Kill My Darling

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Quite right,’ Slider said. ‘I’ll talk to him later. I’d like to see the body first.’

  ‘We had the photo you sent out,’ Remington said, ‘and there’s no doubt it is her. That’s why we got right on to you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry it turned out this way,’ he offered. ‘It’s always a bugger when a young woman goes missing, but you always hope . . . Well, anyway.’

  Slider nodded to the unexpected sympathy, saw Remington look at something over his shoulder, and turned to see the firm’s wheels, Freddie Cameron’s Jaguar, and Atherton’s car bumping into the car park in careful convoy. And a short way behind them, even more welcomely, the tea waggon. Someone early on the site must have sent out the ‘teapot one’ call sign as a first priority. Slider had left breakfastless, and last night’s supper had not had much staying power: the sight gave him the first comfort of that cold morning. And it made him realize what it was that had been odd about the look of McLaren: for perhaps the first time in his life, he wasn’t engaged in eating anything.

  She was lying on her back in the litter of dead leaves and other natural debris, half under a bush a short distance from the path. It looked as if some attempt had been made to hide the body, but not much of one. As soon as anyone strayed this way – as they well might if their dog suddenly dashed off excitedly – they would have seen it: it wasn’t covered in any way. Was the murderer scared off, or had he sickened of the whole business by then? He could have gone a lot further from the car park and done a lot more concealing. For the matter of that, there were other woods in the general area that were more dense and less frequented – though on the other hand, they didn’t all have easily accessed car-parks. If you were shifting a body by car, that was a consideration. Of course, she may have walked into the woods on her own two feet and been killed here. Probably that was more likely. If you were intending to hide a body, you would surely go a bit further from civilization.

  She was dressed in a black skirt-suit over a sapphire blue jumper, and a thick grey wool reefer jacket; flat black shoes and opaque black tights. Because her clothes were all present and correct, it was unlikely she had been sexually assaulted: as the forensic pathologist, Freddie Cameron said, it would be a particularly obsessive and bonkers killer who would put his victim’s clothes carefully back on after death. It was-difficult, too – as with trying to get your tights back on in a swimming pool changing room. ‘So I’m told,’ he added hastily as Slider’s eyebrow went up.

  The strangling had been done with a silk scarf, presumably her own – it was Indian-patterned in shades of blue, purple and bottle-green – and the scarf was still in place round the neck, but there was no sign of the swelling or reddening that usually accompanied strangulation.

  ‘A pretty half-hearted effort,’ Freddie said, easing the silk away from the neck to look underneath. ‘In fact, I’d say it was for show only. It’s hardly marked the skin. It was the whack on the head that did for her, pound to a penny.’

  Slider was grateful for any small mercies. When you’ve seen enough of them you can be objective about dead bodies, but you never stop minding. He was glad of a seemly corpse, quietly composed: her eyes were closed, her mouth just a little open, her head naturally over to one side; no signs of struggle or convulsion. One hand was resting on her chest, the other was down by her side; there were dead leaves in her hair, which was thick and heavy, and fell back from her face on to the moss beneath her head. He recognized the face from the photograph Swilley had brought back, but of course this was not Melanie Hunter, just the fleshly envelope that had once housed her. She had departed, permanently; how, was what he had to find out.

  Freddie was demonstrating to him now the wound to the skull, slipping his hand under the neck to turn the head with professional skill but still, somehow, a gentleness. ‘See, here – the parietal bone is completely fractured, just above the junction with the occipital. I’d say just one blow, but a pretty hard one. Death would have been almost instantaneous.’

  ‘So there wouldn’t necessarily be much blood?’ Slider said.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Scalp wounds can bleed a lot in a short time. But there’s nothing here, under the head, just a smear or two. Of course, the body must have been moved – she wouldn’t have fallen on her back like this from a blow to the back of the skull – so there may well be some more blood somewhere else, either in the immediate area, if she was killed here, or wherever she was killed.’

  ‘Or in the car that was used to move her,’ Slider finished.

