by Jo Allen
But she wasn’t there and unlikely to be in the pub. Walking briskly along Meeting House Lane, he dropped down through the church close. The light shone out from the church and a couple of dark figures scuttled across the churchyard and in through the north door. Tuesday night was bell-ringing practice. The daffodils thrashed in the stiff breeze and a starling, disturbed, screeched above his head. On the far side of the church close, Claud’s short and stocky figure moved about in a well-lit first-floor window. For a moment Jude watched him as he peeled off his jacket and tossed it to one side, until the church clock, always three minutes slow, struck the half hour and reminded him to move on. An hour in the pub would be enough and then he could decently disengage himself, see if Ashleigh could be tempted back for a bite to eat.
It wasn’t quite dark. The rush hour had died down but the square was still busy with traffic sliding around the curves of the A6 as it slalomed through the town centre. Emerging from the churchyard, Jude crossed the road and headed the hundred yards up the hill to the pub.
Inside, what looked for all the world like an uneasy truce prevailed. At one end of a long table, Tammy nursed a tumbler of gin and tonic and at the other, Doddsy stared into the depths of a glass of orange juice. Between them, an assortment of detectives and crime scene investigators, with Ashleigh and Chris among them, kept the peace. Tyrone was notable by his absence.
‘Happy birthday.’ He gave Tammy a decorous peck on the cheek as she stood up to greet him and then slid into a seat between her and Ashleigh. ‘Sorry I’m late. I got held up.’
‘No let-up, eh?’ Tammy said. ‘You need to take more time off, Chief. You’ll work yourself into an early grave.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘We got you a pint. Was that right?’ She swirled the glass in her hand. ‘I’m not driving. Phil’s coming to pick me up when he’s finished up at the hospital. We’re going out for dinner.’
Jude unbuttoned his coat, laid his phone on the table and took the opportunity to sidle closer to Ashleigh as he took his seat. ‘Cheers, then. Here’s to many more birthdays.’
‘What kept you so long?’ Ashleigh asked him.
‘I bumped into Faye.’
‘Has something come up?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. She just doesn’t seem able to let me out of the building without a word in my ear.’
She smiled at him. ‘Relax. It isn’t you.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I know for sure.’
He lifted a questioning eyebrow.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said as his phone rang, and he turned it upwards with a sigh. Claud Blackwell’s number, which had somehow found its way into his contacts over the past couple of weeks, flashed up.
‘No peace for the wicked, eh?’ He picked it up, stood up and stepped away from the table. One day he’d learn to switch it off. Claud had struck him as a man who never let anything go, who worked long hours and never respected anyone else’s time off and now, it seemed, he had the proof of that. ‘Hi Claud. What can I do for you?’
‘You need to come down to the churchyard. Now!’ Claud’s voice, so unlike his normal hectoring calm, was squeaky with panic. ‘Someone’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Jude needed only a second before he was on his feet, holding the phone away from his ear. ‘Doddsy, come here a minute, would you?’ He was already moving towards the door. ‘Who is it? How? And where?’
‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of blood. It’s in the churchyard. A woman. I’ve dialled 999 but you said you were at the pub. I thought you’d want to know.’
Jude flipped the phone to speaker mode. Equally alert, Ashleigh appeared at his other side and the three of them crowded in over it. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute. Is anyone else there?’
‘A couple of people came by. I—’
‘Don’t let them touch anything.’
‘It’s like last time. All the blood.’ Claud’s self-confidence degenerated into a scared man’s whimper.
‘I’ll be right there.’ The churchyard. Not an isolated lane this time. And Claud Blackwell, close to the spot.
A hundred yards or so separated the pub from the churchyard and he covered them in seconds, racing up the opening from the square. The church bells were ringing a strangely cheerful peal. There was already a knot of people in the alley and he shouldered his way through them. ‘Police! Let me through!’
‘Oh my God,’ one of them was saying. ‘Did you see who it is? Someone says it’s one of the nurses from up at the hospital. Dead.’
