The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery)

by Valerie Laws

  Will cleared his throat. ‘Well, I can see how painful this has been for you. I can tell you that we will do all we can to find Lucy. As for the Molly c-, as for Molly, I should say, we have implemented an exhaustive house-to-house enquiry and a detailed search of Stony Point, as well as the whole Stonehead area.’

  ‘But surely Inspector, Spence was poor Molly’s killer,’ Seymour sounded puzzled.

  ‘Possibly, but we are hoping to cover all the angles, just in case. We’ll let you know if anything surfaces from the new enquiries. And now I’m sure we should be getting back. Thank you again.’

  Will made for the door with barely concealed haste, and the others followed. The evening sunlight, hazy with pollen and insects, drowsy with bees and birdcall, the mauve-pink distant heather on the slopes, the juicy grass beneath their feet, had never seemed so beautiful and pure. Erica took in great lungfuls of fresh air, her eyes on the horizon.

  It was ironic that the emergence of an old family secret had catapulted the more recent one into the light of day. Rather than nurse unacted desires, the Seatons had acted. They had not murdered an infant in its cradle, but given life to one.

  24

  As the police car headed back south and coastwards, the silence was broken by Will.

  ‘Hard to believe the Seatons thought they’d not be found out. Peggy doesn’t seem that reliable from the point of view of keeping secrets. I mean, did they never think what would happen if Lucy found out her real parentage? How she might respond?’

  ‘People desperate for a baby will do anything, Guv.’ Sally was driving. ‘They probably didn’t think that far ahead. And they had Peggy dependent on them as well.’

  ‘Ironic really,’ put in Erica. ‘They’d have no reason to think Lucy would ever realise the truth. She looked like her real father, Seymour. Any resemblance to Liz would be natural, since Liz and Peggy are sisters. Well, half-sisters. That’s where the irony comes in.’

  ‘Yes, Toby’s colour blindness was something they couldn’t have factored into their plans, since they knew nothing of Peggy’s real father.’ Steve spoke softly, looking out of the window. ‘Probably Liz never spoke to Violet at the home. Even if she had, Violet might have kept Lily’s secret.’

  ‘I suppose, Guv, we could check Mrs Seaton’s story with a DNA test. That would show if she’s not Lucy’s mother and Peg Westfield is.’ Young and keen, Sally Banner wanted to get science into this mess, clean it all up, classify and categorise the situation somehow.

  ‘What, you mean test Lucy’s DNA against her parents’?’ Will said.

  ‘Well yes Guv.’ Sally clearly thought Will had gone a bit dozy.

  Beside Erica, Steve shifted restlessly in his seat, but said nothing. She felt him waiting for what was said next.

  ‘We can’t do that, Sally.’ Will was definite.

  ‘Why not, Guv? We can easily find some.’

  Erica felt Steve tense up some more as Will started his reply. What was with Steve?

  ‘We can’t go taking DNA from somebody without their permission, just like that! Lucy has committed no crime, we wouldn’t be justified doing any such thing. We’ve no evidence any harm has come to her. It’s not like we’ve got a, er, any worrying discoveries.’ He was going to say ‘it’s not like we’ve got a body,’ thought Erica. That was why she dreaded being alone; the momentum of the quest to find out what happened to the two girls, not cousins as it turned out but half-sisters, had kept her going, but the more complex the family set-up became, the more Erica both dreaded and longed for the return of Lucy.

  Simultaneously, Erica felt Steve relax, and his fingers land softly on her forearm. She caught a whiff of him – he smelt a bit like ferns. Her arm prickled under the touch of his skin. She looked across at him, his dark eyes met hers in the intimate space of the car, and he murmured, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Will, in the front passenger seat, glimpsed the movement in the back, and was not surprised when Erica asked if they could drop her off first. Nor was he surprised when Steve got out with her and they vanished into her building. The thing that surprised him was how disappointed he felt. He’d found the day distressing and depressing and didn’t want to be alone. For the first time in a long while, he wished he had someone he could call on when he needed her. Someone restful, not like Erica. No, he wouldn’t go out with her, even if she asked him … Sally broke in on his thoughts.

