A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  ‘The autopsy was carried out last night.’

  Looking into the pleasant but unreadable face, Joe was struck by a thought that caught him like a blow. This man maybe. God help us, the youth by the door as well - had stood in on the autopsy, had watched the pathologist at work, had discussed the case over her open body.

  He pushed the visions behind him. What the hell did it matter now? Dignity is a luxury we all forfeit in the end.

  Yet no sooner had he broken free of this thought than another began to form, disturbing in some other way he couldn’t quite identify. He tried to grasp the idea, but it remained tantalisingly out of reach.

  ‘Has her car been found?’

  Craig named a place he’d never heard of, adding, ‘It’s two miles up river from where she was found.’

  ‘There’s a dam there, is there?’

  Craig’s hesitation was minute, barely a beat, but it was enough to make Joe realise his mistake.

  ‘A large weir.’ Then, with what seemed the mildest of interest: ‘Why do you ask?’

  Joe held his gaze. ‘Well, suicides often choose to jump, don’t they? From a high place.’

  Craig looked at him without comment.

  ‘Was there a note?’ Joe asked.

  Passing over this question with a slow’lift of his head, Craig said, ‘What would be most useful to us at this time, Mr McGrath, is any background information you might have.

  About James and Jennifer Chetwood. Their life, their interests…’

  By the door, the young detective shifted in his seat. He had been sitting with his head leaning back against the wall, but now he sat forward and rested his forearms on his knees.

  Glancing at him, Joe was once again pricked by the half-formed thought that remained stubbornly out of reach.

  ‘They lived very quietly,’ he told Craig. ‘They didn’t have much contact with people from their old life.’

  ‘But some contact?’

  Joe signalled his error. ‘Actually, no contact at all. In fact, Dr and Mrs Laskey hadn’t heard from Jenna for a long time.

  That’s why they were so worried.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Four years.’

  Craig gave what Joe was coming to recognise as a characteristic response: a faint nod and a twitch of the mouth that was as much an acknowledgement of information received as a humourless smile. ‘Any particular reason for the long silence?’

  ‘Not that the Laskeys knew of, no.’

  ‘But you yourself had kept contact?’

  ‘I managed to find them about two months ago. Living in a cottage up the Nant Garth valley. That was when she told me about wanting a quiet life.’

  ‘You found them?’ Craig lifted his eyebrows, ready to be impressed. ‘Was that difficult?’

  ‘An ad in the local paper. Jenna replied.’

  Craig gave a sage nod, and Joe noticed the crispness of his smoky-blue shirt, the well-cut jacket and silk tie fastened with a wide knot. Clothes from the better end of the high street; clothes that cost money. Again, he groped for the significance of this; again, he was too tired to grasp it.

  Craig said, ‘They were using another name, of course.’

  ‘Evans.’

  ‘Any reason for that, do you know?’

  ‘They wanted a break with the past, I think.’

  ‘Because they fell out with someone? Because they wanted to draw a line under something?’

  ‘I think it was more of a lifestyle thing.’

  ‘Ah,’ Craig said immediately, as if this were the most reasonable explanation in the world.

  A mobile warbled. The young officer scrambled to his feet and, pulling the phone from his pocket, left the room.

  In the pause that followed, Craig’s eyes seemed to lose focus; when he spoke again it was absently. ‘And what was your opinion of Jenna when you saw her two months ago? Her frame of mind?’

  Joe had no idea what triggered it, but in a cascade of reasoning that took him in several directions at once - Craig’s air of authority, the long wait to see him, the postmortem, the presence of the young officer - he finally stumbled over the thought that had eluded him for so long.

  ‘Sorry - Detective Inspector, was it?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Aren’t you rather senior?’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

  ‘It’s just a suicide.’

  ‘A sudden death is a sudden death. It has to be investigated.’

  ‘But at your rank?’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘But in what circumstances?’

  Craig’s eyes creased up in consideration, his mouth twitched, his expression took on a cooler edge. ‘When there are elements of doubt.’

