Strange Blood

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  ‘No,’ Foy said. ‘Just clothes. SOCOs took them all. There were towels in the airing cupboard down there.’ He pointed back down the landing. ‘They’ve all been taken away for forensic analysis.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find anything there either,’ Megan said quietly.

  Foy looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘Where’s the bathtowel?’ Megan asked simply.

  Foy shrugged. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen Tessa Ledbury was very house-proud. She had matching everything. The bathroom’s very small, I grant you, but I find it hard to believe there weren’t at least two towels in here…’

  ‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at.’ The lines on Foy’s forehead suddenly disappeared.

  ‘In fact, taking the towel might have served a dual purpose,’ Megan went on. ‘Not only does he have a trophy to fuel his fantasies, he also takes any forensic evidence from his own body away with him.’

  The sudden, loud ring of the doorbell made them both jump.

  ‘That’ll be Dave and Kate,’ Foy said. ‘Shall we talk in the conservatory?’

  ‘You actually want me to go and meet her?’ Delva stood open-mouthed in front of the news editor’s desk. ‘Des, are you winding me up?’

  ‘No,’ he said, unwrapping a sandwich and swallowing a huge mouthful before looking up at her, ‘It could be important. You’re off shift in a couple of hours anyway. Liz can do the lunchtime bully – you look a bit knackered, anyway.’

  ‘Well thanks a bunch,’ Delva muttered, ‘Nice to know I’m appreciated, I must say.’

  ‘Oh come on, Delva. It’s not the sort of thing many people could handle. I’m sending you because I know I can trust you to handle it right, okay?’

  ‘Hmm, I suppose so.’

  ‘One thing, though,’ Des took another bite. ‘Take someone with you, just in case it’s a nutter. Get them to arrive at the café at the same time as you but don’t acknowlege them in any way. All right?’

  Delva wandered back to her desk and sat for a while staring at the phone. Suddenly she had an idea.

  *

  Detective Sergeant Dave Todd was hanging on Megan’s every word, but D.S. Kate O’Leary was taking some convincing. She had argued fiercely when Megan had pointed out the shortcomings of the occult theory and although she had now started scribbling notes, the look on her face made it clear that she did not set much store by the profile.

  ‘We’re talking about a watcher,’ Megan was saying, ‘someone who picks out women who have particular significance for him, probably because of their physical appearance, and he’ll stalk them.’

  ‘What sort of age would he be?’ Dave Todd asked.

  ‘Probably mid-thirties. Possibly even older. We’re not dealing with a beginner here. I think whoever did this has killed before.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Kate O’Leary looked up, biting the end of her pencil.

  ‘Because of the length of time he spent with the victim after death,’ Megan said, ‘A novice killer would want to get away as quickly as possible. The things he did to the body post mortem represent a behavioural pattern that he has refined over time.’ She looked at each of them in turn, holding Kate O’Leary’s eye. ‘What you and the rest of the team should be looking for is a man with form for related sexual offences and probably for burglary as well.’

  ‘Why burglary?’ Dave Todd was writing as he spoke.

  ‘Because unless Tessa let him in, we’re talking about a man who breaks into someone’s house in broad daylight and is confident enough to hang around for at least half an hour after he’s killed. He’s going to be of above-average intelligence and experienced at getting into other people’s homes without drawing attention to himself. His forensic awareness and the fact that we’ve seen nothing of this nature in the Wolverhampton area before suggests that he might have done time. You should check all recent releases of sex offenders from prisons nationwide.’

  ‘Right,’ Foy leaned forward in his seat, rapping his pen on the table. ‘We want something on Crimewatch. Dave – get on to it, will you? Tell them were doing a reconstruction tomorrow morning.’ He turned to Kate O’Leary. ‘BTV and the Beeb need to get camera crews along to that, okay?’ Kate nodded. ‘Megan,’ he went on, without pausing for breath, ‘How d’you fancy keeping me company on prime time TV?’

