Bridge of Sighs

by Priscilla Masters

  The silence on the other end was thick as velvet.

  And now she didn’t know what to say. Oh, fuck, she thought. When did life and relationships get so bloody complicated?

  Finally he spoke. Or at least cleared his throat. ‘Umm. This is difficult for me, Martha. I wish …’ His voice was gruff.

  What do you wish, Alex? Could she have coaxed it out of him?

  She sensed whatever it had been, he was not going to say it. Maybe never would now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘sorry about everything.’ And he put the phone down, leaving her reflective. She couldn’t pretend there was nothing between them, nor did she want to. It had been a long time since Martin had died and she had largely been content on her own, focusing on bringing up the twins. But now she felt a fierce longing to be with Randall, and it hurt because the murky waters that lay between them were never going to clear.

  And if, as he seemed to have hinted, her hunch was indeed right and Mark Sullivan had proved it, those waters, murky as they were, could get a whole lot murkier.

  FORTY-FOUR

  It took Martha a while to move. She had been sitting still for more than ten minutes, ten minutes of paralysis both in thought and deed. Then she shook herself. This was no good. She had a job to do and she would do it. She needed to pass on the details of these photographs. The police needed to know. Would they be able to prosecute the man in the pictures or the person who had photographed the session or even the person who had sent the images to her?

  She doubted it.

  What she didn’t expect was that someone would approach her.

  She couldn’t know that at that very moment in a murky corner of a beautiful town there was a coffee bar. Not one of the chains, not a Starbucks or a Costa, but somewhere privately owned, up a tiny, narrow cobbled side street to the side of Waterstones known, tellingly, as Grope Lane where plots had been hatched for centuries. Sitting in the corner, even with his clothes on the man in the photograph would have been easily recognizable. Tall, muscular, handsome in a ballsy, dissolute sort of way. And the man speaking to him? Recognizable too. ‘Put these pictures in the right place and we’ve got enough to compromise her.’

  Martha would have recognized the pictures, known exactly when and where they had been taken. But what she would not have known was that they had been Photoshopped. Only a touch, only a tinge, a matter of an inch or so, but it looked as though she and Alex Randall were practically welded to each other. His lips were a hair’s breadth from her cheek. But what they needn’t have Photoshopped or done anything else with was the look they were exchanging. They had been in a public place – the quarry. It had been a hot day and they had shared a picnic. This was no bedroom and they were not panting to rip each other’s clothes off, but looks can speak more eloquently than a thousand words and the look was unmistakable. But while she was a widow DI Randall had, at the time, been a married man. And this picture had been taken before his wife had died in suspicious circumstances.

  This photograph would not help his career or the investigation into Erica’s death. It would compromise her too. That was the way they were thinking.

  But for now, in the steamy little coffee bar, both men were simply enjoying the power these pictures gave them. Victor Stanley was a minor thief. He’d also been accused of rape – quite unfounded from his point of view; the girl had been gagging for it. And, with a bit of persuasion, had withdrawn her allegation anyway. She’d nearly got into trouble for wasting police time. Stanley’s speciality was hanging around rich women, compromising and blackmailing them with the help of alcohol and sometimes a bit of chemical help. There’s plenty of stuff out there. With his good looks and deceitful manner it was an easy and lucrative business. He tanned easily, was athletic and strong, a good swimmer and fit. Women always noticed him as he noticed them. He wasn’t too fussy, which helped his cause, and he was perfectly capable of seducing them with practically a hundred per cent success. He was what you might call an actor – both a romantic lead and a minor villain. Don’t women just love a bad guy? He played all parts to perfection. Trouble was no one, least of all the women who were his target, realized it was all an act.

  Underneath Stanley was mean-spirited, emotionally frigid, narcissistic, vain and self-absorbed. But boy, could he put on an act. And he could produce an erection practically to order.

  That helped.

  Equally at home in a tux or a diving suit, casual chinos or smart, navy business suit, his age also worked for him. He was forty-six, but he could look thirty-six or fifty-six. He was a chameleon – that was what Ivor Donaldson called him, The Chameleon. With Donaldson’s access to the wealthy, the lonely, the frustrated and the bored, he would form the introductions and The Chameleon would play his part. It was a lucrative business. Between them they would extract money as easily as squeezing juice from a lemon – with the right equipment – and Victor Stanley had that all right. In fact, he had all the gifts nature could bestow and looked after them with some hefty workouts at the gym.

  To help matters along Victor Stanley had a little issue with the coroner. Years ago she had directed the police towards a finding of vehicular homicide. And the person who had been subsequently convicted had been a friend named Harris. OK, she had not actually convicted him and sentenced him to a nasty long stretch in a prison built for villains in the Victorian era, but his mate, Harris, had just been a car mechanic and the bloody thing that he’d worked on had crashed. On the A49. OK, the brakes had failed. OK, a few other people had died and a couple had been hurt. But Martha had come down on him like a ton of bricks at the inquests. She had well and truly pointed the finger at the person who had knowingly or carelessly fitted substandard brakes forgetting, as his mate had said, that they were half the price. But his mate had ended up going to prison – poor defence, useless lawyer. He’d got her already. In prison his mate, Harris, had died of drug-related hepatitis which was, in his mind, very unlucky. But his mate had been clean before he’d gone to prison. The coroner, he believed, had executed him. So he owed her one. Little red-haired cow.

