Embroidering Shrouds

by Priscilla Masters

  He caught up with her as she was leaving. ‘Be careful, Jo, please. If you must do anything even remotely risky, keep Korpanski by your side.’

  ‘You think I need a bodyguard?’

  ‘I’m not saying that.’ He searched her face. ‘I’m simply asking you to be careful, for my sake.’ He brushed her cheek with his mouth. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

  ‘Point taken, Doctor Levin,’ she said lightly.

  Barra took her round to Spite Hall where she met Mike.

  The drive was full of police cars. Mike pulled the door open. ‘What if the grandson’s not in?’

  ‘We’ll talk to the old man again.’

  They found Patterson standing on the top step, leaning on his walking stick and staring at Spite Hall, the front door gaping behind him. He glanced only briefly at them, and again Joanna found herself curious as to the relationship between brother and sister.

  ‘Would it be convenient for you to come and look inside your sister’s house?’ she suggested. ‘Maybe you could tell us if anything’s missing.’

  This time the old man didn’t take his eyes off the concrete block. ‘Wouldn’t be any use me doing that,’ he said. ‘I haven’t never been inside the place. She had a home help. She’d know better than me if anything’s been took.’

  ‘The home help’s name?’

  ‘Marion. Marion Elland. She lives on the Tittesworth estate.’

  Joanna made a note. ‘Have you thought any more about when you last saw your sister, Mr Patterson?’

  For the first time the old man seemed to have something he wanted to hide. His gaze slid away from his sister’s house and towards Joanna. ‘I ... We ...’ He cleared his throat noisily. ‘Our paths didn’t cross.’

  Again Joanna was reminded of the proximity of the two houses. Six feet apart? Their paths could not fail to cross. She waited.

  ‘A week ago? A month ago,’ Mike prompted.

  Patterson swivelled his bent back towards Korpanski. ‘I think the end of August, Sergeant. I don’t get out much.’ It was a reminder that Patterson was old, he was infirm, but he was in possession of all his faculties.

  ‘Can you be more specific?’ Joanna prompted gently.

  ‘Somewhere round the end of August, the bank holiday. I think the Monday. We didn’t speak.’

  She could understand the obvious animosity between brother and sister but she still had to ask. ‘Was it just the house?’

  ‘Aye, well, you can get used to anything. Almost anything.’ Patterson was silent for a moment. Then. ‘Well, so now, Nan’s dead. Well.’

  And Joanna was curious. ‘Your father must have been an unusual man.’

  Patterson didn’t even pretend not to understand. ‘He was.’ He clenched his walking stick. ‘I’ve already told you how it was. He loved to set us up against one another. It was his main hobby. He knew how me and Nan would fight.’

  ‘And Lydia?’

  ‘She’s unusual too. You’ve met her.’

  Rheumy old eyes pierced hers and Joanna nodded slightly. Yes, Lydia Patterson was a strange woman.

  ‘That old bugger.’ Arnold Patterson turned back towards his decayed home. ‘He knew how I loved the land. I would have farmed it, made it productive, and Nan would have kept this house beautiful. For years I’ve had to watch the fields go to waste. The only way I could punish her was to let this place fall apart. And what does she do? Builds the ugliest place imaginable, as close to me as was humanly possible, right up against me own front door, and condemned me to that place.’ He could not bear to turn around but held his hand up. And neither Mike nor Joanna could have any doubt what it was that he was referring to. ‘Nan never set foot in this place after me dad died, and I never ever went inside hers.’

  ‘What did her husband say? Surely he could have farmed the land, opposed the building of Nan’s home?’

  ‘David? He was nothing after the war. Farmer’s sons don’t make good soldiers, Inspector Piercy.’

  Joanna’s knowledge of the war was hazy. ‘But surely as a worker on the land he was exempt from call-up?’

  ‘Not David. Patriotic. Stupid. Just the type to let his conscience drive him to the very place he didn’t want to go, the front line, the worst place for him. Messed up a lot of people’s lives that war did.’ He was a master of understatement.