  ‘There wasn’t a note then?’

  For a time Joe thought he wouldn’t answer. ‘A note was found, yes.’

  ‘So where’s the doubt?’

  Craig sat forward and jammed his hands together, fingers interleaved like the teeth of a. zipper. ‘Mr McGrath, I’m not at liberty to divulge the particulars of our inquiries at the present time. I can only assure Jennifer’s family that everything will be investigated most thoroughly.’

  Joe studied him for a moment before nodding abruptly.

  ‘Sure.’

  Craig sat back again. ‘So … Jenna’s frame of mind when you saw her?’

  ‘She seemed fine. A little subdued maybe.’

  ‘Not depressed?’

  ‘Hard to tell. She said she was happy; She said everything was fine. Though I have to say I was shocked by their living conditions. Fairly basic.’

  ‘In the Nant Garth valley?’

  ‘But I think they moved from there. Didn’t they?’

  Again choosing not to answer, Craig asked, ‘Was Mr Chetwood there when you made your visit?’

  ‘No. But I’d seen him the day before. At a motorway service station. We’d met to deal with some legal business.

  Jenna’s brother Marc wanted to sell a property they owned jointly. We met to discuss it.’

  The young officer slipped back into the room. Craig exchanged a glance with him.

  ‘And did Mr Chetwood talk about his wife and their life together?’

  Joe said uneasily, ‘A little.’ He was being led somewhere and it was a place he wasn’t certain he wanted to go.

  Craig spread a hand, inviting elaboration.

  ‘He said the same thing, that they preferred a quiet life.

  Particularly Jenna. That she loved being with her animals.

  Look, he does know about Jenna’s death, doesn’t he? He’s not abroad or anything?’

  ‘He knows.’

  ‘Where is he? I’d like to go and see him as soon as possible.’

  Craig turned to the young officer. ‘Turner? Did the desk manage to arrange that transport?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’ll be back home by now.’

  So that was what they’d been doing for the last few hours, Joe thought: taking Chetwood’s statement. Very likely Chetwood had been only yards away from them in the police station while they’d waited through the long morning.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘Like you said, the Nant Garth valley.’

  Joe was momentarily thrown. ‘Right. And there’re people with him, are they? He’s not alone?’

  ‘There are people with him.’ Then: ‘You were a friend of his then, were you? As well as Jennifer’s?’

  ‘We were at college together.’

  Craig looked at him with new interest. ‘I see. Did you see him when he came through London on his travels?’

  ‘Not recently. We’d lost touch.’

  Craig absorbed this slowly, but with no diminution of interest. ‘Do you know someone called Ines Santiago?’

  So now we have it, Joe thought: the trawling for dirt, the apportioning of guilt. ‘She’s his cousin.’

  ‘You’ve met her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Close
, were they?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said firmly.

  Reading his tone, Craig moved on. ‘And Jennifer. Nothing else she mentioned when you saw her, apart from wanting a quiet life?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she say if she travelled abroad with her husband?’

  ‘She said she preferred to stay at home with the animals.’

  ‘What about holidays?’ he suggested lightly.

  ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t even have a passport.’

  ‘Ah.’ A look of enlightenment came over Craig’s face. ‘That would explain why we couldn’t find one.’ Then: ‘She told you, did she? About the passport?’

  Something in the way he said this caused Joe a sudden misgiving. ‘Does it matter?’

  Craig shrugged. ‘It would be useful to know, Mr McGrath.

  That’s all.’

  Joe wrestled with the impulse to lie. ‘It was something I discovered when I was trying to find the two of them. I checked with the passport office. I discovered her passport had expired.’

  Craig bowed his head in a gesture that was not in the least ironic. ‘Thank you.’ He placed his hands over his knees, elbows braced as if to get up, but did not move. ‘One last thing, Mr McGrath - did Jennifer mention a man called Sam Raynor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did she say about him?’

  ‘She said he’d died in an accident some years ago. She said she’d never quite got over it.’

