A Thoughtful Woman

by K T Findlay

  ‘What the bloody hell have you been doing?’ demanded James quarter of an hour later. ‘I’m bloody freezing! Thank God you’ve got the heater on full blast.’

  ‘And I’ve already boiled the kettle in our new home, all ready for a cuppa.’ laughed Freddy. ‘Sorry, I got held up when Sally’s flags set Emma into a tizzy. She and her son Alan have taken off out of town for the night. Sally clearly wants them out of the way for some reason.’

  James cupped his hands around the dashboard ventilation duct, cooing in pleasure. ‘Oh that’s good, you’ve no idea how good that feels! Sally took off herself after you left. Didn’t come back till four, when she started to –.’

  ‘Paint out her window.’ Freddy completed. ‘I’d just moved our stuff in when Emma went ballistic, so I watched Sally to fill in the time until Emma left. Could you see what she was looking at on the TV?’

  James shook his head. ‘No. Too far away. We’ll need to use the telescope if she does it again.’

  Once they got home, Freddy set up the telescope on its tripod in the spare room while James made the tea. ‘I still can’t make it out through rain on the window.’ Freddy called out. ‘It still looks like a blur to me.’

  They took turned watching through the scope as Sally painted away until six o’clock.

  ‘She’s a cool one.’ said Freddy in awe. ‘He’s just sitting there, zonked out of his brain and she just slaps her brush around and has a sandwich! Hang on, she’s on the move.’

  ◆◆◆

  While Sally was finishing her second cup of tea, it occurred to her that although the painting would be good for her alibi during the day, she’d need a stronger one for the evening. On an impulse she went into her bedroom, got dressed again and drove to Felicity’s.

  ‘I’ve been cloistered all day with a cold palette of paints, and what I could do with this evening is a load of lovely warm company. Fancy a chess night?’ she asked her startled friend.

  ‘Hell yes!’ laughed her friend. ‘Come on in. I was just sitting down to dinner, but there’s enough for two if you haven’t eaten.’

  ‘I’ve had a snack already, but wouldn’t say no to an entrée portion. What are you having?’

  ‘Shepherd’s Pie.’

  ‘Ooh super. I love your pies!’

  They played until midnight, when Felicity called a halt. ‘I’m a working gal. I need to be in the hospital at eight. We can’t all be free flying artistic fairies!’

  Sally pushed her chair back and smiled. ‘Fair enough. I shouldn’t be greedy. Tonight was exactly what I needed Felicity. Thanks for a lovely evening, even if you did win four to two!’

  As soon as she arrived home, Sally changed into Selina again, but without the makeup. Wig and clothes would be enough for this night’s work.

  Thomlinson, now fully awake, but stiff and sore from having been in the chair for the best part of half a day, was not a little frightened. He strained his eyes sideways in an effort to see her as the high heels click, click, clicked their way across the wooden floor towards him. ‘e o?’ he tried to say.

  'Hello, did you miss me ex-Sergeant Thomlinson?' she smiled. ‘I guess you know why you’re here?’

  ‘ot a oo aing a ow.’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes, the bolt. It’s in your mouth because I'm not interested in hearing what you have to say. I've heard you lie twice in court and have no interest in listening to any more. You deliberately destroyed evidence that would have convicted Graham Mellor's killer. For money! Then you pulled the same trick for the killer's son and denied justice to George Nixon. You’re a corrupt cop, caught and forced to resign from the force. They got enough to ruin your reputation but not to get a conviction, so they let you walk free.’

  He glared back angrily at her. ‘I i ot!’ he managed to say.

  She leaned in close to him, ignoring his protestations. 'But Graham’s widow has gathered enough to convict you in her own court, in my court in fact, and you've been found guilty.’

  She stood back and spread her arms, presenting herself to him. ‘As Selina, I will leave a lot less evidence than I would as Sally Mellors. Hence the wig and sexy clothes. The gloves are a particularly nice touch I thought.' she said, admiring the beautiful white leather.

