It smelt of computer terminals.
Jennifer identified herself to the constable at the desk, and was conducted through a blank door, down a blank corridor, and into a small room where Barry Treat sat shaking, hiccuping, and refusing hot sweet tea proffered by a cool sweet WPC.
‘Oh, God, Dr Eames, it was ghastly!’ he shrieked, the minute Jennifer came through the door. ‘She was absolutely drained, one could see right through her hands, those lovely, gifted hands, so still, so . . . so . . . ’
‘So forget it,’ Jennifer said, brusquely. She had been ministering to Mr Treat’s bodily frailties for some months now, and had learned that he responded best to a firm hand and no nonsense. When she went on, however, her voice was gentler. ‘I know viewing the dead is upsetting, but what you saw wasn’t really your cousin, you know. It was just something she left behind. It’s terrible, and a great shock, but you have to pull yourself together and not give in. You have a sensitive nature. You’ll only do yourself harm with high strikes, and there’s no point in that.’ Over Mr Treat’s head the WPC gave her a thumbs-up sign. ‘Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital, anyway?’
‘Oh, God, I hate the places,’ Mr Treat moaned. Jennifer’s plain talking seemed to have ended the hysterics, but self-pity threatened to replace them. ‘My mother died in a hospital, my father died in a hospital, my closest, dearest friend died in a hospital, people go in and never come out, I can’t . . . ’
‘I get the picture, Mr Treat,’ Jennifer said, opening her bag. ‘You’re not keen on hospitals.’ She found what she was looking for and began to prepare a disposable syringe. Treat glanced up and turned green.
‘Is that necessary?’ he quavered.
Jennifer looked down at him and sighed. ‘You don’t like injections either?’ He shook his head, a small tear slipping from one of his long eyes. He was possessed of clownishly large features in a small face, his chin swamped by nose and eyes. He wore elfin clothes in brown and orange; smock, silk shirt, tight trousers, pointed leather boots. There was something fey and child-like about him – and he knew it. She snapped the syringe and threw it in the bin, then found some tranquillisers. She gave him two, and quickly wrote out a prescription for a few more.
‘Get this filled on the way home,’ she said. ‘Or would you be better off going to work?’
‘Gordon will be expecting me,’ Treat said, feebly, putting down the paper cup of water the WPC had given him.
‘Are you all right to drive?’
He gave a great sigh of suffering, but it was obvious he couldn’t wait to get out to his partner and tell the dramatic all of his morning’s experiences. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said. ‘One must go on, mustn’t one?’
‘Oh, indeed, it’s the only way,’ Jennifer agreed, not unkindly. His manner was unfortunate. For all his posturing, she could see that he was genuinely upset. Most people would be, in similar circumstances, and creative, imaginative people more than most. ‘Have you finished with him?’ she asked the WPC.
‘Oh yes, ma’am,’ the girl said. ‘It was only for identification. He was fine at the scene, but when we came back here to fill in the statement . . . ’
Mr Treat stood up and fixed her with a glare. ‘I don’t like police stations either,’ he said, and, gathering his tattered dignity about him, he strode out. His exit was marred by a brief tussle with the door, which opened inwards instead of outwards, but eventually he won. His footsteps went lightly away, faster and faster.
Jennifer closed her bag and looked at the WPC. ‘Anything I can do for you? You look done in.’
‘Thanks for the offer,’ the girl grinned. ‘If it’s not the company, it’s the hours. We don’t get many murders around here. It was pretty unpleasant, but I haven’t actually fainted, yet. No doubt I’ll save up and do it right in front of the Chief Inspector, knowing my luck.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll cope all right,’ Jennifer said, following her out into the hall. ‘This is the second one, isn’t it?’
‘There was a similar one in Woodbury, yes,’ the WPC said, coolly.
‘Any connection between the two?’
The girl looked at her, reproachfully.
