by Frank Smith
‘Do you mind telling me why you wanted to know what Beth was wearing?’
‘Not at all. I simply wanted to know whether she’d had time to change before going to the church.’ He paused. ‘You told me you saw her when she came out of Mr Gresham’s office that day,’ he went on. ‘Tell me again how she seemed to you.’
Rachel picked up her cup, found that it was almost empty, and set it down again. ‘More tea?’ she asked, holding the teapot ready to pour.
‘No more for me, thank you,’ he said.
Rachel refilled her own cup, put in a spoonful of sugar and stirred it vigorously. She appeared to be considering how best to answer Paget’s question. ‘I think she was concerned about whether she was up to the job,’ she said finally. ‘A bit overwhelmed, perhaps.’
Rachel seemed to have modified her opinion of Beth Smallwood’s behaviour since he had last spoken to her, but Paget let it pass.
‘Did Beth ever speak to you or complain to you of sexual harassment at work, Miss Fairmont?’
For a moment, there was no reaction. Then two bright spots appeared on Rachel’s cheeks. She drew back as if burned and stared at Paget as if he’d made some sort of lewd suggestion. ‘Really! Chief Inspector,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I – I can’t think where you got that idea.’ She drew in a long breath. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘An answer to the question would be helpful,’ said Paget mildly.
The woman didn’t seem to know where to look, and the colour in her face was spreading. ‘I – I don’t think that sort of thing deserves an answer,’ she said shakily.
Paget sighed. ‘It’s a simple question, Miss Fairmont, and I would like an answer.’
‘Then the answer is no!’
‘Thank you.’ Obviously he’d touched a nerve. ‘And thank you for the tea. I think that’s all for now.’ He set his cup aside and pushed himself out of the chair. Rachel rose and followed quickly as he moved toward the door.
‘There is just one more thing you may be able to help me with,’ he said as if the thought had just occurred to him. ‘The other day you told me that you hadn’t had a chance to tell Mr Gresham about Beth Smallwood’s call to you on Monday evening, and yet he knew about that call on Tuesday morning when I first spoke to him. How do you suppose he knew about that?’
Rachel held his gaze, and yet he had the impression that shutters had come down behind her eyes and she wasn’t seeing him at all. The silence between them lengthened. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said at last. ‘But I’m sure there’s some quite simple explanation.’
‘Oh, I’m sure there is, Miss Fairmont,’ said Paget amiably as he opened the door. ‘Thank you again. You’ve been extremely helpful.’
Chapter 25
Monday – 20 May
It was always a bit of a madhouse first thing Monday morning in the incident room as everyone prepared for another week of intensive activity.
‘Let’s have a bit of hush, then, shall we?’ Len Ormside’s normally quiet voice was raised just enough to cut through the wall of noise, which gradually subsided. ‘Even those of you who weren’t here on Saturday no doubt know by now that a suspect by the name of Harry Beecham was questioned and released for lack of evidence. However, as far as we are concerned, he is still our prime suspect in the attempted murder of Amy Thomson. We believe there is evidence to support that, but we will have to wait for the report from Forensic before we’ll know for certain. He is also the prime suspect in the murder of Beth Smallwood, but we have only Tony Rudge’s word for it that Beecham was in the church that night. There is no physical evidence to back that up as yet.
‘Rudge claims that he delivered a blackmail letter to Beecham’s house in the early hours of Thursday morning. You have a description of his car; it’s old and it’s noisy, so someone may have noticed it. I want every possibility checked. Pearson, you take charge of that. The same applies to the early hours of Friday morning when we believe that Beecham drove from his house to the railway sheds, parked his car nearby while he waited for the blackmailer to arrive, then drove home again after attacking Amy Thomson. It’s a long shot, but someone may have seen him.
‘Now then, most of you already know your assignments, so I don’t want to see you hanging about in here. As for the others, I’ll get to you in a few minutes, but right now I want Ingram, and Falkner over here at the desk. I’ve got jobs for you.’
