The Wychford Murders

by Paula Gosling

  Paddy regarded him with some sympathy for a moment, then glanced at the station. ‘I wonder if the trick cyclist has finished with Baldwin yet?’

  Luke slumped in his seat, glowering at the station before them. There should have been brocade draperies gracefully suspended behind the tall windows, but instead, as the lights came on, one by one, they revealed dusty panes behind which stood filing cabinets, desks, and uniformed people going about the work of the early evening shift. Somewhere in there, Baldwin sat in a cell, alone. Luke was glad to return to the matter at hand. ‘First-time fathers get a rough deal in our society – all the attention is on the mother, who becomes a stranger to him sexually. She’s so absorbed with the life within, and she’s a different size and shape, not the girl he married at all. She even smells different. More like one’s own mother, presumably. Pheromones have a lot to answer for. Some men go off the rails then – maybe Baldwin is one of them. Let’s see what the psychiatrist says, anyway.’

  They got out of the car. ‘Maybe he can advise you on your own problems,’ Paddy suggested, with a lopsided grin.

  They went in.

  ‘I’d say no,’ Dr Fernandez said. He was a sallow-skinned man, short and slightly rounded in the middle – a comforting and unthreatening shape, ideal for the work. ‘On balance, I’d guess Baldwin could have been pushed to kill the Frenholm girl, but not the other two. And I don’t think he killed her, either. For what it’s worth.’ He took off his glasses and polished them on a red and white checked handkerchief. ‘He’s an interesting case, actually. One comes across these men, occasionally, in practice. Calibans, I call them. Not brutes, you understand, but living on a completely earthly level. Practical, sound, strong, steady. And yet, from time to time, they become aware of the stars and the flowers. I don’t mean to be condescending, quite the opposite. They may be the only true poets God makes, because whatever rare dreams are in them spring from within, quite naturally and spontaneously, not from learning or posing or polished technique. And they can amaze you, damned if they can’t. Someone should set up a bloody foundation or something to find them and nurture them.’

  ‘Got to you, too, did he?’ Luke said, amused.

  Fernandez looked abashed. ‘Hell, yes. He’s a good man, Luke, you know? And, to be perfectly honest, she sounds as if she were some kind of a bitch.’

  ‘By all accounts,’ Paddy agreed.

  ‘She stumbled into his dream, and once there, she used it to hold him. Not because she cared, but because . . . why?’

  ‘Habit,’ Luke said. ‘Usually sex was her weapon, but in this case she realised she had something much more powerful. She flattered him into thinking . . . whatever he thought.’

  ‘You would be stunned at what he thought,’ Fernandez said, with a kind of rueful awe. ‘It wasn’t what she did that’s chewing him up, but the return of reality. I think he may seal it over pretty successfully. He’s already calling himself names and trying to make jokes about it.’

  ‘Did you learn anything about what happened the night he found her?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Yes. I hypnotised him.’

  ‘Oh, God . . . that’s . . . ’

  ‘Inadmissible, I know, but I didn’t think you’d be bringing him to trial. He’s a witness, Luke, not a killer. I’d stake my professional reputation on it. Really.’ Fernandez, convinced, was very convincing.

  ‘Okay. Did you find out anything?’

  ‘Yes.’ Fernandez produced a tape cassette. ‘Want to hear?’

  ‘Please.’ Luke paused. ‘You did have someone in with you, once he was under?’

  ‘PC Bennett, and PC Jagger.’

  ‘Jagger? Good. Very good. Let’s hear it.’

  Fernandez inserted the tape into the cassette player on Luke’s desk, switched it on. After the preliminary introduction and identification of witness, time, place, etc. they heard Fernandez address Fred Baldwin.

  ‘Now, we’re going to talk about the night you found Win, all right, Fred?’

  ‘Yes.’ Baldwin’s voice was dull, uninterested, the sheep-voice of the hypnotic subject, waiting to be directed, all self-volition suspended.

  ‘You got her call. What did she say?’

  ‘She said, “This is Melisande, I . . . ”’

  ‘Melisande was your secret name for her.’

