River Deep

by Priscilla Masters

  “Haddonfield, in the meantime, drove to Shrewsbury on the Sunday night, probably thinking he was in for a night of passion with Freddie Bosworth while his wife was conveniently working. But Cressida Humphreys was waiting for him. She stabbed him, shoved him down the cellar steps with her foot – I think the round mark which puzzled us so much on his chest was the imprint of a heel. She then left him to die there, thinking, probably, that her husband would be back at some point and would then be linked to the crime. Cressida Humphreys put his coat on, drove the van back to Oswestry, made sure the next door neighbour saw her on Monday morning, made a call to Lindy Haddonfield’s mobile, knowing the home number would register and drove into Shrewsbury. She then left the van in the car park and hitchhiked back to Oswestry and her car. That’s why Haddonfield, the window cleaner, had to be dressed in Humphreys’ suit while Bosworth was dumped, naked, in the clothing bank. It was no good him being found in designer clothes when he was supposed to be a window cleaner. All that was left was for the women to identify the wrong men.”

  “How did the three women meet?”

  “Who knows – some chance meeting, almost certainly at Lilac Clouds.” She treated Randall to one of her warmest smiles. “I don’t know everything, Alex. You’ll have to fill in the gaps. All I know is that it was Bosworth’s body which was dumped in the ragbank and later identified by Lindy as her husband while Haddonfield’s body was flushed out of the cellar of Marine Terrace by the Severn. Maybe we never will know everything. Certainly we don’t know how the women would have acted had circumstances not intervened and led to the discovery of the body by a policeman.” She risked another smile. “Poor old Coleman. But put it to them and they’ll confess. Out of shock. They thought they were being so clever. So beyond detection.”

  “So if the other two are our killers what role did Freddie Bosworth play?”

  “I think,” she said, “that when Haddonfield went to Marine Terrace he thought it was Freddie he was meeting. She’s so perfect for a honey-trap. She set Haddonfield up at some point. Probably his wife organised some sort of ‘chance’ meeting between them. Freddie’s a fairly irresistible woman. And I would lay a fifty pound bet that the Humphreys’ had a weekend at Lilac Clouds and while they were there James, the philanderer, made a pass at Lindy. It’s probably what gave her the idea. Everything’s right here, Alex. The contusion in the middle of not Bosworth’s chest but Clarke Haddonfield’s. Quite a bit of hatred there. Look on the steel tip of some of her high heels. There’ll be forensic evidence aplenty – once you know where to look and what to look for.”

  Alex was still wearing that dubious look she knew so well. Wendy Aitken, on the other hand, looked impassive. But she was listening. Hard. Again Martha visualised Munch’s painting, The Scream. It had been screaming at her; screaming the truth. James Humphreys seeing his own wife coming out of his house. Wondering what she was doing there. Then hearing about the body. No wonder he’d gone to ground.

  Alex drew in a long breath. “We’ll have a job proving it all,” he said.

  “Not when you know how to proceed,” she said calmly.

  Wendy Aitken understood what she was saying.

  “Exhumation,” she breathed.

  Martha nodded.

  “We’ll have to apply to the Home Office.”

  Again Martha nodded.

  Randall crossed his legs and opened his mouth.

  Martha spoke for him. “There won’t be any problem there,” she said dryly. “Once you explain the circumstances of the identification.”

  “They’re not going to like it,” Wendy said.

  “Then break them in gently. Start with telling them you think there’s been some mistake,” she suggested. “Confusion. If you use that word it won’t rattle them too much. They’ll think you still don’t know what went on and will drop their guard. Tell them you have to use dental records and DNA evidence to confirm identity of both men for legal reasons, Life Insurance. Something. Give them the chance to say they might have been mistaken. Tell them you intend applying to the Home Office for an exhumation – of both corpses. See what happens then. Then look at the guest resister for Lilac Clouds during the months of January and February – about a year ago. I think it will have taken some time to set the whole thing up. Look for an entry in the name of Humphreys. Or Bosworth. Check Lindy Haddonfield’s house for forensic evidence of Bosworth ever having been there. Or even Cressida Humphreys, particularly on the telephone. Combine a picture of Haddonfield and Mrs Bosworth and ask around if anyone ever saw them together. She’s a fairly memorable woman, especially when she’s driving her Porsche. People will remember. Think of it the other way round, if you like.” She grinned. “And don’t get confused. Remember these three women don’t know each other that well. They simply provided one another with a service. I don’t think each will trust the others not to talk. Not with so much at stake.”

