Frozen Charlotte

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘What about Agnetha?’

  ‘She’ll be down when she smells the bacon.’

  Martha enjoyed herself cooking the huge breakfast for the family. Perhaps it was the Irish in her but it felt so normal, the house filled with the scent and sound of bacon frying. A warm, comfortable, greasy, sizzling, winter’s smell. As they sat around, munching toast and the fry-up, sipping juice and coffee, Agnetha appeared, already dressed in tight skinny jeans and a scarlet sweater. Sam and Sukey were teasing each other.

  ‘So how was last night,’ Sam asked his twin as he crunched on a bit of crispy bacon.’

  Sukey shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. OK, I suppose. You ought to come out with us one evening.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Sam grunted, ‘though it’s not really my scene.’

  ‘Not sure it’s mine either.’ Sukey sighed loudly. ‘But I must have a “scene” otherwise there’s no point being a teenager. Dire. Let’s change the subject. How long do you think you’ll be injured for?’

  ‘I’ve got to have a check-up with the doctor next week,’ Sam said. ‘But really I feel absolutely fine now. One hundred per cent so I think I should be playing again by next weekend.’

  ‘Don’t you ever get fed up with football?’

  ‘Never,’ Sam answered fervently, as though she had asked a devout Christian whether he ever got fed up with God. ‘But…’ He stopped abruptly and they all looked at him, his mother, sister and Agnetha. He went red. Almost red enough for his face to clash with his hair.

  ‘What is it,’ Martha prompted gently.

  Sam coloured even more. ‘It’s only been mentioned .’

  They all waited.

  ‘It’s just a possibility,’ he said carefully, ‘that I might be lent to Stoke too – just for a season.’

  Martha’s heart leapt but it was Sukey who said it. ‘You could live at home with us?’

  Sam grinned at them all. ‘Except Agnetha. You won’t be here, will you?’

  ‘I will be a married woman,’ she said primly, ‘back in Sweden.’

  ‘But it would still be good,’ he said uncertainly, ‘wouldn’t it?’

  Martha raised her glass of juice. ‘Certainly would,’ she said. ‘We’ll drink to that.’ She gave the slightest of glances in her daughter’s direction. ‘Won’t we, Suks?’

  Her daughter went only ever so slightly pink.

  ‘I was wondering,’ Agnetha continued tentatively, ‘if you would allow her to be one of my bridesmaids possibly?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Agnetha. Of course, provided she’d like to. You know Sukey.’

  Sukey was beaming. ‘I’d love to, Mum. My friends at school will eat their heart out. A Swedish wedding. Wow.’

  Talith had had to apply to the magistrate for a warrant to search the Sedgewick abode. It was granted without demur. He then tried the home telephone number Alice had given him but, as he’d expected, no one picked up. Instead the call was diverted straight to answer phone. He left no message. Perhaps Aaron really was abroad, as his wife had claimed, though surely he would have a mobile phone? Practically everyone did these days. He rang the number Acantha Palk had left him and explained that they needed access to the Sedgewick’s house.

  She seemed unsurprised. As a solicitor she would have anticipated this request. Maybe had even warned her client/friend of this likelihood. There was no ‘I’ll have to check’. Instead she responded calmly. ‘That’ll be fine. We’ll meet you there in half an hour to let you in.’

  ‘How is she this morning?’

  ‘Calmer.’

  He wanted to ask so much more, whether Alice had said anything about how she had found herself at the hospital with her bundle, but instinctively he knew all this would have to be done formally, according to the book and on the record, so he arranged to meet them both at The Mount in half an hour.

  At eleven, as she was putting on her make-up, Martha was surprised to have a telephone call from Simon Pendlebury. Simon had been married to her friend Evelyn but Evelyn had died of ovarian cancer almost a year ago and since then they had shared the odd friendly dinner every couple of months or so. It was uncharacteristic for him to ring her early on a Sunday morning and when he spoke she quickly realized that this was not the only uncharacteristic thing about his telephone call. He sounded agitated – a little nervous. Almost unsure of himself. He was a strange man, who had been a great friend of Martin’s in their university days, an accountant who seemed to have made an awful lot of money in a very short space of time. Martha didn’t quite trust him. There was a dangerous aura around him but she did enjoy his company – perhaps because of this. He spoke urgently. ‘Martha,’ he said, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could spare me an evening. This week?’

