by Angela Arney
‘If Danny Bayley remembers all that, why didn’t he make the connection?’ Grayson went back and pored over the torn page.
‘You may well ask,’ Maguire snorted. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that his powers of investigative journalism are nil. The only thing he’s good for is writing lurid headlines.’
‘What’s he going to write now?’ asked Grayson gloomily. ‘He’ll let the cat out of the bag and frighten off our suspect.’
‘No he won’t, at least, not yet, because the paper doesn’t come out until Saturday. That’s one advantage of a weekly. And he’s not going to let the London press hounds have it if he can possibly help it, because he wants an exclusive so that he can sell thousands of copies. So, hopefully we’ve got a bit of time to track down our suspect. All I know at the moment is that Lessing sold up after the trial and moved away. I wish to hell I knew where he’d gone to. He seems to have vanished into thin air.’
Suddenly he threw the biro down on the desk and tipped his chair back into an upright position. ‘But he can’t have done. We’ve got no record of him because he hasn’t committed any crime, but he must be somewhere, and someone must know of him. Start with the estate agents, Steve. Eleven years is not that long ago, and most of the firms around here have been going longer than that. They must have records of what they sold and for whom. And hopefully they’ll have the forwarding addresses of their clients as well. Get on with it right away.’ He pulled a notepad towards him and began writing furiously. ‘I’m going to try to follow up any connecting leads with our victims. In a place like this somebody must know what they got up to before they crashed that car.
‘Right, sir.’ Grayson started towards the door.
‘And take someone with you,’ said Maguire, ‘It might speed things up a bit. Take Kevin . . . what’s his name?’
‘Kevin Harrison, sir.’ Grayson sighed.
The sigh reminded Maguire of the gossip in the station. He looked up. ‘I understand that you threatened to punch him on the nose last night.’ Steve nodded and looked shame-faced. ‘Not a good idea. We’re supposed to be upholders of the law, not unruly hooligans.’ He returned to his list, adding hobbies, school friends, and youth clubs, then ran out of ideas.
‘He got on my wick, sir,’ said Grayson.
‘A lot of people get on mine.’ Maguire looked up again and gave one of his rare grins. ‘But you have to put up with it, Steve. It’s part of life. Or as they say in France, c’est la vie.’
‘Yes, sir,’ muttered Grayson, and went to find Constable Kevin Harrison.
During morning surgery Lizzie found it difficult to concentrate. She was annoyed. Annoyed with Adam Maguire. She thought she’d handed him the solution to the murders, on a plate so to speak, and he hadn’t seemed in the least bit excited. He’d said he’d follow it up, but that was all he’d said. Of course, it was something the police ought to have discovered for themselves if they had looked in the right place, so maybe that was why he’d been so non-committal; he felt embarrassed. Meanwhile she felt impatient, even though he had phoned to tell her that Giles Lessing hadn’t lived in Stibbington for years and there was no trace of him. So he had done something about it, but all the same Lizzie sensed he was rejecting her theory.
Her impatience showed as she sent yet another patient out without a prescription.
‘A cold in the head does not warrant a course of antibiotics,’ she told middle-aged Mrs Lee. There were enough articles in papers and magazines about the over-prescribing of antibiotics. Surely everyone knew a cold was a viral infection? Apparently not. The patient persisted.
‘But, Doctor. I’ve got a sore throat and a cough as well.’ Mrs Lee gave a demonstrative cough.
‘Gargle three times a day with salt water, and inhale steam for your blocked nose. In three to four days’ time you will be quite well,’ said Lizzie briskly.
Sneaking a look at the pile of patients’ notes all waiting to be seen made her feel even more gloomy. Nearly all regulars. Bad back, bad foot, piles, insomnia, plus three young mums who couldn’t survive a week with their offspring without a visit to the doctors’ surgery. It was only the end of her fourth week in Stibbington, and already she knew the regulars! Ah well. That was life. People thought being a doctor was glamorous. If only they knew!
