Embroidering Shrouds

by Priscilla Masters

  She negotiated the blue brick path, mounting her bike at the front gate and carefully manoeuvring around Matthew’s maroon BMW which still stood outside. He would leave in half an hour.

  It was a perfect day for cycling, blustery and cool, fresh and damp, the moors today bathed in a sunshine too golden for any season but a fine English autumn day. The only hazard left by last night’s rain were slippery leaves that lay rotting on the lanes and a few branches strewn across the road like objects in an obstacle course. Joanna wheeled around them carefully; she didn’t want another broken wrist.

  She sped down the hill, quickly crossing the flat patch of moorland that lay between her and Leek. But as the town came into distant view she felt a sudden reluctance to abandon the countryside with its fields bordered by dry-stone walls, the grass speckled with grey stone cottages and isolated farms. As she flicked her feet around the pedals she scolded herself, Leek was really a peaceful town, she was usually glad to see it slide into view. It was as she changed gear to climb the hill that she finally acknowledged the reason for her alien emotion, a spate of burglaries that had begun early in the spring had escalated to robbery with violence. What had started as petty pilfering from empty houses had progressed to a spree where the burglars didn’t care whether the owners were in or out. Twice the crimes had been committed while the owners had been obliviously watching television. And then a few months ago, through a wet summer, the crimes had altered again. In July the burglars had pushed past an old lady, causing her to fall down some stairs and break her hip. In August another of Leek’s elderly widows had reported that masked men had broken in to her home and robbed her of £300 which she had kept with her tea bags ready to pay the gas bill.

  While the town was still nervous from those pointless acts, the crimes had taken on an even more threatening turn. Two weeks after the last robbery the thieves had seemed to wait for an elderly widow to be in for their attack. Cecily Marlowe had been out shopping all afternoon, ample opportunity for burglars to break, enter, steal and get away. But they had made themselves a cup of tea, turned the television on and awaited her return, then slashed her across the face with a Stanley knife and stolen a few trifles, including her pension book. And the police still hadn’t caught the gang.

  Finding her rhythm now Joanna pedalled along the Ashbourne Road, the Peak District National Park rising to her right, the small farming valley to the left. A few sheep were dotted around on pale grass, a tractor climbed towards the ridge, its engine spluttering noisily. The town loomed ahead, its landmarks already discernible, the spire of St Mary’s, the green dome of the Nicholson Institute, tall square mills. She returned to her thoughts. Fear of the crimes had spread throughout the small town, the flames fanned by the front page of the local paper which had been devoted to the pathetic picture of Cecily Marlowe, aged seventy-five, scarred by a Stanley knife. The paper had spared none of the details, its description was graphic enough without the picture that took up half of page one. It had been clear enough to pick out every one of the twenty-five sutures which had criss-crossed her right cheek. Worse still when she had tried to save herself, putting her hands up to protect her face, one of her fingers had been slashed to the bone and almost severed. The headlines had reported nothing but facts, and they were enough to spread panic through the elderly population of the quiet, moorlands town.

  The article had had its inevitable spin-offs. Police investigations had been hampered by a disproportionate increase in reported incidents by elderly citizens where there had been no crime, just another old person who thought they had seen or heard something suspicious. The call-out rate had more than quadrupled. Fear had crept, like a draught, under every door where people felt vulnerable. And as the police constantly admitted, they could offer no solution, only repeated advice not to let strangers through doors.

  A bare ten days after the Stanley knife assault – and before the newspaper had finished commenting on the crime – another old lady had been threatened and the panic had spread further. Locksmiths and burglar alarm suppliers had had a field day fitting out homes like fortresses. But however many precautions they took the elderly folk of Leek no longer felt safe in their own homes.

