The Wychford Murders

by Paula Gosling

  ‘Now why does he suddenly re-enter your life, I wonder?’

  ‘Because I’m gorgeous, desirable, exciting?’

  ‘No,’ Clodie said, uncompromisingly, trailing pale pink through the linen to form another flower petal.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Jennifer said, wryly.

  ‘Of course you are all those things, dear,’ Clodie went on, vaguely. ‘Certainly. But to ignore you for over a month, and then to more or less propose . . . ’

  ‘He didn’t propose, he just sort of mentioned it as a possibility. Anyway, I thought you wanted him to propose,’ Jennifer interrupted, feeling her news was not being received in the proper manner. Why wasn’t Clodie excited? For that matter, why wasn’t she excited herself?

  ‘I wanted you to be happy,’ Clodie said.

  ‘I am happy,’ Jennifer said. ‘And anyway, there isn’t any commitment about it. He simply said that he wanted . . . ’

  ‘—To keep you on a string for his personal gratification and delight,’ came a voice from the other side of the room, and David Gregson stood up from where he had been dozing in a chair in the bay window. His face was as rumpled as his clothes, and his hair stuck up at the back like a boy’s. ‘To say to his precious clients, look what a clever boy am I, to have this beautiful woman doctor as part of my operation. How liberated. How handy, especially when you see the way she eats out of my hand.’

  ‘David, that was unkind,’ murmured Clodie, who sounded as if she was trying to stifle a laugh.

  ‘Very amusing.’ Jennifer could feel anger rising. ‘Do you often eavesdrop on people’s private conversations, or is it a new hobby you’ve taken on to fill the vacant hours?’

  ‘Clodie knew I was there,’ David said. ‘If the devastating and desirable Mark Peacock has been so hell-bent on his project for so long, why didn’t he mention this consultant thing to you before?’

  ‘He may have. God knows, the idea of the conference centre was his main topic of conversation every time we went out. I don’t remember whether he mentioned the possibility of my being part of it or not,’ Jennifer said, uneasily. ‘Anyway, that’s not the point.’

  ‘The point is, any professional commitment you make is a matter for all of us to consider. Your first responsibility is to the practice, you know.’

  ‘I know that,’ Jennifer said. ‘I was going to tell you about it the first chance I got.’

  ‘Of course you were. And to think that last night I assumed you were smitten by the poor man’s Sherlock Holmes. I should have known the trouble lay closer to home.’ David turned to Clodie. ‘You see? It just proves the point I’ve made before. You spend thousands of pounds and hours training a woman to be a doctor, and you might as well be throwing it down the drain. The minute a man comes along and crooks a little finger at her – off she goes. It’s all in the hormones. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘Just because you couldn’t hold on to your own wife . . . ’

  ‘Jennifer!’ Clodie said, in a shocked voice.

  But Jennifer had eyes only for David Gregson. ‘If you had been listening closely, you would have noticed I accepted neither Mark’s offer of a private retainer nor anything else. I am very aware of my responsibilities to the practice and to our patients. This is something that is way in the future, anyway. I had every intention of discussing it with you and Uncle Wally, and I told Mark that. Furthermore, I do not let my hormones rule my mind, but it seems to me you do. Of all the biased, chauvinistic, pig-headed men I’ve ever known—’

  ‘—No doubt you’ve known quite a few . . . ’

  ‘David!’ Aunt Clodie was getting ruffled – and getting nowhere. The two of them might have been alone in the room.

  ‘Cheap shot, doctor,’ Jennifer snapped.

  ‘Not the first one fired in this room,’ David said, with maddening calm. Only his hands betrayed him, fists behind his back. ‘What retainer was he suggesting – or were you going to pay him?’

  ‘We didn’t talk about money.’ She was sorry this had started.

  ‘You surprise me. I was under the impression Peacock talks about nothing else.’

  ‘Mark is a very cultured, intelligent, charming—’

  ‘—Poltroon,’ David interrupted.

  Jennifer stared at him. ‘A what?’ she finally managed.

  He had the grace to look abashed. ‘Poltroon.’

