In Bitter Chill

by Sarah Ward

  She flicked through the file again. According to her daughter, Penny belonged to a book group and had occasionally attended a local history society. It was here that Connie needed to start. The local history group was at least official; it met at the local library once a month and, given that it had a healthy membership of around eighty, should at least provide some insight into Mrs Lander’s personality.

  Connie drove to Bampton library and stopped outside to admire the Victorian Gothic building. Tall pointed windows were filled with small panes of glass that needed a clean. Perhaps the council’s budget didn’t stretch to a regular window cleaner. Despite its gloomy lines and decrepit state it had a comforting solidity about it. This made Connie feel better and she greeted the bouncy librarian with some of her own cheeriness.

  The librarian was a large woman wearing a long shiny stretchy skirt and an oversized jumper with horizontal stripes that did nothing to hide her prominent cleavage. She looked Connie up and down and, feeling intimidated, Connie reached inside her bag and showed her police identification.

  ‘I’m Sydney Markham, the head librarian here. Is it to do with Rachel Jones?’ she asked, and Connie stared at her.

  ‘Rachel Jones? Well, no,’ she said recovering. ‘Why do you ask about Rachel Jones?’

  Sydney’s voice was slightly breathless. ‘She was here last night giving a talk to the local history society. And very interesting it was as well. A history of women’s occupations in Bampton.’

  ‘Last night? Was this a scheduled visit?’

  ‘Oh yes. Been in the diary for months. Rachel comes here about once or twice a year to help with the genealogy side of things. But she’s also a mine of information about the general history of Bampton, the former uses of buildings, what streets certain families used to live on. That sort of thing. So she usually talks about something to do with that.’

  ‘Anything out of the ordinary happen?’ asked Connie.

  ‘Only that she had no idea that the murdered woman was Penny Lander when she turned up. I had to tell her. I can assure you it was a complete shock. She looked like she was rooted to the ground when I told her.’

  ‘You think she was genuinely surprised.’

  ‘Surprised? She looked absolutely gobsmacked. I felt really sorry for her that she then had to go up and give a talk in front of all those people.’

  ‘And was she OK?’

  ‘She was brilliant. A really interesting talk and everyone asked really nice questions, to keep the conversation going without referring to Mrs Lander.’

  ‘But she was a member of the group, wasn’t she? I mean, didn’t she attend your meetings?’

  ‘I think she might have been a member. I don’t really know. There will be a list somewhere. You need to speak to the group’s president, Richard Weiss. We just host the meetings, and I’m not always working the nights they’re held. Of course, there are quite a few people who join for access to the records, or just out of curiosity, but don’t come to the sessions. She might have been one of those if she was a member.’

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘She taught both my kids. They adored her, especially William, the youngest, who had a stutter when he was little. She was wonderful; she’d just sit and wait until he got it out. They didn’t offer speech therapists in those days, you just had to hope your child got a decent teacher, and fortunately we struck gold with Penny.’

  ‘And you don’t know why she might have joined the local history society? I mean, she wasn’t from here originally.’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, she wasn’t, was she? But that’s nothing strange. Plenty of people join to find out the history of their house or street. Or just out of interest. You don’t have to be Bampton born and bred to be a member. You really do need to talk to Richard Weiss. He has the memory of an elephant and nothing much gets past him.’

  ‘You got his address?’ Connie saw the expression on the librarian’s face. ‘This is official, I’m afraid.’

  *

  Connie hadn’t had many expectations in relation to Richard Weiss, but she was nevertheless surprised by his outright hostility when he answered the door.

  ‘I’m not sure why you’re asking me. I met Penny Lander twice, maximum. There must be friends who knew her better than me.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ replied Connie, feeling her hackles rise, ‘but as I haven’t been able to find anyone yet, you’re my first port of call.’

  He was a good-looking man. He had pale blonde hair that was closely cropped at the sides and parted at the top. He had on mustard corduroy trousers and a dark burgundy knitted jumper. His slight pot belly failed to detract from his charm. In fact, his bulk was part of his attraction. When she called at his house, he could hardly leave her out in the cold but had invited her only into the hallway of his tall Victorian terrace. Connie could hear someone pottering around in the kitchen; his wife, presumably.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about her? Why she joined the society, for instance.’

  Richard sighed and drew his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t think she ever said. I don’t think she was particularly into the far past of Bampton. There are Iron Age settlements up Wickham Hill. The two lectures she actually came along to were to do with Bampton’s more recent history.’

  Connie looked at him. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Positive, because I took a look this morning at my register. It’s nothing fancy. I pass a notebook around at every meeting and I ask people to sign their names. It just helps me keep an eye on attendance. When I heard that she’d died, I was curious enough to take a look at what she’d been interested in. Penny Lander came to two meetings last year. The first was a talk, by myself actually, on illegitimacy and adoption before 1976. That was when children were first able to trace their birth parents.’

  ‘Illegitimacy and adoption,’ repeated Connie. ‘Do the two usually go together?’

  Richard leaned back against the wall. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Did she ask any questions?’

  ‘Not that I can remember.’

  ‘OK. And the second lecture?’