Pushing the buzzer to admit the next patient, Lizzie felt impatient for lunchtime. She’d arranged to meet Louise for lunch at the Ship Inn down on the quay. The morning couldn’t go quickly enough; she was enjoying her daughter’s visit more than she liked to admit. Admitting it meant acknowledging that she sometimes felt lonely. A negative feeling, and one to which she could not subscribe. Life had to be full of positives.
Suddenly, Maguire’s face flashed in her mind. It was a nice face, but one which held deep sadness. He had a negative view of life; perhaps that was why he hadn’t jumped at the information she’d given him – he couldn’t believe that it was all so simple. Ah well, that was his problem, Not hers, because that afternoon, when Louise and her friend went into Southampton for some Christmas shopping, and she had the afternoon off, she planned to do a little detective work of her own. She’d ascertained that the library kept back copies of the Stibbington Times, and intended to search through them for further information concerning the joy riding incident. As well as that she was going to visit old Mrs Mills. Not something she’d mentioned to Maguire, suspecting that he would have told her to keep her nose out of police business.
The phone rang. It was Tara inquiring whether she would speak to Phineas Merryweather in between patients. Lizzie took the call.
Phineas came straight to the point. ‘Dick has told me that he mentioned our little dinner party to you. If you feel up to meeting a few more Stibbington inhabitants, my wife and I would be very pleased to see you.’
‘I’d love to. But, as I told Dick, I have my daughter staying with me; Thursday is our last night together. Will you forgive me if I say no this time?’ Lizzie didn’t particularly want to share Louise. She was already sharing her with this unknown friend, Christina.
‘Of course, my dear.’ Phineas sounded understanding. ‘We’ll make it another time. Pity, though, I was looking forward to talking about our three murder victims. You’ve beaten me to the scene of the crime every time.’
‘Until another time then. And thank you for asking me.’ Lizzie smiled wryly. Louise didn’t know what a lucky escape she’d had. If there was one thing she hated it was anything of a gory nature; a cut finger was about as much as she could stomach. More by luck than good judgement, she’d managed to pass off the scene of the burnt-out greenhouse and shed as an accident which had happened before she’d bought the cottage. Louise had accepted the explanation without comment, and Lizzie had breathed a sigh of relief, reckoning that white lies never did anyone any harm.
Wednesday morning was fine, cold, and blustery. The first really fine day without black, threatening rain clouds looming overhead for more than two weeks, and the citizens of Stibbington were taking advantage of it. A steady stream of people walked along the hard, heads down against the sou’westerly blowing in from the sea, all muffled up against the cold with anoraks, hats, and headscarves.
From her guests’ lounge window Emmy Matthews watched the straggly procession: mostly pensioners, the only ones with time off at this time of the day. She was hoping that the Walshes and their baby would soon be out as well. Babies were all very well (Emmy had never had one of her own, there’d always been just her and Bert, until he passed over, and he’d been enough trouble with his muddy boots and constant pile of newspapers, which he’d insisted reading from cover to cover) but they smelled. To Emmy’s sensitive nose the smell of slightly sour milk and nappies permeated the whole house. She’d already used up a whole tin of lavender spray, and was unwilling to start another one. As soon as they went out she’d open all the windows and give the place a good air. In the meantime, as there were no clouds about, she decided to wash and hang out all last week’s tableclot
hs and sheets, which had been lingering in the laundry basket waiting for a day such as this.