  ‘Yes. She said it was her name in the Other World.’ Fernandez clicked the tape on to pause, and gave the other two an odd look, rather like the man who catches the stripper’s knickers, excited, abashed, proud, but not quite sure what to do with them.

  ‘Their relationship, such as it was, was founded entirely on a mutual fantasy, a kind of verbal game. You have to know that Baldwin’s main reading matter is science fiction to understand how easily he could enter into and elaborate this kind of fantasy structure. They probably laughed a bit at first, admitted they were pretending, but then it got involved, competitive, symbolic, and very real – at least for him. Not having a chance to talk to her, I can’t tell how much she had to do with it. She may have simply accommodated him, or she may have become enthusiastic about it, too. I’m telling you, Luke, pick up any stone . . . it’s incredible what supposedly sane people will do when no one’s looking. It took me four hours to trip into it, he had it very strongly guarded. In their fantasy, she claimed to be a being from a place they called Other World . . . ’ He trailed off, seeing the expressions on their faces. ‘It’s not unusual – children do it all the time. In an adult we call it regressive play, probably a sexual substitute in this instance. Luke, you studied psychology at university – don’t give me that Constable Plod stare.’ Fernandez’ voice was getting a thin edge, and Luke grinned, relenting.

  ‘All right, we’ll buy it. Melisande, was it? And what did she call him?’

  ‘What else? Prince of Shadows.’ Fernandez was protective of his latest chick. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point – read about it in my next book.’ He clicked the cassette player on again. ‘What did she say in the phone call – what were her exact words?’ That was Fernandez’ voice. Baldwin answered.

  ‘She said, “This is Melisande. I must confront an Evil Traveller and I am afraid. If you will stand by me when we meet, no harm will come to me, Prince of Shadows. Will you meet me on our Water Path, right away?” And I said I would.’ Baldwin’s voice took on a strange, feminine quality as he repeated the words of Win Frenholm. Fernandez switched off the player again.

  ‘Evil Travellers are beings who try to interfere with the passage of the Beautiful Ones from the Other World. Basically, it referred to anyone who wasn’t a part of their fantasy structure. Most of the social aspects of Other World came from her, I’d say, and the more practical aspects from him. She thought up names and rituals, he delighted in working out the mechanisms for travelling back and forth, the landscape of Other World, and so on. Dammit, don’t laugh, the detail is amazing. He went on for a bloody hour or more. But there was getting to be a lot about battles, struggles, and so on, towards the end. It was only a matter of time before the whole thing went sexual, I’d say. She was pressuring for it from the beginning . . . presumably she felt more secure in that area than in the fantasy thing. Anyway, this Evil Traveller she mentions could have been anyone she didn’t like or was actually afraid of. Sorry about that.’ He started to click the player back on, but Luke stayed his hand.

  ‘She used the word “confront” – interesting choice.’

  ‘Yes. I thought that, too,’ Fernandez agreed. He switched on the cassette recorder, and they listened to Baldwin’s voice, droning on.

  ‘I told Tricia there was a problem at the plant and went out. She wasn’t very keen on me leaving her alone, and we had a bit of an argument, but in the end I went. I had to drive off in the car, because of saying I was going to the plant, but then I circled around and parked near the playground. I took the shortcut down to the towpath.’ Fernandez raised an eye
brow, and Luke nodded, to show he knew the geography. Baldwin was describing the night.

  ‘ . . . cold. I had never met her this late, and I’d been in too much of a hurry to put on a jumper. There was moonlight, but not very much. I knew she was waiting for me.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  There was a long pause, then Baldwin spoke with a slight tone of surprise. ‘I could hear her talking to someone.’

  Both Luke and Paddy straightened up at that. Fernandez, who knew it was coming, just smiled at them. ‘What could you hear?’ said his voice on the tape. ‘You’re there, now, going along the path beside the river. What can you hear?’

  Baldwin hesitated, then went on. ‘The river, I can hear the river, and an owl, and the wind in the rushes. I’m cold. And I can hear Melisande’s voice. She’s angry. Very angry. She’s around the curve of the path. “No use,” she’s saying. “Forget it, I’ll tell her myself, and then we’ll see who marries who, won’t we? My baby, my baby will be—” and then she stopped.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Fernandez.