  Joanna found it difficult even to feign interest in this slice of history. Surely it could have no bearing on his sister’s murder? At her side she guessed Korpanski was anxious to interrogate the grandson, not this rambling old man awash in his past.

  At last he showed curiosity about his sister’s death. ‘And who do you think did it?’

  ‘There have been other attacks on old women in the town.’

  Patterson nodded. ‘I do read The Leek Post.’

  ‘At the moment we’re connecting them. We aren’t sure but it seems likely.’

  Once again Patterson displayed his native calm acceptance. Aye, well. We’ll see.’

  ‘Do you know the terms of your sister’s will?’

  Patterson smiled slowly, he had good teeth for such an aged specimen. ‘On her death it all goes to Christian.’

  By her side she felt Mike jerk. It seemed the perfect cue to speak to him.

  The thumping jungle beat seemed to fill the entire house with a threat. Something flashed through Joanna’s mind. Her father had taken her once to the pictures, a rare occurrence. It had been an Indiana Jones movie. They had watched some white men being kidnapped by cannibals in the jungle. Her father had leaned across and whispered, ‘When those jungle drums stop they’re going to eat them!’ As a child she had been terrified. And the music still seemed to hold a threat.

  As she and Mike climbed the stairs towards the attic she felt her tension mount. When they reached the second floor the music stopped abruptly.

  Christian Patterson’s freckled face peered out. ‘I thought I heard footsteps.’ An engaging grin appeared. ‘Not always easy to hear when I’ve got the decks going. Hello again, come for me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m still working on that damned essay. You want to come in?’

  Christian Patterson had made himself perfectly at home here. The walls were painted in bright colours, lime green, citrus yellow. The floorboards had been sanded and polished. Rugs were scattered around. There was a long foam sofa covered in a multi-coloured throw. Through the open door she glimpsed a second bedroom, again tidily organized. On the landing there had been a small kitchenette and a door to what she presumed must be a bathroom.

  He was watching her.

  Joanna was puzzled. She had thought she had connected with this young man, now she really studied his face she realized she had been wrong, quite wrong. He didn’t look concerned today but detached.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Christian said airily. ‘How did they get to her?’

  She felt he should have displayed concern, not curiosity. The police should be the ones to ask these matter-of-fact questions. He had known her, for goodness sake.

  Christian Patterson turned the full gaze of those melting, toffee eyes on her. Maybe she had been wrong about the lack of emotion; something was there, not quite grief, something else. ‘None of the windows were broken?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, curiouser and curiouser.’

  ‘I’ve just had a thought, Inspector. I bet I was the last person to see her alive.’

  ‘On Sunday night,’ Mike said steadily.

  ‘Exactly,’ Christian replied calmly. ‘And earlier that day: I saw her walking to church on Sunday morning. Offered her a lift which she refused, stubborn old cow,’ he said with some affection ‘She had real trouble walking, with her arthritis. But she forced herself to go every Sunday. Look,’ he said eagerly, ‘let me come down to the house. I bet I can work out how they got in.’

  Inwardly Joanna groaned. Oh God, not an amateur detective.

  ‘All right,’ she said. Behind her she felt M
ike exhale deeply.

  Arnold Patterson watched them troop out through the hall. Christian was quick to reassure him.

  ‘It’s OK, Grandad. Just popping over to Aunt Nan’s to see if anything’s missing. Shan’t be long.’

  The old man nodded and shuffled back to his living room.

  There were still police cars filling the drive. But now they had been joined by a huge Incident van, white with a bright orange stripe. They skirted past it. The front door of Spite Hall stood wide open, inside was chill. Gently she reminded Christian of the reason they had brought him here. ‘Just take a superficial look around, see if anything’s missing. And please, don’t touch anything, it might obliterate prints.’ She handed him a pair of overshoes. ‘And you’d better put these on.’

  He gave a self-conscious smile and walked along the narrow passage to the sitting room. They saw him visibly wince as he entered. Barra had ringed each individual bloodstain with chalk, numbered them too. The shape of the body was obvious, chalked in. Furniture had been left where it had been tipped, ready for removal to the science laboratory. Christian’s face was pale as his eyes found the first of the stains. ‘Is this her blood?’

