Unnatural Wastage

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Maybe some of her employees are illegals,’ suggested Sukey.

  ‘That occurred to me when she wouldn’t budge even when I repeated my name and rank. Either that, or she didn’t believe I was really a copper. Anyway, I’ve spoken to the Sarge and he’s told us to get over to the office and demand the information. We’ve seen all the blokes so that’s where Tim and I are off to now.’ He finished his coffee with a flourish and stood up. ‘See you later, girls!’

  Sukey and Vicky interviewed the remaining people on their list without learning anything new, thanked Barbara for her co­operation and returned to headquarters for a canteen lunch. They were back in the CID office filing their reports when Tim and Mike returned. ‘Where’s the Sarge?’ he asked.

  ‘Over there, and he’s not exactly a happy bunny.’ Vicky pointed in the direction of the drinks machine, which Rathbone was feeding with coins. He filled a mug and was drinking from it as he crossed the room towards them.

  ‘Any luck?’ he asked brusquely.

  ‘We interviewed the woman who owns the Clean as a Whistle Domestic Agency, Sarge,’ said Mike. ‘She’s a Mrs Joyce Shilling; age about fifty, smartly dressed, well spoken and businesslike. She gave us this bit of publicity she distributes from time to time.’ He handed Rathbone a small laminated sheet, which he read and passed round. ‘She tried to explain her reluctance to talk to me over the phone by saying she thought I might be a competitor trying to pinch some of her staff,’ Mike added.

  ‘Tried to explain?’

  ‘We’re not sure we believe her,’ said Tim. ‘She was a bit vague about the people she employs to stuff these flyers through letter-boxes so we suspect some of them may be illegals, but of course that wasn’t why we were there. Anyway, she didn’t know anything about any of her staff getting excited over the knife in the Tremaine murder but –’ here he paused for effect – ‘one of the people Aggie cleans for is Doctor Marcus Ellerman.’

  Rathbone finished his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Well that’s a fat lot of help!’ he grumbled. ‘If all Aggie’s got to tell us is that she saw the knife in Ellerman’s flat, it adds nothing to what we already know.’

  ‘There’s a bit more, Sarge. Aggie – that’s short for Aghami, by the way – helps out with the cleaning at Holmwood from time to time if Minnie’s away or if they need an extra pair of hands for any reason, so she’s probably heard the gossip about Fenella Tremaine and Brian Seaton. She failed to turn up on Thursday and Friday last week at the places where she was supposed to clean and she hasn’t called in to report sick. Mrs Shilling has had to arrange for another cleaner to cover for her, which happens from time to time. We duly sympathized, thanked her for her help and left a number for her to call if anything else occurred to her.’

  Rathbone chewed his lower lip in silence for a few moments. ‘Let’s think this through,’ he said slowly. ‘Everyone at Holmwood knew about Brian Seaton’s affair with Fenella Tremaine. Aggie cleans there and she also cleans for Ellerman so it’s quite likely she knew Fenella lived in the same block of flats. Supposing she mentioned this to Carla one day when she was cleaning the office; maybe she’d already told her about the artefacts like the elephant cushion covers and the knife, perhaps because she recognized them as coming from her own country.’

  ‘Sarge, you’re not suggesting that Carla asked Aggie to steal the knife so that she could sneak round at dead of night to stick it in Fenella’s back?’ said Sukey incredulously.

  Rathbone made a slightly despairing gesture. ‘I grant you it’s pretty far-fetched,’ he admitted, ‘but supposing Carla has some kind of hold on Aggie – knows something about her that she wants to keep secret, something to enable Carla to put pressure on her to “borrow” the knife on the pretext that she’d like to have a look at it. It would explain Aggie’s reluctance to speak to us. It’s the first link, albeit a tenuous one, between the Tremaine and Freeman deaths. We know Carla is responsible for the latter, and she had reason to hate both of them. So the first thing we have to do is find out why Aggie let some of the clients down. Was Ellerman one of them, by the way?’

  ‘No Sarge, she cleaned for him as usual on Wednesday. The ones she missed were on Thursday and Friday.’

  ‘I take it you have the full names and addresses of both these women?’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’ Mike handed a slip of paper to Rathbone, who passed it to Sukey.

