A Shroud for Delilah (DCI Webb Mystery Book 1)

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘I’m talking, my lad,’ the other man cut in with heavy emphasis, ‘about the Otterford murder. Everyone who was there was asked—’

  ‘But I wasn’t there, for God’s sake! What is this?’

  The man called Bill stared at him. ‘Now look, friend, I saw you! You were right beside me at the traffic lights, as close as you are now.’

  There was a taut, prickly silence. Martin sat unmoving, still gripping his fork, while

  the other man stared down at him. Then Bill gave a shrug. ‘OK, suit yourself. You’ve got a bloody double then.’ And he turned away to join his friends at the bar. Kate saw him say something and they all turned and looked across. Martin still hadn’t moved.

  ‘What was all that about?’ she asked uneasily.

  ‘Search me.’ As if her voice had dispelled his paralysis, he reached for his glass and drained it.

  ‘You weren’t really there, were you?’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t. What would I be doing in a dump like Otterford?’

  If a reason occurred to Kate, it was one she could hardly put forward.

  Martin said abruptly, ‘I need another drink. Will you have one?’

  She shook her head as he lumbered to his feet and made for the end of the bar farthest from Bill and his friends. When he returned it was with neat whisky instead of his usual pint, and he tossed it back in one gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked ghastly, Kate thought with concern. A muscle was jerking at his eye and his face had the unhealthy tinge she’d noticed—

  Her thoughts broke off in disarray and her mouth went dry. That morning when he’d looked so ill and dismissed it as a hangover — hadn’t that been the day after the Otterford murder?

  They were avoiding each other’s eyes and it was a relief when Martin pushed back his chair. ‘I’ve got to go and see someone,’ he mumbled as they reached the pavement. ‘I might not be back by closing time.’

  ‘All right.’ Kate watched him hurry away up the street, trying to make sense of what had happened. Unless Bill had made a genuine mistake — and from Martin’s reactions, she didn’t think he had — Martin had indeed been in Otterford that afternoon and was patently anxious to conceal the fact. Why?

  Somewhere a clock struck two and she started hastily back to Monks’ Walk. No time now to do her shopping, which meant braving the Saturday crowds tomorrow. A pity she hadn’t stuck to her plan, thereby saving herself not only the disquieting incident over lunch but the doubts and questions it left in its wake.

  And that afternoon she’d plenty of time to consider them. Hardly anyone called at the shop and eventually, determined to occupy her mind more fruitfully, Kate took out a book on porcelain which she’d been reading the previous week. Her place was marked with a slip of paper, hastily torn from the phone pad when the shop bell had interrupted her, and it was this improvised bookmark which now catapulted her into a new dimension of fear. For at the top of the sheet was a scrawl in Martin’s writing. ‘Mrs Percival, 2.30,’ it read, and, underneath: ‘3 Westfield Close, Otterford.’ Rose Percival, the youngest ‘Delilah’ victim.

  For long minutes Kate stood staring at it, till the writing blurred and ran together, obscuring the message. Bill’s voice said in her head, ‘You owned up, surely?’ And Martin’s: ‘I wasn’t there!’

  Oh God! she thought numbly. And again: Oh God! Though aware of urgency, she was incapable of speedy reactions. It was an effort to lift the phone book, to search through the flimsy pages for the number of the police station. She still hadn’t found it when a sound made her look up to see Martin standing in the doorway.

  Frantically she marshalled her defences. ‘I’ve phoned the police. They’ll be here any minute.’

  He said heavily, ‘I’ve just left them. You can check, but they’ll confirm it.’

  ‘And they—?’

  ‘Let me go?’ He smiled, a travesty of his usual charming grin. ‘God, Kate, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go through this.’ And as she still sat frozen, he added baldly, ‘You can relax. I didn’t kill her.’

  Her eyes hadn’t left him. ‘It wasn’t only the man in the pub. I found this.’ She pushed the incriminating note across the desk towards him.

  ‘Hell, yes. I’d forgotten I wrote it down. But it was Tuesday, Kate. Lana’ll confirm that. She was here when I took the call. The name rang a bell and she remembered the divorce had been in the papers. The husband had a nervous breakdown or something. I did go to see her, but on the Tuesday. Two days before she was killed.’

