Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  Summoned by Jack, Denise had arrived in the early evening, shortly before Emma returned. She and Denise chatted over him, around him, past him, of odds and ends of gossip, a flurry of women’s talk, whatever hostilities might linger between them suspended for the sake of propriety in the face of sickness. Denise brought flowers, a bunch of blossoms like every other bunch bedecking lockers along each side of the ward, flowers grown especially for hospital patients, with no regard to season.

  Emma left first, as was only right, he thought, with a few words about the cat, and the best wishes of the family. Denise lingered and fidgeted, glancing at the clock on the wall, then at her watch, watching for other visitors preparing to leave.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ he had said to her.

  She smiled, rather patronizingly, and he wondered if she believed him weakened, vulnerable to whatever persuasion she chose to impress. His innards began their churning, and he vomited again, sparsely now, for his stomach was vacant. Saying she would return in the morning, Denise left. He stared after her, asking himself why there could be no catharsis of spirit as rapid and cleansing as that which his body had undergone.

  The nurse placed a mug of tea at his side. She leaned against the worktop, sipping her own, content with silence or talk, whichever he chose, content, he thought, to continue giving in the full knowledge of little or nothing in return.

  ‘What happened earlier?’ he asked her, taking a sip of tea, and feeling scalding heat course down his throat and into his stomach.

  ‘Mr Jones finally went, poor soul. We’ve been expecting it for days. He was seventy-eight! Can you imagine being so old?’ She shook her head at the sadness and wonder of it all.

  ‘What was wrong with him?’ McKenna drank more tea, waiting for his insides to warn of imminent rejection.

  ‘Old age?’ She smiled her sweet smile. ‘He was diabetic, actually, and both his legs had to be amputated because of gangrene. Too much of a shock for his system.’

  McKenna shuddered violently, mortality screaming through every fibre. ‘Oh, you’re cold!’ She rushed to place a blanket around his shoulders. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have let you get out of bed.’ She frowned, as if at her own stupidity.

  ‘I’m all right, really…. The old man….’

  She stood over him, still frowning. ‘I shouldn’t have told you, should I? We don’t think sometimes. Drink your tea,’ she instructed. ‘There was nothing to be done for him, you know.’

  Escorted back to bed, told to press his buzzer if he needed anything, McKenna drifted into fitful sleep as dawn broke over the mountains in the east, feeling hunger grope in his belly.

  Dewi missed McKenna, the empty office down the corridor underscoring the absence of its occupant, the loose end on a chain of command Dewi saw running clear between himself and McKenna. Jack was merely a kink in the chain, hopefully soon to be straightened out. He had rushed through the office earlier, snapping instructions to show the photograph in the village, before leaving for the Magistrates Court, where Dewi prayed he would be detained all day.

  Calling the hospital to ask after McKenna, Dewi was told simply that the chief inspector was ‘comfortable’. The call transferred to Prosser’s ward, he was told there was no change. Dewi too felt guilt, not as strongly as McKenna, but enough to niggle his conscience into unease. He pulled Romy Cheney’s photograph from the file, stared into her eyes, then put the photograph into a clear plastic envelope.

  Rain squalled against the car windscreen, blown in from the sea, leaving a faint crusting of salt against window trims, as Dewi turned on to the track to Gallows Cottage, and drove slowly down, mud spattering up the sides of the car. The cottage crouched low in misty air, and he had a fancy it was hungry, wanting another woman to send to her death with a rope around her neck. He sat in the car, and sounded the horn. No one came, nothing stirred, no shadow pushed its way through the drizzle. He sounded the horn again, before turning in a slow circle, leaving deep wounds in the sodden grass.

  Parking near the lych gate of the village church, he donned an oilskin coat bought from Dickie’s Chandlery, and began the house to house, knocking on doors, showing warrant card and photograph, asking questions, receiving nothing in response. Mary Ann and Beti shuffled the photographs this way and that, held it to the dingy daylight, indulged in muttering and pursing lips and sorrowful head-shaking. Dewi drank his tea, hope draining as the tea drained to its dregs. Beti could not say if the woman might be the one she had seen in the car, nor the car the one she found in Turf Square. Mary Ann was more interested in McKenna. ‘And is that Prosser still out for the count?’