  ‘You and Vicky, get round to Aggie’s place ASAP and see if you can find out why she’s been absent from work. She has a reputation for being scared of the police, so if she’s there tread carefully. And then go and talk to Minnie. They may have exchanged more information. Tim, you and Mike find out from the agency if Aggie cleaned at Holmwood around the time of the Tremaine murder and if she did, go back and put a few questions to Carla.’

  The first address was a house in a somewhat down-at-heel Victorian terrace. Beside two of three bell pushes beside the front door were cards bearing the names Edmond and Boyden. The one at the top was blank, so they tried that first and waited, but there was no response.

  ‘I didn’t hear a bell ring,’ said Sukey. ‘Maybe it’s out of order. We’d better knock.’ They hammered on the door and eventually it was flung open by a bald-headed man in carpet slippers, who glared at them with red-rimmed, watery eyes.

  ‘What the hell’s the idea of making all that racket?’ he demanded. ‘What d’you suppose we’ve got bells for?’

  ‘We want to speak to a lady called Aggie who we understand lives here; we tried the top bell but there was no reply. DCs Armstrong and Reynolds, Avon and Somerset CID,’ she added, showing her ID. Vicky did the same.

  The man peered at the two badges and said curtly, ‘Don’t know anything about her, never see her, can’t help you,’ and made to shut the door, but Vicky put a firm hand against it.

  ‘You can at least show us which flat she lives in,’ she said, and he reluctantly held the door open to let them in.

  ‘First floor, door on the right,’ he said. He responded to their thanks with a grunt before disappearing behind his own door.

  They knocked several times on Aggie’s door without success. ‘Maybe she’s been taken ill,’ said Vicky. ‘D’you think we should go in?’

  ‘That lock doesn’t look very strong,’ said Sukey. They exchanged glances and nodded. ‘Let’s go for it.’

  The lock gave easily to their combined weight. They found themselves in a fair-sized bed-sitting room, one corner of which was fitted out with basic kitchen facilities. A toilet with a shower and washbasin were hidden behind a folding door. It was sparsely furnished with a single bed, a table, two chairs and a chest of drawers. The bed was made up and a few items of clothing were hanging in a built-in cupboard, but there was no sign of the occupant.

  ‘No jacket, no shoes and no handbag, so presumably she went out as usual and never returned,’ said Vicky. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’

  ‘We’d better report to the Sarge,’ said Sukey. She took out her mobile but it rang before she could key in Rathbone’s number. She listened for a moment and then said, ‘I was about to call you, Sarge, to say we’re at Aggie’s flat; she’s not here and according to a not very helpful neighbour she hasn’t been seen lately.’ She waited again, then said, ‘Right, Sarge, will do.’ She ended the call and met Vicky’s enquiring glance. ‘The body of a woman has been found on waste ground about a mile from Sycamore Park,’ she said. ‘No ID as yet. We’re to wait here until uniformed arrive and then call in for further instructions.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  While they were awaiting the arrival of the uniformed officers who had been dispatched to secure Aggie’s flat, Sukey and Vicky put on plastic gloves and made a further, more detailed search of the room. There was a small refrigerator containing a packet of prepared salad, an unopened packet of cheese, butter substitute and a half litre bottle of milk. Sukey took out the milk and examined it.

  ‘The best-before date was yesterday,’ sh
e said. She unscrewed the cap and gave the bottle a gentle shake. ‘It’s curdled. The salad’s past its sell-by date as well.’

  ‘And according to what Mrs Shilling told Tim and Mike,’ said Vicky, ‘she cleaned for Ellerman as usual on Wednesday and hasn’t been seen since. This doesn’t look good for her – or for him either. It looks as if we’re going to have to pay him another call.’

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ said Sukey,

  ‘You mean, is Aggie the dead woman who’s just been found near Sycamore Park?’

  ‘That’s my gut feeling.’