  For the police it had been a nightmare. Each reported incident had to be followed up by an investigating team, lest one of the elderly victims who cried wolf should be a real target. But every moment Joanna and Mike spent chasing up ‘incidents’ was time lost from the real investigation. Frustratingly, they were getting nowhere. Neighbouring police forces had been of little help either, having few reported incidents of attacks on elderly women in their own homes that had not been solved. And this led the police to deduce that this gang had only struck here in Leek.

  Joanna had almost reached the town. As she approached the outskirts she breathed a silent prayer, that peace would reign again both in the town she thought of so affectionately and in her own home. Miss Eloise Levin she shoved roughly to the back of her mind.

  She turned right into the station car park, locked her bike against the railings and stood for a moment, her mind still wrestling with the problem. Gangs who robbed old people had their own modus operandi, they didn’t wait for old ladies to return but took advantage of an empty house. They stole videos, cash, jewellery: small, valuable objects. Joanna tramped towards the glass doors. Not a pair of brass candlesticks of no great value and a pension book which was too risky to use. Joanna felt a prickling of apprehension. The violence was roller-coasting; they would attack one frail old lady too many.

  Soon there would be a death.

  Bill Tylman liked to think of himself as a traditional milkman, friendly, whistling, jolly and helpful; the man in the adverts; a sort of community service to solitary households, the lonely, the elderly, the vulnerable. And there were plenty of those. He knew all his orders from one end of the town to the other, who supplemented their milk order with orange juice, cream, eggs or pop, because he didn’t just sell milk. He turned into the tufted lane that led to the two houses, the decaying, grand mansion and the concrete box that stood in front. Nan Lawrence restricted her order to one pint of milk a day, two on Saturdays because he didn’t deliver on Sundays. Her order never varied – no eggs, no cream, no pop – just the one pint of milk a day. As he drove towards the ugly, concrete house Bill had a vision of her emptying the last drop of the pint into her early morning cup of tea before rinsing the bottle and setting it outside the front door for him, just so she could stick to her rigid, regular routine. This never varied either: two empties on Mondays, one to pick up every other day of the week.

  Most mornings Bill would rattle the milk cage and whistle extra loud, then see Nan eyeing him balefully from the window as though if she didn’t watch him he would leave sour milk on the doorstep. He would smile and wave, still playing the part of the milkman of the year, which he had been declared only a month ago. It was his ambition to win the title again next year. Tylman grimaced. It would not be through Nan’s nomination; she certainly didn’t appreciate him, never even waved back, and she didn’t smile either. Instead she would stare right through him, her eyes fixed on the milk bottles. Gave him a nasty feeling that, but he’d chuck her a cheery grin anyway. At least she always paid her bills – in cash. No ‘I’ll give you double next week, Bill’. Just handed the money over on Fridays with her frosty stare. But he didn’t mind, he’d got used to her now.

  He glanced at the window, his smile in his pocket ready to stick on his face but the curtains were drawn. Strange, she always sat in this room, bent over her sewing, and she wasn’t one to leave her curtains drawn either. When he put the bottle down on the front doorstep another puzzle was waiting, only one rinsed bottle was there. Tylman eyed it superstitiously. It was Monday, wasn’t it? Yeah, of course it was. Tylman scratched his head. This was most unusual, no doubt about it. He picked up the solitary empty, his eyes fixed on the closed curtains, half expecting them to be flung back and for Nan Lawrence’s sharp features to appear. But they didn�
��t and the curtains stayed firmly shut.

  Still pondering the problem Tylman slipped the empty bottle into his basket, put the new pint on the doorstep and backed away, his whistling for once silenced.

  He was still chewing things over as he returned to his milk float to pick up Arnold’s pint and two bottles of pop and placed them at the front doorstep of the shabby but still grand old hall where Nan’s brother lived. Maybe he should ask Arnold. He put the thought straight out of his mind; no point asking him. He stood at the front door and stared up at the old house, thinking the same thought that he always did. It was all such a shame. His whistling started again, slowly, softly, speeding up as he picked up the empties. He returned to the milk float, backing the few yards into the drive until he was able to turn around and return to civilization. At the bottom he glanced back but he saw nothing unusual and accelerated along the Macclesfield road towards Leek town. By the time he reached the outskirts he had forgotten all about the minor anomaly.

