by Jill McGown
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Michael! Everything’s done – you’ve only got to put it on. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind doing it anyway.’
He had listened, maddeningly patient, until she’d finished.
‘I just meant should we leave it until evening so that you can get some sleep?’ Mild, solicitous, and calculated to make her feel guilty for jumping down his throat.
‘Sorry,’ she had said. ‘No – no, I’ll just need a couple of hours. I’m sorry, Michael,’ she had said again, but there had still been an edge of irritation in her voice. Unwarranted. Unfair. Unkind. ‘I’ve had a bad night,’ she had said. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’
Michael had looked a little puzzled at her reaction to what had been an entirely routine skirmish. ‘Was it a nasty one?’ he asked.
A brief nod of confirmation, and he hadn’t asked any more questions. ‘And I have to go out again this afternoon,’ she had warned him.
‘Oh.’ He had turned to leave, then turned back. ‘I take it that it is really necessary?’ he had said.
‘Yes.’
‘Well. You’d better get some sleep, then.’
‘I want a bath. You haven’t used all the hot water, have you?’
A cool bath, and an uneasy sleep punctuated by the sounds of the neighbours’ children having a snowball fight, doubtless having abandoned all the batteries-not-included goodies laid before them in favour of playing with the weather, were to be her lot. And it seemed she had barely closed her eyes when it was time to get up again, time to drink a sherry and open presents with the Hills. Time to eat with the Hills.
She tried to enjoy the meal, which was, of course, delicious. Mrs Hill never forgot to warm the plates, or allowed the vegetables to overcook. Her turkey was never too dry. Michael must have sorely missed his mother’s cooking, but he had never said so. Lloyd would have done, she thought. But then Lloyd didn’t automatically assume that women did the cooking.
There was no point in weighing up advantages and disadvantages; there was no comparison between Lloyd and Michael.
Mr and Mrs Hill and their son Michael spoke a language that Judy didn’t understand. They spoke about things in which she had no interest. She watched Michael, so engrossed in his conversation with his father that he was quite unaware of her scrutiny.
The sound of their voices faded and merged, just a confused background jumble, as she studied Michael as though he were a close-up on a cinema screen. His thin face was animated, even when he was listening rather than talking. His eyes went from his father to his mother when she spoke. He drank some wine, and poured more for everyone, including Judy. But he was in a world where she didn’t really exist; a world of property chains and loft conversions, of the mileage you could get from Austin Princesses compared to Rovers, neither of which any of them owned. A world of small investments, of tax concessions and pension funds.
She had seen a man who had been battered to death.
What sort of masochism was it that she was so intent on practising? Why cling to something alien, instead of to someone who understood? Someone she could understand? What was it that Michael got from this fake marriage that he was prepared to introduce a baby to it? She knew the answer. Independence. The mere fact that they were married to one another meant that no one else could own them. It was why they had thought it would work. It hadn’t, but they wouldn’t let go.
She got through the rest of the meal, as she always had before, on these rare family occasions. Michael must feel like this when they visited her family. Making no contribution, not expecting to be included.
After lunch, she went to see Joanna again.
Joanna didn’t want to speak to Sergeant Hill, but she didn’t seem to have much option. They were in the back bedroom, with the fire burning brightly, reminding Joanna of childhood ailments, when the bed in here would be made up so that her mother didn’t have to run up and down stairs all day. No matter how itchy the spots, how sore the throat, being ill had been almost fun, in this cosy little room, with the fire going. It made her feel secure, and she wasn’t at all sure that she should, with Sergeant Hill’s watchful brown eyes on her. She had been aware of the danger with Graham, when she had relegated her interview with him to the sitting room. She must still be aware of it now, she reminded herself, as the sergeant waited for an answer with infinite, unbearable patience.
‘I tried to protect myself,’ Joanna said, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, and looked away. ‘Not defend myself.’
‘All right,’ said Sergeant Hill. ‘I’ll ask you something else.’
Joanna’s eyes slid unwillingly back.
