SECRET CRIMES a gripping crime thriller full of suspense

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  Ella yawned. ‘I need to get to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a long day.’

  ‘Me as well,’ Ed replied. ‘I’ll just get the bed ready. Can you give me a hand, Ella?’

  * * *

  The next morning Ed knocked on the door of the lounge shortly after seven thirty. He’d heard Rosemary use the bathroom and since he’d just made a pot of tea, he decided to take a cup to her.

  ‘Come in,’ came the response. ‘I think I’m decent.’

  She was dressed and had already collapsed the sofa bed back to its normal shape, stacking the used bedding into a neat pile. The curtains were partly open and weak morning sunlight glinted through.

  ‘Tea for you.’

  He placed it on the low table in the centre of the room.

  ‘I’ll accept that with thanks, Ed. But nothing more. I have breakfast waiting for me at the hotel. I’m sure Sarah will be bursting to tell me what a wonderful man Derek is.’

  Ed noted the dark shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Did you manage to get some sleep?’ he asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yes, though I tossed and turned for a while. Too much going on in my head.’ She glanced at her watch, then picked up the mug of steaming liquid. ‘I’ll be off as soon as I’ve drunk this.’

  ‘Can I walk back with you? It looks such a lovely morning. I’ll wait for Ella to show some signs of life before I get breakfast ready. I might stroll along the front for a few minutes to build up an appetite.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll call Sarah to let her know I’ll be back soon,’ Rosemary replied, taking her mobile phone out of her bag. She frowned. ‘That’s odd, there’s no answer. It must be switched off. It’s gone straight to voicemail.’

  ‘Maybe she’s still asleep?’

  ‘But she never switches her phone off. She uses the alarm to wake herself up if she needs to, and even if she doesn’t she still leaves her phone on. I should know, I’ve often shared a room with her.’

  ‘There’s bound to be a reason, Rosemary. I wouldn’t worry about it.’

  She smiled at him. ‘No, I’m sure you’re right. I’ll walk back to the hotel and see if she wants to join me for breakfast, though I’m a bit worried that Derek might still be around.’

  Chapter 2: Killer Blues

  Saturday morning

  A brisk, early morning walk is just the thing for clearing a muzzy head. Ed Wilton wasn’t the only person using the crisp, sea air to stimulate an appetite. A few runners pounded the pavements but they were outnumbered by the bleary-eyed blues enthusiasts out trying to shake off their hangovers. Out on Peveril Point a couple walked the final few yards of grass towards the rocky shelf of the Peveril Ledges, the treacherous rocks submerged as the tide reached its peak. The old Coastguard lookout station, now staffed by volunteers from the Coastwatch organisation, loomed above them, empty this early in the morning. The man stopped walking and used his binoculars to look at the view north across the bay to the chalk stacks of the Pinnacles and Old Harry. The woman lifted her expensive camera, viewed the same scene through the telephoto lens, and took several shots of the sunlit panorama, then swung her camera westwards to take some images of yachts at anchor in the bay, as golden rays of sunlight struck their glistening paintwork.

  ‘There’s something odd in the water,’ the man said. He refocused his binoculars on the shoreline much closer to where they were standing. ‘Just on the waterline. I thought it was a rock, but it’s moving slightly with the waves.’

  His partner glanced across at where he was pointing, then swung her camera up and took a shot.

  She looked at the image on the camera’s screen and zoomed in on it, but it lost clarity.

  ‘It’s just some old clothing caught in the rocks,’ she answered.

  By now her partner had moved to slightly higher ground to give himself a better view.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, taking out his mobile phone from a pocket. ‘It’s more than just clothes. It looks as though there’s a body inside them.’

  The police were on the scene within minutes. The local force were always reinforced with extra squads during festival weekends, although there were rarely any problems, just a slight increase in cases of drunk and disorderly behaviour, often by locals taking advantage of the extended opening hours in the town’s pubs. The extra manpower did mean that a unit was available for an early morning shift. PC Jen Allbright picked her way carefully among the slippery rocks and reached the sodden form lying in one of the pools of water. The head pointed towards the sea and the legs back to the land. The body lay on its front with wavelets breaking across it. Long strands of dark hair wafted to and fro like seaweed. She bent over the head and felt under the neck for a pulse. She glanced back to the grassy area above the low cliff where a small crowd had already gathered. Some held cameras at the ready. She spoke into her radio.

