*
“More than curious don’t you think – her not being bothered at meeting people she knew from her old life?” Desmond said later, and Gwilym nodded, equally surprised. “They’re going to have to tell Calderwood about that and about what they were actually doing, as opposed to what they’ve told him!” Desmond continued. “It won’t worry Marcus much, but I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Maisie and Duncan explain why they lied – and where they actually were!” He smiled happily as he wondered how the pair of smug chapel-goers would handle it.
Gwilym nodded. “Indeed, but where does that leave us? Of our original five couples, we’ve just had two of them providing each other with extremely strong alibis, and we’ve, as yet, got sod all on the Bellamys. That leaves us with only the Orbisons and the Wilsons to talk to.”
“I know. It’s starting to look like a very thin field. Let’s hope Calderwood’s people are having more luck,” grunted Desmond.
Chapter 10
“Now that is interesting!” murmured Calderwood a few days later, passing over the initial finding of the autopsy. “Changes a few things too!”
“It sure does,” responded Bulmer, reading quickly through the report. “It explains a few things, though, doesn’t it?” he added.
“The lack of blood, you mean? Yes, it does and it also means we can stop looking for an alternative murder site – because there isn’t one,” Calderwood replied.
“So what was it then? Accidental death? A vicious prank that went wrong? Can’t be that simple, surely!”
Calderwood shook his head. “No, there was too much violence used on the body, and too much force needed to get her there in the first place for it to be any kind of prank. Even so, when we get whoever it was, they may get charged only with manslaughter.”
“How do you work that one out?”
“Because it wasn’t the knife attack, or any other weapon for that matter, that actually killed her.”
“So, because she died from a heart attack, the sick bastard who did it will get away with just a few years inside then? Manslaughter doesn’t draw that much time, does it,” Bulmer remarked disgustedly.
Calderwood shook his head. “It can lead to a quite heavy sentence. It depends on a lot of factors. In severe cases, it can even be close to what the perpetrator would have got for murder. But, you’re right, it’s usually much lighter.”
“So, why all the slashing of the face and body; the clothes being shredded, cut off her?” asked Bulmer, puzzled. “If not to kill her – then what was it for?”
“I don’t know for certain,” responded his superior, “but look at the...”
“Ah!” Bulmer exclaimed, cutting him off as he reached that far down the page. “That certainly explains that part of it too!”
“It certainly does. I’m coming round to the view that maybe the aim wasn’t to kill, but to embarrass her. From what we know of her, she was a very vain woman, careful of how she looked, her appearance generally. Well, if the slashings were meant less to harm, but to expose – she’d be extremely embarrassed, to put it mildly.”
Bulmer nodded sombrely, reading from the report. “She had undergone extensive plastic surgery some years previously. As a result, the whole of the front of the body, from the clavicle to the pudenda was a mass of scarring and ruined tissue. Both breasts had inverted nipples, and one was twice the size of the other. It appears that the lower ribs had been removed – an extreme form of surgery to get a smaller waist. All the surgery had been substandard and the damage done was both visible and irreversible.” Both detectives were shocked at the horror that the dead woman had undergone.
“So you think that it was maybe to humiliate her that she was tied up as she was, then the clothing sliced off her so anyone passing could see how... how grotesque she looked?”
“Yes. As I say, I’m beginning to wonder if it was just a case of revenge – savage, but meant to stop short of murder.”
Bulmer nodded in agreement. “For her to be humiliated like that would be wonderful for whoever hated her to that extent.” He paused, then went on. “Vicious, certainly, but very restrained for Rizzio. Too restrained?”
“Possibly,” agreed Calderwood, quietly. “It certainly means we need to be extra careful on focusing too much on him. Apart from that,” he continued grimly, “all we need to do is find out who actually did do it, how they got her there, and why they staked her out overnight to be seen by no one but the crows the next morning.”
