That wasn’t like Mrs Bussell. She was paranoid about security. Always said you couldn’t be too careful these days. Even when she knew it was Shona, there was the click of the deadbolt and her eye at the spyhole.
Now that Shona thought about it, she remembered that Mrs Bussell had seemed twitchy the last time she visited — nervous — as though something was bugging her, the watery gaze skittering from side to side, as if she suspected someone might be hiding in the walls. Losing her marbles, poor old thing, Shona had thought at the time. But now she wondered, had the old lady been afraid . . . ?
Shona felt an overpowering reluctance to go into the flat on her own.
Perhaps she should have telephoned before coming. What if now wasn’t a good time?
But she couldn’t just slope off — Mrs Bussell might be in there sick or injured for all she knew.
‘Mrs B,’ she called in a voice quite unlike her usual chirpy tones. ‘Mrs B, it’s Shona. Y’know, Shona from Hope . . .’
Silence.
She licked lips that were suddenly dry. ‘Er, I’m sorry I didn’t come last week. Something came up . . . but I c’n stay for my tea today.’
Still no response.
Nervously, she pushed the door open and went in.
It was a compact apartment. Two bedrooms — one a box room really, which Mrs Bussell used as a study — living room, galley kitchen and minuscule bathroom. Laminated wooden flooring throughout gave the flat a modern, streamlined feel that was somewhat counteracted by all the knickknacks and ornaments clustered on every available surface. A nightmare to dust, as her mum would have said. There was no separate dining room, but Mrs Bussell generally took her meals on a tray in front of the large flat-screen TV, an arrangement of which her youthful visitor thoroughly approved.
The living room’s heavy damask curtains were drawn back, but white lace nets beneath screened the interior from the rear courtyard. Pity she didn’t have a garden view, thought Shona inconsequentially before padding softly through the flat.
Everything seemed pretty much as usual.
Except for the smell.
She’d noticed it even at the front door. Really knocked you back. Sweet and almost fishy.
Shona was used to number seven being fusty. The central heating was usually on full blast. Could give Center Parcs a run for their money, as she told her mum. But today the radiators were stone cold.
No, this was something else. Something that made the chips from lunchtime roil and churn uneasily inside her. Taking shallow breaths through her mouth, she went into the master bedroom whose main window also overlooked the rear of the close. A funny little porthole on one side of the room offered a view of Bromgrove Old Road, along which she had just trudged.
Here, too, nothing looked out of place. Simple oak chest and dresser. Pine wardrobe. The ottoman sleigh bed, of which Mrs Bussell was so proud, dominated the room, mattress raised high on its wooden storage plinth. Shona couldn’t see that it was anything to write home about. Personally, she’d have preferred a waterbed for comfort. That vast box reminded her of a coffin.
A coffin.
The smell seemed to be getting stronger. Like when she’d found two dead cats on the estate. God, it was putrid.
The girl suddenly became aware that her hands were slick with sweat. She felt as though the walls were closing in on her.
She lurched to the casement window and, after some mad fumbling, wrenched it open. Cold, clear air poured into the room and she gulped it down gratefully.
Afterwards, she told her mum it was as if everything happened in slow motion and she was looking down on the bedroom from above. ‘I had to see inside that wooden box,’ she said, ‘but it didn’t feel real — like I went somewhere else in my mind.’
Instinctively, she reached for the gas-lift lever which raised the neatly upholstered mattress away from its wooden platform. As though in a trance, she heard Mrs Bussell’s confiding tones. ‘You get so much more storage with one of these.’
Oh God. So much more storage.
Lying on their backs, hand in hand in the base of the bed in an obscene parody of romantic bliss, were Marian Bussell and another woman she had never seen before. She would never forget those shrivelled semi-mummified remains — the half-open eyes, opaque and filmy in death, and mouths slightly agape as though stopped up mid-scream.
The stench of death was now overpowering, blocking her throat and nostrils.
Shona knew only that she had to get out and stumbled blindly back through the living room towards the door. Once outside, she had an insane desire to lie down in the freezing snow, as though to decontaminate herself.
And then suddenly the spell was broken and she began to cry.
