Death in the Family

by Jill McGown

“Which means she’s changed the baby’s clothes,” McArthur said. “This could have been planned. She’s probably miles away by now.”

  Tom nodded. “But my idea’s still worth a try, sir. Isn’t it?”

  “Anything’s worth a try.”

  A few minutes later, Tom and Judy began their apparently pleasant and aimless stroll with Charlotte around Riverside, walking along Bridge Street, the long street that led to the traffic-bearing bridge over the river, its mock-Victorian street furniture designed to blend in with the real Victorian architecture.

  Tom was pushing the pram, pulling faces at Charlotte, making her smile sleepily, while Judy scrutinized every other female on the street. Until now, Charlotte had slept through most of the excitement, apparently; Tom thought about his own children, neither of whom had seemed to sleep at all before their first birthdays, and asked Judy if she realized how lucky she was with the placid and cheerful Charlotte. Why he and Liz were putting themselves through it again he wasn’t sure, but the baby they had assured each other in February they didn’t want and had immediately set about trying to conceive was due in late December.

  “Oh, yes,” Judy said. “Don’t forget who her father is—I was expecting the worst.”

  Tom smiled. Lloyd’s fuse was short, and few people who knew him had escaped his sharp tongue when something—often something of no real importance—sparked off his quick temper, which was almost always restored as soon as it had been lost, but he could do a lot of emotional damage in those few minutes. Judy’s influence had, Tom thought, made him less inclined to do that, so maybe it wasn’t luck; perhaps it was her influence that worked with Charlotte. “I think you must just be a natural, Judy,” he said.

  “I hope I am, because I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to work.”

  Tom didn’t want to hear that. “Why?”

  “Because I had finally decided that a nanny was the only option.” She sighed. “And then this happened. How can I trust Charlotte to someone who might just decide to walk off and leave her?”

  “Come on, Judy. She’s a seventeen-year-old kid—she’s not a nanny, whatever she calls herself. She’s a mother’s helper.”

  “Nina Crawford trusted her.”

  Mrs. Crawford didn’t go out to work; she had three-year-old Dominic to look after as well as Emma. She had employed Andrea purely to help her out and, when the wet spring had finally given way to sunshine, had been pleased when Andrea had suggested taking Emma to the park. It had been an established routine; Tom felt a little sorry for Andrea.

  “These girls at that nursery aren’t much older than Andrea,” Judy went on. “They’re not responsible enough to be left in charge of babies.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I think most of them are. Especially the ones that work in nurseries. And . . . for what it’s worth, I think Andrea was very unlucky.”

  “Unlucky? She was more concerned about phoning her friends than she was about looking after Emma.”

  “She was still desperately unlucky.” Tom leaned over the pram and spun one of Charlotte’s toys for her. Charlotte, wide awake now, shouted until he hit another one.

  “She’ll make you do that for hours,” Judy warned him. “Her games are interminable.”

  “That’s OK.” Tom patiently played the game as he walked along, rather enjoying it. After a few moments, he tried again. “It was a one-in-a-million chance that Emma was snatched. It really was.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s not what you’d call frequent, is it? Have you ever dealt with a baby snatch before?”

  “No. But that’s not the point.” As she talked, Judy was looking at every one of the lunchtime shoppers who were milling round the boutiques and cafés of Riverside. “She should have been where she was paid to be—with Emma.”

  Tom stopped walking. “I think you’re being a bit hard on her.”

  Judy took her eyes off the passersby to look at Tom. “Why are you defending her?” she demanded.

  Tom shrugged and carried on pushing, mainly because Charlotte was volubly objecting to the unscheduled halt. “Because it would take her a couple of minutes to nip back to the car park. My mother once forgot she’d taken me shopping with her. Went home and left me outside a shop in the pram. In Liverpool.”

  “She didn’t!”

  Tom grinned at Judy’s horrified expression. “She did. She went racing back, and there I was, perfectly happy. I’d been there for half an hour.”