It was while she was pegging out the washing at the rear of the house (never let it be said that people from the front could see her washing) that she saw Mrs Smithson lurch, yes that was the word, lurch, down the drive and out on to the foreshore. Hidden behind a billowing tablecloth Emmy watched through a gap in the hedge that separated the back garden from the front. The woman did not go along the hard towards the town, but turned right and followed the seaward path. Most strollers only went along as far as the end of the marina, where a stone wall had been built and half a dozen wooden seats put in place. And there they sat, taking in the view of the estuary and the saltings to the left, and the open Solent with its distant view of the Isle of Wight to the right. But Mrs Smithson didn’t pause, she walked, still with an unsteady gait, past the end of the marina, past the seats with their occupants, and on towards the curve of the coastline where the coarse sea grass grew in tussocks between the salty mudflats exposed at low tide. There was just one building there – the old chandlery. Once it had been a busy place, but it was now derelict and unused. It should have been pulled down, but no one had bothered about it.
It was out of sight from the town, but in sight from Emmy’s top window in the House on the Hard, where she was now (she’d rushed upstairs in order to follow Mrs Smithson’s progress) with her nose pressed against the window, squinting into the brightness reflected from the sea. She saw Mrs Smithson enter the old building, and close the rickety door behind her. She thought of the leaflet down in the kitchen drawer where she’d hidden it for safety. By now she’d read it, and it had been a revelation. Previously, transvestites existed exclusively between the pages of the more lurid tabloids, and as far as she knew there were none in Stibbington. At least, none until Mrs Smithson had arrived, for Emmy was now convinced that her strange guest must be a transvestite. Why else would she have a booklet telling her in detail how to behave as a woman? It wasn’t normal. But according to the booklet it was quite common, and it wasn’t against the law. So what was she to do? If Mrs Smithson was a man, but wanted to pretend to be a woman, whose business was it? Emmy didn’t know, but still felt it wasn’t right, in spite of what the book said. Men shouldn’t have those sorts of urges. Her Bert would never have dressed up like that. Well, she wouldn’t have let him for one thing!
She was still standing gazing out of the window in the direction of the old chandlery when she saw a man wheeling a motorbike from behind the building along by the broken jetty. He kept to the narrow gravel path, which was always dry as the tide never reached that far, and brought the bike around to the front of the building. There he kicked it, and although she was too far away to hear, Emmy could imagine the engine roaring into life, as it must have done, for the next moment man and bike moved at a steady speed along the path and joined the tarmac road at the end of the hard. As it gathered speed, and passed the House on the Hard, Emmy suddenly remembered the sound of the motorbike at Darren Evans’s bungalow, something she’d completely forgotten about until that moment. Now she did think of it she knew there was something she just had to know, and before she could change her mind, she marched down the stairs and along the corridor towards Mrs Smithson’s room and opened the door. Once inside, she carefully wedged the door open, she wasn’t going to be caught unawares a second time, and then began to open the drawers and cupboards, sifting through the contents swiftly and methodically.
Maguire’s hopes of the media continuing to ignore events in Stibbington were dashed almost as soon as Grayson and Constable Harrison left the station. He had already fielded several calls from the national press himself that morning, refusing to give a statement. Then the superintendent stormed in and launched into a tirade.
‘The press have been on to me. I sent them away, of course. But we’ll have to call a press conference sooner rather than later. They’re outside now, and there’s a TV crew out there as well, and they’re not going to go away until we tell them something. So, why the hell aren’t you out there doing something? Saying something! Arresting someone! The phone hasn’t stopped ringing this morning, and Headquarters have even e-mailed me.’
‘Thank God I haven’t got e-mail. I leave all that to Grayson.’ Maguire felt that e-mails would be more than he could bear, and always let Grayson embrace all the latest technology, which he did with enthusiasm
‘Find a suspect,’ the super barked. ‘Hold someone for questioning. Anyone,’ he added.
The last remark was totally illogical, and Maguire put it down to strain. He knew, in fact everyone at the station knew, that the super had just come from yet another meeting at County Headquarters. And they all knew that he was desperately struggling to preserve the status quo. Like Maguire he had no desire to vanish into the black hole of tinted glass and concrete blocks which was County Headquarters.
