‘He didn’t exist,’ Evelyn said. ‘There was no married man.’
‘Any cars ever parked outside?’
‘I’m telling you ...’ Evelyn was almost shouting. ‘There weren’t anyone.’
Joanna dropped the subject. She looked through the window. She could see the corner of the red brick house. ‘Nice place,’ she said. ‘Expensive house for a nurse to buy.’ She waited for the other woman to find her cue.
‘Now there I can help you,’ Evelyn said. ‘Her mother died. She came into a lot of money. A few years ago.’ She too looked at the house.
‘How do you know her mother died?’
‘She told me,’ Evelyn said. ‘She told me all about it. Ill she was, in a nursing home. Draining away all her inheritance. Then she died – quite suddenly. Marilyn even went away for the funeral. In black,’ she added defensively. ‘In black.’
Joanna recalled the letters. Number 6 Bute Street hardly sounded like a nursing home. And Marilyn’s mother, she was sure, was not dead.
‘When did you last see Marilyn?’
‘Monday,’ Evelyn said without hesitation. ‘She didn’t see me. I saw her through the window, getting into that car of hers. She was in her uniform. She looked sort of – pleased with herself – jaunty. Made a lot of noise with the engine. She knew it annoyed me,’ she said simply. ‘That’s why she did it.’
The police had names for people like this. Natural victims ... blame themselves for all that goes wrong, expect people to pick on them, wait for trouble. And hey presto, Joanna thought, trouble hunts them out as though it could smell them.
‘Then what?’ she asked.
‘She sat in the car with the radio on very loud. She liked to do that. It made Ben mad. It upset him. She loved to tease him, you see. She loved to see him upset. He’d foam at the mouth – bark – try to jump over the fence.’ Evelyn glanced at Joanna. ‘He couldn’t, of course. The fence was too high. Then she’d laugh and mock him, sometimes dangle a bone over the fence and laugh while he tried to catch it in his teeth.’ She blinked. ‘There was a very mean side to Marilyn, Inspector,’ she said. ‘She could be cruel ...’
‘You live alone, Mrs Shiers?’ She changed tack.
An expression of extreme distaste crossed the woman’s face. ‘I do,’ she said.
‘A widow?’
‘My husband and I are ...’ there was a quick, hesitant pause, ‘separated.’
Joanna drew out her notebook and pencil. ‘For how long?’ She looked up, waited for the woman’s reply.
‘Four years.’
‘And where is he now?’
Evelyn looked furious. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t care. He isn’t here.’
‘So where is he?’
Now the look of the frightened fox was back. She was cornered. ‘I can’t tell you ... I don’t know where he is.’
Joanna watched the bristles on her chin. Her head jerked to and fro. Evelyn Shiers was rattled.
She sighed. More questions ... more investigations. And she had the feeling it would all be very hard work. But not now. She stood to leave and watched the other woman’s shoulders drop in relief.
‘By the way,’ she said at the doorway. ‘We don’t know how Marilyn died. Lock your doors, Mrs Shiers. If you see anything—’
‘What sort of thing?’ the woman demanded.
‘Anything. And ring us immediately, if you do.’ Joanna gave her the number of the police station and her own extension number. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Piercy. And I’ll be interested if you remember anything that could have a bearing on this case.’ She opened the front door. ‘I’ll probably call round again.’
‘Is that the truth, then, Mike?’
They were sitting in her office, drinking coffee.
‘Was she just a plump, lonely woman who spun stories, lived in make-believe land, dressed to kill and died?’
He was frowning. ‘It could be,’ he said cautiously. ‘There was nothing in the house to suggest anything else.’
‘Where did all the money come from? The antiques ... plastic surgery ... the house? Her mother isn’t dead, is she? So she wasn’t left anything.’