1. Bad Omen
Like Shona Townley, DI Gilbert ‘Gil’ Markham had a bit of a thing for snow.
At 6 a.m. on the morning of Monday, 9 December, he sat on ‘his’ bench round the back of Bromgrove Police Station, heedless of the damp seeping through his overcoat, lost in wonder at the sight of the filmy skeins which had turned St Chad’s cemetery and the neighbouring Hollingrove Park into a filigree wonderland. For entirely different reasons than Shona, he too had a sudden urge to lie down in that inviting powdery whiteness and make snow angels as though he was a child once more. He could just imagine the reaction of DCI Sidney (or ‘Slimy Sid’ as his boss had been christened by the rank and file) were he to be caught in that particular act. The DCI would be only too happy to file away such symptoms of galloping eccentricity with a view to exploiting them at Markham’s next appraisal.
The DI, too, saw a robin redbreast, the little creature contemplating him shyly from behind the cemetery railings. ‘They symbolize the souls of the dead,’ his girlfriend Olivia Mullen was wont to tell him — as if Markham could ever forget them! Sometimes it felt as though wherever he went he was stalked by a legion of shadowy figures, dense as the carpet of leaves that covered the park at the first frosts of winter. He could imagine them pleading with him for justice in sibilant whispers.
And now two more were added to that ghostly roster.
Despite the cold of the morning, his forehead prickled with sweat as he recalled the appalling discovery at New College Close.
Even the pathologist Doug ‘Dimples’ Davidson had struggled for composure at the sight of those two figures entombed in the base of Marian Bussell’s ottoman bed. It was one of the few times Markham had seen him lost for words.
‘Mother of God,’ he breathed finally. ‘What kind of sick bastard does this?’
‘How long have they been in there, doc?’ As ever, DS George Noakes had cut to the chase, swallowing hard as he peered down at the ghastly leathery faces fixed in their rictuses of terror.
‘Possibly some days.’
‘An’ they died of suffocation — is that it?’
‘Asphyxiation seems the most likely bet. Though they were probably slipped a sedative or something of that kind to make them . . . more pliable.’
Noakes looked as though he was going to be sick and Markham didn’t feel much better. Despite the freezing air pouring into the flat from the open bedroom window, waves of nausea swept over him.
The DI had a phobia about confined spaces, the legacy of an abusive stepfather who used to lock him and his brother in the cupboard under the stairs. He offered up a wordless prayer for the sibling he’d long since lost to drink and drugs. At least Jon had been spared the sexual predations that Gil himself had been unable to escape.
‘What’s the white-haired one got in her hand?’ Noakes wanted clues.
Using tweezers, the pathologist’s gloved hands prised a small object from the claw-like grasp.
It was a cheap enamel school badge.
‘That’s Hope Academy.’ The DS squinted at the trinket. ‘Yeah . . . my Natalie had one like that — tole me the bird on the front’s meant to be a phoenix, summat about rising up an’ renewing yourself — used to be the school motto until they started with them trendy slogans
. . . like polishing a turd’s gonna make any difference.’
‘They call it “aspirational branding” these days, Sergeant,’ Davidson observed mildly. He could tell Noakes was badly shaken and the rant was his safety valve.
‘D’you think when they came round they held hands to . . . well . . . comfort each other?’ Noakes’s voice was hoarse. ‘Christ . . . d’you think they were lying there all that time jus’ whispering to each other in the dark, knowing no one was gonna come an’ get them out . . . ?’
It was a terrible thought. One that had also occurred to the hysterical teenager who greeted them at the scene.
‘I was supposed to come last week,’ she sobbed, her pert little face swollen and distorted with grief. ‘If I’d come when I was supposed to, maybe they wouldn’t have died.’
The pathologist was what they called a ‘dry old stick’ down at the station, but even he had softened in the face of Shona’s overwhelming distress.
‘Don’t take on so, m’ dear,’ he said gruffly. ‘We don’t know exactly what happened here. Whoever did this wanted them to be found.’ Eventually.
‘Took a chance though, didn’t he?’ Noakes observed after the distraught girl had been escorted away by a family liaison officer. ‘I mean, he couldn’t be sure someone wouldn’t turn up, wouldn’t clock the stench an’ raise the alarm.’
