The Sting of Death

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Bloody hell!’ she gasped. ‘I must be dreaming.’ She glared at him fixedly as he stood with one had on her front gate. ‘Last time I saw him …’

  ‘Was at Sarah’s funeral,’ came Justine’s voice softly from behind her. ‘Hello, Dad,’ she called more loudly. ‘Come in, why don’t you? And Aunt Helen.’ Justine seemed almost manic, flapping her hands at everyone to make them do her bidding. ‘And who’s that out there?’ She peered through the drizzle at Karen. ‘The woman in that car.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Roma. ‘I have no idea what she’s doing here.’

  ‘She’s collecting me,’ said Maggs, trying in vain to push through the small crowd on the doorstep. ‘If you’ll let me out, I’ll get out of your way and leave you to your family reunion.’ Suddenly she’d had more than enough of the lot of them – Millans, Pereiras and Strabinskis. ‘She seems to be in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘But why is Carlos here?’ Roma couldn’t get beyond that all-consuming question. ‘I thought he’d been arrested.’

  ‘Let’s go in, for heaven’s sake,’ Helen urged. ‘I’m getting soaked out here. Carlos, come on in. Take no notice of Roma.’

  Karen pipped the horn again and Maggs finally forced her way through to the garden path. ‘Coming!’ she shouted. At the gate she side-stepped the unshaven Carlos, thinking how sinister he looked. Thick black brows, untidy long hair and piercing dark brown eyes all gave him the appearance of a lawless gypsy. How Roma could ever have married this man was a mystery that would have to wait for another time.

  ‘Who were all those people?’ Karen asked, as soon as Maggs was in the car.

  ‘Relations. The woman is Penn’s mother. Must be your aunt, mustn’t she?’

  ‘Auntie Helen! Good grief, I would never have recognised her. She used to have much darker hair than that.’

  ‘Dyed,’ said Maggs succinctly. ‘Stands out a mile.’

  ‘No sign of Penn, then?’

  ‘Nope. We’ve just texted her, though, telling her to call Roma, so she might get in touch. How’s things back at the ranch?’

  ‘Drew’s tidying up yesterday’s graves. And there’s a man coming to book his own burial. That’s why he sent me to fetch you. Was it awful? Drew told me what a state Roma was in. I wish I’d got a better look at them all, but I didn’t want to stay long, with Timmy and everything.’

  ‘You should get to know Roma better. She’s a great character.’ Maggs tried to relax, but still felt jangled. ‘She can’t decide whether to believe Justine or not.’

  ‘She can’t seriously believe her own daughter would murder an innocent child.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to. But she doesn’t believe the story about Penn abducting Justine, either. And there’s something about jelly babies. Seemingly that looks bad for Justine as well. There was some sort of sticky gloop close to the body. I wonder if that’s what she’s talking about. It had wasps all over it. Drew was quite scared of them, after his sting.’

  ‘There’s a piece in the paper about it – not that they can say much until the results of the post-mortem come through.’

  ‘It must be finished about now,’ Maggs realised. ‘They start soon after eight.’

  ‘They’re not going to call Drew about it, are they? Nobody’s gone so far as to suggest that he might be burying her.’

  ‘Did you know Justine as a little girl?’ Maggs asked curiously.

  ‘Hardly at all. I saw her once, that I can remember, and I didn’t really like her. We were both very young, but childhood impressions are hard to change. I thought she was sly. She told some sort of lie, I think.’

  ‘So you think she’s lying now as well?’

  Karen gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘It isn’t very rational, I know, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if she was.’

  ‘Well, I believe her,’ said Maggs firmly. ‘I think she’s been deliberately set up by Penn. Framed. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the Renton man claimed he’d been having an affair with her. She hasn’t even mentioned him, so I hardly think she’s in love with him.’

  ‘It doesn’t follow,’ laughed Karen. ‘I mean – what about you and the policeman?’

  ‘What about us?’ Maggs said stiffly.

  ‘He came all this way to see you the other evening and you went off with him. I saw the way you looked at each other.’

  ‘He is nice,’ Maggs admitted, with some relief. ‘But it’s complicated …’

  ‘That just adds to the fun,’ said Karen.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Maggs told her. ‘It’ll probably come to nothing.’