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘Time of death?’

  Freddie pursed his lips. ‘It’s hard to say, in this cold weather. The cold tends to slow down the processes. There’s still some rigor in the limbs, so perhaps less than three days. Between two and three days. You’ve got her disappearing when?’

  ‘So far, the last she was seen was on Friday night.’

  ‘Well, that would work. Friday night or early Saturday morning. But you know, old dear, that anything over eight hours and it’s just guesswork.’

  Slider nodded, and stared away through the trees, getting the lie of the place, the impression of light and shade, the undergrowth and open spaces. The forensic boys would do a fingertip search of the immediate area, in case something had been dropped or there were footmarks or fabric threads or anything that might identify the murderer. Why here? he was wondering. Why not further in? Perhaps she was too heavy to carry. She was not a tall girl, and was lightly built, but the dead weigh more than the living. Hard to tell in this sort of woodland if she was dragged. The ground was too hard to take impressions. It was horribly cold here, out of the little warmth the sun could give; numbingly cold. Slider could see his breath rising before him, and his fingers and the tip of his nose were aching.

  Breaking his reverie, Atherton, beside him, said, ‘It looks as if there’s been some digging – just there.’

  ‘Probably the finder’s dog,’ said Bob Bailey, the Crime Scene Manager.

  ‘It’s an animal, all right,’ Freddie said. ‘But I think it’s more likely a fox. There’s some damage to the fingers of this hand.’ He raised the hand that was lying among the leaves by her side. ‘A bit of gnawing’s gone on. I suppose it was too cold and hard actually to remove them. And the left ear’s been bitten, too, the one that was nearer the ground – though those teeth are smaller. Too small for a dog or fox. Stoat, maybe.’

  Slider heard their voices as if at a distance, echoing a little in the empty woodland air. Further off he could hear a murmur of talk from the people gathered in and around the car park; far away, in the country quiet, a crow was yarking monotonously. And the dogs shall eat her in the portion of Jezreel, he thought. An undeserved fate – but wasn’t it always? Otherwise it wouldn’t be murder.

  ‘Well?’ said Atherton as they made their way back over the safe-route boards. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Nothing, yet,’ Slider said. ‘Just the usual questions. Why her? Why here?’

  ‘There is one thing that leaps to mind.’

  Slider frowned at him. ‘You couldn’t make it leap a bit higher, I suppose?’

  ‘One blow to the head – the same way Ronnie Fitton killed his wife.’

  Slider sighed. ‘Well, I suppose he’s got to look like a tasty suspect. Certainly the press will see it that way as soon as they find out who he is. But what reason would he have to kill her? The only person he’s ever killed is his wife.’

  ‘Sexual jealousy,’ Atherton said. ‘The strongest motive of all. He could have been brooding about her for years, while she’s been going out with Hibbert, who is not worthy of her.’

  Slider shook his head. ‘Then he’d kill Hibbert, surely.’

  ‘No, no. He’d make sure of his Precious – put her beyond the greasy Hibbertian fingers for ever.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘On sheer propinquity alone,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Hibbert propinks just as well.’

  �
�If not more so,’ Atherton admitted. ‘What now?’

  ‘We go and talk to the bod who found her. By the way,’ he added, as they crossed the car park and the tea van reminded him, ‘what’s wrong with McLaren? When I got here this morning, he wasn’t eating anything.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ Atherton said. ‘He has been off his nosebag, lately. And there are no food stains down his front – in fact, I think that’s a new tie.’

  ‘It’s unsettling,’ Slider said.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll do a bit of detective work when I’ve got a minute.’

  ‘We’ve more important things to do. Don’t waste any time on it,’ Slider cautioned.

  ‘No, no,’ Atherton reassured him. ‘I’ll take the short cut. I’ll ask him.’

