‘Pure bad luck, Mummy. No need to be alarmed.’
‘But this is an appalling case, by the sound of it. All these drowned women, and the man still at liberty. I don’t know how it happened, but you seem to be up to your neck in it.’
Not the happiest choice of phrase. She was already up to her shins in it.
‘Don’t trust anyone,’ Mummy ranted on. ‘You’ve got that mobile phone with you? Well, obviously you have.’
‘I’ll use it if necessary.’
‘No, I’m telling you, Jo darling, that these fancy phones are a mixed blessing. You take a call from someone and you have no way of knowing where he is. He could be lying in wait round the next corner and you think he’s speaking from miles away.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind, Mummy. Must go. ’bye.’ She switched off.
Immediately, it rang again.
Give it a rest, Mother, she thought. ‘Yes?’
‘Jo?’ This time it really was the voice she hoped to hear.
‘Jake, I thought you were someone else. I’ve been trying to reach you. Did they let you go?’
‘For now.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘They still don’t trust me.’
She sidestepped that. ‘When was this? Last night?’
‘I didn’t call you from home. They can listen in.’
She was about to point out that nothing he could say would incriminate either of them, and then thought better of it. Wouldn’t anyone feel paranoid after hours of questioning? ‘Are you at home?’
‘No, I came to work.’
‘What’s it like there after the rain?’
‘Not very different.’
God, she’d been aching to hear his voice and now they were talking banalities. ‘When can I see you, Jake? Tonight?’
A pause. ‘I’d like that. I’ll come to you.’
‘Some of the roads are impassable.’
‘Not on a bike. Did you get in to work?’
‘Yes, but we just closed the shop. I could do with your dinghy right now. I’m on a mercy mission, walking-well, wading-into Singleton to see if an old lady is all right. She’s Gemma’s aunt.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Would you mind calling Gem and telling her I’m checking on Aunt Jessica? Saves her coming out from Fishbourne.’
After the call she was so much happier that she burst into ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’
Out at Bosham, a crucial find was made. Leaving nothing to chance this time, Stella called the incident room while Hen was arranging for Rick’s car to be taken away.
‘Boss, the crime scene people are saying there’s a strong chance Sally was attacked here, in the shallow end of the pool. They picked up quite a clump of hair that was pulled out at the roots, and I’m certain it matches the colour of hers. There was also the tip of a broken fingernail.’
‘Was there? Two of her nails were damaged for sure. This could clinch it, Stell. If she was driven to Apuldram, we’re going to find traces in someone’s car. You can’t move a corpse without leaving something behind.’
‘You can clean up a car.’
‘That in itself would be suspicious. Besides, how many of our suspects have transport? Jake rides a bike. Dr Sentinel uses the train to get here. Cartwright’s car is already impounded.’
‘What about Francisco?’
‘He’s out of the reckoning.’
‘That leaves Rick.’
The logistics interested Hen more at this moment. ‘I’m thinking about how it was done. Actually, when it was done.’
‘Is that important?’
‘The contents of the fridge-the meat and fresh veg you told me about-suggest she was killed before she could prepare the lunch. I think she got out of bed Sunday morning, put on her swimsuit and bathrobe, and went downstairs to the pool for her morning swim. The killer was waiting there.’
‘Rick. The bastard. I know you don’t want to finger anyone at this point, but who else knew about her daily swim?’
Hen refused to be sidetracked. She was explaining the timing. ‘I couldn’t understand how you failed to notice the body when you searched the Apuldram pool on Monday morning.’
‘Me neither.’
‘I believe the body was moved there after you checked the pool.’
‘You’re saying he left her here overnight and then came back for her?’
‘Late Monday.’
The line went silent while Stella took this in. ‘That’s cool,’ she said finally. ‘And so cunning. I sound the all clear and he moves in with the corpse. It could have stayed under cover all winter if the two women hadn’t come snooping.’
‘And it shifted suspicion to Cartwright.’
‘This has got to be someone with inside knowledge, guv. Rick must have heard about the search. From his girlfriend Gemma, no doubt.’
