The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  ‘The factory is in Stansfield,’ she replied. ‘ Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You must know!’ Pauline banged down the mugs.

  ‘I imagine they’ll prepare a case for the CPS,’ she said.

  Initials. Everyone talked in initials these days. She looked at the inspector, eyebrows raised in a query.

  ‘The Crown Prosecution Service.’

  Pauline closed her eyes briefly. The kettle began to murmur, the birds were singing outside. At night, when it was quiet, you could hear the river flow. Her kitchen looked out on to old Malworth, her sitting-room overlooked the river and the park. Gordon had got her that. ‘Arson’s very serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course. You know it is.’

  The kettle became slightly hysterical, as it did just before it boiled.

  ‘What’ll happen to him?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, Mrs Pearce.’

  ‘What do you think will happen to him?’ She had opened her eyes, but it was the kettle she watched; she still hadn’t looked at the inspector.

  ‘I really don’t know. But he’s never done any thing like that before. He was under a considerable strain, he didn’t do it for insurance or anything. No one’s life was endangered – he didn’t use petrol or paraffin – I’d say he’s not in too bad a position.’

  Pauline smiled a little, and turned. ‘Maybe you should defend him,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Pearce – I’d say there was an even more serious crime to be considered.’

  The kettle stopped complaining, and steam burst from the spout as it clicked off. ‘Gordon hasn’t committed an even more serious crime,’ said Pauline.

  ‘Did you know that he had tried to set fire to the factory when you lied to me about when he came home on Monday night?’

  ‘Yes.’ Another lie. Pauline spooned coffee into the mugs, and poured the water carefully, stirring as she did so. ‘ Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Please. So that’s why you lied?’

  ‘Yes. How much sugar?’

  ‘One, please. You told me that you heard someone in the studio – you thought it was your husband and Mrs Austin. Was that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About quarter of an hour before Gordon came in.’

  ‘Which would make it eleven, not ten o’clock.’

  Pauline picked up the mugs and went back through to the sitting-room, putting them down on the coffee table. ‘ Yes,’ she said.

  ‘In which case,’ said the inspector, sitting down, ‘ it wasn’t Mrs Austin that you heard.’

  Pauline almost laughed at the simplicity of it all. Her brain hadn’t been able to sort it out. She had just kept telling herself that Lennie couldn’t be dead, because Lennie wasn’t home. It was simple. It wasn’t Lennie in the studio.

  ‘Did you hear someone actually go in to the studio?’

  Pauline thought hard, listened in her head to the sound. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘It was like someone trying the door. Rattling it. But when I looked there was no one there, and the light was on. So I thought—’

  The inspector put down her mug and walked over to the window. ‘You can’t actually see the shop fronts,’ she said. ‘ The ledge cuts it off.’

  ‘No. So when I looked out, and saw the light … I just thought she had gone in there. I watched almost until Gordon came in, but I didn’t see her.’

  ‘Did you see Mrs Beale?’

  Pauline shook her head, but the inspector was still looking out of the window herself.

  ‘Did you see Mrs Beale?’ she asked again, turning. ‘She was walking home from the Riverside at about that time.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see your husband?’

  Pauline went cold. ‘No!’ she shouted.

  ‘He came home quarter of an hour later?’

  Don’t let her fluster you. You knew this was going to happen. You knew all along that this was going to happen if you left Gordon alone with them. You sent that other policeman to the pub, you knew Gordon would tell them about the fire, you knew. You wanted to tell them the truth about when you heard someone at the studio.

  ‘Yes. Don’t forget your coffee.’

  She smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said, sitting down again. Then her attitude changed; something had obviously occurred to her. ‘Could someone have been leaving the studio, rather than entering?’

  Pauline shook her head. ‘I’d have seen her,’ she said. ‘Unless she was coming up to the flats.’ She realised what she was saying, and her eyes widened. ‘You don’t think Lennie …’ Her hand pointed vaguely next door.

  Inspector Hill didn’t react at all. She finished her coffee, and stood up.

