Wings over the Watcher

by Priscilla Masters

  But – although it was a clever hiding place it was also quite stupid. There was opportunity for a wealth of trace forensic evidence. In the soft verge there were a few tyre tracks and some nice, sticky mud. Above Beatrice’s body were the spiny branches of hawthorn, reaching out to gather evidence – hair, material, fibres and pieces of skin. And cling on to them. In yet another way it was a good forensic scene because there was so little sign of human visitation. Few people came here ergo any evidence was potentially of significance. It was not like the back of a Liverpool taxi, a rich scene, full of false trails and red herrings.

  Also this was a remote spot. It was conceivable that someone had noticed a solitary car in such an isolated area.

  Already she was mentally rubbing her hands together. Killers imagine that a remote area is a good place to leave a body; somewhere where they will not be evident. This is not true. Better to bury your signs in a mountain of evidence than out here where each cell can be discovered and identified.

  She rang the coroner.

  He kept his comments to a minimum. The post-mortem and the police investigation would all be orchestrated by him. But for now he merely had to be kept informed.

  Beatrice’s body was put in a heavy-duty, dark grey plastic bag with a zip up the side and loaded into the black police van for transportation to the mortuary. Joanna contacted the crimes scenes officers and then rang Colclough.

  “I’m afraid we’ve found our missing woman,” she said without preamble.

  “Oh?”

  “It looks as though she’s been strangled.”

  “Oh, dear.” Said with a wealth of meaning and a hint of grief too. “That is bad.”

  “The SOCO team is on its way. We’re moving the body now. I suppose I’d better go and tell Mr Pennington that his wife’s no longer missing.”

  There was a momentary silence between the two police. Most people know that in cases of murder forty per cent of the time it is the partner who is to blame. The police make jokes about this. “Put your hand on the collar of the chief mourner,” they jest, “and you’ve a forty per cent chance of being right.”

  But there is a very ugly side to this. Think about this. How insensitive it can appear. A grieving man, such as Arthur Pennington? To be interrogated about the death of his own wife? It is even worse when it is a child who is missing. Particularly when people will talk and gossip. And there is no shortage of clichés to support their suspicions. How mud sticks, No smoke without fire. And so on…

  “Kid gloves, Piercy.”

  Inevitably in the car, alone with Korpanski they both voiced the same question. “Did he do it?”

  Mike hadn’t even started up the engine. Joanna moistened her lips, shook her head, turned to look at him and shrugged. “I don’t know, Mike.” Then, “He could have. It’s not impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Well – that’s obvious. The old story. He found out about her secret lover. It wouldn’t be the first time a husband lost his rag for that and committed murder. It could have been like that. Come on, Korpanski. Start the engine. Let’s at least get down there.”

  So when they drove up to the neat house on the estate they sat and considered it for a minute or two.

  It is silly this, to imagine that you can recognise the house of a murderer. Killers live in all sorts of places. Condemned flats, millionaire’s mansions, council houses and yes, neat and tidy homes just like this. Because people who are, by nature orderly, dislike having that order upset.

  It was June. The sky was predominantly blue, with a few woolly clouds bouncing around. The scene was bright – almost surreal, the green, the white, the blue. The grass was perfectly clipped and short and looked more like Astro-turf than living, breathing vegetation. No weeds sprung through it. The weeping cherry tree in the dead centre of the lawn was the right size, in perfect harmony with its surroundings. The flowers borders too were orderly. Lobelias, salvias and alyssums planted in red white and blue rotation.

  The house itself was in good order. Nothing needed doing to it. The paintwork was brilliant white. The bricks were neat and red. The windows were polished and set in hardwood frames. As Joanna watched she saw a pale face swipe across the downstairs window.

  Their arrival had been noted. She and Korpanski left the safety of the car and covered the four paces to the front door threading passed a dark green Ford Focus and behind it a red VW. Arthur Pennington pulled the door open before they’d had a chance to knock.

  He said nothing initially but stared, first at Joanna then at Korpanski. She eyed him too – and read nothing there.

  Still without speaking Pennington jerked his head back towards the inside and they followed him through.

  Whatever her suspicions Joanna felt she must go through the motions – at the very least.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Pennington.”

  A flash of panic lit his face before he said, very carefully, “You’ve found her, haven’t you?”

  There was a clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

  Someone was washing up.

  “Is someone else here?”

  Pennington looked impatient. “Only a neighbour,” he said. “She’d come to cook me a meal.”

  How swiftly the vultures fly in.

  “I am sorry, Mr Pennington. You are right. We have found your wife.”

  He blinked. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he said softly. “You thought I was being… You thought I was worrying. Dreaming it all up. But I knew.”

  He knew what exactly?

  Joanna felt she must get this one in first. “She was already dead when I learned of her disappearance,” she said – very clearly. There was to be no room for misunderstanding. “There was nothing I could have done whatever action I might have taken.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Her body had been hidden, (it is a kinder word than dumped), under a hedge.”