‘Sorry,’ Jennifer said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
The WPC sighed. ‘You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last, Dr Eames. I’m afraid most people will jump to the same conclusion.’ She paused in the doorway. ‘Blimey, there he is now.’
‘Who?’
‘The DCI – Detective Chief Inspector. The big one.’
As they emerged into the reception area, two men were talking to the constable manning the desk. The taller of the two turned, casually, and then stared. Jennifer stared, too.
‘Jenny Eames? What the devil are you doing here?’ he demanded.
The last time Jenny had seen Luke Abbott had been at a school cricket match the day she’d left Wychford. He’d looked splendid all in white and padded up, arguing with the umpire, his bat whirling dangerously as he gestured. The older man had looked thoroughly alarmed, she remembered, and probably with good cause.
In the intervening years he’d grown taller and leaner, learned to polish his shoes, no longer had scabs on his knuckles, and had developed a nice line in smiles. The buccaneer’s moustache he wore looked right on him, as did his well-cut three-piece suit. However, she sensed – even in that moment – that his brash adolescent spirit had been tested by some terrible pain to produce a deeper strength and sensitivity than he had ever shown as a boy. He had been her hero, then. She had expected him to become a professional sportsman, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or even Prime Minister. But not this.
‘Detective Chief Inspector?’ she gasped. ‘You?’
‘What’s wrong with being a policeman?’ he demanded, rather defensively, all too aware of the eyes and ears around them. ‘Perfectly respectable profession.’
‘Oh yes, I agree. Absolutely.’ Her mouth quirked. ‘I just wondered how you got promoted so far. With your temper, I would have expected you to be constantly in the doghouse – or whatever the police equivalent is.’
He grinned. ‘I’ve been there once or twice. As it happens, I’ve learned to control my temper and have risen through my own dazzling brilliance. What else?’
‘I hesitate to think.’ She glanced around the reception area. One thing hasn’t changed, I see.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They’re all still scared of you.’
‘That’s because he’s a big mean bastard,’ came a laconic voice from beside them. It was Luke’s sergeant, his amused expression giving the lie to his statement. ‘What was he like as a kid, then?’
Jennifer looked at Abbott, who gazed dangerously back. ‘A skinny, mean bastard,’ she smiled. ‘Very breezy when in a good temper, very nasty when not. People tended to go around him in wide circles.’
‘Mmmm. Still the same, then,’ Paddy nodded, grinning.
Abbott glanced at the constables watching them from behind the reception desk, and cleared his throat. The whole thing was getting out of hand, in addition to which, he had a job to do.
‘Well, it looks as if we’re going to be around here for a while. Maybe we can get together some evening.’
‘That would be nice. I’m living with my aunt and uncle – I’ve taken over his practice.’ Abbott nodded, as if he’d already known that – so his surprise hadn’t been at seeing her, but at seeing her in the police station. Jennifer hesitated. ‘Win Frenholm was one of our patients,’ she said, carefully. The change in him was sudden and total. She was no longer an old childhood friend recognised and indulged for a social moment or two. She was pertinent to his investigation.
‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Had you seen her recently?’
‘As a matter of fact, I saw her yesterday morning,’ Jennifer said, a little disconcerted by the sharpness of his glance and tone. ‘She
was on Dr Gregson’s list and normally saw him, apparently. But we do an open surgery in the mornings, seeing patients as they come in, and yesterday she specifically asked for “the lady doctor”. When I talked to her it was apparent why – she wanted an abortion.’
‘And did you agree to help her obtain one?’
‘I explained the customary procedure,’ Jennifer said. ‘I also suggested that she discuss it with the father first. She said he wanted nothing more to do with her, and that suited her just fine.’
‘Did she tell you his name?’