Her hand rested on the pile of letters. ‘Maybe we’d better read these.’ She picked one up and handed him another. Her eyes wandered down the page. ‘A little more money ... I saw the vicar calling in next door last Wednesday. I don’t think it’s quite nice for him to call, so late at night, a man of the cloth ... and she was looking very tidy ... Mrs Tolley, three doors away goes out every single Friday night, you know, Marilyn. She thinks I don’t see but a car drops her off. I went for a walk myself last Friday just to the end of the road. To get a bit of air. And there he was – the one man in the car. Nobody I recognized. But if Mr Tolley should find out ...’
Joanna slammed the letter down in disgust. She could sense the relish. She picked up another and read more. There were pages and pages of gossip, prying, intimate and insinuating. She dropped the letters and looked at Mike.
‘What utter—’
‘Crap,’ he said. ‘She was just a nosy old bag.’
‘But she’s alive all right – alive and prying. Like mother like daughter?’
‘Perhaps we’ll find out more tomorrow.’
She toyed with her pen before mentioning yet another point which had been bothering her. ‘And what about the dog, Mike? I don’t believe anyone could have got past Ben.’
‘Maybe if she’d let someone in,’ Mike said slowly, ‘the dog would have been calmed.’
‘Maybe.’ She was not convinced. ‘But would it have let someone out without Marilyn’s presence?’
She looked at him. ‘A lover? But no intercourse.’
‘Lesbian?’ he queried, then gave a lopsided grin. ‘There wouldn’t be any need for contraception then.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘True.’
She cupped her chin in her hand, elbows on the desk, and gazed at Mike. ‘What do we go on?’ she said. ‘The absence of a cause of death or the absence of signs of foul play?’
Mike was silent for a minute and then said carefully, ‘The only reason we believe it was foul play is her clothes. We know she liked attention. What if she wore them to gain it?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know ...’
She doodled for a while on the pad. ‘Any more thoughts, Mike?’ Before he had a chance to answer she gave a wry smile. ‘Sod’s law,’ she said. ‘I could really have done with a nice, clean murder for my first serious investigation. What’s this going to amount to? A missed diagnosis? At best a sordid little sex crime.’
He stood up and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘I think we should ask a few questions,’ he said. ‘The doctor she worked for ...’
He grinned. ‘Never did trust the medical profession,’ he said.
‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘we haven’t really found anything suspicious, have we? We just can’t find a cause of death. That’s all.’
He picked up her notebook. ‘And what about the missing Mr Shiers?’
‘We’ll get a couple of the blokes to ask around,’ she said. ‘Maybe he did run off with another woman.’
‘Maybe he didn’t,’ he said. ‘Maybe the two things are connected.’ He pulled the pad towards him and drew a picture of two houses – crude pictures, like a child’s.
‘I know this sounds a bit farfetched,’ he said. ‘But what if... Look. House one – man disappears. House two. We know Marilyn had a nasty streak in her – wasn’t above manipulation – dirty tricks. What if she knew something?’
She was tempted to laugh. It sounded melodramatic – detective novel stuff. But Mike’s dark eyes were deadly serious and he was staring at her.
‘How?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Poison,’ he said. ‘It was poison.’
‘So why hasn’t Matthew found it?’
Again Mike’s eyes were fixed on her. ‘Do a bit of digging,’ he said. ‘Digging. I reckon Dr Levin knows a bit more about ou
r friend than he’s letting on.’
She let out the breath she had been holding and knew this was what had lain at the back of her mind all day.
There were questions she knew she should ask but was frightened to. She didn’t really want the answers. But she had gained the distinct impression that Matthew had wanted her to drop the case. Why?
‘Matthew’s ringing me later on,’ she said. She stood up. ‘I’m going to call in at the surgery,’ she said. ‘I want to speak to Dr Wilson again.’
He was sitting in his room, staring out of the window, his face lined and grey, when the receptionist showed her in. He stood up courteously.
‘When will this nightmare end?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She sat down. ‘Sudden death – as I’m sure you understand – is never pleasant. There are often unanswered questions. Sometimes we never get the answer, Dr Wilson. But apart from having failed to discover the actual cause of death there are certain anomalies in this case.’
He looked wearily at her. ‘It isn’t always possible to discover the cause of death,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘We know that, Doctor. But Marilyn was dressed in a ... suggestive costume. We simply want to make sure.’