  The clattering in the kitchen had stopped. The kindly neighbour was eavesdropping.

  Joanna anticipated the next question correctly.

  “How did she die?”

  “A post-mortem will be carried out later on today.”

  “I said, how did she die?”

  “We think she was strangled. We’ll know more – later.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “We’ll drive you down there now, if you like.”

  He stood up. “I’ll just…”

  He stumbled towards the door. Joanna met Korpanski’s eyes and again read in there the same question that she was asking him. Guilty? Or not?

  Neither had an answer.

  “Kerry.”

  A woman poked her head round the corner. “Arthur?”

  She looked accusingly at the two police.

  “They’ve found her, Kerry. Someone’s…”

  And interestingly in the neighbour’s blue eyes they read the very same question. She was very slightly unnerved.

  “Oh, Arthur,” she said quickly. “I am so very sorry.”

  “I’ve to go down now and identify her.”

  She didn’t offer to accompany him but pressed her lips together.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” she said again. “But I’d best be going now. Sean’ll wonder where I am.”

  Sean? Husband? Son?

  “I’ll come over and see you later on.”

  Pennington managed a martyred smile. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  He was quiet in the car. Joanna sat on the back seat next to him, with a part-view of Korpanski’s cynical eyes in the rear-view mirror. She may as well prepare the new widower for what would inevitably come next. “Mr Pennington.”

  He put his hand over hers in a slightly creepy, intrusive way. “Arthur. Please.”

  “Arthur.” He had not realised this would not do at all. He was the chief suspect.

  “Your wife’s death will be the subject of a full police investigation. We will spare nothing to discover the truth.”

  “Well – she�
��s been killed, hasn’t she?” Pennington’s hand lay back on the seat, still uncomfortably close. “It’s a murder investigation now, isn’t it?” There was a touch of a sneer in his voice.

  “Exactly.”

  Korpanski was still eyeing her in the rear-view mirror.

  There was a brief, awkward silence before Joanna continued. “We’re going to need you to be more specific about your movements on last Wednesday morning. About the last time that you saw your wife.”

  Arthur Pennington swivelled his scrawny neck around very slowly to stare at her. “You surely are not suggesting that I was, in any way, involved?” Did he not know the ugly facts about murder?

  Joanna sucked in a deep breath. “We will explore every single avenue, Mr Pennington. This will be a major investigation and we take it very seriously.”

  “I see.” He turned, ever so slightly, away from her.

  It was a long and difficult drive to the mortuary. The traffic was heavy and there was a diversion from the A53 at Stockton Brook. Pennington was now silent and Joanna not in the mood for chitchat. Pennington would have to be asked all the awkward and difficult questions in a police interview room, and the entire episode recorded onto audio cassette. Anything he said in the back of the car, witnessed only by the two senior investigating officers, would be classed as hearsay and inadmissible.

  She preferred her facts on the record. And well documented.

  Korpanski had warned the mortuary assistant in advance that they were on their way so Beatrice was neatly laid out and covered very decently with a purple cloth. They would perform the post-mortem later on this afternoon. Pennington stepped towards her and Joanna lifted the sheet from her face.

  She got her confirmation of identity. “Oh, my Beatrice,” Pennington said. “What have they done to you?”

  Joanna tucked the words away in the back of her mind. They seemed strange.

  What have they done to you? They? There was nothing here to suggest there had been more than one killer. So why had he used the plural?

  “Just for the record,” she said.

  “Oh yes,” Pennington answered, understanding quickly. “It’s my wife all right.”

  Joanna waited until they were outside the mortuary before making a polite request that Arthur accompany them to the police station. And from the blank look in his brown eyes she knew that he was still unaware of how police minds work in such a situation.

  There were formalities to be gone through, obvious questions to be asked, the answers to be recorded.

  “When did you last see your wife?”

  “Around half eight on Wednesday morning. I was just setting off for work.”

  “At what time did you arrive at work?”

  “I was there for ten to nine.”

  They were going to have to examine his car, take it to bits if necessary, scrape the wheel arches in the hunt for vegetation, mud and other trace evidence.

  “You drove in, I take it?”

  Pennington nodded.

  “And your wife’s car remained in the garage?”

  “That’s right.”

  “While she cycled to work.”

  “Yes.”

  Did anyone see her locking the bike to the railings?

  “How would you describe relations between you and your wife?”

  “Excellent.” And now Pennington’s eyes flickered from one to the other. At last he had realised he was a suspect.

  Chapter Ten

  Wednesday, June 30th 7.30 a.m.

  This very morning Matthew would read her letter. It would arrive and be put in the post-box in the hallway of the flat where he was living. And then, maybe, he would read it before he went to work.

  Her bit was done. From the moment when Joanna awoke she felt cleansed. She ran downstairs and boiled the kettle, made two cups of coffee then went back to bed to drink them and to ponder.

  She must put her own problems to the back of her mind and concentrate on Beatrice Pennington’s death.