  ‘Did she say that she considered herself to blame?’

  Joe answered carefully, ‘I think everyone feels to blame after an accident, don’t they? They tell themselves they could have done more to prevent it. They forget that the whole definition of an accident is something that’s unforeseen and unforeseeable.’ He was making too much of this; he might have been stalling. ‘Is that what she said in the note? Is that the reason she gave for killing herself?’

  ‘It was mentioned.’

  ‘For God’s sake.’

  ‘Did you know Sam Raynor yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well. Thank you for your help, Mr McGrath.’ Craig slapped his knees lightly and stood up. ‘Shall we go and see how Dr Laskey’s getting on?’

  This struck Joe as the first stupid thing Craig had said.

  Alan would not be ‘getting on’, not now and not for the foreseeable future. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, perhaps the tension, but the remark continued to rankle as he followed Craig into the corridor, and it wasn’t till they were halfway to the viewing room that Joe thought to ask, ‘The weir - was it the one where Sam Raynor died?’

  ‘We believe so, yes.’

  When did they find her?’

  ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘How long had she been there?’

  Craig stopped two yards short of WPC Jaffrey, who was waiting outside the viewing room. He pulled back against the wall and with a flick of his eyes commanded Turner to walk on. He crossed his arms and regarded Joe intently, as though making some judgement which could still come down either way. Finally he said in a low confiding tone, ‘Probably best not to mention it to the family at the present time, Mr McGrath, best to avoid distressing them, but it looks like she was in the water some days. Could be as much as a week.

  Her body was caught up in some overhanging branches, in a remote spot. It wasn’t till some kids happened by that she was found.’

  ‘But wasn’t she missed?’

  ‘Mr Chetwood was away. It was the neighbours who raised the alarm when they realised they hadn’t seen her for some days.’

  Joe felt the bite of anguish; but mainly he felt anger. To have no one miss you, to have no one fretting because they can’t get any reply: this struck him as the most unforgivable crime of all.

  Chetwood, he thought. You bastard.

  They followed a path of mouldering leaves through bare woodland. Below them, a bank fell steeply down to the river which appeared as a sheet of shimmering light through the dark web of the trees. Even before the uniformed officer began to glance down the slope, Joe spotted the signs of a path hastily hacked through the undergrowth: the flattened bracken, the broken branches, the muddy gashes on the woodland floor.

  They went down the hill single file, ducking under sagging boughs, climbing over fallen branches, stepping over roots, until they reached the water’s edge.

  ‘Just there,’ the uniformed officer said.

  He was pointing to an area of racing water under a black-fringed dome of overhanging trees. At first Joe couldn’t imagine how anything could have been caught up here, how any object, whatever its size, could have resisted the sheer speed and power of the current, but then he noticed the way the water surged and bucked under the trees, the way it seemed to be squeezed upwards, and taking a step closer, looking downwards through a surface unobscured by reflection, he saw that the water was racing over a shallow gravel bed. Lifting his eyes, gazing out through the tracery of overhanging branches, he gauged the sweep of the river and realised they were standing on the outer reach of a long bend, and that everything - water, debris, more substantial cargo - would be flung out against the long curved rim of the bend by the force of the current.

  She had been swept in here by the water and beached on the gravel bed.

  Joe imagined her lying here in the days and nights before she was found, he saw her lying face-up under the canopy, and the image was strangely reassuring. Hidden from the world, out of reach of the land, cleansed by the fast-moving water, with stars and dappled sunlight overhead. He thought sentimentally: Not a bad resting place.

  He caught the eye of the uniformed officer and, leaving Alan alone, they climbed to the top of the bank to wait for him there. Back at the cars they split up, the uniformed man to return to Llandrindod Wells, Joe to drive Alan on up the valley.

