The Wychford Murders

by Paula Gosling

  ‘It could have done the job,’ Paddy observed.

  ‘Why should I kill her?’ Moyle demanded. ‘She meant nothing to me. She was a – convenience. Cheaper than paying a whore from the town, and on the premises, too.’ Despite his attempt at sounding harsh and tough, tears stood in his eyes.

  ‘She seems to have been a lot of things – to a lot of men,’ Luke observed.

  ‘She was like that,’ Moyle said.

  ‘So it doesn’t matter to you that someone cut her throat?’ Luke asked, as if enquiring the way to the nearest stationers.

  Silence. ‘No,’ was the eventual reply. ‘No, it doesn’t matter a damn to me.’

  ‘An odd point of view – for a husband,’ Luke commented. ‘Catch him Paddy,’ he added, as Graham Moyle went white and began to collapse. Paddy was there, and Luke joined him. Together they eased the suddenly boneless young man on to the floor, and propped him against the leg of a table.

  ‘How did you find out?’ Moyle asked, weakly, when he’d recovered his wits.

  ‘Just simple checking, following up some documents we found in her room. Your marriage certificate, dated some six years ago, was pretty conclusive,’ Luke told him, drily. ‘But we had to find out whether there was a divorce. No record of one.’

  ‘No, that’s right. Still legally man and wife,’ Moyle said, bitterly. ‘But in no other way. Not since six months after the date on that certificate. Took me that long to find out about her . . . her problem. She was a witch, you know.’ His voice was a whisper, his tone quite serious. ‘Could make you believe anything – for a while. Until she got bored with the game. She always got bored, eventually. Nobody was more surprised than me to find her down here. Even her darling little cousin Barry didn’t know about her brief fling with respectability, and as far as I know, she never enlightened him.’

  ‘And you didn’t resume your relationship?’

  ‘I’d have rather made love to a tarantula,’ Graham said, flatly. ‘Come to think of it, the comparison is pretty apt.’

  ‘But according to people here in the centre, she spent a lot of time here with you.’

  ‘That’s right – she did. Trying to talk me into a divorce.’

  ‘She could have got the divorce herself – you’ve been separated for more than two years.’

  ‘That’s what I told her. I don’t know if she went into it or not. Sometimes I thought it was just an excuse to come over here and yak at me.’ He blushed again, which at least brought some colour back into his cheeks. ‘Not that she wanted me back or anything like that. I think she used me as a safety valve or something. I heard all her troubles.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you about a man named Fred Baldwin?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Wait a minute – he the guy she used to meet on the towpath?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘God, how I felt for that poor bastard,’ Graham said, shaking his head. ‘If he could have heard how she laughed at him, he would have cut—’ he stopped, abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said.

  ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’ Luke asked, ignoring the apology.

  ‘Yeah, she told me at the party, the night she was killed.’

  ‘Did she say who the father was?’

  ‘No.’

  Luke kept the disappointment out of his face, but it was not easy. ‘Give any indication at all?’

  Moyle shook his head. ‘She was funny about her “friends”, called them by nicknames or codenames, if she called them anything at all. Win loved her games.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘Anyway, at first she was just pissed off about getting caught out. Seemed to think this guy should have known better. “Of all people” she said – something like that. But I got the feeling she was going to use the kid – you know? To pressure the guy into something.’ He looked from Luke to Paddy. ‘See, she was tired of her life, the way it was. She’d read some books, knew what she was. She said at first she was going to get an abortion, or try to “shake it out” as she put it – I gather she put in a busy night, that night. She could do that – go on for bloody ever, like a rattlesnake.’ He sighed. ‘But then, it must have been just before she left the party, she came over to me and she looked – different. She really did. She told me that all that evening she’d kept thinking about it in there, and the more she thought about it, the more real it got. She said she thought maybe having a kid could help her. Make her different, somehow. She’d had a bit to drink, of course, and it had made her sentimental or something. It was kind of pathetic. I said no way, but she’d got hold of this thing about changing, and I think she really meant it. Maybe that’s why I got so put down by her getting killed. Just when she was going to try to get straightened out – for somebody else, mind you, for that kid – she dies. Isn’t that a bitch?’ He was crying, now. ‘Jesus, she was such a mess, but for the last hour or two of her life, she tried to be better – and look where it got her. Ah, shit.’ He just sat there, the tears streaming.

