The Decoy

by Florrie Palmer

  In the depths of the wood, police found the remnants of a recently abandoned site where it looked like someone had illegally camped. They found discarded syringes with traces of heroin and empty food cans nearby. They worked on the theory that Annie may have stumbled upon this person and been killed by them.

  However, photos were taken of a place beside a large tree close to the crime scene where it looked as though someone had stood for a while, because the undergrowth was broken and flattened. There were no footprints, or anything found to give any clues as to who it might have been.

  So now, they had two possibilities. If a heroin addict had killed her, it is likely they would have made attempts to remove the rings and the bracelet Robin had given her that Annie had always worn. But this had not happened.

  Forensics soon worked out that the fire had not been lit for some weeks, traces of insects and bacteria in the cans corroborating this.

  “Time of death? Any guesses?” The DI asked the pathologist.

  “Judging from the signs of lividity throughout the body and given its temperature and the blood clotting, it was not long ago. Finding her so soon has been an advantage. I would say…” her watch read 1.10pm, “…probably somewhere between 9.30am and 10.30am, nearer 10am. Officially, I’d have to say 9am to 11am.”

  “Thank you. That’s most helpful.”

  The detective now considered the motive. With nothing obvious stolen and no signs that the body had been interfered with, spontaneous greed was discounted. Jealousy? Hardly. Revenge? Possibly. Sex? No. Hate? Thrill? Perhaps the former, but surely not the latter in so out of the way a place. He considered the old police adage, “find out how a person lived, and you will find out how they died” and wondered whether that could be applied in this strange case of an old lady killed while walking her dog on her grounds.

  Shattered by what she heard, Rose Cooper was barely able to respond to Jay when he called. For as long as she could remember, she had adored Annie B. The news would not sink in. After the phone call, she sat at her kitchen table weeping for a long time. A person who drank little alcohol, she pulled out the brandy usually kept for special occasions. Shuddering at the rich, strong taste, she gulped down a glass.

  She wished Chris had been at home. She called his mobile asking if he could come home as soon as possible. She could not recall ever feeling as bereft as she did today. The questions went around and around her head. How dare such a thing happen? How was it possible someone had killed such a wonderful person? Why? Why? Why?

  She drank two more glasses of brandy. She needed to sleep before facing Eliza and the family later.

  Within an hour and half, Chris arrived home to find Rose snoring loudly on their bed. He laid down beside her and put a heavy arm over her sleeping body. She stirred and gripped hold of his hand. They cried together.

  The phone rang and rang in the Armstrongs’ house. Jay was deliberating avoiding answering but it was so persistent that he finally took the call. It was Hamish, who apologised for calling but explained that Katie had found Annie, that he was back at home and that they had Mildred and were happy to keep her for the meantime.

  Mildred! They had quite forgotten about the little dog. At least she was cared for and with friends. He thanked Hamish and asked him to pass on his gratitude and sympathy to poor Katie who was apparently still in shock.

  Hamish had called the doctor, she had been given a sedative and was sleeping in bed.

  Doctor! Sedative! Jay tried to clear his head. In spite of the police suggesting it, he had forgotten to call Dr Gordon. He was about to do so when the doctor appeared at the door. The kindly faced man removed his rain-soaked trilby, bent his head, came into Manor Farm and, giving Jay a small hug, told him how very sorry he was.

  He himself had been terribly shocked by the news of his old friend’s manner of death. “I’ve seen Katie Nicholson and she’s in a dreadful state. And the police have contacted me too,” he told Jay. “They’ve asked me to send Annie’s medical records to the coroner’s officer and the pathologist.”

  Jay had insisted Eliza rested in bed and showed Dr Gordon up to their bedroom. Together, the men sat on the bed beside the distraught woman. The doctor desperately tried to comfort Eliza. He took hold of her hand. “I am so dreadfully sorry to hear about what has happened. I cannot imagine how you must be feeling, Eliza.”

  She looked at him in misery.

  “The only comfort I can offer is to remind you that your mother had only months left to live. Terrible though this is, a quick death like that has saved her what would have been a slow, painful and horrible one.”

  Silence was all Jay and Eliza could hear. As the doctor’s words slowly sank in, they both looked at him in amazement.

  The doctor’s eyes widened. “Oh, good heavens! You didn’t know? She didn’t tell you? Oh, good gracious, I had no idea…” his words trailed away, and for a few moments the three of them became soundless sitting statues.

  Eliza rubbed her exhausted eyes. Jay ran his hand through his hair again and again. This was too much to take in. What was the man saying?

  All Eliza could manage to say was, “What?”

  Jay clutched hold of her other hand.

  “I presumed, um, I thought, er, I’m so sorry. I assumed she would have told you.” The doctor cleared his throat. “Mrs Berkeley was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer. It was incurable and she knew she had between two and six months to live.”

  They were both unable to speak. Eliza’s head spun with the shock of it all. This couldn’t be true. Her mum would have told her. Then she began to laugh. The laughter grew and soon she was cackling hysterically.

  Dr Gordon opened his old Gladstone bag.

