A Fatal Obsession

by Faith Martin

  Even if the worst came to the worst, and former PC Gordon faced some minor corruption charges, the chances were good that the family would get to keep their nice detached house. And even if he lost his police pension, she suspected the Fleet-Wrights would still see him right.

  No, all in all, they’d remain better off than most – certainly better off than her own parents. No, her conscience was clear, Trudy reassured herself.

  She was still trying to convince herself of this when she walked into the station house. There, the desk sergeant lay in wait for her. And what he had to tell her promptly made her forget all about Glenda Gordon.

  ‘Here, WPC Loveday.’ Phil Monroe called her over the moment she stepped through the door. He was one of the few coppers who didn’t tease her about her surname, calling her ‘the lovely Loveday’ (or other variations on the theme) behind her back, as that clown Rodney Broadstairs was wont to do.

  ‘I’ve remembered where I heard that name before – you know, the one you and the old vulture are so interested in.’

  Trudy quickly hustled over to him. ‘Oh? Beatrice Fleet-Wright, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one. I knew I’d heard it before, so I looked up me old notes,’ Monroe said.

  All coppers kept their notebooks safe, meticulously up-to-date, and in chronological order, so they could be consulted whenever needed – which could sometimes be years down the line. You certainly needed them in good order when you had to testify in court. It was something that was drilled into you in training. So Trudy had no doubts that the desk sergeant’s information would be accurate and reliable.

  ‘And it turns out it was in the same summer she had all that trouble with her daughter,’ Monroe said, flipping through his notebook. ‘There was a young lad, Jack Braine, worked out of Boots, the chemist. Delivered prescriptions by bike. One day, he got knocked off and robbed.’

  Trudy stared at Monroe avidly. ‘Robbed of money, or the drug prescriptions he was delivering?’

  ‘Both. The delivery boy didn’t see much of what happened – one moment he was biking up the Broad, next he was flying over the handlebars and someone was making off with his bags. But a passer-by that witnessed the whole thing came up with a good description of the perpetrator. And that’s where your Mrs F-W comes into it.’

  Trudy felt her jaw drop. ‘What! Don’t tell me the witness described her?’ What on earth was a highly respectable, middle-aged, wealthy lady doing robbing…

  ‘Nah, ’course not!’ the desk sergeant said scornfully. ‘Have some sense, young ’un!’

  Trudy blushed and hung her head. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’

  ‘Nah, the witness described some young chap or other that he thought he recognised. I don’t have many details, since I wasn’t doing the follow-up on it. Apparently, the witness thought he knew this chap slightly, and thought he was the one doing the robbery. Only saw him side-featured, though, so he wasn’t sure. Anyway, the suspect was brought in but it turned out it wasn’t him and that the witness was wrong after all. Well, they often are, aren’t they?’

  Trudy nodded, knowing this was a sad fact. Ask any two members of the public who’d witnessed the same event to describe a perpetrator, and the villain could be both fat and thin, dark and fair, tall and short, and wearing a black or red shirt.

  ‘Anyway,’ Monroe swept on, ‘this bloke the witness fingered turned out to have a solid-gold alibi – from a very respectable member of the community who could place him elsewhere at the time – and so that was that.’

  Trudy felt herself go hot then cold. ‘Mrs Fleet-Wright?’

  Monroe grinned. ‘Give the girl a goldfish in a bag! Yup.’

  ‘Can you give me the case-file number?’ Trudy asked.

  ‘Sure. Not that there’ll be much in it. The case never got solved, that I can remember. I daresay the little sod that did it sold the drugs and spent all the money on fags and booze.’

  He rattled off the case-file number, and Trudy quickly jotted it down in her own notebook. ‘This is great! I’ll head down to Records now.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Monroe said with a grin. ‘The old vulture phoned. He wants you down at his office sharpish.’

  Trudy groaned. He probably wanted to know how her interview with Glenda had gone. ‘Okay,’ she sighed.

  Even though she was desperate to find the file and learn what it was all about, it would just have to wait for a bit.

