“Yes, indeed, sir. But I did find out one or two things about the friendship ring.”
“Anything that might help us further with the dates?”
“No. The rings have been around since the 1950s. They’re cheap imports from Asia and the silver that they’re made of isn’t pure enough to be hallmarked. The one found with the skeleton was actually silver-gilt, so of slightly better quality than the average, but there were still thousands of them made – still are being made, as far as I know. But there is one thing that we can learn from the ring.”
“Go on.”
“You will remember that it has a kind of wishbone design. The ‘v’ of the wishbone is asymmetrical. If it bends slightly to the right, the ring was intended to be either given by a man to a woman, or a woman to a man, though not usually to mark a sexual relationship; if it bends to the left, as this one does, it was given to the wearer by someone of the same sex.”
“Also not usually to mark a sexual relationship?”
“Well, they’re all called friendship rings, sir.”
“Point taken. I mustn’t jump to conclusions!”
“What we do know is that if Kathryn Sheppard received this ring when it was new, it was almost certainly given to her by a woman.”
“Well done, Juliet. So it would probably help us if we could find out who this woman was?”
He could almost see her nodding.
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you. I think that we need to visit Kathryn’s mother again.
Chapter Eighteen
Once more, Juliet was making her way along the faded cul-de-sac of Acacia Close, this time with Tim by her side. Before they reached Mrs. Sheppard’s gate, Juliet paused and turned to speak to him.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying this, sir: I’d like you to be as gentle as possible with Mrs. Sheppard. She has precious little left to live for now that her daughter and husband are both dead, and she finds visits from the police alarming – often with good cause. We have nothing to offer her except kindness and courtesy: inadequate though these will be, because we’ll probably be ripping the scabs off her wounds again.”
“Do you think that I’m habitually insensitive, DC Armstrong?”
Juliet smiled carefully.
“Not habitually, sir. It’s just that sometimes you can be over-enthusiastic in your pursuit of facts, that’s all. And you are a little apt to forget that not everyone can follow the speed of your thinking. I’d say that there’s a fair chance that this applies to elderly widows whose minds have been dimmed by years of tedious grief, as well as to me.”
Tim made a mock grin of astonishment.
“You make me sound like an intellectual monster! I congratulate you on your eloquence, however. I have seldom heard a request for empathetic behaviour better put. I didn’t realise that there was a poet lurking inside you.”
Juliet flushed, suspecting that she was being teased. She decided not to probe any further and carried on walking. In a few moments they had arrived at Mrs. Sheppard’s shabby wrought-iron gates. A scruffy ginger tom cat squeezed through the privet hedge and threaded itself around her legs, before looking up balefully at Tim.
“Hello, Kitty,” he said. The cat turned his back on them and returned to the garden from which he had emerged.
“This is the house, sir,” said Juliet, opening one of the squeaking gates. “The gravel is quite hard to walk on.”
Tim looked down the drive. It was so thickly covered in small stones that it seemed as if someone had dumped a whole pebbled beach on to it. He held the gate for Juliet and gestured to her to go first.
On this occasion there was no prefatory game of hide-and-seek with Mrs. Sheppard. In fact, she seemed to be expecting them and had flung open the front door somewhat vigorously before they had even reached the porch. Once again, she appeared to be dressed entirely in brown, though Juliet could not tell whether she was wearing exactly the same clothes as on her previous visit, because this time Mrs. Sheppard was enveloped in a waist-to-ankle beige wrap-around apron of the type worn by waiters in pretentious restaurants.
It became apparent that despite her prompt door-keeping, she did not necessarily intend to invite them in. In fact, she had half-closed the door behind her, so that it was not possible to see beyond her into the house. She stood on guard, her arms folded across the top of the apron in a gesture which may or may not have been intentionally aggressive.
“I thought you’d be back,” she said to Juliet in a tightly angry voice. “I’m not sure why, though. You’ve ruined my life as completely as you can. What else do you think you can do to me?”
Juliet cast down her eyes and did not answer. After a few seconds, she looked sideways at Tim and she knew that she was silently warning him not to intellectualise Mrs. Sheppard’s grief. Tim looked guilty – he had just been trying to recall what he knew about blame transference.
Juliet was exquisitely polite.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Sheppard,” she said. “I’m truly sorry to have to bother you again. May I introduce Detective Inspector Tim Yates? We would very much appreciate the opportunity to ask you for some more details about your daughter, if you can spare us the time.”
Tim held out his hand. Mrs. Sheppard unfolded her arms and extended her right hand shakily. Tim clasped her fingertips and gave them a gentle squeeze. It was quite unlike his usual firm handshake. He looked into the dull, sad eyes, set deep in the shrivelled, nut-like little face in front of him, and felt profoundly sorry.
Mrs. Sheppard noted his compassion, and her face twisted up pathetically. Juliet wondered how long it had been since she had embraced another human being, or even held a meaningful conversation with one. Tim took advantage of the change in her demeanour.
“I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Sheppard. I am sorry that visits from the police have usually brought distressing news to you. You are right, of course, when you say that there is no more bad news that we can bring to hurt you further; please believe me when I say that I am glad of that. But I do believe that we might still be able to offer you some grain of comfort, however small.”
