after he died?

If so, how had the killing gone undetected? What had he done with the body?

The interview with the Wing Commander had to be faced. Brandon called at the house late in the afternoon.

“John, my dear fellow! What a happy surprise!” the old man innocently greeted him. “Do come in.”

The moustache was white, the hair thin and the stance unsteady without a stick, but for an old man he was in good shape, still broad-shouldered and over six feet. Without any inkling of what was to follow, he shuffled into his living room, with the inspector following.

The room was disturbingly familiar. Little had changed in fifty years.

“Please find somewhere to sit. I’ll get the sherry.” He tottered out again.

Brandon didn’t do as he was asked. This would be a precious interval of at least three minutes at the old man’s shuffling rate of progress. With a penknife he started scraping at the dark strips of cement between the hearthstones. If any traces of dried blood had survived for half a century, this was the likely place. He spent some minutes scooping the samples of dust into a transparent bag and pocketed it when he heard the drag of the slippers across the carpet.

He was upright and admiring the dogfight picture over the fireplace when the Wing Commander came in with the tray.

“My, this is a work of art.”

“Don’t know about that, but I value it,” said the old man. “Takes me back, of course.”

“Did you ever meet the artist?”

“No, it’s only a print. There are plenty of aviation artists selling to dotty old critters like me, nostalgic for the old days. We had a copy hanging in the officers’ mess at Biggin Hill.”

“I suppose it comes down to what will sell, like anything else. There was an artist in the town called Park, who specialised in landscapes. Died recently.”

“So I heard,” said the Wing Commander with a distinct change in tone.

“You knew him, didn’t you?”

“Years ago.” There was definitely an edge to the voice now.

“He painted a pretty accurate interior of this room. It was found among his canvases after he died.”

“Did he, by jove? That’s a liberty, don’t you think? Abuse of friendship, I call that.”

“He didn’t remain your friend, I heard.”

“We fell out.”

“Do you mind telling me why?”

“Actually, I do, John. It’s a closed book.”

In other circumstances, Brandon would have put the screws on. “But you must have been close friends for him to know this room so well.”

“I suppose he’d remember it. Used to drop in for a chat about cricket. We both played for the town team.” The Wing Commander poured the sherry and handed one to Brandon. “Are you here in an official capacity?”

It had to be said. “I’m afraid so. The picture I mentioned wasn’t just an interior scene.” He hesitated. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. It had the figure of a woman in it, lying across the carpet, apparently dead of a head wound.”

“Good God!”

“There was a poker beside her. You don’t seem to keep a set of fire irons any longer.”

“It’s gas now.” The Wing Commander had turned quite crimson. “Look here, since you’ve come to question me, I think I have a right to see this unpleasant picture. Where is it?”

“At the police station, undergoing tests. I can let you see it, certainly, later in the week. What bothers me is whether it has any foundation in real events.”

“Meaning what? That a woman was attacked here — in my living room?”

Brandon had to admire the old man’s composure. “It seems absurd to me, too, but he was an accurate painter—”

“An alcoholic.”

“...and wasn’t known to paint anything he hadn’t seen for himself.”

“Don’t know about that. Painters of that time used to use their dreams as inspiration. What do they call it — surrealism?”

“I have to ask this, Wing Commander. You separated from your wife in the nineteen-fifties.”

“Helen? She left me. We found out we were incompatible, as many others have done.”

“Did you ever divorce?”

“No need. I didn’t want another marriage.”

“Didn’t she?”

“Evidently not.”

“You’re not in touch?”

“When it’s over, it’s over.”

He’s lost none of his cricketing skills, thought Brandon. He could stonewall with the best.

The dust samples went to the Home Office forensic department for analysis. In three days they sent the result: significant traces of human blood had been found. Normally, he would have been excited by the discovery. This was a real downer.

So a gentle enquiry was transformed into a murder investigation. Wing Commander Ashton was brought in for questioning and a scene of crime team went through his house. More traces of dried blood were found, leaving no question that someone had sustained a serious injury in that living room.

The Wing Commander faced the interrogation with the dignity of a veteran officer. He had lost contact with his wife in 1956 and made no effort to trace her. There had been no reason to stay in contact. They had no children. She had been comfortably off and so was he. No, her life had not been insured.

