Embroidering Shrouds

by Priscilla Masters

  Joanna laughed. ‘Come on, Mike,’ she said. ‘We should both go home.’

  He gave a lop-sided grin.

  It was dark as she drove through the moorlands, passing the small isolated farms, each with its own homely light – far more welcoming than the thought of a Sunday evening at home with Matthew and his daughter.

  She found them nestling together on the sofa watching a wildlife film – Bears in North America. She perched on the chair opposite them. Apart from a brief smile from Matthew her arrival was barely acknowledged; their eyes didn’t leave the TV.

  ‘Anyone hungry?’

  Neither looked up.

  ‘No.’ Eloise spoke shortly. The temporary truce must be over now they had moved from neutral territory.

  Matthew stood up. ‘I’ll make a couple of sandwiches.’

  Joanna gave a deep sigh, she couldn’t go to bed early every night. Five more to go before normality returned. Next Saturday Matthew would return Eloise to York and the bosom of her mother.

  ‘Tom and Caro ...?’ She called into the kitchen.

  Eloise laughed at some antic the bears were up to. It sounded forced and strained. Unnatural.

  Matthew appeared in the doorway. ‘They went home, wanted to be on their own. Lots to talk about, I guess.’

  A few minutes later and he was back with a heap of clumsily cut doorsteps piled high on a plate. He balanced it on the chair arm. Joanna took one, not even hungry. It seemed to stick in her throat.

  Eloise grabbed one, almost upsetting the plate.

  It was Matthew who admonished her. ‘Hey, careful. Manners.’

  Eloise ignored him and chewed noisily.

  Joanna never had been so thankful for the telly; its noise, brightness, colour, diluted the tension in the room. The wildlife film finished, changed to a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a car dealer. No one switched it off so it remained on. A little after ten Joanna gave a theatrical yawn and announced she was turning in. Matthew looked disappointed.

  Chapter Twenty

  7 a.m. Monday, November 2nd

  The morning of Monday dawned bright and clear; cold maybe but Joanna threw off the covers leaving Matthew muttering in his sleep. She would cycle in; they could use Korpanski’s car all day, and if it got dark before she was through either Matthew could pick her up or Mike could run her home.

  She showered, never so glad for a Monday morning. Matthew was taking the week off to spend time with Eloise, with something special planned for every day.

  There was a nip in the air which warned of winter but as she pedalled across the ridge Joanna felt a strange exhilaration, a gratitude for life in these parts. Mist clung to the valley but the moorland rose above it, mysterious, high, chilling. Lost in thought she seemed to arrive in the town quite suddenly, meeting the rush of morning traffic without warning. It was something that had always struck her about the town, even on a bike there was little transition. One minute moorland, the next the bustling town. Even at eight o’clock there was an air of busyness around the streets that contrasted vividly with the peaceful moorland. Joanna turned right into the police compound, locked her bike to the railings and walked into the station.

  She and Mike had planned an early briefing before interviewing their suspects.

  She met Korpanski coming out of her office. He took in her cycling leggings and top. ‘You haven’t cycled in?’

  ‘I have.’ She wiped her cold nose, laughed and vanished into the locker room, emerging a few minutes later in a white roll-necked sweater and black trousers. She pushed her sleeves up as far as the elbows and proceeded along the corridor at a rate of knots, feeling an impatience to begin, a sudden surge of energy that had so far been missing from the entire case. A solution was beginning to feel near her grasp.

  And the officers sensed that, speaking clearly, precisely and quickly, concisely sticking to facts.

  She took Phil Scott’s observations first.

  ‘I’ve looked at all the statements from the church goers,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing there. Nan Lawrence left at lunchtime, a little after twelve thirty. Plenty of people saw her walk home and that’s the last they saw of her.’

  Joanna turned to Mike. ‘What’s the earliest time of death Matthew gave us?’

  ‘Four p.m.,’ he said. ‘Dinner almost digested, and she can’t have eaten it much before one.’