*
It was well known in the village that Elias Hobson, the feared and venerable gatekeeper of the Whist Club for over thirty years, had frequently turned latecomers away. Jon and Desmond, therefore, were outside the slightly dilapidated Village Hall promptly at 6.55 pm for an equally prompt 7 pm start. Grabbing a spare table, they looked around the small room, as shabby as the building’s exterior, while waiting for their first two opponents to join them.
Using the few minutes before the games started, Desmond quickly checked that his version, picked up off the web, fitted the village club’s rules. “Yes,” Jon confirmed. “We play trumps in the order of Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades. The player to Dealer’s left opens, and we play four games at each table before moving around the hall. It can make it a bit slow, but most people enjoy the chance to use each of the suits as trumps, so we’ve kept it that way. And,” he added grandiloquently, “the winning pair get the magnificent prize at the end of the evening!”
“Magnificent?” queried Desmond, who vaguely remembered one evening where the prize had been a bag of turnips, and another where the offering had been two unplucked and slightly smelly hens.
“Comparatively speaking, of course,” Jon laughed.
“Jon! Louise has just come in with your dad!” exclaimed Desmond, interrupting him.
“Oh, yes,” the other man said turning in his seat. “The old man must be feeling a bit better,” he added with casual disinterest, looking across to where his wife, a slim, good-looking woman, was helping in an elderly, and obviously frail, old man.
“He doesn’t look well,” Desmond remarked, thinking ‘awful’ would be more accurate.
“Oh, he’s not; we’ve been told the cancer’s terminal, so he’s not got much longer,” said Jon matter-of-factly.
“Hell, I’m sorry, Jon! Look, if you want to partner your Dad, I’d understand.”
“No, thanks! I mean,” he added hurriedly, “he needs someone with him who can do the carer bit, and Louise is much better at that sort of thing than I am.”
Desmond, recalling Mr. Peters senior and his hard, bullying ways towards anyone he thought he could use them on, said no more. He entirely understood his son’s noticeable lack of warmth.
He looked round the rapidly filling room. Although, with the large percentage of zimmer-supported members, ‘rapidly’ was perhaps too optimistic a term, he thought idly. He saw, to his surprise, however, that Gwilym had been right. Though still outnumbered by elderly villagers, there were a goodly number of incomer couples taking their places.
“How’s your hand?” Desmond asked, nodding to bandages swathing his partner’s left hand. “And how did you manage to do it anyway, you clumsy sod!”
“Oh, it’s fine, I saw Doc Rutherford the next morning, and his nurse put a couple of stitches in. It’ll be right as rain when they come out, I gather,” Jon responded, slightly dismissively, shrugging off Desmond’s concern. “Oh, bugger! Look who our first opponents are going to be! God!” he continued, turning his eyes in the appropriate direction. “I must’ve been very wicked! Please take me now to begin my penance rather than inflict more suffering on this penitent soul!”
“Bloody hell! I’ll join him God!” muttered Desmond as he saw two elderly figures slowly approaching their table. “I thought they’d be dead by now,” he muttered. “Hello! Lovely to see you,” he lied, rising politely as the couple eventually reached them. “I’ve not seen you since I got back.”
“Well, no, dear,”
replied the woman with a gentle smile from beneath her slightly moth-eaten hat, which blended perfectly with her slightly moth-eaten tweed coat. “I imagine you’ve been very busy.” She paused for a moment. “And, of course, we weren’t at your mother’s party,” she added, with just the right amount of emphasis to indicate that they would have come if they’d been invited and, further, were rather surprised that they hadn’t been.
“Oops! Just in time, we’re about to start!” Jon interjected, hoping it would help.
