The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  Drake bent down, talking to Judy through the window as the rain grew heavier; then he got in with her just before the heavens opened.

  Lloyd waited, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel, but they seemed to be there for the night. His windscreen wipers whipped back and forth, sending showers of rain off at either side; it grew even harder, bouncing off the pavements, and he glared at it as he waited for it to ease off. It did, after a fashion, but Drake didn’t take the opportunity to leave Judy’s car, and Lloyd switched off his engine. After a few moments, he sounded his horn twice but they took no notice. Swearing to himself, he got out and strode towards them, standing by the still open window.

  ‘But there aren’t any in Stansfield,’ Judy said gloomily.

  ‘No. It’s a non-starter, really. But it seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Drake sat back a little. ‘ I’ll tell you what puzzles me,’ he said. ‘If Rosemary didn’t sleep her way on to Austin-Pearce’s board, how the hell did she get there?’

  Judy nodded. ‘What puzzles me even more,’ she said, ‘is why she wanted to be there at all.’

  ‘Right,’ said Lloyd. ‘ Ring Obsessives Anonymous if you need someone to talk to, but I want to go home, and I can’t because the chances are that this bloody car won’t start. I’m not staying here all night. Go home, Mickey.’

  Drake looked up, startled. ‘I was just trying to work out what this siren could have been,’ he said.

  ‘It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. You have to be back at work at nine o’clock, and you are entitled to eight hours away from the station. Take it. That’s an order.’

  ‘Sorry, s—’ Drake bit off the automatic mode of address. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Judy, and scrambled out of the car. ‘ Goodnight.’

  ‘Night, Mickey,’ said Judy, smiling a little at his confusion.

  ‘Home,’ said Lloyd, opening the car door.

  ‘I’ll try it first,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘It might be all right – the rain’s only just come on.’

  Lloyd slammed her door, and ran back to his own car in a crash of thunder that would have done Hollywood proud. He got in, getting angrier by the minute. They had to go through the ritual. He started the engine, and waited. He knew what was going to happen – she knew what was going to happen. But they had to pretend they didn’t. Her car coughed and wheezed and shuddered, but it did not start. Eventually, she got out and ran to his car. He opened the door, and looked at her as she got in beside him.

  ‘Listen, Acting Chief Inspector Hill,’ he said. ‘ That car does not enhance your image.’

  She shook rain from her hair, showering him. ‘I like it,’ she said obstinately.

  ‘Now? You like it right now?’

  ‘It’s friendly,’ she said.

  ‘Friendly?’ He drove into the car park, sweeping round to turn, and made his way through the teeming rain to the exit. ‘ Nothing works on it. And every time it rains, it gives up the ghost. And speaking of friendly – a new car would run on lead-free petrol.’

  ‘So would that one,’ she said.

  ‘If you got it converted, which you haven’t.’

  He was stopped at the bloody lights now.

  ‘I can’t afford a new car.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look as though it’ll be too long before you can,’ he said.

  There was a silence.

  He pulled away on amber and turned on to the bridge, at last pointing in the right direction to get home, and away from here.

  ‘Is that what’s put you in a bad mood?’ she asked, after a moment.

  ‘I’m not in a bad mood.’ A fork of lightning split the dark sky, and he peered through the rain at the tree-lined road. He wanted to be home. He wanted to be wrapped round a large whisky, and possibly Judy, if she was still speaking to him. He did not want to talk to Judy about her temporary promotion, and that was what he knew he was going to do.

  ‘You could have fooled me. It bothers you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  He was supposed to be thinking about this rationally. Not arguing about it while he was trying to drive through a thunderstorm.

  The car made its way along the Stansfield Road for some minutes before she spoke again.

  ‘If I wasn’t working on the same case, would it still bother you?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t very well answer that, since it doesn’t bother me in the first place!’

  ‘Pull in at that lay-by,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Automaticaliy, he was signalling: Maybe she’d seen something going on. He pulled the car to a halt, and looked out at the empty road. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Us,’ she said. ‘And I want to talk about it.’

  He turned to her. ‘We can talk about it at home, for God’s sake!’ he said.

  ‘No, we can’t. As far as I’m concerned, when we are at home we don’t have ranks, and we’re not going to discuss them there. We’re going to sort this out here and now, once and for all.’

  Right. That was clear enough. He switched off the engine, and listened to the rain battering the roof.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ she said.

  He looked at the streaks of light through the streaming windscreen, and tried to think of the right words, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t been expecting it, that was the main problem. ‘I saw you watching Allison when he left today,’ he said. ‘You fancy that, don’t you? Senior management It appeals to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, defensively. ‘ What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He wound down the window pointedly as she reached into her bag for a cigarette. Lightning lit the road, the woods; a train passed alongside them, silenced by the crack of thunder. This was crazy. Sitting here with a thunderstorm raging over their heads instead of being at home.

  She hadn’t spoken. She did that; she used her interviewing technique when they were having a row. He used words. She used silence.

  ‘I just don’t know when it happened,’ he said. ‘My God, it took you ten years to take your sergeant’s exam – now all of a sudden you want to be chief constable.’