  ‘Jack, get the crowd back away from the edge. Radio in. We have to report this as a suspicious death, so we’ll need the full crew out. Good job the tide is on its way out. It gives us a bit more time.’

  She gently raised the woman’s head slightly, looking to see if it was anyone she knew. Possibly it was a local, known to the police as a boozer, but she didn’t recognise the face. She could see signs of bruising on the nose and cheeks.

  ‘Get Barry Marsh here, and someone medical. I don’t like what I see.’

  * * *

  Just over an hour later, Detective Chief Inspector Sophie Allen drove slowly along the narrow approach lane towards Peveril Point. She had to navigate her way through the small groups of people who had been drawn to the vicinity by the sight of flashing blue lights. Several onlookers stared at her in irritation as she sounded her horn to clear the route ahead. When she reached the turning area at the end of the lane she leant out of the window and spoke to the uniformed officer at the gate.

  ‘Get the barrier moved right back to the pier entrance, Jack, and get all these people behind it. We can’t have the access road clogged up by crowds of sightseers.’

  He nodded and spoke into his radio. ‘Okay, ma’am. You can drive on through to the lookout tower. Sergeant Marsh is waiting for you there. I’ll get a new barrier set up as soon as someone comes to give me a hand.’

  She drove onto the grass and parked her car tight up against the tower’s fence. Marsh was waiting, hunched inside a thick jacket. She got out of the car, slipped out of her shoes and pulled on the familiar pair of pink wellington boots. A brief smile flickered across his face.

  ‘I saw that, Barry. Lucky for you it’s not grounds for dismissal. Give me the details, please.’

  Detective Sergeant Barry Marsh nodded. ‘It’s good to see you again, ma’am. Someone spotted a middle-aged woman’s body among the rocks, just below the high-tide line.’

  Allen did not turn. Her short, fair hair blew slightly in the breeze. ‘Who found her?’

  ‘A couple out for an early morning walk, almost two hours ago. They called in on a mobile and Jen Allbright came down. She wasn’t happy with what she found, so she asked for the police doctor to take a look and for me to come. There’s bruising around her face and head, but it doesn’t look right for battering against the rocks. She’s wearing clothes, but she’s got ankle boots on, with fairly high heels. The doctor’s down there at the moment.’

  ‘Okay, let’s take a look.’

  The two detectives made their way through the rocks to a group of figures hunched over a tide pool some yards short of the waterline. Sophie recognised Mark Benson, the local police doctor. He was crouched low over the body, carefully examining the facial injuries. He turned as he heard the approaching footsteps.

  ‘Your people were right to call me in, Sophie. I think some of these head wounds occurred before she died. They had time to clot. The bruising is deep and shows signs of good blood flow to the area, so are also prior to death. There’s a deep wound to the back of the head.’

  ‘Could she have fallen and got the head injuries that way? Concussion from the fir
st stumble, if she fell heavily? If she was unconscious she’d have drowned once the tide came in.’

  ‘It’s a possibility but I really can’t speculate. One thing I did notice is that the head wounds look as if something blunt was involved, and all the rocks at this spot are well-rounded.’

  The young constable, Jen Allbright, spoke up. ‘Ma’am, she wouldn’t have tried to walk down here in those heels, surely? It’s so rocky. She would have tripped up as soon as she came off the grass, and even there she’d have been sinking in. She’d have fallen long before she got to the water.’

  Sophie looked at the heels. They were practically stilettos. ‘What was the weather like here yesterday?’

  ‘It rained all morning and only dried up mid-afternoon,’ Marsh replied.

  ‘So the turf up there must be pretty soft. There’s no mud on her boots, though I suppose it might have been washed off somehow. How far did the tide come in?’