  ‘Mine too. Let’s see what else we can find. It’s just occurred to me,’ Vicky went on as they moved around the flat, ‘when we were questioning Ellerman about people having access to his flat, he remembered Wilkins the caretaker had been in to do something to a window – in fact he immediately accused him of being Fenella Tremaine’s killer – but he never mentioned a cleaner—’

  ‘And we asked him if he had one, but he never gave us an answer.’ Sukey put a hand to her eyes as an awful possibility suddenly occurred to her. ‘Oh dear, was that a fatal blunder on our part?’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ Vicky, who had obviously had the same thought, clutched her friend’s hand and they were both silent for a moment before she said, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now, so why don’t we just get on with the task in hand?’

  A few toiletries were neatly arranged on the chest of drawers and a string of beads hung over the corner of a small mirror. Vicky picked it up and said, ‘I don’t think much of her taste in jewellery, do you?’

  She handed it to Sukey, who studied it for a moment and said, ‘This isn’t jewellery, it’s a rosary.’ She held it out and showed the crucifix. ‘I had a friend at college who was Roman Catholic and she had one very similar to this.’

  ‘You’re right. I hadn’t noticed.’ Vicky took back the rosary and replaced it carefully on the mirror. ‘So she’s a Christian. I wonder if that’s why she’s so scared of the police. Maybe she’s from a strict Muslim background and she’s afraid someone from their mosque will ask us to look for her. Isn’t it a fact that they consider converting to Christianity a capital offence?’

  ‘So I’ve heard. It’s true in some very strict families as well, even if they live in Western countries.’ Sukey thought for a moment, frowning. ‘Tim and Mike were speculating about her possibly being an illegal,’ she said slowly as if thinking aloud, ‘but I seem to recall that in the flyer he showed us Mrs Shilling claims that all her cleaners are fully insured and trustworthy. She also mentions “full key security” which suggests that some cleaners need access to places when the client is absent – such as business people like Ellerman. She’d be mad to make that sort of claim if she employed illegals.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Vicky agreed, ‘so there must be some other reason why Aggie’s so reluctant to talk to the police.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s running away to avoid an arranged marriage,’ Sukey suggested, ‘or like you said, she may be afraid of being the victim of an “honour” killing by someone in her own family.’

  They continued to search for a few more minutes without success. Presently they heard a car draw up outside; Vicky, who happened to be by the window, said, ‘Here are the woodies,’ and Sukey hurried down with the intention of admitting the two uniformed officers before the irascible downstairs neighbour had a chance to object to the disturbance. He had, however, already seen the police car and was on the doorstep demanding to know what the hell was going on.

  ‘It’s a fine state of affairs when a man can’t read his paper in peace,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about, sir,’ said one of the officers as they followed Sukey up the stairs. ‘We’re just a little concerned for one of your neighbours and we’ll come back and have a word with you in a few minutes.’

  ‘He told us he knows nothing about her and never sees her,’ Vicky informed them when they were back in Aggie’s flat.

  ‘We’ll get a statement from him anyway when we’ve secured the place and we’ll try and contact some of the other residents before we go.’

  ‘We think they’re out, but we’ll have to leave you to it,’ said Sukey. ‘It seems we have another murdered woman on our hands.’

  ‘You reckon it might be this one?’

  ‘We hope not, but we have a hunch it might be.’ She took out her mobile and called Rathbone, who gave her directions to the latest crime scene.

  The rendezvous point for the police vehicles was in a side road bordering an uneven area of about an acre of rough land which, PC Jenks informed them, was known locally as Fiddler’s Patch. ‘In the good old days they had a maypole here and the girls used to dance round it while a local chap played the fiddle,’ he explained.

  It lay between the middle-class area close to Sycamore Park and a working-class estate with a handful of shops including a small general store, a greengrocer, a takeaway fish shop, a pharmacy and a post office. There was also a bus stop. A well-trodden footpath, obviously used as a short cut by local residents, led directly across it. According to PC Jenks, while most of the people on the estate were good citizens, law-abiding, hard-working folk who kept their properties in good order and their children under control, a few families were generally regarded by the majority as ‘neighbours from hell’ and were the subject of regular complaints about antisocial behaviour. ‘Quite a few have form and there’s a lot of fly-tipping goes on – mostly old tyres, unwanted mattresses and other stuff they can’t be bothered to take to the tip,’ Jenks went on, ‘but as far as I know none of them’s been done for GBH.’

