by Roberta Kray
‘For the money, I presume.’
‘There’s other ways to make dough.’
‘Did you know that Vasser was gay?’
Solomon shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Heard a few rumours, nothin’ solid. His brothers sure as hell wouldn’t have been happy about it.’
‘I didn’t know he had any.’
‘Stepbrothers, then. Tony’s boys. The Gissing lot. They ain’t too keen on gays, view them as a threat to their raging masculinity.’
‘Which is probably why he paid up. And Lena must have known about the blackmail, because why else would she have said what she did at the cemetery? She obviously hated Greta.’
Solomon’s face had grown dark. ‘Blackmail,’ he said, almost spitting the word out as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Sounds like one of Greta’s lousy scams.’
Maddie scowled at him. ‘Oh, and Bo was entirely innocent, was he?’
‘Did I say that?’
‘As good as.’
The two of them glared at each other for a few seconds in a futile attempt at defending their siblings. Solomon was the first to break the stare. ‘Aw, hell,’ he said, sitting back and placing his hands behind his head. ‘This is crazy. You realise what’s happening here, babe?’
‘And what’s that?’
‘We’re having our first row.’
Despite herself, Maddie had to smile. ‘I guess it had to happen one day.’
He leaned forward again, putting his burly arms on the table. ‘How about we agree that they were both as fuckin’ stupid as each other?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ She rubbed at her eyes, feeling a wave of tiredness wash over her. ‘Sometimes I feel like I didn’t know Greta at all. The more I find out, the less I understand. I should have tried harder, tried to talk to her.’
‘You gonna start blaming yourself now? You never made her do nothin’. She made her own choices, hon. They both did.’
But Maddie still felt partly responsible. It was impossible just to wash her hands of the past. ‘So what do we do now? We can’t prove anything. All we’ve got is hearsay and rumours.’
‘More than one way to skin a cat,’ he said.
She looked at him. ‘Meaning?’
A hard expression had entered Solomon’s eyes. ‘Meaning that I’ll sort it.’
‘Which doesn’t make me feel any better. Oh God, please tell me you’re not going to do anything stupid. Think about your mum and dad, Sol. It’s not going to help if you end up in jail… or worse. We don’t even know for sure that it was Vasser.’
‘Just a coincidence, then, that Bo and Greta happened to be blackmailing him and suddenly turn up dead? Or that you’ve had a skewered bird land on your doorstep? Strikes me that someone’s mighty worried, babe. Don’t you think?’
Maddie knew he was right, but she didn’t want him taking the law into his own hands. ‘Yes, and he’s probably worried enough to try and silence anyone who might be on to him.’
‘I’m not scared of Vasser.’
‘Nor was Bo, nor was Greta, but look what happened to them. You’ve said it yourself – he’s a psycho.’
‘Best get him off the streets, then.’
Solomon got to his feet and Maddie jumped up too. She took hold of his arm and looked up at him. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything rash. Please. I wouldn’t have told you if… I don’t want you ending up in the mortuary too.’
He smiled thinly down at her. ‘You know what your problem is, hon?’
‘Yes. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen next.’
‘You worry too much. Have a little faith.’
Maddie released her grip on his arm and gave a sigh. ‘Is that supposed to reassure me? Only it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all.’
‘You take care, huh? Call me if there’s any trouble.’
She watched as he walked out of the kitchen. Her heart had started to hammer in her chest. The trouble, she suspected, was about to get a damn sight worse.
39
DI Valerie Middleton took a moment to prepare, to gather her thoughts, as she walked up the path of the small terraced house in Clover Road. The outside of the building was neat and tidy with clean windows, smart paintwork and a hanging basket filled with multi-coloured petunias. The inside… well, she already knew what she was going to find there.
She breathed deeply before slipping on the plastic shoes and stepping over the threshold. From the door, she could see through the tiny hallway to the activity in the living room. The SOCO team was already busy, an army of white swarming over the house. Although she had dealt with numerous murder victims in her time, every death still had an impact. It wasn’t true that you got used to it; you simply found a way of dealing with it.
