The Missing Earring

by David Beard

  ‘I don’t follow.’ He was confused not just because he wasn’t privy to her story but because he wasn’t sure to which of the two victims she was referring. After some thought, he concluded it must have been Anna Turle as Winsom was recognisable anyway.

  ‘Johnnie is a leading light in the Freedom for Landowner’s Association; it takes up a lot of his time. On this particular weekend, like many others, he told me he was going to Newquay to a conference. I didn’t usually go with him; it’s boring. I decided instead to go to mum’s with the kids. However, just before I left, later on in the day, I had an anonymous phone call. The caller advised me to go to a hotel in Newquay where I would find something of interest to me.’

  ‘The caller, was it a man or a woman?’

  ‘Oh, a woman! It was pretty obvious what she was getting at. Well, I couldn’t let it rest, so I left the kids with a neighbour and went down.’ She stopped and her eyes filled with tears. She took a handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘Excuse me. It’s just….’ she searched for words, ‘….the betrayal, you know.’

  Smalacombe sat quietly as he had no intention of prompting her. He let the emotions take their course.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you the rest,’ she said and began to sob openly.

  ‘Perhaps it’s my turn to make you a cup of tea,’ he replied. ‘I expect there’s still some water in the kettle.’ He went into the kitchen and made another cup of tea for both of them. He deliberately took his time washing their cups, despite the fact that she had already rinsed them. To string it out as a long process proved a simple matter, as he couldn’t find the tea caddy, then the sugar. The milk was in the fridge and was the only expeditious part of the whole operation. When he finally returned, Mrs. Hempson seemed much more composed. She thanked him for his effort and blew her nose.

  ‘It was awful, Mr. Smalacombe, what more can I say?’

  ‘It would help if you could be a little more precise. Was the murdered woman involved?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Was it the first one, Anna Turle?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered and nodded her head simultaneously. ‘I only saw her that once but I will never forget. Never!’ Smalacombe leant back in his chair; he felt a pang of excitement, as it seemed his hunch was going to bear fruit. She wiped her nose a second time. It was clear that she was going to have considerable difficulty in relating what she saw, probably because it had had such a profound impact upon her life. He decided to be patient and he slowly sipped his tea. Eventually, she realised that her information may well be important and she braced herself to spell out to him what she saw.

  ‘I haven’t told anyone exactly what I saw, not even my solicitor, although I suppose I will have to before long.’ She bit her lip and looked away postponing the revelation for as long as she could. Once again, she was close to tears. She shook her head in despair. ‘I don’t think I can,’ she whispered.

  ‘Are you saying there was some sort of liaison with Anna and your husband at the hotel?’ Smalacombe felt bad about persisting but he was now sure that what she knew was relevant to the case.

  Mrs. Hempson nodded and held back the tears. ‘You must give me time, Mr. Smalacombe.’

  ‘I understand.’ He sat patiently and waited.

  Finally she cleared her throat and made a visible effort to compose herself. ‘Johnnie was handcuffed to the bed,’ she blurted out and the tears began to well up again. Her voice faltered. She marshalled herself once more, ‘She was strutting around the place in rubber. Well, a rubber mini skirt and thigh boots and a riding crop. She was naked from the waist up. It was horrible. Worst of all she had stuffed her knickers in his mouth.’ For the first time she looked up at her inquisitor.

  Telling someone was a catharsis and consequently she suddenly gained strength and composure. ‘Look, I’m not shocked about what people do, we all know what goes on, we all have our own fantasies. Sex isn’t just about procreation. It isn’t that, it’s just that it is pretty traumatic when it’s your husband who you have loved and, above all respected, for nigh on ten years. Then you begin to wonder,’ she paused to decide whether it was necessary to enlarge upon her own feelings but now there was no going back. It was time for it all to come out. ‘I mean, how come I didn’t know he had a penchant for these things?’

  ‘Some things are best left out of a marriage,’ he said sympathetically, thinking about his own relationship. ‘You get to know what you each enjoy and you leave it at that.’ He was confident she would finish her story. ‘So, what happened then?’

