Wings over the Watcher

by Priscilla Masters

  There was no colleague in the world better than Korpanski – when he was in a good mood. The day boded well. She felt quite cheerful.

  He slung his jacket on the back of his chair, sat down behind the desk and switched his computer on.

  It was time to wind up Pennington. “I can’t tell you any more at present but I will be in touch the moment I have any news.” She replaced the phone.

  “So what’s put the smile on your face?”

  “The Insurance company have stopped asking questions. That’s what,” he said. “The car’s mended, they’ve agreed to pay up.”

  She grinned across the room at him. “So next time Fran tells you something wants fixing…?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he warned.

  “Fancy a trip to Italy, Mike?”

  “You serious?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just wish Beatrice would turn up so we can put all our energies into this little lot.” She indicated the pile of forms in her In tray.”

  Korpanski broke out into song. “Just one cornetto…” Then he stopped. “I take it that was her husband on the phone.” He paused just long enough to think. “We’ll never ride a trip to Italy out of the tax-payer,” he said, “when her passport’s still in Leek.”

  “Oh – who knows,” she said impatiently. “All I know is I’ve got the usual interview with Colclough this morning.”

  Korpanski blew his cheeks out in a useless attempt at impersonation of his senior officer.

  But she had misjudged Colclough. He had remained as one of the senior officers in the town for good reason. He was fair. And popular. And he knew his job.

  He looked up as she knocked and entered.

  “Ah – Piercy.” There was no hostility in either his face or his voice but the warmth of the long years between them of an old, faithful dog. But like a Staffordshire Bull Terrier Colclough was tenacious and it was a great mistake to underestimate him and treat him as too close a friend. She was wary and waited to be bidden to sit down.

  He eyed her over the top of some half-moon glasses. “How are you?”

  It was not what she had expected.

  “I’m fine, thank you, sir.”

  “And Levin?”

  “Still in the States, sir.”

  “Ah.”

  A brief word. A wealth of meaning.

  “I suppose you’ll be making some big decisions soon.”

  “Sir?”

  “Whether to join him or creep a little further up the career ladder.” He gave a rusty smile. “Chief Inspector Piercy.” He cackled. “Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  She didn’t know. Chief Inspector Piercy, Mrs Levin, Mummy. What did sound good?

  She liked where she was, Inspector Piercy, the woman, who had worked hard when confronted by a succession of murders, which had all been difficult to solve – in their varying ways. Each one an individual story with suffering and unhappiness behind it. Both tragedies and comedies. Sometimes both at the same time.

  She met Colclough’s eyes without flinching. “I don’t know, sir,” she said.

  “Right.” As usual his perception was beyond the average senior officer. Colclough understood people.

  “Now then, Piercy.” He continued briskly, without giving further thought to the subject. “The desk sergeant has informed me that a Mr Arthur Pennington is anxious about the whereabouts of his wife. Would you care to enlighten me?”

  As succinctly as she could she filled Colclough in on the bare details of the case and watched his pupils sharpen as he took in her concerns.

  “So you think she’s having an affair.”

  She nodded.

  “Of which her husband, I take it, is completely unaware.”

  She nodded again.

  “And yet…”

  She nodded for the third time.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, may I say you’ve had experience of these sorts of cases as have I. I think it perfectly possible that if Mrs Pennington doesn’t want to be found we never shall find her. But you should go through the motions. Keep her husband happy. Let him see that the police are takin’ his concerns very seriously. We are, after all, community police, are we not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And we don’t want any hostile headlines in the Post&Times about us being uncaring or unhelpful, do we?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Right then, Piercy. Get on with it then.”

  She walked back along the corridor wondering whether the interview had been to sound her out about her career prospects or to learn about the Pennington case.

  Answer – she didn’t know. One often didn’t with Colclough.

  Beatrice’s sister, Frances Sharnell, lived in a small, terraced, mill-worker’s cottage in one of the back streets of the town. With a front door which opened straight out to the pavement and just one window to the side, two above, it had an old-fashioned, Victorian feel to it. But the electronic doorbell which played Für Elise was bang up to date.

  Joanna had a shock when the door was pulled open. She was staring at the missing woman. Same round face, same surprised eyes, same plump body and anxious expression.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Can I help you?”

  She exhaled. The voice was different. Flatter. Without the spark that had lit her sister up like a candle.

  “Are you Frances –?”

  “Sharnell.”

  The voice was snappy now. Irritable. She glanced behind her, anxious to return to whatever it was she had been doing.

  “I’m Detective Inspector Piercy,” Joanna said. “Leek Police. I’ve come about your sister.”

  “Aye.”

  Something else hinted at now. A resentment, dislike. Certainly the anxiety had melted away. So it had been for the intrusion of a stranger rather than concern for her sister.

  “So you’ve come about Beattie, have you? Well there’s nothing I can do to help you, young lady. I don’t know a thing about it. Arthur’s been pestering me like a ruddy gnat. Up here all the time, bothering me.”