  William McGuire lived in Lakeside Close, the fancifully-named cul-de-sac that led off Reservoir Road on the side further from the Lido, and was therefore not on the lakeside, even had the Lido been a lake. The house was a tiny little Victorian railway worker’s terraced cottage, a typical two-up, two-down yellow-brick, slate-roofed doll’s house that only a greedy developer could have thought worth splitting, and then only in a serious housing shortage. McGuire had the downstairs remnant, for which ‘maisonette’ was an overgenerous description. It was a bed-sitting room opening straight off the street, with a kitchen at the back and a bathroom crammed between the two. The only advantage it boasted was the garden, twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long, but as McGuire was plainly no gardener, and it ended in a British Leyland hedge that had been allowed to grow to twelve feet high, it had nothing but underprivileged grass in it, and had no view but the tops of the trees in the woods behind.

  It was the policewoman, Raymond, who opened the door to them, with a look of hope that quickly faded to disappointment. ‘I hoped you were my replacement,’ she said. ‘I think they’ve forgotten all about me, sir.’

  Slider thought it likely. Most of the Hillingdon contingent had gone by now. ‘I’ll get one of my own people in as soon as I’ve done here,’ Slider reassured her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘He’s in the kitchen. He hasn’t been talking at all. I think he’s really upset about it.’

  The tiny cramped rooms were depressingly decorated in woodchip paper covered in historical layers of beige paint so they resembled congealed porridge, or a skin disease. There was cheap beige carpet on the floor, with stains that would have been of interest to an archaeologist, and the cheapest, nastiest furniture, the sort that shows the chipboard underneath when the veneer gets knocked off. The curtain over the front window was hanging by the last few hooks from a broken curtain rail, and the place smelled of dog, alcohol and feet in about equal proportions. It was, however, tidy, and the bathroom, as they passed it, looked clean, though shabby.

  Slider had heard the dog barking ever since Raymond opened the door, and when he reached the kitchen door, it came bustling importantly towards him, stood its ground a foot away and barked officiously, woofing so hard it lifted its small body slightly off the ground at each explosion. It was a stout, short-legged Jack Russell type, mostly white, but with a few black patches, including one over one eye that gave it an unreliably jolly look.

  The kitchen had cheap units painted yellow, a melamine table with two plastic chairs, lino on the floor, and a half-glazed door on to the garden. There were two empty mugs on the table, and McGuire was sitting in front of one of them, his elbow on the table and his head propped in his hand in an attitude almost of despair. The smell of booze was stronger still in here, easily beating feet and dog into second and third places: it was coming from McGuire, reeking from his pores so you could almost see it. He had evidently tied one on last night.

  ‘Mr McGuire?’ Slider said politely, when he was sure the dog was not going to do more than mouth off. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Slider and this is Detective Sergeant Atherton.’

  The man finally looked up, tilting red and doleful eyes that wouldn’t have been out of place on a basset hound in his direction. His nose and cheeks were rife with the broken veins of the boozer, and he looked haggard with emotion at the moment, but otherwise it was not an unhealthy face. He was brown with the settled tan of someone who works out of doors; his hair was thick and light brown, going grey; his body was sturdy and his hands looked strong, though seamed with manual work. The most surprising thing about him was the beard. There were not so many men these days who wore beards; and this was not one of those little dabs here and there such as young men sometimes affected, but the full Captain Haddock, thick and bushy and a darker shade of brown than his hair. While trying not to be pognophobic, Slider instinctively distrusted beards, on the basis that a man could change his appearance so completely by growing one or shaving it off, he might become unrecognizable. In his business, you needed to know who you were dealing with.

  ‘I’d just like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right,’ he went on, when it seemed that McGuire was not going to volunteer anything. ‘About what happened this morning.’

  At once, large tears formed in the basset brown eyes and rolled over, but McGuire roused himself enough to wipe at them almost angrily with the back of his hand, and to say sharply, ‘Toby, shut up!’

  An astonishing silence fell. The little dog looked at him, and then almost with a shrug turned and pottered away, hopping through the dog door into the garden with a familiar flip-flap sound.