  ‘I walked out, well ran out actually, went home, packed what I needed and took the kids to mum. I haven’t seen Johnnie since.’

  ‘Has it not occurred to you that you were both set up?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking straight and it really wasn’t until the photo yesterday that I began to try and rationalize it. But at the time…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘In any event, he succumbed didn’t he; that’s what really matters. I mean, was that what he was thinking about when we were in bed together? It made me feel really soiled.’

  ‘Tell me about the phone call.’

  ‘Well, the first thing was, I am pretty sure it was from a phone box. You know how there is sometimes a delay to begin with whilst they put the money in. That should have raised my suspicions, I suppose. Also, I think she disguised her voice, the pitch perhaps, and it was muffled like she was talking with a gas mask on. But, she couldn’t disguise her diction. I’d recognise it again, I’m sure.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well it was very correct, quite posh, too. She was clearly very conscious about her elocution.’

  ‘Didn’t you smell a rat?’

  ‘I don’t know what I thought at the time. I mean, Newquay, hotels; I knew what she was getting at. I thought perhaps she had an axe to grind, too. In the end, so many things came to mind that I was totally confused by it all.’ She paused and looked ahead blankly. ‘When someone, just out of the blue rings you up to tell you your husband is in a hotel with someone else, the red mist just comes down and you can’t think beyond that.’ Now she had confided the worst she found no difficulty in providing the frankness Smalacombe was looking for. ‘It was definitely this Turle woman, but there are other things, now I am thinking more clearly; other things that just don’t add up.’

  ‘Can you be precise?’

  ‘Well, when I arrived at the hotel, the receptionist seemed to know who I was. It didn’t occur to me then.’ She waved her hand in front of her. ‘She called me by name and said they were expecting me in room two eleven. I mean, that’s strange isn’t it?’ Smalacombe nodded. ‘And if they were carrying out their sordid session, then why didn’t they lock the door?’

  ‘You walked straight in on them?’

  ‘Exactly! I tried the door and I realised it wasn’t locked, so I just barged in. Sometimes,’ she looked at Smalacombe with sadness in her eyes, ‘sometimes I wish I had just walked away. What you don’t know....’ she gave a little sniff. ‘That’s about all I can tell you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘There are just two more things. Do you know the inhabitants of Longtor very well?’

  ‘Not at all! We lived near Ashburton and I had no contacts at Longtor. The eldest went to our local school; we went to church at Leusdon. Johnnie was out there all of the time, he has a farm and land there, and forestry interests, but I never went.’

  ‘And lastly, something I have to ask everyone I interview, where were you on the night that Anna Turle died?’

  ‘I was here, Mr. Smalacombe, looking after the kids,’ she paused for a moment, ‘and no, I saw no one and I have no one to corroborate it either.’

  ‘That’s fine! Now, will you be in for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Yes, except when I fetch the kids from school.’

  ‘I may well come back to see you later. If not, it will be tomorrow morning for definite.’ With that he made his excuses and left. He sat in the car and called the station. He gav
e precise instructions to Joy who was operating the switchboard. He finished by saying, ‘And make sure you ring before two fifteen.’

  He returned to his desk and began to study the mountain of evidence that was now accumulating. The coordination of it had been handicapped as DC Sheldon had gone down with the flu and was still off. To Smalacombe’s relief, Sheldon was due back on Thursday and hopefully he would be able to catch up on the backlog.

  He strolled down to the canteen for midday refreshment and when he walked back into the reception area he looked across to Joy who called him over. ‘All done,’ she said, and handed him a small package.

  He turned and immediately went back to Mrs. Hempson.

  ‘My, that was quick,’ she said.

  ‘I know! You see, I had forgotten to bring something I wanted you to hear.’ He put a recorder on the coffee table and they listened. It was a conversation between the operator and a woman. Joy had taken great care not to mention her correspondent’s name.

  ‘Do you recognise the voice?’

