Still Waters

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I’m sure a lot of people bleed in the privacy of their own bathroom! As for the hair, Barnes said she’d had a migraine and had had to lie down. You can imagine what prosecuting counsel made of that. And her DNA was all over her husband’s things, of course, and over Lover Boy’s – but he also claimed she used to give him a hug every time they met.’

  ‘Wouldn’t catch me hugging any queers,’ Jim said.

  ‘I don’t doubt you for a minute,’ said Fran with a broad grin. ‘But I think you mean people who are gay. Rob, I have to ask you straight: do you have any hard evidence, even any strong rumours, that QED sat on stuff he shouldn’t? Lied or cheated?’

  ‘He just didn’t look hard enough. There were great gaps in what we knew about all of them, Janine in particular, that we should have filled. We knew there was a major media campaign about poor clear-up rates across the country. The Home Secretary was jumping up and down. The old chief was putting huge pressure on us. And poor old QED rolled over.’

  ‘Poor? I didn’t get the impression that he was the most popular of bosses.’

  ‘He had a heart attack three weeks after retiring. Whatever sort of bastard he was – and he was a bastard, no doubt about that, with his bullying and the rest of it – he deserved a bit better than that. I reckon the stress of the case drove him to it, as it happens.’

  Fran was impressed. Rob should go far with such clear-sightedness. But then she yawned, not the little gasp that could be concealed modestly behind her hand. A great filling-exposing gape. ‘I’m so sorry. I seem to have been on the go a bit today.’

  ‘I bet you’ve not eaten either,’ Jim said with an avuncular shake of the head. ‘She’s left a spot of cheese and a few biscuits in the kitchen.’

  Fran flared before she could stop herself. ‘And who’s she? The cat’s mother? Honestly, Jim,’ she temporised, ‘Maureen deserves better than that! She’s a lovely, patient woman and she’s had more than enough to put up with. Come on, admit it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let anyone else but you speak to me like that and that’s a fact,’ he grumbled.

  She got up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Come on, you know it’s only ’cos I love you, you daft old bugger. Rob, if you think of anything I ought to know, because just at the moment I’m picking up the bits left lying around, promise me you’ll be in touch. My home number if you prefer.’ She flipped him her card. ‘No, I’m sorry but I have to push off now because I’ve got a really early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Come on, young Fran – you’re top brass! You can have a lie-in at weekends!’

  ‘I wish… And there’s a problem I have to look at before I even hit the hay.’

  ‘I can’t see that bloke of yours putting up with that. Mark Turner,’ he explained to Rob. ‘Partner, they call it, as if he shared a Panda car with her. You tell him from me, young Fran, it’s time he married you and made an honest woman of you.’

  ‘So why should Gates be watching our house?’ Fran asked as, still with her outdoor clothes on, she slumped onto the sofa, miraculously finding a glass of Glenfiddich in her hand. She was allowed to ponder the question now, after all. She was too tired to consider any new aspects of the apparently flawed Moreton investigation, and didn’t want to think about her forthcoming Saturday morning treat, taking Roper to see his wife’s corpse. If it was his wife, of course. Of course it was his wife. If it wasn’t – no, she didn’t want to think about the implications if it wasn’t. ‘Do you think we should tackle him about it?’

  ‘And say what? Sweetheart, I’ve been turning this over and over in my mind, apart from one point when I was driving home and picked up Any Questions. At that point I sat and shouted at the panel as if they could hear me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Radio pundits always want more legislation and longer prison sentences.’ She didn’t bother to suppress her yawn; if anyone could distinguish fatigue from boredom, Mark would.

  ‘Right. And this lot were so bloody stupid and reactionary – and that was just the Labour representative…’ He laughed at himself. ‘Anyway, what I did think was that we should mention this to Paula. After all, it was he who recommended them. He might simply be checking up on how they’re doing.’

  ‘Of course he might! How silly of me to think there might be something strange in his behaviour!’

  ‘I’d like to talk to Paula face to face – to see how she reacts. But I’m not quite sure when. I’m not expecting to see much of you this weekend, frankly, not with this case rumbling on.’