  ‘And the latest? The very latest if she’d eaten late rather than straightaway?’

  ‘About twelve hours later.’

  ‘She was alone all afternoon?’

  ‘But alive at six o’clock in the evening – if we can believe her loving great-nephew.’

  ‘If ,’ she repeated. ‘Bridget?’

  PC Bridget Anderton piped up from the back of the room. ‘I’ve interviewed Craig Elland’s mates,’ she said. ‘As we expected he’s got an alibi right up until midnight. And according to the landlord of the Cattle Market, which is our merry friends’ haunt, he has a corroborated alibi for the entire twelve hours, until closing time, in other words.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘His mates called for him right after his Sunday dinner – which was about one, according to his mother. He was drinking at the pub solidly until eleven o’clock, when he and his mates were so drunk the landlord called a taxi to take them home. He says they fell into the car.’

  ‘Great,’ Joanna said through gritted teeth, ‘just great. The one villain who could have done it and had access to a key has a bloody alibi.’

  ‘Corroborated,’ Bridget Anderton added.

  Joanna turned aside to Mike. ‘I still want to interview him. If he is innocent it’ll be the first time in his nasty little life, and I don’t quite believe he’s altered his habits somehow. Too neat.’

  ‘The person who bashed Nan over the head would have been covered in blood,’ Mike reminded her. ‘Even if he and his mates “nipped out for some fags” or something similar they would have come back to the pub looking like something from Nightmare on Elm Street. And devoted Mum though she is I can’t see Marion Elland laundering her son’s bloodstained clothes without some questions.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Joanna said irritably, turning aside to him. ‘So what better idea have you got?’

  ‘Patterson,’ Mike hissed. ‘We’ve left him alone too long, he’s had time to think about alibis, get rid of evidence. We should go through his room again, something will be there – unless he’s already disposed of it.’

  She turned to meet his dark eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Something.’

  She gave him an incredulous look. ‘He’s had a week to get rid of any evidence, and besides, Barra’s been through his rooms with a toothcomb. He knows his job, if there was anything there he wasn’t going to miss it.’

  Mike gave a lop-sided grin. ‘I want to see his face when we tell him what we found in his great-aunt’s wardrobe.’

  ‘So do I, Mike, but patience. The last thing I want is to haul suspects in, believing they’re guilty, and to have to let them go through lack of evidence. When we arrest them I want it to stick. I want them refused bail and put in remand, nice and tidy. Understand?’

  Mike nodded.

  She threw the next question out to the room. ‘Anything else turned up?’

  The blank faces gave out a negative. ‘OK then, you can go. Apart from you, Barra. Can I have a quick word?’ She waited as the officers filed out.

  ‘What is it, Jo?’

  ‘How meticulous were you around the bedroom at Spite Hall?’

  As always Barra thought carefully before answering. ‘Not as thorough as the living room. Why?’

  ‘I want you to go back there,’ she said. ‘Dust every surface, bottoms as well as tops. I want evidence that Christian Patterson has been in there.’

  Mike quickly objected. ‘But he might have had a perfectly legitimate reason for going in. He spent enough time there – by all accounts. Even if his dabs were all over the place it’s hardly going to make him the mu
rderer, it wasn’t even the murder room.’

  ‘I’m not after hard evidence at the moment. I simply want to rattle him, destroy as many of his statements as I can. We can wait for our killer, Mike. It’s the usual game of links, one thing leads to another. I’m looking for the answer as to why a particular old woman was terrorized – again. If we can connect Patterson to Cecily Marlowe’s sad little items we will have a liar, more importantly we may just have, hopefully, a reason for him to have lied. Let’s start with that and hope it takes us somewhere else we want to go, that is the killer of Nan Lawrence.’

  ‘You have a funny way of going about things,’ Mike said. ‘Why not just bash his door down and charge him?’

  Joanna laughed and touched his arm. ‘Because’, she said, ‘that isn’t the way I work. Now let’s go and talk to Elland.’

