The Decoy

by Florrie Palmer

  She decided that last night’s late supper of goat’s cheese and spinach tart was the probable cause of her bad night and the feeling that something was wrong. She recalled a story about Salvador Dali eating an oozing, overripe Camembert before painting “The Persistence of Memory” where in a bleak, nightmarish landscape, melting stopwatches represented the cheese.

  Still lying in the bath, she heard the doorbell go. There was no-one in the house to answer. She presumed it was the postman. One more ring then the bell was silent. Probably trying to deliver a parcel. He’d leave a card if so, which meant she’d have to go to the post office in Broxton to collect it later. She thought about her mother who hadn’t been herself yesterday. Eliza’s heart ached for her. She would try to persuade her to see Dr Gordon later.

  Aware of what an awful night his wife had had, Jay suggested that she should take herself back to bed for the morning. He had assured her there was nothing pressing workwise.

  Eliza lay a while longer in the bath but the water was growing cold and she made herself get out, dry and get dressed. She dawdled over this. A strange reluctance to face the day hampered her movements. However silly it was, she didn’t seem to be able to shake the sensation. She would listen to Jay and go back to bed for an hour or so. All she needed was some sleep.

  Foot down on the accelerator, Hamish drove too fast through Heronsford before joining a main road that led to the A11 for Bury St Edmunds. He was late for work again that morning but this time much later than usual. He hadn’t left until after 10am. Today was the day he was making some big changes to his life. Things could only get better now. He glanced at his shoes on the pedals and realised he was still wearing the grubby trainers he’d been out in earlier. Should he go back and get the lace-ups he usually wore for work? No, he thought with certainty, I won’t. I’ve got no reason to care anymore.

  That same morning at about 9.30am, Annie took Mildred for their daily morning walk. It was the sort of day when a pale light dominates the landscape, making the far distance surprisingly clear and you notice things you rarely have before.

  Dressed in her favourite bright blue blouse and trousers, a blue and red cotton paisley hip-length jacket and navy ankle boots with red laces, with her new walking stick in hand, she and Mildred set out across the field. She was bent and slow because of the pain, but she would not allow it to prevent Mildred’s daily constitutional, as she called it. When Jock and Eeyore saw her, they trotted over, expectant as ever. As always, she took a couple of carrots out of her pocket and fed the animals, patting, stroking and murmuring to them while they munched.

  She walked on to the gate that led to a small wooden bridge across the river, built by Eliza’s ancestors in Victorian times. She crossed the bridge, Mildred trotting behind her.

  On the far side a spindle bush was in full fruit, its leaves turning from green to hues of red and orange. Annie stopped to gaze at the strange, extraordinary berries as vibrant as any of her favourite outfits, glorious deep pink opening to vivid orange seeds. Being a gardener, she knew it was a Euonymus and was aware of the plant’s poisonous properties. She recalled showing the enticing fruit to little Eliza and warning her never to try to eat the berries. She had pointed out the irony to her daughter that the plant dresses to please, but pleases to harm, even to kill.

  A flock of wild geese bayed like crazed hounds as they flew low overhead. Annie walked along the path that led into Rooks Wood. It was only a path because ponies, dogs, humans, badgers, deer and muntjac had trodden down the grass so many times that long ago the ground had become bare.

  The music of Madam Butterfly played in her head as she went into the wood. Fatigue began to catch up with her. Walking slowly, Annie stopped often to rest. She had come to terms with what today held in store and that there was nothing she could do now to change it.

  Little light entered the wood here and the trees grew thick and close. Taught as a child never to look down but always to look up, she paused at a place where the path narrowed. Tipping her head back to gaze up at the tall treetops, she searched for chinks of sky. The great circumferences of the older sycamores trapped her attention with their silvery grey and brown bark cracked and peeling. She studied the ash trees with their deep green deeply fissured ridges and the vertical plates on the alders looked as though a sculptor had slapped long pieces of rough brown clay on their trunks. She looked closely for lichens, mosses and minute insects. She breathed in the delicious smell of damp woodland. She listened to the raucous shrieks of the rooks and crows in the treetops. She contemplated the huge diversity of nature within this little wood and thought about how vast the differences must be in the galaxy. She thought about how long the galaxy had existed and remembered reading recently that Madagascar was ninety million years old.