  ‘I know you’re scared of Paula, but you surely don’t need me to hold your hand while you talk to her.’

  ‘Not to hold my hand. But maybe to be a witness. Who knows?’

  Fran had an idea she was going to say, ‘Let’s sleep on it,’ but since her next conscious moment was when Mark tried to carry her upstairs, she wasn’t at all sure.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  If the prison staff expected more police muscle than a couple of middle-aged senior officers, they did not say so. No doubt they too considered their convicted murderer remarkably low risk. Once inside the car, Mark dispensed with the handcuffs and settled on the back seat he shared with his fellow passenger, who needed no more than a gentle reminder to use his seat belt.

  Many prison inmates regarded even the shortest trip as a Cook’s Tour, eyes gobbling up every detail of the world they’d been denied. Some simply sat staring forward, having been institutionalised beyond the capacity to be interested in anything. Despite his comparatively short sojourn behind bars, Roper seemed one of the latter. Or was there another reason for his self-absorption? How would Mark himself feel if he were imprisoned for killing his beloved Fran and then had to identify a three-year-old corpse that might be hers?

  Except he wouldn’t, would he? It’d be the next of kin, in other words Fran’s fiendish sister, Hazel, who would be called upon to do her that last service. Because live-in lovers they might be, sharers of a huge mortgage, but they weren’t man and wife. Was that one reason for Fran’s intermittent commercials for matrimony? Had she thought ahead to the point where one had to authorise medical care for the other – but was denied the right, because they lacked a simple piece of paper? And what about inheritance tax? When the Rectory was habitable, it would be worth enough to have the Treasury rubbing its collective hands in glee at the prospect of all that lovely income.

  Fran was already parking, and in a consultant’s slot, if he knew her. On this occasion she was right to do so; the shorter the journey to the morgue the better.

  While they waited for the duty attendant, Fran turned to Roper. ‘Are you quite sure about this? Remember you don’t have to see the whole corpse, just any feature by which you could identify it.’

  ‘She always had lovely hands,’ he whispered.

  How would Fran deal with that facer?

  ‘I think the coroner would want something more specific than that. A scar, a birthmark, that sort of thing,’ was her gentle but firm response.

  ‘She had the most perfect body,’ Roper added, almost to himself.

  The announcement was so flat, so asexual, that Mark found himself glancing at Fran. Her body was no longer perfect, not in teen magazines’ terms, but he would have swapped it for no other, and he hoped she knew it. She however was frowning slightly, concern more than anger, he thought, as if repelled by Roper’s emotionless delivery. Or was she relieved by it? Probably they both were.

  Both ought to be concentrating on Roper, he reminded himself. That was his excuse for being here, after all. But it took an effort to scrutinise the little man, grey-faced now and shaking in anticipation of what he must do. Had his worst nightmares prepared him?

  At last they were in the viewing area and the sheet was pulled back, the attendant as reverent and gentle as if he were displaying a holy relic. He exposed the face only. The path had done a very good job putting her back together, Mark noted, realising that his habitual ability to dissociate himself at the moment of crisis had not deserted
him.

  Roper collapsed like a concertina, ankles, knees, hips in order – not onto the corpse, thank God, but onto the floor. By mutual consent, Fran and he left him there for a few moments, trying to close their ears to an animal wail of grief. But the keening stopped as abruptly as it had started, and he seemed glad of their hands hooked under his elbows, as if he were a pensioner having taken a slip on black ice. ‘Yes, that’s my Janine.’

  Was he surprised or otherwise that the car journey back to the jail was equally silent? There was nothing like a traumatised corpse for reminding one of one’s own last end.

  Someone – was it Fran, or a sympathetic prison officer? – had arranged for the prison chaplain to be on hand once Roper was banged up again. But as they waited in the airlock, Fran would have been doing less than her duty had she not asked, so softly that she was barely audible, whether Roper wished to change his statement in any way.

