This Is a Dreadful Sentence

by Penny Freedman

  This was turning into a ‘sealed room’ mystery and Scott didn’t like it one bit. The logical answer, of course, was that someone else beside Yilmaz had hidden in the library and that Yukiko Iwaki had stood and watched while he committed a bloody murder, then let him out and locked up after him. But it was such an improbable scenario. And how would the murderer have known that Yilmaz was going to be there? Only if he had made an assignation with him. And why would two men make an assignation in a library after hours? If Ekrem was dealing drugs, surely there were easier places to do it.

  He rolled out of bed and then groaned as he remembered that he had not shopped as he had intended to the previous evening and there was nothing for breakfast. Swearing, he pulled on a tracksuit and sprinted to the garage that he used as his corner shop. He bought orange juice, bacon and sliced bread but failed on ground coffee. After a couple of satisfyingly greasy bacon sandwiches, offset by the virtuous properties of the orange juice, he stacked his dirty crockery alongside the precarious heap on the draining board, emptied the laundry basket into the washing machine and, unshaven and still in his tracksuit, got into his car and headed for the station.

  Marlbury was bright and busy with a hint of spring in the sunshine, though it was only February. As Scott took the ring road past the city walls he noticed the snowdrops and daffodils sprouting artfully around them – an imaginative piece of civic planting. He looked dispassionately at the town; he wasn’t really a native. He’d been at secondary school here but before that he’d moved around, following his father, who was in the army. His father had retired while he was stationed at the barracks in Marlbury and decided to stay around there while David finished his schooling. When he’d left for university, his parents had moved out to the nearby coast; Scott had visited them there but had rarely gone into Marlbury. They were both dead now – they had been elderly parents with one late child.

  When he’d been sent here as a DCI, he hadn’t expected it to feel like a home-coming, but he had been surprised to find himself so detached. It had changed a lot, of course, transforming itself into a shopping Mecca for the surrounding area, but even the places he recognised seemed like stills from a familiar film – observed before but not experienced. He’d been greeted by one guy who recognised him from school; they’d shaken hands and said they must meet for a drink some time, but both knew they wouldn’t. He could log onto Facebook and see who else was around, but he wouldn’t do that either.

  He’d bought a house on a new development near the railway station, slickly finished and needing no work, even down to its paved courtyard garden. Most of his neighbours were around his age but they all had partners and families; he didn’t fit into their social world. He didn’t mind; he had a habit of self-sufficiency gained, he guessed, from all that moving around when he was young. He’d had no luck with women really: a relationship started at university which had drifted on through his twenties until she got tired of it and moved on; his thirties punctuated by a few unsatisfactory attempts to build something, mainly with work colleagues. To be honest, he didn’t find women police officers very attractive on the whole; he admired them, thought they often did a great job, but they had a hard edge that he didn’t care for. Outside work, he didn’t want to be challenged; he wanted softness, someone who would smooth away his day. An old-fashioned woman, he supposed.

  He found on his desk what he’d hoped to find: the autopsy results. They’d come in the previous evening while he’d been talking to people at the college. He scanned Lynne McAndrew’s report: Yilmaz had been standing when he was killed. He had sustained crushed bones and internal organs; the single wound that had killed him had been a broken rib puncturing the left lung. There were shallow cuts or stab wounds on his right arm – possibly defence wounds - and on the right side of his face. (Did that mean he’d had a fight with someone before he was killed?). The body showed no signs of disease and blood tests showed nothing out of the ordinary, though his cholesterol level was high for a man of his age. HIV test was negative. There was no alcohol in his blood; he had smoked some cannabis not long before he died but not in a quantity that would have made him incapable of defending himself.

  As he picked up the report to look through it again, he saw that there was another sheet beneath it. Jackpot! The preliminary forensics were in as well. He ran his eyes over it. There was a mass of stuff, but the highlights had been helpfully bullet-pointed: fibres on the floor, some matching Yilmaz’s clothing, others cotton in several colours, had gone for further analysis; blood and saliva matching Yilmaz’s DNA; also semen matching Yilmaz found on the floor at the back of the bay (so not at the front where he was killed). Was that it, then? Did Yilmaz have sex with some guy in the library and then get killed by him? Another Turk? Did Yilmaz threaten to inform on him? None of that explained the locked doors. He needed to find out how tight security was on those keys. A lot of people handled them – different students every evening – so could Yilmaz’s killer have got hold of one?