Jude’s feet overrode his heart, which had somehow stopped while he ran on. Dozens, probably hundreds of nurses worked up at the hospital, but Becca always signed off her rounds there and the churchyard was on her direct route to Adam’s flat.
She’d have driven. Surely she wouldn’t have walked.
Don’t even think that.
Deep darkness lay against the church’s north wall, out of reach of the streetlamps and the floodlights that illuminated the square sandstone tower. A shadow moved within the shadow. On the wall someone sat sobbing, someone else talking on the phone. ‘Oh God, Mum, I was walking through the church close—’
‘Police!’ said Jude again, his voice less authoritative than he’d have wanted. No-one moved. He put his shoulder to a gap in the group of onlookers and pushed his way through it. The inner shadow took on a form, human size, human shape.
He flicked the torch on his phone. A sensible shoe, flat, black and comfortable like all the nurses worse, appeared briefly in the light and disappeared again when he turned. Dark trousers, like the ones Becca wore for work. He felt in his pocket for his warrant card, swung it in an arc for anyone to see. ‘Police!’ he said for a third time. ‘Stand back!’
His heart slowed as he bent to the figure on the ground. ‘Do we know who—?’
‘No.’ Claud’s face wavered out of the darkness. ‘I’ve never seen her before.’
Jude snatched a look over his shoulder. Doddsy would take the burden from him, even Ashleigh, but he couldn’t let them. He had to see for himself. He lifted the coat and looked down.
His heart slowed again, this time in relief. Long hair glinted copper in the artificial light. The face that stared up at him, the eyes wide in shock, their emptiness exaggerated by the lights and the shadows, by the stark whiteness of the skin, was a stranger to him.
Thank God. Not Becca.
A touch on his sleeve. Ashleigh. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’ She’d seen his moment of weakness and an irrational fury overwhelmed him — with himself for still caring, with her for her ability to see into his soul and know that his first thoughts had been for someone else. He turned his back on her. ‘Let’s get on.’
Blue lights bounced, strobe-like, off the lights at either end of the churchyard. ‘I’ll deal with them,’ Doddsy said to him. ‘You take charge here.’ He headed down towards the ground on swift, light steps.
The bells had stopped. The door of the church opened and one of the PCs closed in on it. ‘Not that way, Sir. I’m afraid you can’t come through here. Use the other door.’
‘I’m on it, as well.’ Ashleigh turned away, then twisted back to him, her face all sympathy. That just made it worse. ‘Just as well we never got started on the drinks.’ She stepped away. ‘Okay. Everybody. Who saw what happened?’
Jude turned back to the body and the two people who stood by it. A cluttered, contaminated crime scene spread in front of him. Claud should have known better. ‘I thought I said not to move the body.’
‘I did tell him not to do that. I did.’ Claud wrung his hands.
‘I had to move her.’ A second figure emerged from the shadow. With a weird lack of surprise, Jude recognised him as Phil Garner, Tammy’s husband. ‘The poor woman was still alive when I got to her, but there was nothing I could do to save her. I’m afraid she’s gone. Stabbed. One wound only, I think. Straight to the heart.’
‘Do you recognise her?
’
‘Why the hell would I?’
In the dim light from the churchyard lamps, Jude looked from him to Claud and back again. Both men’s hands and clothing were smeared with blood. ‘Of course. You did your best. Thank you.’
He’d tried to be neutral but Phil, always quick to take umbrage, bristled. ‘I don’t need you lecturing me about crime scenes. Tammy never lets up. But it’s like I always say to her. I’m a doctor. My first priority is to save life and I’m not going to leave someone to die because of your rules.’
What strange conversations the Garners must share over the breakfast table — a doctor, a policeman, a CSI. ‘Mine, too. But now she’s dead, it’s a crime scene. It’s for us to take over.’ He glanced over his shoulder. Ashleigh had marshalled the onlookers away from the scene and Doddsy was issuing instructions to the first uniformed officers on the scene, one of whom was already unrolling some tape and closing the churchyard off. Among them he recognised Tyrone, speaking quickly to Doddsy and immediately moving on to join Ashleigh in taking the names and addresses of witnesses.