Brandon sensed that the old man held the truth in high regard. It was a point of honour not to lie. He wasn’t likely to volunteer anything detrimental to himself, but he would answer with honesty.

When shown the painting that was the cause of all the fuss, he gave it a glance, no more, and said the woman on the floor didn’t look much like his wife, what you could see of her. He was allowed to go home, only to find a team of policemen digging in his garden. He watched them with contempt.

A public appeal was made for the present address of Mrs Helen Ashton, aged 79. It was suggested that she might be using another name. This triggered massive coverage in the press. Davey Parks’s painting was reproduced in all the dailies with captions like: IS THIS A MURDER SCENE? and PROOF OF MURDER OR CRUEL HOAX?

The response was overwhelming and fruitless. Scores of old ladies, some very confused, were interviewed and found to have no connection with the case. It only fuelled the suspicion that Helen Ashton had been dead for years.

The investigation was running out of steam. Nothing had been found in the garden. There were no incriminating diaries, letters or documents in the house.

“What about the book?” someone asked. “Did he have anything mean to say about his wife?”

Brandon had already skimmed through the book. Helen wasn’t mentioned.

The answer to the mystery had to be in the picture. If the artist Davey Park knew a murder had been committed, and felt strongly enough to have made this visual record, he’d wanted the truth to come out. Then why hadn’t he informed the police? Either he had killed Helen Ashton himself, or he felt under some obligation to keep the secret until he died. The picture was his one major work never to have been exhibited.

Either way, it suggested some personal involvement. He’d been known to have numerous affairs. Had Helen Ashton refused his advances and paid for it with her life?

Brandon stared at the picture once more, systematically studying each detail: the bloodstained fireplace, the pictures, the medals, the photos on the table, the armchair, the typewriter on the bureau, the dead woman, the blood on the carpet, her clothes, her damaged fingernails, her blackened fingertips. By sheer application he spotted something he’d missed before.

She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. The hand in the foreground was her left and the ring finger was bare.

“I deserve to be sacked,” he said aloud.

Park had been so careful over detail that he wouldn’t have forgotten to paint in the ring. And in the fifties, most married women wore their rings at all times.

“You’re joking, guv,” said DS Makepeace when Brandon asked him to make a list of the women Davey Park had been out with in the nineteen-fifties.

“I’m not. There are people in the town who remember. It was hot gossip once.”

“Did he keep a diary, or something?”

“If he had, we’d have looked through it weeks ago. All he left behind were pictures and unpaid bills. Start with Henry Chivers, in the Crown.”

After another week of patiently assembling information, Brandon had the Wing Commander brought in for further questioning.

Sergeant Makepeace thought he should have waited longer, and didn’t mind speaking out. “I think he’ll stall, guv. You won’t get anything out of him.”

“No,” said Brandon firmly. “He’s one of those rare witnesses you can rely on. A truth-teller. With his background it’s a point of honour to give truthful answers. He won’t mention anything that isn’t asked, but he won’t lie, either.”

“You admire him, don’t you?”

“That’s what makes it so painful.”

So the old man sat across the desk from Brandon in an interview room and the tape rolled and the formalities were gone through.

“Wing Commander Ashton, we now believe the woman who was attacked in your house was not your wife.”

A soft sigh escaped. “Isn’t that what I told you from the beginning?”

“The woman in the picture doesn’t have a wedding ring. I should have looked for it earlier. I didn’t.”

The only response was a slight shrug.

Brandon admitted, “When I realised this, I was thrown. The victim could be anybody — any dark-haired young woman without a ring. There had to be some extra clue in the painting, and there is. She was the woman who typed your book. Her name was Angela Hamilton. Is that correct?”

He said stiffly, giving only as much as his moral code decreed, “I had a typist of that name, yes.”

“She was murdered in your house in the manner shown in the painting. Davey Parks saw the scene just after it happened and painted it from memory.”

The Wing Commander spread his hands. “The existence of this painting was unknown to me until I saw it here a few days ago.”

“But you confirm that Miss Hamilton was the victim?”

“Yes.”

“I’m interpreting the picture now. It gives certain pointers to the crime.”

“Like the typewriter.”