  ‘Won’t be long now Guv. My boyfriend’ll be getting fed up. We’re meeting some mates tonight, and I’ll just make it at this rate.’

  Am I the only one who’s alone, Will thought. Stop it you pathetic loser, he rebuked himself. He’d go and see his sister and his beautiful nephew. He’d do anything for them. Including getting involved with surrogacy and sperm donation? He didn’t know, couldn’t imagine what that felt like. His sister’s husband hadn’t stuck around to cope with his son’s special needs; and that bastard of an ‘alternative’ therapist had conned her. But she went on, happy with her son. Perhaps one day I’ll have a son, thought Will. Then unbidden into his mind came the picture of Molly’s skull, and Peg’s terror when they took her the news. Love was an expensive luxury, it seemed. How did anyone afford it?

  Erica led Steve into her sitting room, feeling suddenly shy with him, ridiculously glad he was there. He roamed about, picking up the skulls on display, running his fingers over them, dark and alive against the smooth ivory of the bones, while she fetched wine and glasses.

  They sat down on her baggy sofa and raised glasses of Soave. He leaned back and she curled round towards him. His eyes met hers as he drank. The chilled wine sweated in the bowl of the glass.

  Steve leaned forward, gazing at her earnestly. His lips parted and she felt something liquefy inside her. He spoke.

  ‘I’ve got news of Lucy.’

  The name of her friend and his ex exploded between them like a gas grenade, going straight to the central nervous system of her conscience. She stared at him, trying to sort out the frustration, guilt, and curiosity his words engendered.

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve said nowt about it all day,’ he said.

  ‘Well, yeah! What’s going on? How could you not tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. Look, Erica, let me tell how it went, and you’ll understand I’m sure.

  ‘I remembered a medic pal Lucy’d known in her first couple of years.’ He drank. Erica sat tense beside him.

  ‘Ok, this mate specialised in genetics, works at the Life Centre. I got in touch. Found out Lucy had been in contact just after she left home. She’d brought in a DNA sample, her mother’s she told them, and one of her own, asked them to run a test as a personal favour. Unofficially. See, I was sure Luce wouldn’t just run without checking. And it seems she didn’t. According to her mate, Lucy said she was going to lie low and would get in touch for the results. The first sample was a bit complicated, mixed with other substances, had to be isolated first. But the mate hasn’t heard from her yet.’

  ‘But how will Lucy contact this friend?’

  ‘Lucy’s mate gave her their spare mobile. The only way to get any info at all was to promise I’d not tell anyone, anything. Especially the Seatons. Liz would use her own contacts to find out who it is and put pressure on them. The friend only told me that much because of Molly’s skull turning up. I laid it on thick, I thought Lucy might have gone the same way, worried about Toby, you know. But I’ve no idea where Lucy is, believe it.

  ‘But can’t you see Erica, this is great news! She’s safe, probably staying with another friend or something.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Erica put her empty glass down. ‘Will said –’ she hesitated. ‘Well he hinted she might have committed suicide. But she wouldn’t put in DNA samples and then kill herself. And by the time she gets the results, she’ll have had time to calm down and think it through.’

  A feeling of relief was sweeping through Erica. The guilt that had moved in with Lucy’s name began to reluctantly pack its
bags.

  She suddenly thought of Will. She could almost hear his voice in her head.

  ‘You only have Steve’s word for it. You don’t know he isn’t connected with Lucy’s disappearance, maybe he’s telling you this to put you off the scent.’

  Sod you, Will, she thought, but she couldn’t help edging away from Steve a little.

  ‘Steve, this friend of Lucy’s. Can you trust them?’

  He misunderstood. ‘To keep her secret? Well Lucy does. They were an item once actually.’

  ‘So it’s a man then.’ Erica pounced on the careless slip.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ His dark eyes challenging her, he grinned.

  ‘Oh come on, Lucy’s not bisexual – I’m sure she isn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well I…’ She remembered those summers, she and Lucy, intimate, affectionate, writing poetry to each other, linking arms, but was there anything sexual in their relationship? Surely not.