  An invisible string pulled Roper’s spine straight. ‘Not by so much as a word, Chief Superintendent. But I’ll tell you this. Whatever questions you and your colleagues need to ask to find out the bastard who did that to her, I’ll answer to the best of my ability.’ Only when there was a slight splash on the newly swabbed floor did Mark realise that tears were streaming down the widower’s face.

  Fran touched him lightly on the arm. ‘Just one thing today, Ken, and this is important. Did your wife ever wear really expensive underclothes – bras and pants?’

  He stared. ‘Never.’

  ‘And what about high-heeled shoes – really high heels?’ She held her thumb four or five inches from her finger.

  ‘She was a teacher, near enough. A respectable woman.’ His voice had recovered some strength.

  ‘Of course. I’ll be in touch again very soon, Ken.’ She patted his arm again, as if suiting the word to the deed.

  They had driven halfway back to HQ before she asked, ‘Do you think he’s guilty, then?’

  ‘Apart from anything else, what about the logistics of a man his size trying to hoist a woman her size onto the beam in the reservoir? Not to mention getting access in the first place? Finding a key? Swimming round down there?’

  ‘Bloody hell, he does have diving equipment, though. Did. It was logged. My God, have I been right royally deceived?’

  ‘Wait to see what the path tests show up before you start panicking. And of course, you could see if any of her DNA was left on it, if Moreton hasn’t already done that. But my impression was absolutely the same as yours. That unless he had an accomplice—’

  ‘Who could have been his best friend Moz—’

  ‘There was no way he could have done it, the hoisting part at least. And I didn’t see any guilt in him, just absolute horror.’

  ‘Which could have been at the results of what he’d done. It’s no good, I must talk to Barnes. Budget or no budget, I shall have to nip up to Durham as soon as I can, Mark.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ He laughed as her face tightened with anger. ‘I think you’ll find – and you must promise to ask absolutely no questions – that Moz Barnes has been mysteriously and suddenly transferred to Lewes Jail.’

  Now what was she doing? Instead of taking the obvious exit for HQ at the next island, she took the road that would lead ultimately to the Rectory.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have to have a moment away from an institution. Jail; hospital; jail – I can’t face HQ for a few minutes. Let me just get a breath of air and I’ll be all right.’

  He reached for his phone and dialled Pact’s number.

  ‘Paula Farmer’s phone,’ came a cautious voice, not Paula’s.

  ‘Could I speak to Paula, please?’ He shot a sideways glance at Fran, who responded with a quizzical smile. ‘It’s Mark Turner.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Mark. This is Caffy. For some reason Paula’s left her phone here in the scullery and she’s up the scaffolding at the moment so I don’t like to disturb her.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be at the Rectory!’ And charging double overtime, no doubt.

  ‘We would. We got rained off yesterday and did a quick interior job elsewhere. So we’re putting in an extra couple of hours. Don’t worry – usual rate!’ Mark felt an irritating blush rising. Had they got the measure of him already?

  ‘Will you still be there in twenty minutes?’

  ‘Want to give it another metaphorical hug, do you? No problem.’

  ‘It’s a police matter – of a sort,’ he said by way of an excuse as Fran started laughing at him. He cut the call.

  ‘So it is,’ Fran agreed. ‘But there’s a briefing at two, Mark – I have to be back well before that to get all the updates and prepare my own. Which may take some doing.’

  ‘You dictate, I’ll make notes,’ he said, obligingly reaching for his unofficial notebook.

  Caffy greeted them in the former scullery that Pact used as their base camp. She was in her dungarees, but was remarkably free from paint splatters. In fact, now Mark came to think of it, she was always clean, as if she were in TV-land, where Costume and Make-up never got their heads round the dirt of the working world. Did she actually do anything? Or did she stand round looking decorative to increase their fees to male punters? For he had to admit she was a remarkably attractive young woman, despite his reservations about her vivacious loquacity.

  ‘Golly, it isn’t just the house that needs a hug,’ she declared, grabbing a rag to wipe non-existent paint from her hands, ‘it’s you two.’ She looked them up and down. ‘I’m sorry. Have you just come from a funeral? I didn’t know they had them on Saturdays. Or a death bed? On such a lovely day, too!’

