A Trace of Blood

by Tim Franks

Vendetta doesn’t quite capture it. Definitely out of kilter. I prefer the word Retribution and the thesaurus agreed, because, when I looked it up it gave Justice as a synonym – and when I looked that up, it said Fairness, Righteousness and Integrity. So that was nice.

Think we’ll try your woman’s touch, before I opt for the Taser.

Mindful of political correctness, Sarge had used a pencil to scribble his note on the typewritten photocopy he’d had sent out to me. So, I had a read and maybe Tasering was an option. I mean, what kind of murder suspect ends their statement with the word nice? Anyway, when I went for a discrete look through the small, wire-glass window in the interview room door, she was pretty close to the picture I had in my head – Looked mid-fifties, but probably a decade younger, and wearing those glasses, you know, on a chain, obviously, but with those heavy frames that sweep up at the corners. And her clothes, high-buttoned suit, all heavy wool and chunky checks like those frumpy women in the black and white videos old Blakey used to show in my A Level history lessons – You know the ones, like in the news footage after Kennedy was shot, or PTA moms shouting at hippy Vietnam War protesters. But the hat was a surprise. Granted it was small and hair-gripped tight, so it didn’t protrude much from the tight-waved hair, but indoors? – Really?

Anyway, door knocked, I went in. Mornings all round and not quite a wink off the sarge as he stands to let me sit down. But we know.

‘So, Sergeant Brady tells me…’ I began

‘I’ve gone through the You remain under caution bit. And the times. ’ The sarge chipped in as he moved away, making sure I saw his eyes flick towards the tape deck

Then, putting my photocopy on the desk, next to the suspect’s original I said, ‘And still no solicitor, Sarge?’

And he says ‘No, she said it’s alright. Doesn’t need one. Said she’s well conversant with police procedure…She’s in a crime book club. Quite the aficionado of the Golden Age, apparently. Whatever that is. Anyway,’ he shook his head. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Detective Constable Haddon,’ then he opened the door and was gone.

So, I began reading through the original statement. Her handwritten one. Not that I needed to, but making her wait: showing whose turf she was on.

‘I think the business of the morning is pretty well concluded now, Leanne.’

I was half-way down page three when she finally twitched and spoke.

‘Sorry, Constable Haddon.’

She said the sarge mentioned my name just before he did all that Leaving the room at speech as I was coming in.

‘But no, professional parameters are there for a reason. I’ve read enough to know that.’ And she put her glasses half-way down her nose to look at me.

Leanne… the way she said it, then puckered her lips. Been different if I’d been Annabelle or Penelope.

‘That’s okay, Barbara,’ I kept turning pages without looking up. ‘From what I’m reading, we’re nearly there. Just a matter of dates and signatures.’

‘On each page, I believe is the correct procedure. Should I choose to comply.’

‘Well,’ I told her. ‘Be easier for everyone,’ and I turned another page. Then she was saying how she thought she’d irritated the Sarge, insisting on silence while she was writing. But I didn’t comment. Bit too early for bonding.

‘I’ve covered all the purely factual information.’ She tried a smile, but it was nothing I hadn’t seen before – though not with so much lavender cologne and tweed.

‘Keeping it real, as you young people say.’

She actually said that.

‘But, obviously that’s not the whole story. Far from it. Whatever reality is?’

I looked at her face and it was obvious a well-worn monologue was on the way.

‘The reality of justice. There’s a debate to be had. But so much is a about perception. For most people reality is what they see and hear – And sometimes I envy the simplicity of their world.’

Being able to breathe in to the bottom of your lungs slowly, through your nose so the person opposite doesn’t notice, is a definite skill when you’re interviewing.

‘But once you realise everything is just a construct compiled by the brain from miniscule electrical inputs supplied by our senses.’

I took another deep breath through my nose as she went on.

‘That your own personal reality is no more than a film playing within the dark vault of your skull, as the saying goes. But is my reality the same as yours? In the animal world senses are different. Visual receptors dictate what is seen – we have three, hence our spectrum; while birds of prey have four, so they can see thermals, electromagnetic lines and then dogs only have two so the colours they see are-­’

‘Yeah, we had a dog,’ I kept looking like I was still reading. ‘But, thank you. You’ve certainly described your actions very clearly in the opening-’

‘I wondered if you’d spot the structure: the opening two paragraphs pertaining purely to matters of fact: events and actions, then the concluding pair revealing the crucial motivational aspects that need to be considered.’