His voice cracked. ‘You haven’t got a perverted rapist on the loose.’
‘She wasn’t raped,’ Joanna said quietly.
The doctor ran his fingers through his greying hair. It was sticking up like a cartoon character’s. ‘Then why?’ he said. ‘She wasn’t robbed, was she?’
‘We don’t even know how they got in,’ she said.
He suddenly frowned. ‘Anomalies?’ he queried.
‘More money than she should have had ...’
‘Her mother ...’
‘We’re going to check it out.’
She crossed her legs. ‘Now I just want to ask a few routine questions. Do you cover all your own nights, Doctor?’
He gave a tired smile. ‘God – no,’ he said. ‘I join up with Sammy Bose’s practice by night. There are four of them,’ he added, ‘so it works out quite well. A one in five rota.’
Something jerked in Joanna’s mind. ‘Does that mean,’ she asked slowly, ‘that on the nights you were on call you were Marilyn’s doctor too?’
He laughed. ‘I suppose I was,’ he said. ‘I never thought about it. I suppose I was,’ he said slowly. ‘She never called me ...’
‘And you were on call the night she died?’
Jonah Wilson looked uneasy. ‘Now hang on, Inspector,’ he said. ‘If you’re suggesting—’
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ she said. ‘I’m merely trying to gather facts.’
‘Well yes, then – I was.’
‘Was it a busy night?’
‘A few calls.’ His tone had changed. He was no longer the friendly doctor, employer of a dead woman. He was a suspect, rattled and defensive. ‘I’ve told you. I had to go out to Onecote.’
‘At what time?’ Joanna was writing in her book.
‘About eleven...’ He gave the address. ‘I was gone about three-quarters of an hour. She thought she had meningitis.’
‘Ah yes, I remember. And it was a false alarm.’
‘Yes. A bloody headache.’
Joanna made a mental note to follow it up.
She found the receptionists drinking coffee in the square room where the notes were kept. The room went quiet the instant she walked in. But when they offered her a cup she accepted and they began to relax. She looked at them curiously. ‘What was she like?’ she asked.
The tall redhead, Sally, took down a photograph pinned to the noticeboard. ‘This was Marilyn,’ she said.
There were four people in the picture: the two receptionists standing stiffly in paper hats, glasses in their hands. A plump woman, heavily made up, was draped around Dr Wilson. And even though the quality of the picture was poor Joanna could see that the doctor was as uneasy about the situation as Marilyn Smith was relishing it. Joanna looked closer.
There was a lascivious smile on the woman’s face. Glossy lipstick, frizzled hair and her mouth slightly open. She was wearing a very short, tight black dress, which revealed inches of deep cleavage and rolls of fat around the waist. Red fingernails hung down the doctor’s tweed jacket. Marilyn was looking at him. He was staring unhappily into the camera.
Sally looked over Joanna’s shoulder. ‘God,’ she said quietly. ‘If ever a woman had an obscene passion for a man, she did. Worshipped him. Made every sort of play she could. Gave the poor doctor no peace. No peace at all.’
‘Did he enjoy the attention?’ Joanna said, concealing her surprise.
Sally looked back at the photograph. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘He found her repulsive. He was married. Mrs Wilson may have her problems, but they were a happy couple. He couldn’t wait to get home to her at night. He had no time for Marilyn.’
‘He must have found it difficult,’ she said. ‘Embarrassing.’
Maureen nodded. ‘He would squirm sometimes.’
‘But he kept her on as his nurse.’
Sally grimaced.
‘May I borrow this photograph?’
Maureen shrugged her shoulders. ‘Have it,’ she said. ‘We don’t want it back.’ At Joanna’s look of surprise she said aggressively, ‘Look – we don’t want to be reminded of her. We couldn’t stand her.’
‘We don’t want to speak ill of the dead,’ the other said, ‘but this place will be happier without her. She manufactured trouble. Always told you the nasty things people might have said about you. Always made life difficult. Some people,’ she said, ‘won’t be missed.’ She glanced back at the photograph. ‘She’s one of them.’