‘No. She was pretty upset – she seemed to think I could do it for her there and then, on my own. When she heard about having to get other opinions and all the rest of the rigmarole to have it on the National Health, or paying to go private, she went a little crazy. Then, after a minute, she went quite cold. It was eerie to watch, really. She began to ask me about blood tests to prove paternity, all that sort of thing. Her mind seemed to be going a hundred miles an hour. She was an extraordinary girl in many ways – totally egotistical, I’d say. Even ruthless. And yet, with that angel face of hers, she could probably con anyone into believing her to be a sweet, innocent child. She said she knew who the father would be. She said he could afford—’
‘—Would be?’
‘She said, “I know who he’ll be, the poor bastard.”’
Then she could have been referring to the child.’
Jennifer thought about that. ‘I suppose she could have been, at that. As a matter of fact, I asked her what she meant, but she just gave me an enigmatic look and said she’d be back in a day or two with it all “worked out”.’
‘She said this yesterday morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then she was murdered yesterday evening,’ Paddy observed, quietly.
‘But surely . . . ’ Jennifer began.
‘What?’ Abbott asked.
‘The other woman – in Woodbury. Wasn’t it the same kind of killing? Isn’t it the same killer?’
‘That’s exactly why we’re on our way out there,’ Abbott said. ‘It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
Chapter Eight
Luke Abbott viewed the body of Win Frenholm with dispassionate interest, as a surgeon might. It was no longer a person, but a problem. Unlike a surgeon, he was not concerned with making it into a person again.
‘Attractive girl,’ he said, quietly. She’d been about thirty, with long blonde hair and a slim delicate figure. Small regular features in a fine-boned face. The blankness of death gave no indication of her personality. Jennifer Eames had said she was egotistical, even ruthless, and could probably make people believe anything. Apparently somebody hadn’t been charmed. Her clothing was individual and somewhat arty – but the colourful top and trousers were clean, well kept and, he guessed, quite expensive.
The woman in Woodbury had been much older and no longer so obviously attractive. ‘She was pregnant, by the way,’ he said, to no one in particular.
Cyril Franklin, on his knees in the grass beside the body, looked up at him in surprise, wondering if Abbott had developed second sight.
Luke smiled. ‘Her doctor told me she’d been after an abortion.’ His eyes noted details. ‘Wound goes from left to right, one cut, clean, powerful, probably a right-handed man coming from behind.’ Cyril sighed, took off his black-rimmed glasses and began to clean them as Luke continued to state the obvious. ‘No defence cuts on the palms of the hands, no torn fingernails, nothing to indicate a fight of any kind.’
The girl’s clothes were blood-soaked, particularly down the right side, but, as with the woman in Woodbury, they were not disarranged or torn.
‘Killed where she was found?’ Paddy asked.
‘I’d say probably.’ Cyril pointed with his spectacles. ‘Regular outline in this pool of blood. It congealed around her. Not as much blood as you might expect from the size of the wound, but she was pretty skinny.’
‘Same as the other one?’ Luke asked, too quietly.
Cyril was silent for a moment, looking at the girl, his glasses dangling from one hand. He didn’t want to answer that, any more than Luke had wanted to ask it. Eventually, he put his glasses back on, and nodded. ‘Could be.’
‘I want to have a look around,’ Luke said, and turned away from the cruelly drained husk on the ground. Easier to view a place. Easier not to get angry, that way. After a few steps, he turned back. ‘There’s one thing you could do for me, if you wouldn’t mind.’ He told Franklin what he wanted.
‘My God, you’re a cold bastard,’ Cyril said. Then he grinned. ‘I should have thought of it myself, of course.’
‘I want the whole works, mind,’ Luke said. ‘Anything at all you can discover might be a help.’
‘It shall be done, O Great One, even unto the last molecule,’ Cyril said. ‘Should be fascinating.’
‘Kind of a cold bastard yourself, aren’t you?’ Luke observed.
‘Cold hands, warm heart.’
‘Of course,’ Luke nodded, and turned back to Paddy, who was waiting on the path.
