by Jo Allen
‘I’ll be glad to have you on my team,’ Doddsy said to Jude to general laughter. ‘You might have something useful to add. Seeing as you got off to such a great start with Dr Wilder.’ He must have heard the story of his boss’s brush with the academic, and shook his head in what looked like admiration. ‘You’re a braver man than I am, taking her on.’
‘Is she staying on in Grasmere?’
‘Yes. I’ve asked her not to leave until enquiries are complete. She had plans to go back to the States in a couple of days but seemed happy enough to change them. Says there’s always more work she can do.’
‘That’ll have implications for our operations. I suppose I’ll need to leave someone keeping half an eye on her. If there was a threat before, it hasn’t gone away.’ Jude wrinkled his face in vague dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction suited him. Ashleigh hid her smile and addressed herself to Doddsy. ‘I don't suppose there’s any doubt about what happened to Owen Armitstead?’
‘I don’t think so. There’s nothing that stands out as immediately suspicious, though given the threats to Dr Wilder, we need to treat it as something more than a routine suicide.’ That was why Doddsy was involved when normally someone junior would have taken on the task, why Jude was keeping that watching brief. ‘I had the CSI people down there yesterday, and I’m expecting the results of the PM around lunchtime. But to be honest, I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t straightforward. It looks as if he waited until Cody Wilder had left in the morning to go to her lecture, and then hanged himself in the kitchen.’ Doddsy spilled some printed photographs onto the table. ‘Oak beams. Nasty things. I wouldn’t have them.’
Picking up a picture of Owen clad in a pair of stars and stripes boxers and lying sprawled where his rescuer had cut him down, Ashleigh once more contemplated the inevitability of fate. She could imagine him, stumbling about in the kitchen like a student with a hangover, pitching over the edge of the table as he took the last clumsy step to his death. The noose was still over the beam and its shadow lay across his scrawny torso. ‘He and his boss were both staying there. Is that right? That’s very swanky for an academic. I thought they were all poor.’
‘Dr Wilder’s controversial, and if you handle that right there’s money in it. Books, lectures, appearance fees and what have you. She’d rented the cottage in Coffin Lane for a couple of weeks and they were staying while she finalised her presentation and carried out further research in the archives. According to her version he didn’t appear for breakfast and when she called him, he said he’d join her in time for the talk. She went down to the venue and he didn’t turn up, so obviously she carried on without him.’
‘So he waited until she’d gone and hanged himself.’ Tired of fanning through endless intrusive shots, all different angles on a simple conundrum, Ashleigh dropped the photos back on the desk.
‘Looks like it. The landlord reckoned he was still warm when he found him. The PM will give us a reasonable time of death, but it looks to me as if he took a while to decide to do the deed.’ Doddsy’s voice softened with sympathy.
Sometimes Ashleigh thought Doddsy was too good a man to be a policeman. You needed a core of steel, a heart of lead and a titanium soul, something to protect you. It was amazing he’d lasted as long in the force as he had. ‘Do we know why?’
‘No idea. He left no note, or none that we’ve found so far. The rope came from the shed, so it wasn’t as though he’d had to make an effort to go out and get it. That’s one of the things we have to look at.’
‘Have we spoken to his parents?’
‘Not yet. They’re travelling up from Berkshire this morning. The local police have allocated them a Family Liaison Officer.’ He hesitated. ‘I’d like you to go along and talk to them, too. Not in an official FLO role, obviously. But to ask the odd question.’
There was a frisson of doubt in his voice, and Ashleigh waited for Jude to object. Her last flirtation with family liaison had been an unsuccessful one. She was qualified for the role and it had taken her too long to realise that she wasn’t emotionally suited for it. But the department was aware of her strengths as well as her weaknesses. People talked to her and Jude, accepting that, shrugged any objections aside and kept silence.
‘Of course I’ll do it. What can you tell me about him?’