  It was only a couple of miles to the weir, but it was one of the longer journeys of Joe’s life. He drove slowly, giving Alan plenty of time to examine the river as it ran below them, sometimes in full view, occasionally lost behind a rocky outcrop, but. most often flickering behind a screen of trees, the water white or dark, ruffled or sleek, but never less than fast-flowing. The valley steepened on either side of them and the tangled trees, black and bare, interspersed with the occasional stand of evergreens, seemed to rise above them on both sides, darkening everything, until the sky was like a pale river running high above.

  The weir was marked by a sign with a picnicking symbol.

  There was a small car park with no cars. Choosing the slot nearest the river, Joe wondered if this was the one Jenna had chosen, and whether when she climbed out of the car she had been determined on her course or whether she’d had doubts; whether she’d been crying or calm; whether one small event that day could have swung her decision the other way; whether when she started towards the weir she was clear-headed or desperately confused. Perhaps she’d taken some tranquillisers, perhaps she’d had a drink or two. He hoped so, because he couldn’t imagine her starting down the path to the river with nothing but the knowledge of what she was about to do.

  The path led diagonally down the wooded slope through a small cut whose banks hid the river for a distance so that they heard the weir before they saw it, a muted roar that seemed to come at them from the valley side, to move slowly around towards the river and retreat a little, until, descending a series of shallow curving steps, the sound rose up ahead. They were low in the valley now, and the opposite side seemed to loom blackly above them.

  Alan hung back and gestured Joe to go ahead. Joe saw smooth dark water first, a slipping sliding black mirror marked by the occasional ripple as the river flowed towards the weir.

  Next he saw a paved area opening out before him, a viewing platform with seats, then, beyond it, reaching out to span the river, a stone footbridge which straddled the top of the weir.

  The water, channelled by elegant buttresses, slipped through its arches and vanished smoothly over the brink.

 
The footbridge was a Gothic fantasy, with towers at either end, crenellations and arrow slits. The tower at the near end had an iron gate which was chained and padlocked. He continued past it, down four steps to a lower viewing platform, and watched the water storming out over the weir, an orderly curve which diffused into air and spray and white water as it cascaded down the wall to the maelstrom below. The water was white for quite a way downstream. Even when it darkened again it seemed to churn and heave, and he couldn’t make out a point where it was calm again.

  He went to the edge of the platform, wondering if she had jumped from there, but it was set back from the river, there were mossy rocks below, and he thought it unlikely.

  Joe joined Alan by the locked gate. A notice read ‘Not Open to the Public’, but the gate was not that high, there was no barbed wire, and anyone reasonably agile could have climbed over. Beyond, the footbridge was long and straight, the parapet chest-high to a woman, and fairly narrow, just wide enough to sit on before slipping over.

  Alan said the Lord’s Prayer. Then, after looking out over the roaring water for another five minutes, he turned away.

  Alan wanted to head home and, though he couldn’t bring himself to spell it out, he wanted to go on his own. Joe would have hired a taxi for him, but Alan insisted on taking the train.

  They found one from Hereford, changing at Birmingham. On the platform, Alan squeezed Joe’s arm before climbing in.

  Neither of them had anything left to say.

  Joe reached the Arcadian valley in the early evening. It was pitch dark. There were no lights and no moon, though one bend was marked by a row of reflective lights which turned out to be sheep looking his way. Without the snow to define them the hedgerows were a blur, the trees an unstructured avenue, arid the stream might not have been there for all he saw of it. Passing the cottage of the landlord-farmer, he saw a dim light, then nothing till he was on the track up through the woods, when one light then another glimmered through the trees. Reaching the clearing, he saw lights in and around the cottage, and cars: two of them, three. Getting closer, he saw still more cars around the side of the cottage and in the yard: in all he counted seven, at least two of them marked Police.

  Someone was moving around in the kitchen. Through the glass he saw a shock of prematurely white hair and a stocky female figure. When he knocked, a dog barked and the woman shushed it. She opened the door wide and he met the gaze of the landlord-farmer’s wife from down the hill. ‘Hello,’ she said calmly. She might have been expecting him: without a word she picked up a glass of wine from the side and held it out to him.