  True understanding landed in his brain. ‘et ee o oo urerous ich!!’ he yelled through the bolt, and wrenched violently against his bonds.

  ‘Tut tut. What a naughty boy!’ she said, mimicking the tones of a mother talking to an infant. She retrieved the door seal and plastic collar, and taped it all carefully into place around his neck while he swore at her non-stop.

  ‘Now, I think a toast is called for. I happen to know you’re a bourbon man, Maker’s Mark I believe.’

  She hit the play button on the stereo and the opening drone of Steve Earle's Copperhead Road rang out through the speakers. 'I love this song!' she said. 'It's impossible to sit still to, don't you think?' as he continued to wrench at the straps and twist his body in his seat.

  She picked up a bottle of the expensive bourbon and began to pour it slowly down the side of the cone, keeping her hand still even while the rest of her jigged and jived to the music. When that bottle was empty she started on the second, accompanied the entire time by a stream of unintelligible Thomlinson invective. The abuse continued even after his mouth was entirely submerged, stopping only when the bubbles from his swearing exploded out of the liquor into his nose, stopping him from breathing.

  Selina took the level right up to the base of his septum before she stopped and put the bottle to one side. 'Now, you corrupt, lying little bastard, we are going to play a game. We're going to see how well you can hold your liquor! If you want to try and speak, you have to swallow to clear your mouth. If you choose not to swallow at all, I’ll simply top up the level until it covers your nose. You’ll have to swallow if you want to breathe. Got that? Good boy!' Her voice was clipped, cold and determined.

  Thomlinson just stared back at her, his eyes filled with hate. He made no attempt to swallow. Wordlessly, Selina poured a little bit more into the cone. The fiery liquid began to irritate the bottom of his nostrils, but still he refused. She smiled, shrugged, and continued to pour until his nostrils were completely under the surface.

  The stand-off lasted almost a minute, during which time their eyes stayed locked together, and he sat utterly still. Then very deliberately, he emptied his lungs through his nose, a well controlled stream of small bubbles gently disturbing the surface of the bourbon. He winked at her, just the once with his right eye, and then to Selina's astonishment breathed in as hard as he could through his mouth.

  The neat spirit almost instantly slammed shut his windpipe, and his body went into the early paroxysms of drowning. His chest heaved and the body tried to cough, but he'd done too good a job of emptying his lungs. Stunned by the deliberate suicide unfolding in front of her and unable to do anything to stop it, Selina could only watch as he began to slip away.

  The first thing to go was his sight. Darkness slipped in from the edges, rapidly narrowing his vision to a circle of light before it winked out completely. The twinkle in his eyes faded and Selina began to swear, cursing him for stealing her revenge. Initially, every word slammed loud and clear into his ears despite them being filled with liquid, but very quickly his hearing too slipped away and the torrent of abuse faded to nothing, like a gentle wave upon the sand. If it hadn’t been for the bolt wedging his mouth open, Selina would have seen a smile of victory on his face before his consciousness finally winked out. He was gone.

  Faced with the certainty of death, Edgar Thomlinson had ended his life on his own terms, in the only way open to him. Selina felt cheated, even more cheated than she’d felt that day in court when Dick Harland had walked free.

  Fury coursed through her as the swearing continued unabated. She wouldn’t be cheated again! She didn’t have to accept this! Perhaps he could still feel? She rushed to the kitchen, yanked her carving knife out of its wooden block and ran back into the
lounge. Her whole body shook with the intensity of her rage as she raised the knife above her head and started to stab it down into his face.

  She caught herself just in time. Cuts and blood would all add to the evidence haul she’d be giving the police. She spun on her heel and stomped back into the kitchen, before snarling back towards him.

  ‘You bastard!’ she swore. ‘I’ll shred you, you smug, lying, cheating little shit!’

  Then she caught herself again, and still quivering, stumbled back into the kitchen.

  For the next ten minutes she flicked back and forth between the almost irresistible desire to mutilate the man, and the instinct for self preservation that stopped her from doing it, before finally dropping the knife back into its slot. She slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs. It took a minute or so to calm her breathing, and get her head straight enough to deal with his body.