‘Chris did a bit of digging yesterday afternoon and this morning. I’ll get him to see what more he can find. Owen Armitstead was twenty-five and came from Reading. He had a first-class degree from Reading University and was studying for a PhD there, on the Romantic poets. He took a year out from that to work with Cody Wilder on her project, which tied in closely with his own thesis. He’s academically gifted, without being exceptionally so – more of a grafter than the inspired researcher.’
The perfect foil, it appeared for his mercurial boss. ‘How long had he been working for Dr Wilder?’
‘Since August.’
‘And what do we know about his character?’ Because this was where the key to suicides – and murders – was inevitably found.
‘Very little. That’s why I’m keen to find out. His boss, I should add, was scornful of him, although I didn’t engage in a formal interview with her.’ He cleared his throat. ‘That’s something else I’d like you to take on.’
Jude, sitting back and spectating, allowed himself a laugh. ‘Good luck with that.’
His reward was a reproachful look. ‘I’m not dodging the job. Dr Wilder strikes me as someone who doesn’t have a lot of time for men in authority. On that basis, she’s more likely to talk to Ashleigh than to us.’
‘If she talks to anyone.’
‘You broke the news to her, didn’t you?’ Already, Ashleigh’s mind was flitting over how she might handle the notorious, antagonistic Cody Wilder. One thing was certain – a gladiatorial approach wouldn’t work. ‘How did she react?’
Jude pushed his chair back even further and frowned. ‘Not well. But she strikes me as the sort who judges people on the instant and whose reaction to them is fixed in stone, and she’d already taken against me because I arrived late for her lecture and left early. It’s as well I’m not directly involved, because I don’t think I’d get a lot out of her, and I don’t think her response to me was necessarily a natural one. Allowing for that, I still wasn’t impressed.’
‘I can’t say I was,’ confirmed Doddsy. ‘Nor Chris. But we’re all men.’
‘Women getting all the hard jobs again, eh?’ Ashleigh winked at him. Cody Wilder might be difficult but she’d be intriguing. ‘Did she seem upset?’
‘No. Irritated, perhaps. She described him as a weakling and a moral coward and her only real concern seemed to me that what happened isn’t in any way a threat to her.’
‘Which may or may not be the case. But for the life of me, I can’t see why anyone would hurt him to hurt her, if she held him in such contempt. She certainly didn’t go to any great lengths to hide it when I spoke to her, either.’ Doddsy pulled out a picture of Owen Armitstead and laid it on the table.
It was the first time Ashleigh had seen an image of him as a living being – foppishly dressed as if for an over-the-top publisher’s party, in a three-piece suit with a sapphire-blue cravat. A long fringe flopped down over his thin face and he peered at the camera from beneath it. The smile that hovered on his narrow lips lacked confidence but the dark eyes were full of fascination. ‘He was a good-looking boy, wasn’t he? In a Victorian poet kind of way. What an interesting face.’
‘Very interesting. I’d like to know what kind of relationship she had with him. Whether it went beyond the workplace. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’
Jude dared to flip her a look. Doddsy was his best friend so there were no secrets to be hidden from him, but even that tiny action suggested he might be loosening up a little. She returned the look, garnishing it with a smile. ‘Do we know anything about it? She’s pretty scandalous, isn’t she?’
‘Yes. Chris had a scout around th
e internet and there’s plenty to be found. She’s written a series of short biographies of women poets for a feminist publisher that sold well – the critics hated them but the punters loved them. She isn’t shy of putting controversial opinions out there, and there’s nothing that’s off topic. She contradicts herself often enough. It’ll be interesting to see what she actually believes. If you can get that much out of her, of course.’