  ‘Whatever, Steve, you must tell this ‘mate’ what we heard today. Lucy’s traumatised mainly because she thinks her dear old dad got her aunt pregnant. She probably won’t have thought of surrogacy, I mean, I tend to think of it as something recent, she probably does too. Surely it’s better she knows what happened. It’s not as bad as she thinks.’

  ‘And it might bring her back sooner! After all, Liz admitted Peg’s the mother, so Lucy needn’t wait for the DNA test. Yeah. I’ll ask the mate to pass on the info.’

  Pleading tiredness and an early start, Erica watched him leave soon after. Drop dead gorgeous. She shuddered. Could she have been thinking of spending the night with a killer? If this ‘mate’ was an ex of Lucy’s, could they not be involved in her disappearance, and be lying to Steve? A crime of passion, jealousy?

  As Erica brushed her hair, she remembered her first appointment next day. Julie Reed. Erica had been able to help some of Julie’s physical symptoms, but she was still overweight and burdened with discontent and bitterness. She didn’t seem able to get past Molly’s death, as before she hadn’t been able to get past Molly’s possible living return. Erica had arranged some hypnotherapy with her colleague Miles to release memories which were poisoning her life. Tomorrow was to be her first session.

  25

  Tuesday 8th July

  Ivy Lodge

  Neat, with smooth hair hanging over his eyes, Miles was a fan of the Sixties cult series, The Prisoner. He’d even built a kit car like Patrick MacGoohan’s. But behind this surface flamboyance, he was somehow colourless.

  While Erica sat in, Miles put Julie in a hypnotic state, and regressed her to the late Seventies. She spoke in a younger voice, to Miles’ gentle prompting, about her crush on Paul. About how much prettier and cleverer Molly was than herself. Carefully, Miles, hair pushed to one side as if unveiling his eyes, brought her to the critical evening when Molly turned up unexpectedly at the Christmas party.

  ‘Paul and me are smooching.’ Julie giggled. ‘I can feel his, you know, his thing, against me. It’s me he loves. Molly’s gone.’

  A frown furrowed Julie’s brow. ‘And I don’t want her to come back! Not now Paul loves me. I’m a horrible cow! Oh!’ Julie’s hand went up to brush at her arm. ‘Ed’s spilled cider on me…’

  ‘What happens when Molly comes in? What do you see?’

  ‘She’s smiling! She’s wearing a silvery green flying suit, I want one but mam says they’re too dear. And she’s got high- heeled gold sandals from Sasha’s. She’s got a chain belt, with purple suede daisies round it. That’s funny … no, no, it can’t be…’

  ‘What’s funny?’ asked Miles gently. ‘Is it the belt? What is it about the belt that’s funny?’

  Erica leaned forward on her seat. Julie had held a mental snapshot of Molly’s outfit in every detail all these years. It must have some deep significance. The timing; just as Paul turned to her, Molly walked in. Did Julie, or Paul, or both together, kill her that night? Was she about to hear a confession of murder?

  ‘It’s just, the belt … it looks…’ Julie tailed off.

  ‘You’re looking at Molly now, in her flying suit and gold sandals and her belt with the purple suede daisies. Look carefully. What do you see that isn’t right?’

  Julie was sweating. Her hands had begun to twist the hem of her skirt convulsively.

  ‘It looks – funny. It’s her – Molly. The belt is round her middle, but her tummy looks sort of round. She isn’t fat anywhere else. The belt is round her tummy … It looks as if she’s going to have a baby. But she can’t be. She’s on the pill. And it can’t be true. Paul loves me!’ Her voice rose. ‘She can’t walk in here and take him back – it isn’t fair!’

  She subsided. ‘No. I’ve made a mistake. It must be the flying suit. There’s nothing there … Molly’s laughing at me and Paul. He’s gone very white. His arms have gone all hard and stiff around me. She’s saying nasty things. About some other man, not a boy, a man. She’s, drunk I think, she’s really worked up, she’s smiling but her eyes look – wild, like she’s desperate … desperate to get Paul back. She’s trying to make him jealous, with this stuff about a man. I’m glad I pulled her hair out when we had a fight in the changing room that time after double maths. She’s my best friend, I hate her! I hate her! I wish she was dead!’