  She emptied and removed the cone, and then the inner tube. The long wait in the chair had forced him to make use of it, so she paid attention to avoid dripping urine everywhere.

  Equal care was taken when she removed the coach bolt and string from his head. The last thing she needed was to leave any unplanned clues.

  Using tweezers, she carefully put one of the redhead’s remaining pubes into his mouth, down at the very bottom of his front teeth between gum and lip. Then she undid his bonds, dropped him onto the mechanic’s creeper, pushed him into the garage, and used the engine hoist to put him in the back of the Mini.

  It was too early to dump him though, so she made herself another sandwich, a fresh pot of tea, and returned to her book.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Well, I’m pretty sure that didn’t go as planned.’ said James.

  ‘She’s a cool customer though,’ countered Freddy, ‘She didn’t even close the blinds! God, there’s confidence for you! Then again, the only houses that could potentially see in are all the way over here on the other side of the valley. Perhaps she just didn’t think anyone would be looking.’

  ‘She’s cool now!’ laughed James. ‘But almost completely lost it back then. What the hell happened do you think? She was clearly trying to force him to talk. Did she just add too much and drown him too soon? Far out, what a contraption!’

  Freddy lowered his binoculars for a moment and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. There was a gap between when she stopped pouring and when she went for the knife. Maybe the guy was playing chicken with her, expecting she’d give him a break?’

  James remained glued to the telescope. ‘Whoever plays games with this lady is going to lose.’

  ‘You mean us?’ asked his colleague, repositioning his binoculars.

  ‘We’re not playing games.’

  ◆◆◆

  At 2 AM Sally felt things were finally quiet enough to move. She drove the Mini along Wick Lane to the golf club, where she turned west to head back into Throcking. Driving smoothly and sedately, she worked her way past the school and up to the top of Beattie Close where she opened the rear doors and tipped Thomlinson unceremoniously onto the road. Then as quietly as possible, she closed the doors, turned around, and drove back home the way she'd come.

  14 Two or three?

  Susan Linklater arrived in Beattie Close two minutes after Ian Rodgers had reported the body outside his house, and needed just two more to note enough similarities with the Holmes case to call in the investigation team. By the time they turned up at 7:45 AM, Susan had already sealed the scene with emergency tape, leaving only the footpath on the far side of the road for the upper residents to get past.

  Peregrin, Tony and Felicity arrived separately just after eight. Before Felicity and the forensics team got down to their detailed work, they confirmed the presence of strong drink on the body’s head and the lines of glue on the neck.

  Peregrin screwed his face up. 'Well it could be a coincidence, but I have my doubts. Holmes won at least four cases because of Thomlinson’s unprofessional conduct, one of them,' he said looking at Felicity, ‘involving a really good friend of ours.'

  Felicity pursed her lips. 'You mean Sally? Well I'm her alibi for last night between six and midnight. She came round for a chess evening and we had a great time.'

  'Was it planned, or did she just turn up?' asked Peregrin.

  'You know Sally. She's a spur of the moment gal. She just turned up, said she'd had a lonely day painting and wanted some company. She suggested a chess night and I was happy to oblige.'

  Felicity took a closer look at Thomlinson's face. 'Don't hold me to this, but just looking at him, I'd say he's not been dead much more than six hours. He’s dressed in cycling gear and is hardly likely to have been out cycling at one o'clock in the morning in this weather. So if Sally was involved, she had to grab him sometime during the day, tie him up, then leave him and cold-bloodedly come to me to play chess all night, before going home and killing him. That doesn't sound like the Sally I know. And in any case, how the hell would she grab him? He would have been way stronger than her.'

  Peregrin nodded his agreement. 'Did she say what she was painting?'

  'She’s still working on that daft series of paintings where she paints the view out her window every two hours from Monday to Friday.’