“Just so. And the reason she was partially dressed is that you and she had been making love, probably in that room where she typed for you. Precisely where is not important. Your wife came home — she was supposed to be out for some considerable time — and caught you cheating on her.”

The Wing Commander didn’t deny it. He looked down at his arthritic hands. The passions of fifty years ago seemed very remote.

Brandon continued: “We think what happened is this. To use an old-fashioned phrase, Angela Hamilton was a fast woman, an ex-lover of the artist Davey Park. Park heard she’d been taken on by you as a part-time typist and found out that she didn’t spend all her time in front of the machine. Perhaps she boasted to him that she’d seduced the famous Battle of Britain hero, or perhaps he played Peeping Tom at your window one afternoon. Anyway, he decided to tell your wife. He’d been trying to flirt with her, with no success. He thought if she found out you were two-timing, she might be encouraged to do the same. She didn’t believe him, so he offered to prove it. They both turned up at your house when you and Angela were having sex. Is that a fair account?”

“They caught us in some embarrassment, yes,” said the Wing Commander.

“You were shocked, guilt-stricken and extremely angry. The worst part was seeing Park and realising he’d told your wife. Did you go after him?”

“I did, and caught him in the garden and let fly with my fists.” At last, the Wing Commander was willing to give more than the minimum of information. “I was so incensed I might have injured him permanently.”

“What stopped you?”

There was an interval of silence, while the old man decided if at last he was free to speak of it. “There was a scream from the house. I hear it now. Like no other scream I have ever heard. The fear in it. Horrible. We abandoned the fight and rushed inside.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes. He saw it too. Angela, dead on the floor, with blood seeping from her head and the poker beside her, just as it is in the picture. Helen had already run out through the back. Such ferocity. I never knew she had it in her.”

“What did you do?”

“With the body? Drove it to a place I know, a limestone quarry, and covered it with rubble. It has never been found. I blamed myself, you see. Helen had acted impulsively. She didn’t deserve to be hanged, or locked up for life. You’ll have to charge me with conspiracy.”

“I’ll decide on the charge,” said Brandon. “So you felt you owed it to your wife to cover up the crime. What did she do?”

“Packed up her things and left. She wanted no more to do with me, and I understood why. I behaved like a louse and got what I deserved.”

“You truly didn’t hear from her again?”

“I have a high regard for the truth.”

“Then you won’t know the rest of the story. Your wife took another name and moved, first to Scotland, and then Suffolk. Davey Parks, always scratching around for a living, saw a chance of extorting money.”

“Blackmail?”

“He set out to find her, and succeeded. We’ve looked at a building society account he had. Regular six-monthly deposits of a thousand pounds were made at a branch in Stowmarket, Suffolk, for over twenty years.”

“The fiend.”

“He painted the picture as a threat. Had some postcards made of it. Each year, as a kind of invoice, he would send her one — until she died in 1977.”

“I had no idea,” said the Wing Commander. “He was living in my village extorting sums of money from my own wife. It’s vile.”

“I agree. Perhaps if you’d made contact with her, she would have told you.”

He shook his head. “Too proud. She was too proud ever to speak to me again.” His eyes had reddened. He took out a handkerchief. “You’d better charge me before I make an exhibition of myself.”

Brandon shook his head. “I won’t be charging you, sir.”

“I want no favours, just because I’m old.”

“It would serve no purpose. You’d be given a suspended sentence at the very worst. There’s no point. But I have a request. Would you show us where Angela Hamilton was buried?”

The remains were recovered and given a Christian burial a month later. Brandon, Sergeant Makepeace and Wing Commander Ashton were the only mourners.

On the drive back, Makepeace said, “One thing I’ve been meaning to ask you, sir.”

“Ask away.”

“That picture contained all the clues, you said. Davey Park made sure.”

“So he did.”

“Well, how did you know Angela Hamilton was the victim?”

“She was on your list of Clark’s girlfriends.”

“It was a long list.”

“She was the only one who temped as a typist. The typewriter was in the picture. A big clue.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“You’re not old enough to have used an ancient manual typewriter,” Brandon added. “If you remember, her fingertips were smudged black. At first I assumed it was soot, from the poker, but the marks were very precise. In those days when you wanted more than one copy of what you typed, you used carbon paper. However careful you were, the damned stuff got on the tips of your fingers.”