The Body of a Woman: A Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mystery (Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mysteries)

by Clare Curzon

  ‘Nothing worth charging him with. I took it gently, but I’ll be pulling him in again today. Why is it that clever people are often so stupid? He doesn’t seem to realise how serious this is. He’s scared for himself, but he doesn’t really believe he could be in the shit. He refuses to give an account of where he’s been for the past four days. If ever anyone was qualified for a doctorate in arrogance …’

  ‘So you sent him home?’

  ‘Yup. Silver dropped him off at his gate. Not exactly welcomed by the Hadfields, it seems. The cat among the pigeons, hopefully. Something useful might come out of that.’

  ‘A womanising wimp, according to Janey. That’s a line we’ll need to follow up. It seems to have been generally accepted, but by now the family may have decided to close ranks and cover up his philandering. Anyway, however much the others may slate him on that count it’s too late to help the dead woman.’

  ‘We’ve no reason to think she was any better than her husband. Z picked up a hint from the cleaner …’

  ‘Not in so many words. Body language and then a suddenly buttoned-up mouth.’ Yeadings realised he was defending Leila’s reputation and pulled up short of taking sides.

  ‘Staying stumm out of loyalty to her employer? That’s an old-fashioned principle. Is it possible the woman expects to use her knowledge elsewhere?’ Mott offered.

  ‘Small-town blackmail?’

  ‘Probably not. But if there’s any truth behind the hint …’

  ‘Cherchez l’homme?’ Yeadings’ black eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

  ‘That’s something I’ll check on anyway. If Z doesn’t get any further with Mrs Chadwick she can try having a word with Leila’s neighbours.’

  Yeadings grunted agreement. ‘The Piggots. I spotted one of the lads yesterday up in a tree, with field-glasses trained on the house.’

  Mott hummed. ‘Right; I’ll send her round after school hours. You’ll find a tape of my interview with Knightley on your desk, sir.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Yeadings knew that when Mott called him ‘sir’ it was as good as a dismissal. He grinned wryly. ‘Bring the others along when they get in and you can rough out your general briefing.’

  In his own office Yeadings skimmed through the newspaper resumes and cuttings which the PR office had extracted from the morning papers. There was a leader on the handling of juvenile crime from the local Clarion, but the two teenage joyriders’ bloody end merited only a couple of paragraphs in most London sheets.

  Max Harris, Z’s columnist friend, had an article headed Where’s the Joy in Joyriding? in which he considered the j194

  police chase as a reaction. At least he saw two sides to the problem and dwelt on the courts’ inability to deal with eleven-year-old habitual offenders. It was a problem to hand back to Parliament. The legislators, he insisted, had failed to respond to current needs.

  From that consideration Yeadings progressed to the coffeemaker, spooned liberal quantities of ground Mocha mix into a filter paper, topped up with Highland bottled water and switched on. The machine’s gentle burbling accompanied his running of Mott’s taped interview with the widower Knightley.

  The man managed to sound at the same time pompous and offended. He had refused the offer of a duty solicitor to represent him and clammed up when the questioning became personal, even when warned that present silence might be prejudicial. One thing he had denied outright was having accompanied his wife to any private or hotel party during his four-day absence.

  As he eventually realised that he could be setting himself up as prime suspect to murder, he had querulously pleaded shock, grief and loss of sleep. At that point Mott had let him go. Timed at 20.47.

  Not at all bad, Yeadings thought. The man had been given plenty to ponder. The release was a bit of a bungee jump: he’d be coming back time and again, on each occasion with a little less bounce. The resultant tension could ensure a more co-operative mood in future.

  At a knock on his door Yeadings shouted, ‘Ready.’ At present it amused him to use the same cry that young Luke gave when welcoming either parent to a successful potty session.

  Mott ushered in the two sergeants, and Beaumont produced three mugs while the others found seats.

  ‘Well,’ Yeadings invited, ‘what’s today’s menu?’ Beaumont reeled off a list of hotels and country clubs which he had contacted regarding a masked entertainment on Friday night. ‘Negative throughout,’ he confessed, ‘so I checked what stage or cabaret shows had been put on, in case Leila K was an exotic dancer or suchlike. So far no joy, but there are three clubs I haven’t got to yet. Not to mention the unlimited London list.’