  Miles began to soothe Julie, to take her past that moment, and to suggest that Paul did love her, and not Molly … Erica slipped out, unable to listen any more without some sort of physical reaction. She paced up and down her own office, rubbing her arms. It sounded like Molly had been pregnant!

  She’d kept it a secret, and her young, firm body had helped her to hide it as young girls sometimes did. It was showing enough for Julie to glimpse the change in her friend’s shape, just for a second, then she’d pushed the impression to the back of her mind. In the late Seventies, nice well-off girls either didn’t have sex or went on the pill. That’s what Julie told herself. Paul had just turned to her. She wanted him for herself, not tied to Molly by a baby. Molly was pregnant, Erica was sure of it, and there it was, a motive for her murder, by Julie, or Paul. Or by the father.

  Hadn’t Peg destroyed Molly’s contraceptive pills? Was it after that, after Molly ran away, that she became pregnant, or was she already pregnant through carelessness, sickness or whatever? And where had she been hanging out after she left home?

  Erica sat down and jotted down some notes. June 1978, wasn’t it, the row over Molly’s pills, when she’d stormed out? The party was just before Christmas, so there was a six- month gap for Molly to conceive. Could she have been six months gone, and no-one notice? But you did hear about young girls having babies even they didn’t know they were expecting. More likely it was four to five months though, so the bump had started showing but there was no double chin or other extra weight showing yet. Molly’d stayed at Stony Point just after she ran away … surely Mickey …

  Erica hugged herself, feeling ill. Could he have got Molly pregnant? Rape, abuse, taking advantage … what would you call it? No, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t … but didn’t Julie tell her before that everyone thought Molly looked fantastic, glowing? Boasting of a great new boyfriend? That didn’t mesh with experience of rape. Being taken in by some plausible glamorous guy, maybe. Not a description that fitted poor Mickey. But Julie under hypnosis said Molly was desperate, wild-eyed. Maybe she had been raped and was hiding it as victims so often did, even if they ended up pregnant.

  Erica rang Will and arranged for him to call round later that day. The truth was what mattered, however ugly it turned out to be. She went back to Miles’ room to comfort Julie. Later, sitting alone with both hands wrapped round a mug of ginger pear tea, she heard heavy feet. Almost she could see the ripples in her tea, as if a T Rex was heading her way.

  It was Will, with Hassan Massum. Erica felt a stab of relief, mixed with disappointment, that Will wasn’t alone.

  ‘We must stop meeting like this,’ Will said with an attempt at lightness that came out pom
pous. Why did I say such a stupid thing? He subsided into his seat, viciously flattening his hair, as Erica made them tea and gave a quick rundown of what she’d just found out.

  ‘But we can’t be sure of this information. It was twenty- five years ago, at a party, Julie was probably drunk, emotional – conflicted about her friend’s disappearance, excited about Paul’s attention…’ Hassan objected.

  ‘And the light was probably dim,’ Will added. ‘And Julie was only sixteen then, possibly she’d never seen anyone pregnant. She was jumping to conclusions … the way you told it, she actually took back her impression at the time!’

  ‘Oh for god’s sake you two, what is your problem?’ Erica slammed down the two mugs and hot herbal tea slopped onto her fingers. She sucked them distractedly. Will picked up his mug and took a sip, burning his tongue rather, but determined not to look at Erica’s slim fingers sliding in and out of her mouth.

  ‘Here I’m giving a great motive, especially for someone who – well, shouldn’t have been getting young girls pregnant.’

  ‘Isn’t it likely to have been Paul’s, assuming this isn’t a phantom pregnancy we’re talking about? Are you accusing him of murdering Molly?’

  Erica answered Will while making a show of handing Hassan his tea courteously. ‘Young lads have been known to get out of eighteen years’ of child support the easy way … even if Paul didn’t realise at the party, he may have had some contact with Molly later on that Julie didn’t know about. On the other hand, it was the late Seventies, not the Fifties, illegitimate babies weren’t a disaster for young single people surely.’

  ‘Peg and, erm, George may have thought it was,’ pointed out Hassan. ‘Their religious views were not so modern.’