by Val McDermid
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘I realise that. But I need you to trust me. If I’m wrong, nobody need ever know. But if I’m right, we’ll be sparing the family a lot of heartache. Nobody likes having to order an exhumation…’
He looked startled. ‘Exhumation?’
‘Shh,’ River cautioned. ‘Not a word people like to hear in a funeral parlour.’
He stole furtive glances up and down the hall. ‘Promise you won’t tell?’
‘I won’t tell.’ She followed him into a smaller room at the end of the corridor where Edith’s pine box rested on trestles. From a cupboard, he took a ratchet screwdriver. Unscrewing Edith took only a couple of minutes and it took even less to lift the lid off the coffin. River studied the old woman’s neck through her magnifier and nodded to herself in confirmation. ‘Bollocks,’ she muttered. Out came the camera and again she framed a sequence of shots.
The young man was dancing from foot to foot by then. ‘Are you done?’ he kept saying after every photograph.
River stepped away from the coffin and pocketed her camera. ‘I am now. Let’s get her boxed up again.’
They were back in the hall within ten minutes, just in time to see the single mourner leave Tillie Swain’s room. ‘I’ll be right back,’ River said to the young man as he headed off to usher the other woman out and she returned to Tillie.
Tillie was a disappointment, however. Because of the position in which she’d been lying after death, the blood had pooled under the skin, causing post mortem lividity in the very area that interested River. It was impossible to tell whether there was a bruise. ‘Three out of four, though,’ she said under her breath. Jane Gresham had been right. There was something going on here.
Two hours later, River walked into Ewan Rigston’s office. His face lit up when he saw her, then almost immediately became guarded as propriety kicked desire into submission. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ he said, his delighted tone removing any negativity from the words.
‘I wasn’t exactly expecting to be here.’ She sat down heavily. ‘You know I did Mrs Brownrigg’s post?’
‘Aye. I was a bit surprised, I thought the professor would have done it. He usually does.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m qualified and he thought it would be straightforward.’
Ewan raked around the papers on his desk. He pulled a handwritten note out with a flourish. ‘Which it supposedly was. Heart failure, you said.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘But that’s not right, is it? You wouldn’t be here if it was straightforward.’
‘There was a reason I wanted to do the post myself. I had a visit this morning from Jane Gresham.’
‘Now that’s interesting.’
‘She said you’d been on her case. She was more than a little freaked out when she came to see me. She’s scared someone is bumping off these old people to try and get their hands on this manuscript.’
There was a long pause. ‘She’s not the only one. And did you find anything to support that idea?’
River nodded bleakly. ‘There was a strange little bruise on Mrs Brownrigg’s neck. Not something that would set off alarm bells, but enough to give me pause for thought. So I went back to Gibson’s and took a look at the other three cadavers. And I found a similar bruise on two of them. I couldn’t be sure of the fourth one just by looking because of post mortem lividity.’ She pulled some papers from her satchel. ‘I took a few pix.’ She fanned them out for Rigston. ‘Letty. Eddie Fairfield. Edith Clewlow.’
‘What does it mean? This bruise? Is it an injection site or what?’
River shook her head. ‘No sign of a needle mark in any of them. But it seems to be over the carotid sinus.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’
‘Your common carotid artery runs up the side of your neck, here–’ River pulled aside the collar of her shirt to demonstrate. ‘And just down here, more or less in line with your ear, it splits in two. The external carotid stays on the surface, the internal goes under your skull. Now, if you apply pressure to the carotid artery at the sinus…’ she paused to indicate what she meant–‘it can cause bradycardia. That’s slowing of the heartbeat, in lay terms. But there is a school of thought which maintains that, in cases of the elderly or those with underlying heart disease, pressure on the carotid sinus can provoke fatal cardiac arrhythmia.’
‘A school of thought?’ Rigston said weakly.
‘It’s what’s called a postulated mechanism, because obviously you can’t do experiments to see if it really does kill people or not. So nobody is entirely sure if it works. There have been documented cases of people using it for heightened sexual pleasure, though not with fatal results. But then, you tend not to want your sexual partner to end up dead, so you’d stop applying pressure at the first sign of them losing consciousness. If it does work in the way that’s been postulated, it’s a very good way to kill someone who’s elderly or has heart disease. No traces, you see. No petechial haemorrhages like you get with asphyxiation, no broken hyoid bone like you get with strangulation. It just looks like a heart attack.’
‘Would you need to be strong to kill someone like that?’
‘Not really. I don’t think it would take a lot of pressure. And it wouldn’t be hard to subdue the victims. It would probably be enough just to hold them down.’
‘So a woman could do it?’
‘If she was reasonably fit and strong.’
Rigston rubbed his jaw. ‘And you think these old dears have been murdered in this way?’
‘I’d say it’s certainly possible. It’s too much of a coincidence that I’m seeing the same odd bruise in three out of the four.’