Mrs. Sheppard withdrew her hand, and narrowed her eyes warily. Be careful, Tim, thought Juliet. Don’t overdo it.
“I’m sure that you don’t want revenge,” Tim continued. “I can see that you have too much dignity for that. But it is my job to find your daughter’s killer. It will be a very difficult task, as I’m sure you will appreciate, because we think that she was killed at around the time that she disappeared, more than thirty years ago. I need as much help as I can get, especially from you. If you are able to help me to catch the killer, I hope perhaps it may bring you a little bit of peace – what the Americans and indeed our own tabloid newspapers are pleased to call ‘closure’.” He screwed up his eyes in momentary disgust. Juliet could see that Mrs. Sheppard was with him here.
Tim watched her relax a little. He, too, could see that she appreciated the comment about closure and that she took it to mean, as he had intended her to, that in this at least they were allies, united in their superior understanding of how the English language should be used. He guessed that she might in the past have been a teacher.
“May we come in?” Juliet spoke after the little pause that ensued. Mrs. Sheppard at once stepped back into the house and held open the door.
A few minutes later they had been installed in the blue sitting-room with a tray of tea. Tim was perched awkwardly on one of the insubstantial fireside chairs, while Mrs. Sheppard sat in the other one and Juliet on the hard little sofa. Juliet was pouring the tea. She sensed that Tim felt as oppressed by the room as she had on her previous visit. She passed the teacups. Mrs. Sheppard stirred sugar into her tea and sipped it gingerly. She was clasping the cup with both hands.
“I’d like to help you,” she said. “Truly I would. But I’m not sure how I can. Kathryn
wasn’t living here when she . . . went missing. I know no more than you do of her movements on the days leading up to her disappearance. There was a police reconstruction of them some years later – a film which appeared on Crimewatch, which I’m sure you’ve seen?”
Tim nodded.
“It isn’t just her movements we’re interested in, Mrs. Sheppard, though if we could plot the last week that she was definitely alive accurately day by day and hour by hour, that would of course be immensely helpful. The Crimewatch reconstruction was based on joining up the dots of a few known facts and supplementing the result with a great deal of intelligent guesswork. I am myself convinced that the actual time of Kathryn’s disappearance is one of the crucial aspects of this case, and I am perfectly aware that you cannot help me with that. But you can certainly help me in a broader way, by telling me what sort of girl Kathryn was, who her friends were, and perhaps by giving us some more information about the objects that were found with her. I’m sorry to upset you,” he added.
The tears were coursing down Mrs. Sheppard’s cheeks. Juliet put out a hand to comfort her, and then withdrew it; she saw that Tim and Mrs. Sheppard were now inhabiting a fragile enclosed world devoted to remembrance of Kathryn Sheppard, which an intrusion from outside might destroy. Mrs. Sheppard wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, and began to speak.
“Kathryn was not perfect by any means. She belonged to that ‘liberated’ seventies generation that had such different values from those of us who had been through the war. Of course, Frank and I were considered to be quite elderly parents in any case, by the standards of our day, anyway; we were older than the parents of most of Kathryn’s friends, and unable to have more children after her. In retrospect, I can see that she must have felt frustrated, and perhaps sometimes isolated, when she was living with us. Anyway, she moved out because I discovered that she was sleeping with her boyfriend and it was something I just couldn’t condone under our roof. Her father and I quarrelled bitterly about it – and we never quarrelled as a rule – especially after she left. He said that I had driven her out.” She sighed wearily. “It all seems so unimportant now. I’m sure that, to someone of your generation, my views are simply funny.”
Tim did not respond to this last comment.
“Please go on,” he said. “Which boyfriend was Kathryn sleeping with? Was it Hedley Atkins?”
“You will find this strange, but I never actually found out. I just found certain . . . things . . . in her room. She said that I was snooping, there was a blazing row, and she left. I supposed that it was Hedley, although her father never believed it. He thought that Hedley was of quite a different persuasion – sexually, I mean.” She flushed as she said the word. “Of course I’m sure that later she slept with Charles. But that was different. They were engaged.”
“Did you like Charles?”
“I didn’t get to know him very well. I suppose he was a . . . surprise. You realise that he was . . . coloured?” She flushed again.
Tim nodded.
“What about her friends? Was Kathryn an outgoing sort of girl? Did she make friends easily?”
“Kathryn was thoughtful. She wasn’t one of those shallow people who like to boast that they have dozens of friends, but I think that she was loyal to those whom she grew close to. She stayed in touch with two or three friends from school, and at least one from university.”
“Were they all girls?”
“Yes. I can give you their names if you like; though I expect that they are all married now, so their names will have changed.”
Tim nodded again.
“Thank you. That could be useful.” He produced two small plastic bags from his briefcase, and handed one of them to Mrs. Sheppard.
“Do you recognise this ring?”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s the silver ring that Kathryn wore on her right middle finger. Was it with the . . .”
“Yes,” said Tim. “We believe it is a friendship ring, of the kind usually given by a woman to another woman. Do you know who gave it to Kathryn?”
