Scene of Crime

by Jill McGown

  It wasn’t about Carl Bignall’s sudden departure with Lloyd, despite the fact that Carl’s car remained on the rooftop car park, something that must surely have been driving the ever-curious Marianne mad with a desire to know what was happening.

  And it wasn’t about the impossibility of mounting a production when Cinderella had the flu, her understudy had phoned to say the train had been delayed by at least fifty minutes and she wouldn’t make it to rehearsal after all, and Buttons’s under-understudy had to go rushing off on police business, unaccountably taking Buttons’s actual understudy-cum-Ugly Sister with him. This had left Marianne with no Buttons, Judy’s inadequate Cinderella, only one Ugly Sister, and no choice but to abandon that evening’s rehearsal, but none of that seemed to be uppermost in Marianne’s mind.

  Indeed, for a moment after Marianne spoke, Judy had no idea what she was talking about.

  “It’s going to be very difficult,” she said. “Both of you being in the police, having to drop everything at a moment’s notice.”

  What was going to be difficult? Then it struck Judy that Marianne was still talking about her condition. She was beginning to realize the immense pulling power of babies, and consequently of mothers-to-be; other people seemed to be endlessly fascinated by the whole thing. She, of course, never had been, and still wasn’t. Normally, she hated discussions of this sort. But at least she wasn’t being pumped for information about Carl.

  “It’s not as difficult at the moment as it might be. I’ve been transferred to HQ—it’s nine to five. And I’m working from home most of the time anyway.”

  “And will you still be doing that when the baby’s born?”

  “I’ll be on maternity leave starting next month. But even when that’s up I can probably work mainly from home until next September,” said Judy. “Then I’ll be back in Stansfield.”

  “But still nine to five?”

  “Basically,” said Judy, not exactly truthfully, but she had no desire to discuss the pros and cons of working mothers, child care, nurseries, or anything else with Marianne.

  The current canteen wisdom was that Lloyd would be offered early retirement and she would get his job, but there was a lot of time for them to change their plans between now and next September. And CID was nine to five, more or less. But circumstances had temporarily forced Stansfield CID to become a serious crime squad in all but name, expected to handle all serious crime committed in an area with a population of 300,000; as a result, its Detective Chief Inspector did get called out at odd hours. Come the reorganization, due to be revealed in March and in place by April, it was rumored there would be a small Serious Crime Squad based at Barton HQ, and if that happened, the Stansfield CID chief would have an easier time of it. The problem was, she would prefer to head up the serious crime squad.

  “When is the baby due?” asked Marianne.

  Judy was brought firmly back to reality. She was an expectant mother—if there was a police force on this planet that had ever entertained the idea of having their serious crime squad run by someone who had to breastfeed an infant, she didn’t know of it. “Early February,” she said.

  “Aquarius! How wonderful! What are you?”

  “Scorpio, I think.”

  “Ah! An unbeliever.”

  Judy smiled. “Lloyd’s the one who believes in all that sort of thing,” she said.

  “Unusual,” said Marianne. “Men usually pretend not to believe even if they do. You must let me do a reading when he or she is born.”

  “She,” said Judy.

  “Oh, did you ask what sex the baby was? Most people don’t.”

  Judy gave a little shrug. “They asked me if I wanted to know, and I did,” she said. The more she knew about what to expect, the better; that was why she’d gone to the relaxation classes. Why she had made Lloyd go with her. The ease with which he could assume the persona of someone to whom child-rearing was second nature had, as she had suspected it might, deserted him. Lloyd thought babies were women’s work, whatever he said.

  “Will you let me do a reading for her?”

  Judy supposed she should, in view of her desire to know what to expect, and since she thought the whole thing was nonsense anyway, she might as well. She was just about to agree to Marianne’s offer when Marianne spoke again.

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Someone said that Estelle had been found dead. I wasn’t going to ask you about it, because I know you probably aren’t supposed to discuss it with other people, but … is it true?”