It didn’t. Nor, before the game actually did start, did it save Desmond from a gentle but remorseless interrogation as to who actually had been at the party, and on what basis they’d received their invitations. When the first game did eventually begin, his misery just continued. Victor and Daphne Lowther were the longest serving members of the Whist Club – and it’s worst players. At eighty-three and eighty-four years of age, respectively, they were now no better at the game than when they’d first joined some fifty plus years previously. In fact, as Desmond and Jon were to find, to their fury, failing memories and dodgy eyesight had made them both considerably worse – and infinitely slower. Long after every other quartet had completed their four rounds, and were waiting impatiently to move onto their next table, Desmond and John were still floundering in the third deal, with each player holding six cards still left to play Eventually though, their penance belatedly reached its end, and the elderly pair tottered off to the next table, having lost all four games to Desmond and John.
Fortunately for their respective blood pressures, their next opponents were very different. Jennifer and Peter Orbison were a switched on, urban couple, new to the village and, though very busy with careers, were both heavily involved in all village activities. “No point moving to a place like this if you don’t get involved and pull your weight, is there!” Peter often remarked.
“Great party at your Mum’s the other night,” Jennifer said, lightly kissing Desmond’s cheek, her long fair hair brushing his cheeks, and her strong scent clearing his sinuses very nicely.
“Thank you – and she loved the flowers you sent, she adores Freesias.”
They shrugged aside his thanks as they watched Jon deal. “Don’t worry, Desmond, we’re not going to pump you for information about finding the body. I bet you’ve had your bellyful in the last few days. So, let’s just play and relax!” said Peter, picking up his cards.
Desmond nodded his thanks. “I don’t mind the talking, it’s the vicarious thrill-seeking that makes me feel a little ill. I’d only met her the evening before, anyway, so there’s nothing personally I can tell anyone about her.”
“Oh, I thought you knew her in London!” exclaimed Jennifer as she took the first trick.
“No, what makes you say that?” asked Desmond in surprise.
“Oh, it’s just what people are saying, that’s all. You didn’t?”
“No. London’s a big place.” He smiled slightly, having got his opening. “You should know that, you used to live there too, didn’t you?”
“Yep, until we saw sense – and a good property opportunity – and moved out. It’s worth the commute just to breathe fresh air when I get home,” said Peter, in his turn taking the second trick.
“And the children love it!” smiled Jennifer. “They hated it at first, of course, leaving all their friends. But now! Amy is mad on riding, and Alan has taken up shooting with some of the farmers’ sons. Mention having even a day trip back to London now brings on either total shock or outright rebellion!”
“You never met Debra before coming here, then?” Desmond asked idly, as he scooped up the trick just won by his partner.
“No, and we made sure we kept our distance here, too,” said Jennifer, a shade more strongly than the remark itself seemed to merit, a point which Desmond added to his mental note-taking.
“Anyway, let’s not get too depressed! We’re here to trounce everyone tonight, aren’t we, darling?” Peter, said, stepping in quickly to reduce the slight atmosphere created by Jennifer’s forcefulness.
“Indeed, we are,” she said brightly.
And indeed they did, swiping ten of the thirteen tricks, wiping out the early benefit of their opponent’s whitewash of the Lowthers.
“Sod it, I don’t think we’re in with a chance tonight now,” Jon said, looking at their scorecard. “Wish I hadn’t bothered to come.”
“Here come Louise and your Dad,” murmured Desmond, in surprise.
“Bugger, I suppose I’ll have to play with the old sod!” muttered Jon. “At least he’s still in the cottage he moved to when Mum died, for now, at any rate. God knows what I’ll do if he has to come and live in the farmhouse with us!”
He went silent as they joined their table. Now that they were closer, Desmond could see, as Louise helped him sit down, how ill the old man looked, and how strained and thin she herself was.
“Hi, Louise, Dan,” Desmond greeted them as he dealt. “I’ve not seen you since we got back, Dan, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ill.”
“Still am ill,” muttered the old man moodily as he picked up his cards. “Bugger all I can do about it though. Louise is helping me a bit, so I’ve got something to be thankful for, I suppose,” he added ungraciously as he played a trump, taking an early trick. Even that didn’t lift his mood, and the games were played out in an increasingly depressed atmosphere, which persisted despite he and Louise winning the majority of all the tricks.
