‘Who the hell are you?’ she snapped.
It was hard to be dignified when you were up to your ankles in foul-smelling mud. ‘Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy and DS Korpanski, Leek Police,’ Joanna shouted, holding her hands over her eyes to keep the rain out.
‘Why have you come?’
A sudden gust of wind forced Joanna to shout even louder. ‘I’ve got some bad news. It’s about your sister.’
The woman put her hands on her hips and stared. ‘What bad news?’
‘I’m afraid ...’ Joanna took a couple of steps towards the front door of the cottage.
‘Don’t be afraid.’ Lydia Patterson had stopped shouting and her voice was soft and surprisingly gentle. Closer to, Joanna realized she was more of a plump, elderly hippy, in a floor-length tartan skirt and a frilled cream blouse with ribbons at the throat and puffed sleeves – an incongruous outfit for such a rural environment. And the puffed sleeves on such meaty arms added to the strange effect, almost like a man in drag. Joanna watched her, fascinated.
‘Sod off.’
The words, said gently, almost affectionately, startled her. She glanced back at Mike. But Lydia Patterson was not speaking to either of them, she was addressing one of the brown sheep who had climbed the two steps towards the front door.
‘Go on, Mint Sauce. Sod off.’ The sheep bleated a response and scuttled back down the steps again. ‘Sly, stupid animals,’ Ms Patterson said calmly. ‘Think they’ll sneak in while I’m occupied with you.’ She scrutinized them both before turning around and heading back indoors. ‘Well, the pair of you, you’d better come in before you get soaked and tell me what this “bad news” is about my dear sister. I’m all agog.’
They followed her into a small, cosy room that smelt the same as the yard outside. A couple of hens flapped from the sofa.
‘And you can bugger off too,’ Lydia Patterson said. ‘If you can’t provide me with a few more eggs I shall wring your bloody necks and put you in the broiler. Now off with you.’ She picked up one hen under each arm and threw them both into a wicker basket in the corner. ‘Bloody things,’ she said without rancour. “Take advantage of your good nature. Maybe I should expel them to the hen house.’ She sank on to the sofa, glancing from one to the other as though trying to read the news for herself from their faces. ‘We-ell,’ she prompted, ‘I suppose Nan’s finally released the world of her odious presence and popped her clogs?’
Joanna opened her mouth but it was Korpanski who filled the silence. ‘She’s been murdered,’ he said bluntly.
Lydia stared at him for a few moments without a twitch of reaction. ‘This isn’t a joke?’
Joanna shook her head.
Then Lydia Patterson fulfilled her brother’s prediction by laughing. ‘Someone really has bumped the old cow off?’ She moved quickly to the door of the chalet and threw it wide open. To the dark, to the blustery rain, to the animals in the yard, to the world in general she shouted, ‘The old cow’s dead.’ And again: ‘The old bag is finally with us no longer. We can all breathe again.’ She stood for a moment on the threshold filling her lungs, it seemed, with the Nan-free air. Then she closed the door, stared first at Korpanski and then at Joanna. ‘And what does my big brother have to say about this?’ Lydia Patterson’s eyes gleamed. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, looking from one to the other. ‘He’s delighted?’
‘He doesn’t appear’, Joanna ventured cautiously, ‘to be too upset.’
Lydia Patterson opened her mouth and gave yet another quivering belly laugh. ‘I’ll bloody bet he isn’t,’ she said. ‘So, who did the foul deed?’
‘We don’t know yet. ..’
‘Well, let’s go for how then.’
‘She was battered to death.’
Lydia Patterson’s intelligence was impressive. ‘So you have someone who hated her.’
‘There have been numerous attacks committed against old women in the Leek area,’ Joanna began.