  He scanned the rest of the report: other stuff had gone to the lab for analysis, including a couple of hairs that might be helpful, but people presumably walked in and out of that bay all the time, shedding hair, skin cells, snot and the leavings from their shoes. He turned back to the autopsy report. Those cuts on the right arm, what were they about? He visualised the scene: a man with his right arm up, protecting his face; another man with a knife – driving him into the bay? But once he’d driven him in, he’d have to leave him there while he went round to move the stack. What kept Yilmaz there? The answer came but his eureka moment was interrupted by a tap at the door and the arrival of Mark Tyler.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here, boss. I’ve been working on the mobile records and there are some things I thought you’d like to see.’

  ‘Beyond the call of duty, Mark, but thanks.’ Unspoken was the recognition that this was Tyler’s reparation for yesterday’s clumsiness over Irina Boklova-Yilmaz. ‘Before I look at those, take a look at these – autopsy and forensic results. See if I’m right but I think we have to be looking for two men.’

  Hardly giving Tyler time to take in the reports, Scott explained.

  ‘Yilmaz is in the bay when the stack starts to move in on him. He protests, but nothing happens. He tries to get out, but someone is there with a knife, threatening, keeping him in there. As the stacks move in, Yilmaz turns side on, making himself a thinner target, pressing against the moving stack, but he’s still desperate to slide out, only he’s kept there by the guy with the knife, stabbing at his exposed right side. It answers your question when we first looked at the scene – why didn’t he get out? He wasn’t drunk, or drugged to any significant degree, and he was standing up when he was crushed. Someone else had to be keeping him in there.’

  ‘So what’s your scenario?’

  ‘You saw the mention of his semen in the forensics? I think it must have been a blackmail attempt that went wrong. He’s lured there for gay sex with one guy while the other one’s there as a witness. He was an informer; maybe they wanted something to hold over him to keep him off their backs, but he wouldn’t be threatened – maybe said he would expose them – so they ended up killing him.’

  ‘The library’s a funny place for it, isn’t it?’

  ‘People get their kicks in funny ways. You must have discovered that working in this job.’

  ‘So, you’re thinking they had a key?’

  ‘That’s the crux. Could anyone have got a key cut? I’ll need to talk to the Social Science librarian on Monday and get an honest answer about their security arrangements.’

  ‘Meanwhile, do you want to take a look at these? Our man was pretty busy in the month before he died, and the other students did quite a bit of talking on Wednesday night. Makes interesting reading.’

  It was after five when Scott left the station and headed for the supermarket. Most of the fresh stuff would be gone but, to be honest, he rarely bought much of that anyway. Coffee, that was the really important t
hing. He surfed the fruit and veg aisles, picking up a few end-of-the-day bags, and moved on to the ready meals. It was when he reached the dairy aisle that he spotted Gina Gray. She was wheeling a loaded trolley and trying to distract a small baby who was sitting in her trolley and attempting to throw things out of it. As she set off again, he wheeled his trolley alongside hers.

  ‘I thought it was only the chronically disorganised like me who left their shopping till this time,’ he said.

  She rolled her eyes heavenwards.

  ‘This is my second trip today. The first had to be aborted – you don’t want to know why. This is my granddaughter, Freda, by the way.’

  The baby gazed at him appraisingly, sucking vigorously at a handful of pink cloth. He sought around for something appropriate to say and then gave up.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘How much do you know about your students’ sexuality?’ he asked.

  She gave a hoot of laughter.

  ‘They say supermarkets in the evenings are great places for singles to meet, but I’m not sure that’s going to get you far as a chat-up line!’

  He could feel himself blushing. Damn the woman. Well, he wasn’t going to be deflected.

  ‘Sorry, it’s just – is it possible Ekrem Yilmaz was gay?

  She’d stopped laughing at him, at any rate.