  Judy had thought Marianne was flapping even more than usual; she should have known that someone would have overheard snatches of the conversation between Lloyd and Carl, and passed the news on without delay. Marianne had been trying desperately to mind her own business; that explained her sudden interest in the baby.

  And Judy wasn’t sure what to do. But there seemed no doubt; if there had been any mistake, if it hadn’t been Estelle Bignall, if it had been some sort of false alarm, Lloyd would have let her know by now. She watched rain bead the window, fragmenting the light from the street lamps, then get swept away by the hypnotic wipers, and decided it was going to be in the local paper tomorrow, so she might as well confirm it.

  “I’m afraid it is,” she said.

  There was a silence as the car made its way over the river, passing the neo-Victorian lamp standards that lit the bridge. The wet tarmac gleamed, revealing unsuspected little dips and valleys in the apparently smooth surface.

  “That’s dreadful. Dreadful. Did you know her?”

  “No. I never met her.”

  “I’ve known her since she was fifteen.”

  Judy hadn’t realized. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be a terrible shock for you.”

  Marianne signaled left, and the bypass bore them determinedly away from High Street, just half a mile away across the parkland that bordered the river. Shopkeepers had presented petitions; residents had made representations to the local council, which in turn had asked the county council, responsible for road planning, to reconsider the scheme. No dice.

  “She was one of our leading lights,” said Marianne. “She was very pretty, and good—but well … things changed, not very long after she married Carl.”

  Judy used her usual technique; she didn’t speak after Marianne had spoken. Marianne would want to fill the silence, and what she filled it with would give her a clue to what Marianne wanted to tell her.

  “It was six, seven years ago she married him, I suppose. Yes, it must be almost seven years. It seems like just the other day. She was an absolute picture on her wedding day. They both were, I suppose. He’s so handsome. But she … well, she was radiant. So young, so in love.”

  Judy felt she was being prompted to inquire, so she did. “Was Carl equally in love?”

  Marianne sighed dramatically. “Who knows? He’s a darling, but he’s very vain, you know. I think … I think Estelle looked the part, if you see what I mean. They made a very attractive couple, and he knew it. But he’s ten years older than her, you know. And he was divorced. I’m not sure that was a good thing.”

  Judy smiled. “Lloyd’s ten years older than me and divorced.”

  “Oh, that’s quite different, darling. For one thing, Lloyd’s an absolute peach—you only have to meet him to know that—and, well, you’re not Estelle.”

  Judy stored that description away to tell Lloyd, and was torn between finding out why Carl wasn’t an absolute peach and the other thing that puzzled her. She went with it first. “What was special about Estelle?” she asked.

  “Well, she was eighteen when she married him. Eighteen and twenty-eight is different, you know, darling. I mean—you and Lloyd are both mature.”

  She had been twenty when she’d met Lloyd; not that much more mature than Estelle.

  “Oh, but you would be, darling,” said Marianne, when Judy pointed that out. “Dexter’s more mature than Estelle.”

 
; “And Carl? Why isn’t he as good a bet in the marriage stakes as Lloyd? Did he treat his first wife badly or something?”

  “Oh, no—that just didn’t work out.”

  “What, then?”

  “Well, Carl—I mean he—” She brought her lips together. “No,” she said. “No, I mustn’t be bitchy about Carl, not when something as dreadful as this has happened. I just don’t think he made her very happy.”

  “Do you mean he made her unhappy?”

  “No!” Marianne took her eyes off the road to look accusingly at Judy. “Am I being interviewed?” she asked.

  “Sorry,” said Judy. “It goes with the job.”

  “I don’t think he made her unhappy in any specific way,” Marianne said, apparently unconcerned now about whether she was being interviewed. “I mean—I don’t think there was another woman or anything. I don’t think he meant to make her unhappy at all.”

  “But?” said Judy.

  “But he did. Not immediately. But after they’d been married about six months, she became quite ill. Took to her bed at the least provocation, always thinking she had some imaginary illness or other. Got very nervy and depressed. Eventually, she seemed to get over that, but this year she’s been very down again. She left the society—said she wasn’t good enough, which was absolute nonsense.”

