by Clare Curzon
‘I’d appreciate a word with you concerning the employment of Ramón Nadal.’
Alyson felt herself wrong-footed. She had put off contacting Social Services about Ramón, and already here was a policeman asking about him. She felt obliged to let the man in to settle the matter. She pressed the door release. ‘Take the lift to the seventh floor,’ she directed him. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
‘I’m Alyson Orme,’ she said as he stepped from the lift. Of medium height, lean, with fair hair cut short to curve in below prominent cheekbones, she looked stylish and confident. ‘I look after Miss Withers who’s an invalid. One of your colleagues told me how to check up on Ramón, but I haven’t got round to it yet. He’s here at the moment, if you want to speak with him.’
They seemed to be slightly at cross purposes. ‘A colleague of mine?’
‘Detective Sergeant Rosemary something.’
‘Her name’s Zyczynski. A lot of people have trouble with the name. We work together.’
‘Jijinsky?’
Beaumont printed the name on a page of his notebook, which he tore off and handed to her. ‘What exactly did she tell you?’
Alyson explained. It was about Ramón’s background.
‘Let’s have him in,’ Beaumont suggested, ‘then he can account for himself.’
Ramón had been reviewing his finances at the writing-table in his bedroom and presented himself in a newly acquired sweater and tweed trousers from the Oxfam charity shop. He eyed the plain-clothes policeman guardedly before returning to fetch his identity papers. Beaumont looked through them, nodded and passed them to Alyson Orme. ‘So you’re not actually Spanish?’
‘From the Philippines. Spanish is one language we speak. People make that mistake.’
‘And how long have you been in the UK?’
‘You can see here. I am asylum status. Refugee. All OK.’
‘When did you leave the Philippines? And why?’
‘Eight years back. Not to be killed. By both sides.’
Beaumont knew little of oriental current affairs, but he remembered there had been successive revolutions involving political assassination. A centre of turbulent politics, it was another place where way back the Americans had stepped in to stop further bloodshed. Not that they’d penetrated all the smaller, wilder islands. All the same this man’s explanation sounded shaky. He fixed him with a challenging stare. ‘Are you wanted there on any criminal charge?’
‘By the government. Yes. A child, rebels capture me. Pirates. Bad men.’
‘And you joined them?’ As Ramón nodded, he pursued it. ‘So why do the rebels want to kill you?’
He shrugged. ‘Later, doctors save me. Rebels hunt and kill all against them. I live years with doctors, work there, but …’ He frowned, trying to find the right words in English. ‘They good but not – they have wrong politic. Cannot save me. I run away, sail to Hong Kong, work there, years again.’
His protectors had had no clout during the ding-dong changes of government. Liberal do-gooders, they’d likely stepped out of line, protested against injustices. Poor little bugger, Beaumont thought: pillar to post and back again. Then when Hong Kong became Chinese he’d moved on once more. ‘But why come here, to the UK?’
‘Not for weather.’ At last Ramón smiled.
‘Why not Spain? You speak the language.’
Ramón was instantly serious again. ‘Spanish are Catholic. Catholics in Philippines raid south islands and kill too.’ His face showed disgust. ‘Some good people there, like doctors, but many bad. Always fighting, pirates, murders.’
‘I had no idea,’ Alyson breathed, listening appalled. His sparse account must cover a lifetime of misery and dangers. Such a quiet, contained man.
‘I wait here long for papers,’ Ramón said, pointing to them. ‘All legal now.’
Beaumont nodded. ‘Good. And you were employed as barman at the Crown hotel. So how do you come to be working here?’
‘Customer invite me to apartment. I help with old lady Emily. Then Nurse ask me stay.’
‘This customer at the Crown. Would that be Sheena Judd?
‘Sheena, yes.’
‘Your girlfriend.’ It was a statement, not a question, and Ramón was quick to deny it.
‘No. New meeting her. I come for teatime only.’