  Karen could get no more out of her. She was mildly disappointed, hoping for some girlish confidences. Serves me right, she thought. I should have known Maggs better than that.

  The pathologist faxed the post-mortem findings through to Okehampton police station. ‘Cause of death: dislocation of cervical vertebrae, rupturing spinal cord. No suggestion of strangulation. No indication of sexual assault. Contusion on the scalp, which did not bleed, suggesting that it occurred at the time of death or shortly afterwards. No other bruising found on the body. The child was small for her age, but healthy. Lividity would suggest that the body was placed in the ditch up to eight hours after the time of death. For some period between the time of death and being placed in the ditch, it lay on its side. Stomach contents reveal cereal such as “Ready Brek” recently consumed. No evidence of any broken bones at any point in her life. Death would appear to have resulted from a fall or sharp blow to the neck, consistent with an accident or a deliberate attack.’

  ‘Accident!’ breathed Den. ‘Accident?’

  ‘Someone panicked and hid the body,’ Hemsley noted. ‘Rather a long time later.’

  ‘So the Pereira girl was babysitting the kid, let her fall to her death, and after dithering all day, carried her to the field and dumped her in a ditch. Sounds reasonable to me.’ Den was warming to the idea that nobody had deliberately killed little Georgia. She hadn’t suffered. She hadn’t been frightened and hurt by someone she trusted. She’d fallen out of a tree, off a high wall, wherever she’d been playing, and landed fatally on her head. What happened afterwards didn’t really matter. Did it?

  ‘It’s possible,’ the DI nodded. ‘Makes it a bit tricky for us. No evidence of foul play, but someone deliberately concealed the body. She didn’t die in the ditch. That’s an offence in itself, failing to report a death.’

  ‘It’s the sort of thing a woman would do, don’t you think?’ Den was trying hard to concentrate. ‘Somebody who’d been left in charge by the parents and was petrified by what happened.’

  ‘Supposition,’ Hemsley dismissed.

  ‘Can’t we flush them out by issuing a statement that it wasn’t murder, but an accident? Tell them to come forward, and there’ll only be a minor charge against them?’

  ‘We could try,’ was the unenthusiastic reply. ‘We’re still left with a messy pile of blatant lies, however you look at it.’

  Cooper clamped a hand to his brow, trying to think. ‘Say Philip Renton was telling the truth. Justine drove the kid away. But she braked suddenly for something, sending the child – not strapped in – flying, broke her neck, left her in the car until it was dark, dumped her in the ditch and went off to hide somewhere as if the camping trip was still on.’

  ‘Go and ask her,’ Hemsley ordered him. ‘After you and Bennie have seen the parents.’

  Nobody heard the phone ringing at first, for the noisy discussion going on in Roma’s living room. ‘Telephone!’ Justine shrieked at her mother, finally making herself heard. ‘It might be Penn,’ she added, more quietly.

  Roma went into the kitchen to take the call, glad of the excuse to escape the overwrought scene.

  ‘Roma? Is that you?’

  ‘Laurie! Where are you? I’ve been worrying about you. You’ve been gone for ages.’

  ‘It was only yesterday!’ he protested – a claim she found impossible to believe at first.


  ‘Was it?’ she said uncertainly. ‘It seems like weeks. We’ve had the most dreadful time here.’ ‘I thought you might. That’s why I came away. It’s feeble of me, I know, but I really am useless in a crisis.’

  ‘They found that little girl. I’m afraid she’s dead, poor little thing. All the world and his wife have been here since last night. It’s absolute bedlam.’

  ‘Have they arrested Justine?’ He cut in urgently. ‘Do they think she did it?’

  ‘We don’t know what they think. They haven’t been in contact with us, although they know she’s here. Laurie, will you at least tell me where you’re staying, just in case I need to speak to you quickly?’

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose I should.’ He sounded reluctant. ‘But don’t tell anybody else. I came here for a bit of peace. And promise me you won’t phone unless there’s something really serious. I’m out a lot, anyhow, strolling along the seafront watching all the old fogeys. They make me feel positively youthful by comparison.’