  The gold Tigra was still standing outside the Ellands’ house, alone this time. The upstairs curtains were still drawn. At a guess they would be waking Elland from his beauty sleep, long after both parents had set off for gainful employment.

  Joanna hammered on the door until he appeared, bleary eyed, a towel loosely draped around his bulging middle. He glowered at them. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To talk to you.’

  ‘Look, I never touched the old goat. Didn’t my mates tell you? We was at the Cattle Market all afternoon. We was seen there by plenty of people. You can’t pin this on me.’

  ‘Why don’t you put some clothes on and make us a nice cup of tea?’ Joanna suggested. ‘And we can have a friendly chat.’

  ‘And why don’t you go fuck yourself.’

  Joanna pushed her foot in the door. Mike’s elbow found its way to Elland’s chest.

  ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea, please,’ Joanna said. ‘Now be a good boy and put the kettle on. And cover up that big body of yours, it’s turning me on.’

  Still muttering, Elland ambled up the stairs, returning a minute later in jogging pants and a vest. It was an improvement though not exactly a transformation.

  He occupied Mike’s favourite place – blocking the doorway – and stood, arms akimbo, glaring at them. ‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure,’ he sneered. ‘Apart from the fact I strayed from the straight and narrow once.’

  Joanna fixed her eyes on his pasty face. ‘Well, put it like this, Craig,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Nan Lawrence was found murdered in her own home. She was a nervous old lady, always kept doors locked, didn’t open them to strangers, but somebody got in. Understand?’

  Elland’s pale eyes didn’t leave her face. Neither did he nod. He simply waited for Joanna to continue. This was the behaviour of a hardened felon, only first-time criminals babbled.

  ‘You do understand, don’t you, Craig? We’re wondering how somebody did get in.’

  The barb hit home. For a split second something wild and animal flashed across his face, then he settled down. As quickly as it had brewed the storm had abated. But it was a warning, Elland had done time for attempted murder.

  Joanna continued in the same calm, even tone. ‘What’s been puzzling us is the fact that this vulnerable and frightened old lady who never answered the door to strangers was bashed over the head as she calmly stitched away at a bit of sewing.’

  Nothing intelligent seemed to register in his doughy features.

  ‘How did he get in, we asked ourselves, didn’t we, Mike?’

  Mike regarded her steadily.

  ‘And then we found out, Craig, that you had access to a key.’ Joanna smiled.

  Still nothing seemed to be registering. Craig seemed to be taking some while to sort out the facts, then he gave a slow grin. ‘But I got an alibi for when she was done, hasn’t I?’

  ‘We don’t know exactly when she died.’

  ‘I ain’t daft, you know. I can work it out. Mum saw her at church that mornin’. Hypocritical old cow, sittin’ there, singin’ psalms and prayin’. And she never collected her milk in on the Monday mornin’. I read the papers you know. I weren’t on me own at all then except –’

  ‘After closing time.’

  ‘I couldn’t ‘ave bashed a chicken over the head the state I was in. Let alone crept up on a old lady and done ‘er in. Don’t remember nothin’ about Sunday night. Pissed I was. Me mum put me to bed.’

  But if it was true that Marion actually undressed her son his clothes couldn’t have been bloodstained. She wouldn’t have covered that up for him.

  ‘Lots of people commit murder under the influence,’ Joanna said innocently. ‘Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work as a defence plea, balance of mind and all that.’

  Again that ugly, mad look flashed through Elland’s pale eyes. ‘You got nothin’ on me,’ he grunted. ‘Nothin’. You couldn’t pin a soddin’ parkin’ ticket on me. You’re just goin’ for me cos you got no one else and I done time. Well, I ain’t done nothin’ this time. You got the wrong man, Inspector. You better try again.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A little over an hour later they were again driving through rain. Wind battered the car. Mike leaned forward and switched the headlights on. It was almost as dark as night yet it was still only a little past eleven in the morning.