  Judy frowned. “And you think Carl was to blame for that?”

  “Well, I certainly don’t think he helped. I think once Estelle got to be a bother to him …” Again she shook her head. “No, I really mustn’t say things like that.”

  Like what? Judy thought perhaps defending Carl might do the trick, since Marianne was desperate to be bitchy about him. “He did stay with her, though,” she said. “Despite the way she was. Not all men would do that.”

  “Well, of course he did, darling. If he divorced Estelle, he divorced his second income.”

  “Second income?”

  “Estelle has … had … a private income from a trust fund.” There was a pause. “For her lifetime.”

  The line had been beautifully delivered. The mistake over the tense, underlining the fact that Estelle was now dead; the payoff timed to perfection. And Judy’s line was obvious. “So what happens to it now?”

  “The principal forms part of her estate.”

  And Judy learned of the accident that had robbed Estelle of all but her grandfather, of how he had made what Marianne called a “not inconsiderable” fortune from a chain of grocery stores in Welchester County, which he had in the end sold to one of the big supermarkets as local offshoots. Of how he had been unwilling to leave this money to Estelle, whom he didn’t think was stable enough to handle it; he was afraid she would be conned out of it in no time, so he set up a trust fund for her from which she received a “not-to-be-sneezed-at” income. The principal would form part of her estate in order to benefit his presumed grandchildren, which, of course, had not materialized. Marianne had been the executor of his will.

  “He died when Estelle was seventeen,” Marianne said.

  And Carl Bignall had married her when she was eighteen. Judy knew better than to jump to the conclusion that Marianne had set up for her, aware that Marianne could make a three act drama out of crossing the road. But it was interesting. And under all the theatrical delivery, Marianne was hurting, and angry.

  “I was very surprised to hear she wasn’t well tonight,” Marianne said. “Her Monday nights are very important to her. I thought maybe she really did have the flu, or something, but—well, Carl seems to think it was just Estelle being Estelle.”

  The car made its way around the third side of the square it had been forced to follow, back to where it had come from, and this time was allowed to make the turn into High Street, where she was going to be dropped off. Judy had very little time left to find out what Marianne was trying to say now. “When did you see her last?” she asked.

  “Just today. She came to see me this afternoon, and she was fine. No sniffles. In fact, she’s been much better for the last few weeks. Much happier in herself. She was still worrying about everything and anything, but she didn’t seem so lonely, somehow.” She smiled briefly as she drew up outside the greengrocer’s store above which Judy had her flat and pulled on the hand brake. “I think that’s why Carl failed to make her happy,” she said. “He let her become very lonely.”

  She refused the offered cup of coffee, so the interview was terminated at 10:17, and Judy let herself in to the flat wondering about those imaginary illnesses. Doctors had been known to poison their wives; perhaps Estelle’s illnesses weren’t so imaginary. She had felt unwell again tonight, and now she was dead.

  Or perhaps she was letting Marianne’s melodramatic take on life affect her judgment, she told herself sternly. Off-the-wall theories were Lloyd’s stock-in-trade, not hers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In a dark corner of the already dimly lit Starland, Ryan sat at a table with Baz and his customer, conducting a conversation at the top of his voice in the confident knowledge that no one else in the club could see or hear them.

  “They’re brand new. Look—some of them have still got the wrappers on. Ten CDs for thirty quid. Baz says your dad’s got a market stall—you can sell them tomorrow for seven-fifty each.”

  Wayne, introduced to Ryan by Baz, looked through the CDs by the light of the ever-changing laser that played around the room. “I’ve never heard of any of them,” he said. “I’ll give you a fiver.”

  “It’s jazz. People who are into jazz buy more CDs than anyone,” Ryan said.

  “What?” Wayne turned an ear to Ryan.

  “I said you’ll get rid of them in no time!”

  “Ten quid,” said Wayne.

  “Twenty.”

  Ryan glanced at Baz as Wayne debated with himself whether they were worth it, and winked. Baz winked back, slowly.