  Pauline was ready for her this time. For whatever casual question she threw over her shoulder on her way out.

  ‘You and your husband were both here at eleven fifteen,’ she said, her voice stem and uncompromising.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that the truth this time, Mrs Pearce?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Then who do you think killed Mrs Austin?’ she asked.

  Pauline stared at her. ‘What? How should I know?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t that your job?’ She stood up. ‘ You think it was Gordon.’ she said. ‘You think I’m lying.’

  ‘Why would I think you were doing anything else?’

  ‘He was here, with me, at quarter past eleven. He was ill from the fumes – I thought he was drunk, but it was the smoke from the fire. He was at the factory, then he was here – Gordon didn’t kill anyone!’

  ‘So who killed Mrs Austin? Tasker?’

  Pauline, Pauline. You’re letting her rattle you. ‘ No!’ she shouted. ‘She wasn’t afraid of him – Jonathan Austin’s told you she was afraid of him, but she wasn’t!’

  ‘You told me that she wanted nothing to do with him,’ the inspector reminded her.

  ‘She didn’t want to get involved with him again, but she wasn’t afraid of him!’

  ‘You think Jonathan Austin killed his wife?’

  Pauline didn’t know what to think any more. But that much she knew, now that she was being made to think about it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think he did.’

  She was gone. Pauline went over the conversation again in her head. She hadn’t been in control of it, not at any point. But she hadn’t let anything slip. She’d have to ring Gordon; tell him. She had said that she knew about the fire. He would have to know she’d said that.

  It took her frightened mind long moments to remember the new number; it rang out.

  ‘Austin-Pearce.’

  ‘Mr Pearce, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Pearce isn’t in today. Can someone else help you?’ Pauline hung up.

  ‘Between eleven o’clock and midnight,’ said Freddie. ‘ But then, you told me that.’

  Lloyd grunted, standing as far away as possible from what Freddie was doing.

  Drake, just like Judy, had found something very important that he had to do at just the same time as the post-mortem. Lloyd hadn’t pressed him; he was in a rather mellower frame of mind today.

  ‘Nothing to add to what I already told you, really. I told Judy at the time – I can’t really say whether she turned away from the blow, or was actually hit from behind. I’d think the former – she saw it coming, turned her head, and …’ He demonstrated on Kathy, who acted her part with the same dispassionate ease as Freddie. He couldn’t have found himself a better disciple. Judy said that she and Sandwell were very serious now; Lloyd thought he preferred the squeamish approach to pathology himself. Kathy was a nice girl, but he’d feel much happier about her if dead bodies made her sick.

  ‘… and it would catch her there,’ said Freddie, describing a circle on Kathy’s head, just above the right temple. ‘Could a woman have done it?’

  ‘A shot-putter, maybe,’ said Freddie. ‘The average woman wouldn’t have anything like enough strength.’

  ‘What about if she was out of her mind with �
� I don’t know – rage, jealousy?’

  Freddie shook his head. ‘ I’m talking about a shot-putter who is out of her mind,’ said Freddie. ‘There were six ferocious blows,’ he said. ‘To the walls, the furniture – and finally to the victim.’

  Lloyd raised his eyebrows. ‘We know that, do we? The damage to the furniture happened first?’

  ‘Yes. There’s no trace of blood or—’

  Lloyd held up his hand. Fine,’ he said. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘And it was the murder weapon that caused the damage to the furniture,’ said Freddie. ‘ So that was first. It was the sixth and final blow that killed her. A man,’ he said decidedly. ‘I won’t wear a woman unless she’s got biceps like a boxer.’ He smiled. ‘I thought the lady next door heard a man’s voice?’

  ‘She heard someone screaming, and someone hysterically shouting one word,’ said Lloyd. ‘I just wanted to be sure.’

  The next-door neighbour hadn’t heard raised voices before the commotion that had so alarmed her, which didn’t suggest a row that had got out of hand. But then, some people didn’t shout. Lloyd could never imagine not shouting when he was angry. Maybe that’s what stopped him picking things up and attacking people with them. But she had heard the one word shouted, over and over again. Whore. Lloyd sighed. Sex had a lot to answer for.