  ‘I never thought he might be gay. He seemed quite hetero - pretty leery with the women in the class. They didn’t like him a bit. I would say definitely not gay. Except it might be that given the culture he came from and the attitude to homosexuality – and given that he was working for the government - it’s possible he could have been adopting deep protective cover.

  ‘Did you ever see him around with women?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said.

  She reached for some yoghourts off a shelf and pushed on. He trailed beside her. In the next aisle they nearly ran into Yukiko Iwaki and Christiane Becker, poring over jars of sauerkraut. She was all over them of course, and they were all over the baby, who grinned gummily at them.

  ‘Christiane is such a cheat,’ Yukiko told Gina Gray. ‘We each have to make a typical national dish to take to an international evening, and she’s buying a jar of sauerkraut!’

  Christiane was laughing. ‘I told Yukiko – no-one makes sauerkraut in Germany any more. It’s a national dish you buy in the supermarket!’

  Gina Gray laughed too, warmly, affectionately, not mockingly as she laughed at him.

  ‘Quite right too. Life’s too short for pickling cabbages. I love your coat, Yukiko. Is it new?’

  He watched Yukiko as she ducked her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. It was true she looked good; the coat was short and a pale cream colour, and she was wearing a matching scarf and cap. She could have been on a fashion shoot. He, on the other hand, was becoming horribly conscious that he was still in his tracksuit, still unshaven, and probably hadn’t cleaned his teeth that morning. The girls hadn’t greeted him; was it possible they hadn’t recognized him without his suit and tie?

  Needing to make a getaway, he waved a hand vaguely at the three of them and hurried on to the checkout. As he unloaded, he felt a tap on his shoulder: she was there again, behind him, giving the once-over to his pile of ready meals.

  ‘I see you’re not into home cooking, DCI Scott,’ she commented. ‘You can’t hope to keep your mind sharp if you live on rubbish, you know.’

  For a moment he thought – hoped? – that she was going to invite him round for some home cooking, but she simply laughed and turned to unloading the smug fair-trade, organic contents of her own impeccable trolley.

  7

  SATURDAY: First Person Plural

  Friday night is not without incident. Freda wakes several times and is inconsolable despite nappy changes, drinks of water, cuddles and songs. I feel it must be my fault. Ellie, when she was small, once told me you’re shouting with your face, and it is possible that this is what I’m doing to Freda at 3.30 am. I take her into my bed and she falls asleep; I can’t sleep, however, as I’m racked by waking dreams of rolling over on top of her and crushing her to death. Eventually I pick her up and carry her, still asleep, back to her cot. Then, as I am lowering her into it with infinite care, she wakes and resumes her screaming. And so it goes.

  In the morning, Annie remains inert in her room and I haven’t the energy to shout at her. I give Freda her breakfast, sluice down the kitchen afterwards, dress her, find her coat, hat, gloves, shoes and cuddly toy, and my wallet, shopping bag, keys and list, and strong-arm her into her buggy. She does that arching thing that they do to try and thwart me, but it’s a bit half-hearted. She’s exhausted too. Because it makes me feel better, I bang loudly on Annie’s door before I leave, shouting,

  ‘I’M JUST OFF TO SAINSBURY’S. I DON’T WANT TO FIND YOU STILL IN BED WHEN I GET BACK.’

  Then I set off. Normally, I cycle to the supermarket and wheel the shopping back, slung onto the handlebars. As I can hardly sling Freda onto the handlebars, I walk today, pushing Freda. It’s about a mile and the morning is alive with tantalising early sunshine. Marlbury is a nice place, though not as nice as it thinks it is. I’ve always thought it was pretty smug about itself, actually. I’m not really a native, of course; my washing up here was a consequence of my marriage, as so much else has been. My husband, Andrew, is Marlbury to the bone: his father and grandfather were solicitors here; his mother’s father was once the mayor. Andrew, like his father, grandfather and brother, went to Marlbury Abbey School, which has a claim to being the oldest school in the country. He was Head Boy. I was always an interloper with my sloppy London ways.