  ‘Yet that man—’

  ‘Saw me on the Thursday.’ He seemed to have taken on himself the ending of sentences she couldn’t finish. ‘That’s true. I was there, but I didn’t kill her.’

  He came forward and slumped into a chair, fumbling for a cigarette. It took several attempts to light it. ‘She rang here last Monday,’ he said, then: ‘Just a routine call. Had a bit of silver she wanted me to look at. So I jotted down her address and went along.’ He swallowed. ‘She — God, she was dynamite! Something just flared between us — I could hardly keep my hands off her. It was mutual — she didn’t try to hide it. If it hadn’t been that her bloke was in the kitchen writing some report—’ He broke off, drawing avidly on his cigarette and swallowing the smoke. ‘Anyway, as I was leaving she told me he’d be away on Thursday and suggested I went back then.’

  Kate sat motionless, watching him. He leaned forward and tapped some ash into a tin lid on the desk. ‘I’m not proud of myself, Kate. I was a bloody fool and I know it, but well, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. She really got me going. So I thought, what the hell? And I did go back. I went back and no doubt Bill Findlay saw me, but that was all, I swear it. Because I suddenly got cold feet, qualms of conscience, call it what you like. The upshot was I didn’t even get out of the car. Turned round and hightailed it back home. But I can’t prove it.’

  He bent forward suddenly, his head in his hands. ‘I keep imagining it all. She’d hear the bell and think it was me, because she was expecting me.’ His shoulders heaved and Kate watched him with uncomprehending pity. Then he sat up and ran a hand across his face.

  ‘Of course I should have told the police, but since I couldn’t prove anything, I thought they might keep me in for questioning. Then what would I tell Nella? All right, I should have thought of that before. Of course I should; I just lost my head. But God, Kate, if I had gone, if I’d kept the appointment, she mightn’t have been killed. I can never forget that.’ After a moment he added flatly, ‘Lord knows if the cops believed me. They wrote it all down and I signed the statement. It’s anyone’s guess what happens now.’

  Out in the shop the doorbell chimed and Josh’s voice called, ‘Mum? Are you there?’

  He seemed to come from another world. Kate tried to rouse herself. ‘Yes, darling. Come through.’

  Martin heaved himself to his feet and passed Josh in the doorway. Kate remained sitting at her desk, listening to Josh’s rush of chatter. She was remembering that Paul had also been in Otterford that Thursday afternoon.

  ***

  ‘What do you make of Bailey’s statement?’

  Sergeant Jackson looked up. ‘He could have done it. He had the opportunity. But according to him, his only reason for going back was to have it off with her, and there’s no evidence of that.’

  Webb grunted. ‘We’ve only his word that they fancied each other. If he is Chummie, there wouldn’t have been any hanky-panky, there never is. He’s in the house less than ten minutes — maybe less than five. In Mrs Forbes’s case her boyfriend was talking to her on the phone at two-fifteen and she was found at two-forty. Yet she was sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of tea in front of her. God, Ken, these murders are really getting to me. It’s as though the bugger’s sitting back thumbing his nose at us, and we can’t do a damn thing about it.’ He snapped the folder shut on Martin Bailey’s statement. ‘Anyway, file this for now, but we’ll continue to bear him in mind. Don’t forget h
e’d never have come in if he hadn’t met someone who saw him there. Despite his glib explanations, that’s not the action of an honest man.’

  ***

  The following morning Michael collected Josh as usual and at lunchtime Kate went out to do her shopping. As she’d expected, the streets were crowded with weekend shoppers who strolled leisurely along the pavements and constantly slowed her progress. It was as she skirted one such group that Josh’s indignant shout recalled her attention and she turned to see him standing with a red-haired girl who looked faintly familiar.

  ‘Didn’t you see me, Mummy?’ he demanded in an aggrieved tone.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, I was too busy thinking what to buy for supper.’ Her eyes moved from her son’s upturned face to that of the girl beside him. She had coloured but her eyes, large and brown, met Kate’s steadily.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Romilly,’ she said. ‘I’m Jill Halliday. I work with your husband.’