  ‘Well that matches what Hilary told me last night. Sally came over just before three o'clock to have afternoon tea, and then had to rush away to do the four o'clock painting. So at this point it looks like Sally’s in the clear, once I’ve seen those paintings of course. The other cases I’m thinking of are Sally’s new mate Emma Nixon’s husband, Alf Morris of course, and…’ he pointed at the letterbox nearest the body.

  ‘That’s Terry Walker’s place isn’t it?’ asked Susan.

  ‘Yep.’ said Peregrin. ‘It was one of Thomlinson’s screw ups that let Walker get away with murdering his wife.’

  ‘Then he disappeared…’ added Susan.

  ‘September eighty five.’ Peregrin confirmed.

  ‘Wasn’t the place burgled a while back?’ asked Susan thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes it was. I seem to remember something was ripped out of the wall, probably a safe.’

  ‘Why don’t we know?’ asked Tony. ‘Surely we went over the place when he disappeared?’

  ‘Of course we did, but it was apparently plastered into the wall behind a painting. We didn’t know there was anything there.’ Peregrin explained. He looked thoughtfully at the house. ‘Well that throws the cat amongst the pigeons!’

  Susan raised a finger. ‘There’s something else to consider. Thomlinson got part time work at Morris’s furniture factory after he left the force.’

  ‘The devil looks after his own.’ muttered Peregrin uncharitably. ‘That makes a double link to that particular screw up. Speaking of screw ups, how’s your car Tony?’

  Tony grimaced. ‘In the panel beater’s. The insurance company’s given me a courtesy car while it’s being fixed but I’d like to catch the little bastard who laid the oil!’

  ‘You’re sure it wasn’t just an accident?’

  ‘It was in exactly the right place to crash a car,’ said Susan, ‘and it was in a straight line across just that half of the road. It looked deliberate.’

  Peregrin left Tony in charge of the interviewing team at Beattie Close and sent Susan off to interview Emma, while he went back to the station to report the Walker connection. Now an ex-cop had been killed, the case would receive a whole lot more attention from the high ups. And of course it was now possible they were looking at three deaths, not two.

  Exactly as Peregrin had expected, Detective Chief Inspector Goodwin responded quickly to the Walker link, immediately requesting some of the officers on the Walker case be added to his team, and demanding high levels of co-operation on all three cases.

  ◆◆◆

  Peregrin’s welcome at the furniture shop later that morning was considerably warmer than his previous one, but Morris was shocked to hear about Thomlinson.

  ‘I was wondering why he wasn’t here and I hadn’
t heard anything. He was bloody good about turning up on time, letting me know if he had a problem or was sick.’ he said.

  ‘What exactly was his role here Mr Morris?’ asked Peregrin.

  ‘Security, product returns and debt collection.’ grinned Morris. ‘Lots of big problems became small problems once I had him on the staff.’

  ‘You’re probably going to find this offensive Mr Morris, but you do know that your giving him a job after he left the force set a lot of tongues wagging.’ said Peregrin carefully.

  ‘Let them wag!’ growled Morris. ‘I knew I was getting great value for money and he needed a job. It was as simple as that. Anyway, how’d he die?’

  ‘Exactly the same way as Holmes.’ said Peregrin simply. ‘Except this time he wasn’t dropped off at your place, but outside Terry Walker’s, someone else who’s case involved them both.’

  ‘The guy who went missing a few years ago? Why would the killer do that?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. It could be just a coincidence, or it could be that Walker’s disappearance is linked to these two deaths. That’s why we’re looking at anything that ties these three guys together. You’re tightly tied to two of them.’

  Morris shook his head vigorously. ‘I told you! I never had anything to do with Holmes’s death! And I bloody well wouldn’t do anything to Thomlinson because he was damned good for business!’

  ‘Then as I said the last time Mr Morris, help me to get you off our persons of interest list.’ smiled Peregrin. ‘We could start with your whereabouts last night.’

  ‘Easy. I was working here until 6 PM. I have a late customer who can confirm that. Then I drove straight home, where I watched TV with my wife, went to bed about 11 PM, left home just after 7 AM this morning, arriving here just after half past. Trev can confirm that.’