‘Yes,’ I made sure of eye-contact, ‘But in the middle sections you do let your thought processes bleed into the facts.’ I held her gaze. Sarge called it a gift: my ability to maintain a silence without spooking the suspect.

‘When the stars align, eh?’

And there it was. The need to speak into the void.

‘It’s all there in paragraphs seven and eight. The crucial motivation’

‘Yes. See that. But, to be honest,’ I tapped a block of text. ‘Everything beyond paragraph five is really… extraneous.’

‘In terms of concrete evidence, yes. I agree constable.’ She was smiling, but I could feel it, the way she spaced her words like a teacher talking to the class idiot. ‘But as I told your sergeant, the legal system is a nuanced beast.’

And she paused as if she expected me to ask her to explain the metaphor.

‘Beyond mere verdicts, there’s decisions about actual charges, the judge’s summation, consideration of, though I doubt it will come to this, pre-sentencing reports.’

And she was using words like logic, validation, even bloody inevitability. That was when her voice hardened.

 ‘My statement. My words.’

Then she looked at me and told me I should’ve been grateful.

‘Writing it myself. Relieving you of your usual burden – translating the ungrammatical ramblings of your regular clients into some semblance of Standard English.’

Then she straightened.

 ‘As I said, My words. My stars…And all the evidence you need is there. But only if I sign.’ Then she leaned back in the chair and said the next bit with her eyes closed.

‘I’ve already made compromises. Paragraph one is purely method and timings. Paragraph two: disposal – Both devoid of the necessary context and mitigation. According to your sergeant, the Crown Prosecution Service prefer to deal with effect, before cause. And we wonder why the criminal justice system is broken.’ Then, sitting vertical, she was staring again. ‘But then in the later paragraphs-’

‘Your handwriting,’ I gave her a prod to stop her wandering. ‘Certainly, easier to follow than anything dictated to the sergeant. I’ll grant you that. So these stars? You say the later paragraphs explain about the…?’

‘Motivation. The patterns. The whole raison d’etre.’

This is when you have to listen. Sense the shift. Give the nudge. ‘So paragraph seven, that’s…’  Hint of smile, then, ‘If you had this original, I’ll read my photocopy. So you can direct me. Look,’ again I made eye-contact. ‘I could do with a cuppa, do you…?’ And I’m lifting the phone and, in a couple of minutes, an auxiliary flits in with a tray.

‘So, paragraph seven,’ I pushed a plate of biscuits towards her. ‘Are the points…?’

‘Chronological. Yes.’ She wanted to tell me: how she’d drafted a list before she’d written on the form.

‘So it’s Star One: the unfortunate incident with my previous employer.’

And she’s telling me how the H.R.man said Suspension is a neutral act, just before she was escorted from the premises. Then it’s all, ‘Oh, I miss that job. Not just the money you understand, but that team of people looking to me.’ And she’s rabbiting on about her sense of service. Talk about needy. But then:

‘Every cloud. It meant my library visits weren’t just restricted to evenings and weekends.’

‘So, I’m reading you…’ I was on it, pushing. Exploiting her need to flaunt her intellect.

‘The Crime Book Club? Yes: a member of long standing, but now I could attend the weekday chapter as well. And that’s when Star Two appeared in my firmament.’ And she explained how the lead librarian, Our esteemed organiser, asked if anyone wanted to sign up for the genealogy course: Trace your Family Tree in Three Weeks – See how the past is the key to your present.’

I remember her face then…

‘Suspension is a neutral act. Non-judgemental. That’s how they carried out their duties. Courteous, professional, accurately calculated.’ She was dipping a biscuit in her tea as she said it. ‘Very much business is business. Great Uncle Albert and the others would have agreed with that.’

‘Great Uncle-’ I mean it’d knocked my socks off when I’d read it earlier, but I wanted to hear her say it. See how she thought it was a justification. Her divine right.

Then she was off talking about matrilineal lines hiding the surname, telling how she’d always been told her family had a branch in the North. God her eyes lit up at the word Wikipedia and how it said Albert was born in the West Riding, but he fitted the family business around running a pub near Preston.