  Looking from one to the other, thinking of reprisal for talking out of school, he said, ‘We’ve been hearing gossip about Mr Prosser, Mary Ann.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Her eyes were sharp. ‘What sort of gossip?’

  ‘Well, there’s talk he’s friendly in the wrong sort of way with another man.’

  Beti snickered. ‘D’you mean that big girl’s blouse what works up at the castle? Everybody knows about them two.’

  Dewi stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell us before? We’ve been running round like blue-arsed flies chasing this and that!’

  ‘Didn’t know you was interested, did we?’ Beti scowled frighteningly, a gargoyle slithered off its perch and come to life.

  ‘What’s Prosser and the other one got to do with this killing, anyway?’ Mary Ann asked.

  ‘Well, nothing, as far as we know.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ Beti announced. ‘Didn’t need to tell you, did we?’

  Dewi eyed her, watching a little smug grin twist her mouth. ‘Prosser might have something to do with it, though.’

  ‘What?’ Mary Ann asked.

  ‘He just might know something we need to know, and we can’t ask him now, can we?’

  Mary Ann smoked her cigarette. Beti put the mugs on a tray and hobbled into the kitchen, servant masquerading as house-guest, Dewi tempted to ask if she knew she was no better off here than with her husband. He stood up to leave, sensing undercurrents and atmosphere, mischief and not a little spite beneath the wide-mouthed amiability of the old women.

  ‘Why don’t you ask whatever his name is at the castle what you can’t ask Prosser, then?’ Mary Ann suggested.

  McKenna looked ghastly, grey parched skin masking a death’s head on the shoulders of the living.

  ‘How are you, sir?’ Dewi asked.

  McKenna smiled weakly. ‘Surviving. Any news?’

  ‘Nothing exciting, except I get the idea sometimes Mary Ann and her mates are taking us for a ride.’ Dewi hesitated. ‘Any idea when you’ll be back in work, sir?’

  ‘I’m being let out of hospital today, I’m told.’

  ‘Where will you be going, sir?’

  With a sharp glance at the young constable, McKenna said, ‘Home, of course. Where else?’

  ‘Is Mrs McKenna coming for you then?’

  ‘Mrs McKenna? No, she’s not. I’m going to my own home, Dewi.’

  Dewi flushed bright pink with embarrassment. He stood up. ‘I’ll be off then, sir. Hope you’re better soon.’

  ‘Dewi?’ McKenna called after the fast retreating back. ‘D’you think you could come around five to drive me? My car’s not here.’

  ‘No problem, sir. You won’t be up to driving anyway, and it wouldn’t do to risk ending up like Mr Prosser, would it?’

  * * *

  Trefor Prosser stirred in his hospital bed, eyelids fluttering like the wings of a butterfly too weak to depart its chrysalis. Behind the quivering membrane, memory stirred, great draughts of despair and fear breaking the calm surface of unconsciousness into heaving peaks. He moaned, and turned slightly to one side. The nurse in charge of ICU watched the monitor, saw brain waves suddenly leap into frantic rhythm, before subsiding to a steady flow of mountains and troughs, and wondered what disturbed the poor little man, what terrors might lurk in the night of the brain, knowing Trefor Prosser would not be the
first human soul willingly to exchange the bright hard world for the comforting arms of unconsciousness. She walked quietly down the small ward to where he lay again on his back, tears glistening on the pallid flesh of his cheeks.

  ‘I don’t see how we can avoid talking to Stott, sir.’ Jack was adamant.

  ‘You’re on dodgy ground.’ Owen Griffiths was equally sure. ‘We can’t just ask him if he’s being blackmailed, can we?’

  ‘What about that bloody car?’

  ‘There’s no evidence the car’s connected with this woman’s death, is there?’

  ‘No, but it’s connected with Jamie, and whatever he puts his oar into is usually very bad news for somebody.’