‘Oh, I’d say he was fairly confident about that, Sergeant. Knew Mrs Bussell’s routine, had likely watched these flats for some time . . . Didn’t you say the one across the hall’s unoccupied — for sale?’
‘Yeah.’ The DS was thoughtful. ‘That flash git from the management company said on the second floor it’s a couple of PhD students an’ a lecturer. They’ve broken up for holidays so likely gone home for Christmas.’ Noakes’s tone made it abundantly clear what he thought of the ‘dossy’ set-up that prevailed at Bromgrove University.
‘Well, there you go: ideal from the killer’s point of view.’ The pathologist contemplated the two bodies in their improvised coffin. ‘Mark my words, he had it all figured out.’
‘What about on the third floor?’ As ever, Noakes was stubbornly determined to have the last word. ‘I mean, they must’ve noticed summat was up . . . the freaking awful smell for one thing . . .’
Markham consulted a piece of paper. ‘Retirees on both sides. Don’t get out much according to the management. Wouldn’t necessarily have been alerted.’
‘So this block’s coffin-dodger central, right?’ groused the DS.
‘We’ll have less of that thank you, Sergeant.’ But Markham spoke mildly. Like Dimples, he could see his subordinate was thoroughly unnerved. And indeed, this whole scenario was unlike anything in his experience.
Two bodies immured in an air-tight tomb behind the net curtains of a perfectly ordinary flat in a perfectly ordinary housing complex.
As though the shadow of Edgar Allan Poe had suddenly fallen across this quiet corner of Bromgrove.
Even after the pitiful remains — rigid as carvings on a medieval catafalque — had been stretchered away under the pathologist’s supervision, leaving a team of SOCOs to commence their silent rituals, a pall hung over the apartment.
‘Who’s the second vic?’ Noakes enquired as they stood awkwardly in the living room.
‘Her name’s Dawn MacAlinden. Nurse at the Newman.’ The DI referred to the psychiatric facility, situated in the quiet suburb of Medway, that had featured in previous investigations.
The DS’s pug-like features were a picture of dismay.
‘Uh-oh, here we chuffing well go . . . That means Sidney’ll be mad keen to pin this on a nutter.’
There was no denying it, the DCI being legendarily predisposed to lay all social ills at the door of the ‘mentally deranged’. Not least because this made it considerably less likely that any civic institution (including the local constabulary) would be tainted by association.
‘Mrs Bussell was a retired teacher from Hope.’
‘Not again!’ Noakes scowled ferociously. Like the Newman Hospital, the local comprehensive had featured heavily in earlier cases.
‘Ms MacAlinden was one of her former students.’ The DS’s gloom deepened at Markham’s words. ‘She lived at number twenty-seven — same kind of flat as this one — on the other side of the garden.’
‘Fuck.’ The DS looked alarmed. ‘D’you reckon we’d better get over there and check the place out?’ He forced a nervous laugh. ‘See there ain’t anything lurking under her bed . . . as in one of the neighbours!’
‘Take it easy, Noakes,’ the DI chaffed him. ‘I’ve got uniforms on it. But I don’t think there’s some Crippen lookalike marauding round the close.’ He looked round him. ‘No. This was a one-off . . . very deliberately planned and executed.’ He shivered. ‘There’s real evil here.’
‘But . . . I mean . . . what could them two women have done that was so bad?’ Noakes’s bewilderment was palpable. ‘You heard that lass Sheila—’
‘Shona.’
‘Whatever.’ The DS ploughed on. ‘You could tell she really liked the old woman . . . “Mrs B wouldn’t hurt a fly,” that’s what she said.’
‘Well someone bore her a grudge, Sergeant.’
‘Mebbe it was really the other one he was after . . . Dawn Wasserface . . .’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, mebbe she was the target an’ Mrs B got in the way so the killer had to finish her off while he was at it . . . collateral damage, like.’
Markham shook his head. ‘Far easier to dispatch Ms MacAlinden in her own flat or some time when she was on her own. Anything else would involve unnecessary . . . mess.’ He shivered again. ‘And this killer is the opposite of messy.’ His voice softened. ‘I know it’s hard to take in, Noakes, but whoever it was wanted to kill them both.’