  “That was over thirty years ago. Times have changed.”

  It was always different thirty years ago, Tom thought. In thirty years, they would be saying that it was different thirty years ago. “All I’m saying is that it was very bad luck that the only person who saw the baby unattended was someone who stole her. Most people would have just kept an eye on her until Andrea came back, and told her off for leaving her. Or at worst, would have ignored it, and walked on.”

  “And that excuses what she did?”

  “No. I just think the outcome was a bit much, considering what she actually did. Like . . .” He searched to find a suitable analogy. “Like when driving without due care causes a fatal accident. It doesn’t make it dangerous driving, does it?”

  “You wouldn’t want the driver as a chauffeur, though, would you?”

  The scene-of-crime people had bagged up a large cat-shaped cast-iron doorstop that weighed about six pounds and showed all the signs of having inflicted the terrible injuries on the woman who lay dead on the floor of the utility room. The rough, dull surface of the cast iron was unlikely to produce fingerprints, but these days they could coax prints off surfaces once thought impossible, so Lloyd was keeping his fingers crossed.

  Freddie, the pathologist they were lucky to have working on their doorstep, and a longtime friend of Lloyd, began in his situ examination. Lloyd, aware that Freddie preferred to work at the scene without being interrupted by questions, left him to it and went through the kitchen, where the floor was marked with blood that had come off someone’s shoes; chalk circles indicated that they had been examined. There had been blood on one of Waring’s shoes; he had probably left the footprints himself, but there was a chance that it was the murderer.

  The marks continued down the hallway, as did Lloyd, but they carried on to the front door, where one of the scene-of-crime officers was working, whereas Lloyd turned left into the sitting room. The photographer was taking shots of the overturned occasional table, the smashed mirror hanging crookedly on the wall, and the glass splinters that littered the carpet.

  Lloyd would normally at this stage be interviewing the person who had reported the crime, but not this time; Ian Waring was in the accident and emergency unit at Barton General, and he was the one who had reportedly called the police. The hospital had confirmed Lloyd’s supposition that the blood on Waring’s clothes was not his own; Waring’s most serious injuries, they said, were internal, and the fractures to his leg and foot had not punctured the skin. The injuries were consistent with his having been hit by a vehicle and crushed against the brick column.

  They were currently attempting to stabilize his condition in order that they might operate, but the operation itself would be touch and go and a great deal would depend on the patient’s ability to survive it. The prognosis was not particularly hopeful; he might not regain consciousness.

  They had found a mobile phone lying underneath Waring when the paramedics had moved him; last number redial had produced the emergency operator. The phone had blood on it, blood that again had not come from Ian Waring, and that constituted a little puzzle, in Lloyd’s opinion.

  And he would normally be talking to the neighbors, but not this time, he thought, as he left the sitting room and went upstairs, because there were none. He would be inquiring into the background of the victims, checking for diaries, letters—anything that would give him a clue as to why a woman had died and a man had been severely injured. Not this time, he discovered, because this house had nothing of that
sort to yield; it had been cleared of anything personal. The bookshelves were empty, the drawers, the cupboards, all cleared. The packing cases were being gone through, but so far nothing of any use had been found.

  And, usually, he would have had the tireless Tom Finch to do what he would doubtless call the legwork, having been brought up on TV cop shows, but he had been sent to Malworth to join the huge team mobilized to investigate a baby snatch that had just taken place. Lloyd hadn’t been prepared for the lurch his heart had given when Bob Sandwell told him that a baby had been stolen in Malworth; for a dreadful moment, he had been aware of only one baby in Malworth. But someone else was having to cope with that terrible worry, and he couldn’t help feeling grateful for that.

  He was a sergeant short at the moment, because Bob was acting DI and had gone to the hospital to find out what he could about Waring and the incident in Malworth required more immediate manpower than the murder, so, for the moment, his sole CID assistance was the ever-reliable DC Alan Marshall. If a murder team turned out to be necessary, it would be assembled from all the divisions, but sometimes murder wasn’t that difficult to solve.

