And Mrs Shiers. Why had she been so defensive about her husband? Was he dead? Was this terror of a phantom dog merely the manifestation of a guilty conscience? Joanna sat and pondered that one very carefully before deciding it was possible. Evelyn might conceivably have killed her husband and buried the body. On the surface she seemed an unlikely murderess. But murder can be no more than an accident. And she would be the sort of natural victim to panic after an accident... do something quite silly like bury the body in the garden. Perhaps he’d run off with someone else and wasn’t really missing at all? She’d better speak to Mat in the morning – see if he had come up with anything. She grimaced.
Last of all she considered the unknown quantity: Dr Wilson. Of all the men involved Joanna did not want it to be him. She liked him.
‘This is a puzzle,’ she muttered, ‘a dog rag puzzle.’
‘Talking to yourself, Jo, is the first sign of madness.’ The voice at the door made her jump.
‘Tom ... for goodness’ sake!’ She felt embarrassed, exposed.
‘You a policewoman,’ he said, ‘and leaving the door open. Caro wanted me to come over and ask if you’d eat with us tonight.’ Tom and Caro lived in the next cottage in the terrace. ‘She’s made a whacking great pot of curry – loads of rice.’ He walked towards her. ‘We’d both like you to come. We’ve been bickering all evening ...’
‘I haven’t heard you,’ she said.
‘And you do usually ...’ He grinned. ‘That’s the trouble with these cottages. Walls do not have ears. They have microphones. Anyway – please come.’
‘So Caro can pump me about the nurse?’
‘Whatever the reason Caro wants you to come,’ he said seriously, ‘mine is purely for the joy of your company.’
Joanna smiled. ‘How can I refuse?’
‘Good.’ Tom smiled back at her and reached for her hand with a quick, deft movement, then raised it to his lips. ‘Thank you, Jo.’ He made a face. ‘I need some company with Caro tonight.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
He held his hand up, waved it around horizontally. ‘Things none too good at the moment,’ he said.
‘Give me half an hour,’ she said, ‘and I’ll bring the wine. And, Tom, don’t worry about Caro. She does love you, you know.’
‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘I do not know.’
She could hear Tom and Caro quarrelling as she knocked on the door, clutching a litre bottle of Chianti.
Tom’s face was red, Caro’s white. Both made a huge effort to pretend nothing was wrong and, as Joanna had thought, Caroline didn’t waste much time before pumping her about the dead nurse.
Still, she enjoyed the evening. It was good to be in company again, to talk about things other than police work, when she could divert Caroline’s mind away from the nurse’s death.
‘Had she had sex? Oh, come on, Jo,’ she said at one point. ‘You know I can find all this out by reading the coroner’s report.’
‘Then read it,’ Joanna said. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything.’
‘Yes, but what do you think?’ she asked.
Joanna was tired. She’d drunk at least half a bottle of very nice Italian wine. She leaned forward. ‘I’d lay a bet she was murdered,’ she said.
Caro’s eyes gleamed. ‘I knew it.’
‘You’ve done it now,’ Tom muttered when Caro disappeared into the kitchen to pour the coffee. ‘It’ll be all over the local rag. Quote Detective Inspector Piercy is convinced Marilyn Smith was murdered unquote.’ He looked at her kindly. ‘You never learn about Caro, do you? For a copper, Joanna,’ he said softly, ‘you’re bloody naive.’
They talked about the weather, and politics, and the latest show in Stoke’s theatre in-the-round. The coffee sobered Joanna up and for the rest of the evening she was discretion itself.
But by that time the damage was done.
Chapter 11
The story broke the following morning. ‘Detective Inspector Piercy confided’ – confided! Joanna would have liked to wring Caro’s neck, and Tom’s, too. The whole thing had been a set-up. She was furious as she read down the column.
‘Detective Inspector Piercy confided in our reporter that her suspicions were that the dead nurse was murdered.’
Joanna finished the paragraph in disgust. Never again, she vowed. Never again do I make a friend of a newspaper person. She spent the next uncomfortable hour and a half on the carpet in the Chief Superintendent’s office – ‘I hope you can prove all this, Inspector’ and references to how sad it was to begin her career on such a false note.