‘You said that the row with your husband—’
‘It wasn’t a row,’ Joanna said stubbornly. A row. That was twice she’d called it that. She had simply no idea. No idea at all.
‘You said that your husband became violent at about five o’clock,’ she said.
Joanna nodded, hearing the chimes, seeing Graham’s face.
‘And that he stopped when he heard your parents’ car,’ said the sergeant.
Joanna stiffened. She’d thought that this bit was over. ‘You’ve asked me all this,’ she said. ‘It’s in your notebook.’
Sergeant Hill nodded, and pointed to the notebook. ‘It says that your parents came home at half-past five,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
Sergeant Hill looked at her for a moment without speaking, then carefully turned to a clean page in her notebook.
‘That wasn’t going on for half an hour,’ she said, pointing to the bruises. ‘Or you’d have been in hospital again.’
Joanna blushed. She didn’t know they knew about that.
‘So let’s start again,’ said Sergeant Hill.
‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with it,’ Joanna said. ‘It’s private.’
‘He stopped long before your parents got here,’ she said, as if Joanna hadn’t spoken. ‘Why?’
Joanna didn’t answer.
‘Were you upstairs with him, Joanna?’
‘No.’
The sergeant looked thoughtful. ‘Something stopped him hitting you,’ she said. ‘And it wasn’t your parents’ car driving up, was it?’
Joanna didn’t speak, didn’t look at her. It was no one else’s business. No one’s.
‘People will understand,’ Sergeant Hill was saying. ‘If you picked up something to defend yourself.’
‘I didn’t. I’ve told you what happened.’
‘But you haven’t told me the truth.’ She reached over and touched her hand. ‘You said yesterday that it made you feel ashamed when he hit you,’ she said.
Joanna looked down.
‘I know you think I don’t understand any of this,’ she went on. ‘But I can understand that.’ She sat back again. ‘Now, something made him stop hitting you,’ she said. ‘At the moment, it looks as though you fought back.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I don’t think you did,’ said the sergeant. ‘So what did happen? You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Joanna.’
‘Ashamed?’ Joanna repeated, puzzled. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sex? Is that what you’re talking about?’
‘It’s not an unusual pattern,’ said the sergeant. ‘Some men get—’
‘Get turned on by it? Perhaps they do, but that isn’t how it was.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.’
‘It would help if you called a spade a spade!’ Joanna said angrily.
Sergeant Hill smiled. ‘I expect it would,’ she said. ‘All right. Something stopped him, Joanna. And if it wasn’t being battered to death, then what was it?’
Joanna’s eyes filled with tears. ‘The baby,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I’m going to have a baby. I thought Graham had hurt it, and that’s why he stopped.’
‘Did he know you were pregnant?’
Joanna shook her head. ‘Not until then,’ she said. ‘I was so frightened – I screamed at him, and he stopped.’
/> ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me that in the first place?’ the sergeant shouted, angry with her.
‘Because I didn’t want anyone to—’ But she had suddenly and uncontrollably burst into tears. ‘I didn’t want to tell them,’ she sobbed, as Sergeant Hill put her arms round her. ‘That’s why I stayed in the sitting room. I didn’t want to see them.’ But the words were incoherent. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe, for the convulsive sobs. She tried desperately to control them.
‘It’s just reaction,’ said the sergeant. ‘You cry.’
But it wasn’t reaction. Joanna knew what it was, and it would be so easy to tell her, just tell her and get it over with. But she couldn’t. She gulped in air with the sobs, her face buried in the sergeant’s shoulder, until the shuddering stopped.
And then she tried to explain. She wanted Sergeant Hill to understand. But the words she could find didn’t really describe her near-hysteria, and Graham’s remorse; the tears, the gentleness, the closeness. The common fear that the baby had been hurt in a battle that Joanna was only just beginning to understand.
She looked up, expecting scepticism, but not finding it. ‘I wanted to go home,’ she said. ‘I wanted to go home, and start again. With Graham and the baby. I wanted to do it right. But we heard the car, and I made him go upstairs and stay there, or my father would have killed him.’