  The last few lines of The Road Less Taken came to her. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

  A terrible searing pain ran through her as the vicious object smashed against her head. Reeling sideways, she half turned for a moment to see the face of her attacker before the second blow rained down. She didn’t feel the third when her skull cracked open and was already gone by the time the fourth and the fifth strikes hit. Annie B.’s lifeless body lay in a distorted heap on the woodland floor. Rooks Wood watched her killer creep away. Crows screamed and smaller birds whistled in alarm. The place fell silent but for the high, outlandish whines of the little dog whimpering at her mistress’s side.

  At about ten thirty, deciding fresh air might help clear her bleary head, Hamish’s wife Katie took Homer for a walk. She ambled to the bottom of their garden to go through the little wooden gate they had put in that led to a path through Long Wood.

  She was unsurprised when the dog disappeared since it was typical of the crazy animal. He went wherever his nose took him. This time though, he was an unusually long time gone. Katie set off in the direction he’d headed, whistling and calling his name. There were rabbits in the wood. It wouldn’t be unusual to discover he’d put one up and was giving chase.

  At the end of Long Wood, she stepped out onto the edge of the ploughed field. Checking all directions, she soon spotted Homer on the other side running into Rooks Wood on the Armstrongs’ land. She knew they wouldn’t mind if she followed him, which she did with a struggle since walking round the edge of the field, her boots quickly became heavy with mud. When she reached the farm track along the edge of the field, she made quicker headway. Tired of shouting, Katie gave up and simply followed the direction the dog had taken. She followed the perimeter of the wood until she found the faint trace of a narrow track probably made by deer or badgers where she had seen Homer disappear.

  She crossed a ditch and pushed through an overgrown hedgerow. There seemed to be no other way in and as she struggled through the thicket, stray brambles reached for her, snagging her coat, trousers and hair. She pulled herself free, thinking, wish I’d never followed that damn dog. Once she was into the wood, she took a while to find a path leading deeper into it.

  Excited barks sounded ahead of her. She caught a glimpse of Homer’s black and white body through the trees. Katie yelled his name and this time the dog came back to her. He rushed up to her, wagging his tail in an agitated frenzy. Panting with his tongue hanging out, he kept looking from Katie and back to where he had come from. To her surprise, Katie realised Homer was trying to tell her something. The dog set off back into the wood and kept stopping to glance back at her. It was as though he was asking her to follow him. She went with him for a short distance until rounding a bend she found him standing over a large blue shape in the undergrowth. To her further surprise, Annie’s pug came trotting towards her, wagging her tail in welcome. She bent down to pick up Mildred who was snuffling even more than usual.

  “What’s up, Mildred? What is it?”

  It took a few more yards for her to see what it was; a fallen body with bright blue trousers. Her own legs were reluctant to
take her any nearer. Forcing herself forward, she approached. Too terrified to look, she stopped a few yards from the corpse. Even in the darkened gloom of this part of the wood, a quick glance told her what she already knew. Annie B. lay crumpled on the ground, flies buzzing around her. Her body was twisted, her head at a strange right angle in a pool of dark blood, half the skull bashed in, the right eye missing.

  Still managing to clutch on to Mildred, Katie backed a few steps away from the scene before the full shock hit. She dropped the little dog as she sank to her knees and stretched out her arms to prevent herself falling. Shuffling her trembling body over to lean against the trunk of a tree, she turned away from the scene.

