David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘Let me try to sum up your position for the benefit of the gentlemen of the jury, Mr Healey. You didn’t see anybody fire the gun. You didn’t see the defendant fire the gun. A completely different person could have fired the gun and fled down the stairs leaving the defendant to follow the noise of the gunshot and find his brother dead. Is that not so?’

Charlie Healey did not choose to reply.

‘No more questions,’ said Pugh and sat down.

Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were eating lunch in the buffet of the Gare du Nord in Paris. Lady Lucy was looking anxiously at the weather. ‘I do hope we’re not going to have a crossing like the one we had on the way over, Francis.’

‘That’s not possible, my love.’ Powerscourt was making his way through an enormous lamb chop. ‘I’m sure those kinds of storm only happen about once every five years or so.’

‘Johnny Fitzgerald should be back in London by now.’ Lady Lucy was having moules, a growing mountain of empty shells threatening to spill out of the bowl. ‘That should cheer Mr Pugh up at any rate.’

‘I’m not sure that what we’re bringing is a great deal of use,’ said her husband, relapsing into miserable mode. ‘I’m sure he was going to make a lot of the mysterious foreigner going to the wedding anyway. We’ve just managed to put some flesh on the bones for him. We’ve got a name and address.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be able to get Mr Colville acquitted now,’ said Lady Lucy loyally. ‘I’m certain of it.’

Sir Jasper took a long time on his examination of Detective Chief Inspector Weir. This was because of the length of time Weir took thinking about his answers before he spoke. Pugh could feel his irritation rising. His junior kept sending him messages as the afternoon went on. The young man had a remarkable talent for drawing life-like sketches of the people about him. He had already produced a choleric Judge Black with both hands wrapped round an enormous pencil, and the foreman of the jury, one hand to his forehead, lines of worry etched across his face.

When Sir Jasper had finally finished with the policeman, Pugh rose to his feet with a broad smile on his face. He had just had an idea and there wasn’t time to bounce it past his junior, unusually mature in his judgements for one of his age.

‘Tell me, Detective Chief Inspector, how long is it now before your retirement?’

Weir also smiled a mighty smile. ‘Why, sir, it’s six weeks and two days now.’

‘And you plan to stay in Norfolk with Mrs Weir?’ Pugh prayed that there was indeed a Mrs Weir and that she was not either bedridden or suffering from a terminal disease. Close inspection of the Detective Chief Inspector seemed to indicate an officer who was well looked after, beautifully ironed shirt, trousers pressed to perfection. ‘A little cottage near the coast, perhaps, for the retirement years?’

Weir’s reply showed that Pugh’s guess had been correct. There was a Mrs Weir, thank God, neither confined to bed, nor heading for the coffin.

‘How did you guess, sir?’ said Weir. ‘We’ve bought a place near Blakeney, up on the coast.’

Pugh reckoned he had one more question before Sir Jasper exploded to his left or the judge exploded to his front.

‘And I suppose that the planning of the move and so on takes up a lot of your time, and of course of Mrs Weir’s too.’

‘It does indeed, sir. It’s amazing how much of my time it takes.’ Pugh’s junior suddenly abandoned his pose of bored lethargy interrupted by portraiture and wrote something down at great speed. He waited for the right moment to hand it to his superior.

‘But come, Detective Chief Inspector, we must not waste the court’s time with pleasantries about your retirement, however enjoyable they may be. I would like to ask you, if I may, about the principles you follow in making an arrest.’

‘I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir,’ said Weir, scratching his head and looking perplexed.

‘Well,’ said Pugh airily, ‘some men in your profession concentrate initially on motive. Once they see who might profit from someone else’s death, they concentrate their attention on that person, searching for when and how they might have killed their victim. Others don’t care much about motive, they concentrate on who could have done the murder at the time it was committed and look for motive after that. Does that help, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘I see what you’re getting at now, sir. I would say I rely on experience. I must have investigated well over fifty murders in my time with the force, so I have. You get a good sense of how they’re done after that.’

‘I see,’ said Pugh, still in charming mode. ‘I would like to remind you of the evidence of Mrs Nash, which I’m sure you know. She told the court there were about forty people wandering about at her daughter’s wedding who were unknown to her, to Mrs Nash that is, not the daughter. Might that not give cause for doubt? Just a little doubt perhaps, but doubt nonetheless as to whether the defendant was the murderer? And Mrs Nash also referred to the three staircases, one in the murder room itself, which could be used to reach the state bedroom where the dead man lay. Do those two facts not make you doubtful about your arrest?’

‘God bless my soul, sir, surely you’re ignoring the most important evidence of all. There sat the defendant with the gun in his hand, the gun used to kill Mr Randolph. There was Mr Randolph lying dead on the floor. Nobody else was reported as going in or out of that room. It was an open and shut case.’

‘So are you just ignoring the facts that might cause you doubt, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘Certainly not, sir. I’m just relying on experience. When you’re nearly sixty-five, you learn to trust your instincts.’

‘And instinct in this case might prove more powerful than reason?’

‘Not at all, sir. But when you see a dead man on the floor, another man opposite with a gun in his hand which has come from the dead man’s house, then I think that is an open and shut case.’

Pugh felt he wasn’t making much progress with his cross-examination so far. He thought he was losing support with the jury. One or two them, particularly the one in the dark blue waistcoat, were casting hostile glances at him. He did have one weapon to bring into play.

He moved over to the exhibit table and picked up the gun. He brought it back to his place and ran his fingers along the sides.

‘Could we talk about the gun, Detective Chief Inspector? This is not the real gun used in the murder, gentlemen of the jury, but it is the same make and the same size. I do not need to remind you jurymen of the recent advances in the science of fingerprinting, the ability to use one man’s fingerprints to establish whether or not he has been in contact with a particular gun or safe or something similar. We have recently seen, indeed, a conviction for murder here in London based on fingerprint evidence. It is the perfect means of discovering whether a particular individual has handled something like a gun for he would have left fingerprints all over it if he had.’

‘Now then, Detective Chief Inspector, does the Norfolk Constabulary have its own forensic and fingerprinting service?’

‘No, sir, it does not.’ Pugh’s junior thought that Weir was beginning to shrink slowly in front of them. He picked up his pencil and began another sketch.

‘You’re not telling us that your force chooses to ignore fingerprints altogether, are you?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Weir.

‘How, pray, do you manage to avail yourselves of the resource of a fingerprint service when you don’t have one?’

‘We use the Metropolitan Police Force’s fingerprint bureau, sir. We send the stuff down to London when we need to.’