  Joanna nodded.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in this room when she wasn’t over there –’ he pointed ‘ – sitting by the window, sewing.’

  He picked his way through the marks, stopping when he reached the stained tapestry. He reached out to touch it, then must have recalled Joanna’s instruction and withdrew his hand again. ‘She was always doing this,’ he said. ‘Spent ages choosing the right colour silks so carefully. It all seemed so important.’ He smiled. ‘She used to mutter to herself like a maniac, bits of poems, old songs, little comments to herself.’ His eyes were warm as they returned to Joanna’s face. ‘Sometimes’, he said, ‘she’d sing. She had a bloody awful voice.’

  Afterwards Joanna would ask herself whether the brightness in his eyes had been tears.

  Chapter Nine

  Lydia stopped writing and as though her hand had a will of its own it slid to the edge of the desk and touched an antimony box that sat on a small table. She opened the lid and fumbled through the contents. Her fingers found the picture. She held it up in front of her face. It was an old photograph, sepia tinted, of three solemn-faced children, a boy and two girls. The girls both had long hair and serious dark eyes. They were wearing white cotton pinafores. The boy was older, taller, seemed protective.

  Lydia stared at it for a few minutes, then she bent her head on her arms and gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘Heaven help us,’ she said. ‘Heaven help us all.’

  Christian had halted in front of the long-case clock. ‘Stupid thing,’ he said affectionately, ‘I spent no end of time trying to fix it. She never could understand why it wouldn’t work properly. I used to try and explain, in the end I just gave up, told her it was old and arthritic – like her.’ His eyes swept over the sofa, the rug, the burnt-out fire. Then he moved back towards the window and stared out at the older house. ‘She was quite a character, you know. Powerful.’

  ‘So we believe.’

  ‘Not what you think.’ He was swift to defend her. ‘Just because she built this place people thought–’ He stopped. ‘You know what they call it? The name grew up around it but it was unfair. She had her reasons, you know.’

  ‘Which were?’

  Christian looked away. ‘It wasn’t right. Him getting the house.’

  ‘It wasn’t your grandfather’s wish’, Joanna pointed out to him, ‘but the terms of his father’s will. Besides, you should be grateful, Brushton Grange has provided a roof over your head.’

  ‘It would have been a better roof with her under it. Look at it,’ Patterson said, scornfully gazing upwards through the window. ‘It’s been there since the eighteenth century, and he’s let it go. I mean, neglected doesn’t quite sum it up, does it? It’s a ruin. If she had lived there. Well,’ he shrugged, ‘it wouldn’t have been like that.’

  Joanna suddenly had an insight into the times Christian Patterson had sat right here, looking through the window, with his great-aunt stitching by his side, feeding him poison. And she instinctively knew that Christian’s grandfather had been right. Nan Lawrence had been an adverse influence on the youth.

  His eyes swept around the room. ‘And she had to live here. Awful, isn’t it?’

  She felt bound to counter his criticism. ‘There was no need to build Spite Hall quite so near or so ugly. There must have been plenty of other sites on the land. She could have designed a bungalow or a cottage. It didn’t need to be so functional, such an eyesore.’

  ‘It was a joke,’ Christian said, almost disdainfully. ‘Just a joke.’

  Mike and Joanna exchanged glances and wondered if anyone had ever laughed at Nan’s joke. They doubted it.

  Lydia sighed and closed the exercise book. It was no good. The stories always had a mind of their own. They dictated the text, not her. She put her pen down and stood up. That was enough for today. She must work outside, with the animals; hammer back the hen house roof. Anything to escape the memories.

  The photograph lay on the desk, bleaching in a sudden burst of sunshine.

  ‘Is there anything missing?’

  Christian looked carefully around the sitting room before shaking his head. ‘Not that I can see. But then there isn’t much in it, is there?’

  ‘No.’ He was right. What would burglars have stolen? There was no television, no video. ‘Did your aunt keep cash in the house?’

  ‘Hardly any. She was probably one of the few of her generation to actually bank her pension.’

  ‘So the only item of value was the clock,’ Joanna mused. ‘Was that a family heirloom?’

