Warren, Sutton, Deacon Baines and Bishop Fisher were in the bishop’s office along with Deputy CSM Meera Gupta. A badly creased plan of the abbey grounds was spread across the bishop’s desk.
‘The architects drew this up when they were converting the house.’ Baines pointed at the plan. Under instruction from Warren, he was careful not to touch it, just in case the killer had used that actual document. ‘As you can see, some of the escape tunnels and the priest holes are marked.’
Warren compared the plans to the photocopied sheets that Rachel Pymm had discovered amongst Vernon Coombs’ notes. ‘The shaft that Father Madden was found in is on the plan, but the tunnel running through to the exit down by the old cloisters isn’t.’
Baines looked apologetic. ‘A full survey of the house and grounds would have been prohibitively expensive; we just blocked up the most obvious ones to make the house safe. It’s possible that there are other tunnels that we don’t know about.’
A team of CSIs had spent the past few hours searching the tunnels for evidence that they had been used to covertly access the house during the previous murders. So far they had found no indication that the killer had used them either to enter the home or smuggle Fathers Nolan or Daugherty out. But did the killer know of routes that weren’t on the plan? Again, Warren thought of Rodney Shaw. The man had been involved in the conversion of the house and been in charge of maintenance for years; if anyone knew about secret tunnels it would be him. Or, for that matter, anyone who had seen the ancient diaries and papers stored in the archives could also have stumbled across tunnels that weren’t marked on the architects’ plan. Could the killer have been helping Vernon Coombs do his research?
‘Could people in the wider community have known about these tunnels?’
Baines pursed his lips in thought.
‘The priest holes and escape tunnels weren’t a secret. The local Middlesbury Historical Society and the Friends of Middlesbury Abbey have had tours of the house and the abbey grounds, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them requested a photocopy of the architects’ plan. Obviously, English Heritage have a copy; I don’t know if it’s easily available via their website, but I’m sure you could contact them for one.’ He gestured at the photocopied sheets on the table. ‘As to this material … I don’t know. We’ve always been quite open about letting researchers come and see the archives, as long as they were careful.’
‘Do you keep a list of who requested access?’
‘No, sorry.’
Warren suppressed a sigh; it had been a long shot.
They’d contact English Heritage to ask if anyone had requested a copy of the architects’ plan recently, and they’d fingerprint the folder that the plan was kept in, but he didn’t hold out much hope.
* * *
After leaving the retirement home, Warren drove straight over to the morgue. As he waited for Professor Jordan to come and meet him, he called Moray Ruskin to see how he was progressing.
‘I have a list of twenty-eight possible identities for Lucas Furber’s friend,’ said Ruskin. ‘Pretty much all of them committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. I kept in the three suicides by other means in case Peanut heard “suicide on the Underground” and just made assumptions,’ said Ruskin.
‘Good work. What do you propose doing next?’ asked Warren.
‘I was thinking of contacting the next of kin to see if they can tell us what school they went to. Then contacting their school and asking if they ever had either Lucas Furber or this suicide victim on their pupil roll.’
‘Good work, Moray. I’ll get DSI Grayson to authorise assistance from Welwyn to speed things up.’
He put his phone away as Jordan approached. He was already in surgical scrubs.
‘We really must stop meeting like this, Warren.’ The attempt at humour fell flat.
Warren agreed; he’d been to more autopsies linked to this case than he’d been to during his previous three years at Middlesbury combined. He still didn’t like the smell. After swapping his street clothes for protective attire, he joined the American-born pathologist.
‘First of all, general health of the subject.’ Jordan dictated into his microphone.
Warren had asked for the fastest possible turnaround in this instance. Jordan had been willing to oblige, but pointed out that the quickest way to get results would be for him to relay them directly to Warren as he performed his dissection.
Warren had tried to hide his reluctance as he agreed.
‘I’ve already weighed the deceased’s major organs and performed a gross examination. The subject is 178 centimetres in height, and seventy-two kilograms in weight, with musculature indicative of a sedentary life-style. Skeletal X-rays show signs of arthritis and significant wear on the ball of the left femur, consistent with the need for a hip replacement
‘Brain is of average weight and appearance, and his lungs are clean and apparently healthy. Heart is of expected size with moderate plaque formation within the coronary arteries although not enough to have contributed to death. The liver presents signs of the early stages of alcoholic cirrhosis.’
‘He was known to be a bit of a drinker,’ said Warren.
‘More than a bit, I’d say. There was a fair amount of whiskey in his stomach.’
Warren recalled that Sutton had reported that Madden was in the habit of retiring early and reading. He wondered if that was a cover for his drinking.
‘What about cause of death?’
‘Strangulation.’
‘Not hangman’s fracture? The drop was long enough.’
‘No. And he didn’t drop.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ryan pointed towards Madden’s throat.
‘Look at the colour of these marks. You can see that these abrasions can only have been made if the heart was still pumping blood. The rubbing is consistent with a rough, hemp rope, of the type found around his neck. I’ve also found these.’ Warren leant closer. Within the rubbed, angry looking flesh, Warren saw tiny cuts, with traces of dried blood.
Jordan rolled back the eyelids, pointing out the pinprick haemorrhages on the whites of the eyeball.
‘Petechiae, indicating strangulation.’
‘What’s your interpretation, Ryan?’
‘I think that he had a bladed instrument, such as a knife or scalpel, held against his throat, perhaps to make him more compliant. The blade was sharp enough to break the skin, hence the cuts. He then had a noose placed around his neck, and he was hoisted up, dying slowly through strangulation.’
‘And he was definitely killed where he was found?’
‘I can’t see any evidence from the patterns of livor mortis to suggest that he was moved after death.’
‘What about drugs?’
‘His stomach contained a substantial amount of alcohol, but I found no pill fragments or other evidence of ingested drugs. Obviously, we’ll need a blood toxicology report to be certain.’
Given recent events, it came as no surprise.
Another murder.