  ‘Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t fancy walking over there after dark,’ Vicky observed. ‘I take it she’s the one who found the body.’ She nodded in the direction of a middle-aged woman clutching a shopping bag, who was apparently being comforted by a woman constable.

  ‘That’s right. She’s pretty shocked, which is natural enough. She keeps on saying “nothing like that’s ever happened round here before”. I can confirm that; we’ve never been asked to patrol here at night and we’ve had no reports of muggings. Quite a few people living on this side use it in the daytime to walk across to the shops or catch the bus.’

  Two CSIs were already in attendance and had laid out stepping boards from the road and along the side of the footpath to a tangle of bramble bushes. A short distance away Rathbone was conferring with the pathologist, Doctor Handley; DC Penny Osborne stood a little apart from them with a handkerchief to her mouth. ‘Are you OK?’ Sukey asked her, concerned at the young DC’s pallor.

  Penny swallowed hard and pushed the handkerchief into her pocket, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘It’s . . . she looks sort of greenish . . . and there’s a nasty smell when you get close. And the flies . . . they’ve laid their eggs in her eyes . . . it’s just horrible! The Sarge says that means she’s been there some time . . . she’s begun to decompose.’ She gave herself a little shake and squared her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.’

  Seeing Sukey and Vicky, Rathbone beckoned them over. ‘You’ve come at the right moment,’ he said. He too had been holding a handkerchief to his face and the pathologist had put on a mask. ‘The CSIs have just finished taking their shots and Doc Handley’s about to have a closer look at her. I should warn you, she’s in a pretty poor condition.’

  The dead woman lay face upwards, almost hidden behind the brambles. Her eyes were closed and her features appeared relaxed, the lips slightly parted. ‘You might think she’d just fallen asleep,’ said Sukey softly, ‘except for the pong and . . .’ There was no need to say more; the ugly bruises round the slender throat told how the woman had died.

  ‘I reckon you’re right about her origins, Sukey,’ said Vicky.

  Sukey nodded. ‘Her colouring and cast of feature could be Middle Eastern or possibly Indian. She looks quite young; she can’t be much more than twenty.’

  Meanwhile, Handley had f
inished his examination and was peeling off his protective gloves. ‘What can you tell us, Doc?’ asked Rathbone.

  ‘First impressions are that the cause of death was manual strangulation, but I can’t be sure till I get her on the slab. From the state of decomposition I’d say she’s been dead three or four days. I’m surprised it’s taken so long for anyone to find her – I’d have thought a dog walker would have spotted her long before this. The smell’s enough to attract any dog.’

  ‘According to the local copper it’s not an area much used by dog walkers,’ said Rathbone. ‘It’s not safe to let them off the lead; there’s too much litter lying around, especially broken glass. The woman who found her is interested in wildlife; she thought she saw a rare butterfly flitting around the brambles and went over to investigate.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘The poor dear staggered back and threw up on the spot, as you may have noticed.’

  Handley grinned. ‘I’m not surprised. I noticed your young DC nearly did the same.’ He closed his bag. ‘I’ll be off now. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to do the PM.’ He made his way back to his car, ducking under the blue and white tape barrier with which uniformed officers were enclosing the area, despite the protests of a few women with shopping bags. ‘Sorry, ladies,’ Jenks apologized, ‘I’m afraid this is a crime scene so you’ll have to go the long way round to the shops.’ One or two hurried away, grumbling and complaining that they were going to miss their bus, but the rest remained behind to watch what was going on and were soon joined by others.

  ‘Amazing how word gets around,’ commented Rathbone. ‘I didn’t think it’d be long before they got wind of it,’ he added resignedly as a van with Bristol Echo – Your Favourite Newspaper painted on its side slid into the gap left by Handley’s car. The driver got out and began plying Jenks with questions. A second man with a camcorder hovered at his elbow.

  Rathbone took out his mobile. ‘Now Handley’s finished I’ll call for a hearse,’ he said. ‘While we’re waiting for them to come and take her to the morgue you can bring me up to date.’ He listened in silence to their report and then said, ‘It certainly begins to look as if that’s Aggie’s body and from what you say we may have a problem finding her next of kin. If it is her it means Ellerman’s well and truly back in the frame. Yes?’ he said as one of the CSIs approached holding out his camera.