  Marshall was amiable, Scottish, and dogged, but he didn’t have Tom Finch’s sharp observation powers or Bob Sandwell’s uncanny ability to find out what they needed to know. Sandwell always seemed to know just who to ask and what to ask, which was why he was the man to go to if you wanted all the latest gossip. If anyone at Barton General had found out anything at all about Ian Waring, Bob would get to hear about it—apart from anything else, his sister was a staff nurse there, and he had acquired a lot of useful information that way.

  The Alfa Romeo parked outside the front door belonged to Ian Waring, and the address held by the DVLA, his bank, and everyone else was this cottage, so that seemed to indicate that they were in the process of moving out. Lloyd had already assumed that; the lack of personal belongings suggested that they had already been removed and that only the things that were needed until the last moment were being packed today.

  Some of the cases were in the bedrooms, some in the kitchen—each had been packed with what you would expect from these rooms and had been closed, ready for transport. But the one in the utility room had not been closed and had clothes in it; it seemed likely to Lloyd that the victim had removed them from the washing machine and was packing them in the carton when she was killed. The contents of the packing case had spilled out when it had been overturned and were splashed with the blood that had gone everywhere. That meant that her attacker would almost certainly also have been splashed, which was, so far, the only helpful thing about this crime.

  “Chief Inspector?”

  Lloyd went downstairs to where the scene-of-crime officer stood in the hallway by the front door.

  “This letter was on the mat,” she said. “There’s a partial shoe print in blood on it, and it’s clearer than the others—I think we should be able to confirm whether or not Mr. Waring’s shoe made it.” She handed him the letter, now encased in polythene, the shoe print preserved. “It’s addressed to Dr. Theresa Black.”

  Things were looking up; possibly useful evidence, and the deceased had acquired an identity at last. Lloyd looked at the envelope, taking out his glasses. It was junk mail; its contents would be of no use, and it had no postmark. But if they were moving out, the letter had presumably arrived this morning or it would already have been picked up, even if it was just to throw it in the bin. It looked as though the postman had been here sometime this morning, and that meant that they had a lead—slender, to be sure, but a lead.

  He went to the front door, which still stood open, like every other door in the house. Which was odd, Lloyd thought. “Alan!” he called. “Here, a minute.”

  DC Marshall, slow-moving, slow-talking, but painstakingly thorough, detached himself from the SOCOs examining the car and ducked under the flapping, snapping tape that cordoned off the porch area where Waring had been found. “Sir?”

  “Find out who delivered this, and ask him if he can come and make a statement.”

  Alan Marshall took the envelope. “They don’t think the Alfa was involved in what happened to Waring. Do you want it taken to the lab, just in case?”

  They had found the keys to the cottage and garage in Waring’s jacket pocket; Lloyd presumed the car would be as safe in the garage as anywhere, since it seemed unlikely to be going to yield any evidence. “No,” he said. “I’ll get it put back in the garage when the scene-of-crime people are finished in there.”

  “Something else, sir. An Audi Quattro’s been found abandoned not that far from here. It’s registered to a Mrs. Lesley Newton at a London address, and it’s not been reported stolen, so it seemed a bit strange that someone abandoned it. There might not be any connection, but I’ve arranged for it to go to the lab, and the Met are going to trace Mrs. Newton for us.”

  “Did anyone see the driver?”

  “A group of boys—these kids that hang about down by the clearing, causing mischief. They saw him running away from the car into the woods. One of them described him as being in his twenties, with short blond hair. No description of what he was wearing, but the lad said he was in a bit of a state.”

  “I think he’s got a bit of explaining to do when we catch up with him.”

  Marshall assumed the anxious look that his colleagues knew well. “It might be a stolen car, sir—just hasn’t been missed yet. He could have abandoned it when he saw all the police cars. It could be a wild-goose chase.”