DS Kieran Swann appeared from the sea of faces and approached her. ‘Morning, gov. Just what we need first thing on a Monday, huh?’
‘I’m sure our victim feels a damn sight more inconvenienced than we do,’ she replied dryly. ‘So what have we got?’
Swann led her through to the living room. ‘Delia Shields. Forty-eight and lives alone. No partner that we know of. Beaten to death by the looks of it. A series of blows to the back of the head and some bruising on the neck and arms. No sign of any sexual assault. Pathologist reckons she’s been dead for about thirty-six hours.’
‘Saturday night, then.’
Valerie gave a nod to a couple of officers as they stood back to let her see the victim. Delia Shields was curled on her side, her glazed eyes partly open, her mouth twisted in the rictus of death. She was an ordinary-looking woman, middle-aged and conservatively dressed in a cream shirt, beige knee-length skirt and a pair of brown sandals. The back of her skull had been caved in, exposing a pulpy mass of bone, congealed blood and tissue.
‘Was it a robbery?’ she asked.
Swann shook his head. ‘Nothing missing so far as we can tell. Her bag’s still here and her purse is in it. None of the cards has been taken, and there’s a small amount of cash. No sign of anything disturbed upstairs either.’
‘Not one of the local junkies, then.’ Valerie glanced around the room. Apart from the mess caused by the attack, it had an air of neatness about it, everything in its place and a place for everything. It was a tidy but uninspiring living space, with chintzy wallpaper and rather dull furnishings. A couple of seascapes hung on the wall, and there was a row of porcelain figures on the mantelpiece. A small teardrop chandelier hung from the centre of the ceiling, the candle-shaped bulbs giving off a faint glow. ‘Was the light on when you got here?’
‘Yeah,’ Swann said. ‘And the curtains were drawn too, which suggests her visitor arrived after dark.’
Valerie gave a nod, glancing back towards the body on the floor. ‘She doesn’t look to me like the type of woman who’d answer the door to a stranger at night. More likely that she knew her attacker, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe it’s a domestic, a row with the boyfriend. Just ’cause we don’t know about any regular partner doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.’ He gestured with his head towards a large plastic bag leaning against the wall. ‘And we’ve got the murder weapon.’
‘An umbrella?’ Valerie said, surprised. She went over to take a closer look. The fabric of the brolly was grey and black, and the heavy, ornate silver-coloured handle was stained with dried blood. Judging from the contents of the room and the clothing she was wearing, the umbrella didn’t seem to fit with Delia’s taste. It was too fancy, too showy, although it was always possible that someone might have bought it for her as a gift. ‘Perhaps it belongs to the perp. It was raining on Saturday, wasn’t it?’
‘Off and on. Be kind of careless to leave it behind, though. It’s pretty distinctive. I’ve never seen one like it before.’
‘So maybe they panicked and took off in a hurry. Maybe they didn’t come with the intention of killing her, but got into an argument and just picked up the nearest object to hand. What else do we know about her?’
‘Not mu
ch. Only that she worked at the cemetery, been there for over thirty years. That’s how she was discovered. The manager, Bob Cannon, started to worry when she didn’t turn up and wasn’t answering her phone. She’s the reliable sort, apparently. He came round to the house, noticed the curtains were still pulled across, and when she didn’t answer the door, he called us.’
Valerie’s eyes were drawn back towards the body and the dreadful wound on Delia’s skull. ‘Someone was angry. You can’t inflict damage like that without major force. Any prints on the brolly?’
‘Some partials. We’ll have to see what the lab can salvage. Oh, and there is one other thing: the victim had a visitor in the early evening, a woman.’
Valerie gave him a cool look. ‘And you’re only just telling me this? You didn’t think it was important?’
‘She came and went, and the victim was still alive at that point. Neighbour from across the road saw her leave, saw Delia Shields too. She was still breathing then.’
‘So what about this woman?’
‘Tall, blonde, late thirties, well dressed.’ He smirked, looking Valerie up and down. ‘Hope you’ve got an alibi for Saturday night.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘because I’m the only tall blonde living in Kellston, right?’
