House of flies, p.4
House of Flies, page 4
He looked around. The only other people in sight were three schoolboys who were kicking a ball to each other and an elderly woman in a bright-pink coat who was walking her dog. He took his phone out of his anorak pocket and pressed 999.
‘Emergency. Which service, please?’
‘I don’t know, love. I’m fishing at Wandsworth Common pond and I think someone’s gone and got drowned.’
‘What makes you think that, sir?’
‘Well, they’re bobbing around in the middle of the pond and they haven’t come up for air.’
‘All right, sir. Please stay where you are and emergency services will be with you in a few minutes. Please don’t enter the water yourself.’
‘I wasn’t going to, miss. It’s bloody freezing cold and they’re well past saving, whoever they are.’
George stayed by the side of the pond, clapping his hands and shuffling his feet to keep warm. After fifteen minutes, three police cars and a police van appeared in the road beside the common, their blue lights flashing, followed by a black coroner’s ambulance.
Nine officers came across the grass towards him, two of them wearing black wet suits and helmets.
‘Thanks for your call, sir,’ said a young inspector. ‘So – where’s our floater?’
George pointed out to the middle of the pond. The ducks had returned and were circling around the body and appeared to be pecking at it.
‘Go on,’ the inspector told the two officers in wet suits. ‘Fish it out before there’s nothing left of it.’
The officers waded into the pond. In the middle of it, the water came up to their shoulders.
They shooed the ducks away and then they slowly dragged the body to the side of the pond, lifting it out through the weeds with its arms dangling down. Two coroner’s assistants had wheeled a trolley across the grass, and the officers lifted the body up on to it and turned it over. It was then that they could see from his shrivelled penis that he was a male, although he was badly decomposed.
His eye sockets were empty and his nose had rotted away, leaving two triangular holes. His pallid skin was stretched over his ribcage and his pelvis, and his feet were like fleshless claws. He was baring his teeth in a maniacal grin because he had no lips.
‘Blimey,’ said one of the officers. ‘He looks like he’s been dead since last Christmas.’
‘Well, I don’t think you’re far wrong,’ said the inspector. ‘And he didn’t drown here, either accidentally or intentionally, there’s no mistake about that.’
‘I was here only two days ago,’ said George. ‘He certainly wasn’t floating around here then.’
The inspector bent over the man’s body so that he could examine it more closely, his hand cupped over his nose and his mouth. Then he stood back and said, ‘I reckon he was deceased long before he was dropped into the pond. Weeks, even months. It could be that someone was afraid his body was going to be discovered, and was trying to dispose of the evidence. I’ve come across that before.’
‘Not a very clever way of doing it, though, was it?’ put in one of his officers. ‘They would have been much better off chucking him into the Thames. At least the tide would have carried him away.’
‘We’ll be taking him to Falcon Road,’ said one of the coroner’s assistants, a smart young black man in dark glasses. ‘You’ll be wanting a forensic postmortem, won’t you, and Dr Crowe’s there just now.’
‘Of course,’ the inspector told him. ‘Cause of death isn’t obvious, is it? No stab wounds or bullet holes so far as I can see. He could have been suffocated – or poisoned, if there’s still any trace of it left in his system.’
He turned to George. ‘Thank you again for alerting us, sir. If I could take your contact details, in case we need a short statement about how you first discovered the deceased. You can carry on now with whatever you were doing.’
George looked across the pond, which was faintly rippled by the breeze. Three forensic technicians had arrived in their white snowman suits, and they had already started to comb the edges of the pond for any sign of tyre tracks in the grass or footprints in the mud.
‘I was just about to start fishing,’ said George. ‘But, you know, I think I’ll give it a miss for today. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fish here again. Never.’
*
Jamila and Jerry found Edge in the canteen when they returned to Lavender Hill. He was having a cup of tea and a corned beef sandwich, with the racing pages of the Sun spread out on the table in front of him.