  ‘For one thing,’ she said, after a moment, ‘I joined a force that thought that women were for making the tea and looking after lost children. They were forced to call them women police officers rather than policewomen, and give them the same pay, but they didn’t have to give them any opportunities. Or encouragement.’ She paused. ‘For another, I was married to someone who thought that my job was expendable, and his was the only one that mattered.’

  ‘And it took you ten years to discover yourself, did it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And another three to get up the courage to apply for a sergeant’s post,’ he muttered.

  She didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t technique time. He’d hurt her. He was very good at hurting her.

  ‘I know what I’m like,’ she said quietly, after a few moments. ‘But they offered me this job. And the temporary rank. I am getting more confident – it gives you confidence if people believe in you. It’s because you believe in me that I’ve got this far, however belatedly.’

  He sighed. ‘I know,’ he said. And she was good enough, and confident enough to go on. He knew that too. He also knew that he was ten years older than her, and even if his chance hadn’t gone, he had neither the energy nor the ambition to keep one step ahead of her.

  ‘I’ve got another fifteen, twenty years to go,’ she said. ‘ Why shouldn’t I try to go as far as I can?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Lloyd, if this rape squad gets set up, it’ll be headed by a DCI, and I’m going to apply,’ she said.

  He nodded. And get it. Clearly. She was practically being ordered to apply for it.

  ‘Are you saying I shouldn’t?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  The scene was bathed in white light again, and it sounded as though the sky w
as falling in. Perhaps it was.

  ‘Would you resent it?’

  Smoke drifted past his face, out into the pounding rain. He looked at her. ‘ No,’ he said. ‘I’d find it … difficult I’m used to being senior to you,’ he said, ashamed of himself even as he said it.

  She looked baffled. ‘ I don’t understand you,’ she said. ‘You don’t think a woman’s place is in the home – you don’t think there are men’s jobs and women’s jobs – why does this matter?’

  ‘The three-quarters Welsh,’ he said. ‘Men must work and women must weep.’ He took her hand. ‘If you catch up with me, the next step is overtaking me.’

  ‘But you encouraged me to get promotion!’

  He nodded. ‘I just didn’t realise you’d want to go further,’ he said. ‘ I don’t mean I wouldn’t have encouraged you. I just never thought about it.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want, Lloyd. Sometimes I wish I was back on the beat. Being visible – being there when people need help. There’s much more job satisfaction.’ She was holding tight to his hand as she spoke. ‘That or higher up,’ she said. ‘At this level, you’re not one thing or the other. You’re not on the front line, and you’re not influencing policy. So if I want to move, the only way is up.’

  Lloyd listened. ‘ I told you you’d end up as my chief super,’ he said. ‘You laughed.’

  ‘Anyone listening to us would have hysterics,’ the said. ‘ I’ve only just been promoted to inspector.’

  Lloyd smiled, despite himself. Little drops of water, deflected by the open window, splashed his face.

  ‘You and I are more important than any promotion,’ she said.

  He turned to her. ‘You’re not saying you’d hold back just because I don’t like the idea,’ he said, illogically appalled by that.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not with something like the rape squad. But if it was going to affect our lives, I wouldn’t do it if you weren’t happy with it. Neither would you. I wouldn’t expect you to drag me off to West Yorkshire if I didn’t want to go, and I’ve no intention of putting you in that position either.’

  ‘No,’ he said. He hadn’t thought she would.

  She still held on to his hand as though he might run away if she didn’t. ‘And if I really thought I might lose you,’ she said, ‘then I wouldn’t do anything at all.’

  ‘I said I’d find it difficult.’ He smiled. ‘Not impossible.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, releasing his hand. ‘You can go home now.’

  He started the engine, which he thought for one stricken moment had done a Judy on him, but it fired at the second attempt, and he moved off.

  ‘What’s this you’re up to with Mrs Austin’s car?’ he asked.

  ‘I just want to know what he does,’ she said.

  ‘But you’re not telling anyone why?’

  ‘I’m tired of being told I’m obsessed.’

  ‘And you’re going to prove that he’s lying?’ said Lloyd, quite unable to work out how.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘ But Mrs Austin’s car is really quite important, I think.’

  He indicated left. ‘You always call her that, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It just … distances me from it a little, that’s all.’

  They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey home; it was an unnatural silence, and it made the time pass slowly. He pulled in behind the flats, and they ran through the thunder and lightning to the door, getting soaked.

  Judy went to have a bath, and he poured himself the drink he had been looking forward to. His usual practice was to read a book, or watch something on the video, but tonight, he pulled his briefcase on to his knee, and took out copies of the statements. He read them all, such as they were. Pearce’s withdrawn nonsense, Austin’s dubious declaration of his movements, Pauline Pearce’s several different versions, the next-door neighbour’s, written in Mary Alexander’s neat, sloping hand, and police officerese.

  I made the 999 call to the police while the sounds were still going on. My telephone is positioned by the window, and I was looking out when the noise ceased, and remained there until the police car arrived. I saw no one entering or leaving the flats during this time. I could hear a woman screaming, and someone shouting the word ‘whore’ repeatedly. I did not recognise the voice. I believe it was a man’s voice.

