Pretty Maids All In A Row

by Anthea Fraser

  'What's that building down there?'Jackson asked.

  'Looks like a farm. The Davis's, isn't it? Why?'

  'I thought—Yes, look, Guv! Someone's moving down there!'

  'Come on!' Over another fence and down the grass slope leading to the river which flowed along the foot of the valley. They turned and jogged steadily beside it towards the clump of buildings that made up the farm.

  'Jack Frost's son works here,' Jackson volunteered between gasps.

  As they reached the farm gates an explosion rang out and they both stopped, looked at each other, then raced with renewed urgency in the direction of the yard. A door of one of the sheds was open, and a smell of cordite reached them. Lying on the floor with a shotgun beside it lay the body of the person known as Delia Speight.

  '"And the bullets,"' Jackson said grimly, '"were made of lead, lead, lead.'"

  Behind them came the sound of running footsteps as the occupants of the farm hurried to investigate.

  'Best not go inside, sir,' Webb said firmly, pulling the door shut. 'There's nothing that can be done till the doctor gets here. If we may use your phone?'

  The saddest part of a case like this, Webb reflected, was the people left behind, the ones who got hurt. In this case, Carrie and Bob Davis the farmer's son, both of whom had loved 'Delia'. Carrie at least had known the truth. It was Davis who had the double horror.

  'But I was with her this afternoon,' he kept repeating, as they waited in the farm kitchen for the Coroner's Officer. 'At the Fair. She came back with me, to set Ma's hair. Then we—' He turned away, a hand over his eyes. Webb waited patiently.

  'It's my fault, what's happened,' Davis said in a choked voice. 'She—he—oh God—watched me clean the gun. I propped it against the wall and locked the door as I always do, but she saw me put the key in the churn. If it hadn't been for that—'

  'He'd have found another, perhaps more painful, way,' Webb said. 'He was a confessed murderer, Mr Davis.' That much, Sally'd repeated over the phone. 'He'd have spent the next twenty years in jail, and he couldn't face it. When he knew it was up, he made his choice.'

  Davis shook his head as the other aspect of the shock took precedence. 'I can't take it in. Delia! God, it's foul!'

  Webb couldn't contradict him. The old couple, the farmer and his wife, sat at the table with glazed eyes. 'Cruel, that's what it is!' Mrs Davis said, and Webb noted for the first time her expertly waved hair. 'Cruel and filthy, leading our boy on like that.'

  'No, Ma, she—he didn't. I never had any encouragement.'

  The woman snorted, looked up at Webb. 'Does Carrie know he's dead?' 'Not yet.'

  'Poor girl. And her expecting, too.'

  Webb motioned Jackson into a corner. 'I'll stay here and wait for the team, Ken. Go back to Hinckley's, collect Mrs Selby and take her wherever she wants to go. She can't spend the night in that cottage. Preferably leave her with friends. Then take Sally with you and find Mrs Speight. Tell her the barest details and leave Sally with her. If I'm tied up too late here, I'll see her in the morning.'

  And now it was the morning, and church bells ringing through the village proclaimed it Sunday. Two weeks exactly since the body of Freda Cowley had been found in the ditch.

  With a heavy heart, Webb seated himself in the Speights' neat little house.

  'I've made coffee,' Carrie said. She was unnaturally calm. Face white as paper, eyes black-circled from lack of sleep, but composed and dignified.

  Webb said gently, 'Tell me what happened, Mrs Speight. From the beginning.'

  She folded her hands in her lap like an obedient child. 'I've known Johnnie all my life. He always loved dressing up. I used to think he'd be an actor, he was so good at it. He was only a year older than me, and when we were about fifteen we used to go to the pictures as two girls. We thought it was a joke. But we were always sweethearts. There was nothing—funny—about him.'

  'Go on.'

  'We married when I was twenty and him twenty-one. He'd finished his training and got a job in Ashmartin, so we went to live there. He still dressed in my clothes about the house, but I was used to it by then.'

  'You spoke so convincingly of him as your sister.'

  She gave a sad little smile. 'When he dressed like that, he became another person. I even thought of him as Delia.'

  Webb nodded slowly. He'd heard wives of other transvestites say that.

  'But after a bit I noticed something. Every now and then he'd get restless, like, and go out by himself. He wouldn't take me with him—said he was meeting friends from the salon. After one of these times, there was a report of a rape in the paper. I didn't think anything, but later, I found he'd cut the piece out and hidden it in his drawer.'

  She looked up pleadingly. 'He couldn't help it, Mr Webb. It was an illness, to do with the moon. At full moon, he needed to—well. For a long time I daren't tell him I knew, and when I did he went wild. But then he was nearly caught, and we both panicked. We decided to move, and that was when he changed round. He became Delia outside and Johnnie at home. And we—we came here.'

  'You seemed so established, I thought you'd been here all your lives.' A major oversight, that. He should have checked.

  She nodded. 'We had services to offer, Johnnie with his hairdressing and me with my cleaning, so we were accepted quicker than most. Anyway, I got some Valium and made him take them every month for the four days the moon was full. I told people Delia had migraines at that time of the month. And it worked. When Mrs Daly was attacked, I was sure it wasn't Johnnie. But he'd stopped taking the pills. Killing Mrs Cowley had got him all worked up again and he needed the excitement. Like a drug, he said.' She paused. 'I think I knew, then, it was only a matter of time. We couldn't have gone on much longer.'

  'What will you do now?' Webb asked quietly.

  'Stay here. It's the only home I have, and my ladies have been very kind.'

  'You'll be all right?'

  She nodded. 'I've got the baby to think of now.' Would she, Jackson wondered, be able to sing it nursery rhymes? 'So if that's all, Chief Inspector?'

  'For the moment, yes. Miss Pierce will stay, if you'd like.'

  'No, thank you. I'd rather be alone.'

  So they left her in the neat little house, alone with her memories. Though how they could be any comfort to her, Webb couldn't imagine.

  From the Markhams' guest-room window, Jessica watched the police car leave the village, and some of her tension eased. It was over, then.

  The events of the previous night, ceaselessly replayed in her mind during a sleepless night, now had about them the distance and unreality of a dream. The sick horror of Speight's revelation, the dawning recognition that she was indeed to be his victim, all now were mercifully blanketed by disbelief. And although when Matthew arrived she'd have to go through it again, it would have no personal relevance.

  Yet she knew this respite was temporary. The incidents that had taken place in this village would haunt her for months to come. It would be a long time before she'd remember them with composure, even longer before they were sufficiently absorbed to be incorporated harmlessly in her dramatic repertoire. Only then would the healing be complete.

  The sound of an approaching car punctured her abstraction and she rose awkwardly, gripping the sill, in time to see Matthew turn into the drive. Closing her eyes briefly, Jessica drew a breath of pure thankfulness. Then, with a sense of balance restored, she opened the bedroom door.