  With shaking hands, she covered her face as she began to cry. Nausea overcame her and she threw up onto the ivy-covered ground. Still barking and sniffing round the corpse, Homer came straight to her when she screamed his name. She put him on his lead. She looked for Mildred, who had returned to the body and was sitting panting beside her dead mistress.

  Katie knew she must act. But what should she do? She felt cold, weak and confused. She was unable to think clearly and her hangover was not helping. Then she realised she must go home, call the police, drink a glass of water and when they came, guide them to the body.

  Then what? She remembered Eliza. Oh God, she thought. Who would break it to her? The enormity of what had happened was just beginning to sink in. What should I do? It’s too much to bear. She sat a while longer staring at the dog. Without Homer, she might not have been found… it didn’t bear thinking about. With her right hand still shaking, she groped in the pocket of her Barbour jacket for her phone. He’d know what to do. She called Hamish.

  He listened to Katie’s rambling, shaking voice and was only just able to make sense of what she was telling him. Taken aback by this incomprehensible event, he rubbed his temples and said, “Let me think for a minute. I need to think. I’ll call you straight back, I promise. Don’t do anything. Just stay there. You’re in shock.”

  While Hamish collected his thoughts and worked out the best thing to say to his traumatised wife, he realised he must go home to be with her. This had completely ruined his plans. But since it had happened, he must act.

  Having had an hour’s sleep after her bath, Eliza was dressed and feeling more rested. She was in the kitchen making a shepherd’s pie from the left-over lamb roast they’d had the previous day, when, for the third time that morning, the doorbell rang. Eliza opened the front door to see two male policemen. They looked nervous.

  The moment she saw them, a horribly unfamiliar but remembered feeling hit her. She felt sick. She knew what they were going to say. Saying nothing herself, she stared at the officers until one of them spoke, “Good morning, madam. Are you Mrs Armstrong?”

  She replied automatically. For some reason she felt a heightened sensitivity to the fact that it was starting to spit rain.

  “May we come in, please?”

  Without a word, she left the door open and walked into the sitting room. Her legs beginning to feel wobbly, she sank onto an armchair. The police stood awkwardly in the room. The plain clothes man in charge introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Waterman and the other policeman as a family liaison officer. But all Eliza could hear was a buzzing in her ears.

  The younger officer hovered uncomfortably while the more relaxed but stiff detective said, “I’m afraid we have some very bad news, Mrs Armstrong.”

  Eliza heard herself shout, “It’s Mum, isn’t it? It’s Mum! I know it is!”

  “Is Mr Armstrong at home? It would be best if he were present.”

  She half screamed the words, “Just tell me!”

  “I am very sorry, Mrs Armstrong, but it is about your mother. I’m afraid she has been found in what we believe is known as Rooks Wood.”

  “Is she all right? What’s happened? In Rooks?” She half laughed in the man’s face.

  “Mrs Armstrong, I am very sorry to have to tell you that Mrs Berkeley is deceased.”

  “Deceased? Deceased? She’s dead? She can’t be?”

  The second policeman came over to Eliza and gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Where might Mr Armstrong be, Eliza? I think he should be here.”

  Eliza’s voice was small. She managed to say, “In the office.”

  “Are you able to explain where the office is, please?”

  “Over there.” Eliza gestured in the direction of the yard.

  “Shall I, sir?”

  “Yes please.” The detective stood looking around the room. It was plain how ill at ease he was.

  Soon, the other policeman returned with Jay behind him. His face grey and shocked, he rushed to Eliza’s side. Dropping to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her and held her. They sobbed together. Eventually Eliza let go of him and leant forward in the chair.

  “Was it a heart attack?”

  “I’m afraid it is worse than that, Mrs Armstrong. I am very sorry to tell you that it appears Mrs Berkeley was the subject of a brutal attack.”

  Eliza sat still, her body rigid. “What did you say? What did you say?” She felt nauseous.

  Jay, who had by now moved to the arm of the armchair, rose to his feet. He looked furious.