‘Mr Blackwell. You found the body? Did you see anything? Anybody?’
‘No.’ Claud’s voice shook as Jude ushered the two of them away from the scene. ‘I just called 999. I called you. I shouted out for help and this gentleman came and went over to her. I told him what you’d said about not moving her but he didn’t listen. Jesus. Jesus, I feel ill.’
‘It’s okay.’ Jude steered him away, beyond the boundaries of the churchyard, where they couldn’t do any more damage to the scene. A quick gesture brought Ashleigh towards him.
‘Arc lights,’ Doddsy was saying to someone. ‘And for God’s sake get all these people away. And tell them all to be bloody careful where they put their feet.’
‘Tyrone’s taking charge of the witnesses,’ she said to Jude. ‘We’re going to put them in the church to get their preliminary statements.’
‘Not these two. I’ll speak to them myself. Mr Blackwell found the body, and this is Phil Garner. Tyrone’s dad. He’s a doctor. I’ll speak to both of them just now and then we’ll get someone to take them down to the station.’
‘What for?’ Claud’s voice quivered.
‘Routine,’ Ashleigh soothed him. ‘We need to take samples. As you were present at the scene we need to check for cross-contamination.’
‘I suppose. Yes. Oh, God.’
‘I’ll go and twiddle my thumbs until you’re done, then, shall I?’ Phil looked to Ashleigh for direction and she nodded him to the church. ‘I’m allowed to make a phone call, of course? I’d better let Tammy know what’s keeping me.’
He marched off, leaving Jude with Claud. ‘Okay. I just want you to run through what happened. Let’s go into the church and find you a seat.’
‘Claud?’ Another figure appeared, breaking through a gap that the uniformed officers had yet to seal off. Jude cursed. Natalie, on her way back from her latest run, had once more stumbled on the scene of a crime.
‘Don’t come any closer, Mrs Blackwell,’ he called to her.
She stopped. ‘Claud, what’s going on? What’s happened?’
‘Oh God,’ said Claud again, a sigh draining his lungs. ‘Nat. Where the hell have you been?’ He moved towards her like a sleepwalker.
‘I was running. You know I was. I said I’d meet you at the office.’ She was stock-still in front of them, standing in the doorway that led into one of the buildings in the church close, hands braced on the doorposts like a crucified Christ. ‘What’s happened? Is someone hurt?’
‘I found a body in the churchyard,’ he said, wearily. ‘I have to go and give a statement. They’re going to take me to the police station. Come with me, Nat. I need you.’
‘Of course I’ll come with you.’ She’d remained still as instructed but Claud reached her and she clasped his hand in both of hers, lifting it to her lips. ‘Darling. You look awful. So awful.’
‘I know what it was like for you, now.’
‘This way.’ Jude led them around the route one of the PCs directed, away from the body and towards the south entrance to the church. Inside, Ashleigh and Tyrone had half a dozen people sitting on the pews. A further collection sat bemused to one side. The bell ringers, he supposed. Phil sat by himself, tapping blood-stained fingers on the back of a pew and speaking into his phone.
Claud sank into a chair at the back of the church, the nearest place, as if his legs could no longer hold him. ‘I need a glass of water.’
‘I’ll get you one. There must be one somewhere.’ Natalie headed off towards the back of the church.
‘I know the drill by now.’ Claud’s natural bumptiousness was returning. ‘Quick story now. Full statement later. Why do I have to go to the police station?’
‘It’s routine. But it won’t take long.’
‘I understand. Well, mine is a short but bloody tale, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you what I can.’
Natalie re-emerged from the cupboard with a glass of water which she placed in Claud’s hand. For a brief moment Jude did a double-take: her fingertips were stained with blood. Then he looked again and saw it was nail varnish, flaming scarlet in the low-wattage light.
‘There you go, darling.’ Calm words, but Jude noted how she bit her bottom lip when she looked at her husband, and dropped on her knees beside him, staring at him like a devoted puppy.