Sometimes, often, Swann infuriated her with his references to her height. He was only a few inches shorter than her, but had a major complex about it. Size, for him, definitely mattered. ‘So what else do we know about this woman?’
Swann put his finger in his ear and probed its depths for a second. He grinned at Valerie. ‘She drives a red sports car.’
Valerie lifted her brows. ‘Really?’
‘Straight up. And the neighbour, Mrs Elizabeth Kent, reckons she’s local. Says she’s seen her around Kellston, although she doesn’t know her name.’
‘And you’re thinking…’
‘I’m thinking the same as you, gov. Sounds suspiciously like Lena Gissing.’
‘She can’t be the only blonde in the area with a red sports car.’
Swann glanced towards the corpse. ‘The only one likely to be involved in something like this. Although, Mrs Kent is sure that Delia was alive when our mystery blonde left the house. Says she saw Delia at the door. But she also reckons that there’d been a row, that neither of them looked too happy. Maybe Lena had a think about it and came back later.’
‘We don’t know it was her. I mean, how were they even connected?’ Her eyes roamed around the room again, trying to picture how Lena Gissing could fit into the scene. ‘And Lena’s not late thirties. She’s knocking on fifty.’
‘Hard to tell from a distance, though.’
‘I don’t suppose the neighbour got the registration number?’
‘No.’
‘And she didn’t see the blonde returning at any time?’
‘No.’
‘How about Bob Cannon. Is he still around?’
‘He had to go back to work. There’s a funeral at eleven.’
Valerie, aware that there was nothing more she could do at the house, decided to get out of the way of the Forensics team. ‘Okay, let’s go and see the neighbour first and then we’ll head over to the cemetery.’
Elizabeth Kent was plump and elderly with steel-grey hair and a pair of sharp dark eyes. She’d been standing at the window as they walked up the drive and had the door open in five seconds flat. The woman was a bundle of nervous excitement, her arms flapping by her sides, her gaze rapidly switching between the two officers and the activity going on across the road.
Valerie showed her ID and made the introductions. ‘I’m DI Valerie Middleton, and this is DS Kieran Swann.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, as she led them through to her living room. ‘Murdered. The poor thing. It’s terrible, terrible. Who’d want to do a thing like that? You’re not safe in your own home these days. Do you know yet? Do you know who did it?’
Valerie gazed patiently back at her. ‘We were hoping you could help with our enquiries.’
‘Sit down, please,’ Mrs Kent said. ‘Would you like tea? It won’t take me a minute.’
‘No, thanks.’ Valerie lowered herself on to the blue sofa, and Swann sat down beside her. ‘It’s very kind of you, but we’re fine.’ She waited until Mrs Kent had settled into an easy chair before continuing. ‘Did you know Delia Shields well?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say well. She was the private sort, you know, not one for chit-chat. But she’s lived across the road for years – must be almost twenty – so… we’d say hello to each other, that kind of thing.’
Valerie got the feeling that she hadn’t especially liked Delia. ‘So you weren’t close?’
‘Just neighbours. To be honest, she was a bit…’ Mrs Kent stopped suddenly and pulled a face, her teeth drawing in her lower lip.
‘A bit?’ Valerie prompted.
Mrs Kent gave a somewhat exaggerated shudder. ‘I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.’
Although she was going to, Valerie thought, with a little more encouragement. ‘Please. Anything you can tell us could be useful. I know it’s not easy, but the truth is always best in these circumstances.’
‘Well,’ Mrs Kent said, gazing down at her lap for a moment before looking up at Valerie again, ‘she could be a bit standoffish. Not very friendly, if you know what I mean. I asked her round for coffee once, but she said she was too busy. Didn’t even say it in a nice way, just looked down her nose at me and…’ She stopped again, aware that she was letting her mouth run away with her. ‘I suppose she just wasn’t the type for company.’
‘But she had a visitor yesterday,’ Swann said.