‘I had a look, too.’ People used social media to create a facade, but even doing so they often gave away some of the truth. When she’d met Cody Wilder, Ashleigh sensed she’d find vulnerability beneath the bullish image the woman chose to project, but there was no sign of it anywhere in cyberspace. ‘She’s put a lot of people’s backs up. And there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s positively slanderous about her work, and her methods, and her personal life. But she’s never bothered to deny any of it.’ Though whether that meant the allegations had the grain of truth or were so shallow that Cody could afford to ignore them was something that remained to be established. ‘Academically she has a lot of enemies, too.’
‘She fell out with the established universities and then made a success of working alone, that’s why. It’s the reason Owen had to take a break from his PhD to work with her on her big project.’ Doddsy looked down as a message pinged onto his phone. ‘Ah, I knew this would happen. That’s the press office. People are hassling them for a statement. I need to get on. Can I leave it with you to get down to Grasmere and keep me informed?’
‘Sure.’
‘And to think you missed the reveal.’ As Doddsy made his way out of the office, Ashleigh got up and gathered up the photos, sliding them back into their envelope, twitching the last one from Jude’s fingers as he stared down at it. ‘Did you ever find out what her big story was?’
‘I’d almost forgotten. Yes, my mum filled me in on it. The story isn’t Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal. It’s her letters. To William Wordsworth’s wife, Mary. Apparently they imply that Dorothy conceived and later lost her brother’s child.’
Ashleigh lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Is that right? I know there’s been a lot of research, and some academics believe there was incest between William and Dorothy, but confessing it to Mary?’
‘Dr Wilder’s hypothesis is that Mary Wordsworth was complaisant and assisted in the end of the pregnancy.’
‘That’s certainly a new take on things. She must be desperate to get hold of the other half of the correspondence. I think most people assumed that the missing journal wouldn’t exactly be dynamite, but this is different.’ Ashleigh placed the envelope of photographs in a folder and found that Jude was looking at her with faint surprise. ‘Don’t look so astonished. I studied the Romantics at uni. I went to study English, but I dropped out to join the police.’
‘Right.’
They hadn’t known each other long, but Jude was a man who liked to know everything whereas Ashleigh preferred to keep her secrets. Still, there was no harm in this one. ‘Write me down as a failed poet. It didn’t feel to me at the time as if there was an awful lot of relevance to what I was reading and I was never sure that digging around in people’s past was what I wanted to do.’
‘And now here you are,’ he said with a laugh, ‘doing exactly that.’
*
When Ashleigh had gone and Doddsy had turned back to constructing a suitably neutral statement to put out to the press, Jude made his way down to the canteen to pick up a cup of coffee before heading up to DS Groves’s office. Groves had resented the arrival of Cody Wilder and the pressure it had placed on his resources and he wouldn’t take kindly to the news that she’d be staying longer, but until Doddsy had established the cause of Owen Armitstead’s death, the very real risk she brought with her would remain.
He reviewed what he knew, even as he sat down in the corner of the canteen with his coffee and prepared to check in with Chris, who was still in Grasmere. Cody’s antics on Twitter had attracted a catalogue of the vilest threats and, while the majority of them were the work of keyboard warriors who never saw the light of day, she was too high-profile for him to ignore them. Her revelations about the Wordsworth letters had, he’d noted when he’d checked that morning, generated a new firestorm of accusations about her professional approach and allegations about her personal life to add to the internet’s bubbling fury about – among other things – her opposition to gun control and her advocacy of unrestricted violence in self-defence. Even without involving himself in the investigation into Owen’s death, he would have to make sure someone was monitoring them.
He sighed as he called Chris. ‘I’m just checking in with you. Doddsy’s sending Ashleigh down to take over on the unexplained death, but as we seem to be stuck with Dr Wilder for a few days yet, I’m still going to need you to keep an eye on the security front.’
‘Sure. I can do that.’ A rumble of traffic and the clattering shout of a jackdaw at the other end of the line indicated that Chris must be outside. ‘I don’t think we need much, to be honest. If you can make sure there are a couple of uniforms floating around in the village that should be enough to remind people we’re here.’