Ormside looked up as DC Graham Ingram and DC Esme Falkner came up to his desk. ‘Rachel Fairmont,’ he said. ‘Mr Paget thinks we should know more about her, so I want you to make discreet enquiries among the neighbours, shopkeepers, and anyone else you think might help. And I mean discreet. She’s not a suspect, but Mr Paget feels she might be withholding information. Now, here is what he’s after…’
* * *
‘Chief Inspector Paget?’ Grace Lovett spoke the words on a rising inflection, and to anyone attuned to the nuances of the human voice it was obvious she spoke the words with pleasure. But at the other end of the telephone, Paget’s mind was on other things.
‘Grace, Charlie suggested that I speak to you directly,’ he said. ‘When you were in Beth Smallwood’s house last Tuesday, do you recall seeing a dark blue dress with a broad V-neck with some sort of small flowers on it; buttons to the waist, and a belt?’
‘Yes.’ Grace’s answer was swift and unequivocal. ‘It was stuffed in a bin bag along with some underclothes in the bathroom. I remember wondering why they weren’t with the other things waiting to be washed. Why? Is it important? I could come over if you think…’
‘No, no, thank you, Grace; that won’t be necessary; you’ve told me what I wanted to know.’ Paget paused. ‘In the bathroom, you say? Not in the bedroom?’
‘No. Definitely in the bathroom. As a matter of fact it seemed out of keeping with the rest of the place in that it was the only room in the house that wasn’t clean. Someone, presumably Beth Smallwood herself, had taken a bath and hadn’t cleaned it afterwards. I say presumably Beth because there was a residue of bath salts in the bottom of the tub, and I did wonder if she’d had to leave in a hurry, expecting to clean it later.’
‘Do we still have access to the house?’
‘I believe we do.’
‘Good. I’d like you to go back there, pick up that dress and the underclothes and have them sent to the lab for examination. Can you do that?’
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ said Grace agreeably, ‘and if there is any other way I can help, I’d be happy to…’
‘Grace, thank you,’ Paget said with feeling, ‘but you’ve already done more than enough. But if I should find I need anything else along that line, do you mind if I ring you directly?’
‘Please do,’ she said. ‘Please do,’ she repeated wistfully as she replaced the phone gently in its cradle.
Paget replaced the phone, and for a moment thought of Grace. She was a lovely girl; pleasant, hard-working, extremely observant, and always willing to help. She was far and away the best analyst Charlie had, and he had a good team. But Grace had that something extra; a sort of sixth sense; an intuition that allowed her to glean more from her findings than most. Good-looking woman, too.
He glanced at the time and Grace vanished from his mind. There was work to be done, and the sooner he got over to the hospital the better. He thought of ringing Andrea first, but decided it would be better to see her when he got there.
But Dr McMillan was in a meeting, he was told when he arrived on the fourth floor. And Dr Trotter was away, but the staff nurse on duty, whom Paget knew slightly, raised no objection to his talking to Lenny.
The police guard was gone. Technically, Lenny was still a suspect in the murder of his mother, but his reaction to the news of her death had been one of genuine shock in Paget’s opinion. The boy was a lout and a trouble-maker, but the chief inspector couldn’t see him as his mother’s killer. As for the people who had beaten him up and left him on the road, they could have killed him then if that was their
intention. They weren’t likely to come back to finish the job at this late stage. They’d made their point.
If anything, Lenny looked worse than he had the previous Friday. He watched with sullen eyes as Paget approached the bed.
‘How is it today, Lenny?’ Paget greeted him.
‘None the better for seeing you,’ the boy grated through wired teeth.
‘I need a couple of straight answers,’ Paget told him. ‘And the sooner I get them the sooner you’ll be rid of me. I want to know what your mother was wearing when you last saw her?’
The boy shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. ‘Dressing-gown,’ he muttered. ‘Why?’
‘Why was she in a dressing-gown at that time of day?’
‘Why do you think?’ he asked contemptuously. ‘She’d just come out of the bath, hadn’t she.’
‘When was this exactly?’
‘I dunno. She was in there when we got there; me and Tan. Why? What’s this all about?’
