by Jan Newton
Julie swallowed hard. Pretty was the last thing that would have come into her mind to describe the woman she’d seen up there on the Monks’ Trod. ‘Did she say why she was here in Llandrindod? Did she give a reason?’ Julie’s pencil was poised. ‘Did she have any luggage?’
Mrs Pritchard shook her head. ‘She didn’t tell me anything. She had a tiny rucksack, one of those knapsack things that workmen used to carry their lunch in donkeys’ years ago, and there was a big oblong carrier bag type thing. From a supermarket. I remember thinking how incongruous it looked, her in that state with a bag wider then she was, plastered with citrus fruits and pineapples and mangoes. But that was all she had with her.’
‘And she took them with her when she left?’ Julie asked.
‘Well that’s the odd thing.’ Mrs Pritchard’s tone was suddenly confidential. ‘She left them both here. I was sure she’d taken the knapsack out with her, but she can’t have done. I assumed at first that she’d be back of course, but after three days I realised I’d probably not see her again either.’
‘Did you look inside the bags?’
Mrs Pritchard blushed. ‘Well it was only because I thought I could send them on to her. I didn’t want to be nosey, nothing like that. I didn’t remove anything, Sergeant.’
‘And did she leave any money in the bags?’ Swift sounded innocent, but Mrs Pritchard read the question with precision.
‘Yes, Inspector, she did. But there was nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the room and,’ she offered a small smile, ‘it’s all still there, waiting for her to come back. Would you like to see the room?’
Swift and Julie exchanged a glance. ‘Yes please, that would be very helpful,’ Swift said. ‘By the way, did she give you her name?’
‘She did, but I wasn’t sure it was her real name.’ Mrs Pritchard gave the two officers a knowing look. ‘In the circumstances.’
‘And?’ said Swift.
‘Rosa.’ Mrs Pritchard smiled. ‘Rosa Quigley.’
The room had been let several times since Rosa left, Mrs Pritchard told them on the way up the curving staircase. There had been a teacher who had come all the way from Somerset for an interview, then an older couple who said they were looking for a house, fed up of the rat race and their noisy neighbours in Birmingham. Last night there was a very nice man from Germany who spoke only a smattering of English. He managed to tell her he was from Düsseldorf and he had been learning Welsh, but she had no idea why and as she had never mastered the language herself, that got them no further on.
‘Where was Rosa from, Mrs Pritchard?’ Julie asked.
Mrs Pritchard stopped abruptly on the stairs, which allowed Swift to catch them up. ‘Now that would have been a good question to ask her, but it wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I saw the state she was in.’ She climbed the last few stairs and turned to the right.
‘What about her accent, did she have a distinctive dialect?’ Julie asked.
‘Nothing obvious. I’m pretty good at accents, but only the more obvious ones – Birmingham, Liverpool, Scotland.’ She pushed open the door to a bedroom at the front of the house and sunlight streamed out onto the landing. ‘And Yorkshire, like yours.’
Julie said nothing, just concentrated on stifling the age-old retort related to points of the compass and the Pennines.
‘How long did she stay?’ Swift was examining the drawers in the bedside table, which were empty, apart from a brand new hard-backed copy of the Gideon Bible and a small clothes brush.
‘Two nights. Although she was very late back on the second night and she’d gone before I got up the next morning.’
Swift bent down and lifted the corner of the valence and peered under the bed.
‘You won’t find anything in here by now,’ Mrs Pritchard said. ‘I’m very fussy.’
Julie nodded to herself. That wasn’t a surprise. ‘What was her state of mind when she was here? Was there any indication of how she was feeling? Did she talk to you much?’
‘She looked awful, to be honest with you. She was very pale, and when she arrived I thought she’d been crying.’
‘She didn’t tell you what that might have been about?’
Mrs Pritchard shook her head. ‘That first day she barely spoke at all. She had a bath, as I said and I made her something to eat. It was only beans on toast but she was so grateful for it that I dug out the lemon cake I had in the freezer. I’d been saving it for my son, it’s his favourite, but he’s not called in for a while and she looked as though she needed looking after. I suppose you can’t help it, once you’ve had kids, you just revert to mother mode.’
‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Julie said. ‘How old is your son, just out of interest?’
Mrs Pritchard blushed. ‘Almost thirty-one.’
Swift smiled. ‘So Rosa didn’t tell you why she was here?’ Mrs Pritchard shook her head. ‘But you don’t think she was on holiday?’
He walked over to the window and looked out across the narrow street. By the ornate brick wall that fronted the park, a young fair-haired woman was talking to an old man who leaned heavily on a stick. Swift couldn’t see who had spoken, but suddenly the pair of them rocked with laughter.
‘Well I didn’t want to get involved.’ Mrs Pritchard paused, and Swift turned and gave her a look over the top of his glasses. She sighed. ‘The poor girl seemed agitated, but she didn’t say why. One thing she did say which struck me as a bit strange, when I thought about it afterwards, was that she was looking for something. Someone had taken something really precious from her and she was going to get it back.’