  Look out, Coroner Gunn. I’m coming for you.

  He was a guy who liked to settle his scores.

  And he always had a grudge against the police. And lawyers.

  Two birds with one stone was the way he looked at it when he’d seen the pictures snapped of the pair of them, sitting together. Always worth having someone with a camera keeping an eye on people, particularly detectives off their guard – and in this case the coroner. They should have been more careful. You never knew who was watching. Nice warm sunny day, she in a sleeveless dress, he in a short-sleeved shirt. Sometimes these schemes worked better than others. But one needed apprentices to train up and since Jack was in prison he’d sort of taken the two lads under his wing. It helped that Jodi Silver was a looker. Bloody gorgeous and canny too. And lonely without her husband. So he’d taken it on himself to coach Warren and Sean in ‘life sciences’ – teach them how to make someone hurl themselves off a bridge rather than face continuing torment. The only thing that had gone ever so slightly wrong had been that silly trip out to the coroner’s office and scratching the message on the car. But Sean had insisted. And maybe learning a bit about the business or perhaps because they were, underneath, a chip off the old block, when they’d heard he intended to give the coroner a warning both boys had wheedled Stanley. ‘Go on, let us have a go.’ And when he hadn’t obliged they’d tried a threat. ‘Take us out with you. Otherwise we could be telling our dad on our next visit that you’re bonking his wife.’

  He’d given in. What harm could it do? Though what they could have had against the coroner was beyond him. Maybe nothing. Maybe it was just a trip for the fun of it.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Wednesday, 19 April, 2 p.m.

  Patrick’s inquest was always going to be a difficult occasion, but just before it started Martha had spent some time with Amanda and her sister and helped them compose themselves.


  ‘The police have an idea how, where and when he was victimized. None of this,’ she assured them, ‘needs to come out in the inquest.’ They clutched each other’s hands and Amanda gave a watery smile.

  ‘There will almost certainly be a conviction by the police but Patrick’s name need not be mentioned.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So now shall we go through?’

  Jericho did his duty, thoughtfully providing them with a glass of water each before standing back, chin in the air, standing to attention as though on military parade.

  Both Patrick’s mother and his aunt were dressed in dark skirt suits. Amanda, in particular, now wore a determined, dogged air, chin up, teeth gritted, lips set firm, hands gripping the arms of the chair. She was going to get through this. Martha had already performed the preliminaries to the court and now she invited them to speak on the boy’s behalf.

  As they spoke she listened. It gave her a chance to get a handle on the boy she would never meet. She would never see the bright-eyed lad with big teeth who had grinned at her from a school photograph. She would never be impressed by his skill with mathematics and physics, never hear him recite The Lion and Albert (with actions) from beginning to end. This was their chance to bring him back to life. Suicide wreaks vengeance on the family, trailing miserable guilt in its wake, only conscious of their failings. They should have picked up … But as Martha listened to Amanda Elson’s description of her son, her thoughts tracked away, searching for some other explanation so she could avoid adding to the burden of bereavement with a verdict of suicide. But facts were incontrovertible facts.

  He had been alone on the bridge. No one had pushed him. Eileen Tinsley had seen him reach the second rung, balance on the top rail and dive down on to the road. No hand had pushed him. And there were plenty of other witnesses who all testified to the same sequence of events. What else could it have been?

  Freddie Trimble, still in sports jacket but wearing a black tie, gave his testimony in a clear, slow description, using notes he had made. Both Amanda and Melanie smiled as he evoked the solemn boy.

  Mark Sullivan’s evidence was more difficult to handle. Martha had asked him not to list his injuries or mention the signs of abuse. That, she felt, would have been much too harrowing. She’d asked him simply to state what Patrick’s cause of death had been.

  ‘He died of shock and haemorrhage due to multiple injuries caused by contact with several motor vehicles which were travelling at speed.’ He eyed Martha, who nodded.

  And she had no option but to give the cause of death as suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed. The court was silent in response.

  On occasions Martha made some social comment but in Patrick’s case the only comment she could have made would have been to expose the exploitation of a boy by two children the same age, encouraged into violent acts and the manipulation of a minor by a felon.

  On the way out she had a word with Mark Sullivan. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You handled that really sensitively.’

  ‘I’d like to say it’s a pleasure,’ he said, ‘but that sort of case is just tragic.’

  She nodded in agreement.

  ‘On a more cheerful note,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing to implicate Alex in his wife’s fall. And,’ he said, his hand on her shoulder, ‘your hunch paid off. Well done you.’

  ‘Well, I thought it very unlikely that you would link Christopher’s congenital abnormality with Erica’s mental state.’

  ‘You’re darned right,’ he said admiringly. ‘I would never have thought of that.’

  ‘Maybe I know more about DI Randall’s home circumstances?’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘Maybe you do, Martha.’

  ‘Can I have a quick word with you on another matter?’

  He nodded, wondering what on earth was coming next.