  Useless. Saw nothing, knows nothing. It was always the same.

  Whatever Judy had in mind about Jonathan Austin, she was going about it the wrong way, he was sure of that. She had set him up as the villain from the start, and now she was trying to prove it. But that wasn’t how it was done – she knew that usually. Facts, she would tell him. Look at the facts, and see them in a different light. She insisted that she wasn’t letting her emotional involvement get in the way of her judgement, but calling her Mrs Austin like that was proof that she was, and she was forgetting her own advice.

  Her newly kindled ambition did bother his male chauvinist soul; he knew that, and was honest enough with himself to admit it. But their relationship could survive a bit of male ego bashing. That wasn’t what had put him in a bad mood.

  It was his case, not Judy’s, and he had to find the evidence he needed. He had to find Tasker, for one thing, but he felt that that would not be likely to get him any further forward. He had got all he was going to get; he simply had to look at what he’d got in a new light.

  And he had to do it without Judy’s help.

  Chapter Eight

  Lloyd. Mickey Drake didn’t think he could ever call him Lloyd. It seemed all wrong, calling a senior officer by his surname. But it was true that everyone else did. He’d heard Jack Woodford call him Lloyd – even Judy did. He had some sort of hang-up about his first name. Anyway, you never knew where you were with the man. All pals one minute, and ordering you home like a stray dog the next. Still, he seemed all right. And he had warned him that he pulled rank when it suited him.

  He pulled the phone across the desk, and dialled Malworth.

  ‘DCI Hill, please,’ he said.

  ‘Judy Hill.’

  ‘I’ve just come back from the lab,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, good. What happened?’

  Mickey didn’t know what she had been expecting to happen, ‘He picked up the car,’ he said.

  ‘What did he do?’ she asked.

  Mickey gave a short sigh out of earshot of the phone. ‘He got in and drove it away, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ she warned him.

  ‘Call me Judy,’ had been the first order she had given him, when they had worked together. That had proved to be a whole lot easier than calling the chief inspector Lloyd. He smiled. ‘Sorry, but I don’t know what else you want me to say. He just drove it away.’

  ‘But it was locked, wasn’t it?’

  Mickey ran a hand over his face. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry. He unlocked it, got in and drove it away. Ma’am.’

  ‘What with?’

  Mickey frowned. A key. What did people usually unlock cars with? His mouth opened slightly. A key. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Does the dead silence mean you’ve stopped being sarcastic?’ she asked.

  ‘He had a key to it,’ said Mickey. ‘ On his key-ring.’

  ‘And she didn’t. The garage had her key – that’s the one under the seat, that Mr Austin didn’t need to use, because he’s got one on his ring. I’ve got Lloyd’s on my ring – he’s got mine, though God knows why. He’d sooner crawl through broken glass than use my car. But most people with two cars do.’

  ‘Do you think he actually used her car, then?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he used it,’ said Judy.

  There was a minor hubbub outside the office, and Mickey half rose, craning his neck to see through the glass partition to the desk. ‘Good God,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tasker’s just walked in with Mervyn the Mouthpiece.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Beale’s solicitor. He’s reason
ably straight, though. But he’s good. And very, very expensive, so Tasker must be in good with Beale.’

  ‘Whatever you have to do, Mickey, keep Tasker there until I get there,’ she said.

  ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ said Mickey. ‘I think Mr Tasker’s going to be with us for some time.’

  Lloyd had now joined Tasker and Mervyn, looking heartily relieved to see Tasker all in one piece. As they were being taken into an interview room, Mickey relayed Judy’s message, and her belief about Mrs Austin’s car.

  He didn’t seem even to be listening. ‘ Right. I’ll go in first – you come in after about quarter of an hour, and ask anything you think is relevant. I’m assuming that the high-powered legal advice means that we’ll have plenty to discuss with Mr Tasker.’

  Lloyd went off, and Mickey twiddled his thumbs for fifteen minutes, whiling away the time rehearsing informal conversations that began ‘Lloyd, I’ve been thinking …’ He still couldn’t imagine it. He’d have to settle for not calling him anything. When the time was up, he knocked on the door, and joined the grim-looking tableau.

  Mervyn was being smooth and conciliatory. ‘ My client was alarmed, Chief Inspector. That’s why he … went to ground. He has explained that he was worried that he would be implicated in this crime.’

  ‘He is implicated in it,’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Look,’ said Tasker, leaning over the table towards him. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. Why would I want to kill her? We’d arranged to meet the next day. At her studio – she was … she was going to see me again.’

  ‘Her studio?’ queried Lloyd.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t go there,’ he said. ‘ We were there all day, Mr Tasker.’

  Tasker looked a touch desperate. ‘No,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Why not? Because you knew there was no point?’

  ‘No!’ He saw Mickey for the first time, and sighed. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

  Mickey smiled, and sat down. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘ It’s me.’

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Drake,’ said Lloyd to Mervyn.

  Mervyn stood up and shook hands. ‘How do you do, Sergeant Drake.’ he said, smiling, and sat down again.