  By 8.30 she was in her office, reading through the postmortem report. The police surgeon had been right. Cause of death: manual strangulation from the front. The pathologist had put forward the opinion that it was probably a man’s hand as it was too large for the average woman. There were clear thumbprints around her windpipe, just below her larynx and finger-marks around the back of her neck. The hyoid bone was broken – a common finding in strangulation

  There were also some signs of a struggle. A bruise between her shoulder blades. It looked as though someone had thumped her from behind. And evidence of her last cycle ride: her dress had been torn in places, the full skirt had caught in the wheels, (traces of bike oil) the dress had been torn at the shoulder, one cap sleeve practically ripped off. There was a fresh bruise to her scalp. Another blow? There was bruising on the upper arm.

  Joanna read on. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Her knickers were undisturbed, her pink Marks and Spencer’s bra still fastened up. There was no evidence of semen anywhere on the body or the clothes. Therefore the motive was not sexual. Again the pathologist had ventured an opinion, that it had been a while since the deceased had been sexually active. There was evidence of perimenopausal atrophy. Joanna frowned and wished Matthew was around to explain some of the medical terms.

  Next she turned to the heading, Time of Death. As usual the stomach contents were the best indicator. Beatrice’s breakfast was partially undigested. Her last meal had been an unspecified muesli-type breakfast cereal. The pathologist surmised that Beatrice had probably died within an hour of eating it. According to Arthur he had left her eating her breakfast just before nine, which fixed her probable time of death as Wednesday morning some time before ten.

  In some ways the worst comment was the bottom paragraph of the report.

  “There are clear signs of insect and animal activity.”

  Joanna dropped the report back on her desk. Face-to-face strangulation suggested murder by an intimate rather than person or persons unknown. It is a fact that people will not willingly stand close enough to a stranger to be grasped by the neck. A survival instinct.

  Beatrice had trusted her killer sufficiently to move within the magic circle of his killing span.

  Joanna picked up the police photograph of the railings outside the library where Beatrice’s bike had been so carefully locked. They had had to cut the lock with wire-cutters as the key had been missing; presumably it was still in Beatrice Pennington’s handbag which had yet to be found.

  Joanna studied the background of the photograph. The street behind was busy and full of traffic – as it would have been last Wednesday morning. And to the front, the library and Nicholson Centre with its hosts of students from the Leek College of Arts. A forceful abduction from there would surely have been impossible. It was too public a site. Which left her with the option that Beatrice Pennington must have gone voluntarily with her killer.

  Either walked or been picked up in a car.

  Joanna leafed through the pictures of the body. Beatrice’s dress had been of a popular fashion this year, a throwback to the fifties, white background, large, red poinsettias. Conspicuous. Deliberately so? Surely many people must have noticed her that morning,? Did she always dress so well for work – or was this unusual? If so why? Had she had an assignation that day? With her mystery lover? The one with whom she was, apparently, not sexually active?

  So who had picked her up? Her husband? Certainly Arthur would have had a motive for the murder if he had found out about Beatrice’s paramour.

  But this left her confused as she remembered his words.

  “What have they done to you?”

  What had he meant?

  She twiddled with her pen, rolling it to and fro, trying to work out a rational explanation for the phrase – and came up with nothing so she picked up the phone.

  The police are like this. They cannot see enough of the people they suspect. They think of any old excuse to make contact with them. Harass them. Sh
e wanted to keep him close. So she dialled up Pennington’s number and came right out with her question.

  “Why did you use the phrase, what have they done to her?”

  “I don’t rightly know why I said it,” He sounded confused.

  She didn’t believe him. He must have had something running through his mind. It wasn’t the type of phrase you pluck out at random – without thinking. “You said they. Who are they, Mr Pennington? Why did you say they? Do you think more than one person is involved in your wife’s murder?”

  She was trying to rattle him, to provoke a response. Find out what had been lying in the back of his stodgy little mind to produce the plural. Drag it out of him – if need be.

  “I suppose I meant those two buddies of hers.”

  “You mean Miss Pirtek and Marilyn Saunders?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “But in what way? How can they have had any possible bearing on her death? Are you suggesting they’re responsible?”

  To her it seemed an illogical, heinous idea. They were her friends.

  “Look,” Arthur said. “I’m not a fool.”

  So she had succeeded, deliberately tipped Pennington into defensive mode. On the whole she was pleased. Anger might make him drop his guard and careless talk is what solves cases.

  “I’m not suggesting they actually killed her,” he said petulantly. “But I do know that there’s things about my wife that I am not fully aware of. I can only surmise that these two women – my wife’s old school pals – had something to do with it. They led my wife astray. Suggested all sorts of silly things she might get up to. Maybe they even said unkind things about me. I’m not one of these toyboys, you know Inspector.”

  Joanna smothered a smile. Pennington was about as far from being a toy boy as the Queen is from being a pole dancer. But she quickly wiped the smile from her face. Telephones have eyes. Your voice changes if you smile while you are speaking on the telephone.