  “Eliza, I am going to give you an injection that will help you deal with this dreadful shock. It will help you relax and sleep and feel a little better.”

  He rubbed one of her arms with ethanol and injected her with Midazolam. Within five minutes, she was calm again, and in ten she was fast asleep.

  “Yes, er, are Mr and Mrs McKenzie in, please?”

  The housekeeper showed Hamish into the sitting room. “I believe Mrs McKenzie is in the gymnasium, sir. Mr McKenzie is in his study. I’ll fetch him.”

  “Could you ask them both to come, please? I have some very sad and important news.”

  “Goodness! Yes, of course, oh dear, I’m so sorry. I shall let Mr McKenzie know straightaway.”

  Bob strode into the sitting room.

  “Hamish! What’s all this? Not some prank, I trust? Mrs Hammond said you mentioned something about a death? Not another, surely?”

  At that point, Stella ran into the room. Panting slightly, she was wearing trainers and a black leotard with her blonde hair tied in a ponytail.

  Hamish suggested they sit down. Then he broke the news. “Thought I should tell you and a few other friends before it gets in the papers or you call Jay and Eliza without knowing.”

  A dark silence descended on the room. Then Bob said, “Are you sure? Annie B.? But we saw her yesterday. It can’t be possible.” He fell quiet again. Hamish waited for him to absorb the information. Then he continued, “But why? Why would anyone want to kill a harmless old lady? In such a frightful way? I just can’t believe what you’re telling me, Hamish. You a hundred per cent certain you’ve got the facts right?”

  “Katie found her, Bob. In Rooks Wood. Head bashed in.”

  Stella’s mouth went dry. She began to shake. Not Annie B. Not her lovely new friend, that sweet, kind-hearted old lady who had given her such good advice when they had met on the train. How was it possible? It was just too, too sad. She was unable to speak. Bob went to her side and put his arm round her.

  “Oh Jesus Christ! Oh my God!” he said. “How simply goddam frightful. Why would anyone do such a thing? I mean, who uses that wood apart from the Armstrongs themselves? After all, it is private property. What are the police saying?”

  “I don’t know any more about it. It only happen
ed this morning. Just wanted to let you both know. Poor Katie’s in shock but that’s nothing to the way Eliza and the family must be feeling. I must go as I have to collect the kids from school. Others to call too.”

  “Understood, understood,” said Bob. “What a terrible piece of news but good of you to let us know. Jesus Christ! Can’t take it in! Give our love to poor old Katie – must have been a goddam awful shock, poor girl.”

  “Heronsford seems to be cursed.”

  “It certainly does.”

  Stella still couldn’t speak. She just nodded, tears gently rolling down her cheeks. Hamish left quietly. He had done what had to be done.

  Regular contact was made between the pathologist and the DI that continued throughout the murder investigation. For the police, their first tasks were to ascertain motive, opportunity and means. As far as they were concerned, no murder was perfect and people usually do not cover their tracks as well as they think they have done. The vast majority of murderers are known to their victims, although in this case, Annie may have stumbled across some wrongdoing or been the subject of attack for gain.

  Jay did not want to leave Eliza’s side in case she woke up.

  The police had stayed at the farm asking Jay many questions. He was asked where he had been at the time Annie had died. When he said he had been in his office, the police asked for any proof he had to offer. He was able to say he had spoken to Eliza on his phone at about ten when she called him about the doorbell ringing at the house that she couldn’t answer because she was in the bath. He told them he had been on his computer making changes to the Eliza Berkeley Designs website. Before long, it became too much for him and, choking with emotion, he broke down in tears.

  “I loved her too, you know. I really loved her. She was wonderful and a better mum than I ever had. Today I need to be with my wife. Can’t you please come back another time? Just let us have some time to take this all in and be alone. Please.”

  DCI Waterman nodded solemnly. “You must understand, Mr Armstrong, that a terrible crime has been committed and that it is our duty as officers of the law to find out by whom and for what reason. Until that time, you and your family will be expected to remain on these premises; in other words, no expeditions without our cooperation, okay? The family liaison officer who has been assigned to your case will visit you here again tomorrow. You can ask him all the questions you like. He is there to help you and the family.”

  “I do understand, of course. Thank you, officers, for all your help, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

  21

  6–8 November

  The following day, the police returned to the farm. Still extremely shaken up, Eliza and Jay were questioned for what seemed to them, ages. The senior investigating officers were accompanied by what was turning out to be a sympathetic family liaison officer. He bustled off to make tea for them all and tried to make the interviews as friendly as possible. He did not want the couple alarmed at this stage. When Eliza started to weep again, he sat beside her and said, “You’re doing really well, Eliza, really well. You’re being a great help and together we’ll get whoever did this, don’t you worry.”

  Since Manor Farm was the only house along the no-through road, house-to-house inquiries were ruled out. Instead, among the many things the police wanted to know was who had recently visited the farm. Jay provided them with the names, addresses and numbers of those who had been to lunch on the Sunday; a day that seemed a very long time ago. The police also asked them whether they would object to the whole family giving their fingerprints. The DI had a mobile fingerprinting device, so they wouldn’t need to go to the police station. They were reassured it was normal practice and more than likely so that the police could eliminate them from their enquiries.