  Both policemen stepped nearer the couple. People react in many different ways to the news of violent death and it is impossible to predict how any one person will respond.

  Jay glared at the policemen, his fists clenched. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  “I really am very sorry to have to tell you, sir, but Mrs Berkeley was killed by a deliberate blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Eliza had started to ask “How? Where? Why?” when she fell back into the chair and passed out.

  Hamish had arrived home by the time the police reached Wood Farm. In spite of her acute distress, Katie had managed to carry Mildred home and to explain the whereabouts of the body to the police. They had bought an Alsatian with them to help sniff out the corpse. They asked Hamish to explain how vehicles could reach the wood. He showed them where the farm track led off the lane near their house to the back of Rook’s Wood.

  The murder scene was soon discovered. A tent was erected over the body. The scene of crime officer worked alongside the police, locating, collecting, preserving and cataloguing what little evidence there was. While wild animals hadn’t yet discovered the corpse, the crows had already taken one of her eyes and, along with blowflies, had found her wounds before the body’s discovery. DCI Waterman was studying the ground around a nearby tree.

  A young officer who had been posted to wait by the entrance to the wood, shouted, “Pathologist’s here, guv! Shall I show her the vic?”

  The detective came towards the threesome walking towards the dead body. He introduced himself to the forensic pathologist and her assistant.

  “An old girl been whacked.”

  “Who found her?”

  “Local woman walking her dog this morning. The dog sniffed her out.”

  “Know who she is yet?”

  “The woman knew her. Mrs Berkeley from Manor Farm.”

  “Anne Berkeley, no less! She was a well-known criminal defence barrister. She tended to support the poor and underdogs, usually getting them off. A good woman by all accounts.”

  The detective felt deeply that someone who had used the law for what they believed were good reasons was worthy of his very best attempt to find who killed her.

  “Any weapon found?” the scene of crime officer asked.

  “Not yet. We’re still searching.”

  When she arrived, the pathologist was fairly certain that what they politely called “the victim” was lying where she was killed and that no attempt had been made to move her. It looked as though there has been no resistance to the attack and that the woman had been hit with great force from behind, probably falling at once, where the assailant had finished the job with further blows. Nor, it seemed, had anything been taken from the body: her rings, a necklace
and a bracelet were present.

  The pathologist took samples of the blood spill on the ground, tapings from exposed body surfaces and clothing as well as combing out some head hair. She swabbed the mouth, teeth and genitals. She took scrapings from underneath the fingernails, but her main examination was of the head wounds. To move the body before this had happened would mean placing the head in a separate bag from the body, risking bleeding into the bag that could result in vital evidence going missing. This was a challenging task. It was never easy to establish what weapon had caused such injuries as Annie’s.

  The first question she needed to establish was whether the timing of injuries coincided with the time of death. She concluded that they fitted with perimortem. Studying the angles of the depressed and linear fractures on the back-right side of the cranium, she established they were consistent with a right-handed aggressor. She searched for obvious remnants of wood or metal but with no luck. The question of what was used to kill the old woman would have to wait until the autopsy.

  While this was happening, the area around the murder scene was thoroughly searched. The police tried to work out from whence the killer had come and how they had got there. Was the incident spontaneous or planned? What escape route had the killer taken?

  There were no obvious clues to go on. The ground was very dry and although they did find trampled ivy and broken debris on the ground where it looked as though someone had stood close to a broad tree trunk, there were no clues or footprints found on the ground. The trail Katie had left when she had forced her way through the hedgerow could be seen but there were no signs that anyone else had trodden that way to enter the wood. Had the killer followed Annie or waited for her hidden somewhere in the wood? Had they come in from the east side as had Annie, or via the farm track on the west side that lead straight to a well-worn path through the wood? This western path conjoined with the oval one that traced the shape of the copse returning to itself at the east end. This was the one that Annie and other Armstrongs normally used.