  Joanna greeted the desk sergeant and went straight to her office, shooting the bolt across the door to change out of her cycling shorts into a scarlet sweater and black skirt that skimmed a few inches above her knees. She slipped her feet into some thick-heeled black leather shoes, pushing the sleeves of her sweater up towards her elbows. As she settled behind her desk she began reading through all the reports relating to crimes against old ladies. It was peaceful and quiet, an ideal time to think, until Korpanski walked in with a face like a thundercloud.

  ‘Morning, Mike.’

  He grunted a return greeting.

  ‘You want a coffee?’

  Even that failed to raise a smile.

  Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski was a man who never bothered to conceal his emotions. And this morning anger was transparent in the square face. Son of a Pole who had fought for Britain in the war and a local girl, he had black hair, a quick temper and a bulky, muscular frame nurtured by hours spent at the local gym, pumping iron. Mike was, rightly so, very proud of his body beautiful. In the early days following her promotion Joanna had felt the full force of his resentment; resentment not directed against her personally but at a system which he believed, had favoured a woman because she was a woman. Now they understood each other better and he gave her his fierce and energetic loyalty. She knew she could count on him absolutely and they had worked closely through a number of difficult cases. Whatever affected him would, directly or indirectly, affect her too.

  She fed the coffee machine with change and returned moments later, putting the polystyrene cups on her desk and observing him.

  ‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘are you going to be like this all day?’

  ‘Probably.’

  It was a deep bad mood then. She let it lie for a few minutes before probing further, putting a friendly hand on his arm. ‘What’s up, Mike?’

  The hand that put his cup back on the desk was shaking. A splash of coffee landed on one of the papers. She ignored it.

  ‘Fran and I have got a visitor.’

  ‘Which you’re obviously enjoying.’

  As always, he missed her sarcasm.

  ‘They don’t stay for ever, Mike.’

  ‘It feels like it.’

  Then she noticed how tired he looked. There was an angry, defeated expression on his face, tiny worn lines under his eyes. ‘And who is the honoured guest?’

  ‘Fran’s mum.’

  Joanna stifled a laugh. So it was the old music-hall joke, the mother-in-law. ‘How long’s she staying?’

  ‘Her doctor says she needs a rest.’ There was burning animosity in his voice. ‘Fran works, we’ve a couple of kids, I’m out all hours, and the doctor says the old bag needs a rest. She’s sat there all weekend with a disapproving look on her face – doesn’t like the kids watching so much telly.’ Mike was bursting with indignation. ‘She switched the bloody film off last night halfway through – said the language was disgusting. Fran and I are adults, we can make up our own minds what we want to watch in our own home. It’s none of her business. And then she said she didn’t like the kids having to go to someone else’s house after school until Fran finishes her shift. Bloody hell, Joanna, we have our lives worked out. It’s nothing to do with her. She’s upset us all.’

  Joanna was silent. She had no comfort to offer except to repeat, ‘She won’t be with you for ever.’

  ‘It only feels like it,’ Mike said, scowling, and was soon back again in full throttle. ‘She’s talking about moving up here. She’s even been to look at a bungalow in the next street; says the kids can go to her after school; says she’ll give them wholesome food – no chocolate bars – and she’ll help them with their homework. They’re just kids; they want chocolate biscuits and telly when they get in, not some old boot interfering.’ His dark eyes met hers with a tinge of desperation. ‘We aren’t a perfect family, Jo, but we’ve got our own way of doing things. If she doesn’t stop her meddling I don’t know where we’ll end up.’

  Joanna leaned back in her chair and felt inadequate. ‘Oh dear,’ she said lamely.