Lydia turned a pair of small, amber eyes full on her. ‘You can’t class my sister with just any old woman from Leek,’ she said. ‘She was a one-off, a spiteful old cow, she devoted her life to causing trouble and now her chickens have come home to roost.’ She leaned right back on the sofa and smiled. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I rather like this theme of chickens coming home to roost. It might almost convince me there is justice in this chaotic world of ours.’ She beamed from one to the other, looking pleased with herself. ‘So, why have you two abandoned your investigations purely to come and see me? I mean, any old junior officer could have broken this particular piece of news. Let’s see.’ She pinched a lardy double chin between her thumb and forefinger.’ It wouldn’t be curiosity, would it?’
Joanna flushed. ‘We need to know where you were between Sunday lunchtime and Monday morning.’
‘Where I always am – here.’
‘You have an alibi?’
‘Well, not a human one. But if you’re wondering who might have wanted to murder my sister the list is long. You believe this to be the work of a gang, don’t you?’ Her small, strange eyes flicked from Joanna to Mike and back to Joanna again as though waiting for confirmation. ‘Well, there you have it.’ She stood up. ‘Do come back if you’d like to talk to me again.’
‘What an astonishing person,’ Joanna gasped when they’d finally escaped from Quills.
‘Uncomfortable,’ Mike agreed.
But she caught the humour in his voice. ‘You liked her.’
‘In a way – yes.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Well, at least she didn’t pretend.’
‘No.’ There was no pretence about Lydia Patterson, not of grief or sorrow or affection for her sister – even if the circumstances surrounding her extinction had been tragic. Already Joanna sensed that Nan Lawrence’s family held secrets. And they were sceptical that their sister’s murder had been the work of a gang.
As Mike drove the car back towards the Macclesfield road and Leek she turned to him. ‘I don’t know what you’re looking so cheerful about; we’ve got a long night ahead of us.’
‘Yeah – well. That’s exactly what was making me so cheerful. I was thinking. With all this overtime I won’t be home much, will I?’
She tut-tutted. ‘So you’ll leave poor old Fran to deal with her mum alone?
‘She’s her mum. Not mine.’
So we disassociate ourselves from unwelcome relatives, Mike from his mother-in-law, Joanna from Eloise, Arnold and Lydia Patterson from their sister.
Chapter Seven
Peering through the window, Lydia watched the car reverse out of the drive and head back towards Leek. The insouciance she had displayed while the two police officers were present had been part affectation. Underneath she was agitated. She paced the small room, muttering to herself. ‘I must be wrong,’ she repeated over and over again. ‘It can’t have been him. He couldn’t have done it, not him. It would have been impossible.’ But a small voice inside her was arguing. ‘Talk to the policewoman. You don’t have to point the finger. She’ll be reasonable. Listen. They think it was the work of a gang. So, let them think.’
After all these years there was still enough turbulence to disturb her mind. There was only one way to silence it. One escape. She bent over her exercise book and wrote. It was Fredo who attempted to put some sense back into Dora. ‘You don’t know it was Cassandra who took the egg.’
Lydia Patterson stared, unblinking, at the rain cascading down the window and snapped the curtains shut.
Joanna had not been lying when she warned Mike it would be a late night. Using a large sheet on the flipchart she again wrote Nan Lawrence’s name in block capitals. Underneath she scrawled the questions they wanted answering.
‘Firstly, Mike, who killed her? Why? Is anything missing?’ She looked across at him. ‘We’ll get Christian to take a look in the morning as soon as the postmortem’s out of the way.’ She stood back. ‘Have I left anything out?’
‘How did they get in? How was it that she was st
ill sewing when she was hit?’
She scribbled again on the board and Mike continued. ‘Is there any connection with previous assaults and burglaries? And if there is, can we learn anything from them which will help us find Nan Lawrence’s killer?’
Both were silent for a few minutes before Joanna shook her head. ‘I can’t think of anything, can you?’
‘No.’
‘Motive? What are they after, Mike?’
He shrugged. ‘Kicks. Money. Dominance. Cruelty.’ She winced. ‘Nicely put, Korpanski. Cruelty. So, how many do you think are in the gang?’
‘Two. Three. No more than four.’