  ‘Of course, Simon. Is Wednesday any good?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’ll see you at Drapers’. Eight o’clock?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Thanks, Martha, I appreciate it,’ and he put the phone down, leaving her to wonder what on earth was going on? She had never heard him so unsure of himself, or so grateful for her company. It was all odd. She smiled at herself in the mirror. She was going to learn something new about this man she’d known for almost twenty years. In the meantime, she looked out of the window and watched a few flakes of snow swirl outside. What were they going to do today?

  It was midday by the time Talith had gathered his team together. They arrived at The Mount in a large van and a police car. Talith looked up at the property. It was imposing. A three-storeyed Victorian house with black and white gables in perfect condition and well tended gardens. The snow lay thickly on the roof giving it a Christmas card air. Talith had to remind himself what he was here for – nothing like a Christmas card, more like a horror film. His policeman’s eye registered the oblong shape in the snow where a car had recently stood and the skid marks in the drive, presumably where Mrs Sedgewick had driven out – in a great hurry by the look of the gravel spewed up and slushy. He indicated the marks to the police photographer who snapped them obediently. Beneath a thick blanket of snow lay another car, a white Mercedes with a personalized number plate. AS 10. Aaron Sedgewick’s presumably? This car had obviously sat here for the last few days, which gave further credence to the ‘away on business’ claim. In fact there was no sign of life around the property at all. No lights, no roar of a central heating boiler. The front curtains were tightly drawn. The Mount looked abandoned.

  Mrs Palk pulled up minutes later, in a blue Mazda. She climbed out, smartly dressed in a fur-trimmed black anorak, tight black jeans and Ugg boots. Alice followed her, still in the same shabby clothes she had been wearing the night before. She still looked pale but perfectly composed and avoided meeting Talith’s eyes. From her coat pocket she drew a Yale key on a small chain and silently unlocked the door.

  Behind her Talith sucked in a deep, apprehensive breath, a little ashamed of the fact that he was so nervous at entering. There had been something so morbid, so ghoulish about the remains of the tiny child, and a woman who nursed it as though it was a live infant baby had upset him. It took him back to a moment he preferred to forget, a time when he was eight years old and he and his dad (who was a great fan of Hammer Horror movies) had watched a black and white Boris Karloff film, The Mummy . Though it had been an old film and he could see now that the special effects had been clumsy and Boris Karloff’s movement jerky and unrealistic, it had scared the pants off him at the time. Even now he felt silly thinking it had so terrified him but his dad had been a film buff and had laughed when his son had spent at least half of the movie cowering behind the settee. Talith still felt ashamed of himself.

  And he felt exactly the same now, entering this House of Horror. Except that he was a detective sergeant now and could not cower behind the sofa any more. He must face up to this.

  He shook himself, but it was still there, that icy finger creeping up the spine.

  What else would he find? How many more dead babies?

  The hall felt chilly and smelt
very slightly musty.

  He must take charge. ‘Do you want to show us where you found the ummm baby, Mrs Sedgewick?’

  She nodded towards the staircase ahead. ‘Upstairs. We’re thinking of using the loft for an extra bedroom and bathroom. I thought I’d better take a look up there.’ She gave a half smile, both vague and vacant. ‘I wasn’t sure how feasible – or pleasant – it would be as the water tanks are all up there.’ Another smile. ‘I thought it might be noisy – and a bit cold. And I wasn’t sure how the windows would work.’ She could have been showing someone over the house and trying to put them off, Talith thought, not pointing where she had discovered a baby’s rotten corpse. He took charge. ‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’