  Kate drew in her breath, but before she could reply Michael emerged from a doorway, slipping a packet of cigarettes into his pocket. He looked swiftly from Jill to Kate. ‘I don’t believe you’ve been introduced. Jill works—’

  ‘Yes — I know.’

  Unaware of his elders’ embarrassment, Josh said eagerly, ‘We’re just going for some Chinese, Mum. Would you like to come?’

  ‘I can’t, Josh. I must do my shopping. See you later, darling,’ and with a jerky little nod in the direction of the other two, Kate went quickly up the road. So that was ‘Auntie Jill’ who was so much at home in Kate’s kitchen. Perhaps she’d actually moved in with Michael.

  The disquiet caused by the chance meeting gnawed at Kate all afternoon. It was not that Jill was with her husband and son that upset her, so much as the girl herself. The brief glimpse in Shillingham had left Kate with the impression of a cheap little flirt. She saw now that it was mistaken. Today she had met an attractive, serious-faced young woman, and Michael’s association with her took on a new and disturbing significance.

  In fact, the week had proved a watershed for Kate. During the course of it the people who surrounded her had subtly altered, throwing her assessment of them out of focus. Martin, still pale and withdrawn, was no longer the easy-going man he’d seemed. Paul, whom she’d thought she knew so well, had behaved out of character, and now Jill Halliday loomed as a serious contender for Michael’s affections, casting Michael himself in a different light. Kate felt she was looking at them through distorting mirrors, no longer sure of any of them.

  ‘Does Auntie Jill always come down with Daddy?’ she asked with studied casualness as she and Josh were having supper. He shook his head.

  ‘Just sometimes?’ Kate persisted.

  ‘First time,’ corrected Josh with his mouth full.

  ‘You didn’t mind sharing Daddy with her?’

  He looked up at her innocently. ‘She asked me that too. No, I didn’t mind. I like her. She’s nice.’

  ‘Yes, she — seemed to be.’

  Later that evening Kate received the first anonymous phone call. Her mind still on Michael, she illogically assumed it was he who was calling and hurried to answer it.

  ‘Hello — yes?’

  Total silence greeted her, but it was a living silence. Someone was on the end of the line.

  ‘Hello?’ Kate said again, and after a moment gave her number. There was no response, just a palpable lack of sound. Kate stood waiting and eventually there was a little click as someone, somewhere, replaced the receiver. Shakily she followed suit. A wrong number, she told herself, returning to the kitchen, but the thought carried no conviction. If it had been, the caller would have realized at once, and either apologized or rung off. That deliberate waiting, the refusal to answer, implied a specific intention of — what? Intimidation? Was this the next phase of harassment from, presumably, those strangely persistent skinheads? Or had someone dialled completely at random, from sheer mischievousness? That must be the explanation. Nothing else made sense.

  That Sunday was the third in the month and Josh and his fellow choristers were required at morning service. In accordance with instructions, he left early for a brief rehearsal and Kate, with time in hand, started to clean the flat. Her thoughts were still circling round Michael, and it was only when a peal of bells rang out that she realized she’d barely time to get to the service.

  Catching up her handbag, she went running out of the flat, and reached the path to the Minster just as Paul came quickly round the corner of Queen’s Road. Kate slowed to a halt, but instead of crossing towards her, he turned into the far end of Monks’ Walk, went briskly along it as far as the Danes’ house and, with a quick glance over his shoulder, turned into the gateway.

  Kate stood staring after him till the strident chimes of the single bell sent her running up the path and through the great doorway. Someone put a book in her hand and showed her into a pew. Immediately in front of her Madge, well into the first verse of the hymn, turned and smiled at her, and across the aisle Kate recognized the grey, balding head of Henry Dane.

  ‘Tea and sympathy,’ said Richard’s voice, ‘for gentlemen whose wives don’t understand them.’

  And Madge’s: ‘Sylvia’s involved with someone at school.’

  Through the looking-glass, Kate thought despairingly. Nothing and no one as they seemed.

  She would have liked to avoid Madge when the service was over, but of course that was impossible. She was waiting as Kate emerged from the door.

  ‘You cut it rather fine, didn’t you? I was trying to keep a place for you but I had to give it up in the end.’