  Luke and Paddy looked at one another and slowly, stiffly arose from where they’d been crouching on either side of him. Paddy shook out his trouser legs and Luke rubbed his ear.

  ‘She had an insurance policy, Mr Moyle. Eighty thousand pounds. If you’re still legally married, I’d say you cop the lot. At the moment, her cousin Barry thinks it’s his. Any comment?’

  He peered up at them. ‘Are you kidding?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘No, I’m not.’

  Despite the tears running into his beard, Graham Moyle started to chuckle. Then laugh. ‘Oh, hell,’ he choked. ‘They’ll go mad, those two. Gordon Sinclair is the most grasping, avaricious, greedy bastard in the world. He must have spent it a hundred times over, already. I can’t believe it. Did she mean it to go to me? Really?’

  ‘Beneficiary next-of-kin, that’s all. Unspecified. Your lawyer will take a chunk, but . . . odds are it’s all yours.’

  Moyle had stopped laughing abruptly when he realised it was chance, not her personal intention, that had brought him the money. For a moment, he’d been ready to trust her again. ‘Seems wrong to take it, the way we were. The way I felt . . . ’

  ‘You don’t have to take it,’ Paddy pointed out.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Moyle decided. He stayed on the floor, and was still there when they closed the door and glanced over at the window of The Three Wheelers.

  ‘The money was a surprise,’ Paddy said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to do anything about that knife?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Luke was looking into the distance. ‘He said she was a witch, she could make anybody believe anything – for a while. Do you think she was conning him about changing for the baby’s sake?’

  ‘No. I think she was conning herself,’ Paddy said.

  Luke nodded. ‘I wonder how long she could have made herself believe it?’ he said, softly.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘I feel like a bloody idiot,’ Frances grumbled, retying her scarf for the tenth time. ‘How often have I told patients “nobody will notice” and “you’ll get used to it in time” and now here I am, and you know and I know it’s all a lie. Damn the ugly thing.’

  Jennifer smiled. Frances’ surgical collar was less conspicuous than most, being of a new experimental design, but there was no denying its presence. Frances looked like an indignant turtle as she put on her coat. ‘Come on, you can sulk in the car.’

  ‘Now, you’re sure about this?’ Frances asked for the fiftieth time, as they left the ward and started down the hall. ‘I can perfectly well go home, there’s nothing I can’t – ouch – manage for myself.’ The ‘ouch’ was occasioned by a collision with a trolley emerging unexpectedly from a lift. ‘All it needs is – ouch – rest and – ouch – serenity. Damn.’ It wasn’t so much that the halls were crowded, more that Frances was drawn unerringly to every pass
ing person, wheelchair, wall-mounted fire extinguisher, and open door.

  ‘Frances, you need looking after,’ Jennifer laughed, disentangling her friend from a drugs trolley and a student nurse. ‘You never look where you’re going.’

  ‘I do, too!’ Frances was deeply hurt by this calumny – as well as by the edge of the door into reception.

  ‘You don’t! You’re so intent on whatever new plot or character you’re dreaming up at the moment, you forget everything else. You’ve got to learn to leave your work in the typewriter.’ Jennifer hated the idea of stifling an artist, but anything was preferable to the artist stifling herself – permanently. ‘You’re always muttering, you know. And going off into a dream. No wonder you keep having accidents. In my considered opinion, the physical world has no real meaning for you – until it ups and socks you one. Uh-oh.’ Jennifer slowed. Coming towards them was the surgeon who’d been operating when Frances made her precipitate entry through the wall of the surgical theatre. ‘Good morning, Philip.’