  A shadow crossed the man’s face. ‘A history of Bampton cottage hospital. Given by our resident genealogist Rachel Jones. The hospital was shut down in 1993 but, given that so many of Bampton’s residents passed through it, I thought it would make an interesting subject. I approached Rachel because I knew she would know about patient records, admin that sort of thing and she gave a very informative talk.’

  ‘And were there any questions?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  The both turned round as the kitchen door opened and Rachel Jones stood on the threshold with a cup in her hand, a mirror of the photograph that she’d posted on her website.

  ‘She did ask a question. She wanted to know about legacy arrangements for the more recent records.’

  ‘Legacy arrangements?’ asked Connie, containing her discomposure at Rachel Jones’s appearance. She looked perfectly calm. ‘You mean wills?’

  ‘No, she meant legacy in terms of who was now looking after the records now the hospital had shut. Not the stuff in the public records but doctors’ notes and so on.’

  ‘And how did you answer?’

  ‘I didn’t really know but my guess was that any current patient records would have been transferred to the new hospital – St Crispin’s.’

  ‘Any idea why she asked the question?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘No idea. It seemed a bit odd to come to a history society and ask about more recent things, but I didn’t give it much thought, to be honest.’

  ‘Was she happy with the answer?’

  Rachel leaned her hip against the door jamb. Connie wondered what she was doing here.

  ‘I think she was more interested in the older stuff. She didn’t mention a decade but I got the impression she wanted to know about records that wouldn’t be considered current.’

  ‘And what happened to them?’

 
‘A lot of it has been archived at the records office in Bampton. So I suggested she try there. But more recent, say the 1960s, I’ve no idea if those records are available to the public. Given that people will be still alive, I doubt it is in the public domain.’

  ‘So, was she happy with the answer?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. I think so. I went up to her afterwards and checked if there was anything I could help her with. But she didn’t want to talk to me really. She wanted to keep her distance, I think. It’s not always like that. Sometimes people are happy to talk on a one-to-one basis but shy away from asking questions from the floor. It seemed to be the opposite with Mrs Lander. She gave nothing away when I questioned her.’

  ‘You remember her from school, then?’

  Rachel looked at her feet and Connie noticed she was wearing thick winter socks, the type you would wear with walking boots.

  ‘I remember her. Not well, but I do remember her from St Paul’s.’

  ‘And she said nothing to you about your kidnapping.’

  Rachel’s eyes stayed to her floor. She shook her head.

  ‘There was nothing to say, was there?’

  Finally, she looked up at Connie and said faintly, ‘How did she die? Mrs Lander? What happened?’

  Chapter 26

  Rachel was late for her ten o’clock appointment. As her new client lived in the High Oaks area of Bampton, it was easier to walk than take her car and look for a parking space. High Oaks was the town’s most affluent area: tall Victorian detached houses that came with a hefty price tag. The fact that Richard lived only a few streets away had never struck Rachel before, but now, as she puffed along the icy pavement trying to pretend she was doing a power walk rather than a clumsy half-run to avoid being late, she realised how little she knew about the Weiss family. If Richard could afford his tall graceful terrace then he must be fairly well off. His father, Daniel, had retired, so perhaps he had passed some of his savings on to his son.

  The morning hadn’t turned out as she had expected. The detective had been a surprise for a start. There had been no shuffling of feet and avoiding eye contact that she remembered from 1978. Ever since that afternoon, she’d had a poor view of female coppers. Most were either ineffectual or, worse, worthy. They stood over you making clucking noises with no real understanding of what it was like to feel the fear of captivity. Connie, as she had introduced herself, appeared competent. She was tiny. A thin, childlike body dressed head to toe in black clothes. But her eyes held something that Rachel could identify with. Wariness and caution. She decided to file DC Connie Childs at the back of her mind. She might be useful in the future if she needed an ally. Which was the second surprise of the morning.

  So Mrs Lander had been strangled. It was a horrible way to die and she remembered the series of panic attacks that she had suffered when she first went to university. She’d made friends quickly enough, but in her first term she’d felt overwhelmed by the new world around her. Sometimes she’d wake in the middle of the night fighting for breath until slowly the panic subsided and she was able to breathe normally. A friend studying medicine had suggested blowing into a paper bag, which had worked. But she could remember the feeling of total absence of anything. Breathing not only kept your heart and lungs moving, it gave you the essence of life. Without it, your body became a vacuum where nothing was allowed to exist.

  It must have been a horrible death for Mrs Lander, her breath slowly being squeezed out of her body and the realisation that there was nothing she could do about it. But now, as the cold air stung her lungs, she had to admit to herself that when Connie told her how Mrs Lander had died, it had had no reverberations deep within her psyche. Whatever had happened in 1978, it hadn’t involved seeing Sophie being strangled. Rachel was positive that something so violent would have remained with her. And there was nothing. For the moment it seemed that the killing of Mrs Lander might have nothing to do with her kidnap.