  Megan stared at him in disbelief. The man’s even more of an egomaniac than I realised, she thought. He’s actually getting off on the idea of his face on national TV. He doesn’t really care about finding Tessa’s killer – all he cares about is what this case is going to do for him. She opened her mouth to say something but the sudden trill of her mobile phone cut her short. ‘Excuse me.’ Megan fished the phone out of her bag.

  ‘Megan?’ Something in the tone of Delva’s voice made Megan move quickly out of the room.

  ‘Yes?’ She was in the conservatory now, out of earshot of the police officers. ‘Delva, what is it?’

  ‘It’s about Tessa Ledbury. There’s something you should know.’

  *

  It was tempting to linger in the precinct. The people were like extras in a film, their voices blurring into a hum of nothing, their clothes making splashes of colour against the dull, grey buildings. But not all were extras. One would have a starring role. Get their name in the newspapers. Their face on TV. But not now. Time was running out. Duty called. And none of the extras were quite right. By this time tomorrow, though. By this time tomorrow the director’s cut would be made and another star would be born.

  Chapter 4

  Megan glanced at her watch as she fastened her seat belt. Half past eleven, Delva had said. She was not convinced that the rendezvous in the café was going to have any bearing on the murder inquiry but she planned to do a little research of her own on the way.

  The journey from Tessa Ledbury’s house to Pendleton shopping precinct took only twelve minutes. As Megan pulled into the carpark she caught sight of children running around in a school playground beyond the boundary fence. She hadn’t realised how close the school was to the shops. Reaching for her notebook she flipped through until she found the right page. There it was: Tessa seen at school 8.50 a.m. Megan walked to the school gates and made a note of the time. Then she crossed the road to the precinct, scanning the buildings.

  The Spring sunshine did nothing to soften the look of the place. The stark angles of the functional ’seventies architecture were broken here and there by unhealthy-looking shrubs. The odd shop sign aspired to something a little more artistic but the overall effect was depressing. Even the benches were made of concrete. This was a place you would visit for convenience, not from choice, Megan thought.

  Beyond the shops was a stretch of greyish-looking water with a few ducks pecking at its litter-strewn banks. The view beyond this artificial lake was obscured by landscaped hillocks, but she knew that Pendleton College was just a short distance away. Ceri had just started working there as a part-time lecturer and Megan wondered whether her sister ever came across to the precinct to shop. The thought of it made her stomach churn.

  On the near bank of the lake stood the medical centre, a squat building with walls the colour of salmon paste. The way in was through a set of double doors and Megan could smell the patients before she actually saw them. The waiting room was packed and the air was tainted with sweat and the odour of smokers. For a moment Megan was reminded of her father. He had smoked heavily right up to the day he died and even when he hadn’t had a cigarette she could always tell which room he was in from the smell which seemed to ooze out from under the door.

  In the stark light of the waiting room she was aware of half a dozen pairs of eyes looking her up and down. She glanced round and heads turned swiftly back to magazines or contemplation of the floor. Was this where Tessa’s killer had first spotted her?

  Megan checked the time. It had taken just five minutes to get from the school gates to the medical centre. Tessa would have been one of the f
irst there last Thursday morning. There couldn’t have been more than a handful of people in the waiting room then and it wouldn’t have taken more than a minute or two for the receptionist to find the prescription and hand it over. No, Megan thought, the killer would have needed longer to select Tessa, to observe her and decide to stalk her. If that had happened here it would have to have to have been on some other day.

  She pushed her way back through the doors, glad to be in the fresh air. The chemist’s shop was about a hundred yards away on the short side of the L-shaped shopping area. As Megan walked towards it she caught sight of a cross made of some white, crystalline substance which glinted in the sunlight. It was on the side of a building further along the lake and Megan realised it must be St. Paul’s, the church where Tessa had been a Sunday school teacher. She made a mental note to take a look at it later.