  McGuire got out a large handkerchief, blew his nose and wiped his eyes. There was something about the weariness of the action that suggested he had been blowing and wiping for some time. ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ Slider suggested in sympathy.

  ‘Yeah – thanks,’ he said. He made no move to get up, though, and Slider looked at Raymond and jerked his head towards the kettle.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ she said obediently. ‘What about you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, No sugar.’

  Atherton declined. Slider took the other seat at the table, so Atherton lounged gracefully in the doorway, trying not to look threatening – there simply wasn’t any other place he could be. As it was, Raymond had to ooze past him to get to the kettle. The dog came flip-flapping back in, stared at them all a moment in case there was any more barking that needed doing, then went to his basket in the corner, turned round three times and flopped down, chin on paws.

  When Raymond put the mugs on the table, McGuire roused himself to say, ‘Thanks,’ and felt in his jacket pocket and brought out a pill bottle. ‘Aspirin,’ he said, seeing Slider’s look. ‘Got a rotten headache.’ He unscrewed the bottle one-handed and slid two into his palm, tossed them into his mouth, re-lidded the bottle and holstered it like a fancy gunslinger displaying his dexterity. Again, seeing Slider watching, he said, ‘Had a bit to drink last night.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose you guessed that.’ Slider nodded, and it seemed to touch some pride in him. He straightened a little in the chair and said, ‘I only drink at the weekends. That’s my prerogative, right? I don’t let it interfere with work.’ And almost immediately the expression of despair returned to his face and he slumped again by the inches he had pulled back.

  ‘What job do you do?’ Slider asked him.

  ‘I work for the council. Parks and Gardens department. Mowing, cutting, pruning, planting – you name it. You can ask them – I’ve got a good employment record. Two years with never a day off.’

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ Slider said. ‘You look well on it.’ He could imagine the lonely-man regime, working off by physical exertion through the week the booze taken on board at weekends. Though if he didn’t let it interfere with work, how come he was boozing on a Sunday night? Friday and Saturday ought to be his drinking nights.

  ‘I keep all right,’ McGuire admitted.

  ‘And I expect Toby gives you plenty of exercise,’ Slider suggested pleasantly, edging him back closer to the point. ‘I expect you try to give him a walk every morning before work?’

  ‘He comes to work with me,’ McGuire said. ‘Th
at’s one of the good things about the job. But it isn’t the same as a walk. A dog needs a couple of good walks a day, never mind what else he’s doing.’

  ‘Well, you’re living in the right place for it,’ Slider said. ‘Lots of good walks round here. Tell me about this morning. Was it your usual routine?’

  The brown eyes moved away and he frowned, remembering. ‘Yeah. I was up at six, same as usual. Got ready for work.’ He was dressed in a battered tweed jacket, tough-looking cords and work boots scarred and stained with ancient mud – his work clothes, presumably. ‘Took Toby out. Went through the car park into the woods.’

  ‘Do you always go the same way?’

  ‘Nah, different every day. Just as the fancy takes us.’

  ‘And that would be – what time?’

  ‘About half past, give or take. Time I’d washed and had a cup of tea and a bit of toast.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not much to tell. Just walking through the woods when suddenly Toby goes stiff all over, like he’s seen something. I thought it was a squirrel – he likes to chase ’em. Then he goes off to one side, growling, his whiskers sticking out and his hair all on end. It wasn’t like him, usually, so I followed. And there—’ He swallowed. ‘There she was.’ The tears welled up again effortlessly. ‘That poor girl,’ he said in broken tones. ‘Who would do such a thing? That poor—’ His face was quivering. He dragged out the handkerchief, blew and wiped and regained control. ‘Have you found out who she is?’ he asked from behind it.

  ‘Yes, we know who she is,’ Slider said.

  ‘Her parents – they must be going mad, wondering. If she was my kid . . . Have you told them?’

  ‘Someone will be with them now,’ Slider said. It was usual to send a uniform round with the news – more official and reassuring than plain clothes, so was the thinking.