‘You don’t know what that something might have been?’ Julie joined Swift at the window. ‘Was it money do you think, or could it have been some sort of property?’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t ask. I suppose I didn’t think it was any of my business. I’m new to this landlady thing and I’m finding it difficult to know what sort of tone to establish with the guests. Maybe I should have asked her. I’m assuming, if you’re looking for her, that she’s in a bit of trouble, is she?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Swift looked at her. ‘We found a body in the Elan Valley yesterday afternoon.’ He paused and watched the colour drain once more from Mrs Pritchard’s face. ‘We have reason to believe that it may be Rosa.’
‘Oh God no, that poor girl.’ Mrs Pritchard sank onto the edge of the bed. ‘But you’re not sure? Could you be mistaken?’
‘We have no information which would allow us to make a formal identification as yet,’ Julie said.
Mrs Pritchard closed her eyes. And you want me to tell you whether the body is her… Rosa?’
‘It would help us if you could make an identification, Mrs Pritchard. Perhaps you would be kind enough to come to the police station as soon as you can,’ Julie said, handing her a card.
Mrs Pritchard swallowed. ‘She’s at the police station?’
‘No, she isn’t, but if you could tell us whether you recognise the clothes we have, that would be sufficient, at the moment. It might not be possible for you to identify the body itself.’
Mrs Pritchard moved remarkable quickly as the inference struck home. They could hear her retching in the en-suite. When she came back into the room she was even more softly-spoken than before.
‘I know exactly what she was wearing. Her own stuff wouldn’t have survived the washer. I threw everything in the bin. She was wearing the clothes I got for her from Oxfam. Jeans and a checked shirt – the sort of thing farmers wear – in reds and blues, and a black denim jacket. Nearly new that was, it was a real bargain. And I let her have a pair of socks James left in his drawer, just ordinary black socks you’d wear for work.’
‘So did he have tiny feet then?’ Julie asked.
Mrs Pritchard offered a small smile. ‘No, Sergeant, I shrank them in the tumble drier. I just hadn’t got round to throwing them out.’
‘Can you remember her shoes?’ Julie asked. ‘Would you recognise them?’<
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Mrs Pritchard’s hand went to her neck and she threaded the lower string of pearls between her fingers. ‘Yes, I would recognise the shoes.’ She smiled. Her focus was not on her visitors but somewhere far away. ‘They were my shoes, from another life.’
‘Can you describe them for us?’ Julie glanced at Swift. They both knew that this just might put the identification beyond doubt.
Mrs Pritchard let the pearls go and they settled back into position over the pale grey lambs’ wool twinset. ‘They were Doc Martens. Black. The sort that end about here.’ She tapped her calf. ‘The laces were yards long.’ She shook her head. ‘I sometimes think I might have been better following my instincts and sticking with the person I was then, when I wore those boots, rather than getting sucked into this Stepford Wives fantasy world.’ She jerked her head, taking in the perfectly aligned curtain swags and the guests’ tea tray with colourful sachets of herb teas and a small Kilner jar containing rounds of home-made shortbread. Her gaze settled on the tall, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table. The reflection of her face reddened and her lips tightened into a grim line. ‘When I think of what I’ve wasted with that…’
‘Quite,’ said Swift. ‘So these boots were, er, shall we say they weren’t new, then?’
Mrs Pritchard’s face creased into a smile and she abandoned her reflection and twinkled at him. ‘No, Inspector, they were pretty ancient.’
Swift smiled back and Julie sighed impatiently. ‘So when you say she was back late on the second night, which would have been what, Thursday, did you see her come back?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. I heard her though. My room is just next door and I heard her put her key in the lock at around 1.30am.’
‘And you’re sure it was her?’
‘Well, who else would it be?’ Mrs Pritchard raised her eyebrows in query, but Julie noticed that they descended rather swiftly into a frown. ‘You mean the person who… her attacker… he could have been here?’
‘We don’t know yet if she was attacked, and we certainly don’t know that a male was involved in any way in this lady’s demise,’ Julie said. ‘We just want to be clear about the last time she was here and whether anything could have been taken from her belongings by anyone else.’
‘Of course. Yes. I see.’ Mrs Pritchard again fingered the pearls at her throat. ‘But he could have been here?’
‘I’m sure it will have been Rosa who came back late.’ Swift’s voice was soothing. ‘Please don’t worry about that now, but we would like to see her belongings, if that would be possible.’
‘Yes, of course. They’re in here.’ Mrs Pritchard bustled out onto the landing and opened the door of a tall airing cupboard filled with neatly folded sheets and Witney blankets. She gestured to the two bags, which looked oddly out of place beside the folded white linen.
Julie snapped on blue latex gloves and picked up both items of Rosa’s luggage and Mrs Pritchard shepherded them down the stairs and opened the front door.
‘Thank you,’ said Swift. ‘We’ll get these straight to forensics. Do you think it would be possible for you to leave us your fingerprints when you call into the station? It’s just for elimination purposes, it will speed things up for us.’