  He glanced into the rooms as they passed. They were, as he had expected, luxuriant and well-ordered. There were cream carpets, coordinated curtains, smart, polished antique furniture. And yet it felt little used. It was very tidy and impersonal. Apart from comfortable wealth there was no clue as to the Sedgewick’s characters and interests. Talith wondered whether Alice did her own cleaning. Probably not, he decided. She was more likely to have a ‘daily’. He followed her up a wide, mahogany staircase with a narrow strip of dark red carpet anchored by brass stair rods and then towards an extending loft ladder on the landing. Acantha drew up in the rear, saying nothing, but she kept a suspicious eye on the white-suited forensic team ahead of her, as they clambered, noisily bouncing up the ladder. Perhaps she too, was apprehensive at what they would find at the top.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ Talith asked the question conversationally but Alice Sedgewick wasn’t fooled. ‘Only five years,’ she said deliberately, turning around and reading his eyes.

  His next comment was equally polite but probing. ‘It’s a very big house for a couple whose children have flown the nest.’

  Alice turned around again with that perceptive and unsettling stare. ‘My husband likes big houses,’ she said, adding to herself, ‘even though he isn’t here that much.’ There was resentment in her tone and Talith wondered whether she shared her husband’s enthusiasm for living in big houses.

  They reached the top of the ladder. Alice Sedgewick put her hand out to the left and flicked a light switch on illuminating the entire loft space with four swinging light bulbs. Talith made a mental note of even this small action. She’d remembered to turn the switch off then last night as she’d left the roof space, even though she must have been holding her grisly burden. Not someone in a panic then but a woman calm enough to carry out an action of economy. So she had either been in control of herself, had acted automatically or maybe, just maybe, it was possible that someone else had switched the light off.

  Already Talith’s policeman’s mind was starting to look at scenarios, possibilities and ask the relevant questions.

  The loft was neatly boarded. There was plenty of headroom and four bare electric lights so they had a good view. Now they could see how huge the roof space was. Big enough for a couple more bedrooms and bathrooms. Talith straightened up and looked around. It held the usual loft contents: a couple of suitcases, a few boxes stacked neatly to one side, beams and spiders’ webs, insulation against the roof. There was a soft, urgent scrabbling in the corner. Mice? Bats? Rats?

  It was easy to see where Alice had found the infant. In the far corner stood a hot water tank partly boarded in. Behind it and to the side was a pile of dust and rubble. Talith and the team approached the area. In the rubble was a small piece of tattered woollen cloth so smothered with the dust it was hard to tell what colour it had once been. So, as Delyth Fontaine had suggested last night, Alice must have found the infant partly covered, unwrapped it, taken it downstairs and found the blanket in which she had wrapped the child to bring it to the hospital. She had provided the newer pink blanket herself. From where? It had been no larger than a cot blanket – nowhere near adult sized. But it was surely a long time ago that a baby had been resident here, in number 41. Alice Sedgewick’s children were in their twenties.

  As though reading his mind, she followed his gaze. ‘That’s where I found her,’ she said very quietly. ‘I – there was some plasterboard around the hot water tank. I thought I’d take a proper look to see if it should be moved. I pulled off some of the boards surrounding it.’ Alice was walking towards the spot very slowly, in a trance, speaking softly to herself, as though she had forgotten they were there. ‘Then I found her, waiting for me. She was wrapped up.’ Her eyes were wide open now but unfocussed. ‘She’d been lying there all that time. Not buried at all. Just stuffed behind an…’ There was a look both of grief and horror in her face.

  ‘Hey.’ Acantha put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘Hey.’

  It looked as though Alice Sedgewick was beginning to lose the plot again, Talith thought. And yet, though the content of her tale was enough to tip the sanest mind into hysteria, there was, around Alice Sedgewick, a complete lack of drama. She had simply related the story in a flat, quiet voice.

  The SOCOs had already slipped on their gloves and were stepping towards the spot ready to bag up the tattered woollen rag, but not before Talith had seen some staining on it, dark and rusty. As a policeman he’d seen enough of this particular mark before to know exactly what it was.

  Acantha saw it too and intervened quickly. ‘Don’t you think it would be better if all this was continued back at the station while your people look around?’

  Talith nodded slowly. The team would work better unhampered anyway.

