A Trio of Murders: A Perfect Match, Redemption, Death of a Dancer

by Jill McGown

  ‘No,’ she said, sinking tiredly down again. ‘But it’s over, Michael. Whatever it was, whatever it is. It’s over, and I’m leaving.’

  ‘And moving in with Mr Lloyd?’

  ‘Eventually,’ she said. ‘When I get my transfer.’

  ‘Because the powers that be wouldn’t like it while you’re both still at Stansfield?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘So where will you go in the meantime?’

  ‘I’ll get somewhere,’ she said. ‘I can share with someone. It’s only until June.’

  ‘Stay here,’ he said.

  Judy’s eyes widened. ‘What?’ she asked disbelievingly.

  ‘Stay here. Why not? We’ve got separate rooms – if you’re going to share with someone, share with me.’

  ‘I can’t do that!’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Of course. Mr Lloyd wouldn’t like it. Well,’ he said, with a grim little smile, ‘I know where I come in the pecking order, don’t I? I come a poor third to your bosses and your boyfriend.’

  Judy shook her head. ‘Why on earth do you want me to stay?’ she asked.

  He dropped his eyes away from hers. ‘I can’t cope with this,’ he said. ‘I can’t cope on my own.’

  ‘Michael, you’re a grown man!’

  He put his head in his hands. ‘Maybe that’s just what I’m not,’ he said.

  A little boy in Woolworth’s. Judy got up, and put her arm round his shoulders. ‘You can’t hold on to this,’ she said. ‘Not just because of—’

  ‘I know,’ he said, interrupting her. He took his hands away, and looked up. ‘Just stay,’ he said. ‘Until your transfer. Give me time to get used to the idea. Don’t walk out on me now. Please. Give me time to find somewhere. I can’t rattle about this place on my own.’

  Judy frowned slightly as she looked at him. ‘I never knew you felt like that,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I never knew about Lloyd. That makes us quits,’ he said.

  Her arm was still round his shoulders. She gave him a squeeze. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t.’ She straightened up. She would have to break her promise. ‘I’ll stay until the transfer,’ she said. Her heart sank at the thought of telling Lloyd, but she managed a smile. ‘And this does make us quits,’ she said. ‘OK?’

  He smiled. ‘OK,’ he said.

  The rain had offered false hope; it was falling again, but this time as sleet, as snow, adding to the problem that they already had. It was difficult just to keep upright on the slippery pavement. Judy took a taxi to Lloyd’s flat. The obliging driver took her into the garage area, and waited until her own car was coaxed into starting, driving off with two cheerful blasts of the horn when the exhaust fumes belched out, indicating success.

  She was looking forward to living here, in an apprehensive sort of way. In the relentlessly modern Stansfield, the old village was reassuring, with listed buildings and family shops and people who had lived there all their lives. But it was enough like part of a much larger town to be reasonably anonymous. Her comings and goings from Lloyd’s flat doubtless amused his neighbours, but it remained none of their business. And Lloyd’s flat itself was a kind of haven; a little bit of the initial magic was always there.

  Judy got ready to go and interview Treadwell, trying to bring her mind back to work, and away from how she was going to tell Lloyd what she had agreed with Michael.

  Sam prepared a canvas; he would be painting soon. The image danced just beyond his vision, but it was there. Outside, teams of police combed the playing-field, and nosed up and down the lane; they didn’t know what they were looking for, either.

  He looked up as the knock came to the door, and Caroline walked in.

  ‘Philip said I’d find you here,’ she said, wrinkling her nose a little at the smell.

  ‘Philip was right.’ He went back to his canvas. Fifties song, fifties ploy, fifties frustration. He hadn’t ached like that since he was fifteen. The brief moments of gratification that he had finally achieved hadn’t been worth it. Women never were.

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, still not looking at her.

  ‘I’m just not ready,’ she said.

  ‘You seemed ready enough to me.’ He looked up. ‘Are you ready to come to the pictures?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, we missed out last night,’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘So let’s go this afternoon. To a real cinema. Saturday afternoon flicks. It won’t be very artistic, but what the hell? I don’t know what’s on, but that doesn’t matter.’