  ‘Did the dead woman have any history of involvement in show business?’ Mott demanded. ‘I doubt it. And we still have to look into private parties. I’ve got Davidson’s Traffic Department checking for unusually heavy street parking over that period, and patrol officers are collating the same. Also at the general briefing we may collect stray observations from off-duty officers circulating in the area.

  ‘Uniform branch are continuing a search for the cut-off hair, with no success as yet. SOCO did the same in rubbish containers at the Knightley house. We need to extend it to outdoor containers at other houses in Acrefield Way where access would have been easy from the road. And one street away there’s a builder’s skip opposite some minor demolition work. That has been sealed for examination and will be gone through today.’

  ‘Knightley’s car?’ Beaumont enquired of the DI.

  ‘Has proved elusive. He claims it had a recurring electrical defect. For a scientist he was surprisingly unspecific. Nor does he know which garage it’s been sent to. He left it at a friend’s house to be picked up and will inform us when he knows the firm’s name. I expect him to ring me this morning.’

  ‘By which time he will have removed all traces of anything naughty it carried,’ Beaumont said bitterly.

  ‘Only he doesn’t know our boffins, does he?’

  ‘However much or little they may find,’ Yeadings reminded them, ‘we could have difficulty proving who was responsible for its presence in the car - or who drove it Friday night - after so much shifting it around.’

  ‘Which is nothing to the shiftiness of the professor,’ Z suggested.

  Beaumont gave his puppet grin. ‘Just like Cluedo: Professor Plum, in the car, with a ligature.’

  ‘So prove it,’ said Yeadings shortly. ‘Who is working through the Knightley address book?’

  ‘DC Silver,’ Mott claimed, ‘together with all references taken from the computer. Doubtless there’ll be an almighty complaint from Knightley when he discovers we’ve helped ourselves to it.’

  ‘Then he’d better have it back,’ said Yeadings mildly. ‘We don’t want him unnecessarily upset. I might trot along there with it while you’re giving the briefing, Angus; see how nervy its absence has made him. I assume everything in it has been downloaded by now?’

  ‘Everything,’ Mott admitted. ‘Silver has turned into Superhacker. It was worth losing him to that computer course. He eats, breathes, dreams nothing else these days.’

  Better he than I, Yeadings thought. Young Silver was clearly a man of the future. From such might Chief Constables one day be chosen. He regarded his select team. Beaumont could get back to chasing up the party/cabaret orgins. Z was itching to check on Leila’s love life, if any. For himself he’d like a private word with Mott before he went off to brief the extended murder team.

  ‘Right. On your respective ways then, except Angus perhaps.’

  ‘Boss?’ the DI said, when the other two had departed. ‘I’m due downstairs in ten minutes.’

  ‘This should take only five. Have you done any thinking about your own situation, Angus?’

  ‘The future, you mean?’ At Yeadings’ nod he pulled a sour face. ‘The original plan’s in abeyance, if not permanently junked. As you know, Paula’s boss has put off his intended early retirement and she’s staying on as his junior, building quite a reputation a
t the Bailey when he gives her the chance. Even at her present level there’s a lot more money in defence than prosecution. And with promotion, I still doubt if I could make up the difference. So it seems the wedding is on hold.’

  ‘I was thinking more about your career options. I get a whiff of something in the wind.’

  Mott hunched, silent with bowed head. Then he stirred and sat straight. ‘There are three options, as I see it. One, as Paula suggests, I quit here, transfer to the Met and we marry, take a flat in London. Two, I stay put with Thames Valley, take promotion and am put back into uniform. She stays on in London.’ He stopped at that point.

  ‘And three?’

  ‘There’s this need for an expanded international contingent to help train the new mixed-race Bosnian police force. A friend out there says the Brit group badly needs strengthening at the top, if only to counter more brutal versions of the job being introduced from Eastern Europe and beyond. I thought I might have a bash at that.’

  ‘That would certainly be to the Bosnians’ advantage. What about your own?’