  Alex stood up abruptly, Wendy Aitken too. So did Martha. She drew in a long, deep breath and spoke to both of them. “I know that what I’m about to suggest is unorthodox,” she said, “but two men have died. And if I’m right they’ve been buried in the wrong graves. This is my jurisdiction. I wonder if you’d allow me to speak to the three women.”

  The two police exchanged glances. Then Wendy Aitken nodded. “I have no objection,” she said. “Alex?”

  Randall met her eyes, finally nodded too. “I’ll need to be present.” It was all he said.

  “Then I’ll speak to Freddie Bosworth first.”

  She almost felt a tinge of sympathy for Freddie, Babe Bosworth, timidly entering the room. The stiff lashes fluttered and dropped as though too heavy to lift.

  “Mrs Bosworth,” Martha said, “I’m sure you remember me?”

  Freddie nodded.

  And Martha followed her own advice. “We believe that there may have been some confusion over your husband’s identity. We need to confirm through dental records and DNA.”

  The eyes held a flash of panic, a desperation.

  “I think you’d better tell us what you can,” Martha said gently. “It’ll be easier for you in the long run. Would you like your solicitor with you?”

  A slow shake of the head.

  Then she took the big risk. “The man you identified as your husband was, in reality, Clarke Haddonfield, wasn’t he?”

  Freddie’s mouth gaped, gasping for air like a fish.

  “Although Detective Inspector Randall is here this is an informal chat, Mrs Bosworth,” Martha reminded her gently. “We’ll be able to confirm quite a lot of what I’m saying when we exhume both graves.”

  “Resurrection Woman,” Freddie hissed, a bit of fight in her. “How can you …?”

  A brief vision of Martin and Martha felt suddenly angry. “How can you bear to let your husband lie under another name?”

  Freddie’s face tightened with hatred. “You don’t know anything.”

  “Correction, Mrs Bosworth. We don’t know everything. But we do know more than you think, I can assure you.”

  Silence.

  “You’d met Clarke Haddonfield?” Panic again in the eyes. Frozen hesitation. Then a brief nod. “Over the Internet. I scanned myself in. Lindy had told me he used a site for S&M. I just played up to it. I met him once. Just once. But I didn’t kill him. I swear I didn’t kill him. We just … chatted. I wouldn’t have … I couldn’t have … done anything.”

  Martha nodded, feigning sympathy when inside she felt cold anger.

  “So all you had to do was to lure him to Marine Terrace on the Sunday.”

  “I wouldn’t have done anything more. But I had to get rid.”

  “Of your husband?”

  Another hesitating nod. “It was the only way.”

  “Why not divorce?”

  “You don’t – didn’t – know Gerald. Divorce? Deprive him of half his precious money?” She leaned forward, her face pale under the make up. “He would have killed me. It was survival of the fittest. Or the clevere
st. And lucky for me I had friends.”

  “Cressida Humphreys and Lindy.” Alex spoke for the first time.

  Freddie addressed her next remark to him and him alone. “You wouldn’t know anything about this,” she said. “But women stick together when they have problems.”

  Martha resumed her questioning. “I suppose you’d met Lindy at Lilac Clouds?”

  “More than a year ago but we gelled. We kept in touch. Very empathic, Lindy is. She understands.”

  Martha nodded. “So all you had to do was stay at home, wait for the police to put two and two together, contact you and identify the wrong man.”

  Freddie crossed and uncrossed her legs. “That’s about it.”