  She looked shocked. ‘We can’t do that,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? It’s Saturday, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it!’

  ‘Oh,’ Sam said. ‘Because Diana Hamlyn’s dead? Not coming to the pictures with me isn’t going to change that.’

  ‘I can’t! What would people think?’

  ‘I don’t give a f—’ He gave a mock bow. ‘A fig what people think. And Diana Hamlyn’s demise is another thing I don’t give a fig about.’ He gave a broad smile. ‘It looks like she had one fig too many,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it?’

  Caroline just looked at him.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘The afternoon showing’s at about three, I think. I’ll pick you up in the car park at quarter past two – all right?’

  ‘I’m not coming to the pictures with you,’ she said carefully, as though he were a bit slow. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course you will. You want to.’ Why was he being so persistent, for God’s sake? They were all the same in the dark. But he wanted her, for the same reasons, he supposed, that a fisherman might struggle for hours to land an inedible fish.

  ‘Is Philip all right?’ she asked, ignoring him.

  ‘I think so,’ said Sam. He didn’t, but he wasn’t about to discuss Newby with Caroline.

  ‘He seemed to be in a lot of pain when I saw him,’ she said.

  Sam grinned again. ‘He always looks like that when you’re around,’ he said. ‘Hadn’t you noticed? Everyone else has.’

  This time he achieved a real blush. You would think it would make her angry, the way Newby looked at her sometimes. But it didn’t. At least it embarrassed her.

  She turned away and walked to the door.

  ‘Two-fifteen,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting with bated breath for your arrival.’

  He went to the window then, as there was a flurry of activity in the lane outside. They seemed to have found something.

  ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ she said. ‘Because I won’t come.’

  Sam grinned. ‘I wouldn’t really expect you to,’ he said. ‘Not in the back row of the cinema.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Treadwell, pointing to the ring.

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Castle, and reached out a hand to take it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sergeant Hill. ‘But we’ll have to hang on to it for the moment.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she said.

  Treadwell indicated that she could leave, and Miss Castle reluctantly took the hint.

  ‘Where did you say they were found?’ he asked.

  ‘In the loft above one of the houses,’ she said, tagging the ring.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one at the far end of the lane,’ she said, consulting her notebook. ‘Palmerston.’

  ‘Worrying about theft seems a bit ridiculous after what’s happened,’ he said gloomily, then brightened. ‘Still, it does seem to have been one of the boys after all,’ he said.

  There was a little group of items which remained untagged; they were all things that people might never even have missed. Loose change, cigarettes, a pocket handkerchief. Except that there was a pen there – it looked expensive.

  ‘It’s odd that the pen wasn’t reported,’ he said, picking up the plastic bag. It was old; well used. The pattern along the side had almost worn away.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘I’ll see if anyone
recognises it. But to get back to why I’m really here,’ she said briskly. ‘Was there much coming and going from the Hall last night?’

  Treadwell thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so. Waters left at about half past nine, and Mrs Hamlyn went just after quarter past ten. And Newby went early . . . . I left briefly, when I went to look for Mrs Hamlyn. And Robert went back to the flat at about one o’clock – that’s when he found her, of course.’

  ‘Mr Newby left early?’

  ‘Yes. He said his leg was bothering him, I’m told.’ She jotted something down. ‘He seemed to be in quite a lot of pain when we saw him,’ she said, responding to the note of disbelief.

  Treadwell shrugged. ‘He moved fast enough when he left,’ he said.

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Just minutes after Mrs Hamlyn left. Five at the most.’

  He sat down, motioning to the sergeant to do the same. His office felt cold this morning.

  ‘Did Mr Waters mention to you where he was going last night?’

  ‘Is he being difficult?’ he asked, but she didn’t answer.

  ‘He was supposed to be going out with Caroline Knight,’ he said.