  Mott stood up, tight-lipped. ‘It’s option three I’m favouring, Boss. It’ll broaden my experience and it won’t be forever. Paula’s coming over this evening and I shall explain to her then. I meant to tell you tomorrow.’

  Yeadings’ spirits sank. Angus deserved more than to end as a sniper’s target or from stepping on a leftover landmine. He managed a shrug. ‘I’d — the team would lose you in any of those options. Can’t you wait to see whether the tenure ruling gets changed? There’s considerable pressure for CID service to be extended from five years to eight.’

  ‘I have to make a decision now. I’ve faffed about long enough, Boss.’

  ‘I see. It’s your choice, Angus. Thanks for letting me know.’ He watched the tall DI pick up his papers and go off stern-faced.

  Yeadings knew it wasn’t just a boyish yen to be a hero; an updated version of flouncing off to join the Foreign Legion. It owed more to a horror of becoming Paula’s poodle.

  Separation and their opposing career needs had meant that the relationship had been dragged out like a string of dough, so far that it was thinning to break-point. Despite their promising start Angus and Paula seemed fated to go the way of so many police partnerships.

  There but for the grace of God … thought Yeadings. He made a mental note to buy flowers on his way home that evening.

  There was a knock on his door and a constable looked in with a note from Traffic: ‘Isn’t this one of yours, sir?’

  Apparently the joyriders’ deaths hadn’t put other thrill-seekers off. Yeadings glanced through the copy of a Traffic report: a further incident last night. Two women mown down in a hit-and-run in Acrefield Way.

  Coincidence? When you had something specific on your mind, you started seeing it pop up all over the place. One woman’s condition critical, now in the ITU at Wycombe: named as Hetty Chadwick.

  He whistled between his teeth. This was the cleaner for Knightleys. The other joyrider’s victim, a teenager - Chloe Knightley - had sustained only minor injuries.

  Yeadings roared down the corridor for a constable and had the Professor’s computer loaded into the Rover’s boot. He revised his original plan. He didn’t see Acrefield Way as a dedicated joyrider’s racetrack and skidpan. It was too rural and twisting to offer high speeds, and disappointingly short of the needed hyped-up crowd of spectators.

  So this could be a different breed of driver, one burning rubber while escaping from some crime. Or - more germane to present interests - an attempt to eliminate a witness with information on the Knightley murder? An attempt which could yet prove successful.

  He knew well the statistics Traffic quoted for pedestrian casualties: at 30mph nearly 50% were killed; at 40mph nearly all were fatalities.

  It might not be possible to get anything yet, if ever, from the critically injured woman, but Chloe was another matter. A bright youngster, she could have spotted the driver; was probably well clued-up on cars. So to Wycombe Hospital first. Her father and the computer could wait.

  Chapter 18

  At the hospital Yeadings met with stalemate. Hetty Chadwick lay in a heavy coma in a shuttered area of the ITU. Chloe, kept in overnight, had received orthopaedic manipulation and was already on her way home, still under light sedation but insisting on being discharged. The ward Sister said she had rung an aunt to come in and collect her.

  A uniformed constable seated outside the ITU had been provided with a generous provision of magazines. ‘You can bin those,’ Yeadings told him. ‘Stay alert. I want everyone who goes in or out of that room checked against their ID photos: doctors, nurses, porters, the lot. There could still be an attempt on her life. Get yourself a leak now, while I’m here. Then hang on till your relief turns up. I’m having surveillance doubled.’

  He put the order through by mobile, then slid the car into gear and set off to the Knightley home.

  Driving along Acrefield Way, Yeadings observed Z’s blue Ford Escort parked opposite one of the ancient brick and flint cottages. At the adjoining one the nose of a green open-top Alfa Romeo was emerging from the side drive.

  A pony and trap might have been more fitting, he thought; but it wasn’t unknown for modern opulence to be enjoyed alongside the romantically historical, especially if finances restricted choice. For himself, he would rather go for comfort at home. A car, after all, was a mere means of transport. He took in the floppy-haired, old-young face behind the steering wheel and wrote the man off as a fancy-free bachelor visiting an elderly relative.