  It simply didn’t do to keep Dr Ryder waiting!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘Take a look at these photographs and tell me what you see,’ Clement said abruptly.

  They were sitting in his office, and a mild grey wind was once more throwing rain at the draughty windows. A fire was again roaring in the fireplace, and in the outer office, Trudy could hear the coroner’s secretary busily tapping away on her Remington typewriter. It was all beginning to feel rather cosy and familiar. And she realised with a pang that she was going to miss all of this, once the case was solved and DI Jennings put her back on normal duties. It was, perhaps, a measure of just how much she had come to respect Dr Ryder that it didn’t even occur to her now that they wouldn’t get to the truth of how Gisela Fleet-Wright had come to die.

  She reached forward and took the sheaf of black-and-white photographs from him. There weren’t that many, and they showed various scenes of what was obviously a young woman’s bedroom.

  ‘Gisela’s room?’ she hazarded.

  ‘Yes. The police photographer took them after photographing the body in situ.’

  Trudy noticed that none of the photographs he’d given her showed the dead girl on her bed, and she was about to demand he hand those over too, when something stopped her.

  Did she really need to see them?

  Clement, watching the play of emotion on her face, said brusquely, ‘I want to get another perspective on them – specifically, another young woman’s point of view. Try not to look at them as a police officer so much as you would as yourself. Does that make sense? I’ve been studying them off and on over the years, but I’m not sure I’m seeing everything there is to see, because I don’t have the mind of a young woman around Gisela’s age.’

  Trudy smiled. ‘No,’ she said succinctly. He certainly didn’t! But she understood his point, so she settled down and began to study the photographs carefully.

  The first thing that struck her was the size of the room – she could have fitted her own tiny bedroom, with its modest single bed, four times over into the bedroom depicted in the photographs. Gisela’s bed had been large, and double – and she’d also had access to two large wardrobes and a dressing table, complete with a pretty, oval-shaped mirror. And still there had been room left over for a couple of padded chairs and plenty of space to walk between them, over what looked like a sumptuous carpet.

  On the dressing table were five bottles of expensive-looking scent, a box of tissues, and a make-up bag that looked crammed full with the finest of cosmetics. She would bet one of the lipsticks alone would cost as much as five shillings. On her wages, that would be…

  Then she told herself to stop being envious of what the other girl had had, and to start looking beyond all that. After all, the girl who had owned all these lovely things was dead and gone. Chastened by the thought, she took a long, deep breath.

  Focus, Trudy! Was there anything suspicious in these photographs?

  Carefully, she splayed them out in front of her on the coroner’s desk, her mind darting here and there, looking for anything odd or out of place. She tried to put herself into the mind of Gisela Fleet-Wright.

  More and more, Trudy found herself concentrating on the pretty pie-crust table that was positioned beside her bed. On it had been a crystal jug and matching crystal-cut glass – probably full of water, in case she got thirsty. Or, more likely, for use when she was taking all her medication. There was a vase of pretty freesias. Three bottles of pills were set neatly on a small silver tray. A hairbrush, another box of tissues, and what looked li
ke a slender, jewel-encrusted, silver lady’s watch. Had she taken it off when she’d lain down to sleep – a sleep from which she was destined never to awaken?

  Shaking off the maudlin thought, Trudy frowned. ‘It’s all so very tidy, isn’t it?’ she said at last. ‘I mean, from all we’ve heard about Gisela, she seemed to be an emotional mess. I suppose I expected her personal space to be as messy. But it’s not. Even the vase of freesias looks perfect – as if they’d just been arranged.’

  Clement reached for a photograph and studied it thoughtfully. ‘Hmmm. Anything else?’

  Trudy shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. But I’d have expected to see her diary somewhere on the scene. We know from her friends that she kept one.’

  Clement’s impressive silver head turned her way sharply. ‘Do you keep one?’ he asked curiously.

  Trudy blushed, then jutted out her chin. ‘Yes. One that locks.’

  ‘And you think most girls would keep one?’

  Trudy shrugged again. ‘I think so. I know all my friends do.’