  ‘Mrs Knight didn’t attend the dinner,’ said the sergeant. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘She didn’t want to, and I didn’t press her. She was in a very bad way after Andrew’s death.’ He sighed. ‘I asked her to organise the dinner. I thought having something specific to do might help. And it did seem to – she’s quite like her old self. But she wouldn’t attend. Not without Andrew, she said – so . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m not such a good doctor,’ he said, with a smile.

  ‘But she was going out with Mr Waters?’

  ‘Well,’ said Treadwell. ‘She said she was. Some film, I believe.’

  She frowned. ‘At that time of night?’

  ‘It was a special showing for St Valentine’s Day. Midnight.’ He smiled again. ‘It doesn’t sound like Waters’s cup of tea to me. I think it was an excuse they cooked up to get him out of having to stay at the ball.’

  She wrote what seemed to be all of that down. ‘Is that obligatory?’ he asked, pointing to the thick pad.

  She smiled. ‘It is if you’ve got a memory like mine,’ she said. ‘Do you mean you don’t think that he was really going out with her? You don’t believe the film existed?’

  He held up his hands. ‘Who knows? Sam – well, you’ve met him. Enough said, I imagine. But Caroline is quite friendly with him, for some reason. She might have let herself be used as an excuse.’

  ‘Mrs Knight telephoned to speak to Mrs Hamlyn at . . .’ She consulted her notebook. ‘Ten forty-five. Why was it you rather than Mr Hamlyn who spoke to her?’

  Treadwell wasn’t sure how to handle this. The woman must have heard about Diana by this time, but . . . well, she was a woman. It was all a little indelicate. ‘Hamlyn thought she’d gone somewhere with Sam Waters,’ he said. ‘He refused to take the call.’

  She gave a little nod. ‘You were gone from the table for about quarter of an hour?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I must have been.’

  A little frown appeared between the sergeant’s eyebrows. ‘I got the impression from Mrs Knight that the call was quite brief,’ she said.

  ‘It was. But she wanted to speak to Diana, and I said I’d look for her.’

  ‘Where did you look?’

  ‘Does it really matter?’ Treadwell snapped. He hadn’t expected a woman. Simon Allison had said the chief inspector would see him. Not a woman.

  ‘Well, one of the people at your table told me that when you returned you were . . .’ Again, she leafed through the notebook. ‘. . . “soaked to the skin”,’ she said. She looked up at him. ‘Were you?’ she asked.

  ‘Hardly,’ said Treadwell. ‘But I did get wet. It was raining very hard.’

  ‘Where did you look?’ she asked again.

  Treadwell could feel perspiration on the back of his neck. He wished the woman would just go away, but she was waiting patiently for an answer.

  ‘Various places. Places she might have gone with . . . with . . . well, you know.’

  ‘Mr Treadwell – do I understand that as soon as you were told that Mrs Hamlyn wasn’t where she was expected you assumed that she was with a man somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Wasn’t she a bit of a liability?’

  ‘In some respects.’ He resisted the temptation to run his finger round his shirt collar. ‘But she was a very good housemother. She understood children – the youngsters are devastated.’

  ‘Did you ever try to do anything about her behaviour?’

  ‘Like what? It’s Hamlyn that we employ, not his wife. What she did was her business.’

  ‘And yet you went looking for her?’

  ‘Mrs Knight wanted to speak to her.’

  ‘Where did you look?’ she asked.

  Treadwell thought he’d got her off that. ‘I went across to the Barn,’ he said. ‘I just thought she might be there.’

  ‘The Barn?’

  ‘The building behind this one.’ He waved a hand behind his shoulder, indicating the Barn through the window.

  She got up to look out. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I once had occasion to go into the Barn for something,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘She was in there with someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Does it matter? He’s no longer employed by the school.’

  ‘Yes, it matters,’ she said, in a voice as crisp as the white blouse she wore.

  Treadwell sighed. ‘It was a young man who was employed as a sort of handyman,’ he said. ‘I dismissed him on the spot.’