  Griffiths looked ill at ease. ‘We’ve not got very far, have we? And I doubt McKenna’s got any more ideas than you have.’ He rested his elbows on the desk and his chin on his hands. ‘I think we should call it a day, Jack. There’s pressure coming from on high, and a deal of it because a certain councillor reckons we’re harassing innocent citizens, to say nothing of wasting expensive police time.’

  ‘And we all know who that is, don’t we?’

  ‘We can’t afford any more bad press. I don’t like politicking any better than you, but it’s a fact of life. There’s flak right left and centre about costs and efficiency.’

  ‘I suppose that’s why we get sent to the sorting office to collect suspect packages, is it?’ Jack asked.

  Griffiths sighed. ‘We’d already had the bomb squad out three times, and it costs more than you and I take home in a year every time they show their faces.’

  ‘So as long as we save a bit of money, it’s all right for some poor copper to drive through Bangor with a bomb in his car, and it’s all right for us to sit here with any number of bombs in the building, so long as we don’t try to open the envelopes.’

  ‘Looks that way,’ Griffiths agreed. ‘You see my point? I know all this goes against the grain, but we’re no nearer putting a name to whoever killed this woman, and quite frankly, no one seems particularly bothered about her anyway. All we’ve done so far is upset a lot of probably innocent people. And we shouldn’t forget what happened to Prosser, either.’

  ‘Is that an order, sir? Mr McKenna won’t be too happy.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty to keep him occupied when he comes back. And yes, it is an order, so get a disposal certificate from the coroner’s office, and find out if her man-friend is willing to foot the bill for the funeral. If not, the council can pay. I daresay there’s enough in her bank account to cover it.’

  ‘And how can the council get at the bank account to pay for its rightful owner’s funeral when it’s still being used, apparently by its rightful owner?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? McKenna can sort that out! And you can take that mulish look off your face! You should’ve learned by now that when certain people tell you to jump, all you do is ask “How high?”’

  Alone in the CID office, Dewi chewed a sandwich and riffled through the papers accumulated around the death of a woman who had used names, he thought, not as a statement of identity, but as devices behind which to hide. He thought of her simply as Simeon’s Bride, a name most descriptive of her fate, of the loneliness and despair and horror she must have known in those dark woods for the last few seconds of her life, and wondered how she had offended God or man to warrant such a punishment.

  The last piece of paper to go into the file was a copy fax to the council, confirming the release of her body. Driven by some need he did not understand, Dewi telephoned Dr Roberts at home.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Roberts groaned. ‘You’ve found another woman hanging in the woods.’

  ‘No, sir, nothing like that. We’ve been told to release the body. The disposal certificate’s already here.’

  ‘Hallelujah! You’ve found who killed her, then?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir. We’ve been ordered to stop looking.’

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised. Politics, lad. And money, of course. Interfere with bloody everything these days. Still, you never know what might turn up out of the blue. How’s the boss?’

  ‘He’s out of hospital, sir. We took him home this afternoon.’

  ‘Where to? That hovel he’s renting? Was he well enough to be left on his own?’

  ‘I think so. Mr Tuttle said he could stay with them for a while, but the chief inspector said no. Anyway, Mrs Tuttle arrived soon after with the cat, because she’s been fretting for Mr McKenna. Then Mrs McKenna turned up, and started nagging because he wouldn’t go back with her.’

  Dr Roberts chuckled. ‘Got the women fighting over him, has he?’

  ‘They weren’t fighting, sir.’

  ‘Not while you were there, I daresay, but I wouldn’t lay any bets on what happened after.’ Dr Roberts chuckled again. ‘Anyway, lad, what did you ring me about?’

  ‘I – er – sort of wondered what’ll happen to Mrs Bailey.’

  ‘Who’s doing the funeral?’

  ‘The council.’ Dewi’s voice expressed the melancholy he felt. ‘Her ex-boyfriend came up with a lot of lame excuses, but what it boils down to is he doesn’t want the bother or the expense, not knowing if he’ll get the money back, so I suppose you can’t blame him too much.’

  ‘It’s a poor do, isn’t it? They’ll cremate her. It’s cheaper, and it saves on precious land. Let me know when the funeral is, Dewi.’ Dr Roberts fell silent, then said, ‘People make you sick sometimes. There’s all that to-do with the other one, and nobody gives a tinker’s cuss about this poor soul.’

