‘Any details?’
‘Looking at the left hand, I’d say the wrist has been broken.’
‘With force?’
‘It seems intentional, and then, if you look at the face, you can see where he has repeatedly been hit, signs of broken teeth.’
‘Was an implement used?’ Larry asked.
The three men stood close to the body. Two of Windsor’s team were nearby, checking for fingerprints, taking samples from the blood splattered on the wall. Nobody in that dining room was in the least perturbed by the sight of the dead man and the fact that he had suffered a painful and needlessly violent death. To them, it was academic.
‘I’d say a mallet used to tenderise meat was used to smash the man’s face, probably used to break the wrist as well.’
‘Any ideas as to the murderer?’
‘That’s the easy one. I can tell you who did this, subject to forensics, that is,’ Windsor said.
‘Your opinion will suffice,’ Isaac said.
‘We found a fingerprint on the mallet.’
‘And?’ Isaac asked, anxious for the man to stop savouring the moment and to give them the answer.
‘It matches a print we found at Robertson’s hostel. Neither print is good enough to run through the Fingerprint’s database, though.’
‘Big Greg?’ Larry said.
‘It’s more than probable, although, without the man, it’s not possible to prove that conclusively.’
Isaac realised that yet again one murder had increased to two. And once that occurred, then there would be more. In this instance, the killing of Arbuthnot was premeditated, as if the man had planned this for some time. It had been assumed with Bob Robertson that the crime had been committed in anger, but there was no way that the body in the chair in front of them, its head angled back, the wire around its neck, was the result of a momentary action. It had the look of a premeditated murder carried out calmly and with care.
‘What do we know about the victim?’ Isaac asked.
‘Not a lot at the present moment,’ Larry said. ‘He was found by the lady who comes in every other day to tidy up. According to her, he was a man who kept to himself.’
‘The housekeeper?’ Isaac asked.
‘She’s in the other room.’
***
A female police constable was with the housekeeper. The two women were sitting on a sofa close to an electric heater, the type that had imitation flames.
‘You found the body?’ Isaac asked. He and Larry had introduced themselves first, excused the policewoman who had left the room.
‘I come here every two days, do my work and leave,’ the housekeeper said. It was evident from her accent that she was not English.
‘Your name is Lena Szabo?’ Isaac asked.
‘Yes. I came here ten years ago with my husband from Hungary. We are English citizens now.’
Larry assumed the woman had mentioned that she was English to forestall the inevitable question about whether she was one of the recent immigrants into the country, some of whom were causing trouble.
‘Have you worked here long?’
‘Two years. I did not know Mr Arbuthnot very well.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I only saw him once or twice a month. Normally, the house was empty when I came here. I’d do my work and leave.’
‘What can you tell us about him?’
‘He paid me well. He was polite, nothing more.’
‘Any friends, what sort of business he was involved in?’
‘Nothing. I did my job and left, that’s all.’
‘You don’t seem upset,’ Larry said.
‘I’ve seen death before.’
‘When?’
‘I was a child in 1956 when the Russians quelled the uprising. I saw the people shot on the street. I saw what happened if the mob got their hands on a member of the secret police.’
‘Did you like Mr Arbuthnot?’ Isaac asked.
‘Not very much.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a cruel man.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘There was a dog next door, always barking. It was poisoned.’
‘Do you believe he poisoned it?’
‘I saw the poison, or what was left of it, in the bin that I emptied. He did not know that I had seen it.’
‘Yet you continued to work for him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘One dog is nothing compared to seeing tens of people, some of them were my age, gunned down as they waited to buy bread. You have seen death, you must understand.’
Isaac could only agree with the woman. The sight of a man with wire around his neck, a decomposed and dismembered corpse, a man fished out of the river after three weeks weighted down. None of them had upset him greatly, none had disturbed his appetite or his nights out. He had to concede the woman’s disinterest in the dead body.
***
With Big Greg almost certainly back in the area, Isaac told Katrina Ireland to be on the lookout.
The man was now regarded as violent, likely to kill again, but so far they had no motive. Bob Robertson ran a hostel for the disadvantaged, George Arbuthnot, it was found out, was a retired civil servant. No connection could be established between the two men.
Robertson was known to be a compassionate man; Arbuthnot was not if the dog poisoning story was true, and there was no reason to doubt the housekeeper’s statement. Bridget, as per the standard procedure, had checked out Lena Szabo’s story, and it was found to be correct. She and her husband had entered England ten years previously, worked hard, been granted citizenship, and were respected members of the community.
George Arbuthnot, however, remained a mystery. Bridget had conducted the usual checks: age, background, financial status, employment. What they had shown was that the man had been a middle-ranking civil servant, yet he lived in a house, with a clear title in his name, that would have been way out of his pay scale.
‘Bridget, what do we know about Arbuthnot, apart from the