  ‘A perfectly good word,’ Aunt Clodie observed. ‘Your serve, Jennifer.’

  Jennifer was looking at David Gregson oddly. He stared back, and began to look uneasy. ‘Is poltroon the best you could come up with?’ she asked, feeling sudden, inexplicable laughter welling up inside her, despite determined efforts to remain angry. He looked so untidy and dishevelled standing there, and she had a sudden image of a little boy whose marbles had been stolen. He was so cross he was funny.

  ‘Well, it was short notice,’ he said, defensively. ‘I’ve been reading Dumas.’

  ‘I see. That explains everything, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ echoed Aunt Clodie.

  He stared at them both, saw their amusement, and felt foolish. ‘I’m afraid I’m too tired to be clever,’ he finally said, with a trace of bitterness. ‘I leave such things to you ladies. Meanwhile, it’s getting late and I have some work to do before dinner. If you’ll excuse me—’ He started for the door.

  ‘David,’ Jennifer said, in a conciliatory tone. He stopped but he didn’t turn round. ‘Mark’s not really bad, you know,’ she said to his back, surprised at her desire to placate him. ‘He can’t help being who he is or what he is. The retainer question is something we can deal with when and if the offer becomes real. In the meantime, as long as I continue to do my work responsibly, what I make of my personal life is just that – personal. I might point out that men, too, are subject to emotional strain, and can occasionally carry it over into their professional life. When you consider the suicide and drug-dependency statistics for doctors, the cases brought up before the General Medical Council, all men . . . ’

  ‘Touché,’ David said over his shoulder, in a tone that said he was finished with her and the conversation. Jennifer stood looking at the empty doorway.

  ‘You won that round,’ Aunt Clodie observed. ‘He expected you to explode, and you didn’t. At least, not very much. I count that quite a triumph for the cause, Jennifer.’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Jennifer agreed, in a tight voice. ‘I may be going out with Mark tonight, by the way. I haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear,’ Clodie said. She was scowling at her embroidery. That flower wasn’t right, at all. Not at all. The whole thing would have to come out and be done again. She raised her eyes and began to speak, but saw that Jennifer, too, had left the room.

  ‘Get on with your work, you silly old woman,’ she told herself. ‘Let the young ones sort out their own problems, just as you did yours, once upon a time.’ She worked and pulled and fiddled with the embroidery. But it wouldn’t come right, because her mind kept wandering off on to other things. ‘Silly old woman,’ she muttered, again. But it wouldn’t stop.

  Evening surgery went on rather later then Jennifer had expected, and when she finally rang Mark it was too late for dinner. She grabbed a quick sandwich in the kitchen, and then met him at the Woolsack for a drink.

  For some reason he thought the fact that she had called him had been a capitulation, and the drink only a prelude to a resumption of their affair. When she made it clear that she had no intention of ending the evening in some hotel bed, he began an argument that was settled only by her leaving abruptly. Twice in one day was perhaps too often to leave a man scowling, she thought, as she drove home alone. If nothing else, that should help you make up your mind about him. Did she want to be married to a six-foot schoolboy? On balance, she thought not.

  She collapsed into bed, exhausted, and fell almost immediately into a d
eep, dreamless sleep. It didn’t last.

  Someone was shaking her shoulder. She muttered and rolled away, burrowing under the bedclothes, aware that cold air lay outside, waiting to grab her.

  ‘Jennifer! Dammit! Jennifer! Wake up!’ The tone was urgent, and the voice was David Gregson’s. My God, an emergency, she thought, and swam upward from the depths of sleep towards his face, misty in the dark above her.

  ‘What is it? Mr Deever again?’ she mumbled, struggling to keep her eyes open.

  ‘No, it’s not Mr Deever,’ David said, bleakly. ‘It’s your boyfriend. It seems his mother has been murdered. They rang up for a doctor. Do you want to go, or shall I?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  They had rigged some lighting by the time Luke and Paddy got there. Clouds of frozen breath wreathed the heads of all the uniformed men standing around. The night was bitterly cold, and many of them stamped their feet and clapped their hands in an effort to stay warm while waiting for the formal investigations to begin.

