A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders Read online

  There was no reply except the hiss and patter of rain on the grass. Mendick strode on, following a gravel path and checking to left and right. At each step he expected to see Thatcher cowering behind a tombstone, but there was no sign of him. Just the ranked stones of the dead, one newly-made grave and one empty, waiting for its occupant.

  “Sturrock!” Mendick turned and roared. “Have you seen him?”

  “No, Sergeant.” Sturrock remained on top of the railings. Mendick swore and began to work his way back through the gravestones, again checking to left and right. He stopped at the newly-dug grave and pushed his cane into the turf; it sunk easily into the damp soil. The empty grave showed promise too; Mendick looked inside. Rain water dripped down the mud of the walls and onto the black canvas tarpaulin six feet down, forming a succession of small, shallow pools but with a distinctive dry bulge in the centre. Mendick glanced up, Sturrock remained exactly where he had left him, balancing on the rails with the rain bouncing from his tall hat and his arms folded across his chest.

  “You keep watch, Sturrock!” Mendick shouted and, balancing one hand on the edge of the grave, he vaulted down and landed heavily atop the suspicious bulge.

  “No!” The canvas bucked beneath him and Thatcher emerged. His hands scrabbled at the stiff canvas as he launched himself at the mud walls of the grave and scrambled up with hands and feet. Mendick waited until Thatcher had secured a handhold at the lip of the grave, then lifted his cane and landed a smart crack on each hand. Thatcher yelled and tumbled back down. He landed on his back and immediately jumped up, intent on escaping until Mendick pressed hard on his thin shoulders.

  “Stay where you are,” Mendick said, “and bend over!” As Thatcher glowered at him, Mendick thrust him into a crouch and used him as a stepping stone to climb out of the grave.

  “Sturrock!” Mendick shouted, “Come here with your shangies.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and swore. “Damn you, Thatcher! We’ve missed our boat. Now I must stay an extra day in Dundee.”

  Thatcher looked up, rainwater streaming from his face and his eyes bright and defeated. He said nothing.

  The voice that sounded behind Mendick had the hard lilt of the Highlands. “You may be in Dundee a good deal longer than one day, Sergeant Mendick.”

  Mendick turned around and faced the newcomer. Despite the rain he wore no coat above his close-fitting dark suit. His eyes were a cold blue above hectic red cheekbones.

  “Indeed, sir?” Mendick kept a firm hold of Thatcher as he turned around. “I am afraid you are mistaken but thank you for your interest.” He touched a hand to where his hat should have been, frowned slightly as he remembered its absence and returned his hand to his side.

  The man placed his forefinger on Mendick’s cane.

  “That seems a handy tool, Sergeant, lead-tipped I would say?” He held Mendick’s eye for a long moment. “Aye, I thought as much. You might have need of that during your stay in Dundee.”

  “I will be on the first steamer to London, sir, with my prisoner.” Mendick said.

  “I see I have not explained myself, Sergeant Mendick.” The Highlander held Mendick’s gaze. “I am Donald Mackay, Superintendent of Dundee Police. Both my Criminal Officers were injured in that riot in the Police Office and I have a most unpleasant murder to solve, so I am keeping you here for the present. I have already prepared the paperwork for your Inspector Field. Now,” the blue eyes turned granite hard. “If you have finished playing in the mud, you may come with me and see if your Scotland Yard skills work in my town.”

  Mendick said nothing as he felt the weight of childhood horrors crushing him once more. Dundee would not allow him to escape.

  CHAPTER TWO

  What was it about murders that attracted bad weather? Mendick crammed his battered hat further down on his head, cursed as rain splattered onto his face, turned up the collar of his Chesterfield and glowered across the road. Even if the weather had been better, there would be nothing picturesque about the shop in Candle Lane. It was situated in a tenement building beside a foul-smelling fish curer, and opposite the piled timber of a wood merchant, but in the soot-laden rain of a March evening it was as dismal a picture as he could imagine. The sign above the door tried its best to entice customers but the cheap paint had peeled so the reader needed great patience to decipher the words.