  There seemed to be an element of premeditation, despite the ferocity of the attack; no row, and prints removed from the ashtray. But not from the phone.

  ‘The swabs are negative,’ said Freddie.

  ‘No assignation with Tasker in the back of her car, then,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said Freddie. ‘They could have taken precautions. But there’s nothing which suggests intercourse. And she was fully dressed, her underwear was all present and correct – no forcible removal or hurried dressing. Apart from the blouse being unbuttoned, that is. But that just suggests a goodnight kiss and a cuddle, really. Her wedding ring wasn’t removed forcibly, either. I think she chose to take it off.’

  ‘They’ve done tests,’ said Lloyd. ‘The ring could have been in the ashtray all along – wielding it with that amount of force would keep it in there, rather than shake it out.’

  ‘I smell a theory,’ said Freddie. He looked up from the body, rather crestfallen, Lloyd thought. ‘She was a normal, healthy woman of thirty,’ he said. ‘Nothing odd or unusual about her at all. Oh – she had been drinking,’ he said. ‘Gin. But not to excess.’

  ‘You’re just waiting for the day when you can tell me that someone died of arsenic poisoning, aren’t you?’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Ah, those were the days. Spilsbury didn’t know he was born.

  Now it’s all brute force and ignorance. Murderers in those days had a bit of style, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ll settle for ignorance, thank you,’ said Lloyd. ‘ I don’t think I could bear working with you on a stylish murder.’

  Freddie laughed. ‘ I’m doing the other one after lunch,’ he said.

  Lloyd skipped lunch.

  Back in his office, he read the forensic reports again. The balcony doors had been opened, not forced. They could only be opened from the inside, even when unlocked. The prints on the handle were smudged, and the ones they could decipher were those of Jonathan Austin, whose prints they had managed to obtain, unlike Pearce’s. Mrs Austin’s prints were on the phone, as were Tasker’s. Austin’s prints were everywhere, not unnaturally. And his story sounded weak, but perhaps it was true.

  He couldn’t tell Judy what he had in mind about that.

  The knock was perfunctory, and she walked into his office. ‘You think Mrs Austin killed Rosemary Beale,’ she said, sitting down.

  Oh, well. She was a good detective. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, but he didn’t get the look. He raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t want to demolish the theory?’

  ‘Not yet. I want to talk it through.’ She sat back. ‘ Did Mrs Beale die in Malworth, or didn’t she?’

  ‘I didn’t want to advance the theory until I had a bit more to go on,’ he said.

  ‘That’s never stopped you before. You didn’t tell me because you thought I would be biased in Mrs Austin’s favour!’

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘I thought it might upset you.’

  Judy relaxed a little. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘ I just wish that—’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘You wish that your first case didn’t involve me and Stansfield,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. And I wish my divisional DCI wasn’t on holiday. I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be reporting to, you or Allison.’

  Lloyd knew something about that, but she would be even angrier if he told her, so he didn’t. ‘Allison,’ he said. ‘You’re liaising with me. You’re reporting to Allison.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘So let’s liaise. I don’t really see how the times work.’

  Lloyd sat back. ‘The fight in the Riverside started at about twenty to eleven,’ he said. ‘ If she left as it started, she would have passed Mrs Austin’s studio before eleven.’

  ‘Beale says she left when the police came.’

  Lloyd nodded. ‘Or maybe when they were called,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t sure.’

  Judy nodded.

  ‘Let’s say she was in there, with Tasker. And this woman who, according to rumour, is already threatening her security, sees her. She goes up to talk to her, but Mrs Beale is already on the phone to Austin to tell him what she’s seen – which answers your question about why she was so eager to ring Austin – and Mrs Austin flies into a rage, and strangles her.’

  ‘How did she get in without being on the video?’

  ‘She just followed her in – that door takes an age to close.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Judy; frowning a little. ‘ It does.’