‘And don’t forget, Piercy, there were plenty who thought a woman might not be right for the job. We took a chance on you.’ His beetling eyebrows lowered. ‘Don’t let me down, Piercy.’ It was a threat.
Inwardly she groaned.
‘Have you made any progress? It’s four days since the woman died.’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘You’re an experienced police officer,’ he said. ‘We expect better than this from you. What makes you believe the poor woman was murdered, anyway?’
‘Circumstances,’ she said, and spent the next twenty minutes explaining the facts as she saw them. The blackmail ... the clothes ... the capsule.
He quickly saw the flaw in her argument. ‘If she was waiting for a lover, why take a sleeping capsule?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
He looked at her pityingly. ‘In all probability, Piercy, she wasn’t waiting for a lover at all.’ He waved the wad of notes at her. ‘And now we’ve got this bloody nutcase of a woman hearing phantom dogs.’ He glared at her. ‘She’s ringing the station every five minutes complaining.’
‘I’ll go round and see her, sir,’ she promised.
‘And talking of dogs,’ she said, ‘if the bloody thing was as fierce as the report suggested surely nobody could have got past it.’
‘I was going to talk to the vet later today, sir.’
‘And, Piercy. Get Levin on the phone. Pin him down.’
‘It’s early days yet, sir.’
‘Any other leads?’
‘If you can spare Willis, sir, I thought I’d ask him to look into the bank accounts.’
His eyebrows almost met in the middle.
‘I’m sure she was a blackmailer, sir.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Keep Willis.’
He wagged his finger at her. ‘One wrong-coloured capsule plus erotic underwear doesn’t add up to murder.’ He plucked at his chin. ‘And by the way, Dr Wilson is very well thought of by the people of this town. Don’t tread on his toes, or get in his way.’ He cleared his throat noisily. ‘He also happens to be my doctor. I don’t want you upsetting him, please.’
She nodded.
‘I’d like you to report to me after the weekend, Piercy. We’ll review the situation then. And if the lab in Birmingham does uncover something and this turns out to be a simple overdose ...’
‘No, sir.’
He stared at her. ‘You got carried away last night,’ he said, almost kindly. ‘In this job it can be very important knowing who you can trust and who you can’t. Pick your friends carefully, Piercy. And in future. And for your sake,’ he added, ‘I just hope you’re right. I don’t think egg on your face would do much for your appearance.’
‘No, sir.’
‘By the way,’ he said as she turned to go, ‘how are you getting on with Korpanski?’
She looked at him suspiciously. ‘We’ve had our differences,’ she said cautiously, ‘but I think we’ll be all right.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. Unfortunate about the paper,’ he muttered, and she left.
En route to her own welcome office she passed Mike chatting to one of the DCs.
‘Mike, can I have a word with you?’
He followed her into her office and stood in front of her desk, sharply to attention.
She sighed. ‘No, not like that. I ...’ Words failed her. ‘Sit down, Mike.’
He stood stiffly. ‘I prefer to stand, thanks, Inspector.’ He looked tired this morning, irritable. The companionship they had enjoyed briefly yesterday seemed to have evaporated.
‘I’d sort of hoped we could sit down over a coffee and discuss the case. The Superintendent is breathing down my neck. The article has upset him.’
‘You might have phrased it better,’ he said. ‘You know the sort of thing ... “Can’t rule it out.” I felt such a bloody fool reading that in the paper this morning.’
‘I was at a private dinner party,’ she said, ‘with friends.’
‘I’d change my friends, then,’ he said grumpily. ‘We’ll look such a pair of idiots if it turns out she died naturally.’
‘But she didn’t,’ Joanna insisted. ‘You know she didn’t.’ She gazed at him. ‘Something will crop up soon. We still don’t know who she was expecting that night. Nor do we know where her money came from. I just want to find out the truth. I really do have a feeling, Mike.’