  ‘It looks as though it got up to her waist. Her head and face might have been under. That’s what the couple who spotted her saw — her arms and hair moving as the waves broke over her. But her legs are still mostly dry,’ he replied.

  Sophie felt inside the pockets of the woman’s jacket but found nothing. A shoulder bag with thin straps was lying partly under her chest, and Sophie eased it away and peered inside. She spotted a purse, a set of keys, a hairbrush and a small perfume sprayer but no mobile phone. She felt inside the jacket and realised that there was nothing between it and bare skin. She turned to Marsh and spoke quietly.

  ‘She doesn’t have any clothes on under this jacket, and her jeans are not fully zipped up. You were right to be suspicious. The forensic unit is on its way, so we’ll leave the body to them. Let’s have a quick look around to see if there’s anything lying about.’

  ‘There were people up on the grass as we arrived. I got them back quickly, but they’ll have trampled over any tracks,’ said Allbright.

  ‘I’m sure you did your best. But we’ll have a look anyway. The area just below the bank won’t have been stamped on, so we’ll look at that first.’

  By the time the forensic squad arrived, the tide had retreated well away from the body. It looked like a sodden mass of clothing, stretched out between the rocks. The detectives left the unit to its work, and returned to the cars.

  ‘The town looks busy, Barry. What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s our autumn blues festival, ma’am. Pubs and bars are all full of ageing rockers.’

  ‘She’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Just the kind of outfit for an event like that. Get a message around the local hotels and guest houses to let us know if anyone’s missing from breakfast this morning.’

  ‘Might have been camping.’

  ‘So we’ll try that next, but we’ve got to start somewhere. We’ve got to do it quickly, while people are still in their hotels. Insist that the managers, or whoever, do a full check, even if it means getting people up from their sleep.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Eight forty-five. Maybe we’ll be in luck. A blues festival, you say?’ She grimaced. ‘Apt, if it does turn out to be murder.’

  ‘Why’s that, ma’am?’ Marsh looked puzzled.

  ‘Killer blues, Barry.’ She waited in vain for his face to clear. ‘It’s an expression from years ago. It refers to severe depression, but it was also used to describe a particularly brilliant blues solo, usually by a top guitarist. Eric Clapton? Peter Green? Jimi Hendrix? Don’t keep looking at me blankly like that. You must have heard of them.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am. It’s just a bit early in the morning. Yes, I’ve heard the names . . .’ He paused. ‘Weren’t your parents keen?’

  She nodded. ‘Peter Green. That was the song at my Dad’s funeral: “Need Your Love So Bad.” You know, I can’t believe it was all of nine months ago.’ She shook her head, frowning. ‘It doesn’t seem possible. Where did the summer go?’

  ‘How is your mother, ma’am?’

  ‘She’s thinking about getting married — so she told me last weekend. I think the discovery of his body, and then the funeral, brought everything to a close in her mind. It freed her, in a strange kind of way. She took a while to digest everything that happened, but she seemed more settled once she did come to terms with it.’ She sighed. ‘I wish it had been as easy for me.’

  ‘Maybe you were punishing yourself, ma’am.’

  She looked into his eyes but said nothing. Finally she returned her gaze to the body below them. ‘Maybe we’d better get on with it.’

  * * *

  Less than an hour later they entered the ornate lobby of the Ballard View Hotel. Sophie spoke to an ashen-faced Jenny Burrows.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Chief Inspector. It’s only been a year since you were here last,’ the hotel manager said. ‘Is there anything useful I can do?’

  ‘Coffee, Mrs Burrows. Maybe some biscuits? It’s going to be a long morning.’

  DC Jimmy Melsom, Marsh’s subordinate in Swanage, was talking to a middle-aged couple who were sitting on a bench seat against the panelled wall of the hallway. He rose, straightening his tie, as he saw her approaching. He looks as if he’s put on some weight since the winter, she thought, but at least he’s making an effort to dress more smartly.

  ‘Rosemary Corrigan and Ed Wilton, ma’am. She was sharing a room with a woman friend, Sarah Sheldon, but didn’t spend the night here. She arrived back this morning. Mrs Sheldon did spend the night here, with a man she met yesterday evening. Or that’s what Mrs Corrigan assumed. She didn’t answer her mobile when Mrs Corrigan called this morning and isn’t anywhere else in the hotel. The description matches.’