  No cloud of breath hung over the mouth of Mabel Peacock Taubman, but a faint haze could be seen above the gaping wound in her throat, for there was still warmth in her body.

  She lay at the foot of the long lawn that swept from Peacock Manor to the river. She wore a flowered silk dress and a coat lay beneath her. Her arms had not been in the sleeves, Luke observed, so she must have had it over her shoulders. She had come out for a reason, a compelling reason, but hadn’t expected to be long about it.

  ‘We thought it might have been the dog, sir,’ PC Bennett said, when Luke had had a look around. ‘She might have come out to call it or something like that, wandered down the lawn and got caught out.’

  ‘They have a dog?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Yes, sir, they do. Her son says he came home and found the front door wide open, the dog roaming free and behaving strange, like. Kept running towards the river and then coming back, if you get my line, as if he wanted to be followed. Mr Peacock checked the house and saw his mother was gone, so he got a torch and went after the dog. Says he thought she might have taken the dog for a walk and sprained an ankle or some such . . . found her, like this. Very close to his mother, was Mr Peacock. Took it hard. We rang the doctor to come to him.’

  ‘I see. Thank you. Has the coroner been notified?’

  ‘Yes, sir, on his way.’ Bennett knew the drill by now. Getting quite used to it, he was, with all these murders.

  Mark Peacock sat in the hall, his face white, his hands clasping the heavily carved arms of the straight-backed chair that faced the door. When Luke and Paddy came in, he did not even look up. Luke had to walk over and speak to him twice before he stirred.

  ‘Mr Peacock, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Abbott. I’m sorry about your mother, and I’m sorry to have to bother you at a time like this, but there are some questions . . . ’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Mark said. His voice was flat and toneless, as if he were just reading the news.

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry.’

  Mark looked up. ‘It doesn’t make sense, you know.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Her being out there, all alone. She said she wouldn’t go out, you see. She was alone in the house tonight. We have no live-in servants, Basil is up in London. I went out for the evening, and she said she’d stay inside, because of this killer, but she must have gone out after all. She didn’t have to go out for Barkis – he comes when you call him. He’s a good dog. Why did she go out?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Peacock.’ Luke looked around. The hall was beautifully furnished and brightly lit, but it was hardly the place to conduct an interview. Outside there were voices and the sound of engines and footsteps as the forensic investigation team arrived. Inside there were only black and white marble tiles, oak panelling, embroidered Jacobean draperies, several oil paintings, and Mark Peacock. There was a movement by the chair, and Luke corrected his listing. There was also Mark Peacock’s dog, a liver and white spaniel, sitting uncertainly against the wainscoting, its worried eyes turned up towards its master. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk, sir? Somewhere perhaps a bit more private?’

  ‘What?’ For the first time since Luke had entered, Mark Peacock seemed to become aware of his surroundings. ‘Oh, yes . . . of course.’ He stood up, wavered slightly, then righted himself. His eyes focused on Luke. ‘I know you,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Don’t I?’

  Luke nodded. ‘I grew up in Wychford. Luke Abbott.’

  Mark stared at him for a moment. ‘You gave me a thrashing one summer. As far as I can remember, I deserved it. Is that right?’

  ‘It seemed right at the time,’ Luke allowed. ‘In retrospect, I think I went a little over the top.’

  ‘I’ve never forgotten it,’ Mark said, still in that strange, distant voice. ‘My mother wanted to—’ He stopped, abruptly. ‘This way.’ He turned and went through a door to their right, the dog at his heels, leading Luke into another beautiful room. Embers burned low in the grate of a huge fireplace, before which was drawn up an armchair. A tall lamp stood beside the chair, and a small table on which was an empty teacup and a metal biscuit box containing a multi-coloured assortment of tapestry wools. A small embroidery hoop lay on a footstool before the chair as if it had been dropped there when its owner got up, the needle thrust through a partially completed lamb. Mark stopped short and looked at the chair. ‘You see? She was listening to music and sewing – that was how I left her.’ He gestured towards a carved chest which stood open. Luke could just see the glow of a red light within, showing that the stereo equipment housed there was still turned on. He went over and looked down.