‘Don’t you ever stop filling your face?’ Jerry asked him.
‘Got to keep my strength up. I’ve entered myself for the London marathon, and I’m in training.’
‘That’s over twenty-six miles, Edge. When do you ever get the time to train?’
‘I haven’t actually started any running yet. I’m training myself mentally. The brain burns up just as many calories as the body.’
‘Well, talking of bodies, do you want to show us all this CCTV footage?’
Edge slurped the last of his tea and picked up the second half of his sandwich. They went together up to the communications room and sat down in front of one of the monitors. It was dim and silent in there, with two female officers watching nine different screens.
‘So – have you had any luck finding out where the suspect might have come from?’ asked Jamila.
‘Not yet. As I’ll show you, the first sight of him is coming out of the north side of Clapham Common, but I still haven’t been able to see where he entered it. Two of the cameras on the west side of the common were out of action, one by Broomwood Road and the other at the end of Nightingale Walk. They still are. I was having a quick break and then I was going to search a bit wider.’
He switched on the monitor and they could see the suspect leaving Clapham Common on the north side and heading up Rectory Grove towards St Gratus church.
For some reason, the CCTV cameras had been unable to focus on him in any detail. He was taller than average height, but his outline was blurred, and he reflected the light from the street lamps so that he appeared to shine – even, at times, to glitter. Jamila and Jerry could see that DCI Butcher had been right: although he was making his way up Rectory Grove as fast as if he were running, his legs were not moving at all.
‘Gordon Bennett,’ said Jerry. ‘He’s flying along. How’s he doing that? Just like you said, ma’am, he’s not wearing roller-skates. It’s not too clear, is it, but it looks like his feet are dragging along the pavement.’
Jamila peered at the monitor closely, with her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Is he wearing some kind of special suit, made of tin foil? It’s covering his head as well as his body. He looks like an alien out of a science-fiction film.’
‘I’ve tried focusing on him sharper,’ said Edge. ‘But this is the best I could get. His outline’s all kind of flickery, isn’t it?’
They sat and watched as the suspect reached the rectory by the side of St Gratus church. Although the CCTV camera was some distance away, they could see him standing in the porch for a few moments, and then they could see that he opened the front door and disappeared inside. The time was 11:37.
‘So how did he get in?’ asked Jerry. ‘More important, how did he get out? According to Butcher, that door was locked when the churchwarden went in to find the reverend dead, and it had to be locked with a key after it was closed.’
‘We can see him come out,’ said Edge. He fast-forwarded the CCTV footage until the suspect reappeared in the rectory porch, exactly sixteen minutes and twenty seconds later. He turned to face the door as if he were locking it, and then he made his way back down Rectory Grove, as fast as he had before. He turned into Clapham Common, and that was the last recording of him.
At that time of night, only a few people had been walking up and down Rectory Grove, but almost all of them had stopped and stared at the suspect as he went sliding past them. At least one of them had taken out her phone to take a video of him, but by the time she held it up he had vanished into the darkness.
‘Has anybody reported seeing him?’ asked Jamila.
Edge chewed and swallowed the last of his sandwich and shook his head. ‘Gillian’s been checking social media to see if anybody’s posted a picture or a video of him, but nothing so far.’
‘Right, then, we’ll let you crack on with your searching,’ Jerry told him. ‘I think it’s worth posting an appeal for witnesses on Facebook and Instagram and X. I know it was late at night, but somebody must have seen him before he started crossing the common. You couldn’t really miss a shiny bloke whizzing past you without moving his legs, could you, even if you were pissed as a newt.’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I pick him up again,’ said Edge. ‘It might take some time, though. He could have come from any direction at all.’
Jamila and Jerry went downstairs to Jerry’s office. DS Watkins had gone out on a shout, but she had left behind the lingering smell of her Ariana Grande perfume spray.
‘So, we’re going to take this case on?’ asked Jerry.