‘And we think it is a gang because of?’
‘Victim evidence and ...’
Joanna finished it for him. ‘Because this is just the sort of crime a group of youths would commit.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right. I agree with you so far. But was it our gang? If so, were they working up to murder?’
‘Jo, you’re the one who’s always been worried about that.’
She nodded. ‘But as a group, or one malevolent person within the group? The leader?’
‘One, probably.’
‘Yes. I agree with that.’
‘So, did they go to Spite Hall to kill?’
‘You mean rather than to rob?’
Again she nodded.
Korpanski met her eyes. ‘It’s a rough thought.’
‘Very rough.’
‘We know there was no sign of a break-in. Would a suspicious old widow let in a gang of strangers?
She leafed through some documents – Bill Tylman’s statement and the SOCO’s report. ‘Remember what Christian Patterson said, he practically had to display an identity card to gain access. Nan Lawrence wasn’t just suspicious, she was very careful in practice. It doesn’t seem at all likely that she let anyone in. Add to that the fact that it was a stormy night. She wouldn’t have left the door open. Then think back to the geography of Spite Hall, there are two windows looking out on to the front door, if she was at all security conscious she would have peeped through, which further underlines the fact that she would not have opened her door to strangers. Let’s go one step further, Mike, she didn’t let strangers in. Therefore, whoever Nan Lawrence opened her door to was not a stranger.’
Mike opened his mouth to speak but she held her finger up. ‘No, just wait a minute. Let’s turn this entire case on its head. Just try this. According to Barra the evidence at the scene points to the fact that Nan Lawrence let someone in then returned to her embroidery.’
‘That doesn’t fit.’
‘I know. I know. It doesn’t fit the story, Mike, but we can’t change evidence to suit our theory. Barra’s finds will have to form the framework of our case. The blood splashes over the tapestry indicate Nan Lawrence was bending over it when she was struck – from behind. All the blood is centred around that and the top rail of the chair. She was sitting when struck, fell, and didn’t move again while her killer hit her over and over again.’ Joanna hated even speaking the words. ‘You’d have to know someone terribly well to let them in sometime on Sunday evening, then calmly continue with your sewing.’
Mike drew in a deep, sharp breath. ‘What are you saying, Jo?’
‘You know exactly what I’m saying.’ She stood up. ‘Right. Tomorrow we’re going to set the team on Nan’s last movements all day Sunday. But you and I, Mike, are going to get to know Christian Patterson a little better. Your idea of taking him to visit –’ she paused or revisit the crime scene seems like an excellent idea to me.’
She gave a sharp yawn and stretched her arms above her head. ‘I’m too tired to cycle home. It’s too late anyway.’ She grinned at Korpanski. ‘And I can’t drag poor old Matthew out at this time of night.’
‘So you want a lift?’
‘Would you mind?’
Quite suddenly Korpanski’s face clouded over. ‘Well, anything that’ll delay the evil moment of going home.’
Again Joanna was tempted to put a friendly arm around her colleague’s shoulders. But the action would be open to misinterpretation. Instead she gave a chuckle as she put her jacket on. ‘Damn and blast it, Mike.’ She grinned impishly at him. ‘Why don’t I ever get a straightforward murder case? Just a simple stabbing where the husband confesses and hands me the knife?’
Matthew had fallen asleep over his Journal of Forensic Medicine. Joanna kicked her shoes off, tiptoed into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. Then she sat on the sofa opposite him. He looked different asleep, open-necked shirt, tie flung across the arm of the sofa, long legs outstretched, honey-coloured hair tousled.