  The photograph sent by Robert Allsopp lay atop the fax copy to the council. Romy Cheney, as she then called herself, stood alone on the bleak moorlands of northern England, dark cloud sweeping the sky behind her. She looked cold, hunched inside a thick brown-hued jacket, a gaily coloured scarf around her neck, its long ends streaming in the wind. Dewi studied her, wondering if even then, Death combed the moorlands for her, knowing her to be as unloved and unwanted by Life as her body was now. He picked up the photograph, let his eyes wander back and forth, from the woman to the car, only its front half caught by the camera’s eye, parked at an angle, front nearside wheel deep in peaty black soil.

  Waiting for McKenna to answer the front door-bell, he looked up and down the miserable street, watching a dog rummage in black plastic bags left out for the dustmen. It came sniffing round his ankles, thin wormy body scabrous looking in the moonlight, and disappeared when McKenna opened the door.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir.’ McKenna wore a dressing-gown, pyjama bottoms showing under its hem. ‘I didn’t mean to get you out of bed.’

  ‘You didn’t. Come in.’

  ‘You all right, sir?’ Dewi asked, sitting on the edge of the chesterfield while McKenna slouched in an armchair.

  ‘I keep getting terribly hungry, so I must be, mustn’t I? Want some coffee?’

  Dewi sipped his drink, gazing into the sputtering flames of the gas fire, and looked up to see McKenna’s eyes, dark and probing, on his face.

  ‘What’s the matter, Dewi?’

  ‘The photo Allsopp sent showed part of a car. I know you can’t tell what sort. It’s too small, too much in shadow…. But you can see the bonnet and radiator and the front wheel. I showed Beti, but she’s worse than useless. Couldn’t say yes and couldn’t say no.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I was wondering if we couldn’t get the photo enlarged, see if we can bring up the numberplate.’

  ‘It’s probably Allsopp’s car. Even though he can’t, of course, remember if it is or it isn’t.’

  ‘I know. But that bloody Scorpio’s getting on my nerves! I even dream about it. Wasn’t one of those kids Brady and Hindley murdered found by examining photos of people and cars and moorland?’

  ‘Yes, it was. Get Mr Tuttle to send the photo to the lab tomorrow, and tell him to keep quiet about it.’

  Chapter 24

  Trefor Prosser stirred again during the early hours, exciting his guardians
’ notice before retreating into coma. The medical registrar on night duty studied the monitors around the cot, took pulse and temperature, spent some moments looking thoughtfully down at the inert figure beneath the sheets, before moving on to check the other occupants of the unit, puzzling still on the man in thrall to relentless unconsciousness. Prosser’s head injury was not severe, his vital signs were energetic, and given return to wakefulness, full recovery should proceed unhindered. The registrar entered on file the need for an early referral to the neurological registrar.

  Wil Jones went early to work, reluctant and fearful, planning the finishing touches to Gallows Cottage and his escape from a place which had, in yielding bits of its history, disturbed his equilibrium, and led him to think of other worlds just beyond the safe boundaries he recognized as those of his own. Dave taking an early holiday to visit family in England, Wil too had taken a day of rest. And another, unable to return alone to Gallows Cottage after finding the man, white-faced and hungry looking, quiet and still as the dead, at the foot of the staircase as Wil came down from painting the back bedroom to make his morning brew. He stopped halfway down the stairs, and spoke some words. He could not remember what he said, only how the sounds somehow stuck in his throat, jammed in there with a heart that leapt from its moorings at the sight of the man in his antique dress. The man faded from sight as he watched, evaporated like a wisp of sea fog in winds off the Straits, leaving the same damp chill to creep up the stairs and lick around his ankles.

  Christopher Stott, as he had twice each day since the previous week, telephoned the hospital to enquire about Prosser, and received the same bland response as on every other occasion. Fear and anxiety ground their teeth together, his flesh caught between: fear for himself, anxiety for Prosser. He knew he was trapped, had seen the jaws draw closer together, until he now had no escape apart from that so tempting, so gloriously liberating, he viewed its dark shadow with something approaching welcome.