  “As you can see, my daughter isn’t home from school yet. Can you leave fingerprinting her until tomorrow, please? We would like time with her alone to explain what happened to her grandmother, about which she will be extremely upset. She spent last night staying with a friend. She’s only twelve. Our eldest, Juliet is at Bristol University and has not been here for over a month. If you want hers, you’ll have to go to Bristol.”

  “Yes of course, Mr Armstrong. We just need to rule them out. Thank you for your understanding.”

  In the lab, the pathologist set to work again. She used a stereoscope to search for remnants of other material such as wood or metal and found some single metal particles, smears and a powder-like deposit on the bone surface. She had taped together the pieces of broken skull and the pattern suggested a heavy blunt instrument with a space between two blunt heads. It was finally concluded that the weapon had been a twelve- to fifteen-inch monkey wrench.

  Now the police needed to hunt for it. They had found nothing in Rook’s Wood so either someone had kept it or thrown it somewhere, the most likely place being the river.

  The police searched the riverbank on the wood side but there was no trace that any human had recently been near. The investigating officer saved the expensive and time-consuming business of the river for later, if they could not find the weapon elsewhere.

  The autopsy also revealed that Annie had advanced pancreatic cancer and she would have had only a few months to live. They released the provisional results within a few days of the murder, although the full findings of the inquest would not be available for at least six weeks.

  The police had interviewed the McKenzies, the Nicholsons, Patrick Ryan, Pam Sowerby and Rose Cooper, and of course the Armstrongs, in depth, collating their various stories of how the lunch had gone on Sunday.

  “It was a nice lunch,” Katie had said. Then added with a glance at Hamish, “Even if the lamb was a bit overdone.”

  Leaping to Eliza’s defence, Hamish had countered this with, “I thought it was cooked exactly right. It was a lovely fun lunch, as it always is when Eliza entertains.”

  Katie had seemed to grit her teeth and look annoyed. The police didn’t know that lately she was becoming more certain that her suspicions about her husband were correct. Except that now she had decided Hamish was not having an affair with Stella but with Eliza.

  Hamish described Jay as even more anxious than usual. But then, fearing that might have incriminated his friend, he added, “But, you know, the poor guy’s got serious business problems, so he’s anxious anyway.”

  “Lovely lunch, it was,” Bob had said. “Excellent company apart from Annie who seemed a bit off form. Think she was in some kind of pain, poor old woman. She was definitely limping.”

  Rose, who had come in to help with the serving and washing-up, commented that everyone seemed happy and that things appeared normal except for Annie. “She left early as I think, unusually for her, she wasn’t enjoying herself. Actually, I had been worried about Annie B., sorry, I mean Mrs Berkeley, for some time. She was definitely losing weight and was in quite a bit of pain. But she didn’t seem to take it seriously. I did once suggest she went to the doctor but she told me she was fine. It was just a bit of back pain.”

  Patrick had also mentioned how out of sorts Annie B. had seemed.

  They had asked each individual for samples of their fingerprints and DNA to “exclude them from any enquiry into Mrs Berkeley’s death”.

  Stella had hesitated. “It’s just… I had my nails done this morning.” The detective had smiled kindly and promised it would wash off with soap and water.

  The police also asked what they had been wearing at the time. This seemed very strange to those being asked. They wondered why ever the police would want to know that. When he met Hamish and Katie in the pub later that day, Bob exploded, “Bloody goddamned cheek. What the hell do they need to know about the clothes I wore on Sunday for?”

  On Tuesday morning, deeply upset by the news of Annie B., excusing herself from lectures, Juliet had caught a train back from Bristol to London and then to Heronsford. She had been determined to be as much a rock to her parents as she could.

  Forever grateful to Eliza for her help when
Louise had died, Patrick had suggested Holly stayed with him until things sorted themselves out. Sinead empathised strongly with Holly, who had been shaken to the core by Annie B.’s murder. The two girls became interdependent on one another.

  Rose had driven Holly to Cambridge in time for school in the morning. Eliza knew Holly wanted to stay at home, but she felt that it would do her no good to hang around brooding and better that she should struggle through school. She hoped Holly would stay away from home as long as possible at the moment.

  Hugh Dunlop, Annie’s solicitor, was fond of spicy food. On Monday, 5 November, he had taken his wife out to supper in an Indian restaurant near their home in London. They’d had a delicious meal. She a tandoori and he, a pork curry.

  Soon after midnight, it had started. His stomach had woken him, suggesting he ran to the bathroom. The ensuing havoc with his system meant he had spent the majority of the night in that room along with symptoms of fever, stomach cramps, nausea and diarrhoea. There was no possibility of his going into the office that day so he lay sleeping most of the day, trying to recover in his bed.

  On Wednesday, he’d got up and started to dress for work, but he was so obviously weak and exhausted that his wife had sent him back to bed. So again, he had slept most of the day. Even noise had bothered him so the radio beside his bed remained silent. Having tried a little bread and butter in the evening, it had just exacerbated the problem and he’d crawled back to bed.