  ‘I stopped, too, and listened,’ Baldwin’s voice said.

  ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ muttered Luke.

  Baldwin was continuing. ‘I heard him laugh,’ he said. ‘And there’s a bump, like something fell, and this terrible . . . choking. The Evil Traveller . . . I hear him running, I hear him and I wait for him to come around the corner, but he doesn’t come. He must be running the other way. I run, too, and now I fall. I trip and fall on to the path, nearly into the water. And . . . the moon comes from behind a cloud . . . and I see Melisande. Oh, my God, my Beautiful One . . . ’ Baldwin was crying now, the memories strong and clear.

  There was a passage, while Fernandez steadied Baldwin and brought him back to the present. The psychiatrist fast-forwarded the tape, stopped and started it a few times, then let it run again. ‘Here,’ he said.

  ‘A car,’ Baldwin said, clearly, on the tape. ‘A sports car, probably an MG. They have such a distinctive exhaust note, you can’t miss them. Not new, either. Or not looked after. Two tries, and it catches . . . gone off, now. I’m picking up Melisande, I don’t want her to stay there, where anyone . . . anyone . . . could see her, touch her. She’s gone, of course, I know she’s gone, but her body . . . the body she used . . . no one should touch that. No one.’

  Fernandez clicked off the recorder. ‘That what you were after?’ He knew it was, and grinned at Luke.

  ‘Yes, thanks. I thought Baldwin might be able to make more of that car . . . we were told he’s a master mechanic, always fussing with cars and motors. Of course, the car could have been started up by someone else entirely. But even then, that person might have noticed a man running from the direction of the river. Either way, it would help us a great deal to trace the driver.’ Luke rubbed his ear. ‘All this “Melisande” business . . . it’s going to look bloody daft on the reports.’

  ‘Oh, I can give you some great psychiatric jargon to throw in,’ Fernandez reassured him. ‘And you don’t really have to go into detail, do you? Just the relevant statements should be enough. If you could avoid calling him at all on anything other than the discovery of the body, it would be doing the poor bastard a favour, Luke. Use him if you must, but if you can protect his secret world . . . ’ He paused, knowing he was asking something that might be impossible. ‘His wife doesn’t know, shouldn’t know. It would hurt her far more than any physical infidelity. It’s not just the sex that hurts when your partner is unfaithful, it’s the shared time, the laughter, the magic they’ve had with someone else and not you that brings the real pain.’

  ‘I know,’ Luke said, quietly.

  ‘Is Bennett likely to . . . ’

  ‘Bennett’s all right,’ Paddy said, firmly. ‘I can speak to Bennett, Luke.’ His mouth tightened. ‘And Jagger.’

  Fernandez was dangerously close to crossing the line of non-involvement, and he knew it. They all knew it. ‘The guy isn’t crazy, you know. Any more than a man is crazy who calls his wife Snookie-ookums in bed. Like that guy, Baldwin is embarrassed to admit it. He just has a little more to admit to than most. A tribute to his rather individual imagination, in a way. The most I ever call my wife is . . . well, never mind. People in love aren’t clinically crazy, but they’re damned near it – no sense of proportion, ultra-sensitive, delusional, obsessive . . . you name it, love will do it.’

  Luke and Paddy exchanged a quick, embarrassed glance. ‘So you’d say Baldwin was in love with Win Frenholm?’

  Fernandez considered this. ‘Not in the socially accepted sense, no. She was his mental mistress, if you like, she offered him a safe release from the tensions of his marriage. He’s a Catholic, you see, very strong moral attitude towards physical infidelity. Don’t know what his priest would make of his interludes by the river, though.’

  ‘Impure thoughts?’ Paddy asked.

  Fernandez shook his head. ‘That’s just it, they weren’t impure, at least not on his part. Just the opposite – she was untouchable – beautiful and untouchable. That was the fascination. And, of course, that she listened to his soul.’ Fernandez made a face. ‘Oh, Lord, now he’s got me doing it.’ He took the tape from the cassette player. ‘I’ll take a copy of this, if you don’t mind. I really appreciate your calling me in, Luke. He’ll make a great Chapter Six. I hope it was worth it for you.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Luke said. ‘In more ways than even I expected.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Dinner was a strained affair.