  ‘Yes. Most definitely! It’s the diction isn’t it? I remember she said to me, ‘it will be of interest to you.’ She pronounced the t at the end of interest and again at the beginning of to’. It didn’t just roll into one like most of us would say. It’s the same thing here, on this tape, have you noticed?’

  ‘Yes, I have. Well, that’s brilliant, Mrs. Hempson and pardon me if I say that may well be an understatement.’ He felt an overwhelming urge to hug this unhappy lady to confirm his protective instincts but knew only too well it would be misconstrued. Instead he held out his hand, which she grasped tightly. ‘I wish you well and I hope things sorts themselves out for you,’ he said with sincerity. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  Smalacombe looked at his watch. He would return to the incident room and go through the statements again, have a meeting with the team before keeping his promise to his wife. Tiley was already there poring over the information and comparing the notes they had so far accumulated. Smalacombe asked him over and they sat together to assemble what knowledge they now had into some sort of order.

  Once Smalacombe had explained to Tiley his conversation with Mrs. Hempson he moved the conversation forward. ‘I’ve come to one conclusion, Clive,’ Smalacombe began. ‘Whoever killed Anna Turle didn’t kill Rebecca Winsom.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ asked Tiley more as a prompt rather than a probe because he too had arrived at the same possibility.

  ‘Because, Winsom killed Turle, with the aid of her mother. Just think about it. By the old lady’s admission they were the last people to see her alive. There is no corroboration that Winsom took her to Newton Station. The old lady’s explanation about the time the taxi driver was waiting was dodgy to say the least. The girl probably did have a bath though and that’s where it was done.’

  ‘Yea, they had motive too, although unfortunately we don’t have enough to prove it yet.’

  ‘You mean they set Hempson up to destroy him, as retribution for the land dispute?’

  ‘Exactly! I reckon Turle charged her for the episode with Hempson, that’s where the ten grand comes in. Then, not satisfied with that, she decides to blackmail her over it or possibly over the rape, or both.’ Tiley leant back with a look of satisfaction on his face.

  ‘Revenge: pure and sweet! He had cost them a small fortune over the boundary dispute and more to the point, he won. That was what really stuck in the craw, not so much the money, and Winsom never forgave him. She wanted him screwed in more ways than one.’

  Tiley smiled. ‘So, what else did you get from Mrs. H.?’

  ‘Cooper made the phone call.’

  ‘It fits! Also, so does the dumping of the body. Two women, one not very strong, with intentions to hide it, found it was too heavy and just had to leave it before they arrived at their destination. But how did they do it, Dexter?’

  ‘I wish I knew. I don’t think Helen Mirren will support a search warrant without more evidence. I’d like to send the SOCO into the cottage but again, we need just something else to make it stick. Frankly, it’s still all conjecture and there’s no murder weapon yet.’

  ‘There is nothing on the premises of Longtor Manor, that’s for sure. Every blade of grass and stick of furniture has been turned over twice at least.’

  ‘Do you think the weapon for Anna’s murder will be found in the cottage?’

  ‘I don’t think anything in these cases as you well know. I expect the old lady has covered her tracks by now.’

  ‘Then, we’ll just have to send SOCO and forensics in. You’ll just have to put on the old charm and persuade the super. I reckon the phone call is enough. We’ve got bags of proof that the old lady has been lying.’

  ‘Enough of this bloody old, she’s of my generation and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ answered Tiley, tempting fate.

  ‘You don’t half push your luck sometimes.’

  Freda was pleasantly surprised when Dexter turned up just before five-thirty and he bustled her out of the house. Soon, they were travelling to east Devon through rolling countryside with fields of all shapes and sizes painted in a multitude of greens and yellows. On one ridge, fields of linseed, ripening to pale lavender mingled with others covered in the bright yellow of rapeseed. High on a hill was a herd of Red Devon cattle, the colour of rich burnt sienna, reminiscent of the sandstone cliffs below the coastal path he and Freda would be strolling on later in the evening. There were smatterings of copses to break up the skyline, all of which would disappear as they passed through avenues of oak and elm, heavy with leaf and arched across the road on either side like fingers woven hand to hand.