“I need a piss,” he said suddenly at the end of the four games.
“Jon will take you,” said Louise, after a short silence which told everyone that he obviously didn’t want to.
Jon got up with an ill grace, and helped the old man across the worn floor of the hall, trying not to show his impatience.
“That’s one job I draw the line at, for the moment, anyway,” Louise said with a tired smile.
Desmond, like many men, had learnt never to tell a woman she looked tired, ill, or anything less than totally wonderful, so merely remarked, “He’s a bit of a handful, I would imagine.”
“Not the best patient, certainly,” said Louise, doing her best to smile again and not quite succeeding. “Thank heaven he’s in one of the nearest of the cottages, so at least I’ve not got too far to go!”
Desmond nodded. Their large farm had over a dozen cottages spread around its acres, with three fairly near the big farmhouse itself. Some were let to farmworkers, and others were very profitable holiday lets.
“How do you manage at night?”
“Oh, I sleep over, just to make sure he doesn’t get up and fall over or something,” she said. “That’s one of the worst bits, actually. When he does wake up in the middle of the night, he’s sometimes disorientated and forgets where he is and who’s with him. He wanders around the cottage, shouting and quite distressed, convinced he’s alone and back in the farmhouse.”
“Dan doesn’t have any family besides Jon, does he? So I suppose it all falls on you two?”
She gave a short laugh. “As far as Jon’s concerned, he doesn’t have any family. If it was left to him, Dan would have to fend for himself,” she continued in response to Desmond’s startled look.
“Don’t look so surprised, Desmond! You grew up with Jon. You know how bitter he is about how Dan treated him and his Mum.”
Desmond nodded reluctantly. “So much so, he won’t even help him now, when he’s dying?”
“Yes, so much so. He doesn’t realise how lucky he is to have his father still alive,” she said with a catch in her voice. “But I don’t think he’ll ever make it up with him now, before Dan dies.” She shrugged. “That’s how it is, I’m afraid. So I just do his share too. It’s not going to be for long. Dan doesn’t even come to church with me now, and he never used to miss a service. You can see how ill he is, and frightened too, though he won’t show it. I think tonight will be one of his last outings,” she said with sadness. “Oh, they’re coming back. Best move to our next table. Lovely seeing you again, Desmond.
Sorry I’ve been a bit miserable!”
“You need a break – come and have lunch with us tomorrow and we can catch up on all the gossip!” Desmond said, feeling desperately sorry for her.
She hesitated. “That would be lovely. Can I phone you in the morning? I’d need to be sure Dan was going to be okay to be left for a couple of hours,” she explained.
“Of course, but do try and come,” he responded as she moved across the room to take the old man’s arm.
Jon said nothing as he sat back down, and the slightly awkward atmosphere was changed only into one of mild depression when they saw their next competitors.
“Bloody hell, here come part of the Grimm Family; another bloody penance,” muttered Jon as their next partners, in the doughy shapes of Bobby and Betty Turbill, approached with their peculiar shuffling walk.
“I wonder where Billy is?” wondered Desmond, though not caring a great deal.
“The three of ‘em haven’t long been allowed back in,” Jon added.
“You mean they were banned?” Jon nodded. “What for?”
“Yep. George Smithers, the Chairman, told them politely that their – how shall I put it? – unusual smell deterred some people from playing with them, so would they kindly clean themselves up before the next meeting.”
“Fair enough!”
“Yes. But they took offence, and Smithers got thumped.”
“Who by? Billy or Bobby?”
“Betty.”
“Bloody hell!” muttered Desmond, casting an alarmed glance at her as she and her brother trudged across the floor towards them.
“Still, it gave other people a chance to win,” Jon went on. “They used to win most weeks, which pissed people off no end. You can’t take it away from them, though, they’re ruddy good card players,” he said, and then went silent as the new arrivals sat down heavily, clothes – and smells – very similar to those at the party, Desmond noted.
Hung Out to Die Page 7