Sergeant Hill’s arms were still round her; Joanna felt the slight reaction to her words, and pulled away. ‘It’s an expression,’ she said. ‘It’s just an expression.’ But oh God, why had she used it?
‘I know,’ said the sergeant.
‘I was so scared,’ Joanna said again. ‘I was scared about the baby.’ Tears ran down her face again. ‘I knew I’d tell them if I saw them,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to tell them.’
The sergeant took some tissues from her bag, and handed them to her. ‘Do they still not know?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Joanna took a deep, difficult breath. ‘It’s not their baby,’ she said. ‘And it’s not going to be.’
A nod; understanding, perhaps, a little. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ she asked.
‘Yes. She’s made an appointment for me to have tests. But she says there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Good.’
‘Sergeant Hill? You won’t tell them, will you?’
She shook her head. ‘But they’ll have to know sooner or later,’ she said.
‘I know. It’s silly, I know, but just not yet.’
‘That I can understand,’ said the sergeant, with a little laugh. ‘Believe me.’
Everyone had their problems. Joanna wondered what Sergeant Hill’s were.
‘How long were you married?’ she asked.
‘Eighteen months,’ said Joanna. Eighteen months, she thought. A June bride.
‘Was he always violent?’
‘Not really. Not to start with. He’d get angry with me— He didn’t like . . .’ She looked away. ‘He didn’t like my parents very much,’ she said. ‘And it just somehow started.’
‘You said he’d been drinking – was he often drunk?’
‘No – he didn’t really drink. He said he’d met someone. I suppose they just—’ She shrugged. ‘It’s Christmas,’ she said. ‘People drink too much.’
She looked round the safe, secure, comfortable room. ‘He hated this place,’ she said. ‘He said I’d never come out of the womb.’
It was when Freddie was cheerfully removing bits of Graham Elstow that he dropped his unintentional bombshell.
‘Between seven o’clock and nine o’clock,’ he said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Kathy?’ The question was thrown over his shoulder at his assistant, who seemed equally happy in her work as she industriously checked samples.
Lloyd’s face fell. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What about five?’
‘Five? No. Definitely still alive and digesting at five. He ate at two o’clock, according to the barmaid.’
The barmaid had had good reason to remember Elstow, who had refused to leave at closing time. In the end, she had brought in reinforcements, and Elstow had left, protesting that no, he hadn’t got a home to go to, no one could call that a home . . .
‘Still alive at five,’ Freddie went on. ‘And at six – almost certainly still at seven.’ He flashed a wide smile at Lloyd. ‘And definitely dead by nine,’ he said.
‘Don’t do this to me, Freddie! We’ve got a theory.’
Freddie sucked in his breath. ‘Tricky things, theories,’ he said.
‘Our theory,’ Lloyd went on, ‘says that Elstow arrived in the afternoon to make things up with his wife. He’s successful, and they go up to her room. But Elstow has to knock her about to get in the mood – and when he’s sleeping it off, she gets her own back with the poker.’ He raised his hands. ‘Simple,’ he said.
‘Simple is the word,’ said Freddie. ‘Simple, neat, tidy – what a pity it doesn’t fit the facts.’
He didn’t sound too cut up about it, Lloyd thought sourly.
‘He didn’t die until Mrs Elstow was safely in the pub,’ he went on, then picked up some papers. ‘Preliminary report from forensic,’ he said. ‘Have you got yours?’
‘No.’ Lloyd glared at him.
‘It’s probably on your desk now. They don’t have much to go on yet – they’re working with a skeleton staff, and half of them couldn’t get in. But it does say that Elstow’s full handprint was on the inside of the sitting room door – as it would be, if he’d slammed it shut, like Mrs Elstow said. And there were scuff marks on the polished floorboards, consistent with two people struggling.’
‘All right, all right,’ Lloyd said. ‘Stop being so smug.’