At her end of the phone, Hen smiled. Stell had really got it in for Rick. ‘What was his motive, then?’
‘He’d tired of Sally. He was passionate about Gemma. He wanted to escape from the Sunday lunch routine.’
‘I’m not convinced, Stell. He didn’t need to kill her. He could have told her it was over and stopped going.’
‘Some people do anything to avoid a face-to-face row.’
‘Murder?’
‘Don’t forget there are two other victims. Murder is no big deal when you’ve done it before. He reckoned he had a foolproof method, drowning them.’
‘I’d be more impressed if we could link Rick to the other murders. I don’t know what connection he had to Meredith or Fiona.’
Stella continued to stoke the flames of her suspicion. ‘He’s been around from the beginning. Jo found Meredith’s body and who was it who happened to be dating Jo at the time? Rick. Then he started dating Gemma, who worked with Fiona. There is a link, you see.’
‘We can say much the same for Jake.’
‘Guv, Jake had nothing to do with Sally. She was Rick’s woman.’
Hen saw sense in that. ‘I’ll have another try with him.’
Jo had reached a point in the mercy mission where she felt rather foolish. If she went any further, the water would come over the tops of her wellies, so she was forced to take them off and carry them, wading barefoot with her skirt pulled up to her thighs. Even so, her mood was buoyant. She’d see Jake tonight and have a good laugh about this.
Not far ahead was the timber-framed flint cottage she knew to be Miss Peabody’s, and it was on higher ground than she remembered. Some water might have penetrated to the ground floor, but this wasn’t the emergency she’d pictured. She waded through the remaining surface water and up a definite incline to the front door. A sandbag was across it.
Rick had decided he didn’t need a solicitor. ‘When you find the inside of my car is clean, you’ll have to let me walk.’ he told Hen.
‘I’ll be frank with you,’ she told him. ‘I’m interested in other deaths as well as Sally’s.’
Alarm briefly visited Rick’s eyes. He passed both hands over his bleached hair, smoothing it. ‘Oh that,’ he said with a too-obvious effort to sound unflustered. ‘You’ve been talking to Jo and Gemma. I made that up, about killing Cartwright. It was a running joke that got out of hand when Jo took it seriously. No sense of humour, that woman.’
Killing Cartwright? This was a whole new angle on the case.
Up to now, Hen hadn’t got Rick down as a humorist. He appeared to want to talk, so she and Gary listened.
‘The beginning of it was that Gem couldn’t stand her boss, so we all got to thinking up weird ways of getting rid of him. Fun ways. I don’t think Jake joined in, but he’s got as much fun in him as a bowl of cold porridge. He was listening, though.’ Rick’s eyes widened as a thought struck him. ‘Was it bloody Jake who put you on to me? He’d take anything as gospel, that guy. Anyway, I made up this story about bashing Cartwright’s head in and disposing of the body at a papermill, turning it into pulp, so he’d be in the news. In the n
ews. Joke, right?’
Hen had failed to smile, but she gave a nod.
‘It was a touch too realistic for Jo and freaked her out. Gemma believed me too, but she didn’t take it the same way. I think she really did want to see the back of Cartwright. But for Christ’s sake, it was a joke.’
Hen turned to Gary. ‘It must be the way he tells ’em.’
‘Only a bloody joke,’ Rick insisted.
‘A poor taste joke.’
‘This all started with the girls,’ he said in his defence. ‘They were having a laugh about it before any of the bodies were found. I joined in, like you do, to keep the conversation going. I suppose it got out of hand later, but don’t believe a word of it. Nothing happened, right?’
‘Have you finished?’ Hen enquired.
‘Er, I suppose so.’
‘Now let’s talk about Meredith Sentinel.’
He blinked, as if the switch to another victim had derailed him. ‘Can’t help you. Didn’t meet the woman, don’t know anything about her.’