  ‘The Pirates of Penzance,’ he read off the label of the record on the turntable. From the cover of the album propped against the back wall of the chest, a pirate leered at him, teeth clenched around a curved dagger. Luke reached out and gently turned the pirate to face the wall. The knife was a little too relevant for comfort.

  ‘One of her favourites – it’s the complete production, dialogue and . . . and . . . ’ Mark Peacock’s voice caught for a moment. ‘That was how I left her,’ he repeated, slowly. ‘Why would she go out?’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  Mark looked distracted. ‘It must have been about eight. I just gave her a quick kiss and said I was going out for a drink, but I’d be late, so she mustn’t wait up for me. She had a habit of waiting up for me.’ He tried to get himself under control, took a sudden breath, and started to shake. ‘Oh God.’ He sank down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands.

  The door opened and Paddy came in. ‘Doctor’s car just coming up the drive,’ he said, softly, glancing at the now-sobbing man on the sofa.

  ‘Fine,’ Luke said. ‘I think it would be better if we waited for him. See if you can find some coffee or something in the kitchen, will you? My eyes are full of sand already, and it looks like a long night again.’

  ‘Are you arresting him?’

  Luke stared at Jennifer in astonishment. He hadn’t expected her to be ‘the doctor’, and he certainly was unprepared for her abrupt question. ‘Arresting him? What made you ask that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jennifer said. ‘I just got here and I don’t even have matching shoes on.’ She gazed in surprise at her feet. One blue pump and one brown pump.

  ‘I don’t want you here, Jennifer,’ Mark suddenly announced, his sobs momentarily abated. ‘There’s a killer around here. This is no place for a lady.’

  ‘She’s no lady, she’s a doctor,’ Luke said.

  ‘Still the golden-tongued devil, I see,’ Jennifer said, icily. ‘But he’s right, Mark. I’m here as a doctor, not as your . . . not as anything else. Luke wants to ask you some questions, and you’re upset.’

  ‘I’m quite capable of answering questions,’ Mark said, huffily. ‘There was no need to call you or anyone else.’

  ‘When the police cal
led Dr Gregson they said you’d fainted,’ Jennifer pointed out.

  ‘Even so.’ Obviously Mark was embarrassed. ‘You told me that Gregson was taking all the night calls.’

  ‘He is, but he thought . . . ’ Jennifer paused. ‘Please let me help you, Mark. You said today you wanted me to help you stand up straight, remember? You need to do that now.’

  ‘Mother’s dead,’ Mark said. ‘Mother’s gone, and Mother’s boy has to stand on his own two feet now . . . ’ A stricken look went over his face and he began, suddenly, to laugh. It was a terrible sound, and he looked at them as if he couldn’t understand it himself. As if something were inside him, laughing, and he couldn’t stop it. His eyes were astonished, wide and horrified, but his mouth went on laughing, and laughing . . .

  Jennifer slapped him once, twice, but it did no good. The sound of his laughter increased in volume and started to rise into hysteria. She reached for her bag, extracted a disposable syringe, and quickly prepared a sedative injection. Paddy, seeing what she intended, pushed up the sleeve of Mark’s jacket as far as it would go, and held it until she was finished. Mark’s terrible laughter continued for a minute, and then, suddenly, stopped. His eyes shut and he slumped against the sofa.

  ‘You didn’t have to knock him out,’ Luke said, reprovingly.

  ‘I didn’t expect to,’ Jennifer said, slightly startled. She glanced at the glass ampoule from which she had extracted the drug, to reassure herself. ‘No, it’s all right. I expect he’ll come round in a minute or two. It’s the shock – that’s all.’ She felt for Mark’s pulse, smoothed the blond hair gently back from his clammy forehead.

  A muscle jumped in Luke’s cheek, and he spoke rather brusquely. ‘I understand you were out with Mr Peacock this evening,’ he said. ‘I thought doctors weren’t supposed to socialise with their patients. Or doesn’t that apply to lady doctors?’