‘Okay.’ Jude reviewed his resources. ‘I’m going to send Ashleigh down to speak to Cody Wilder. When she gets there, you can come back up. I’ve told Doddsy he can use you for ferreting out what we can find about Owen Armitstead, if everything’s gone quiet at your end.’
‘As the grave. I couldn’t even find anywhere open for a coffee until ten o’clock. I thought this was meant to be a tourist hotspot.’
Jude grinned. In time, Chris would learn to have a flask of coffee in the boot of his car. ‘Have all the demonstrators gone?’
‘Yeah. They packed up and left yesterday evening.’
‘And the banner? I don’t suppose you found anything about that?’
‘Everything. Or rather, someone’s version of everything. I spoke to the guy who put it up. His name is Graham Gordon, and he and his wife Eliza run a sweet shop and cafe in the village. They make their own chocolate, that sort of thing. They’ve got a sad enough story, but it’s nothing to do with Cody Wilder. He and his wife lost their daughter and her unborn baby to a violent ex-partner, and the two of them took exception to an interview she gave to a newspaper.’
Jude sighed. There would be a few people who’d done that. ‘What did she say?’
‘It was about women’s refuges. There are some blinding quotes in it. She went on about the snowflake generation and how they should give as good as they get. If you let people push you around you can't complain about what happens to you. Any self-respecting woman will stand up for herself and if she chooses not to, she deserves what comes to her. I paraphrase, but it’s the gist of it.’
‘That’s one approach.’
Unimpressed by Cody’s opinions, Chris shrugged. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the impacts of domestic violence first-hand, too often, picked up too many battered souls and clapped too many violent partners in handcuffs. ‘The best protection is strength of purpose, lack of compromise and, if necessary, a shotgun, apparently. I’m not surprised the Gordons got upset about it, but as their daughter was murdered months before the date of the interview it seems a bit of a contortion to accuse the doctor of having been responsible.’
No doubt, in her particular way of thinking, Cody would chalk that reaction up as some kind of a success. ‘Okay. We’ll leave it at that.’
He rang off, what passed for a coffee break over. Something at the back of his mind suggested that the relationship between Cody and Owen might not have been as simple as that between employee and employer and that even though there was nothing to suggest foul play, it might yet leave some kind of stain on what passed for her conscience.
*
Cody’s insistence on any interview taking place in a cafe in the village, rather than in the cottage where Owen had been found dead was, Ashleigh suspected, a pre-emptive strike to establish her own authority and dictate terms. The academic’s
opening gambit reinforced the idea.
‘So.’ Trim in jeans and a brightly coloured fleece, Cody sashayed her way across the cafe to the table where Ashleigh rose to shake her hand. ‘They’ve sent someone else down to talk to me, have they? You’re DS O’Halloran? Let’s hope you’re a more sympathetic interviewer than either that chief inspector or his sidekick. Queer as a three-dollar bill, he is, by the way. Nothing wrong with that, but let’s not pretend otherwise.’
No one could reasonably describe Doddsy as unsympathetic and the reference to his sexuality must be designed to provoke a reaction. Refusing to give her the satisfaction, Ashleigh immediately understood that this witness wasn’t going to be easily kept to facts. Extraordinary, given her background in research and her reported meticulous attention to detail and evidence. ‘It’s good to meet you at last, Dr Wilder. Thanks for agreeing to talk to us.’ Though she’d had little choice. A refusal would have indicated she had something to hide. ‘I’m sure you want to help me find out what happened to Owen.’
‘We know what happened to him. He killed himself, and I’ve already given my version of what happened. It’s done. Do we really need to know any more?’
‘We owe Mr Armitstead and his family a thorough investigation into the circumstances.’ Ashleigh took her courage in both hands and met Cody’s gaze. Pale hazel eyes, direct and demanding, confronted her, evaluating her as if she were the witness rather than the questioner. ‘Also, perhaps, yourself.’