  ‘So he might well feel very resentful towards Mrs Hamlyn?’

  ‘I don’t see why. Anyway, it was eighteen months ago – it was a year ago last July.’

  ‘She got him into trouble – she lost him his job.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Treadwell. ‘It is the man who takes the lead in these matters.’

  He could only be thankful that Marcia had never looked at anyone like Sergeant Hill was looking at him.

  Chapter Four

  ‘. . . internal bruising, together with injuries—’ Freddie broke off as he realised that Lloyd had come in. He smiled. ‘Good morning, Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘You almost missed it all.’ He smiled broadly.

  ‘Pity I didn’t,’ Lloyd said sourly, as Freddie finished off the note he’d been making.

  ‘– to neck, breasts, and thighs, consistent with sexual assault.’ He looked up. ‘Swabs are positive,’ said Freddie. ‘If it was someone at the school, we might clear this up quite quickly. But it’s an interesting one, Lloyd.’

  Lloyd groaned. Freddie’s ‘interesting’ was everyone else’s headache. He looked at Kathy, which was a more pleasant activity than looking at what Freddie was doing. She smiled at him, as she wrote down Freddie’s findings. How could a nice girl like her possibly want to do this for a living? Sandwell was smitten; Lloyd didn’t blame him. But he wasn’t sure that he could fall for a pathologist’s assistant.

  ‘She died of asphyxiation,’ Freddie said, peering at something.

  Lloyd frowned. ‘What about the head injuries?’ he asked.

  ‘They didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘They would have done. He hit her often enough to drop an ox.’

  Lloyd nodded, and was left in limbo while Freddie worked, whistling quietly to himself, stopping to get Kathy to make notes, then picking up the tune where he left off. At last, he looked up.

  ‘But all her attacker knew was that she wasn’t dead. He thought he wasn’t making much of a job of it like that, so he restricted her air supply instead.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘Ah – well, that’s one of the more interesting aspects,’ Freddie said eagerly. ‘Something rigid – quite thin, probably quite long. Made of wood. And it broke, eventually. We’re working on the splinters – should kn
ow the sort of wood quite soon, I imagine.’

  ‘Can you give me some sort of description?’

  Freddie nodded. ‘The blows were made with something blunt, about five, six inches long, with rounded edges. Probably metal, but not particularly heavy – that’s why it didn’t do the job very efficiently. Unless he went with a positive armoury of weapons, I’d say he adapted whatever he’d been using; just pressed it down on her throat instead of hitting her with it.’

  ‘Can you hazard a guess as to what he used?’

  ‘Taken in conjunction with the neck injury, I’d say you were looking for something with a long, stiff wooden shaft, and a protuberance at one end. Like a golf-club,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Can’t get much closer,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what I’d take – a sand iron, do you think?’

  ‘I wish you sometimes had a hangover,’ Lloyd said. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t be so cheerful.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Freddie said, ‘he underclubbed, whatever he took.’

  ‘Is the golfing analogy going to be a feature of this investigation?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘Just trying to bring a little sunshine into your life,’ Freddie said. ‘Speaking of which – why do you keep Sergeant Hill away from me?’

  ‘Freddie, believe me. In this case, I’m doing you a favour. She wouldn’t take too kindly to your remarks – it’s quite difficult to say anything, never mind make jokes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sex murders don’t exactly give her a warm, secure feeling.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they do. This is a funny one, though.’

  ‘Freddie,’ Lloyd sighed. ‘Don’t make difficulties.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Freddie, sounding a little hurt. ‘But it’s possible that we’re not dealing with rape and murder.’

  ‘Freddie,’ said Lloyd, with exaggerated patience. ‘She was found in the middle of a field, in the middle of February, in the middle of a downpour, in the middle of the night. Her clothes were torn. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. She had been beaten and strangled.’

  ‘I know it wasn’t her day,’ said Freddie. ‘I’m just saying she might not have been raped.’

  ‘Oh, come off it!’ said Lloyd.

  ‘She was very sexually experienced,’ Freddie persisted.