  Oriental Emporium: all the delights of the East

  Mendick grunted. He knew all about the delights of the East: dirt, flies, disease and a thousand nameless horrors under a humid, pitiless sky. There was little Oriental about a seedy shop mouldering in the chill damp of a Dundee evening. The shop was about half way up the lane, with a common close to the right and two storeys of a stone-built tenement pressing down on it, the dark windows glaring onto the dark roadway like the black eyes of a failed pugilist. The door was firmly closed against the predators of the night. Mendick looked up into the steady rain − a broken waterspout spilled its contents into the lane and slates sliced upward to a stack of chimneys.

  He pulled his silver watch from his fob and checked the time. Half past eight and he was stuck in this town that he hated beyond all others. It was already dark and the sub-human inhabitants were swarming out from wherever they hid during the day, turning the night hideous with their drunken bawling and assaults. This dockland area of Dundee was just like the back streets of Rotherhithe or Wapping; a festering warren of lanes and dead ends, streets crammed with pawnshops and dingy lodging houses. Candle Lane was a narrow, ancient thoroughfare that pointed towards the town centre as directly as a disembarked sailor heading for a pub.

  Mendick looked around, seamen and befeathered women crammed the doorways and spilled onto the road. The women’s skirts trailed along the granite cobbles and through the central channel that sluiced away the rainwater mingled with the droppings of passing horses, but their voices shouted raucous invitations and their eyes were bold and devoid of pity. Mendick looked away. He could see the masts and spars of ships just a short step away and he shivered. There were too many memories here, he had to concentrate on the job, solve this murder and get back to London. He could not stay long in Dundee.

  “Is that how Scotland Yard operates?” Mackay did not sound impressed. “Up here we tend to look at the murder rather than admiring the scenery.”

  Mendick grunted. “Take me to the murder, then.”

  Two uniformed police stood sentinel at the shop entrance. Legs apart, heads erect and each holding the long staff that acted both as their prime method of deterrence and a badge of office, they looked as formal as guardsmen.

  Mendick followed Mackay inside.

  “There is a shop and a store room with living quarters,” Mackay explained, “and both inner and outer doors were locked.” Mendick touched the outside door: two panels had been smashed and the heavy iron bolts drawn back. The key was in the lock inside.

  “So how did we find the body then?”

  The familiar smell of damp, mould and decay wrapped around him, mingled with the throat-catching stench of raw blood and a surprising aroma of cooked meat. Mendick lingered just within the door. Smells could be very revealing sometimes, he had expected to smell spices in an Eastern Emporium, but there was little hint of them in here. The hissing gas jet cast flickering shadows around the interior.

  Mendick looked around. The shop was filled with cheap Brummagem trash, with a few knick-knacks that were vaguely oriental and may have been brought back by seamen from the East, or possibly thrown up by an underpaid woman in some garret sweatshop. A shelf on the wall held a row of jars that carried vague labels: Indian Spice, Chinese Spice, Arabian Spice, Best quality Tea, Green Tea and Coffee. A quick inspection found a few pounds of tea or coffee, probably mixed with other less savoury substances while he had no idea what was in the spice jars and had no intention of finding out.

  “Our two criminal officers suspected this place of being used to reset stolen goods,” Mackay said quietly. “They came in to check
and walked straight into a nightmare.”

  Mendick pointed to the broken exterior door and the interior door where one of the panels had also been obviously kicked in. “We tend to more subtle methods in London.”

  “Indeed,” Mackay’s voice was dry. “Well, step subtly through the door and see what you make of it, Mendick. But I warn you, it is not a pretty sight.”

  Mendick grunted. After his time in the army and his experiences in the rookeries of London he did not expect a small provincial town to have anything to shock him. “It never is, Mr Mackay, but I have seen dead bodies before.”

  “It’s worse than anything you can imagine, Mendick. Take a deep breath first.”