  Arriving at her client’s house, she could see a shadow hovering in the window. Clearly, her lateness wasn’t going to go unnoticed. The front door was opened as she puffed up the path and a clearly anxious Mrs Franklin ushered into a large neat living room. It hadn’t been furnished on a grand enough scale for the house. Two small sofas sat primly at right angles to each other, with a teak coffee table laden with a china tea set too small for the vast sitting room. After adding hot water to the pot and pouring out two dainty cups of a pale brew, Cathy Franklin sat down and looked at Rachel expectantly.

  Rachel took a sip of the scalding tea. ‘You said over the phone that you’ve done a fair bit of research yourself.’

  It was a bad start as the woman immediately was on the defensive. ‘It’s not difficult, you know. I managed to get birth, marriage and death certificates for all of my great-grandparents and their whereabouts from the census returns right back to 1841.’

  Rachel, aware that she had started awkwardly, rushed to make amends. ‘You’ve done well. People usually have an initial dig around but reach a hiccup well before you did. Is that why you called me in?’

  Rachel had chosen a word that resonated with her client. She was beaming at her.

  ‘That’s it! A hiccup. What a great turn of phrase, and of course you’re absolutely right. I’ve got a problem and I don’t know where to go next. It’s to do with my great-grandmother. There was a rumour that she was the illegitimate child of Henry Needham, you know up in the big house. In my family, for years, my grandmother would tell the story that my great-grandmother was born after her mother, who was governess to Henry Needham’s children, got pregnant by him.’

  ‘Did he marry her off to one of his staff? That’s the usual story.’

  Cathy looked at her in dismay. ‘You’ve heard of this before?’

  ‘Afraid so, yes,’ said Rachel, aware that she was going to put her foot in it with everything she said that morning. Her client had a crestfallen look of someone who had suddenly found that her family heirlooms were mere mass-produced paste imitations. ‘Lord of the manor gets the housemaid pregnant and then hushes it up by marrying her to the footman or something.’

  Cathy sighed and looked at her hands. Her fingernails were painted a deep crimson colour and Rachel, aware of her own chipped nails, vowed to buy a nail file on the way home. ‘The family story is something like that. My great-grandmother was born in 1878 and her mother’s name is on the certificate and the father is named as Hugh Walker. In the 1881 census, it just says his occupation is servant. But the thing is the family legend is that he wasn’t really her father.’ Cathy Franklin paused and looked at Rachel. ‘How do I prove that?’

  Rachel decided on honesty. ‘Sometimes these family rumours turned out to be true and other times it was just wishful thinking. I can have a search around the Needham estate, if you like, the stuff that’s in the public domain. The papers I think are spread out amongst different records offices. I could take a look.’

  ‘Anything would help. I’ve begun to doubt my own family history, which is never a good idea when you are tracing your roots.’

  Rachel snorted. ‘A healthy dose of scepticism is essential in this line of work. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Cathy was looking at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I heard about Penny Lander’s death. I’m sorry you’ve had more trouble.’

  Rachel stood up to leave. ‘I’m not sure anyone’s linking it to what happened in 1978. Except the press, that is. She wasn’t even my teacher. I’m not sure what it’s got to do with me.’

  ‘It’s the daughter I feel sorry for. Justine, I think her name is. She’s a friend of my youngest son. She moved away and now she’s got to come back up here and sort out her mother’s stuff.’

  ‘Isn’t there any other family?’ Rachel was desperate to leave and inched towards the door.

  ‘Only Bridget Lander. Penny’s sister-in-law. She lives on Baslow Crescent. I suppose she’ll be able to help.’

  Rachel couldn’t think what to say. ‘You can usual
ly rely on family,’ she finally managed, which got a sympathetic smile from her new client.

  As she walked back to Richard’s house to pick up her car, adopting a slower pace, her phone beeped and alerted her to a message. It was from Richard, and Rachel could feel heart thump as she opened the text. Gone to work. Thanks for a wonderful evening. Are you all right? Rachel smiled. It was just like Richard to refuse to use abbreviations. At the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the lights to change, she typed back Yes and pressed the ‘Send’ button. Feeling she ought to say more, she then typed And yes, it was wonderful. Which it had been. A pleasant and unexpected surprise. Although they had both been deliberately casual that morning, she’d been surprised at how happy she felt. The text was the first indication that he was still thinking about her.

  Her car was sitting outside Richard’s house, alone in the street now that other residents had gone to work. It started reluctantly, the damp must have seeped into the engine. She should really go back to her house but the thought of the reporters and the bored policemen still keeping watch in their white Volvo was too much. For a moment she sat absolutely still while her mind whirled around. Finally, she set off towards her destination.

  *

  Arkwright Lane had changed very little. The semi-detached house that had been her home from her birth to the age of nine looked both familiar and unknowable. It was someone else’s house and they had completely taken possession of it, erasing all traces of earlier occupants. It was well kept, and the large black and yellow trampoline that she could glimpse in the back garden suggested that young children lived there. In Rachel’s day there had been a turquoise blue metal swing set with a wooden seat and thick rope that had burned her hands when she hung on too tightly. The base of the swing had been messily cemented to the grass, leaving overflowing ridges that always snagged on the push lawnmower her mother had lugged around each summer.