‘I’d dabbled before, but the census. That hundred year rule, but on the course…’ She said about it giving her access to genealogy sites and how ‘My mother’s maiden name was Cartwright.’ You can imagine me stifling the yawn at this point. ‘And her mother was an Enright, but…’ That’s when she took a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket and flattened out the creases on the desk.  ‘It was mother’s grandfather,’ her fingers moved along a tree diagram. My great-grandfather that married a Pierrepoint.’

So, I looked suitably blank, even though…’

‘Pierrepoint. I’d say Don’t they teach you anything in police training college? But I try to avoid clichés like the plague.’ She looked at me as if I was supposed to laugh, then launched into a potted history of Britain’s last public executioner, Albert Pierrepoint and how he’d followed in his father’s footsteps and his Uncle Tom’s.

‘So that was it, by rights, my family business.’ That’s what she said. ‘He did all the big ones, Great Uncle Albert.’ Like he was a rock musician on a stadium tour. ‘Everyone from war criminals and traitors like Lord Haw-Haw to Ruth Ellis by way of John Haigh the Acid Bath Murderer and Christie, the 10 Rillington Place Strangler. So you see, if it’s in your genes.’ And she shrugged as if that explained all.

Obviously, now I had to appear as if this is the most natural thing in the world, so I took a sip of tea and said ‘Hell of a story for your Crime Readers Group, but I don’t see…’

‘It’s all in there. Chronological.’ She had to tell me. ‘Star Three. The vicar. Though he’d probably tell you it as a joke, but even so… these things: the subconscious, the subliminal. No less real just because most people don’t understand them.’

‘So when he said…?’

‘About the assault case that surfaced in his family tree four or five generations back – and the newspaper article about his great-great whatever. How he was a ship’s engineer who’d cheated a local bookmaker, then disappeared back to sea.’

And she recounted how the court report had described how this local bookie had decided to recover the debt from a grown-up son the engineer had left behind.

‘So he battered the lad with a walking stick. Broke his nose and a couple of fingers,’ she went on, then said something about venting righteous anger, but she couldn’t remember if it was the bookie, or the judge that had said it.

Anyway I knew what was coming next. The chosen people defence. I’d heard it before.

‘Exodus 34:7,’ And she did a crap impression of the vicar. ‘Yea, verily I am a jealous God, leaving not the guilty unpunished and visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, even to the third and the fourth generations.

‘And Irene Mulcahy’ she was back in her own voice now. ‘Was a direct descendent of the Black Panther, Donald Neilson. One of the most notorious cases in the 70s.’ She couldn’t wait to educate me. ‘Unforgivably brutal. A young girl kidnapped, then murdered. Studying for her A Levels only about a mile or so from our library. And then it was discovered Neilson had also shot three postal workers dead. That intensity, even if it’s diluted in the gene pool – There’ll always be reversions.’

‘So you’re saying, you murdered Irene Mulcahy because she shared genes with a serial killer?’ This was the money shot. It’d leapt out when I was reading the photocopy, before I was even in the room.

‘Not murdered. Eliminated, curtailed, though factually, I suppose I’d have to concede killed. But not murdered. Executed, for the greater good.’

‘For the greater…’ I really had to keep control of my face.

‘Think about it. The death penalty.’

 I imagined her practising the speech in a mirror.

‘I concede there’s been discrepancies. But on balance, beyond the occasional, over-rated miscarriage of justice. Ask yourself, how many more have been murdered by someone who would have already been executed in more rational times? How many people have lost their lives to a killer who would have been deterred by the prospect of swinging from a rope? And how many people today owe their lives to a past hangman who curtailed a contaminated bloodline before it could spread its polluted genes? Do you know that in America, in the 1990s, criminologists saw a huge drop in cases of murder and violent crime and couldn’t understand why. Then they did the math and realised that the abortion bill had been passed around twenty years before. The police were no smarter, but Roe v Wade had pruned the diseased branches out of a million family trees. It’s all there in a book – Freakonomics, look it up.’

I’d wound her up and let her go. You can see it on the office CCTV: the coarsening of the voice, the hardening of the eyes, the curl of the mouth. It was obvious, but I still needed the deed. Her words. What she did. Blow by blow. She was still talking, going on about clear skies, constellations aligning. But then we got there. The specifics. Her destiny. The shops next to the library with their three funeral directors.