  Mackay opened the door and Mendick stepped inside. A gas jet pooled faint light and dark shadows over a room obviously used for both living quarters and storage. There was a box bed hard against one wall together with a chest, a small table and a tall stool. Piles of poor quality clothing covered most of the remaining floor space. All this Mendick took in without conscious effort while he focussed on the object that lay on the floor.

  He had thought nothing in Dundee could shock him. He had been wrong. On his first night back he was looking at something that made his stomach heave. He should have never returned to this town. He should have said no to Mr Mackay, caught the next packet boat to London and chanced any repercussions. Mendick tapped his cane off the table and stepped closer. During his police career he had seen a score of murders and hundreds of assaults, from Saturday night pub brawls to sordid domestic disputes, but he had seen nothing like this since he left the army, and not often then. Scattered over the floor were bits of a man, or perhaps more than one man; he could not be sure.

  The body had been ripped open and the insides removed. Heart, liver and kidneys, all were there, but so mangled they were almost unrecognisable. The limbs had been hacked from the torso and lay in a bloody heap, while the head had been chopped off and placed on a china plate a few feet away.

  The entire mess lay in a wide puddle of blood, crusted and congealed in places, while the intestines had been uncoiled to form a roughly oval frame for the body parts. The scene would have been bad enough in silent daylight, but in this shaded room, with the gas jet providing a sinister, prevalent hiss, the shadows appeared to writhe with agonised memory.

  “Oh, my eye.” His army experiences had hardened Mendick to most things, but he had not expected to come across such butchery in Britain. “What sort of man could do this?”

  “Nobody I want loose on the streets of Dundee,” Mackay stood at the doorway, watching. He spoke sombrely, as befitted the scene of a death. “This man was not murdered, Mendick, he was mutilated. He was ripped apart as if by a pack of dogs. It’s like a ritual killing.”

  Mendick nodded. “I have seen something similar, once before, outside Nanking, but this is Dundee not China.”

  “This was an Oriental Emporium, remember,” Mackay said. He lowered his voice. “Some of my men have heard rumours of a Chinaman moving among the criminal class, so maybe there is a Chinese connection.”

  Mendick glanced at the severed head; the eyes were wide and the lips had been stitched closed. “Do we know the name of this unfortunate fellow?”

  “This gentleman was David Thoms, the tenant of this shop.” Mackay looked at the remains without any expression on his face. “We also think he was still alive when they cut him up. Look at his eyes, Mendick, look at the horror in those eyes.”

  Only then did the full nightmare of the murder strike Mendick. Somebody had entered the shop, stripped Thoms naked and dismembered him. His eyes were wide and staring, still holding the agony of what had been done to him, but with his lips stitched closed, he could not have screamed. His would have been a silent, agonised death.

  The arms and legs had been thrown together; a jumble of hairy limbs, smeared with blood. Mendick frowned and lifted the topmost leg. Flesh from the thigh had been sliced off, leaving the bone exposed. “Dear God almighty, how this fellow must have suffered!”

  He placed the leg back down as a mark on the right arm caught his attention. “Did you notice this, sir?”

  Mackay adjusted the gas jet to increase the light. Thom’s hand had been hacked off but the arm was weather-beaten, muscular and hairy with a distinctive tattoo. Mendick peered closer. “It’s a bit smudged,” he said, “but there are two words. The first is Rose but I can’t make out the second.” He stood up. “Rose is probably the name of his girl. We can try and find out who she is.”

  “That’s a start,” Mackay said. “I wonder how many girls called Rose there are in Dundee.”

  “Scores, probably,” Mendick said.

  He inspected the room. The only window was locked and the shutters were bolted from the inside, while the fireplace was much too small to allow access. The embers on the grate were still warm.

  “You said both the outer and storeroom doors were locked?”

  “Both doors were locked and the key was still on the inside of this one. That is why my criminal officers had to make a hole in the door panel.”

  “Is that door also locked?” Mendick pointed to a door in the far corner of the room.

  Mackay glanced and nodded. “Yes, but it’s only a cupboard.”