  ‘Jennifer.’ Mr Blythe was a big, bear-like man, fiercely demanding to the staff and unfailingly gentle with his patients. Frances, being both at the moment, stood uncertainly by, awaiting whatever new disaster was about to consume her. ‘Good morning, Miss Murphy. How are the bumps and bruises?’

  ‘Mending, thank you.’ Frances looked as if she wanted to retreat into her collar.

  His brown eyes were amused. ‘That’s more than we can say for the wall of the theatre. I believe I actually heard one of the builders whinny with delight when he began adding up his tender – muttered something about going to the Canaries this year.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ moaned Frances.

  ‘Not to worry – the insurance adjusters will dine out for months on it,’ he smiled. ‘I had a look at your X-rays this morning. Mr Marsh seems happy – so am I. Are you?’

  ‘Oh, yes . . . indeed.’

  He chuckled. ‘Liar. Hurts like hell, doesn’t it? Never mind, time will do the work. Rest for at least two weeks, but we can’t spare you after that. You’ve a way with the patients, you know.’ This was undeniably true, and he seemed faintly puzzled by it. ‘I think they feel sorry for you, really.’ And off he went, whistling.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Frances said, looking after him. ‘He usually growls at me.’

  Jennifer smiled. ‘That’s because you’re usually on his side of the fence, and he expects of everyone the same perfection he demands of himself. Now you’re a patient, under his protection, things are different. There’s a lot of father in that man.’

  ‘You doctors see one another quite differently from the rest of us,’ Frances observed. ‘I wish I could put my finger on it, the attitude you have.’

  ‘We’re all in on the same secret,’ Jennifer told her. ‘We all know we’re scared to death half the time, and scared half to death the rest of the time. If you only knew how fragile a life really is, how little it takes to destroy it, you’d be scared, too. I think policemen know it.’ She paused. ‘Some policemen.’ They emerged into the bright sunlight and blinked.

  ‘I understand you were treating Mrs Taubman,’ Abbott said, leaning back in his chair and regarding David Gregson across the crowded desk. ‘Would you tell me what for, please?’

  ‘I can’t see that it would be relevant,’ Gregson said. He had kept Abbott waiting until the last patient had left the surgery. He kept looking at the clock on the mantelpiece, fingering a stack of buff envelopes containing case notes, and was obviously impatient to be away to his house calls.

  ‘I can’t force you, of course,’ Abbott said, in an even tone. It was equally obvious that he intended to sit there until Gregson told him what he wanted to know. Short of violence or a slanging match, Gregson had few options. He faced a will equal to his own.

  ‘Well, if you must know everything . . . ’

  ‘Anything could help,’ Abbott pointed out.

  ‘Gall bladder, a little arthritis of the spine and hip, general “nerves”.’

  ‘Nerves due to what?’

  Gregson sighed. ‘She was just emerging from a late menopause, she tended to be a bit hysterical anyway, and was egocentric to a marked degree. What people of her class call “highly strung”. I prescribed mild tranquillisers now and again, when she demanded them.’

  Abbott raised an eyebrow.’ “Demanded”?’

  Gregson allowed a brief smile. ‘My decision was based on personal survival. It was that or endure repeated and protracted reiterations of her troubles and her pains, none of which amounted to a tenth of what many of my other female patients endure. After the first five or ten visits I was easily able to distinguish her physical symptoms from her emotional ones. I was her “harsh medicine”, you understand. When she was feeling vulnerable and in need of pampering, she went to “her” consultant – a man with far more diplomacy and tact than I possess. When she felt a bit guilty – or frightened – she generally came to me. Something told her I was “good for her” because I tasted bitter. A not uncommon conviction.’

  ‘Which you encouraged.’

  Again, that flicker of a smile. ‘Indeed – it saves time, generally. She knew that if anything were really wrong, I’d be there quick enough. I generally am. Not, you understand, because I am such a wonderful doctor. Rather because the practice is of a size that permits me to do a decent job.’