He grunted. ‘The Super doesn’t have a lot of faith in feelings. He deals in hard facts, Inspector, as do we all. We’re the police, Joanna, not mediums, and I’d lay a bet she wasn’t expecting anyone.’
She felt her irritation grow. ‘I know that’s what you think, Mike,’ she said, ‘but one hard fact we do not have is the cause of death. Without that ...’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Are you all right?’
He looked sheepish. ‘Wife giving me a hard time,’ he muttered.
‘Oh.’ She felt inadequate. ‘I’m sorry. Is it the hours?’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘She’s just being bloody stupid.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘There was a picture,’ he said. ‘Fran saw it.’ He grinned. ‘You look a bit less like a gypsy than usual. It’s a good photo and my wife can be a bit jealous.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where the picture came from.’ Then she remembered. Caro and Tom playing with a new camera, a few months ago at a barbecue. And she was suddenly bitterly resentful. She had counted them among her small circle of friends. If they could not be trusted, then who? Problems from the men in the force she had anticipated. But this ...?
‘It’s not as if you’re married,’ he carried on. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad then. If you had a husband. But single ...’
Now she was furious. ‘I’m not bloody well getting married so your wife can sleep well at nights, Mike,’ she said. ‘If she feels I’m a threat well I’m bloody sorry. You’re just going to have to convince her, Mike. It’s her problem.’
‘It’s mine too.’
She looked at him. He looked fed up and tired. She gave a lopsided grin. ‘Having a hard time, Korpanski? Wife giving you a hard time?’
‘Bugger off,’ he said, laughing.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ve got work to do. It’s hard enough without these extra problems.’
‘You know,’ he said, ‘if this was a detective novel Agatha Christie would have used a vegetable alkaloid.’
‘I’ve thought of that,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I had better speak to Matthew Levin again. The trouble is, Mike,’ she said, ‘we all know that without the cause of death we know nothing. That has to be our starting point.’
She stabbed the point of her pen into the paper. ‘The cause of death.’
She looked at Mike. ‘Perhaps the Super’s right. We’re really getting nowhere.’ She picked up her coffee and stared into the bottom of the cup.
Mike bent over her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. ‘You’ll just have to lean on your pet pathologist, madam.’
Joanna spoke awkwardly. ‘I don’t feel it’s the right approach at the moment. I feel we should pursue other enquiries.’
Mike moved away. ‘If you say so, Inspector.’ He looked at her carefully. ‘Joanna,’ he said tentatively, ‘don’t let your personal prejudices interfere.’
She looked questioningly at him.
‘If it wasn’t Dr Levin,’ he said, ‘you’d have been on the blower by now, badgering him for a cause of death. You’d have made a right nuisance of yourself. You wouldn’t have side-stepped the issue.’
‘I know you’re right, Mike. And I will ring him.’
‘So what else is on the agenda?’
She ticked off her list. ‘I want Willis to go to the bank to get some details. It’s time we looked into Marilyn’s financial affairs a bit closer. Over the last two years, I think.’
‘And you?’
‘I’ve got plenty to do, Mike,’ she said. ‘I think it’s about time I called on our Mr Machin. Check him out. I’d like to meet him anyway. And then there’s Dr Wilson. He hasn’t exactly told us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, has he? What’s your gut feeling?’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know. I get the impression here the answer could be just about anything. I honestly don’t know.’
She grinned and held out her hand. ‘Like to take a bet?’
‘I know what you’d put a tenner on.’
She nodded. ‘You’re right.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘You stick to your murder theory. Ten quid says it’s suicide.’ They shook hands.
Joanna sighed. ‘I suppose I really ought to visit our friend Evelyn too.’ She made a face. ‘I can’t wait to meet this phantom dog.’
‘I’ll come with you, Joanna,’ he said. ‘I’d like to meet her.’ He watched her curiously. ‘Do you think she could have killed her husband?’
Joanna shrugged her shoulders. ‘At first I would have said no. Now, I’m not quite so sure.’