‘It was weird. Horrible. I’d finished with work for the day and I was just waiting for Nat to come back so we could head home. I was standing looking out of the window. Not that you could see very much. It was just getting dark and it’s windy, so the shadows of the trees were jumping about. The bell ringers had gone into the church and the place was suddenly really quiet.’ He licked his lips. ‘I thought I saw Nat down in the churchyard, standing in the shadows by the war memorial. Just standing.’
‘But I wasn’t—’ She stared at him in bewilderment. ‘I was running. I didn’t run through the churchyard.’ She twisted the fitness tracker on her wrist.
‘It was dark. It was someone who was tall and thin and in a white top. I thought it was you and so I went down to see what you were doing. Why you were just standing.’ His look was a plea for something, or someone, to obliterate the memory of what he’d just seen. ‘ I was worried. I always am. I needed to know you were all right.’
‘And when you got outside?’
‘I walked into the churchyard. Whoever was by the war memorial had gone — there was nobody in the churchyard at all, in fact, which is unusual — so I walked across the grass to see if I could see where Nat had gone.’
‘Across the grass?’
‘Yes, because if she was running she’d have got out of sight in the time it took me to go round by the path. Then I saw someone lying on the ground. A woman. Tall. I thought…’ his voice tailed off. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Chief Inspector, to think someone you care about might be dead.’
Jude, the image of those plain black shoes in front of him, said nothing.
‘I saw as soon as I got close that it wasn’t her,’ Claud went on, after a moment. ‘She was wearing a light-coloured jacket. That was where I made the mistake. At first I thought she’d passed out so I tried to help her up but then I realised. The front of her coat was covered in blood. I dialled 999. And I remembered that you’d said you’d be in town so I called you.’ He lifted the cup to his lips.
‘Did you touch the body?’
Claud hesitated. ‘Yes. I remembered Nat had said when she… I remembered she said he was still alive. I thought maybe this woman was but then I was sure she was dead Then I realised that whoever did it might still be around and I panicked. I might be at risk. I shouted for help, and a man came running over and said he was a doctor. I told him not to move her, but he said she might not be dead, even though I told him she was. And then people started coming to see what was going on. The rest you know.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’ Jude looked around, found a uniformed officer and instru
cted him to take Claud down to the police station. That done, he turned to look for Phil.
Ashleigh had corralled the witnesses in the church and she and Tyrone were almost through the process of taking their names and brief statements. As Jude turned towards Phil, Doddsy appeared in the doorway.
Phil could wait another minute. Jude headed across to the door, pausing by the noticeboard that rippled with worthiness — Lent lunches, prayer groups, services for Easter, a meeting about the proposed Rainbow Festival. ‘Anything?’
‘No sign of the weapon in the immediate area. we’re still looking. But we know who she is.’
‘Oh?’
‘Phil recognised her.’
‘Did he? He said he didn’t know who she was.’
‘He must have had a brainstorm, then. She’s one of the nurses from the hospital. Name of Gracie Pepper.’
He thought for a moment, running through the names of Becca’s nursing friends from three years back, but Gracie’s name rang no bells. ‘I don’t know her.’
They shared a moment’s silence. Doddsy would surely be thinking the same as Jude, that Phil was uncomfortably close to a murder scene. Things were difficult enough with Tammy as it was. Up in town she’d be waiting for Phil to come and get her while her colleagues set to imaging and assessing the body of Gracie Pepper, the nurse. ‘Okay. I’ll talk to Phil now.’
‘Good luck,’ Doddsy said under his breath as Jude turned away.
Phil, whose lean, spare frame was easily recognisable from the back, was sitting to one side in the nave, in deliberate isolation, staring towards the stained glass windows and the image of a risen Christ. One hand rested on the back of the pew in front and he was tapping his fingers in obvious impatience.
With a nod to Tyrone, Jude stepped across and slid into the pew beside Phil. ‘It’s not a great time to meet, is it? Sorry about Tammy’s birthday dinner.’