‘Sheena told me,’ Alyson explained, feeling obliged to help him out. ‘She had to get a prescription made up for her mother. While she was out, my patient’s granddaughter called. Ramón impressed her as competent, so when Sheena let me down I called on him to help out. Those doctors in the Philippines trained him well. He’s very good with Emily.’
Beaumont was watching the man’s face. He was giving little away. ‘It’s convenient for you, her going missing. So where is Sheena Judd now?’
‘With man friend, I think. They meet in Crown hotel bar. He visit here.’
‘Do you know his name?’
Ramón shook his head. ‘I serve him beer. Sometimes whisky. Roseanne say he work in police court.’ He frowned over recalling the word, then his face brightened. ‘Usher, yes?’
Beaumont recalled the man, raw-boned, humourless and surly: Oliver Markham. No great catch for a girl, but from all accounts she was an also ran herself. Court was over for the day, so he’d probably be at home. Not that chasing him up was a priority. Salmon was concentrating all efforts on the Micky Kane murder. Z would have to take on the missing girl. The missing girl was relegated to Z’s charge. He could leave her to get on with it.
He put a note on the office computer and added his initials. Might as well get any credit for naming Sheena’s man-friend.
Superintendent Mike Yeadings distrusted coincidences as heartily as any other member of CID. So, when his scanning of all reports for the past day, however minor, produced the name of Oliver Markham in two unrelated incidents, he sat back and pondered what he recalled of the man. Vaguely unappetizing, his body language spoke of a chauvinist and a bully. Yeadings had spent time enough in court for the man’s attitude to come across. And just recently, it seemed, he’d been replaced as usher, or even pressured to resign. As yet it wasn’t known whether he had alternative employment.
Yeadings phoned down to the incident room where Salmon was closing down the Micky Kane investigation for the night. ‘This missing young woman, Sheena Judd. Do we know what blood group she was?’
Whatever the question, Salmon was instantly on the defensive. ‘Is she officially a Misper, sir?’ he barked back. ‘Not a minor, I understood?’
‘No, and as an adult she has every right to wander off without informing her family. I am aware of that, Inspector. But I’m curious. The boot of her quoted man-friend’s car was found to contain a rug with suspected bloodstains, so I ask myself who was bleeding. Especially since he tried to pass the blood off as dried cocoa, during a routine road check for speeding.’
‘That’d be Traffic’s concern, sir. The report hasn’t been passed to CID.’
‘Understand that I’m passing it now. We need to know the missing woman’s blood group. So send someone to her address and find out.’
‘Everyone’s gone home, sir. I’ll send Zyczynski in the morning.’
He supposed tomorrow must do, but examination of the stained travel rug was more urgent. ‘I’ll send a patrol car to pick the rug up. Even if Markham hasn’t a washing machine there are overnight launderettes. He could be destroying vital evidence. How fortunate you’ve stayed late, Inspector. The lab is open tonight until 7.30. Ring through and warn them there’s evidence on its way. Full DNA can wait, but I want to know what blood group we’re dealing with.’
Fussy old codger, Salmon fumed. Young women went missing all the time: anything to attract attention. Didn’t mean anything had happened to them. Still, he’d have to do as instructed. God knows when he’d get finished, and today there’d been shit-all progress on the current main case.
He made the call, authorizing the cost, and decided to pick up a takea
way on the route home. He closed down the computer, dragged on his coat and went for his car. Driving across town, he noted that lights were on behind the lowered blinds of Callender, Fitt and Travis. More time and energy being wasted over the affairs of the thriftless and shiftless. Same old, thankless grind. And to think that once, decades back, he’d believed becoming a copper would leave some mark on the world!
Timothy Fitt waited until young Monica had finished making noises in the outer office and put her head round the door to say goodnight. ‘Thank you, Monica, for staying on. I’m afraid I’ll need you in on time in the morning, but perhaps you’d care to get home an hour earlier tomorrow.’
‘Ooh, thanks, Mr Fitt. G’night.’