She was still thinking when she backed the car out of the space. Her first murder case as an inspector. Why couldn’t it have been straightforward? Why did it have to be such a tricky business? And now she had to move forward in this case or drop it. By Monday, the Super had said, then she had to return to the drugs through schools problem. ‘The county can’t afford to watch you running around in circles, making a fool of yourself, finding out nothing, quoted in newspapers and listening to hunches,’ the Super had said. ‘Set an example. Teach the young rookies when to hold on to a case and when to let go. It’s obvious this girl died from natural causes and the doctors just haven’t been quite thorough enough.’
She had demurred. What about the clothing?
‘She was just a kinky cow, Detective Inspector. No more than that. You’ll find it’s nothing more than drugs and alcohol. Until Monday – and that’s it.’
But there were people she wanted to speak to first. She had a sudden thought. So far all the connections had been men ... Marilyn had been fond of men.
She turned to Mike. ‘All men,’ she said. ‘Machin, Paul Haddon, Dr Wilson. No women friends. Surely everyone has women friends. Where were Marilyn’s?’
‘The doctor’s wife?’
She nodded. ‘That’s what I think. They were close, weren’t they?’
‘What about Mrs Shiers?’
They stood outside the neat bungalow. Nets twitched. She was watching for them.
She must have recognized Joanna because the door opened as soon as she mounted the front step.
Evelyn Shiers – even more like a cornered, bristling fox than ever – stared suspiciously at Mike. ‘Who’s he?’ she asked.
‘Detective Sergeant Korpanski, Mrs Shiers.’ Joanna glanced at Mike. ‘We understand that you’re still being disturbed by a dog barking.’
Evelyn glared at her. ‘It wasn’t just any dog, Inspector. I told you. It was Ben. I heard him. I know his bark.’
Joanna shot another swift glance at Mike. ‘We need to look round your garden,’ she said.
The woman looked nervous. ‘What for ... Why?’
‘To look for the dog,’ Mike said stolidly. ‘You see we believe you, Mrs Shiers.’
Reluctantly Evelyn led the way round the back to the garden. There was no doubt – the garden was overlooked by Marilyn’s house, was dominated by it. Three side windows gave on to Evelyn’s small patch. Although it was spring little wa
s coming to life here. The cats had overrun the garden as they had the house. Joanna walked the length of the patch. Jock Shiers had disappeared four years ago. At the end of the garden was a small, flowering tree. Joanna stopped in front of it. It was young – could not have been growing more than a few years. Nailed to its base was a crude wooden cross. She looked enquiringly at Evelyn.
The woman was pale with terror. Her eyes were filling with tears. Her hand shook as she crossed herself.
‘Cat,’ she said hoarsely. ‘My cat. He died.’
The two police looked at each other. Joanna glanced at the base of the tree and muttered to Mike, ‘Do we dig?’
Imperceptibly he nodded then turned to Evelyn. ‘I don’t hear a dog,’ he said.
Evelyn held her hands up to her ears. ‘The dog,’ she said. ‘I can hear it.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Can’t you?’
‘Look,’ Joanna said kindly. ‘I think ... I think all this has been a strain on you. Why don’t you see a doctor?’
And to Mike later, when they were back in the car, she said, ‘What if she was blackmailing her too?’
He objected. ‘But Jock Shiers disappeared before Marilyn lived here.’
Joanna stared through the windscreen. ‘I don’t know, Mike. What if she sort of ... tended the grave and Marilyn saw her?’
He nodded. ‘Possible.’
‘And ... blackmailed her. It would explain the phantom dog. Disturbed, guilty mind “hears” the dog ... Remember Ben was put down because Marilyn died.’
‘Just one or two tiny flaws in your case, Joanna,’ he said. ‘One, if you’re suggesting Evelyn Shiers actually killed Marilyn, she was bloody terrified of that dog. She’d never have got past him. And two, we still don’t know how Marilyn died.’
Joanna was silent for a moment then murmured, ‘Poisoned meat?’ She sighed. ‘We need to talk to the vet. Right now, Mike, I think I’ll go and visit your friend Grenville Machin.’
‘Yes – let’s,’ he said, but she put a hand on his arm.
Winding Up the Serpent Page 12