‘I’ll fill you in, then,’ Hen said. ‘She came to Selsey expecting to attend a beach barbecue, a reunion of the mammoth excavation twenty years ago. A proper invitation was sent to her.’ She took the bagged card from her desk drawer and held it for Rick to see.
He gave it a glance. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Twenty years ago, Meredith was a new student at Brighton. She was part of the dig. A great experience for her. A good memory. She expected to meet old friends when she returned here in September. Instead, all she met was her murderer. The grand reunion was a hoax. I notice you have an impressive string of letters after your name. Where did you do your studies, Rick?’
He took a deep breath, kept her waiting and finally gave a broad grin. ‘Edinburgh.’ Who said he didn’t have a sense of humour?
‘All of them?’
‘That’s where I was living until nineteen-ninety-two.’
It wasn’t the triumph Rick expected. Mentally, Hen excluded him. Suddenly she’d cut off. She still had the invitation in her hand and she stared at it as if she hadn’t seen it before. An entirely new line of thought had popped into her brain. She was tempted to end the interview there. But there was a chink of light ahead, and she decided to go for it. She restored her full attention to Rick.
‘You and Gemma are pretty close? An item, as they say?’
‘Good friends.’
‘Very good friends, according to her. She’s a local lass. She tells me she was only fifteen in the year the mammoth was dug up. It must have made an impression, though. It was a big deal in Selsey at the time. Some of the local kids joined in. The weather was really good by all accounts. A chance to show off their bikinis and meet some students. Has she told you about it?’
This was invention on Hen’s part. Nothing about the stronger attraction of Duran Duran. She had some expectation that he would answer yes.
He didn’t. Instead he said, ‘She told me once that she had more hands-on experience of fossils than Jake would ever have. I thought it was a joke. You don’t find out with Gem. I guess she could have meant the mammoth dig.’
There was no answer to Jo’s persistent knocking. Worrying. She put her wellies beside the sandbag and tried the doorknob. It turned and she was able to step inside. The mat was damp to the touch of her bare feet. Some flood water, at least, had seeped into the cottage.
The interior was dark and smelt musty. But as her eyes adjusted she could see that it had been kept tidy. There was no hallway. You stepped straight into the living room. She could make out the traditional stone fireplace and stove, which was both cooker and water heater. Glass-fronted cupboards were stacked with china. The little kitchen was across the room to one side of the hearth. She felt the squelch of the carpet as she moved over it.
A small fridge was in the kitchen. The electrics didn’t seem to be working and she wasn’t going to risk trying them. She took off her backpack and put the milk and sandwiches into the fridge. To her right was a door that might have led somewhere, but on opening it she saw only steps almost entirely immersed in black water. A cellar, she supposed. This place would take months to dry out.
She stepped back, felt her heel touch something soft, and almost lost balance. She’d trodden on a dishcloth. In reaching out for support, she knocked a plate off the draining board into the sink.
A voice said, ‘Is someone there?’
She wasn’t sure where it came from, but she called out, ‘Miss Peabody, are you all right?’
‘I’m upstairs.’
Through the living room on the opposite side she found the staircase. ‘It’s all right,’ she called, to set the old lady’s mind at rest. ‘It’s only Jo from the garden centre, come to see if you need any help.’
She mounted the stairs.
‘This came to me when we were interviewing Rick,’ Hen told Gary. She was pink-faced with excitement. ‘It turns the whole case on its head. Everything has a different interpretation. This.’ She brandished the invitation card. ‘This was never intended to bring Meredith to Selsey and lure her to her death. I made a false assumption. The envelope was addressed to Dr Sentinel and intended for him. He led the dig. He should have been the guest of honour at the reunion. But of course Meredith was a D. Sc as well. She was Dr Sentinel, too, a brilliant student who got a first and went on to take her doctorate at University College. She thought the envelope was addressed to her. Her husband was away in St Petersburg and couldn’t possibly attend. The way it was worded would have appealed to anyone. Listen to this: “Free food, drink and eighties music. No reply necessary. To have fun with old friends just turn up… like the mammoth did.” Imagine Meredith reading that at a time when old sobersides was out of the country. A chance of a night out. She was up for anything. She got on a train and came down here.’