“Of course,” she said again. “It was a present from Bryony Atkins. I believe that Kathryn also gave one to her. I thought that it was rather a pointless exchange, as I said at the time.” She laughed shortly.
Juliet tried and failed to stifle her exclamation of surprise, but she need not have worried. Mrs. Sheppard and Tim were by this time locked even deeper within the Kathryn memorial bubble that they had created.
“Kathryn knew Bryony Atkins?” asked Tim matter-of-factly. He did not mention that he had already been told this by Hedley Atkins.
“Of course,” said Mrs Sheppard for a third time. “They met when Kathryn was going out with Hedley. I rather think that her relationship with Bryony survived better than the one with Hedley. That didn’t last long.” She spoke the last sentence with satisfaction. Tim wrote a brief note in his diary.
“Thank you. Finally,” – he passed Mrs. Sheppard the other small plastic bag that he had taken from his briefcase – “this was also found with Kathryn’s remains. Do you recognise it as having belonged to her?”
Just as she had turned over and scrutinised the bag with the ring, so Mrs. Sheppard now examined the contents of this second exhibit. This time, however, she seemed mystified.
“I can’t make out what it is. May I take it out of the packet?”
Tim considered.
“I suppose that that would be OK: we’ve done all the tests on it that we can.”
With thick fingers, she pulled apart the plastic griplock that sealed the bag, and extracted the object that it held. Evidently still puzzled, she held it up to the light and then set it down on the coffee table.
“It appears to be some kind of child’s toy.”
“That is correct. It is, in fact, a plastic Red Indian – one of a consignment of models given away with breakfast cereal at the time of Kathryn’s disappearance. Would she have any reason for wanting to collect such figures?”
As precipitately as she had allowed Tim to beguile her with memories of Kathryn, Mrs. Sheppard snapped out of her reminiscences. She seemed to be irritated at the trivial turn that the conversation had taken.
“None that I can think of,” she said, abrupt again. Juliet saw that the spell that Tim had succeeded in casting upon her for a while was breaking. They had had time enough, though, to get an answer to the most important question. “I can tell you one thing, though,” added Mrs. Sheppard, “Kathryn did not buy the breakfast cereal herself. She was allergic to milk. She never touched the stuff.”
“What did you make of that?” Tim asked Juliet as they crunched their way back down the gravel drive to the squeaking gate.
“I’m not sure that it told me much that I could rely on about Kathryn Sheppard’s personality. All we got was a mother’s recollection of how she felt about her daughter thirty years ago, filtered through the haze of years gone by, as well as sentimentality and remorse.”
Tim nodded and grinned.
“Still in poetry mode, I see.” He was suddenly serious again. “But we did get some information of value?”
“Yes. The most important thing that she told us was that Kathryn Sheppard and Bryony Atkins were friends.”
“What do you deduce from that?”
“I think that it was a grave oversight of the original investigation that it failed to detect this relationship. I also think it likely that Bryony Atkins’s disappearance was caused by something as disastrous as Kathryn Sheppard’s.”
“In short, that they were both murdered?”
Juliet nodded. “It seems probable, don’t you agree?”
Tim nodded again.
“Tell me,” he said, “where does the murder of Doris Atkins by her daughter-in-law fit into this?”
“I don’t know,” said Juliet. “Coincidence? Or perhaps that prison psychiatrist
is correct, and Dorothy is a serial killer.”
“I concede that it is possible that she is a serial killer; but Kathryn Sheppard was not one of her victims.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Timing,” said Tim. “The timing is wrong.”
“You keep on saying that!”
“Those plastic toys were imported about the time that Dorothy Atkins was jailed. And we now know that Kathryn Sheppard is unlikely to have acquired one of them by purchasing breakfast cereal. It is likely, therefore, that either someone gave the Red Indian to her while she was alive, or deliberately left it with her body when they dumped it.”
Juliet nodded as she thought about what Tim was saying.
“What about Bryony?” she said slowly. “She can’t have vanished into thin air. Yet no-one seems to have noticed that she’d disappeared, or exactly when she disappeared – no-one outside the family, that is. They must have noticed.”
“Yes, they must have,” said Tim. “My guess is that Bryony did not get very far away from home at all. In fact, I think that it’s probable that she never left. What was Dorothy Atkins supposed to have said about her mother-in-law? That she was ‘too fond of gardening’?”
“Something like that. Do you think that Bryony’s buried in Doris’s garden somewhere?”
“I think it’s a possibility that we need to check out. And I also think that it’s time we met Dorothy Atkins in the flesh.”
Chapter Nineteen
Recent events have made me quite determined: Peter will have to leave. I began to doubt that we were meant to be a couple when he insisted that I accompanied him to Liverpool and the more I have thought about it since, the more I know it is inevitable that we separate. I’m not sure what his comments about getting Tirzah to finish off ‘Mummy’ really meant, but I suspect that the whole thing – the visit, meeting the mother, meeting the sister, all that business about the will – was just an elaborate joke at my expense. He is merely running rings around me, parading me as his bit of rough. It is beginning to make me feel very angry indeed.
In the Family Page 14