  Over the remains of tea David had explained Luke’s interest in the practice, and his comments about coincidence. Uncle Wally was inclined to anger, but Clodie said it was an understandable mistake on Luke’s part. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said. ‘He’s only trying to do his job properly.’

  Uncle Wally muttered something about serpents’ teeth.

  Neither Frances nor Jennifer said anything.

  Shortly afterwards they all went their separate ways – Aunt Clodie to supervise dinner preparations and perhaps snatch a moment or two at her embroidery frame, the two invalids – Uncle Wally and Frances – to rest, and Jennifer and David to take evening surgery.

  Now, together again over dinner, they found the situation, if anything, worse than before, primarily because David’s anger had continued to percolate, growing ever stronger.

  ‘I suppose he’s planning to arrest me next,’ he said, over the dessert. ‘Well, let him try, that’s all I can say. It would give me great pleasure to knock that self-satisfied smirk off his face, and throw in a suit for defamation, to boot.’

  ‘Luke isn’t the kind of person . . . ’ Jennifer began, defensively.

  ‘He isn’t a person, he’s a copper,’ David snapped.

  ‘Now, now, that’s not fair, David,’ Clodie protested. ‘Look at it from his point of view. He has a job to do, he has to examine all the facts and follow all the ways they lead. He can’t pick and choose, can he? I must say, it’s bound to be difficult for him, knowing us all as he does.’

  ‘They don’t usually send people who are involved locally,’ Frances said. ‘Paddy told me Luke came only because there was no one else available. And he is finding it awkward. They both are. More people than yourselves remember Luke as a boy – that makes it difficult for him to exert any authority.’

  ‘I didn’t notice him having any trouble,’ David growled.

  Frances shot him an impatient glance. ‘As it is, he’s got no clear path to follow. They’re holding a man for questioning, but Paddy says—’

  ‘David’s head came up. ‘—Holding a man? Who?’

  ‘I don’t know, Paddy wouldn’t say,’ Frances said. ‘He said he shouldn’t have mentioned it at all, but . . . well . . . it was in connection with something else, anyway. I didn’t press him.’

  ‘It’s Fred Baldwin,’ Jennifer said, wearily. ‘His wife was in this evening
to get some tranquillisers, she’s in a terrible state, and the baby is acting up as a result.’

  ‘But . . . why Baldwin?’ David seemed very perplexed by the announcement.

  ‘Why not? His wife doesn’t know either, but she did admit to me once before that Fred often goes out walking at night – to work off his various frustrations, apparently. He started doing it during the summer, while she was pregnant, and has just carried on. He was called to the plant the night Win Frenholm was killed.’

  ‘And Mrs Taubman? The night Mrs Taubman was killed?’ David asked, eagerly. ‘What about then?’

  ‘Out walking,’ Jennifer nodded. She wasn’t certain whether this information came into the category of patient–doctor confidence, but she was past caring. She wanted it all over, one way or another. She really did.

  ‘Then this Baldwin looks like being the killer,’ Uncle Wally said. ‘I remember him – thick-set chap, short temper.’ His lined face lit up, slightly, as he thought of something else. ‘And I believe he works up at the photo-processing plant, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ Jennifer said. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Aunt Clodie, I think I’d like to lie down for a while. Headache.’ She got up and quickly left the dining room, before any further questions could be asked or arguments started.

  She was confused and upset. The night before, when she had been out with Luke, he’d been taking a few hours’ respite from the rigours of his investigation. Or so she thought. It had been a soft romantic evening, and she’d welcomed what had happened between them on the towpath. They’d gone back home, and she would have invited him in, had not David been standing there on the doorstep. Invited him in and . . . who knows?

  She knew.

  There had not been many men in her life since her divorce, but there had been one or two. And then Mark Peacock when she’d first returned to Wychford. She was not a child any more. The pressure of Luke’s mouth had brought a quick, deep and natural response from her that she hadn’t felt for a very long time, and which was much more than sexual. She had said good night to him with regret, but had looked forward to their next meeting with considerable interest, even a kind of smothered adolescent excitement.