At this moment Jonah wandered through, saw her and hesitated, as though unsure whether to enter or leave.
Joanna pocketed the picture. ‘Tell me, Dr Wilson,’ she said, ‘what’s your private opinion? What do you think she died of?’
He looked around nervously. ‘Well, as I’ve already told you, I don’t think she really was the type to commit suicide,’ he said slowly. ‘Although you never can tell. Most suicides have made one attempt before. But then people do sometimes bottle things up.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe some sort of accident?’ He gave a shy smile.
It was an unsatisfactory answer and Joanna felt irritated. Damn it, she thought. She was the investigating officer. It was up to her to decide. Murder investigations were expensive. Suicides cheap. And all this flamming from the medical profession was making it bloody hard to decide which this case was. All the time she was busy here she was missing from somewhere else.
‘Boyfriend?’ she said.
‘No one ever came here,’ the doctor said calmly.
She was going to get no help from here, she decided, and left.
Matthew rang her almost as soon as she arrived back at the station. His voice sounded tight and strained. ‘Are you busy?’ he asked curtly.
She replied yes and then he asked her if she had time to talk. Again she said yes.
‘I can’t let go of you, Jo,’ he said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’
She felt her heart pounding against her chest and wished he had not rung.
‘Are you there?’ he asked, in the same, strangled voice.
‘Matthew,’ she said softly. ‘Give it some time – please.’
He sighed. ‘I can’t, Jo. I’ve tried.’
‘For God’s sake, Matthew,’ she said, suddenly irritated. ‘You’re married. You have a daughter. You want to stay that way. That’s fine by me but don’t involve me on the sidelines. Work your life out ...’
‘Don’t you know what I’m saying, Jo? I love you.’
She felt herself shake with a sudden strong anger. ‘I don’t want to go through it all again, Matthew,’ she said. ‘All the waiting and hoping. Please – leave me to get on with my life. I have work to do.’
He paused. ‘How’s it going?’
She answered not well.
‘Did the SOCOs find anything?
’
She had always loved the way he lapsed into police jargon, although it felt dangerously familiar to be discussing cases with him.
‘They’ve found bugger all,’ she said. ‘Alsatian hairs, her fingerprints. Little else. It’s almost unnatural. The woman led the life of a nun.’
Matthew gave a strained laugh. ‘She didn’t look like that to me. That was no nun lying there on the slab.’
‘She wasn’t dressed like a nun,’ Joanna agreed, ‘but there’s no sign of riotous living in the house in Silk Street. What about you? Have you got the results from the path lab?’
‘Some. There’ll be more coming through over the next few days. The stomach contents revealed tiny traces of barbiturates which would have made her sleepy but certainly not killed her. Alcohol ... I think ...’ He paused. ‘This is just a theory, but I think she might have used the champagne as an aphrodisiac. I’ve sent the viscera and more samples off to the forensic lab in Birmingham but you know how long that can take. Do you know what I wish?’ he asked, and without waiting for a comment said, ‘I wish I could put on the death certificate that she just died. Cause unknown ...’
Joanna was puzzled by his attitude. He was a pathologist. ‘Matthew,’ she remonstrated. ‘How can you say that? Surely you want to find out? Healthy women in their late thirties don’t just die.’
‘But it would fit in neatly, wouldn’t it?’ he asked. ‘The dog ... no sign of a break-in. No forced entry. Nothing broken, damaged or stolen from the house. You have to face it, Jo,’ he said, ‘it’s the only explanation that fits in with everything – including the fact that I can’t find a mark on the body.’
Privately she knew she had to agree with him.
There was a pause from the other end, then Matthew said, ‘So what about us?’
She was silent. Then, after endless seconds, she said, ‘Matthew. Ring me when you have more results, please. I have to go now,’ and she hung up.
She was left staring at the phone with a vague feeling of disquiet. Had she ever really known him? Small voices whispered the answer to her. No ... Matthew Levin was a stranger.
She was about to leave the station for the evening when the duty sergeant called her.
Winding Up the Serpent Page 8