  It was patently the truth.

  Cressida Humphreys was next. This time it was Wendy Aitken who was behind the mirror, Martha in front of it with Alex Randall. She performed the introductions all over again.

  Cressida looked boldly at her. “I don’t understand what a coroner has to do with me,” she said haughtily. “No one connected with me is dead – as far as I know.”

  “My remit,” Martha explained again, quite patiently, “is to speak to anyone I believe can throw light on cases which have been referred to me.”

  Cressida drew in a deep sigh. Her anger wasn’t quite spent. “I don’t even know why I’ve been brought in,” she said. “Apart from the fact that some unfortunate man was murdered in the house my husband rented – while he was not there, I hasten to add – I have nothing whatsoever to do with this case.”

  “Where were you on the Sunday that Clarke Haddonfield died?”

  Cressida looked instantly wary. “Excuse me,” she said. “I understood …”

  It was as though the trap had sprung shut, teeth biting.

  “Maybe I should explain,” Martha said. “We believe the man who died at Marine Terrace was Clarke Haddonfield, the window cleaner from Oswestry. Now where were you on Sunday afternoon, the 10th of February?”

  “At home.”

  Martha shook her head, almost regretfully. “Your husband saw you, didn’t he, coming out of his house? At first he must have thought you were just checking up on him.” She looked the woman full in the face. “What story did you spin?”

  Cressida recovered some of her composure. “I don’t understand exactly what you’re …”

  “We only have to speak to your husband,” Martha said. “I don’t know why he hasn’t come forward.”

  “To say what?”

  Martha said nothing. Let Cressida work it out for herself.

  She did – slowly.

  “You’re saying I was there on the Sunday afternoon when -?”

  Martha didn’t answer.

  “Are you accusing me? Whoever he was, the man was a complete stranger.”

  “Exactly. That’s what so clever about it.”

  “And then what?”

  “You were there on the Sunday. Stayed the night in Oswestry, drove Haddonfield’s van into Shrewsbury on the Monday morning to the car park and left it there, hitchhiked back to Oswestry to lay a false trail.”

  “There’s a bit of a flaw in your argument.” Mrs Humphreys still had plenty of fight left in her. “Why the hell should I go to all that trouble lying and –” A sudden moment of panic. “You’re not suggesting I actually …?”

  Martha still said precisely nothing. Cressida Humphreys was smart enough to work the whole thing out – just how much the coroner really knew.

  “You don’t think I committed the -” She couldn’t quite say it. “You don’t think I killed him?”

  No one in the room breathed – not even Wendy Aitken behind the mirror.

  Then the penny must have finally dropped for Cressida Humphreys. She must have realised. Her husband would testify. And her face crumpled. Like Freddie before her she gasped at the air like a fish, her face pale, then red, then deathly pale again. “Have you ever – ?” She swallowed, still gasping. “Have you? Do you know what it’s like when your husband is a serial womaniser?”

  She scrutinised Martha. “No,” she decided. “No. You wouldn’t. You’re not the sort of woman who would be married to the sort of man I was. No,” she finished firmly. “But Gerald – and other men.” Her face tightened furiously. “They get what they deserve.”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “We all – some women – we start at the marriage altar.” She gave a wry smile. “Appropriate expression, don’t you think?”

  Martha grimaced, as did Randall.

  “Well, we all start off thinking it’ll be such a fairytale. And they do this to us. Destroy us. But some of us can fight back when the crown slips and we see them for what they are, balding, fattening middle-aged men who preserve their image of being so sexy by rutting with anything that comes along. And when men have money something always does come along.” A suspicion of a smile softened her features. “You’ve met Sheelagh? Typical of the species.”

  Then she looked careworn again. “They had it coming. All of them. I would have enjoyed watching James being questioned, squirming inside a police cell. He is a born liar. He would have lied and you police,” she shot Randall a quick, almost flirtatious stare, “would have been convinced he was the killer. There’s something undeniably shifty about myhusband.”