  Fran said curtly, ‘Work clothes.’

  ‘But they’re surely not your “customary suits of solemn black”? You looked quite normal the other day.’

  Mark dug into his school memory. He came up with a rejoinder he hoped the Shakespeare-loving chief would have been proud of. ‘These are “the trappings and the suits of woe”, Caffy. We had to escort someone to identify his late wife’s body.’

  That mobile face of hers showed she registered all the implications. ‘No wonder you wanted to come out here then, where everything’s coming alive. Have you seen the way everything’s greening up, despite all the neglect? Maybe because of it. Now, can I make you a cup of tea or coffee while you look round? We’ve not made much internal progress, of course, because we wanted to make sure it was weatherproof, but you’ll see the roof’s looking very much better if you want to pop up the scaffolding and take a look.’

  ‘Paula’s Words worked, did they?’ Fran asked, but her face looked too stiff to smile naturally. If only he could get her to sit down before she fell down.

  ‘They usually do,’ Caffy said, with a quick glance at her. ‘Fran, we rescued this chair from the roof-space. It may look flimsy and rickety, but believe me it’s comfortable. We thought you ought to take it to get it valued, actually – it’s clearly eighteenth century. The tea’s twenty-first, though, and these biscuits are my attempts at shortbread – heart attack on a plate, in other words.’

  Mark doubted if Fran realised how she was being organised, but, as she sat sipping the tea, colour returned to her face. What had gone wrong? He’d never known her react to a case like this.

  There was a sound from outside.

  ‘That’ll be Paula. I’ll swear she smells these biscuits from fifty feet.’

  ‘Not the biscuits so much as the coffee,’ Paula declared, coming in and smiling generally. She registered Fran’s wan appearance, no doubt, but did not mention it. ‘Have you come to check our security footage? We’ve got some good shots for you.’

  ‘Anyone you have reason to be suspicious of?’

  Fran laughed. ‘God, doesn’t he sound like a police officer! I hope you’ll forgive him.’

  ‘Not for having a preposition at the end of his sentence,’ Caffy said. ‘That’s a capital offence.’

  Paula said, ‘I’ll get the tapes, then you can make up your own mind.’ She said it as if
to prevent further discussion, Caffy shooting her a rather mutinous glance, he thought. ‘Are you coming up the scaffolding to see what’s been done?’

  ‘I’m not very good at heights,’ he admitted.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Fran declared.

  ‘Sorry, not in those shoes you won’t. But come another day properly shod, and I’ll take you up with pleasure.’

  Fran didn’t argue. He guessed she realised she’d pretty well met her match.

  Paula smiled dismissively and took a call on her mobile. ‘Very well. It sounds promising. I’m on my way.’ And was.

  Fran mouthed, ‘Ask Caffy?’

  But he shook his head gently. Cooperative the Pact team might be, but it seemed to him that Paula was very much the boss. In any case, Caffy was clearly anxious to leave too. And, whatever Fran would say later about it, painters and decorators were definitely entitled to their weekends.

  Fran would have been the first to admit that the briefing was brisk. It was, after all, one thing to tell her cynical colleagues that she thought that another colleague might have got it wrong, quite another to do it on the basis of something like intuition. So she had compromised by saying that she had some doubts, sufficient to wish to interview Maurice Barnes as soon as she could get Home Office permission. With no Pat at weekends to expedite such niceties, she did not foresee that happening before Wednesday. They wouldn’t get any forensic science results until early next week either, if then – she hadn’t stretched the budget to give them the very highest priority.

  Meanwhile, she wanted the house searched again for expensive shoes and underwear. She pointed to the photo of Janine on the mortuary slab. ‘As expensive and come hither as those. And equally tarty shoes. OK? Anything that doesn’t fit with her quiet, demure persona. I want someone down at the library now checking what books she borrowed and how many a week. She used a gym – find it and see if she had a permanent locker. Dan, has anyone checked whether Ken Roper’s diving gear was tested for Janine’s DNA?’