  Thursday, 20 April, 3 p.m.

  She hadn’t meant to go. She had no business going. It was not a good idea. In fact, it was a really bad idea. There was no place for her here in any role. Not as coroner or friend or even nosey bystander. She knew few people would be there which meant her presence would be noticed. She didn’t even know why she was going. What did she hope to achieve? What was she playing at?

  She went anyway.

  The funeral service was to be held at the crematorium. Possibly it only made things worse that it was a glorious April day, daffodils well out, wafting in the breeze, lambs playing in the field. England, and particularly Shropshire, is at its best on such a beautiful spring day. It was a day when no one would want to leave the world. Erica Randall had been forty-six years old, she learned by reading through the order of service. The photograph on the front, she guessed, had been taken a few years ago.

  Before …

  Erica Randall wore a determined look, dark eyes gazing outwards. Martha studied it and saw a woman who could have been beautiful had she not worn that look, determined to take on the world. She guessed even before her mental problems that Erica Randall would not have been a comfortable person to live with.

  Out of respect for Alex’s wife, Martha had worn a dark grey suit. Not black. Not deep mourning. She’d held back there. That would have been too hypocritical.

  She sat down at the back and bowed her head.

  The organ music was muted, soft and recorded and, like supermarket tunes, seemed to have no beginning, no middle and no end. It just dribbled out like a musical stream, flowing and unthreatening. Martha did not recognize it.

  The coffin with just two wreaths of lilies and roses on top was wheeled in. Coffins usually seem too small to contain a person one has known and loved but this one looked too big for her image of Erica Randall. Alex trailed behind with an older woman Martha guessed to be Erica’s mother. She took a surreptitious glance at him. His face was set as though in granite in an expression she knew well. Gritted teeth. Like Patrick’s mother and aunt yesterday, this was something he just had to get through. He didn’t look either to his right or to his left but straight ahead so he didn’t see her. He was wearing a black suit, black tie, white shirt and looked taller and thinner and older than when she had last seen him. Surprisingly behind Alex and, presumably, his mother-in-law, trailed both Paul Talith and Gethin Roberts in uniforms so well pressed they looked like members of the armed forces.

  And now she noticed, three rows from the front, David Steadman, head bowed, and by his side Mark Sullivan. Whether both were there out of a sense of duty, loyalty or friendship she could only guess. Probably a mixture of all three.

  The service began.

  Alex gave the eulogy, his head also bowed, his words muffled, in a voice so quiet she had to strain to decipher what he was saying.

  ‘My wife had her problems,’ he said, suddenly looking up as though to have admitted this was a relief. ‘She had been unhappy ever since the birth of our son, Christopher, who was born with a birth defect. He lived for less than an hour. Erica was never well after that. And now we know the truth.’

  His eyes flickered across the front row and Martha saw him exchange a glance with Mark Sullivan, who almost smiled. Encouragement? Maybe.

  Alex continued. ‘It is only since Erica’s death that we have any explanation for all that happened.’ He looked up then and she read intense pain in his face. ‘For everything that she went through. That carries with it a burden, a sense of failure, a sense of guilt that will stay with me.’ His face was pale as he continued. ‘I regret much of my poor wife’s unhappy existence and …’ Now he looked farther into the room and his head jerked back as he caught sight of Martha. His face was pinched and he was temporarily lost for words before continuing bravely. ‘I shall remember Erica as she was in the early days, the days before she was sick, before Christopher. The happy days.’ Perhaps lost in this past crevice, he smiled then and Martha was reminded of the moment in Pilgrim’s Progress when Christian’s burden rolls off his back. She caught a glimpse of an Alex who smiled, who looked younger, someone without cares as he finish
ed his speech. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘let’s remember an Erica before our little boy, before illness, a happy, intelligent, beautiful …’

  Martha slipped out of the crematorium. She didn’t want to hear any more of this eulogy. Her last glance before exiting was Alex, still reading from his sheets of paper. He did not look up as she opened the door and passed through.

  FORTY-SIX

  The next few days were noteworthy by the lack of phone calls from anyone connected with either the two suicides or Erica Randall. Martha had released Patrick’s body for burial and expected the funeral to take place in the next few days. She wondered when Erica’s inquest would be closed and waited for either Alex, Mark Sullivan or David Steadman to let her know. There was a certain courtesy to be observed.

  Her interest in the three cases was diluted by a sudden flurry of deaths due to what the newspapers were calling ‘spring flu’ which was, in fact, a cluster of viral infections that felled anyone with respiratory disease, other chronic illness or simple old age. The young, the sick and old were culled and it kept her busy.

  On 21 April, the nation had celebrated the Queen’s birthday (one of those not felled by the nasty little viruses) and Sukey came home alone, pale, tired and looking slightly depressed. Martha avoided the subject of Pom, though it was hard. A mother naturally frets about her children, however old they are. But, she told herself, her daughter would confide in her when she was ready. All she did was give her an extra-warm hug when she greeted her and murmured in her ear that she was always ready to listen, but the nearest Sukey got to confiding in her mother was the brief announcement that she had decided to accept the part in the soap and Dominic was currently drawing up the contracts.