Paget ignored the questions. ‘Did she usually take a bath when she got home?’
Lenny eased himself up on the pillows. His eyes closed for a moment as a spasm racked his thin body. ‘I need a jolt,’ he gasped. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, can’t you make them give me something?’
‘They are giving you something, Lenny,’ said Paget. ‘If they weren’t, you’d be in far more pain than you are. If you stick with it, you’ve got a chance to kick this. It may be your only chance.’
Lenny shook his head angrily. ‘Don’t give me that shit, man,’ he grated. ‘It ain’t ever going to be any better.’ He slid down in the bed and turned his face into the pillow.
‘Answer the question, Lenny. Did your mother usually take a bath when she got home from work?’
Lenny lay there for a long moment, then slowly turned his head to face Paget. ‘No,’ he said. He sounded puzzled, as if only now had he thought about it and found it odd. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘She always had one before she went to bed. Always.’
* * *
Tregalles was also at the hospital that morning, but in another wing entirely. He’d arranged a meeting with a psychiatrist by the name of Sandra Chandler, and now they sat facing one another across a small table in her office. A coffee-maker gurgled softly in the background, and each held a mug of coffee in their hands.
‘But why didn’t Helen Beecham just leave him?’ Tregalles said. ‘He was away at work all day. She had all sorts of opportunities to leave.’
Sandra Chandler was a big, comfortable-looking woman with a pleasant face and natural smile, but she wasn’t smiling now.
‘Where would she go?’ she countered. ‘She had no relatives; no friends. Bad as it was at home, it was safer than the unknown. It’s not at all uncommon in cases such as these, and it is one of the hardest hurdles to overcome when we are trying to encourage women to make the break.
‘You see, by the time anyone becomes aware of what’s happening, a woman is convinced that everything that has happened to her is her own fault. That it’s her fault that dinner is never satisfactory; that she is to blame because the house is never clean enough to satisfy her husband; and she is absolutely convinced that it is her fault that their sex life is a failure, no matter how hard she tries to please.’
Sandra swirled the coffee around inside the mug, then took a drink. ‘A woman in that situation has been so completely brainwashed that she no longer has a standard of her own. Everything is measured by the standard set by her husband; a standard that is constantly adjusted so that it is just beyond her reach. She tries desperately to please a husband who refuses to be pleased.’
‘But she’s free now,’ Tregalles objected.
‘Is she? How do you get rid of years of mental conditioning? How do you convince her that her husband can no longer hurt her? How do you give her back her confidence and self-respect?’
‘But the beatings…? Surely she can’t possibly want to go back to that?’
Sandra Chandler smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘In many cases, women in that position come to believe that they deserve to be punished for failing so miserably. Once they reach the stage where they are fearful of making a mistake, they make more mistakes; they can’t seem to do anything right no matter how hard they try. So they’re bad; they deserve what they get. It’s the same way with children; if they are told often enough that they are worthless, they come to believe it.’
Tregalles felt a cold shiver run through him. He thought of Harry Beecham sitting there so calmly in the interview room, assuring them that he’d done nothing wrong. That he loved his wife. Five years! That was how long this had been going on. Virtually ever since the day they were married. And no one had noticed. No one had cared enough to find out why Helen Beecham had never appeared in public again. He voiced his thoughts to Sandra Chandler.
‘Helen was probably a very solitary child,’ she said. ‘You say she was an artist? Creative people often immerse themselves in their work. They have little time to form relationships with other people. It’s quite possible that she had no friends – no real friends, that is – and if her husband is the type of man you suggest, then he would discourage anyone who might have tried to keep in touch with her until she was completely cut off from help. As for her talent as a painter, he would see that as a threat. It gave her an identity as an individual – drew the spotlight to her rather than to him – and he could never allow that. He would ridicule her efforts; undermine whatever confidence she’d developed over the years, until at last she would come to believe that she had no talent and it would be pointless to continue.’
Tregalles remained silent for some time as he digested the information. ‘How long will it be before Mrs Beecham can be made to realize the truth?’ he asked at last.