  ‘There was no record of Gisela’s diary being found in the police files?’ he demanded. If any evidence had been kept back…

  ‘No,’ Trudy said at once. ‘There was no record of a diary being found at the scene. And the exhibits officer wouldn’t have missed it. At the time, nobody thought to ask Gisela’s friends if she’d kept a diary. Why would they? It isn’t something we thought to ask her mother about either, was it? But I’d bet Beatrice Fleet-Wright would have known that Gisela had kept one. It couldn’t have been much of a secret if her friends knew.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she would,’ the coroner agreed wryly.

  ‘When are we going back to speak to Mr Fleet-Wright?’ she asked thoughtfully. ‘By all accounts, he and his daughter were close. He might have some insights for us.’

  Clement shook his head. ‘He might well do. But I doubt he’d be willing to talk to us about them. I imagine he’d rather the whole business be left in the past and forgotten. Don’t forget – we promised your boss we’d try to be discreet in our inquiries, and if we go to Reginald, he’s bound to kick up a fuss. Believe me – wealthy men with a sense of self-importance like to be heard.’

  Diplomatically, Trudy said nothing, although her eyes danced as she looked at him mutely.

  For a moment, all was silent in the room. Then Clement sighed and tapped the photographs back into a neat pile. ‘All right. You’ve given me some food for thought with these.’ He waved them briefly in the air. ‘Now suppose you tell me what’s got you so excited?’

  For a moment, Trudy stared at him blankly.

  ‘When you first came in, you were clearly bubbling with some news?’

  ‘Oh! Yes! The desk sergeant!’

  Quickly, Trudy filled him in on Phil Monroe’s unexpected revelation, and to her relief he seemed to share her excitement. He was certainly quick to agree that her next course of action should be to hunt down the file at once and learn all the details she could. Naturally, she was to make copious notes and come back with the results as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Clive Greaves was a worried man.

  He knew the police were watching him, and after being pulled in out of the blue as he had been, and interviewed by that canny sod, DI Jennnings, he’d quickly come to realise they suspected him of doing something really major.

  But it had taken him a little while to figure out what it was.

  Although he’d done his fair share of bending the rules (mostly selling rabbits and pheasants on the side to local butchers), apart from the odd pub brawl, Clive had never done anything that had brought him – seriously – to the attention of the men in blue.

  Until now, that is. As he walked across a ploughed field to set up some netting traps to catch some wood pigeons for the pot (as well as to sell on to the cook at a nearby pub for her famous pigeon pie), he wondered how many pairs of eyes were watching him.

  He’d spotted a pale-blue-and-white police panda car outside his local pub just the other night. So how much longer would it be before his neighbours started noticing it too? Or his landlady for that matter? The last thing he needed was to get kicked out of his room and have to try and find somewhere else local to rent.

  When he’d taken the job as gamekeeper on, he’d hoped it might come with a tied cottage, but the estate owner wouldn’t stretch to that. A stockbroker from the city, he only wanted someone to make sure there would be enough birds to shoot six or seven times a year, when he invited his cronies to come up to his ‘shooting lodge’ to form a party.

  Playing the part of Lord Bountiful wasn’t on the agenda.

  Now Clive wondered how long it would be before he found out that his gamekeeper had come ‘to the attention of the police’ and gave him the boot. With his scarred face, it had always been a struggle finding employment –which was why his current position suited him so well. He was out in the fields nearly all day, where nobody had to look at him. And the wildlife didn’t care what he looked like.

  Cursing DI Jennings under his breath – and cursing Sir Marcus Deering even more – Clive began competently setting out the netting and weights. Finally, he secured the small explosive charge and timer that would detonate later on and propel the net about twenty-five feet over the area of newly sown winter wheat, when the pigeons had come down to feed.

  His scarred face scanned the open field thoughtfully. With a bit of luck he could get up to fifty pigeons a pop. If he only sold them at sixpence a bird, he’d be on to a nice little earner.

  He didn’t know it, but PC Rodney Broadstairs, watching him from the cover of a small copse of trees, was making an excited note of his use of explosives in his official police notebook.