  Alan Marshall could always be relied upon to look on the gloomy side of everything. “I know,” Lloyd said. “But I’d sooner be chasing a wild goose than chasing nothing at all. Let’s hope the postman has something interesting to tell us. I should be back at the station by about . . .” He consulted his watch. “. . . three o’clock. See if you can get him there for then.”

  His mobile rang as Marshall left, and it was Bob Sandwell, at the hospital, saying that the hospital had found Ian Waring’s donor card, which had been countersigned by one Theresa Black, and that one of the nurses had known him since they’d been in their teens; she said that he had lived in the old woodsman’s cottage in Stansfield with Theresa Black, the last she heard. She had known of Theresa rather than known her personally.

  “Does anyone know her at the hospital?” Lloyd asked. “She seems to be a doctor.”

  He heard Sandwell talk to someone before replying. “No,” he said. “She’s not a medical doctor—she’s got a Ph.D. in something.”

  Two things occurred to Lloyd as he got that confirmation of the deceased’s identity; one was that he had been right about Sandwell’s ability to find the right person at the right time, and the other was that Waring must be in a very bad way if they had looked for a donor card, and that wasn’t good. He was beginning to feel as upbeat and optimistic about this as Alan Marshall.

  “I’m on my way back to the station to take charge of the incident room, unless you want me for anything else,” Sandwell said.

  “No—you carry on. I’ll be there at about three.”

  Lloyd went back through the kitchen into the utility room, to find Freddie supervising the removal of the body, and beckoned him into the less oppressive kitchen.

  “Well?”

  “Well. You don’t need me to tell you that she was hit several times with a heavy, blunt instrument. And that’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Time of death?”

  “From what your officer said about the temperature of the body, and the readings I’ve taken, I’d say you found her well within an hour of her death.” He turned back toward the utility room. “Was the light on in there when your lads found her?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “The body’s been disturbed since it happened. Not much—turned over on its back from lying on its side, I’d say. I’d have said it was perhaps someone checking to see how badly hurt she was, but if the light was on . . . well, there wouldn’t really be any need, would there?”

&nb
sp; “No,” said Lloyd, with some feeling. “Was it definitely the doorstop that was used?”

  “It seems to have been something of that general size and shape, and the doorstop has what looks like blood on it, so I’d say yes, it was.”

  Lloyd pointed through to the utility room. “And it definitely happened in there?”

  “Unless you’ve got another body with its brains bashed out somewhere, because someone’s blood and brain tissue has been splashed all over the utility room, and, simple soul that I am, I’m inclined to believe it belongs to the dead woman found in there. Is there another body with its brains bashed out?”

  “Just the one so far, thank goodness. And they were good brains, apparently. She was Theresa Black, Ph.D., before this happened to her.”

  Freddie nodded seriously, then smiled, the sudden smile that completely altered his naturally somber features. “So Dr. Black was killed in the utility room with the doorstop, was she? The question obviously is: Where was Professor Plum?”

  Lloyd had to assume it was how Freddie coped. “Very funny, Freddie,” he said as his mobile rang again.

  “Marshall here, sir. The post office say the postman should be back in the depot any minute, and they’ll send him to the station for three o’clock.”

  “Good.”

  “And the guy I spoke to says the house has been up for sale, and was empty for the last few weeks. But the post office wasn’t given a forwarding address, so they were still delivering mail.”

  Lloyd tapped his mobile gently against his temple as he thought. The house had been empty? Now it seemed that they must have been moving in, but Sandwell’s contact said that Ian Waring had lived here for years. So he must have been moving out, and that meant—

  “Sir? Do you want me back at the cottage?”

  Lloyd gave his attention to Marshall again. “Nothing can be simple, can it?” he said. “No. Report to Bob Sandwell—I’m sure he’ll have plenty for you to do.” He terminated the call and sighed. This new information meant that the victim was quite possibly whoever Waring had sold the house to and needn’t be Dr. Black at all. That would upset the Clue-themed jokes that Freddie was doubtless working on even now.