The psychiatrist shrugged and shook her head. ‘It’s impossible to say. Everyone is different. But there is a ray of hope in Mrs Beecham’s case. When I talked with her yesterday, I’m sure I detected a spark of resentment at the way she’d been treated. If that’s true, it’s a start. It means that deep down she still retains a shred of self-esteem, and we can build on that. But how long it will take is anybody’s guess. Sorry, Sergeant, but that’s the best I can do at the moment.’
Chapter 26
Sergeant Ormside put the phone down and looked up at the uniformed constable hovering over him. ‘What is it this time, Dandridge?’ he asked wearily. ‘I thought you were supposed to be out knocking on doors.’
Dandridge fidgeted. ‘It’s just that I was wondering whether you’d heard anything, Sarge? You know, about that run-in with the motorist last Tuesday?’
Ormside sighed. ‘I told you the other day to check with Sergeant Nolan. The complaint should go to him, not me.’
Dandridge fiddled with his cap. ‘Yes, but with me being seconded to the Smallwood investigation, I thought it might have come to you.’
‘Well, it hasn’t! So stop hanging about here and get out there. If you’ve heard nothing by now, chances are that he was just blowing hot air. Think yourself lucky.’
Dandridge looked anything but reassured. ‘It’s just that with him being who he is, I thought he’d be bound to follow it up,’ he said. ‘Tore a right strip off me, he did. Still…’ He began to move away.
‘Hold on. I thought you said you didn’t know who he was,’ said Ormside. ‘You told me that he wouldn’t give his name.’
‘He wouldn’t. Just drove off in his Rover when I asked.’
‘Which you forgot to take the number of,’ Ormside reminded him.
‘Yes, well, I did explain that,’ said Dandridge. ‘But see, I didn’t know who he was then; it was only when I saw his picture in the paper the other day that…’
‘Picture? What picture, Dandridge?’
‘In Saturday’s Star, Sarge. On the sports page. It had to do with that land the cricket club’s been after for years. Well, now they’ve got it, and there was this picture of him shaking hands with one of the councillors. Gresham –
that’s his name. Arthur Gresham, chairman or some such thing of the Cricket Association.’
* * *
Paget had just left the hospital when Len Ormside’s call came through on the car phone. He had, he told Paget cryptically, information that he thought would be of interest to the chief inspector. Could he return to headquarters?
Knowing Ormside would not have asked him to return unless it was important, Paget was there in less than ten minutes.
Ormside wasted no time on preliminaries when Paget arrived. ‘This is PC Dandridge,’ he said. ‘He was on traffic duty at the head of Farrow Lane last Tuesday morning. A man in a maroon Rover attempted to turn down the lane, but Dandridge stopped him and asked if he lived there. When the man said he didn’t but had business there, Dandridge informed him that the road was closed temporarily to everyone but local residents. According to Dandridge, the man became abusive and said he would report him and have his job, but refused to give his name. Then he drove off.’
Ormside glowered at Dandridge as he continued. ‘Unfortunately for us, PC Dandridge failed to read the number plate of the car, being too preoccupied with his own future or lack of it, and it was only when he saw the man’s picture in the newspaper last Saturday that he found out that his name was Arthur Gresham.’
‘Gresham?’ Paget shot the constable a hard look. ‘Are you quite sure, Dandridge?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did he lay a complaint?’
‘No. I phoned around and checked,’ said Ormside, ‘and there is nothing on record.’
‘What time was this, Dandridge?’
The constable fumbled with his notebook. ‘Eight forty-one, sir.’
‘Did he say why he wanted to go down Farrow Lane?’
‘Just that he had business there, sir.’
Paget was fast losing patience. ‘Did he mention any names? Good God, man, there are only four small cottages down there. What did he say exactly?’
‘Just that he had to get down there, and he’d have my job if I didn’t bloody well get out of his way,’ blurted Dandridge. He hurried on. ‘He said he had friends on the Watch Committee, and that I’d regret holding him up, and it was only after I explained why he couldn’t go down there that he finally drove off, sir.’