  Kate said carefully, ‘Doesn’t Paul darken the doors these days?’

  ‘He opted out today. He’s behind with some marking and it seemed a good chance to get on with it, while the house was quiet.’

  Donna was scuffing her shoe on the gravel path. In her hand she held the little box which had such unpleasant associations. A doll’s bed, Kate reminded herself. What else had she expected?

  ‘Did you see Michael yesterday?’ Madge asked in a low voice.

  ‘Briefly.’

  ‘You seem a bit strained. Nothing went wrong, did it?’

  ‘He brought his girlfriend with him.’ Which should explain her edginess, Kate thought with bitter gratitude.

  Madge laid her hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

  Kate bit her lip and looked away. Dear Madge, with her gentle face and compassionate eyes, so unshakably confident of the stability of her own marriage. Kate glanced towards the Danes’ house but Monks’ Walk was now crowded with boys as the boarders returned to school. For Madge’s sake, and hers alone, Kate hoped that by now Paul was safely home, surrounded by corroborative papers.

  Mindful of her unfulfilled promise, Kate took an early opportunity to invite Lana for supper.

  ‘I’d love to, Kate. How kind! And don’t forget I can come any Thursday to babysit. Didn’t you mention a parents’ meeting coming up soon?’

  Kate hesitated. ‘It’s next week, but I didn’t like to ask again so soon. I was going to leave Josh with the Netherbys.’

  ‘There’s no need for that. Of course I’ll come.’

  Kate’s thanks were interrupted by Richard’s arrival. ‘Lana, my love, will you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Mowbray.’ The usual deepening of colour.

  ‘I’ve drafted a letter to Simpson and Maybrick about the blue Worcester. Knock it into shape, will you. Can you decipher my writing?’ He leaned over, reading the letter through with her, and Kate could see the rapid rising and falling of Lana’s breast under the ungainly sweater. He was doing it on purpose, she thought resentfully, and it wasn’t fair.

  Richard looked up suddenly, met her accusing gaze, and closed one eye in a wink. Kate turned on her heel and left the room. Minutes later he followed her.

  ‘Do I detect a hint of disapproval?’

  ‘I think it’s unkind of you to goad Lana like that.’

  ‘Really?’ He
raised one eyebrow. ‘I was under the impression that she enjoyed it.’

  Kate didn’t reply. She was finding that she wasn’t immune to his closeness herself and wondered if he knew that too. They might all laugh at her as well as Lana.

  It seemed politic to warn Josh of Lana’s coming, since she was sure to want to see him.

  ‘Will I have to listen to a soppy story?’ he demanded truculently.

  ‘Perhaps, but be kind to her, Josh. I think she’s fond of you. She’ll be coming to — sit for us next Thursday, too.’ She didn’t dare use the compound verb in his hearing. He muttered something under his breath, but when Lana returned from seeing him, Kate could tell by her smile that all was well.

  ‘He’s sharp as a tack, that one!’ she commented, smoothing her skirt as she sat down. She was wearing a plain black jumper with a cameo at the throat and a black wool skirt patterned with cabbage roses. ‘He’ll be a handful when he’s a little older, I daresay.’ Her eyes, large and vulnerable, met Kate’s briefly as she accepted a glass of sherry. ‘But by that time,’ she added quietly, ‘all being well, you’ll have your husband to back you up.’ When Kate didn’t speak, Lana leant forward impulsively.

  ‘You will go back to him, won’t you? I know it’s none of my business but I’m so fond of Josh and I’ve seen what broken marriages can do to a child.’

  ‘Your brother’s little girl? But that was more than a divorce, wasn’t it? I don’t think you can—’

  Lana made a sweeping gesture with her hand. ‘Not just Judy. My brother himself —and me.’ She drew a difficult breath. ‘Our own mother left us when we were small. That’s why I feel so strongly about it.’

  ‘But I haven’t left Josh,’ Kate pointed out, trying to keep her voice reasonable. A lecture on marital fidelity was not what she’d anticipated.

  ‘You’ve split up the family, and the damage can be long-lasting, you know. I read that children of divorced parents are more likely to have broken marriages themselves.’

  Kate said with determined lightness, ‘Statisticians can prove anything they put their minds to.’