  “How did you explain to him your presence at the cottage on the Sunday?”

  Cressida smiled calmly. “Simply told him Sheelagh’s husband had turned up and there had been an ugly scene, that her husband had assumed Haddonfield was him and attacked him. By the time he knew the truth it was too late. He’d left it too long, already deceived the police.”

  “Why did you switch clothes?”

  “In what Clarke Haddonfield was wearing,” she said primly, “you would have known instantly that he was not Gerald Bosworth.”

  Martha nodded. It all fitted. It was now up to Randall to wring the complete confession out of her. She knew all she wanted to. Cressida Humphreys left the room straight into custody and a caution.

  “I suppose we’d better see Lindy.”

  “In a minute.”

  It was a phrase Cressida Humphreys had used that struck a chord within her. Sukey and Agnetha singing lustily. “The King has lost his crown”. At the time the phrase had provoked some feeling, some sympathy.

  This was what happened when the crown slips. This was what it was all about, three women seeing their husbands for what they were and rejecting them cruelly, bonded not to their husbands but to a sisterhood of similarly maligned women.

  But in some ways Lindy’s story was different yet the same. Haddonfield had not been like the other two men, not a wealthy successful businessman but a loser. A man who had tried schemes only to fail in them all while his wife had been the one to want to move to pastures new. Added to that Haddonfield had succumbed to temptation and perversion. Surfing the S&M websites.

  Lindy sauntered in with confidence. She smiled at both of them, smiled again at Martha. Martha shifted in her seat, unsure whether Haddonfield’s wife had recognised her as her client or merely the coroner. Something in the direct stare, the double-take. And the ambiguous words, ‘Hello again.’

  Martha started with the same story, the same justification of her interest and the need to confirm identity. Lindy Haddonfield faked incredulity. But not well. “You’re saying that I was wrong? That my husband died in Shrewsbury? That I looked at that body not knowing it was my husband and then a couple of weeks later identified the wrong man?” Her eyes opened wide and innocent.

  Which made Martha feel like shouting. “Enough. Enough.” Instead she continued quietly. “Obviously we can prove this either way.”

  Lindy’s face became hard and mean. The murderess surfaced, the woman who had manipulated two other women in her scheme. “Dig them up, you mean.” Somehow she was trying the shift the crime to Martha. “And even if I had been wrong – what would that prove? Just that I was upset. It doesn’t prove anything.” She thought quickly and efficiently. “Ar
e you saying that my husband was killed on the Sunday? I was at work all day. There’s no way –”

  Randall stepped in. “Come on, Mrs Haddonfield. Now. Tell me about the times you met Cressida Humphreys and Freddie Bosworth. They were clients of yours – weren’t they?”

  “Nothing wrong in that.” She was spitting like a cat. Hands clenched.

  Randall leaned forward. “Where did you kill Bosworth?”

  No response.

  “OK then.” He moved in closer – for the kill. “Where did you keep his body before you dropped it into the clothing bank?”

  That was when Lindy Haddonfield first began to panic and their treatment subtly altered.

  They were admitted to the custody suite, their possessions taken from them. They were advised to contact solicitors. Martha left.

  Randall ploughed ahead and immediately applied for a dual exhumation.

  Certain procedures have to be followed with an exhumation. Safeguards have to be observed to make sure of the grave and the coffin. The graveplot is identified by the cemetery authorities with reference to plans and records. An official must personally point out the grave to be opened. On the previous day a mechanical digger digs down to a level just above the coffin so that the following morning the police, the coroner, the pathologist and others can arrive in time to see the final exposure of the coffin. The coffin nameplate must be cleaned and read to confirm the identity (mistaken in this case) and if possible the funeral director who carried out the original burial should be present to identify the coffin and the plate. A metal cassion is lowered to protect the grave sides.

  The coffin is lifted.

  The lid is loosened by slackening the holding screws or prising the lid loose. This allows gases to escape into the open air rather than in the mortuary.