  Joanna found herself, unexpectedly, bound to defend Pennington. “He’s very worried.”

  “Well there’s no use him bothering me. I can’t help him. There’s nothing I know.”

  Joanna looked up and down the street. “Can I come in?”

  Frances stood back, grunted and allowed Joanna to pass.

  The room was small, stuffy, and stank of cigarette smoke. It was filled by two armchairs and a television set which was switched on without the sound. Perhaps Frances had switched it down when the doorbell had rung.

  Joanna sat down. “When did you last see your sister?”

  “A week or two ago. Market Day anyway. I bumped into her in the town. We exchanged a few words. Nothing more.”

  “Which was it, a week or two weeks?”

  Beatrice’s sister thought for a moment. “It were the 16th,” she said finally.

  “You’re sure?”

  “‘Course I’m sure. I had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon,” Frances snapped.

  “How did she seem?”

  “Her usual self.” Joanna studied Beatrice’s sister. Now she looked closer she could see differences. Frances was marginally thinner. Her face was more wrinkled, its expression sour and shrew-like. Joanna studied her. The two sisters were not really alike at all.

  What makes this woman tick? What makes her laugh or smile?

  She looked at the walls for inspiration. Photographs of friends or family?

  One reproduction of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

  Nothing there.

  Somewhere, deep inside this woman, is a trigger which will explain how Beatrice’s sister came to be like this, why she is so guarded. Does she hate her sister? Is she jealous of her?

  “Who is older, you or her?”

  “What’s that got to do with it,” Frances snapped. “How is that going to find her?”

  “Just answer the question,” Joanna said c
oldly. She did not like this woman.

  “I am. By three years. Now I suppose you’ll find her somewhere or other. Drawing attention to herself.”

  Frances fumbled down the side of the chair and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, lit one and stared boldly at Joanna.

  Was it then purely sibling rivalry which had made the three-year-old Frances jealous of her baby sister?

  Only that?

  Joanna stood up. Even if there had been antipathy between the sisters she could not expect to find the trigger. And she did not have the right to ask Frances whether she had disliked her sister. Besides – much as she hated to admit it, Frances was right. It had no bearing on this investigation. The solution lay away from Beatrice’s family.

  Joanna strolled back to the station and sat down at her desk.

  Korpanski was out of the room.

  The golden rule of policing is check, check and double check.

  She picked up the phone. Walking through Tuscany. Or so he said.

  Telecommunications are a wonderful thing. Within minutes she had spoken to a very nice girl who worked for Explore Holidays and confirmed that Adrian Grove was indeed walking in Tuscany. Once she had allowed the same girl to ring back and confirm that she was, indeed, talking to a police officer, things got even easier.

  She had faxed through a copy of the other people on the same tour. No Beatrice Pennington. Grove had booked alone and there was not another single woman on the walking tour. There were other women but they were either married or with other partners. Joanna stared at the list and felt uncomfortable. Nothing more powerful. A simple discomfort. Like indigestion. Or the beginnings of a tension headache.

  This was the sixth day that Beatrice had been missing. Almost a week. From the first Joanna had assumed that she was with her secret lover, her invisible man.

  OK, she reasoned, so the missing man is not Adrian Grove.

  It is someone else.

  But Beatrice had led a quiet life. She met few people, she reasoned. It must be one of an inner circle of friends or acquaintances. And something else puzzled her. How had Beatrice kept the identity of this mystery man secret? Her husband admitted she rarely went out – to work, to the Readers’ Group, few social occasions. So how come, in such a small town as this, no one had ever seen them together?

  Adrian Grove had been the natural suspect but he was in the clear.

  So who was it?

  Korpanski barged back in, kicking the door open as his hands were full of two mugs of coffee. He set the cup down in front of her.

  “Do you know your lips twitch when you’re thinking out loud?”

  She laughed, brushed her hand across her mouth and slid the papers across her desk in his direction.

  “Take a look at this.”

  It took him moments to come to the same conclusion as she had.

  “It must be someone else.”

  “There is only one other potential area in her life with any possibility,” she said. “It has to be someone from the Readers’ Group. I need a list.”

  “You going up the library?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  They walked companionably up Stockwell Street. “Mike,” Joanna asked hesitantly. “You know all this business about Beattie trying to look more attractive – and everything else?”

  “Yep.” He was striding ahead.

  “What does it tell you, as a man?”

  Korpanski stopped, turned and started laughing. “Oh it’s the old one, isn’t it? You know – woman finds man, wants to keep him. Gives them a bit of a spurt on, you know?”

  “We are talking romance then. I’m not just imagining it.”