Freddie laughed. ‘He was lying on the bed when he was attacked,’ he said. ‘Probably asleep.’ He looked up. ‘That fits in with your theory,’ he said. ‘If only he’d died a couple of hours earlier.’
Joanna had been a fairly conspicuous visitor to the pub, with her black eyes. They had all seen her arrive with her father, at about ten past seven. Still, Lloyd thought, Freddie said he could have died at seven.
‘Could she have killed him before the pub?’ he asked.
‘And ten minutes later she’s sipping cider?’ Freddie said. ‘No, Lloyd. I think he was alive at seven, anyway.’
‘But it’s possible? In theory?’
‘Theoretically, he could have died at seven. But for Wheeler and his daughter to be in the pub by ten past – which several witnesses say they were – they have to have left the house by seven. The weather precluded speeding – if we assume they travelled at a reasonable speed, it would certainly take ten minutes from the vicarage to the pub.’
‘Are you saying he couldn’t have died even a few minutes before seven?’ asked Lloyd.
‘I am. Seven and nine are the absolute outside times, Lloyd. Between seven-thirty and eight-thirty would be my guess.’
‘So I have no leeway?’
‘No,’ said Freddie. ‘Not on the time. But there are two other interesting points,’ he said, brightening up.
Lloyd shook his head. ‘Other people would object to their Christmas Day being broken into in this fashion, Freddie. Why don’t you?’
‘I’m happy in my work,’ he said, with a shrug.
Lloyd looked at Freddie’s work, and shook his head again.
‘This has made my day,’ he went on enthusiastically. ‘It’s a puzzle, Lloyd. If you look at the—’
‘I’ll take your word for it, Freddie, whatever it is.’
‘Right. Two of the blows occurred after death. They’re not particularly heavy – nothing like as heavy as the others.’
‘Whoever did it expended a lot of energy,’ said Lloyd.
‘Sure, sure. The last blows wouldn’t be as strong,’ Freddie said. ‘But if you were that tired – why hit him again?’
‘She just kept going until she was certain,’ said Lloyd. He couldn’t see what there was to get excited about.
&nbs
p; And he didn’t miss Freddie’s raised eyebrows at his use of gender, but it was Freddie who had said that he thought the prints on the poker were a woman’s.
And Lloyd thought they were Joanna Elstow’s, and would continue to do so until he was proved wrong. But God knew when that would be. It was Christmas Day, and it was snowing; that apparently meant that the system ground to a halt.
‘Elstow died almost immediately,’ said Freddie. ‘But he got hit again, twice, some considerable time after he had died.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’
‘You’re the detective,’ said Freddie. He grinned.
Lloyd regarded him sourly. ‘When you haven’t got your hands in a corpse, you’re nice and miserable like the rest of us,’ he said. ‘You’re only really happy round death. That’s weird, Freddie.’
‘So I’ve been told. I like dead bodies.’ He smiled. ‘I like some live bodies, too. Has Sergeant Hill recovered?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Lloyd. ‘You said two points. What’s the other?’
‘The prints on the poker – oh, I forgot. You haven’t seen the report yet.’
‘What about them?’
‘They agree with me that they’re probably a woman’s,’ said Freddie. ‘Of course, since we haven’t got the comparison with the family’s prints yet . . .’
‘The Wheelers’ prints were taken as soon as possible,’ Lloyd said with exaggerated patience. ‘Don’t blame me because they’ve got stuck in some bureaucratic snowdrift.’
Freddie laughed. ‘It’s lonely at the top, Acting Chief Inspector.’
‘Is that it?’ Lloyd said. ‘That they’re a woman’s prints?’
‘Could be a woman’s prints. And yes, in a way, that is it, because the poker was held with one hand. Now, it’s not impossible, but I’d have said that to inflict blows like that, the average woman would have needed both hands.’
Lloyd nodded. ‘A good double-handed backhand, you said this morning.’
‘That’s still what I think,’ said Freddie. ‘So there you are. You go away and puzzle that lot out, and I’ll get busy on the details. If and when we can get any,’ he added.