She was a steady girl, didn’t mind extra little jobs dropped on her, like going out to get that new key cut. It was always a shock when things like that went missing, and in this case the client was specially vulnerable. But perhaps no real harm done. The lost key, although unusual, had held no number. There had only ever been two of them to that strongbox, and now there were two again. He wrapped the newly cut one in a strip of bubble wrap, together with a short handwritten note and put both in an envelope, adding a first class stamp. The package was light enough to be covered. He remembered the address, even the post code. He would mail it himself on the way home. From the main post office, to be on the safe side.
Putting on his velvet-collared black overcoat and tucking in his muffler, he wondered how Emily was. Such a formidable woman once, but now a mere shell. Still, she was well looked after, well guarded. He had done all that could be expected of him. It could have been disastrous if the key fell into the wrong hands.
Over at the college, with lectures finished and the refectory officially closed, Jim Anders considered the place needed extra guarding. There were three club meetings scheduled, and god-knows-what clandestine jiggery-pokery going on besides. He took his duties as night porter seriously and had few illusions about modern youth. He timed his rounds at random. Armed with a heavy torch, he toured all floors, switching off unnecessary lighting and noting noise levels at the more boisterous club affairs, alert for romantic couplings in secluded corners and discarded syringes or evidence of other illicit activities. On his third round, when most revellers had departed and only the Fine Arts crowd still worked on posters for the coming Rag Week, he made his way up to the top floor, using his key to gain access to the roof.
This was out of bounds for students, but he remembered occasions when security had been outwitted and inappropriate articles hung from the college’s ceremonial flagstaff. Tonight, as he ventured out on to the starlit, frosted flats, he could appreciate that the pole had not been violated.
In the shelter of the central air vent from Training Kitchen I, he reached in a pocket for his ready-tamped pipe, struck a match to it and remained contentedly smoking for the duration of his authorized break. Finally he crossed to take a look over the town centre. Traffic had dwindled to the normal midweek level for this hour. Pedestrians were sparse and unaware of his godlike vantage point. Moments like this were compensation for the minor irritations of the job.
Laughter and raised voices reached him as a group of youngsters left by the main doors: the last of the poster artists on their way home. He leaned over to scan what lights they’d left on and thought there was something odd about the portico below. It projected some twelve feet, relieving the modern building’s severity. On its flat roof the dark lead cladding showed paler markings. Something more than frost or the remains of snow.
Anders sighed: these silly young people with their passion for tossing toilet rolls! A heavy downfall of rain might finally flush the stuff away, but as yet the cold snap showed no sign of letting up. He supposed that the job of disposal would fall to him. It would involve climbing up by ladder from the forecourt, because in winter all windows on the front elevation were sealed shut.
He took the staff lift down to get a closer look from just above.
It wasn’t as he’d thought. The pale area was a human body, curiously twisted and lying face down.
One of those crazy kids had been up and jumped off the roof.
Dealing with that wasn’t within his remit. He went, sickly, back to his cubby hole to phone the police.
Chapter Twenty
Yeadings had taken Nan to see a play at the theatre in Aylesbury and, unlike one other in the audience, had turned off his mobile phone. So it was only on reaching home again that he learned of the body fallen from the college roof.
‘It’s female,’ Salmon said shortly. He was chilled to the bone, called out after already being two hours later back for supper than expected. He’d no sooner eased his boots off and thirstily sunk half his pint at the table than the summons had come.
‘Some bloody student’s topped herself,’ he’d told his wife. ‘There’ll be all hell to pay, so there’s no escaping. Stick some of that beef between two bits of bread and I’ll eat it on the way in. Beaumont’s coming to pick me up.’
Tight-lipped, his wife had done as instructed. Her moment for retaliation would come later. It hadn’t pleased her one little bit moving to this part of the world, away from family and such friends as her complaining nature hadn’t turned against her. She took some pleasure in plastering horseradish on so thick that he’d have no chance to notice the cold. A superb cook – her one virtue – she bridled at a hot meal wasted, and saw unpunctuality as a personal insult.