  Mike was pacing the room now with heavy, thumping footsteps. ‘I don’t know how her husband stands her. I bet he’s glad to get rid of her. He’s happy if he can get his fishing in once a week. He’s a nice sort of chap; puts up with anything. I wish’, he said savagely, ‘that when you married someone you didn’t have to take on their whole bloody family.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ Joanna said heartily.

  For the first time this morning Mike’s attention was diverted away from his own problems. ‘Eloise?’

  ‘Half-term.’

  ‘Oh.’ He gave her a flicker of a smile. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I.’ She was tempted to pat his shoulder but it might be interpreted as a gesture of more than friendship, and she had learned to tread carefully with Korpanski. He was a sensitive man. She gave him a chummy grin instead. ‘Let’s get on with some work, shall we? And check through the statements made by the residents of Hope Street.’ She handed him a sheaf of papers and they settled down silently to read.

  Hope Street was a long row of terraced houses behind the High Street. Cecily Marlowe had lived about halfway along in number fourteen. About a quarter of the houses were inhabited by elderly, retired people, the remainder by an assortment: young professionals, couples and four families. Plenty of people had been in their homes on the day that Cecily had been attacked. All doing something. Housewives ironing, a night worker sleeping, mothers tending children, some elderly folk watching daytime television. No one had seen or heard a thing. No stranger walking along the street, no one knocking, and no one had heard the old woman’s screams when she had been attacked. If she had screamed. The Cecily Marlowe Joanna had met in hospital two hours after the assault had been too terrified even to speak. Joanna leafed through the papers. ‘The usual,’ she said resignedly. ‘Deaf, dumb and blind. The three monkeys. Nobody saw or heard a thing.’

  Mike was studying the police photographs which showed the injuries in black and white detail. ‘You’d think a local attack like this would scare my old bat of a mother-in-law away from Leek.’

  She looked up. ‘You’d like that?’

  ‘I want her to go.’ Mike was off again. ‘What right has she got to spread so much misery?’

  ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘I am not.’

  By now she had realized that as Mike could not be reasonable about his wife’s mother it was a subject best ignored. Without talking they read through every statement for the nth time, hoping to find something hidden, implied even, between the lines. But the morning was wasted. There was nothing.

  ‘So let’s look at the others and leave out the early burglaries. There are no clues there – all entry through back door or downstairs window, the usual stuff taken.’

  ‘Which brings us to July fifteenth, a Wednesday, seven o’clock in the evening, and Emily Whittaker, upstairs, putting sheets in the airing cupboard, hears voices, sees someone
in another bedroom, screams. He pushes past her. She thinks someone else was downstairs but can’t be sure. Description?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘A man. She said, young, in his twenties. But when pressed he could have been thirty or more. Can’t be sure about height. She thinks he was wearing a balaclava, no other description.’

  ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘So what did the SOCOs find?’ Again Mike read from the report. ‘Drawers tipped on the floor, jewellery taken: a couple of rings, an old pendant, a gold watch. Downstairs television unplugged, also the radio. Evidence the burglars wore black woollen gloves.’

  Joanna knew these details off by heart. She’d been mulling them over in her mind for three months. ‘This was a fairly typical robbery,’ she said decisively. ‘Now what about Florence Price?’

  ‘There’s even less there, Jo. She was watching the evening news in the front room, heard a noise in the kitchen, found a masked gang rifling through the cupboards, who stole three hundred pounds she’d saved for her winter gas bill.’ Mike looked up. ‘If the money wasn’t missing I’d think she’d fallen asleep and left the telly on the story was so melodramatic.’

  Joanna was cupping her chin in her hands and staring dreamily into space. ‘How big is her kitchen?’

  ‘Small,’ Mike said. ‘Very small.’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘I know. I know.’ Mike finally dropped into the chair opposite her. ‘It’s the word gang. How does a gang fit into a tiny kitchen? None of us could picture it somehow, but she insisted.’