The DI’s thoughts strayed again to those recumbent figures on the stretcher as they began their supine voyage to the mortuary. Suddenly, he found he could hardly bear to think of the pathologist probing that desiccated flesh. The ultimate indignity.
‘This was all so calculated . . . so deliberate,’ he said slowly. ‘It may even be that he purposely posed them hand in hand like that.’
Noakes’s normally beefy complexion looked almost green in the winter light.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered, looking at Markham with a kind of desperation in his eyes. ‘It was bad enough imagining them lying in the dark clutching at each other so they wouldn’t . . . die alone.’ He loosened his shirt collar with a vicious wrench. ‘But the idea of some sicko arranging ’em like that . . . Jesus.’
Normally Markham loathed profanity, but on this occasion he decided to cut the DS some slack. ‘Yes,’ he replied quietly, ‘we’re dealing with someone peculiarly wicked here.’ He glanced at the other’s stricken face. ‘Try not to dwell on it, Noakesy.’ Futile advice. ‘All of this is just my theory. For all we know, it could have happened like you said and they reached for each other at the end.’
They moved into the hallway.
Noakes screwed up his face, much like Shona had done a short time earlier.
‘Bit manky out here,’ he grunted, sniffing the air. ‘Kind of a fertilizer smell . . .’
‘I believe the residents and management are somewhat at loggerheads over exorbitant service charges. Laneside — they’re the facilities people — plan to spruce up the communal areas.’
‘Well, they need to get a chuffing move on . . . folk don’ want eau de compost when they come to visit.’ The DS looked rather pleased with himself for this sally.
‘Helped mask the odour of decomposition, though,’ Markham mused. ‘From our killer’s point of view, it was very useful.’
On that sobering note, they left the building.
* * *
The DI shook himself. He couldn’t lurk on this bench forever but felt curiously reluctant to stir despite the cold. The pristine snowy landscape looked newly baptized, which somehow made the discovery at New College Close even uglie
r.
As he emerged from the lift into CID, he heard a familiar voice uplifted in complaint.
‘You’d think they could do better’n that poxy tree. We oughta have a decent one . . . proper deccies an’ all . . . like them chocolate Santas.’
‘You know you’d only scoff them, sarge,’ came the reply followed by a gale of laughter.
Markham grinned, his spirits lifting.
The Christmas season, or ‘Crimbo’ as the DS called it, was Noakes’s favourite time of year, during which he always offered ample testimony to the ‘eternal child in every man’. Having come through a health scare earlier in the year, he was clearly anticipating the annual blow-out with bacchanalian relish.
The DI knew only too well that the mere presence of George Noakes at his side brought Sidney and the gold-braid mob out in hives. ‘Uncouth’, ‘ignorant’, ‘insubordinate’, ‘slobbish’ and ‘walking time bomb’ were some of the kinder epithets that he had heard bandied about. What was said behind closed doors or committed to those ‘confidential reports’ in HR didn’t bear thinking about. Certainly his refusal to cut Noakes loose was bound to count against him when his appraisal came round. He could hear Sidney’s nasal honk now. ‘Holding you back, Markham . . . creates an unfortunate impression . . . out of step with modern policing . . . diversity . . . minorities . . . time for a new broom.’ Yadda yadda yadda.
But the DS was one of Markham’s non-negotiables. The handsome, hawkish DI with his seemingly impenetrable reserve repelled many of those in CID. But he and Noakes shared a subterranean understanding that existed at a level beyond words. They rarely shared personal confidences, but he knew the grizzled warhorse had somehow intuited the trauma of his early years and understood the scars this had left . . . And that was the thing about Noakes. The slobbish exterior and tactlessness concealed an unexpected wellspring of sensitivity which meant he instinctively knew how to handle people, be they hardened villains, inarticulate teenagers or traumatized victims. However deficient he might be in those attributes so prized by Sidney and the CID honchos — silver-tongued diplomacy and adroit politically correct antennae — he had a humanity that meant he never dropped a clanger with those in crisis, somehow making them feel that the muddle of their lives was safe with him.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 149