‘Three in half the length of a football pitch,’ she’d said. ‘With the last one displaying an advert in the window – Receptionist needed. And a butchers. Don’t tell me our lives aren’t ruled by the stars.’

‘So this explains the first two paragraphs when you say…? I eased the biscuits towards her again.

 ‘Yes. Method of execution in paragraph one and in paragraph two, the tricky bit – the bit that Great Uncle Albert didn’t need to worry about.’

‘Disposal. Yes,’ I told her, ‘Never my strong point on the forensics study unit. So method you’re saying…?’

‘Well, the use of rope was in keeping with family tradition but, obviously I needed something more discrete and portable than a set of gallows, so I chose a methodology that was…’

I was hardly breathing, but I doubt she noticed now. Two more minutes, I remember that going through my head.

‘Practical, but giving a nod to my heritage, yes. A garrotte. And actually a bona fide method of public execution in a number of countries, albeit not a handheld model like mine. But, as we’ve already said, execution was the easy part, especially given where Irene lived.’

I just nodded then.

‘Being a terraced house with a covered entry helped. She always did her big shop on a Friday evening. So, if I waited at the back, at the far end of the entry, she’d-’

‘Have her arms down holding the shopping bags so…’ I was nodding now, joining her in the moment.

‘I had the garrotte round her neck, voice choked off, then dragged back into the entry out of sight, before she knew it. Some garrottes are wire, but then you have the problem of blood, so I went for nylon rope. Having wooden handles meant I could keep twisting until she passed out, then I tied it off tight and let lack of oxygen take its course. Using my own car was a gamble, but I live locally and, in the dark, what with it being a terrace, the distance from the entry to car boot was minimal.’

‘And then it was… Chest freezer,’ I kept drawing her out, but everything else was detail from this point. ‘Though freezing isn’t disposal. The receptionist’s job could give you access to… but only in the daytime and only at your own…’

‘Not really, if you think about it.’

Of course she had to explain it to me.

‘Funeral directors get called all hours of the day and night, bringing bodies in for initial storage, and what with the rotas and staff swapping shifts, there’s lots of keys floating about. Easy to borrow a set long enough to get duplicates cut.’

And she described how the firms being so close, they’d help each other out. Someone’s low on formaldehyde, someone’s got a cold store that’s on the blink. She said they were always in an out. Cups of coffee, having a chat. Then I brought up the butcher’s. And that made her laugh.

 ‘No, it’s just that it’s a good butchers. Expensive,’ she said. ‘But in this area, people will pay for quality.’ And she described how, if you asked, they’d vacuum pack your meat. How they used heavy gauge polythene and heat sealed the bags.

‘So then it was EBay,’ she said. ‘And knowing I could deal with the Irene bottleneck. That was the key to rebuilding the family business.’

‘But once you’d moved her out of the freezer?’ By now I reckoned if I didn’t speak again, she wouldn’t have noticed.

‘Defrosting and then you’ve got the smell. Hence EBay and the vacuum packing machine. Obviously, the old trick of putting two bodies in one coffin wouldn’t work. Not unless everybody in the funeral directors was in on it. But the freezer and the bags. Have you ever been in one of these big frozen food shops? Seen the meat, how straight and flat the cuts are?’

‘So you…’ I nodded, like it was a revelation.

‘Standard B&Q power saw. Frozen limb? Section of torso? Get it cut up and sealed pretty much blood-free. And I always double bagged.’

‘Then you…’

‘As I’ve written, a couple of packs at a time brought to work in a carrier. Easy enough to tuck them under the padded lining inside the coffin. Once the deceased is in place, dressed smart and made-up for the family to see, no one’s moving anything again.’

‘And the bags aren’t heavy enough for anyone to notice the weight.’ At this point we were in icing on the cake territory. ‘But you didn’t just use the funeral directors where you worked. So…?

‘If you go round the back, the business end, they’ve all got big whiteboards, Everything listed: names, times, destination, pick-ups, drop-offs, flowers, whatever. Everyone has to know what’s going on. A funeral isn’t the place where things can go wrong. You’ve been to the crematorium. You’ve got a time slot and you daren’t miss it because there’s another hearse pulling up in twenty minutes.’

‘And your statement describes Irene Mulcahy being disposed of in multiple bags, with the whole process taking four weeks, via all three funeral directors?’