Mrs Pritchard’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but she obviously thought better of what she had been thinking of saying and remained mutinously silent.
Julie looked over her shoulder as she stepped onto the garden path. ‘About Mr Pritchard,’ she said. ‘Do you want us to look for him?’
Mrs Pritchard paused, twiddled the pearls, looked down at her feet and slowly shook her head. I think, Sergeant, all things considered, I may well be better off without him.’ She went to close the door, then opened it again, just a crack. ‘But thank you for asking.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Day Two
Back at the office, Julie and Rhys sifted through the meagre belongings in the knapsack. There was a small pink purse containing £25 and some change, but there were no credit cards, and there would have been no way of paying the bill at Mrs Pritchard’s, let alone anything else. There was a Yale key with a key-ring bearing a green plastic fob with the name Bryn Aweland the number 3 picked out in white.
‘Well, Mrs P was telling the truth. She didn’t take anything from Rosa’s bags. Not even her own door keys,’ Julie observed.
‘There’s no phone.’ Rhys was disappointed. Julie knew he harboured a particular fascination for trawling through other people’s social media.
She relented. ‘There could have been though, couldn’t there? Why don’t you get onto the providers and see if you can find her?’ Julie picked up the supermarket bag with its colourful assortment of luscious fruits and improbably blue droplets of water emblazoned on front and back. ‘If she did have a phone, chances are it was a pay as you go, but we wouldn’t want to deprive you of your fun, would we?’ Rhys smiled, and Julie tipped the contents of the bag onto her desk and spread them out. ‘What does this lot tell you about her then?’
Rhys rolled his chair over to her desk. It was an odd jumble of objects. There was a Fair Isle cardigan, threadbare at the elbows, two rounded pebbles, a small dog-eared photograph of a glamorous-looking woman in a fur-trimmed coat, and various other items which bore no clues to the owner’s identity or lifestyle. Rhys frowned and picked up a small blue teddy bear, which had definitely seen better days. One ear had been well chewed, and long frayed threads dangled towards its right eye. He handed it to Julie. The fabric round its middle was grubby and clumped, the way a ewe’s wool goes when it needs shearing, Julie thought, which made her laugh out loud.
‘Sarge?’
‘Don’t mind me.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m just going native, that’s all. What do you make of the bear then, for starters?’
‘Well, it’s obviously a child’s toy. Well-loved I’d have said. Rhi’s sister has a little girl who must be about four by now, and she won’t go to sleep without her camel.’
‘Camel?’ Julie snorted. ‘That must be a bit lumpy to cart about.’
‘Well it is. But it looks like that.’ Rhys pointed at the bear’s midriff. ‘All its fur’s matted like that, where she carries it around. Mind you,’ he shook his head, ‘there’s hell to pay if she loses the thing. Left it in a café in Hereford a couple of weeks ago she did. Refused to go to bed when they couldn’t find it.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Rhi’s sister put out an APB on Facebook. Somebody she knows recognised it and they tracked it down within twenty-four hours.’
‘I don’t suppose Rhi’s sister’s got a week or so free just now, has she? We could do with all the help we can get.’ She turned the blue bear over in her gloved hands. ‘So, maybe it could belong to the child Dr Greenhalgh said the victim had given birth to.’
‘Definite possibility, I’d say.’
‘A boy then?’
‘Maybe, Sarge.’
‘One question that bothers me though,’ Julie picked up the key to Room 3. ‘Why didn’t she take the key out with her? She didn’t know she wouldn’t be coming back, did she?’
‘And why didn’t she take her bag? Rhian never goes anywhere without her bag, or at least her purse.’
Julie nodded. ‘That’s a good point, too.’ She tapped the key on her teeth. ‘OK, what about the map?’ She handed Rhys part of a battered Ordnance Survey map, which showed the area round the Elan Valley and another section, cut from a larger-scale map. This second map was obviously part of a city, but there was nothing at all to identify it. ‘Can you tell where this is?’
Rhys picked up the city map. ‘That could be anywhere, Sarge. Without the name of the place, we’ve got no way of identifying it, have we?’ He held it up to the light. ‘There’s something circled on it here, look. Maybe it’s a house or something. But it could be absolutely anywhere.’ He put it back on the desk. ‘This looks interesting, though.’
‘What have you got?’
‘It’s some
sort of token I think.’ Despite his gloves, he picked it up carefully, by the edges. ‘It looks like one of those bits of plastic you get in supermarkets, you know, to vote for local charities.’ He turned it over and placed it carefully on his desk. ‘Has it been checked by forensics?’
Julie nodded. ‘There are only her fingerprints on any of this stuff. Apart from the purse which also seems to have been thoroughly checked by her landlady. She wasn’t best pleased when we asked her to come in and have her prints taken.’
‘And you’re going to tell me we haven’t got a match in the system for the victim’s fingerprints, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ Julie sighed and poked at a box of orange Rennies with the end of a biro. ‘There’s nothing on the DNA either.’ She glanced across at Rhys’ desk. ‘Let’s have a look at the purse again.’