It had been almost eight years since she had first met him on a case very like this one, an old woman battered to death. Freshly out of university, already a Detective Sergeant, she had been dreading her first post-mortem, and she had felt queasy at the first cut. Matthew had halted the post-mortem to find her a chair. She had read warmth in the green-brown eyes. And he must have seen something answering in hers. After the PM had been completed, while her colleagues were still finishing their notes, he had engaged her in conversation. Joanna smiled, went to pour herself a second glass of wine and returned to the sofa. Questions mainly, a grilling, about why she had done a psychology degree, why she had then joined the police force, how the degree helped her – if at all. And she had found herself drawn into the sticky web of an affair with a man she had always known was married. It had helter-skeltered out of control, her actions increasingly careless, her mind, her soul, her thoughts no longer her own; by the time they had started sleeping together she had completely lost all sense, all reason.
And then one day she had woken on a chill November morning, alone, knowing that Matthew would be sleeping beside his wife, and she had acknowledged that for her sanity it must stop. She had written him a cold note, begged him not to contact her. He had respected her wishes – for more than a year. Eighteen months had passed. Eighteen months when she had tried – hard – to have other relationships. No one had measured up to him.
And then the nurse had been murdered. She had seen him again, listened to his voice, loved him more deeply even than before because it was no longer a crazy passion but an intense knowledge that Matthew was the only man she would ever love. However doomed it was there never would be another. The realization had brought misery, the terrible knowledge echoing around her head. He is married.
Suddenly she wanted him to wake up, put his arms around her, tell her he felt as she did.
He gave a little snore, a jerk, his journal fell to the floor. He woke up, yawned, stretched, rubbed his forehead, smiled sleepily and sat up.
‘Hi, Jo. Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘Mr Sleepy,’ she said affectionately. ‘So tired?’ Her eyes drifted towards the journal. ‘Or was the article so boring?’
He laughed. ‘It had better not be,’ he said. ‘I wrote it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a budding author?’
‘I didn’t know they were going to publish.’
‘What’s it on?’
‘Contusions after death. Now are you going to share the rest of that bottle of wine, or hog it all to yourself?’
She moved across to his chair. ‘Share it.’
It was half an hour later that he referred to her case. ‘Hand on collar yet?’
‘Nowhere near. I can’t see us making an early arrest.’
Matthew’s face changed. ‘So lots of burnt dinners, microwave meals, takeaways and pizzas.’
‘’Fraid so, my darling.’
Chapter Eight
8.30 a.m. Wednesday, October 28th
Matthew drove Joanna to the mortuary for eight-thirty in the morning.
‘I should have the results of the X-rays waiting for me,’ he said. ‘And I have a feeling it won’t make pretty reading.’
She was familiar now with conditions at the mortuary, with the bright white lights, the banter of the two morticians
, the apprehensive faces of two young police officers and the business-like approach of Sergeant Barraclough. All these people helped to preserve an air of normality during the macabre procedure. And central to the operation was Matthew himself, only half familiar in his theatre clothes, dark green cotton top and trousers and a long, heavy, rubber apron.
He began by leafing through the X-ray reports pinned to the board. As I thought, numerous skull fractures, a couple of them depressed enough to cause unconsciousness, followed by death, both radii and ulnae, four ribs, scapula, and a nasty displaced fracture of the right femur. Extensive injuries consistent with prolonged battering.’ His eyes met Joanna’s as he clipped a scalpel blade to the handle. ‘Now let’s test my theories about contusions sustained after death.’
They all stood back as the mortician drilled though the skull. Then Matthew moved in to examine the brain. Joanna watched him. He worked in silence, holding his thoughts back until he had completed his work. It was a measure of the concentration he was giving this job; usually he spoke into a small Dictaphone.
He had finished when he turned to the waiting police officers. ‘Seven or eight blows to the head,’ he said. ‘The first hit the back of the head, that was enough to render the victim unconscious. Many of the blows were delivered after death. It was a hell of an assault, Jo.’ Softly he added, ‘Catch him, Jo.’ Then, ‘What people you are forced to deal with.’ And she knew hidden behind revulsion and curiosity was a fear – that she might soon be in contact with the psycho who had broken these bones so viciously.
She gave him a watery smile. ‘Thanks, Matthew, for the PM. And now, I suppose, we’d better get out there and do some work.’
Embroidering Shrouds Page 7