  There were several people waiting to collect prescriptions from the pharmacy and Megan timed a man who arrived just after she did. She wandered around the shop while she was waiting and after a couple of minutes found a display containing rubber gloves. There they were, second from the bottom: Marigold Ultra Thin, £1.99 for eight pairs. She unhooked a packet and took them to the till.

  Allowing another ten minutes for walking to the newsagent and choosing a card, Megan calculated that Tessa could have been back home as early as nine twenty-five. She wrote it down and checked the notes she had made about Tessa’s last phone call. Steve Foy hadn’t said where the Spelmans lived or what time Bob Spelman had picked up his learner driver. She thought about it for a moment. If the Spelmans went to the same church as Tessa there was a good chance they also lived on the Pendleton estate. It suddenly occurred to Megan that Tessa could have been murdered within a matter of minutes, left for a period of time and her corpse mutilated later. In which case Bob Spelman was going to have to come up with a pretty comprehensive account of his movements on the morning Tessa died.

  Megan sat down on one of the cold, hard benches. It was still too early to go to the café. She watched people pushing trolleys through the automatic doors of the supermarket in front of her. A brightly-coloured cardboard sign caught her eye. It offered free home delivery for goods totalling twenty-five pounds or more. Megan scribbled down the name of the store. If Tessa had ever used the home delivery service the drivers would have to be interviewed.

  Opposite the supermarket was a shop selling electrical goods. She wrote down ‘Television, Washing Machine, Dishwasher, Cooker’ and wracked her brains to think of any other large piece of equipment Tessa might have had delivered to the house.

  She glanced again at the people coming out of the supermarket. There were women pushing toddlers in buggies; elderly couples; middle-aged women; a gaggle of young girls who could be students. Megan frowned in concentration. What sort of women would be shopping alone between nine and ten on a weekday morning? It would be someone who wasn’t at work. Someone whose children were in school. Whose husband would probably be at work. Think like the killer. She bit her lip as the words flashed through her mind. Yes, she reflected, that period straight after nine o’clock was an ideal time to stalk a woman. To follow her to a home that would probably be empty.

  Then something else occurred to her, quite out of the blue. The fathers at the school. Someone who had dropped his children off at the same time as Tessa could have waited in the carpark and followed her home. She wondered if Steve Foy had considered that when he sent his team to question people at the school.

  She pulled out her mobile phone.

  ‘Hello, Steve, I’m still at Pendleton precinct…’

  His reaction to her suggestion was one of indignation. Checking the fathers had been his top priority once Richard Ledbury was out of the frame and yes, he was certain no one had been overlooked. He was a little less abrupt when she mentioned the supermarket delivery service and the electrical shop. He also accepted her point about the possibility of Tessa arriving home earlier than he had estimated.

  ‘Bob Spelman’s on his way to the station now,’ he said. ‘He does live near the Ledburys, actually, so I’ll make sure he’s got an alibi for the whole morning.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, ‘If I think of anything else I’ll call you.’

  ‘Okay,’ he replied. ‘If you can’t get hold of me try Dave Todd. He’s still at Tessa’s house – should be there most of the afternoon.’

  A few minutes later she put her phone and notebook away and headed for the café. It was the only eating place in the precinct and the owner had obviously gone to some trouble to soften the uninviting look of the shop unit that housed it. Red and white checked curtains on brass rails screened the windows to shoulder height and the name Pendleton Pantry was inscribed on the glass in gold lettering which made the plastic fascias of the shops on either side look very tacky by comparison.

  Before she reached the door Megan caught sight of Delva’s head. It was turned away from the window but Megan immediately recognised the intricately braided hairstyle. They had agreed not to acknowledge one another and Megan went straight to the self-service counter without looking round.

  She ordered a ham roll and a cappuccino and sat down two tables away from Delva. There were about a dozen other people in the café but it was a big room and not too noisy. Megan didn’t think she would have much trouble eavesdropping when Delva’s informer arrived.

  Delva had her head buried in a magazine. She was obviously hoping nobody would recognise her. Megan glanced at the other tables, wondering if the woman had already arrived and was checking to see if Delva was really alone. But the customers were all in pairs or groups, a mixture of pensioners, students and mothers with small children. There was no one that fitted the image Delva’s words had conjured in Megan’s mind.