Swann Way was the respectable part of the old towpath beside the river Purle. It had been tidied up, renamed, and some houses had been built there in the thirties, with lawns leading down to the water. There were old boathouses along the bank here and there, and the remains of docks visible in the water, but after the war they had mostly been allowed to fall into disuse and then ruin, as the big old houses became a drug on the market. The river was now back in fashion, but the towpath was thought by the new residents to be a bit of a bother. It meant strangers, not fairies, at the bottom of their gardens.
Since the war the river Purle hadn’t seen much through traffic, for many parts of the course that connected it with the Thames were narrowed or silted too shallow for large family-sized boats. Only small craft could use its full length, and there were some stretches of it only dedicated fishermen saw now. The towpath had more or less disappeared along most of it, but Swann Way was clear because the locals used it as a shortcut between the town and the new housing estate. It was just beyond this clear stretch that Win Frenholm’s stylishly booted foot had been seen protruding from beneath the bush where she lay on a crimson bed of her own blood.
The area was now blocked off by the police. Several gawkers were hovering, and a boat was drifting nearby. The two men in it were ostensibly fishing, but had their eyes fixed on the towpath and the activity there.
‘You can see more or less what must have happened,’ PC Bennett said. He was the local constable assigned to liaise with Regional CID, and he was nervously eager to prove his worth. ‘He got her just as she reached the end of the shortcut and before she turned up the rise towards the town. Afraid the towpath’s no good for prints – the council in its wisdom put down a load of fresh gravel just last week. No way of knowing whether she realised she was being followed and was running, or if she never knew he was there until he jumped her. The gravel is thick enough to hide anything like that.’
‘Any place where he might have waited for her?’ Paddy asked, turning to look back up the towpath. ‘That old boathouse, for instance? You checked it out?’
PC Bennett nodded his head. ‘We’ve had a real good look at all of them, sir, as far back as the housing estate. Most of them are just falling apart or only used for rough storage, if they’re still intact. We found a few places where fishermen have sat for the day, but no marks that might have been made by the killer, we don’t think. Our best guess is that he followed her down the path from the housing estate itself.’
‘Anyone in those homes up there report a cry, running feet, anything?’
‘Not so far. We’re doing a house to house, naturally.’
‘Naturally.’ Luke’s voice was neutral. ‘Who found the body?’
‘Oddly enough, one of her business partners – chap named Barry Treat. He was taking t
he shortcut into town and saw her foot sticking out. He recognised the boot right away, apparently they’re hand-made by one of the craft workers up at the centre.’ Bennett consulted his notebook. ‘Said he felt “a premonition”, because he knew it was hers. Went a few steps on, stopped when he saw the blood, then ran for the nearest phone. He was all right at first, then collapsed at the station. High-strung chap,’ he added, austerely.
‘You say he’s a business partner?’
‘He’s a second cousin, actually. Only living relative, I understand. She had one of the craft shops out at Monkswell with him and another chap, name of Gordon Sinclair. Potters, they are. Were. Well, the other two still are, I mean.’ Bennett’s aplomb slipped, momentarily, as he scrabbled to clarify things. ‘They also shared a house on the estate – but there was nothing funny. Well, there was. But not with the girl.’
‘With the two men?’
‘Possibly. Only guessing, of course.’
‘Oh, come on now, Bennett, I can take it.’
‘Both as queer as coots, sir,’ Bennett said, with a relieved smile.
‘So neither likely to have been the father of her unborn child.’
‘Christ, no!’ Bennett instantly regretted his vehemence. ‘I mean . . . ’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, they don’t make any bones about it, sir. All flags flying, so to speak.’
‘I see. A great many flags, or just a few?’
‘Sir?’
‘I was just wondering about camouflage, that’s all. But I can’t see any reason for it, in this day and age. Just a thought. Rather a coincidence that he should find her. You say this Treat is a relative?’
‘Second cousin. Aren’t any others, apparently.’
The Wychford Murders Page 6