  Back in his office, Clement Ryder studied the photographs for some minutes after Trudy had left. Then he nodded. Yes, everything did look rather tidy now he thought about it. Maybe even a bit staged? Of course, it could be that, in spite of what you might expect, Gisela Fleet-Wright had just been a tidy girl. But he didn’t think so.

  If Trudy thought there should have been a diary, he was inclined to trust her judgement. He smiled as he considered the young WPC, who was shaping up nicely. What a pity she’d soon have to go back to doing dead-end duties for that idiot Jennings.

  Shaking off the thought, he turned his mind back to the conundrum of the dead girl. It made sense, given what they knew of Gisela’s personality, that she’d keep a written record of her doings. Drama had clearly been meat and drink to her and, as she’d been studying English, the written word would have been her obvious medium, enabling her to pour out her emotions and reinforcing her self-image. And of course now it had been confirmed, from questioning her friends more thoroughly, that she had been a keen recorder of her life and emotions.

  So why hadn’t the diary ever turned up?

  As he reached for the photograph showing her bedside table, his hand began to shake. He glared at the evidence of this latest tremor in distaste and got up to walk to the window, stuffing his hands firmly into his trouser pockets.

  But out of sight was hardly out of mind.

  As a doctor he knew only too well that, as the disease progressed, things would gradually worsen. His movements would become slower – or, as his esteemed colleagues would describe it, he would begin to show signs of bradykinesia. His steps would become shorter and shorter as he walked. He might even begin to drag his feet.

  He could expect more and more moments of stiffness. In fact, his muscles could become stiff and downright painful.

  But he wasn’t there yet. Not by a long chalk! So far, nobody suspected a thing, and while that held true, he could and would carry on working.

  With that in mind, he returned to the desk, took a small measure of brandy from a slender hip flask he kept concealed in his jacket pocket, and then gathered up the photographs, intending to slip them back inside their large, brown envelope.

  Perhaps because he was now looking at them with fresh
eyes, as his gaze fell on the topmost photograph he noticed there was something slightly odd about the arrangement of articles on the table. That there seemed to be a significant void on the side of the table nearest the bed. The vase of flowers was centred at the back, near the wall and out of the way, which made sense – you didn’t want to accidentally knock it over while getting into bed. The tray was next to it, again flush to the wall. The hairbrush had been pushed to the far left-hand side.

  Which left a space in the middle, where it looked as if something should have rested. A square-ish space, of just the right proportions to fit in a book of some kind. And yes, he was sure there was a square-shaped mark in the very slight layer of dust, just barely visible. As if a book-shaped object was missing. Which, given the fact that Gisela had been reading English at the time, wouldn’t have been surprising.

  But perhaps it hadn’t been a volume of poetry or a book by Hardy that had rested there, but a diary?

  Trudy went straight back to the station house and down into Records, her heart rate accelerating in anticipation. Luckily, the main offices were all but empty, the majority of her colleagues no doubt having being assigned to ensure that Anthony Deering and the rest of his family were safe, or out following their main suspect, or otherwise working elsewhere on the McGillicuddy murder inquiry.

  But, for once, Trudy didn’t feel envious at being left out and passed over for such interesting duties.

  With all her experience in admin, it didn’t take her long to find the file on Phil Monroe’s case of petty larceny. Although a delivery boy getting knocked off his bike and robbed didn’t rate high on the list of crime statistics, the fact that the victim had been delivering drugs from a chemist had ensured it was thoroughly investigated.

  The filing cabinet for 1955 was towards the back of the Records Office, and after filling in the forms and chatting to the clerk for a few minutes, she was quickly jotting down all the relevant details from the dusty file.

  The chemist’s lad, Jack Braine, turned out to be not so much of a lad, being at the time of robbery already thirty-five years of age. Reading between the lines, she got the impression that Mr Braine, who was the brother of the chief pharmacist’s wife, wasn’t the brightest button in the box, but had worked as a delivery boy for them for some years. According to the investigating officer, the delivery boy had been considered trustworthy and reliable, and had been popular with his customers. Most of whom, she noted, were the elderly or infirm, and thus couldn’t get to the pharmacy themselves.