  Megan wished she had bought a paper when she was in the newsagent’s. She studied the Toulouse Lautrec posters on the walls and read the baguette fillings listed on a blackboard above the servery. Two plump women who looked like sisters were chatting by the till. Behind them a man was slitting french sticks and smearing the insides with margarine. One of the women looked at Delva and turned to whisper something to the man. Megan noticed they were both wearing the same thin rubber gloves she had just bought at the chemist’s.

  At that moment the door opened and a tall, scrawny-looking woman with long, blonde hair made straight for Delva’s table. Megan bit into her ham roll and stared at the chequered tablecloth, listening. The coffee machine roared suddenly into life and for a few crucial seconds she was unable to hear a word. Stealing a quick glance she saw that the woman was showing Delva a photograph.

  ‘That’s her, see?’ The voice emerged, harsh and rasping as the noise of the coffee machine subsided. There was a strong Wolverhampton accent. ‘That was at a party a couple of years ago. See the bloke next to her?’ There was a pause. Megan resisted the temptation to look up again. ‘That’s Raven. He’s got his hand on her knee, look.’

  ‘Raven? Is that his name?’ Delva’s voice had its usual calm, controlled tone but there was a hint of disdain, giving the impression that she wasn’t taking the woman seriously.

  ‘I’m not telling you that unless you pay me,’ the woman hissed.

  ‘Can you prove they were having an affair?’ Delva sounded even more sceptical now.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Megan could hear the greed in the woman’s voice. ‘I’ve got other pictures. Much more graphic than this. But like I said, you’ve got to pay for ’em.’

  ‘Listen,’ Delva’s voice dropped and Megan strained to hear. ‘We don’t usually pay for stories. The most we ever offer is a fifty quid tip-off fee.’

  ‘Get lost! Do you know how much the News of the World would pay for something like this?’

  ‘I think any newspaper would tell you that you’re on very dodgy ground.’ Megan heard the threatening undertone in Delva’s voice. ‘What you’re doing is witholding information from the police. Don’t you realise that’s an offence?’

  There was a loud sc
raping noise and Megan glanced up from her contemplation of the tablecloth. The woman had stood up but her way was blocked by the man who had been buttering the baguettes.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, holding out a piece of paper and a pen to Delva, You’re the newsreader on BTV, aren’t you? Could I have your autograph?’

  The woman pushed past him and Megan saw a look of confusion on Delva’s face. As soon as the café door closed Megan was on her feet. Pushing the door open she gave Delva a brief nod. Delva’s face was still creased with anxiety but she had taken the pen and paper and was scribbling something.

  ‘Could you put it “to Nick”,’ Megan heard the man say as the door thudded shut.

  The precinct was full of shoppers but the woman’s mane of blonde hair made her easy to spot. Megan caught sight of her running past the chemist’s. She was heading for the carpark and Megan ran after her. If she could see what car the woman got into she could follow and find out where she lived. Suddenly Megan stopped. It was too risky. She might lose her. After a moment Megan set off again, walking briskly this time. She had had a better idea. All she had to do was get to the exit barrier. She was pretty sure the woman wouldn’t recognise her if she stood discreetly watching the cars leaving the carpark.

  Megan stood behind a large bush and peered inside each car that went past. After six or seven had gone through the barrier she began to panic. What if someone had driven up and whisked her off without going into the carpark? But even as the thought went through her mind she caught a flash of blonde hair at the wheel of a red Ford Fiesta. It was her. As the car slowed to get through the barrier she scribbled down the registration number.

  Ten minutes later Megan was sitting opposite Delva in the café with another cappuccino in her hand.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when that bloke came and asked for my autograph,’ Delva whispered, glancing over her shoulder towards the servery.

  ‘It’s all right, he’s gone,’ Megan said, ‘And actually, I think he did us a favour.’