Jamila nodded. ‘Yes. But not only because DCI Butcher wants us to. He is not a stupid man, but he has obviously recognised that with this investigation he is way out of his depth.’
‘And we’re not?’
‘We may be. But we have successfully dealt with cases that are equally strange, haven’t we? And I am very curious to find out who or what this suspect might be. Is he anything like a vetala? I’m sure that you want to know too.’
‘Well, I do, for sure. I was just wondering that even if we locate him, maybe we’ll need to rent a couple of e-scooters to catch up with him.’
‘Jerry – are you ever serious?’
‘Always. But like Ruthie said, you either laugh in this job or you go off your head. Especially when you’re supposed to be nailing a shiny bloke who strangled a vicar and stuffed his mouth full of flies.’
*
Jamila called DCI Butcher to tell him that she and Jerry would agree to be involved in the investigation into the Reverend Wymarsh’s murder.
‘What did he say?’ asked Jerry, when she had put down her phone.
‘He said “thank the Lord”. He’s over at Falcon Road right now, because the entomologist has come down from Oxford, and he said that the entomologist is just as baffled as he is. He’d like us to go over there, if we can.’
‘I was thinking about a coffee, but okay.’
They drove to Falcon Road and this time Jerry managed to park right outside. Dr Crowe was waiting for them in an office next to the laboratory, along with his assistant, Zahir, and Professor Yearling.
Jerry thought that Professor Yearling had exactly the right looks for an investigation that might have some kind of supernatural element. He was lean, and beaky-nosed, with grey swept-back hair, and he had a crimson handkerchief arranged like a florid rose in the breast pocket of his three-piece suit. He could have been the twin brother of the horror actor Peter Cushing.
He shook their hands. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Butcher has been telling me that you two have teamed up before on some rather strange cases.’
‘Yes, and this one is very strange,’ said Jamila. She turned to DCI Butcher and said, ‘We have just seen the CCTV footage. We are as bewildered as you are. Why does the suspect shine like that, and how can he run so fast without moving his legs?’
‘I don’t have the foggiest,’ said DCI Butcher. ‘Not only that, we’ve got another bit of a mystery here. Do you want to tell them what’s bothering you, professor?’
Professor Yearling sat down at a desk at the side of the office and opened up his laptop. When he switched it on, an enlarged photograph of a fly appeared.
‘This is one of the flies that I retrieved from the throat of the deceased,’ he said, in a very precise tone of voice, as if he were giving a lecture.
Dr Crowe interrupted him. ‘For now, we’ve stored the reverend’s remains in the negative temperature fridge. However, we’ve left the flies in his mouth and his trachea and his abdomen until we know more about them and where they came from.’
‘I can understand why Dr Crowe assumed that the flies are Musca domestica, or houseflies,’ Professor Yearling continued. ‘These, unusually, have red eyes like houseflies. Actually, though, they are a variety of Conicera tibialis, commonly known as “coffin flies”. They are given this name because they are found almost exclusively in buried bodies.’
‘How do they get into buried bodies?’ asked Jamila. ‘If the coffin is six feet underground and sealed, it seems impossible.’
‘Sometimes flies will enter bodies in mortuaries, before they are buried. They will crawl into the nostrils of the deceased or into their mouths, and then they will lay their eggs. Most morticians will plug up a body’s orifices to prevent this from happening, but it is not always possible.
‘Apart from that – this fly, the Conicera tibialis, is capable of digging down over six feet under the earth to lay eggs on a body, especially if the casket has collapsed or there is any kind of aperture through which they can enter it. They can fit through unbelievably small spaces.’
‘But the Reverend Wymarsh wasn’t in a coffin when he was killed, was he?’ said Jerry. ‘He was lying in his bed in his jim-jams, reading a book by the look of it. What were these coffin flies doing in his bedroom, if they’re only found in buried bodies, like you say?’