Rigston’s expression hardened. ‘I had a feeling in my water about this. That’s not coincidence. That’s suspicious.’
‘I agree. On their own, the bruises would be relatively insignificant, but taken in tandem with what Jane told me…well, you have to take it seriously.’
Rigston smiled grimly. ‘I am. Thank you for coming straight to me with this. I’m bound to say, it doesn’t look good for Dr Gresham.’
‘You can’t seriously think she’s behind this?’
‘She’s connected to all our presumed victims. We both know that.’
River shook her head, bewildered. ‘That doesn’t make her a suspect. Ewan, nobody would have had any evidence that there was something dodgy going on if Jane Gresham hadn’t come to me. She’s the one who initiated this. Why on earth would she draw attention to the fact that she’s been getting away with murder?’
Rigston shifted in his seat. ‘With this fourth death, it was bound to come out anyway. This way, she makes herself look good by being the one that draws attention to it. From what you tell me, she’s changed her tune since I spoke to her earlier.’
‘That’s because you’re a scary cop and I’m not.’ River sighed in exasperation. ‘Ewan, I know it’s your job to consider every possibility, but I’m damn sure the only attention Jane is interested in is what she’ll get if she discovers her precious manuscript. She showed me the family tree with her interviewees marked in order of priority. I know the name of the next person on her list. Why would she let me see that if she was the killer?’
‘You’ve got the name?’
River passed him a slip of paper. ‘There you go. Ewan, you need to ask her who else might be after this bloody poem that wants it badly enough to be killing people for it.’
Rigston frowned. ‘And that’s another thing. How does killing people get this murderer any nearer to the manuscript?’
‘Jane had a theory about that. She pointed out that old people don’t go out very much. If you want to search their homes for hidden treasure, you have to incapacitate them first.’
‘See? She’s got it all worked out. I’m telling you, River, Jane Gresham knows more than she’s letting on.’
‘She’s stubborn as a mule,’ Jimmy said, pacing up and down the track outside Copperhead Cottage. ‘She won’t budge. She doesn’t want to leave her
cats, she never gets a wink of sleep outside her own bed, she doesn’t like being among strangers–you name it. I don’t want to frighten her out of her own house, but I don’t know what else I can try.’
Jane stared out of her bedroom window, her mobile to her ear. ‘Why don’t you offer to stay over at the cottage? That way she’d be safe without having to leave home.’
Jimmy whimpered. ‘I thought you liked me. Jane, she’s a bloody nightmare.’
‘I know. I met her, remember?’ Jane suddenly had a chill thought. Someone cold-blooded enough to kill four people might not be deterred by Jimmy’s presence. The last thing she wanted was to put him at risk too. She had to find a way to backtrack without making him feel his masculinity was under challenge. ‘Mind you,’ she said slowly, ‘I suppose you staying over is no guarantee of her safety. It’s not as if you’ll be sleeping across the threshold of her bedroom like Gelert.’
‘Not bloody likely.’
‘In that case, there’s nothing else for it. You’re going to have to tell her it’s not safe for her to be there. Not till all of this is sorted out.’
Jimmy sighed. ‘I thought you would say that. I really didn’t want to frighten her, you know? Behind all that bluster, she’s just a lonely old lady who loves her home. I don’t want to make that a place where she doesn’t feel safe any more.’
‘I know. But better scared and safe than dead.’ ‘Wish me luck,’ he said heavily. ‘If you don’t hear from me later on, you’ll know she’s eaten me alive.’
Once in the trees, I instructed Isabella to remove my shirt & J tear it into strips. Under my guidance, she fashioned a bandage for my wound that would staunch the bleeding. This being done, I insisted we make our way deeper into the banyan grove. As we rested, I told Isabella, the time had come for us to leave Pitcairn. We could never be safe, not now the natives had tasted power of their own. But she put my hand on her swollen belly & reminded me of her condition. ‘You, must go if you, will, husband. But I cannot.’ The force of her argument was undeniable & I knew that she would be safe where I could not be. My children too would suffer no reprisal; the Otaheitians have a high regard for children, & the paler their skins, the higher they are prized. ‘Then help me to the base of the cliff,’ I said. This she did, & when we were still some distance from my hiding place, we made our tearful farewells. (I did not want her to know where I was to be found. It was a truth hard-won among us that the natives were not to be trusted, not even those we counted among our own families & I did not wish to put temptation in her way.)
38
Ewan Rigston had never been a Boy Scout; nevertheless, he always liked to be prepared. In spite of everything River had said, he still felt unsure of Jane Gresham. But he intended to be forearmed before he confronted her about her list. And there were precautions to be taken too.
He was going to have to go back to the houses of the dead and treat them like crime scenes, even though any evidence would have been compromised by the emergency services and family members trampling over the scene. Still, the fingerprint team might just come up with someone whose dab had no business being there. He was also going to have to talk to the families. Or family, rather, since the dead all seemed to belong to one clan. He knew the Clewlows and the Fairfields, the Swains and the Brownriggs. Decent folk, local roots, community-minded mostly. He’d never had cause to arrest any of them, not even a teenage lad falling foul of too much drink.