  They turned up the now familiar grassed track that led to the two houses, the contrast as great now as when she had first been introduced to Brushton Grange and its ugly neighbour. Mike parked as near as he could to the front door of both houses and they dashed along the path towards the front door of Brushton Grange.

  They clanged the doorbell and prepared to wait; they had grown used to the time it took Arnold Patterson to rise stiffly from his chair, cross the large hall and tug the door open.

  Patterson obviously felt he knew them well enough to drop any niceties. ‘You keep comin’ back,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know what for.’

  ‘To see Christian,’ Joanna said. ‘But I want to talk to you first.’

  ‘I don’t know what about,’ the old man said, his face still angled towards the floor. ‘I can’t enlighten you. She’s dead. How can I say I’m sorry with that there?’ He lifted his head briefly, only enough to sweep a gaze across the gully before, exhausted with the effort, he dropped his head again towards the floor. ‘If you must know I do regret her death, Inspector. Mainly because it were violent and because she were my sister, but I can’t say I’m mournin’ her. She is just dead. It’s up to you to find out who killed her and let the courts take their justice. There is no point your keepin’ comin’ back, I got nothin’ to tell yer.’

  ‘You were friendly once,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Aye, as children.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the concrete edifice. ‘As you can see. The friendship failed to last.’

  ‘Why? That’s what I want to know.’

  The question took the old man aback. He straightened his back again to stare Joanna full in the face. ‘Are you mad?’

  Joanna met him full in the face. ‘Why did she build it?’

  Something softened in the lined cheeks, Arnold Patterson’s eyes moistened. He licked his lips. ‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘that’s what you want to know, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  In deference to his age Joanna had dealt gently with Nan Lawrence’s brother so far, but she needed facts now. Even if she had to bully them out of him she would get them. Nan Lawrence’s death must be dealt with by the law whatever events had taken place in her life. It made no difference. The crime was still murder and she wanted no more murders, robberies, attacks. She wanted Leek to revert to the pleasant, safe town it had been. And Patterson was being deliberately evasive. Obstructive even.

  ‘We just grew up,’ he said, ‘nothin’ more. Brother and sister as children doesn’t always mean bosom pals for life.’

  But his eyes had told her this was not the truth. He didn’t even expect her to believe him.

  ‘You quarrelled, didn’t you?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Another lie. Eyes that flickered from side to side.

 
And she was running out of patience. ‘Then I suggest you try to remember, Mr Patterson, because I have a suspicion it will have some bearing on the case.’

  Again he tried to bluster. ‘What nonsense. What utter ...’

  But she and Korpanski had already whisked past him and were halfway up the stairs. It was a measure of how little she valued his statement.

  This time there was no loud, thumping music coming from Christian’s room. Instead they heard something dreamy and watery, music that seemed to trickle down the stairs, music that conjured up dolphins swimming, music one might smoke hash to.

  Which was exactly what he was doing, with a vague, abstracted look on his face as he tugged the door open, a roll-up dangling from his fingers. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s the Inspector.’

  Joanna could have rubbed her hands with delight. Pot, better than a truth drug, a suspect right under the influence. She and Mike exchanged looks of sheer triumph. Of course, there was always the risk that Christian would pour out a stream of absolute rubbish. But –

  She sat down on the cheap, foam sofa, ignoring the girl sitting wedged into the corner, staring into space. ‘Tell me about your great-aunt, Christian.’

  ‘She was a lady and a half,’ Christian said, waving his hands around. ‘A real lady.’

  ‘Some say she was more of a witch.’

  Christian smiled, his arm round the pale girl who was swaying with the dolphin music.

  ‘She could cast spells,’ he said enigmatically.

  ‘What sort of spells?’

  ‘Get people, man, do her bidding.’

  ‘And is that what you did – her bidding?’

  Christian was rubbing his fingers together. His head was inscribing a circular movement.

  ‘Of course. Powerful persona like that.’

  ‘What bidding did you do?’

  ‘Closed dangerous mouths. People ought not to talk, Inspector.’