‘That’s why I’m puzzled,’ Professor Yearling told him. ‘One might possibly have expected to find a few Sarcophaga carnaria in a dead man’s bedroom, or “flesh flies” as most people call them. They feed off carrion and dung and so forth. But it would have been unusual, even so, especially since there were so many of them. And of course these weren’t flesh flies at all.’
‘Do you have any theories about how these coffin flies might have come to fill up the reverend’s mouth?’ asked Jamila. ‘Any ideas at all, even if they’re far-fetched?’
‘None, I’m afraid. Well – not unless the perpetrator who strangled him came into his bedroom carrying a whole bottle full of flies and tipped them down his throat.’
‘I was going to have a coffee and a doughnut,’ said Jerry. ‘For some reason, I’ve changed my mind.’
6
As soon as evening prayers were over, Sister Teresa left the convent and went next door to the guest house that was run by the nuns.
St Rita’s House was almost fully booked up, as usual, but she had to prepare a bedroom on the third floor for a guest who would be arriving tomorrow from Canada.
Clapham Road was unusually empty of traffic, and there was a strong south-west wind blowing, which made Sister Teresa’s veil flap like a seagull’s wing. When she reached the top of the steps in front of the guest house, she turned and looked around. Sheets of newspaper were scuttling across the road and the street lights were flickering, which gave her the feeling that something strange was in the air.
She was only twenty-two, but her sensitivity to the world around her was the reason that she had joined the Franciscan convent. Ever since she was a small child she had been frightened by changes in the weather, or by unexplained noises, or what had appeared to be coincidences, like the same number appearing again and again. She had become a postulant because she thought that God might be able to explain to her what was happening in her life, and reassure her that she was not alone, and not in any danger.
Her mother had begged her not to become a nun, because she was attractive, and well-educated, and creative, and she had a promising future as a commercial artist. Her fears, however, had been overwhelming.
She entered the guest house. She could hear music playing and there was a smell of chicken casserole from this evening’s dinner. Although the rooms were simply furnished and the facilities were basic, St Rita’s House was popular because it was always clean, and the nuns were welcoming, and it had Wi-Fi, and it was cheap.
First of all, she went to the laundry cupboard and collected clean sheets and pillowcases and folded them over her arm.
As she was waiting for the lift, an elderly couple came out of the dining room, both of them deeply suntanned.
‘Evening, sister!’ the husband greeted her, in a broad Australian accent. ‘Bit late to be changing beds!’
‘It’s never too late to do the Lord’s work,’ said Sister Teresa. ‘Did you enjoy your meal?’
‘Really yummo, thanks. As per usual. Do you know, this is the third time me and Doris have stayed here? You can stuff your Ritz, if you’ll excuse my language.’
‘Good night and God bless,’ said Sister Teresa as the lift door opened and she stepped inside. It was the guest house motto.
The room she had to prepare for their Canadian guest was on the third floor, overlooking the back yard. It had a single bed and an armchair and a washbasin, and a framed picture on the wall of St Rita of Cascia flying high in some thundery clouds.
Sister Teresa set the clean linen down on the chair and stripped the bed of its sheets. There was a stain on the lower sheet that was probably semen. So many people are so lonely, she thought, and I would be lonely too, if it weren’t for God. Even then, she had sometimes begun to wonder if God was really listening to her. He must have to attend to such a never-ending babble of prayers, day and night, century after century.
She had once had a boyfriend, Raymond, for a little over three months, and she could still remember how safe and wanted she had felt in his arms. But one day Raymond had gone up to Manchester for a job in IT and never come back. She had sent him message after message, and tried to call him again and again, but he had never replied. It had made her feel that she was nothing, and a nobody.
Once she had changed the sheets and straightened the brown candlewick bedcover, she sat down on the end of the bed and closed her eyes. She felt exhausted. The nuns always rose at 5 a.m. for silent meditation, followed by prayer. After breakfast this morning, Sister Teresa had spent the day at St Christopher’s children’s home in Wandsworth, helping the staff with their thirty-five orphans.