‘Why was she murdered?’
‘Question of the day, Gary. Get me Sentinel’s number.’
Miss Peabody was wearing her pink hat. A hat in your own home? Odd, certainly, but just because she was eccentric didn’t mean the poor old duck should be left to fend for herself. The blue twinset didn’t go too well with the hat. The tweed skirt? Well, it had seen better days.
‘The door was open,’ Jo explained.
‘I left it open deliberately, in case someone came,’ the old lady said. ‘When the water started to come in downstairs I collected any precious things I had and brought them up here.’
They were in her bedroom and the narrow single bed was heaped with letters, newspapers, books, and a few dry groceries.
‘Sensible,’ Jo said.
‘It’s not the first time. I’ve had three major floods in my lifetime, so I know what to do. It’s the clearing up that I hate. It takes months to dry out, even with help from the council.’
‘It’s deep in that cellar below the kitchen.’
‘That always floods first. It was used as an ice-store once, but I’ve got no use for it except to grow mushrooms. The walls leak. That’s the trouble.’
‘I heard the forecast on the car radio. I don’t think it will get much worse, if that’s any consolation.’
She stared at Jo’s feet. ‘Don’t you wear shoes?’
‘Wellies.’ Jo smiled. ‘Left them on the step. Can I make you some coffee while I’m here? I tucked a few things in the fridge.’
‘Tea would be nice. Milk and no sugar. The kettle is on the stove, so it should be hot. Have we met before?’
‘The garden centre.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She was a little forgetful.
When Jo returned with the tea on a tray, she said, ‘I have a friend called Gemma and you’re her Aunt Jessica.’
‘You know Gemma?’
‘We’ve done quite a lot together.’ And how! ‘I expect she would have come to make sure you’re all right, but I’m just up the road so I offered to look in.’
‘I don’t see a lot of Gemma these days.’
The very thing Mummy would say, gi
ven the opportunity. The older generation like to portray themselves as neglected. ‘She’s been really busy at work, having to take over from the manager.’
‘I’m her only living relative.’
Cue the plaintive violin music. ‘She told me.’
‘Her parents died when she was quite a small girl, you know. Killed in a car crash. Dreadful. Her mother was my sister, Angela. A lovely young woman. I’ve got a picture of her somewhere. It’s among the things I carried upstairs for safety. My photo album was the first thing I made sure was safe. You can’t replace such a thing and it holds so many memories.’ She spilt some of her tea turning to look over the old-fashioned eiderdown. ‘There it is. The big red book. Could you hand it to me carefully so that nothing falls out?’
Old people and old photos. Jo could see this taking longer than she’d expected. She didn’t really want to be looking at ancient snaps for the next hour.
‘I haven’t stuck them all in,’ Miss Peabody said, seating herself on the bed and opening the album on her lap. She’d drunk the tea hot and placed the empty cup back on the tray. ‘I’ve been promising myself for years that I’d do it. Well, that’s a bit of luck.’ She’d picked up a small snap in colours so faded that they were almost monochrome. ‘Here they are on their wedding day. They were married in that tiny little church at Upwaltham. A lovely setting for a wedding.’
Jo gave it a polite glance. ‘She was a beautiful bride.’
‘I was the maid of honour. I didn’t want to be called the bridesmaid. They’re usually much younger than I was. I had a pink headdress and a matching pink bouquet.’
That figures, Jo thought, wondering if the pink hat went back to those days. She handed back the photo and glanced at her watch. She’d been in the cottage twenty minutes already.
‘Carnations mainly.’ Miss Peabody was still on about the bouquet. ‘A hardy plant, the carnation. It can survive mild frost conditions and under glass it will flower all the year round.’ She started sorting through a mass of pictures. ‘Here’s one that will amuse you. Gemma at five years old with Terry. Look at her expression, as if she really could be doing something better than being made to pose for a picture with her little brother. Isn’t it a scream?’
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