  He took a quick sweep of the area, frowning. He couldn’t really see why Alice Sedgewick had investigated the area around the water tank. If he had been considering converting the loft into further living space it wouldn’t immediately have struck him as that important.

  He had a quick, quiet word with Roddie Hughes, the scene of crimes investigator. A sharp-eyed Essex boy who had moved up to Shrewsbury a few years ago because he’d visited the town for a weekend and liked it so much he’d decided to stay rather than go home.

  ‘Take a quickie round the house,’ Talith said. ‘I’m wondering where that little kid’s blanket came from.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Unless she’s got grandchildren, of course.’

  As they trooped downstairs, he was already adding that to the list of questions he wanted answers to.

  As they reached the hall he made his decision and spoke to the two women. ‘I can’t see any point dragging you down to the station today,’ he said. ‘The senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Alex Randall, will take over tomorrow. It’ll be up to him how he conducts the case.’ He omitted to mention that how things proceeded would also depend on the results of the post-mortem. Talith wasn’t sure whether he was glad or sorry he would be handing over responsibility for the case. It promised to be interesting but probably frustrating too. He had the feeling that winkling out the truth would prove to be a challenge equal to any police officer’s talents. Even Detective Inspector Alex Randall. A time lapse between what might have been a crime and the discovery of a body always made a case harder to solve and it might be hard to determine what exactly the time lapse had been. The SOCOs would be looking for other clues as to how long the child had lain concealed. But there was no doubt about it. DI Randall would be taking over the investigation in the morning and probably he, Sergeant Paul Talith, and definitely PC Gethin Roberts, who was right at the bottom of the pecking order, would be relegated to the Second Division. Talith was a fan of the ‘beautiful game’ and whenever possible he liked to use sporting jargon to describe his work. It made his job sound dangerous, exciting, energetic, and besides it made him feel better.

  Acantha looked vaguely surprised at their release and Talith had the feeling she had expected a long grilling of her client most of the afternoon, so he explained his reasoning. ‘I’ve done what preliminary work is necessary, Mrs Palk.’ He glanced at Alice. ‘This is quite a strain on Mrs Sedgewick.’ A further quick glance at Alice confirmed that she was looking wan. ‘I think we sh
ould leave her alone for now until DI Randall takes over, the examination of the house is complete and we’ve done some further investigations.’ He gave a ghost of a smile. ‘I take it you’ll vouch for her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Acantha said, a little stiffly.

  ‘Have you contacted Mr Sedgewick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you don’t know when he’ll be back?’ He addressed the question vaguely to both women. It was Acantha who answered.

  ‘Not a clue,’ she said airily. ‘Aaron rather makes up his own rules, doesn’t he, Alice?’

  This elicited a vague nod.

  ‘He rarely tells Alice exactly when he’ll be home but always manages to arrive unexpectedly,’ Acantha explained then gave a wide, slightly mischievous smile. It transformed her face, melted away the severe expression and replaced it with a softness and humanity that made her look instantly attractive. ‘When she was younger I used to think he imagined he’d walk in on her doing something she shouldn’t.’

  Both Alice and Sergeant Talith were startled. Alice stared at her friend.

  Talith pursued the comment. ‘You mean another man?’ He gave a sceptical glance at Mrs Sedgewick.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said hastily. ‘No. Nothing like that. All the other things Alice wasn’t allowed to do. Eating chocolate, having a glass too much red wine. Talking for too long on the telephone. Wearing shoes in the house, not rinsing out coffee cups before putting them in the dishwasher. Having a Chinese takeaway or even worse a pizza delivery. There were a hundred things she wasn’t allowed to do. The children not in bed when they should have been, watching soaps on the television.’ She gave an amused grimace. ‘You don’t know what control is until you’ve met Aaron Sedgewick, sergeant.’

  Alice was round-eyed with incredulity at Acantha’s forthrightness but she stayed silent, not defending her husband or contradicting her friend’s opinion.

  ‘I can hardly wait,’ Talith responded dryly.

  He kept his last question back until they had walked outside into the freezing air. ‘Does Aaron Sedgewick have a mobile?’