Chapter 4

“Well, it certainly looks like my Newton,” Alice Wenthrop said as the mortician pulled back the white sheet. “But I don’t see how it can be. I was there when they buried him in the graveyard at St. Peter’s last week.”

August stood alongside in silence as the old lady continued to stare fixedly at the corpse’s head and upper body, all the while twisting the handle of her handbag in her hands. When she turned away, August nodded for the mortician to return the sheet. He then walked Miss Wenthrop through the swing doors and out into the corridor. They paused as the doors closed behind them and Alice Wenthrop shook her head. “Bob Frobisher went with me to see the body that Angus Goat found and I was as sure as anything that that was Newton.”

“The solicitor found the body on the road to Witchford, I understand?”

“That’s right, yes. And I don’t have the faintest idea what Newton will have been doing over there. Nor how he could have got there. There’s no bus that goes that way on a Sunday and his bike was back at the cottage.”

“Did he have any relatives?” August asked, “Any family that you know of?”

“No, none at all. He came to me from the orphanage at Croxley Hall. Just after the war. He was only sixteen then. Nice boy. A bit simple, but gentle and very caring. Wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

“And you don’t know anything about his background? Anything about his life before he came to be in the orphanage?”

“Not much at all, I’m afraid,” Miss Wenthrop replied. “They said he was left as a baby in a shop doorway. Somewhere in Cambridge, I think it was. The shopkeeper found him one morning when he went to open up.”

“No note left with him, no belongings?” asked August.

“No, nothing. All he had was a change of baby clothes, a spare nappy, and a dummy in his mouth.”

August crooked his arm and offered it for Miss Wenthrop to take hold. He then walked her slowly back through the white-tiled corridors and out into the hospital grounds where the crisp fresh air provided a welcome relief from the smell of disinfectant.

The old lady shivered in the cold wind and clung tightly to August’s arm as they negotiated the snow-covered path to where the car was parked. Sergeant Gooding saw the two of them returning, dropped his half-smoked Woodbine to the ground, and walked back to the Wolseley. With one hand holding the handle to keep the door open he used the other to help Miss Wenthrop into the back seat. “All good, Alice?” he asked when she was seated inside. “All good, thank you, Walter,” she replied, and Gooding then closed the door and turned to August. “What did Alice say, sir? Did she think it was Newton?”

“She did, yes. But she was also sure that the body they found on the Witchford road was Newton’s.”

“Well if it was anybody else,” the sergeant said, “I’d say they’d got it wrong. But not Alice. She looked after Newton for years. Looked after him like he was her own. If anybody knew him she certainly did. It’s all a bit bloody weird, if you ask me.”

“I’ll need to ask her a few more questions later,” August said, “and I’d also like to see where Newton’s body was found.  Let’s drop Miss Wenthrop back home first though and then go round and see this chap, Goat. See if he can shed any light.”