  ‘You’ll come home soon, won’t you?’ She tried not to sound wistful. ‘I expect everything will settle down in a few days, one way or another.’

  ‘Don’t worry, old love. I haven’t gone for good, you know. Here you are then, make a note. I’m at the Elmcroft Hotel in Bournemouth. It’s in the East Cliff area, a couple of roads back from the sea. But try and give me a couple of days’ peace. Is that too much to ask?’

  ‘I hope not,’ she said.

  Maggs was driving Drew slowly insane with heavy sighs and moony looks. She ignored him when he spoke to her and jumped every time the phone rang. ‘They’d tell us what the post-mortem said if we phoned them,’ he offered. ‘Graham Sleeman’s standing in for Stanley, while he’s on holiday. He’s an old friend of mine. He’ll have spoken to the family by this time, anyway, so I can ask if they said anything about the funeral.’

  ‘Mmm,’ was all she replied.

  He made the call, curious on his own account as to how the little girl had died. Sleeman was his usual inefficient self, rustling papers as if he’d never heard of Georgia Renton. ‘Oh, here we are. Looks like an accident. That’s what they’ve reported to the Coroner. No evidence of violence or foul play, except the body was moved at some time after death. Failing to report a death, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you speak to the parents yet?’

  ‘Nah. CID are dealing with it for me. Everyone knows I’m useless at that sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re useless at everything,’ Drew told him, scarcely bothering to temper the truth with a friendly laugh.

  Bennie and Den were disconcerted to find nobody in at Gladcombe Farm. Nobody responded to their knock on the door and when they went round to the back, where a muddy scullery had its own unlocked entrance, but a second bolted door through to the kitchen, they could discern no sign of life. Returning slowly to their car, they heard another vehicle approaching down the farm lane. ‘Maybe they just popped out to the shops,’ said Bennie. ‘Or maybe they’ve gone to the doctor about the chap’s bruised face.’

  But the car when it did arrive contained only one young woman. ‘Journalist,’ said Bennie with certainty, and Drew believed her.

  ‘Hiya!’ the creature whinnied. ‘Anything going on?’

  ‘CID,’ growled Cooper repressively. ‘Mr and Mrs Renton aren’t here. What do you want?’

  ‘Daily Chronicle,’ she beamed. ‘Wondered if the parents had anything to say.’

  ‘I thought they’d stopped this sort of crap,’ Den told her. ‘You’re wasting your time anyway. As I said, they’re out.’

  ‘Funny. Gone to stay with friends, have they? Can’t bear the painful memories?’

  ‘Something like that. Now you’d better go. This is still the scene of a suspicious death and nobody’s asked you to be here.’

  ‘Suspicious death? Surely you’ve had the post-mortem results by now, and know what killed her?’

  ‘No comment,’ said Den, with a disgusted look.

  ‘Hey, don’t be like that. This is public interest stuff. Little girl found dead in a ditch a week after going missing. Only – what? – a few hundred yards from her house. We’re not giving up on a story like that.’ She looked carefully all around her, easily spotting the well-trodden track towards the orchard. ‘That way, is it?’

  ‘Leave it,’ Den warned her. ‘Forensics haven’t finished with it yet. It’s out of bounds.’

  ‘So what’s with this girl lodger or whatever she is? Why’s everybody being so cagey about her? Has she been taken in for questioning? You ought to tell us, you know. We’ve a right to be kept informed.’

  ‘No comment,’ he snarled again. ‘Now go away.’

  Defiantly, the reporter got back into her car and reversed it at speed across the yard, already fumbling for a mobile phone as she headed back down the lane towards the road.

  ‘So where are they?’ Bennie queried. ‘Don’t they know they should stay put? That we’d be back this morning wanting to speak to them?’

  ‘Search me,’ Den snapped. He looked at the upper windows of the house, which stared implacably down at him. He felt a quiver of unease. ‘You don’t think … ?’ he began.

  ‘What?’ She followed his line of gaze. ‘That they’ve topped themselves in their grief? I doubt it.’

  ‘We should have a quick look,’ Den grimaced. ‘This is Crediton all over again. Why’s everybody avoiding us, do you think?’