He’d seen River out to the car park, and promised to call her later. They’d had plans for the evening–a curry and a folk night in Carlisle–but that was history now. They’d agreed that there needed to be post mortems on the other three victims, and River had been adamant that she would do them right away. A quick call to the coroner had established his agreement. That was one of the advantages of working in a small town, Rigston knew. The machinery could be made to work faster than in the big cities. Still, neither of them anticipated being finished before midnight.
Then he’d gone back to the office, organising the deployment of the handful of SOCOs he had at his disposal that late in the day. He wanted to move fast, but equally he’d have to be careful about authorising overtime ahead of a formal murder inquiry. Bloody bureaucracy. People wondered why the police didn’t seem able to keep the lid on crime. They should spend a week in his shoes, shuffling paper and balancing budgets, then they’d have a better idea.
A couple of phone calls to his local contacts and he’d established that the entire clan seemed to be gathered at Alice Clewlow’s house. He arrived unannounced and alone. Alice answered the door, her face shifting from welcome to satisfaction as she realised who was calling. ‘An inspector calls,’ she said drily. ‘Hello, Ewan. So you decided to take me seriously after all. I’m just sorry it took another death in the family for you to get your act into gear.’
‘Come on now, Alice, that’s hardly fair. I’ve been making enquiries.’
‘An arrest would be even better.’
‘I could use a few words.’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘It’s mob-handed in there. Come round the side, there’s a bench in the garden.’
He followed her through a wooden gate in the fence into a spacious, well-kept garden. A few late roses hung their bedraggled heads from a trellis, next to which was a wrought-iron bench. They sat down and there was silence for a moment. ‘Spit it out then, Ewan.’
‘I just wanted to keep you posted. Although we still haven’t established a suspicious cause of death in any of these four instances, we are investigating the circumstances,’ he said carefully.
Alice shook her head sorrowfully. ‘They were just ordinary, harmless old people.’
‘I know. And if this turns out to be murder, I won’t see evil like that go unpunished. The thing is, we think somebody believes a member of your family has something very valuable in their possession, and–’
‘I told you. Jane bloody Gresham,’ Alice interrupted angrily. ‘Is that what this is about?’
‘It might be. But Dr Gresham’s probably not the only person who knows about it. So I need to make some enquiries about your relatives. Who saw them last; anything they may have said about Jane Gresham or anybody else asking about this manuscript. Now, I know you’re all grieving and I know Edith’s funeral is tomorrow, but I could really do with talking to people tonight.’
‘But the funeral–surely you have to do a post mortem or something? If she was…’ Alice tripped over the word. Rigston understood; he’d seen that same denial before.
‘That’s all in hand,’ he said. ‘The funeral service won’t have to be postponed. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to bury your grandmother.’
‘What do you mean, we won’t be able to bury her?’
Rigston spread his hands helplessly. ‘I’m sorry, Alice. The rules say the body has to be available to the defence in case they want to do their own autopsy.’
‘But what if you don’t arrest anyone? How long do you expect us to wait to bury my grandmother?’ Alice’s voice was growing more shrill.
‘If we haven’t arrested anyone after a month, we arrange for a second, independent post mortem. Then we release the body to the family.’
Alice’s head dropped into her hands. ‘This is terrible, Ewan.’
‘I know, Alice. And I’m very sorry. But I would really appreciate your help right now. The best way you can serve Edith and the others now is to work with us. It’s our job to speak for the dead. But we need your help.’
She looked up, her eyes heavy with tears. ‘Whatever you need. Just give me five minutes to break the news. I’ll come and fetch you.’
Rigston watched her walk into the house, head bowed and shoulders slumped. He felt for her. Taking that walk back into the heart of the Clewlow clan wasn’t something he was looking forward to either.
Jimmy Clewlow was not a happy man. It had taken some time to convince Jenny Wright that her life might be in danger if she remained alone in Copperhead Cottage. Once co
nvinced, it had then taken hours to effect the departure. Cats had to be supplied with adequate food and water. Deciding what to pack apparently involved combing Jenny’s entire wardrobe, including a trunk that looked as if it hadn’t been opened since the Napoleonic wars. All the electrical appliances had to be turned off, including an antique fridge whose contents had to be transferred to plastic bags so they could be removed to Keswick. Jimmy was a patient man, but even he had his limits and Jenny had exceeded them long before she was ready to leave.
It didn’t help that she was the worst passenger he’d ever driven. Whenever he exceeded thirty miles an hour, she drew her breath in sharply and demanded to know whether he was trying to kill them. If he came within three feet of the verge on her side of the car, she would yelp that they were about to crash. By the time he turned into Alice’s street, Jimmy was beginning to wonder why he hadn’t left her to her own devices.