  The grandchildren were waiting on the doorstep, as the road had been under constant surveillance from the front room window for at least an hour until the car had been seen driving towards them. Joshua was already in his pyjamas and Alison, so grown up at seven, remained in her day clothes, certain she would be able to stay up with adults right up to the moment her grandparents would leave.

  Freda, like all good grandmothers, had been to the shops in the morning to buy armfuls of goodies, which she proceeded to dish out before Laura had time to usher them all into the house with remonstrations of ‘Oh you shouldn’t have, Mum,’ and ‘Did you say, thank you, Grandma,’ properly?’

  Like Mrs Hempson’s home, this housed a young family and the disorder was evident; toys all over the front room floor. The TV played loudly to no one in particular and an ironing board, with two baskets of washing, was fixed behind the settee in the hope that in quieter moments the task could be achieved whilst catching Coronation Street. Dexter removed some completed laundry from an easy chair and sat down. In the kitchen Laura was already making cups of tea and Freda was being filled in with the latest family details. Laura’s husband Dan, a police constable, was away at work.

  Dexter began to take interest in the early evening news but Joshua decided to show his granddad how the remote control worked. He scrambled on his knee and began to flick through the channels at random.

  ‘Look, Grandpa,’ he said and as soon as Dexter did look so he changed the channel and giggled loudly. Dexter decided there was an opportunity for some education here. ‘I want to see channel one Josh, can you do that? Oh that’s good, now what about four,’ and so it went on.

  Freda and her daughter came back into the room with Alison trailing behind with the biscuit barrel. Much to Joshua’s annoyance his mother switched off the television. ‘I want to talk to Grandma and Grandpa,’ she explained.

  ‘Mummy has got a new job,’ Alison piped up and Laura butted in quickly. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really, just part time, two hours a day. I’m….’

  Alison interrupted her, ‘Don’t tell them, Mum, they’ve got to guess.’ As Dexter saw the paraphernalia in the hallway when they arrived he was well aware what Laura had taken on but he was not going to spoil the fun. Even in the family environment he remained the observant detective.
/>   ‘She’s a coal miner,’ he said.

  ‘That’s just silly Grandpa. Grandma it’s your turn.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Freda just as keen to play along. ‘She’s working in the school library.’

  ‘Noooo,’ said Alison spinning the word out for all she was worth. ‘Shall I give you a clue?’

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ they answered in unison. Alison disappeared for some time and Joshua anticipated that his mother was going to confide to her parents in her daughter’s absence. ‘You’ve not to say Mummy, it’s not fair and I shall tell Alison if you do,’ he said with all the force a four year old could muster. Laura gave him a big hug and reassured him she would not renege on the agreement.

  Alison struggled back into the room wearing her mother’s uniform. The boots were in danger of facing the same way whatever direction she took and the bright yellow plastic raincoat dragged on the floor all around her. On her head she wore a peaked cap that not even her ears could keep in place so she was holding her head up desperately trying to peer out from beneath it. In her hand was a road safety lollipop swaying around and likely to cause considerable damage to anything or anyone in its vicinity.

  ‘Oh, she is working in the library then,’ said Granddad.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ both grandchildren cried out in unison.

  ‘She’s a lollipop lady,’ Joshua shouted as loud as he could and jumped up and down with excitement.

  ‘So she is,’ said Freda.

  ‘For goodness sake put that lollipop down Alison before you do some damage with it,’ said a worried mother.

  Sometime later, Freda and Dexter were strolling on the cliff top along the coastal path to the west of Sidmouth. The sun was burning red just above the horizon and the beaches below were now in the deep shade of late evening. Fishing smacks were returning with a furious army of gulls in their wake and the evening’s redness was reflected in the sea around them. A buzzard was soaring high above the last extremities of land, expertly navigating the thermals. Freda put her arm in Dexter’s and breathed in the fresh air.