  ‘I was under the impression it was rather too large for one man.’

  ‘And a little too small for two, yes. Hence the conflict between Jennifer Eames and myself.’

  ‘You admit to it?’

  ‘I could hardly deny it.’

  Abbott would have pursued this, but Gregson sighed. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to know about Mrs Taubman?’

  ‘What was her general health like, aside from the things you mentioned?’

  ‘She was a strong woman. A great deal of her problem stemmed from sexual frustration, although she never would have admitted it. Women of her type never do. Nevertheless, she had a great greed for life, and always wanted more – of everything.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘Oddly enough, the morning of the day she was murdered. She asked for tranquillisers, said she was going through a “difficult patch”. As she looked rather peaky, I believed her, and supplied a prescription.’

  ‘She didn’t elaborate on the nature of the difficulties?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I encouraged her to do so, but she was rather evasive and simply said she was “nervy”, and “on edge”. She said something about not being able to go on arguing with her son and having to give in to his wishes, lead a new kind of life, and that it was all going to be too much for her to handle. Phrases like that – nothing specific, but definite cries for help. I simply took them at face value and prescribed accordingly. I knew from past experience she wouldn’t abuse the drug, in any case. Sorry. Had I known she was going to be killed, I would have made a greater effort on your behalf, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Abbott’s face remained neutral. ‘And when was the last time you had seen her, previous to this visit?’

  ‘About six months ago.’

  ‘Was that usual – a gap of that length?’

  Gregson’s face took on an odd expression. ‘Now that you mention it, no. She called in for her usual prescription renewals, but Kay, our receptionist, handled that. She hasn’t asked to see me.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s been feeling fragile and has gone to her consultant?’

  Gregson shook his head. ‘No, he always drops me a note if she sees him – professional courtesy.’

  ‘So a frustrated and rather hypochondriacal woman suddenly ceases to visit her doctors. What might that suggest?’

  ‘That she’s no longer so frustrated?’ Gregson tilted his head to one side. ‘Are you suggesting she’d taken a lover? And that her state w
as because the affair had come to an end?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m simply gathering information, doctor. Did you ever treat Win Frenholm?’

  Gregson hesitated for a moment, as if trying to remember. ‘No, I didn’t. She was Wally’s patient. After he became ill, I believe she went on to my list, but I don’t recall her. I looked at the records after her death. The last time she came in for medical attention before that day was almost a year ago – for the venereal infection Wally mentioned at dinner the other night.’

  ‘And nothing more until her visit the morning of the day she died.’

  ‘As you say – nothing until that visit.’

  ‘At which time she asked to see Jennifer, not you, had a pregnancy confirmed, and made enquiries about the possibility of an abortion.’ Abbott watched Gregson’s face closely. Gregson merely nodded. ‘Another long gap, doctor. A long time between drinks, as they say. And that evening she was murdered.’

  Gregson’s face paled, then grew flushed. ‘Are you suggesting there’s some connection between a visit to this surgery and her death?’

  ‘I told you, I’m suggesting nothing. It is merely another fact. Just as it is a fact that the first woman who died was also a patient in this practice.’

  ‘Ah, but she had moved away some time ago, she should have transferred to another doctor. She was not a frequent visitor, in any event.’

  Abbott nodded. ‘So you checked her name, too, after her death.’

  ‘I recognised the name, yes.’

  ‘Dr Eames didn’t know her.’

  ‘She was before Jennifer’s time.’ Gregson looked uneasy.

  ‘In fact, Dr Gregson, you didn’t need to “check up” on her name the morning after the murder, did you? Her notes were on your desk, were they not? Mrs Beryl Tompkins hadn’t transferred herself to another practice, had she?’ He leaned forward, slightly. ‘You’d seen her the day she died.’

  Gregson sighed and nodded. ‘All right. Yes. I made a house call. It was the same old story – back trouble. I suggested, not for the first time, that she quit her job. I also suggested that it would be easier for her if she transferred to a doctor nearer her new home.’