  He drew in to the kerb, braked and stared back at the Chadwick cottage, curious to know why Z was calling there when the occupier was away.

  Just then the front door opened and the woman DS appeared carrying a travel bag. Double-locking the door, she had her back to Yeadings. When she came down the path she saw him and pulled a gruesome face. ‘I had permission, sir.’

  ‘From whom, since the owner’s unconscious?’

  ‘When I couldn’t get an answer here, her neighbour came out and explained she was in Wycombe General. So I went there, got turned away but offered, as a friend, to bring her some things in from home. It seems she could eventually come round. Her housekeys had been in her skirt pocket, so they let me have them.’

  Yeadings sucked in his cheeks. ‘Better you, perhaps, than whoever ran her down. So what did you find?’

  Z’s eyes went round with innocence. ‘Her clothes, sir. Nighties, tissues, washpack, fluffy slippers, handbag and small change.’ Then she grinned. ‘Nothing of special note, sir.’

  He gave her a thin smile. Z wouldn’t have missed out on the chance to give the cottage a good turnover. ‘We appear to have lost a source of information for the moment, but there are still the Knightleys’ nextdoor neighbours.’

  ‘I’ll be calling there as soon as school’s out, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ He drove off, readjusting his mind to face a grieving household - if not the unsavoury background to a domestic murder - turned in at the gates to Knollhurst and pulled up before the open front door.

  Before he could knock or ring, the inner glass door burst open and Knightley stood there, unshaven, flushed of face, his hands balled into fists. ‘Can’t you leave us alone?’ he ground out. ‘Isn’t it enough that I should be questioned at a police station, but you must chase me out to my own home? And my phone never stops ringing now you’ve dragged the Press into it.’

  ‘I thought,’ Yeadings put in mildly as the other man drew breath, ‘that you might care to have your computer back.’

  ‘My God, did you even help yourselves to that?’ So he hadn’t been up long enough to check on his study.

  ‘My team had a warrant to search the empty house,’ the superintendent said calmly. ‘Which includes all contents. Under those terms a computer ranks as an electronic filing cabinet.’

  ‘That is an unpardonable invasion of my privacy! And I have no intention whatever of saying anything beyond the statement
I have already made to your Inspector.’

  ‘If you have somewhere clear to put it I will bring it in.’ Yeadings ignored the outburst and went back to the rear of his car. When he returned with the heavy computer Knightley tried to snatch it from him, but too late discovered it wasn’t so easy.

  ‘In the study,’ he snarled. ‘First door on the left.’

  ‘Perhaps you will check that you’ve received it in good running order, Mr Knightley.’

  The man was torn between defiance and protection for his property. Truculently he thrust plug in socket and switched on. The screen lit. ‘It will take longer than this to see whether any data’s been irrevocably lost.’

  ‘You have my guarantee that nothing has been obliterated.’ The urbane tone was enough to goad Knightley further. Obliterating,Yeadings reflected happily, was not quite the same as downloading.

  ‘It’s actually your daughter I’d like to have a word with at the moment,’ he told the professor.

  Knightley looked stricken. Not perhaps entirely on behalf of the girl’s feelings. ‘There is no call for that. You should know by now that Chloe was abroad until you - you assumed the authority to have her recalled. There is no way she can provide any information germane to your inquiry. In any case she’s not available at present. She was involved in a serious road accident last night and is in need of rest.’

  ‘She has my sympathy,’ Yeadings assured him, ‘but I must remind you that we are investigating a violent death, Mr Knightley. Who is to say at this point what may prove to be germane?’

  Knightley turned on his heel and, left to wait, Yeadings reflected that even a violent death can be less a momentary act than a process. Once born we are all on a journey towards one end. Our nearest and should-be dearest have the ability to accelerate or delay that process. In several claustrophobic families he’d dealt with in homicide, the victim had been slowly murdered over years before the final vicious act. And often cumulative torture, mental or physical, had driven the killer himself to that point.

  When Chloë came Janey was with her. ‘I’d like my friend to stay,’ the girl said and nodded when asked if she felt up to seeing him.