  ‘Not from her family. She had nothing from Brushton Grange. Not so much as a pair of curtains. The clock came from her husband’s family, the Lawrences. She used to say it was the only decent thing to come from them.’

  The implication was, then, that Nan Lawrence’s marriage had not been a happy one. It was not a surprise. Arnold Patterson had already hinted as much and Spite Hall hardly matched up as a post-war love nest.

  Before they left the room something else was intriguing Joanna. ‘Why did your great-aunt choose such a gory subject for her tapestry?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. All I do know is that it meant a great deal to her. She’d been stitching away at it for a couple of years.’ He glanced down. ‘I never really looked at it properly.’ There was the hint of a smile playing around his lips. ‘I can’t say I’m very interested in needlework, Inspector.’

  ‘What actually is it?’ Korpanski asked.

  ‘Something for the church, I think. I don’t know what. She never told me. I’d guess it’s an altar cloth or a prayer-stool cover.’ He smiled. Joanna was again struck by the intelligence behind those melting brown eyes. ‘And then someone clobbers her while she’s bending over it.’ He hesitated. ‘And the marks on it are blood. Her blood.’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘So it never will get to the church, will it? All that work and it’ll be police evidence in a murder trial – if you nail anyone, that is. You’ve failed so far, haven’t you, Inspector Piercy?’

  After his careful politeness the barbed comment was unexpected. It put Joanna into defensive mode. ‘We’ve had very little evidence to go on so far.’

  ‘And you’re hoping my aunt’s murder will provide you with a solution?’

  ‘We didn’t wish this on her purely to –’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you did,’ Christian said smoothly.

  ‘But it must be fortuitous.’ His gaze lingered on the chalked figure.

  ‘Murder is never fortuitous,’ Joanna said sharply. ‘Even if through the crime we find out who the gang are, we would wish your great-aunt still alive.’

  A half-smile played around the youth’s lips. ‘Then you must be about the only one who does wish that.’

  ‘Except for you, Christian?’ The gloves were off.

  His
eyes gleamed at the challenge. ‘Naturally.’ He seemed thoughtful for a few seconds. ‘Inspector Piercy,’ he said with a touch of humour. ‘No wonder you were so keen for me to accompany you back here.’

  It was the perfect cue. ‘Who do you think did it, Christian?’

  ‘Well,’ he said slowly, appraising first her, then Korpanski. ‘I really can’t imagine. But I can’t see myself concurring with your theory of a gang bursting in. The evidence surely would point to a gang creeping up on her.’

  It sounded silly. He was mocking her, but Joanna felt equal to the challenge. She could use it to her advantage even. ‘You’re right. It isn’t possible they crept up on her, is it? And you’ve already assured us she wasn’t deaf so she’d have heard them.’

  ‘That’s right, Inspector.’

  ‘And she didn’t have poor eyesight.’

  ‘Doesn’t leave you many suspects, does it?’

  He was so brazen, so cocksure, and she could have added more. That all the break-ins so far had been in the town – not three miles out along a long, straight drive, clearly visible from the road. That Nan Lawrence had had nothing of value. That anyone peeping through the window would have known there was nothing to steal, not even a television or a video. That a gang bursting in would certainly not have found Nan calmly sewing. That Nan Lawrence’s injuries had proved she hadn’t even turned her head around to look at her killer but had ignored him. That unlike every other felony they had been investigating for the entire year there had been no sign of a break-in, not a forced lock or a broken window. And lastly her own gut feeling that the evidence of a frenzied attack she had watched Matthew uncover at the post-mortem was the exact opposite of the cold-blooded carving of Cecily Marlowe’s face. Everything in this crime was different. But she had no intention of confiding in Christian Patterson. Instead she gave the youth a broad smile and appealed to the amateur detective in him. ‘Actually, Christian, you might be able to help us.’

  He returned her smile with a relaxed ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I daresay you’re fond of trotting round the pubs with your mates at night. That’s where a lot of the gossip gets picked up. Whoever the gang are they could be from Leek. If they are local they just might visit the pubs round here. It’d be very helpful if you could keep your ear to the ground.’