  “Has anybody checked inside?” Mendick took two steps towards it and stopped as his boot clattered against something. He looked down and frowned. He had kicked over a plate and a mess of cooked meat now joined the shambles on the floorboards, together with Thoms’ missing hand. “What’s this, sir?” Mendick stooped and prised a linen bag free from Thom’s stiff fingers. It jingled when he lifted it.

  He looked inside. “It’s full of coins, sir.” Mendick lifted a handful and allowed them to trickle through his fingers, holding one coin secure. “Silver shillings, sir; they are all shillings. Dozens of them.” He shook the bag, watching the sheen of silver as the coins shifted around inside. “I can’t see anything special about them though.” He examined the coin he held. “Queen Victoria, 1842.” He lifted a second coin, “Same again: 1842.” He lifted a third. “So is this one, sir . . .”

  Mendick lifted another handful and checked them one by one, shaking his head. “They are all dated 1842, sir, every blessed one.”

  “Pass that over here, Mendick.” Mackay ordered. “Silver from a dead man. Now we really have a mystery on our hands.”

  “Indeed. A man butchered inside a locked room, a killer who cooked himself a meal and a bag full of shillings, all dated 1842.” Mendick forced a smile. “I think we can discount suicide?”

  Mackay did not reply. He looked inside the bag, frowning.

  “I’ll check inside that cupboard.” Mendick tested the panelled door to ensure it was locked and then leaned his cane against the wall. He took a small wallet from inside his pocket, opened it and pulled out a small lockpick. “This is a simple lock,” he said. “It won’t take me a minute.”

  Mackay watched closely. “Are you sure you have always been on the right side of the law, Mendick?”

  “I have been many things, sir,” Mendick said, “and I have picked up quite a few tricks along the way.” He pushed in the pick and grunted when it met resistance. “The key is still inside the lock, this will be easy.” He pulled a pair of longnosed pliers from his wallet. “This is what is known as an ‘outsider’, if I just insert it in the keyhole, grab the butt end of the key and turn . . .” After a second there was an audible click and he pulled open the door. “Easy as pie.”

  The cupboard was about four feet deep by three feet wide, with old clothes piled on the floor. A rope ladder dangled from a hole in the ceiling above, a metal spike fastened it to the floorboards.

  “Well, that is one mystery solved,” Mendick tugged at the ladder which was quite secure. “Whoever he was, he came down here, locked the doors so he would not be disturbed, murdered Thoms and climbed away again, turning the key in the lock behind him.”

  Mackay pointed to the hole in the ceiling, “Thoms must
have been deaf not to have heard someone making that hole.”

  “That is another mystery,” Mendick agreed. “Now sir, with your permission, I will go up.” The ladder was made of thin but strong rope, with wooden rungs. He tested the first rung as Mackay nodded assent.

  Mendick pulled himself up. “You know, sir, an active man could swarm up a rope, or at least a rope with knots for hand and footholds. Why go to all the trouble to make a ladder such as this? That may be significant.” He squeezed through the small gap in the ceiling and found himself in the flat above the shop. He had emerged flush against the wall, where the hearth of the fire should have been.

  “Can you send up a constable with a bull’s eye?” Mendick shouted. “I can’t see a blessed thing up here.”

  The beam of light came first, flicking through the gap in the hole, followed by the tall hat and broad face of Constable Sturrock.

  “Evening, Sergeant Mendick. I thought you would be well on your way back to London by now.” Sturrock peered around and raised the lantern high. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything, Sturrock. We are looking for anything that is not as it should be.” Mendick held out his hand, “Up you come, man. You’re no good to anyone half in and half out.”

  Sturrock was a large man and he had to manoeuvre his shoulders and wriggle his hips through the gap. He stood up, gasping. “That hole must have been made for a blasted dwarf! No normal-sized person could crawl through there.”

  Mendick nodded. He did not mention Mackay’s suspicion of a Chinese connection. “Just you concentrate on your job, Sturrock, and leave the thinking to those of us who have some brains.”

  The upper flat was obviously unoccupied but there were signs of plastering and carpentry work. A hammer, chisel and small saw lay beside the hole and Mendick handed them to Sturrock.