  “Fifteen,” Wayne said.

  “Okay, you’re robbing me, but I’ll settle for fifteen.” Ryan had high hopes that a friend of Baz’s could be parted from his money without too much trouble, and moved on to the next item. “Baz says your wife likes cats,” he said.

  “Likes what?”

  “Cats!” Ryan’s reply was bellowed into unexpected quietness as the DJ turned down the music in order to tell someone to move a car.

  “Oh, cats. Yeah.” Wayne nodded as the music blasted out again. “Got three of them,” he said. “Dunno why. All they do is sleep and eat.”

  “Got her a Christmas present yet?” Ryan went into the shopping bag he had with him and pulled out the little ornament. “There,” he said, putting it on the table. “Fifteen quid. What do you think?”

  “It’s green.”

  “It’s jade, innit?”

  “Cats aren’t green. You don’t get green cats.”

  Ryan sighed, shaking his head. “Ten quid, then,” he said. “It’s worth fifty of anyone’s money.”

  “How would you know?”

  “It’s jade, I told you. It’s semiprecious.”

  “It’s green. If it was black or … or … white, that would be different. I’ll give you five for it.”

  “Five?” repeated Ryan. “It cost me more than that.”

  “Or ginger,” Wayne added. “One of hers is ginger. She wouldn’t want a green cat. Five, tops.”

  “All right, five it is. How about this?” Ryan once again went into the shopping bag, put a black leather handbag on the table, and opened it, delving into the tissue paper to pull out the purse. “Matching purse and everything,” he said. “Worth a hundred and fifty in the shops. What will you offer me?”

  “I’ll give you ten for it.”

  Ryan sucked in his breath. “I was looking for thirty.”

  “Ten. And that’s final.”

  “All right,” said Ryan, “You can have it and the CDs and the cat for half what the bag’s worth on its own. Seventy-five for the lot.”

  Wayne shook his head. “I won’t give you more than ten for the bag.”


  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Wayne frowned. “You said it was thirty.”

  “On its own, it’s thirty. As part of the package, it’s ten.”

  Wayne’s frown grew deeper. “How come?”

  “Okay,” said Ryan. “I’ll charge you separately for everything, and knock twenty off the bag, and you’ll see I’m right. What did we just say for the package?”

  “Seventy-five,” said Wayne.

  “Seventy-five. Knock twenty quid off the price of the bag, that’s fifty-five, right?”

  Wayne nodded.

  “Add the fifteen we agreed for the CDs, comes to seventy, plus the fiver for the cat—comes to the same thing. Seventy-five.”

  Wayne checked Ryan’s arithmetic, his lips moving. “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  “Is it a deal, then?”

  “Yeah,” said Wayne, reaching into his back pocket. Ryan pocketed the money just as he remembered that he had an urgent appointment.

  Outside the pulsating club, Ryan and Baz stood on the wet pavement as Ryan counted three ten-pound notes into Baz’s hand. Someone had to make sure he got his beer money.

  “Thanks, Ry.” Baz pushed the notes into his shirt pocket. “I’m going back in now that I’ve got some money. Did you see those two girls at the bar? I think one of them fancies me.”

  “Don’t keep her waiting, then,” said Ryan.

  “Are you not coming back in? Her mate looks okay.”

  “No. I want to go home and have a word with Dex before he goes to bed. I’ll see you, Baz.”

  Baz patted his pocket. “Thanks, Ry,” he said again, and looked at him admiringly. “He didn’t even want that cat, and you sold it to him. It’s a pity we had to drop the price of everything so much, though.”

  Ryan grinned. “Yeah, Baz. Your mate drives a hard bargain.”

  “We always have my whole family here for Christmas—my sister and brother-in-law, and their kids, my mother and father, and my brother and his wife. We make a big thing of it. So there were a lot of presents—there was a rechargeable razor for my father, and an electronic organizer for my mother, loads of stuff for my nephews—computer games, and—” He shook his head. “I have to tell everybody what’s happened,” he said. “I can’t take it in myself yet.”