  ‘Okay, Jimmy. Stay with them. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  She nodded to the couple, but walked on past them. She needed to see the room, take in the atmosphere and make some guesses about the events of the preceding night. Marsh had a few words with Melsom before hurrying along the corridor to catch up with her. The two detectives passed the bar and lounge, then turned into a passageway that led to a recently-built annexe building. The doorway to the room, the last on the ground floor, was guarded by two uniformed officers. Sophie looked around her. A fire door led out to the garden and the rear car park.

  ‘Fingerprints. Any contamination?’ she asked.

  ‘Rosemary Corrigan will have left hers on the outside door handle, but she says she didn’t touch anything in the room when she came back this morning. She felt uneasy as soon as she entered, so she just went back out again. But her prints will be all over the place from when she unpacked yesterday evening.’

  They slipped into nylon overalls and went in. Heavy curtains made the room dark. Sophie stood, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom, looking at the rumpled duvet on the double bed. The only item of clothing to be seen was an ivory-coloured nightdress that appeared to be made of silk, strewn across the top cover. A single bed was tucked up against another wall, its cover slightly crinkled.

  Sophie moved slowly around the larger bed, looking at it from different angles. She glanced around the room, taking in every detail. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed the tired air.

  ‘There’s something in the air. Something sweet and cloying, maybe air freshener spray of some type. But there’s something else below it, something almost animal. Maybe it’s my imagination.’

  Marsh shook his head. ‘Can’t help you, ma’am. Blocked nose.’

  She lifted the duvet at one corner. ‘The bed looks as though it’s been remade to look as if she didn’t sleep here, but it’s not been done by a professional. The top pillowcase is a bit crumpled. We know from the other woman that our victim, if it is her, spent at least some of the night here. Tell forensics I want everything taken for examination and I want the bedding analysed, including the mattress.’

  She took a last look around before leaving. There were two empty weekend bags tucked up at the side of the wardrobe. Several of the drawers contained clothes and a few items were hanging from the rail inside the cupb
oard. The two detectives stepped out of their overalls and returned to the reception area. Sophie went across to the couple sitting with Jimmy Melsom and asked the woman to come into a nearby office with her.

  ‘Coffee, Jimmy, please,’ she called. ‘You’re with me, Barry.’

  The three of them sat around a table.

  ‘Is it Sarah?’ the woman immediately asked, fear in her eyes. ‘Dark hair, green eyes?’

  ‘We can’t be absolutely sure, but the description fits. I’m so sorry. It must be a shock to you. I also need to tell you that we’re treating the death as suspicious at the moment.’

  Rosemary started to cry. ‘I just can’t believe it. Surely there’s a mistake? Why would anyone want to kill her? She wouldn’t harm anyone. Everyone liked her, she was so full of fun.’

  ‘Let me get some details from you. You’re Rosemary Corrigan, is that right? Apparently you felt uneasy when you arrived back at the room earlier this morning.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know what it was. I expected to find Sarah in the room, possibly still asleep. But it was so silent in there. The bed looked a bit rumpled but had been made up, which seemed weird. You’d normally leave that to the hotel staff, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Were you expecting a family room when you arrived?’

  ‘No, of course not. Sarah booked it. According to her it was the last room available in the hotel. I thought it was a bit odd, but I was just happy to have somewhere warm and comfortable to sleep. We agreed that I’d have the single bed and she’d take the larger one. And the room was fine. It’s very comfortable and airy, or at least it seemed so yesterday when we checked in.’

  ‘Was there anything else that didn’t seem right this morning?’

  ‘It’s hard to put my finger on it. There was no answer when I tapped at the door, so I unlocked it and went in. At first I thought she was in the bathroom, but it was empty. It was when I came back into the bedroom. There was something about the atmosphere. It was very different to when we unpacked yesterday. The room was fresh and welcoming then, but this morning the air seemed sort of tired. It’s hard to explain.’