‘Yes, I told the young lady, the PC who came round earlier. The nice girl with the red hair.’
‘Perhaps if we could go over it again. Did you recognise the woman?’
‘Oh yes – I’ve seen her around. I don’t know her name, though. But she has been here before. Not recently, mind. It’s been a while now.’ Mrs Kent wrinkled her brow as if trying to remember the last time she saw the blonde. ‘Must be over a year. Maybe even longer.’
‘What time did she arrive?’ Swann asked.
‘It must have been about six, perhaps a bit after. I was watching TV and I noticed the car pull up – you can’t really miss it, can you? – and then this woman got out. She put up her umbrella even though it was only a hop and a skip to the front door. Didn’t want to spoil her hair, I suppose.’
‘Could you describe her for me?’
Mrs Kent inclined her head a little. ‘Let me see. Late thirties? She was tall, attractive, fair-haired – it was tied up in one of those knots at the nape of her neck – and very stylish. She was wearing a long white raincoat. Expensive by the looks of it.’
‘Do you recall the colour of the umbrella?’
Mrs Kent looked surprised at the question. ‘The colour?’
‘Yes.’
As if Swann was trying to catch her out in some way, she gave him a suspicious look. ‘What difference does the colour make?’
‘You don’t remember?’
Mrs Kent lifted her shoulders a fraction. ‘Er… I’m not sure. Black, maybe? Or grey? She didn’t have it up for long.’
‘And was she carrying it when she left?’
‘I don’t… What’s this got to do with anything?’
‘If you could just try and remember,’ Swann urged.
‘I don’t know. Like I said, she left in a hurry. It wasn’t up, but…’ Mrs Kent gave a small shake of her head. ‘No, I don’t recall if she was carrying it or not.’
Valerie moved the interview along. ‘And how long was she inside for?’
‘Not more than fifteen minutes,’ Mrs Kent replied, her voice growing firmer now that she was on safer ground. ‘I saw the door open again and the woman came out. Delia was behind her. I could see her quite clearly.’ She took a small breath, leaving a dramatic pause before making her next pronouncement. ‘I’m pretty sure they’d been arguing.’<
br />
‘And what gave you that impression?’
‘The face on her, that’s what! The blonde woman, I mean. She stormed along that path and into her car, took off like a bat out of hell. I’m surprised she didn’t kill someone.’ And then, suddenly realising what she’d said, she gave a tiny gasp and raised her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I didn’t…’
‘It’s all right,’ Valerie said softly. ‘Don’t worry about it. What about Delia? How did she seem?’
Mrs Kent took a moment to think about it. ‘Sort of shocked. And upset. Yes, definitely upset.’
‘And you could see this from where you were sitting?’
Elizabeth Kent had the grace to blush, a pink tinge colouring her cheeks. ‘Well, no, I was standing at the window. It was grey outside, still raining, and I was thinking of pulling the curtains.’
It was obvious that she’d been snooping, but Valerie gave her a reassuring nod as if it was perfectly normal to be closing curtains at six fifteen on an August evening. ‘And that’s the last time you saw Delia Shields?’
Mrs Kent’s head bobbed up and down. ‘Yes. I thought… I thought she was going to run after the woman, but then I think she saw me and changed her mind. She just went back inside.’
‘Okay,’ Valerie said. ‘And you didn’t see this blonde woman come back at any point?’
‘No.’
‘Or did anyone else call at the house?’ Swann asked.
‘No, I didn’t see anyone else.’ Mrs Kent’s hands fluttered up to her face as if the realisation of what had happened was just starting to sink in. ‘Why would anyone…? It’s just too awful. I don’t understand it.’
Valerie rose to her feet, sure that they had exhausted the sum of Mrs Kent’s information on the matter. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. Are you all right? Would you like us to call someone for you?’
‘No, no, my daughter’s coming round. I’ll be fine. She doesn’t live far away.’
‘Well, thank you again.’
Valerie waited until they were out of earshot of the house before speaking to Swann. ‘So if the mystery visitor was Lena Gissing, what the hell did those two have to argue about?’