And now Salmon found himself obliged to stand inactive while the SOCO team moved about the restricted space of the portico roof like white-clad ghosts, until the arc lights and generator were in place and a plastic tent erected. Not that their work would be visible from the road, but higher floors of the hospital tower overlooked the site and already there were faces peering from lighted windows in the apartment block across the way.
His mouth still stung from the vicious relish in the sandwich and he could still have done with another layer of wool under his sheepskin car coat. But for the fact that accepting Beaumont’s suggestion of a lift left him without individual wheels, he would have passed this scene over to the DS and returned home. He had a grim suspicion that that idea might have been behind the man’s offer all along.
‘Quite a drop,’ he commented sourly. ‘So, harder for identification. Did that missing Judd woman have any connection with the college?’
‘Not that we know of,’ Beaumont told him. ‘But a lot of people get in by invitation and for open lectures. Let’s hope she wore something distinctive that someone’ll recognize.’
‘If it is Sheena Judd, she could have been here since Sunday You’d better get hold of the porter and find out when he last took a look down here. Actually I’ll come along too.’ Indoors, it would be out of the wind. They’d keep it brief tonight; haul the man in early tomorrow to give a full statement.
In next morning’s bright sunlight Audrey Stanford lay tucked in a rug on a sofa by the window, quietly seething. Edna Evans, thorough enough but so noisy, had spent hours slamming around in the kitchen. It was useless to demand she should be quiet. That could slow her down and prolong the annoyance. Audrey wished she’d just shut up and go home.
Wishing, ever wishing. Wishing she had company around her, then longing for everyone to leave her in peace. Enduring the endless nights wishing for dawn to break, and then, exhausted by the tedium of day, yearning for dark and oblivion. Which was futile, with final oblivion so close.
It had taken her a long time to believe that, and now she did. The evidence was irrefutable. Believed, but could not accept. Death happened to others who were old and worn-out, or had lived wild lives and so brought it on themselves. But she wasn’t like that. She’d never deserved this. Still young, there had been so much living left to do, places to go, people to meet, joys to experience. Not that she could be bothered any more to make the effort. Any move left to her now was towards becoming nothing. And the world would go on turning just the same, as though she had never been.
/> In the kitchen there was sudden silence. Audrey waited for the rumble of the roller towel as Edna finally dabbed soap suds off her fat arms. Then the fridge door opening and slamming as she checked the contents against a shopping list Keith had made out. ‘You’ll want more Marmite, love,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll add it on, shall I?’
Audrey pretended not to hear. The very mention of any food was nauseous now.
In the comparative quiet as Edna struggled into her outdoor clothes a fresh sound emerged. Steady and regular as waves breaking on the shore came a screech-scratch of Keith raking the drive’s gravel.
You’d think it was deliberate, meant to irritate. He must know that any activity of his mocked her disability. All right, he had to be somewhere: it would be too callous if he didn’t stay home. But did he have to keep reminding her of the great gulf between them; how he was fit, would continue active when she was no more? Whenever she saw him, every time he did something that she’d once done but was beyond her now, there was this rush of bile in her throat and a scalding hatred in her heart. She could only loathe him for it, wishing the same could happen to him and then he might understand.
If he had to face what threatened her, experience this gradual and inevitable falling apart, how would he feel?
There was a gentle tap at the window as he laid the handle of his rake against the glass. He leaned in towards her. ‘OK, love?’
She wasn’t, and he knew it. She wasn’t his ‘love’ either. That was a meaningless word that the cleaner used. Perhaps she’d never been his real love, and all that romancing in the past had been deception too, while he waited for the big thing to come along. It would be some young locum they’d take on in the practice. Or a woman doctor at the hospital, someone suitable. Because she hadn’t been much use to him, couldn’t face illness – her own or any other’s – didn’t share his wretched work, was a sickly letdown.