  ‘She goes back down, knowing Austin knows, throws her ring into one of the ashtrays, and picks up Tasker. Tasker is going to take the car back to the garage for her.’

  ‘Does he know?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he thinks he’s just covering up their having met. They part company at the post office, and that’s where Drake sees them. The car’s parked out of sight.’

  ‘All this by ten past eleven?’ Judy looked dubious. ‘She’s a quick worker,’ she said.

  Lloyd shrugged. ‘Between ten and quarter past. It’s just possible. And she and Tasker didn’t part company, of course – he was in the flat. We have to find him.’

  ‘So who killed her? Tasker?’ asked Judy. ‘And did she bring the ashtray with her to make it easy for him?’

  He smiled at the enormous flaw in his theory, but he felt a little unhappy. It was Tasker she was querying, not Mrs Austin, because she was so convinced that Austin killed his wife. He wished she didn’t have such tunnel vision where Austin was concerned. It seemed to him that Mrs Austin seemed capable of inspiring passion in everyone but her husband.

  ‘What was Mrs Austin like?’ he asked.

  ‘She was very attractive,’ said Judy. ‘ To both sexes. But she had … I don’t know. Sex appeal isn’t quite what I mean. Men chatted her up,’ she said. ‘All the time. I heard them myself. People she didn’t know from Adam. Postmen. Delivery men. They’d come in off the street, and they’d be asking her if she fancied coming out for a drink.’

  She looked at him, the way she did when she was working out whether or not he would take her seriously. She evidently decided that he would, and went on.

  ‘I’ve worked in a male-oriented environment for nearly seventeen years,’ she said. ‘And I’ve met all the chauvinist remarks going. You should be at home bringing up babies, what use would you be in a fight, I wouldn’t let my wife do this job, and so on. And I’ve been chatted up from time to time. But I have never been sexually harassed. No one has ever suggested that sleeping with him will get me promotion, or whatever. But she would have met with it, I’m sure. Men wanted her.’

  ‘So this man wanted her,’ said Lloyd. ‘And wouldn
’t take no for an answer – Austin says she was afraid of him. The ashtray is a teensy-weensy problem which I had spotted myself.’ He grinned. ‘But perhaps there’s an explanation,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Judy. ‘ Pauline Pearce says she wasn’t afraid of Tasker – she says Austin’s lying.’

  Lloyd sat back. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You’ve found an ally.’

  ‘Drake couldn’t be sure what was going on,’ she said.

  ‘If she was shilly-shallying – that’s all some people need to lose control. Especially if they’ve been in prison for three years.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he was waiting for Mrs Austin to come across,’ she said. ‘He’d been out for two months. I think he was just chancing his arm. Why would he kill her?’

  ‘And why is Austin so keen for us to believe she was frightened of him?’

  ‘Quite.’

  Oh, well. Their liaison – could that possibly be the right word? – hadn’t got them very far. They were just as much in the dark as they were before.

  ‘Why is my theory about Mrs Beale’s murder not being laughed to scorn?’ he asked. ‘ Even if you discount the ashtray part; it’s totally unlikely, virtually unworkable, and I have no reason at all to think that that’s what happened. And you’re just sitting there.’

  She smiled. ‘Because there’s a lot of good stuff in there,’ she said. ‘As usual.’

  A knock on the door was followed by the duty sergeant. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Joe.’

  ‘Sir, Mr Pearce is here. To let us have his fingerprints.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lloyd, a little puzzled as to why he was being informed.

  ‘Thing is, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘he says he wants to make a statement.’

  Lloyd and Judy looked at one another.

  ‘To what effect?’ asked Lloyd.

  The sergeant’s face was quite impassive. ‘To the effect that he murdered both Mrs Beale and Mrs Austin, sir,’ he said.

  Chapter Seven

  Gordon looked up as the door opened and both Chief Inspector Lloyd and Inspector Hill came in.

  ‘You know Inspector Hill, Malworth CID, I believe?’ said Lloyd briskly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gordon, half rising from the chair.