  “Well – she told you as much.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you doubting it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  But she did. And now she could put her finger right on it. It was the dizzy excitement. The almost maniacal joy with which Beattie had told her about her future. Her lover. There had been something…something not quite real about it. It had been more like when she, Joanna, had been a fourteen-year old leggy teenager with braces on her teeth and she had fancied the captain of the school rugby team. She had dreamed and imagined every single time he looked at her it had been with adoration, with love. Yet when she had finally plucked up courage to speak to him he had stared at her and said. Oh mortifyingly he had said, “Do I know you?”

  It had been the adoration of a stranger.

  Or was she simply jealous? Having watched her own joy evaporate in front of her eyes, was she now infected with with the green-eyed monster herself, like Frances, envious of another’s simple happiness?

  Possibly. Possibly. It is all possible.

  There were a few different staff on at the library today.

  And they were happy to give her a list of the people who belonged to the Readers’ Group.

  It was to be an afternoon of telephoning.

  With some success. Many of the people who had belonged to the Readers’ Group were retired. And on a fine Monday afternoon many of them were digging the garden. Joanna and Mike ticked their way down the list.

  And were left with half a dozen names.

  She glanced across at Mike. “I suppose there is one theory we should consider.”

  “Suicide,” he said without looking up. “In a few words,” he said, “no reason, no note and you know as well as I do it’s hard to hide your own body. They almost always turn up – and quickly.”

  It was almost six. If you ring people at seven, most are at home. Back from their work.

  “Mike,” she said. “You go home. I’ll hang on a bit here.” She indicated a mountain of paperwork connected with the other myriad of cases they were supposed to be concentrating on. The trouble with this was it might lead somewhere. It might lead nowhere. But police time was being spent on it when there was plenty of work to be doing.

  “You sure?”

  “Go and play footie with your lad,” she said. “Or take them all out to a country pub for a drink and a meal.”

  Why was she doing this, in her situation, painting this idyllic portrait of idealised family life. In all probability Korpanski would go home, have a few beers, go up the gym, bawl out his wife, argue with his son and daughter.

  She looked up to see him eyeing her with that look of concern she hated so much.

  “Don’t get married to the job, Jo,” he said softly. “It would be a bloody waste.”

  And then he was gone through the door before she could think of a witty answer.

  Maybe she never would.

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday, June 29th, 11 a.m.

  And then, quite simply, the body was found.

  Many people must have walked, driven, ridden past Beatrice Pennington’s body. Within inches. If they had breathed in the unmistakable scent of decay they had probably assumed the same as Joanna had on her peaceful cycle ride – that an animal had died and its body was slowly decomposing. If they thought anything at all.

  But one hiker, a bank manager from Leek, was interested in the badger population. He had been involved in badger watching years ago when a student at Endon High School and had never lost fascination for the creatures.

  So when he smelt the scent of decaying flesh he wondered whether a badger had met an unfortunate end. Curious, he pulled away the undergrowth and peered into the thick branches of hawthorn.

  And saw a naked foot.

  A human foot is unmistakable. It looks like no part of any other animal.

  Although he recognised what it was he stared at it for long moments, feeling sick but still curious. Then slowly he backed away, sat on the opposite verge and, just as slowly, pulled a mobile phone from his rucksack.

  And dialled 999.

  “Police,” he said. Then he was sick.

  Within ten minutes two police cars arrived. And in the first them sat Joanna Piercy and Korpanski, together wit
h four other officers.

  Joanna’s heart sank as she stared down at the partially clothed body. Beatrice Pennington lay on her side, one arm outstretched. Her legs were bare, the skirt of her dress pulled down modestly over her knees, the bodice hardly disarranged. Joanna touched the cold cheek. She’d been dead for days. Probably the entire week since she had vanished. So now the next priority was to preserve all the evidence, seal off the scene. And wait for the police surgeon.

  He was brisk, efficient and swift. “When was she last seen?” he asked once Joanna had explained that she knew who it was. “Last Wednesday morning.”

  “She almost certainly died later on the same day,” he said.

  “And was her body left here soon after her death?”

  “I can’t tell how long the body’s been here,” he said. “We’ll know more both when we move the body so can look at the vegetation beneath it and when we look at signs of hypostasis.”

  Joanna dropped her gaze to the crumpled body. So no holiday, foreign or native. No elopement with a secret lover. No need for a passport or the Ann Summers underwear. Beatrice had simply been murdered. It was almost an anticlimax.

  “Manual strangulation,” said the police surgeon, a young GP from Leek. New on the job. He indicated an area of dark bruising on the front of Beatrice’s neck, either side of her windpipe.

  Strangely, there is often room for relief in a case like this. Joanna’s apparent inertia would have made no difference to Beatrice Pennington’s life or death. She had not died because Joanna had failed to instigate a full police investigation. By the time Joanna had learned of her disappearance she was already dead.

  Joanna glanced around, at the thick hedge, the quiet road and the cunning way the body had been concealed in long grass, at the base of a thick hawthorn hedge which would not now be touched until autumn. It had been no mere chance that she had been hidden here. It was lonely and remote. Only local people would have used such a hiding place.