  Bennie did not respond to the feeble joke. ‘We’d have to break in.’

  ‘True. Best leave it then. Let the DI worry about it.’

  ‘Right.’ She sighed with relief. ‘Now we’re off to Pitcombe. Is that it?’

  Cooper scratched his head. ‘Is that what he said?’ He looked at her blankly for a moment, forgetting the significance of Pitcombe.

  ‘Come on, Den. Wake up, will you? Pitcombe’s the mother of the girl who lives in the cottage here. We’re to go and talk to them again, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I just didn’t connect, for a minute. It’s not going to be a lot of fun, is it?’ He made no move to return to the car, despite Bennie’s attempts to shift him. ‘They ought to be here,’ he worried. ‘Somebody should have stayed all night to keep an eye on them.’

  ‘Well, they didn’t. They probably insisted on being left alone.’

  ‘But don’t they want to know about the post-mortem?’

  ‘I don’t know, Den,’ she said patiently. ‘That’s why we have to go and talk to the Pereira woman. See if we can get her to admit she dropped the kid on its head and panicked. Get the whole thing sewn up, once and for all. Plus we need to call in and tell them we’ve drawn a blank here.’

  ‘Let’s go then,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it here, anyway.’

  Philip Renton slowly left the barn behind the house, when he was sure the police had finally left. All his movements were heavy, whole minutes passing between one step and the next. Something in the house was urging him, finally identified at a ringing telephone. Business, he thought distantly. He should apply himself to business. It had stopped before he got to it, but a few minutes later it began again.

  ‘Mr Renton? We sent two officers to tell you this in person, but they must have missed you. I hope you’ll understand if we tell you this over the phone …’

  He was standing in the yard, fifteen minutes later, when Sheena drove in. She had been to the supermarket, hysterically tearing out of his clinging arms when he tried to stop her. And then, when she got there, she’d filled the trolley with all the things that Georgia had liked best, including a box of jelly babies. Standing in the check-out line, she suddenly saw what she’d done, staring at the Alphabet Spaghetti, the small seedless grapes, chocolate milk drink and bloody jelly babies. With a shriek, she’d thrust the whole thing away from her and run from the shop in tears.

  Her husband didn’t seem to be doing anything. He was just there. His bruised face was haggard, his hands shaking. Sheena found him repellant in his obvious distress.
‘Have you been here since I left?’ she asked.

  He nodded, then recollected himself and shook his head. ‘They phoned – about the post-mortem.’

  ‘Phoned? Shouldn’t they come in person? Why are they so insensitive?’

  He shrugged weakly, unable to explain. ‘Her neck was broken. They think she – she didn’t suffer. It was quick, they said.’

  ‘Broken neck? Like strangled? Is that the same thing?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. More like a fall. Or a quick blow. Something like that.’

  Sheena’s face screwed up. ‘I don’t want to know.’ She breathed quickly. ‘Yes I do. I want to know. If I don’t I’ll never rest.’

  ‘Rest,’ he echoed, looking as if he was ready to sink to the ground and never get up again.

  ‘Have they arrested Justine yet?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be on the news? There’ll be reporters here, won’t there? Hasn’t anybody been?’ The thought that they might not have had any visitors seemed very bleak to her. Were they so antisocial, so disliked in the neighbourhood that nobody would come to offer solace at such a time?

  ‘I think somebody came. I was … outside. They went again.’

  ‘We’d better have something to eat.’ She headed for the front door, fists tightly clenched. Inside, something was erupting and she couldn’t let it. It had to do with Philip, his blank expression, his still unexamined confession about the affair with Justine. There was rage against him, acid in her throat, but she couldn’t let it out. He’d lost his little daughter and was plainly suffering. All she could do was wait it out until they were both strong enough to decide what to do next.

  * * *

  Drew was relieved to find that Maggs’s attention was aroused by the latest news. ‘Accident?’ she repeated. ‘Are they sure?’

  ‘Not completely. But that’s the way it looks.’

  ‘Poor little thing. But it doesn’t explain anything, does it? Why was she left in the ditch? Do they think she was climbing a tree or something, and just lay where she fell? Dropping the bag of jelly babies?’