 I wouldn’t play poker against you, Sarge said when he told me about watching everything on the video link.

‘Exactly. And, unless I sign and date each page of this statement,’ she was tapping the paper at this point. ‘Your only lead is a neighbour who found something that fell out of Irene’s shopping bag, someone with a vague recollection of a dark coloured hatchback and a forensic report that identifies a trail of bodily fluids along the entry consistent with someone losing control of their bowels during strangulation, but nothing in my car.’

‘Because there’s traces of dilute bleach in the boot and you’ve had it valeted at least twice since the date of the disappearance.’

Then she was off again and I can’t believe she’s so oblivious to the gulf between where she thinks she is and her actual position.

 ‘The Pierrepoint star ascendant again – unless I choose to sign. But why would I? Without my signature you have nothing.’

And that was when I pressed the button under the desk.

‘All in my own hands. I mean. The problems I could cause. The number of bodies that pass through three funeral directors over a month.’ She was still smiling when Sarge came back in and leaned, unobtrusively against the wall. ‘Even if you were sure I was lying and I’d only deposited packages in coffins destined for the crematorium. All it would take is a hint to a grieving family and you couldn’t take the chance. Imagine the number of exhumations. Imagine the newspapers.’ The woman began twirling a pen. ‘And the only thing that could convict me is my own signature.’

That was when I stood, looked her in the eye and said it – ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ and I smiled. ‘You see, Sergeant Brady can’t understand why anyone would want to work in the police all day, then go home and choose to read crime fiction for relaxation. After a long shift at work he says the last thing he needs is another dose of his daily reality… And that’s where Sarge and me are different. I read crime fiction for one reason. Because I know it’s not real.’

Her face was still composed on the surface, but it was there now. That first hint of doubt behind the eyes.

‘And maybe if you’d spent less time on crime fiction and maybe a couple more hours with crime fact.’ It was me with the slow teacher’s voice now. ‘On something like the Criminal Justice Act 1967, or the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, you’d have realised that, over the years, numerous amendments have been added to accommodate new forms of evidence. Maybe then, it would be less of surprise when I tell you that jurisprudence has moved on since the Golden Age and now…’ This is when I pointed at the still running tape deck. ‘That provided those cassettes are sealed and stored appropriately and shared with both the defence and prosecution, your own words, spoken under caution, are evidence enough for a conviction.’

That was when I saw her mouth open, but there were no words.

 ‘So, especially after your remarks about grieving relatives and exhumations, signing your statement and submitting it voluntarily alongside a plea of guilty is your only option to salvage some mitigation on your sentence. Then, who knows? A few years down the line, you might even get a cushy job in the prison library. So, if you’d like to sign and date each page, where indicated.’

I saw Sarge mouth Coup de grace, as I said, ‘Okay Barbara,’ then I reached across to stop the pen twirling in her hand and said, ‘So, it’s sign and date each page, where indicated. And,’ my finger tapped the relevant text. ‘Initial my corrections in the last paragraph. Your sentence two isn’t, because it still relates to the subject in sentence one. See where I’ve made the full stop a semi-colon and corrected the capital letter. Also, in what was sentence three, I’ve put in the second comma that’s required to close the embedded clause.’

And that was when I saw the great-grand niece of Albert Pierrepoint blink for the first time that morning.

In August I visited the Crime Fiction Readers’ group at Penn Library, Wolverhampton. The group were very knowledgeable about the genre and literature in general. During discussions, the group said they liked it when cozy crime combined entertainment with moral dilemmas, but they also enjoyed stories that dealt with taboo subjects – and the death penalty was mentioned. We discussed the geography and history of the local area – blue plaques, plague pits, race courses and cemeteries. Local links to the notorious 1970s Black Panther (Donald Neilson) murders were highlighted. I mentioned the private ambulance on the library car park and was told that it was always there and that the adjacent row of shops contained three funeral directors (and a butcher’s shop). I listened as the group discussed their latest read and it was apparent that they expected everything to be logical and all plot lines to be neatly resolved, though this might include deliberate ambiguity. Finally, as the meeting closed, the lead librarian asked if anyone was interested in signing up for Trace Your Own Family Tree genealogy course that was taking place at the library. 

My thanks to the group for their excellent thoughts and welcoming manner.