‘We’re going back to the house,’ Isaac said, more by way of a hint than anything else. Although he had to admit that having Goddard back in charge was preferable to when Superintendent Caddick had been in Goddard’s office, and causing trouble with his incessant demand for reports, and his constant incompetent interfering. The man was now consigned out of London, far enough to no longer be a nuisance.
‘Macabre.’
‘It’s out of the ordinary, although Gilbert Lawrence is our priority.’
‘It could be related.’
‘Only if someone else knew what was upstairs, and if the husband had killed her.’
‘Speculation, but it’s worth considering. Any suspects?’
Isaac had expected the inevitable question. The chief superintendent was always looking for a quick arrest, but so far there were no clues that led to a killer of Gilbert, no indication that anyone else had been involved with preserving the body of a long-dead woman.
Once free of the superintendent, Isaac and Larry Hill drove over to the Lawrence house. On arrival they walked over to where Gordon Windsor was standing. This time, the man was on the footpath outside the home, coveralls were not required.
‘We’re convinced that Gilbert Lawrence buried his wife in the cellar for a few years. Once she had decomposed, he cleaned the bones and any loose skin with dermestid beetles,’ Windsor said.
‘What are they?’
‘Skin beetles. Taxidermists, museums, hunters, use them to clean the flesh off a body. They’ll only eat dead flesh. It takes time, and he would have had to buy them. We found a tank that he had used.’
‘By why clean the bones? The woman’s dead. Surely he’d want to see some semblance of her?’
‘How would I know? The man’s disturbed. He can’t bear to be parted from her, but if she was left to decay on her own, can you imagine the insects, the putrefaction, the smell?’
‘Okay, we’ll accept that the man had lost it, mentally that is, but what does this tell us about how the woman died?’
‘It doesn’t, not yet. We’re taking what remains to Pathology today. Give them a few days, more than the two hours you normally do, and maybe they’ll come up with something.’
Isaac knew Windsor was right. As the senior investigating officer, an arrest and a conviction always looked good on his CV. The only problem was that the last three murder cases his department had investigated had extended, not only in time but also in the number of deaths. The current investigation had all the hallmarks of being another one. And what did they have: a body, no more than a skeleton, a body in the garden with a knife in its back, a family at war, although it was more of an uneasy truce. Isaac hoped he was wrong in his summation, but he was sure he was not.
Wendy had liked Emma Lawrence, an elderly woman with a healthy outlook on life, a woman who had embraced the flower generation, free love, and no doubt transcendental meditation and a few drugs not on prescription. Regardless, she still looked sprightly, more so than Wendy, and she knew it.
Caddick, when he had temporarily occupied Goddard’s seat, had been desperate to get Wendy out of Homicide by way of a rigorous medical, showing that she could no longer keep up with the workload. Wendy knew it was rubbish, using whatever he could to get rid of her.
She didn’t need to be able to run a hundred yards in under twenty seconds, and she didn’t need to be able to scale a wall in one bound. But Caddick had been desperate to undermine Isaac’s support mechanism of loyal staff: Bridget Halloran, the lead admin person in Homicide, Wendy Gladstone, who had known Isaac longer than anyone, even from when he had been on the beat in uniform, and then there was Detective Inspector Larry Hill. He had handled himself well on an earlier murder investigation, and Chief Superintendent Goddard had brought him across to Challis Street at Isaac’s request.
‘There would still have been some smell during the process,’ Larry said to Windsor outside Lawrence’s house.
‘Contained, at least within the house,’ Windsor said. ‘No idea how the housekeeper could have avoided catching a whiff occasionally. Lawrence had done it well, almost professional. Burying the body in the cellar. In time, the body could be removed, and placed in with the beetles. It’s all a bit weird for me, but who knows how the man thought. Apparently, he was into real estate,’ Windsor said.
‘A lot of it, from what we’re told. Bridget’s doing the research, and we’re on our way to meet with the solicitor. No idea about him, but it appears that he was the only one who spoke to Gilbert Lawrence.’
Chapter 4
Leonard Dundas occupied a suite of offices in Pimlico. Isaac had to admit that he was impressed. But then, it was Pimlico, he thought, and definitely upmarket and costly.
‘Can I help you?’ a young woman asked. She was sitting behind a glass-topped reception desk. It looked expensive. In fact, the whole office did, what with its leather chairs in reception, the open plan office, a man watering the plants around the place.
‘Mr Dundas, he’s expecting us. DCI Cook, DI Hill, Challis Street Homicide,’ Isaac said.
‘It’s a shame about Mr Lawrence,’ the woman said.
‘You knew him?’
‘As good as. He was our only client.’
‘You must have thirty people here.’
‘Thirty-four. One’s off sick, and another two are out on business. I’ll let Mr Dundas know you’re here.’
Isaac and Larry made themselves comfortable, but not for long. An elderly man came into reception. He was wearing a suit, his greying hair parted in the middle, a sullen expression.
‘Tragic about Gilbert,’ he