  At first, I found the absence of anonymity unbearable: Andrew couldn’t walk down the street without being greeted, without stopping to chat. My head whirled with new names and faces and I yearned for the soulless metropolis. It got better, of course: I made my own friends – work colleagues and fellow mothers – and then Andrew and I divorced and a lot of people no longer bothered to stop and chat. Some even passed by on the other side.

  As I walk through the town this morning, I try to visualise it through the eyes of the new season’s tourists. The bulbs are out round the walls; the Abbey looms picturesquely from the end of the high street; all the major chains are represented in the shopping mall. This is middle England: comfortable and civilised, blinkered and self-satisfied.

  Freda has fallen asleep by the time we reach Sainsbury’s, but when I lift her out of her buggy and sit her in a trolley she wakes and immediately bursts into tears. She is inconsolable and I soon realise why: we have lost Piglet. Piglet once bore some resemblance to a Sheppard drawing. Though he is now little more than a small pinkish bag, distorted by months of vigorous sucking and tugging, he is the love of Freda’s life. When we set out for our walk, Freda was clutching him; we have dropped him somewhere along the way. Though everything in me rebels, I know there is only one thing for it: I remove Freda from the trolley, strap her back in her buggy and set out to retrace our steps.

  I have almost despaired of finding him when, two thirds of the way back, I spot a pinkish bloom in the War Memorial Garden which seems not to belong there. I sprint across the grass, in contravention of the many signs forbidding me to, and snatch him up, realising as I do so that I can’t possibly hand him back to Freda, whose wailing is reaching new heights of passion. It has rained in the night, he is covered in mud and she will shove him straight into her mouth. I stuff him into my pocket and head for home at an ungainly run, scattering pedestrians as I go.

  Back home, I recklessly ply Freda with chocolate biscuits and plunge Piglet into hot soapy water. Now I have to get him dry. I don’t own a tumble drier – I never have – it’s my puny contribution to stemming global warming and I’ve always been irritatingly priggish about it, I expect. Today, I wouldn’t, quite frankly, give a toss about global warming if I could just get this soggy little bundle dry and stop my g
randchild from screaming at me. I wring the water out of him with the savagery of one murdering a chicken, stick him on a radiator and turn the heating up to sauna temperature.

  From here on in things begin to improve: Annie emerges and plays incy wincy spider with Freda; I have a cup of coffee and read The Guardian; Piglet dries; we have lunch; Freda falls asleep, exhausted. It is, therefore, nearly four thirty when we set out for the second time on the trip to Sainsbury’s.

  All the best stuff has gone, of course, by the time we get there, and I am forced to buy the expensive stuff – fair trade and organic – which is all that is left. As I make my way round to the dairy aisle, I see David Scott. I’m not sure it’s him at first because he looks so unlike his professional self. He’s wearing a track suit and trainers, none too clean, and sporting designer stubble and unbrushed hair. He immediately starts talking to me about sex – well the sexuality of my students, actually, so it’s not that much fun. He thinks Ekrem might have been gay, which is an interesting idea. Is it possible that all that sleaziness with the girls was overcompensation?

  We meet Christiane and Yukiko doing their shopping. A fine style contrast they present: Christiane is in a sensible padded anorak and a woolly hat, while Yukiko is in a light spring coat (too thin really for today’s cold wind) and Burberry accessories. I’m not sure if they recognise DCI Scott in grunge mode – they certainly don’t acknowledge him. His trolley screams single man: milk, cereal, strong Italian coffee, pizzas, shepherd’s pie, bangers-and-mash-for-one and a twelve pack of Foster’s. I feel a pang of envy for the singleness of it, for the please-myself solitude it betokens, but as I start my walk back home, pushing my laden buggy, I rather wish I’d invited him back for supper.

  8

  SUNDAY: Investigation Day Four

  Waking in the insistent light of a bright, blowy morning, Scott registered Sunday and pulled a pillow over his head, not so much because he would enjoy the luxury of sleeping in but because he couldn’t imagine what he was going to do with his day. He’d spent hours mulling over the students’ phone records the day before and he had questions to ask, but that would have to wait till tomorrow, when he’d take Tyler with him. And he couldn’t talk to the librarian till tomorrow. So what to do today?