‘I can’t hold just anyone for questioning, sir. There’s got to be a reason, and I haven’t got a good enough reason to hold anyone at the moment.’
‘Reasons, reasons.’ The superintendent paced about. ‘If we don’t clear this up that will be a very good reason for closing this place down and making it just another of those ghost stations, open two mornings a week for the public to come in to complain about their neighbours leaving their wheelie bins outside their front gates on the wrong day.’
‘I know,’ said Maguire unhappily. ‘I will hold a press conference. But all I can say is that our inquiries are continuing and that there is nothing to report at the moment.’
‘Do it,’ said the super. ‘At least that will keep them quiet for a few hours while they go away and concoct a totally ridiculous story, which we can then deny.’ He strode purposefully from the room. ‘I’ll get DC Gordon, that new chap from the Regional Crime Squad, to set it up. He might have a few ideas of what to say. Anything to fob them off, apparently he’s been trained in that sort of thing. Information psychology, it’s called. A load of rubbish, but we’ll do it. Be ready in fifteen minutes.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Maguire was not happy. He would prefer to remain silent for the time being. The press had an unhappy knack of stirring things up, a fabricated story could do damage that was hard to undo. But he had his orders to follow. He called in DC Gordon and between them they started to draft a press handout.
Half an hour later the press departed. They were not happy either. Detective Chief Inspector Maguire had not told them anything they didn’t already know, but they all knew they weren’t going to get anything more from him. Not today, anyway.
As soon as they’d disappeared Maguire put on his overcoat and asked DC Gordon to accompany him on the premise that two heads might be better than one. Especially as DC Gordon had never met the Brockett-Smythes. They’d go and have another word with them, and maybe Ivy James as well later on. He’d like to clear up the cannabis connection if nothing else, and there surely must be a connection, unless every other person in Stibbington was smoking pot, which was unlikely. Mrs Clackett was in cleaning the house today, so he could leave Tess for a bit longer as she’d have a run in the garden.
At midday the sheltered, cobbled yard of the Ship Inn was so sunny and warm it almost seemed like spring. One step around the corner and it was a different place – a piercingly cold wind blew a reminder that it was December – but the yard was warm and Lizzie and Louise ate their ploughmans outside.
Lizzie held up her cider watching the sunlight sparkle through the golden liquid. Her bad mood of the morning surgery evaporated like one of the golden bubbles floating free and exploding in little bursts on the surface. She took a long cool sip. ‘This is what it will be like every day in summer,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I moved down here.’
‘So am I,’ said Louise, smiling. ‘I’ll be a regular visitor.’
They both laughed at the thought and then smiled, almost shyly, at each other. Now that she and Mike were divorced, there was no longer the need to pretend that everything was all right, an
d Lizzie knew they both felt more at ease. The curtain of deceit had been pulled aside, and they were seeing each other face to face. How many other families, Lizzie wondered, stumbled along in a fog of misunderstanding and fear? Fear of saying the wrong thing, always balancing carefully on the edge of the precipice before the next storm broke. She and Mike had both been responsible for that state of affairs, and they should have had the courage, both of them, to have broken free years ago. But she didn’t have the courage and neither did he. It took another woman to give him the courage. But it didn’t matter. She was free. They were both free.
They carried on eating. ‘I’d like another half pint of cider,’ said Louise. ‘What about you?’
‘An orange juice, please,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ve got some driving to do this afternoon.’
Louise disappeared inside the pub and Lizzie sat alone. The dark clouds, so miraculously held at bay for the morning, began to roll in again from the west, bringing with them the threat of rain. She shivered. Thoughts of spring had been premature; this was winter, and a cold and miserable one at that. For no reason her mind slid back to the recent death of Melinda, and she shuddered. When the sun had been shining she’d been able to forget the murders for a few moments, but now the horror of all three returned in full force. The sooner the police caught this mad man the better; she was convinced in her own mind that it must be Giles Lessing. Who else would have a motive?
