‘What happened?’ I try again.
I’m cautiously being sized up. Inspected. My importance considered, weighed. Dismissed.
‘An accident,’ someone says, but no explanation follows.
Glenda Morris’s home is number 14, but the numbers beside the front doors are too far away to read.
‘I am visiting someone,’ I say slowly. 'Number 14?'
As if someone has pulled a single string that is attached to each of them, they all turn sharply towards me.
'That’s where the ambulance went.’
‘And where that policeman is.' One of the women points in the direction of the detached house where the policeman emerged a minute ago. He is rooted to the steps in front of the door staring over everyone’s heads, giving the impression that he has been put there without being told why.
I get a feeling like a cold hand touching my back, crawling up my spine until it comes to a halt at my neck. 'What happened?' My voice must be laden with urgency and emotion.
This time a man replies. Wearing scruffy trousers and a sleeveless T-shirt, he has the muscular arms of a builder. He shrugs, perching a cigarette in the nook above his right ear. 'They say it was a heart attack.'
'Who is it?' I ask, with a sinking feeling.
'Our poor Glenda.’ The woman shakes her head and wipes tears from her face with the tip of her sleeve. As though they’ve all been waiting for a signal, everyone is now talking at once, a mixture of wild assumptions and speculation. Only the builder is quiet.
'Why would there be so many police for a simple heart attack?'
Good question. I interrupt the discussion. 'Was she ill?'
'Not that we were aware of.'
'But she was sixty-five.'
'That's not old.'
'Still, it’s a dangerous age.'
'That's true.'
'They haven't told us exactly what happened. And why don't they take her away?'
'Perhaps they are waiting for something.'
'Or someone.'
The conversation is probably a repeated version of several others, because they all seem to agree and none of them comes up with anything other than speculation. There is a movement in the area surrounding the white tent and everyone around me is silent. We look at a figure in a white paper suit, blue gloves and covers over his shoes. He waves and the photographer jumps forward to flash his camera in multiple directions centred on a spot in the tall grass.
A second figure, also dressed in a white paper suit, appears from the tent, carrying a clipboard, bending down, making notes and finally something is deposited in a labelled plastic evidence bag. Even though none of us can see the item, it is soon agreed that it must be a weapon. A knife. A pistol. The heart attack is dismissed.
The ambulance drives off without a corpse and two minutes later a dark van with obscured windows arrives, squeezing between the gates at the entrance of the footpath.
Tears flood around me. Glenda Morris seemed to have been a popular neighbour. Two years ago, she married David Morris, a widower who’d lived in Helston all his life. He owned a big house in the town centre, but when his daughter surprised the family with three sets of twins, he decided she needed more space than he did and they swapped houses. Sadly, he died about ten months later. Glenda inherited the house and stayed.
‘Does she have children?’ I ask casually.
‘I think she had a son, but I’ve never seen him.’
‘Hugo,’ someone else says helpfully. ‘Hope they find him, because she didn’t seem to know his whereabouts.’
‘The police will find him!’
I leave them to their speculations and walk across the street. The uniformed police man is sitting in his car, looking slightly embarrassed, and quickly turns off his mobile phone when I approach him more or less from behind. His instructions were to stop everyone but the police from entering the area; he’s not interested in who is leaving.
‘Who is the senior investigating officer?’ I ask, offering my ID card.
‘DI Corbett.’ He sizes me up. ‘Are you here to see her, sir?’
‘I think I have some information to share with her.’
He writes my name and details on his clipboard and speaks in his radio to establish the whereabouts of the woman in charge. Listens. Nods.
‘Right sir. DI Corbett is currently in the victim’s house. Number 14.’ He indicates with his pen. ‘If you can wait there, please, sir? DI Corbett will come to meet you outside.’
Through the front window I can see that Glenda Morris’ house has an open-plan living room and kitchen area and looks out on a back garden that has a wooden fence brightened up with hanging baskets that still have an abundance of blue and white lobelia and some other pink flowers. I wait obediently in front of the three steps that lead to the front door until a hand invites me in.
DI Corbett is in her early fifties, short and stocky, with close-cropped grey hair and moist eyes. She shakes my hand with an unexpectedly firm grip and a smile that seems plastered around the corners of her mouth.
‘Surprised to see you here, Detective Inspector.’
‘I came to see Mrs Morris.’
‘Then you’re too late.’
‘So it seems. Any idea what caused her death?’
Her grin makes dimples in her cheeks. ‘You should know better than to ask me that, Detective Inspector.’
‘I’m sure you have your thoughts and suspicions.’
‘What is the nature of your visit to Mrs Morris?’
‘I am investigating the death of her son.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Suspicious death, I presume?’
‘I don’t doubt you’ve heard about several body parts found scattered along the coast?’
She lets out a whistle. ‘Her son?’
‘Hugo Holmes.’
‘Well.’ She frowns, looking at a tall, slender figure who is examining the contents of a small desk in the corner of the room, a computer screen flashing on top of the desk. ‘What’s wrong with the computer, Sam?’
‘Nothing, ma’am. I’m waiting for George to come and take it away. I don’t want to turn it off and lose anything on it.’
‘No. Listen Sam, I’m going to the crime scene with DI Tregunna. Can you manage?’
A flash of amusement on his face. ‘Of course we can, Ma’am.’
‘Come.’ Expecting me to follow her, DCI Corbett moves with the slightly sideways steps of a spider running away from someone with a dust cloth to remove them from the house.
‘You’d better tell me everything about Hugo, Detective Inspector.’
‘Equal share?’
She chuckles, walking swiftly towards the white tent. ‘Has someone handed you a suit and shoe covers?’
‘No.’
She gestures to no one in particular, and someone appears from behind the tent and offers me a plastic bag. ‘Your name sir?’ He scribbles my details on his clipboard, gazing at his mobile phone to check the exact time. Murder scenes have become a neutral area where everything has to be recorded in detail.
‘You can see for yourself, Detective Inspector.’ Corbett steps aside to let me in the tent erected around the scene of the crime.
Glenda Morris’ corpse is lying on its side in the bushes. Her bare legs are wedged between two hedges. She’s wearing a pink fluffy dressing-gown over what looks like a white cotton nightdress printed with yellow and blue birds. Her hair is untidy, partly covered by grass, a small twig sticking out of her collar. Her face is only visible on one side, but it’s immediately obvious what caused her death: she has a clear plastic bag over her head.
‘This wasn't a heart attack,’ Corbett says wryly.
A figure kneeling down beside the corpse looks up. ‘We can’t yet rule out a heart attack, Dinah, but if it was, it has been caused by fear and shock.’
‘What time?’
He shrugs. ‘Sometime early this morning. She was found at half past seven by a woman taking a shortcut through the par
k going to work.’
I swallow. I received Bee Robson’s text message with Glenda’s address last night. Too late to get in my car and drive to Helston. It feels like I could have prevented her death.
33
Never have I felt so miserable and humiliated. There is no need to look down at my shoes to check if one of them has got dog poo on it. If anyone has noticed, I haven’t seen them pulling a face behind my back, stifling a snigger. It’s my own fault. For several hours, I have been preoccupied with DCI Corbett’s investigation of the death of Hugo’s mother, enabling me to search the growing files for information about Hugo’s friends or other relatives. The good news is that it will be possible to compare DNA of both victims and hopefully to confirm that they were related as mother and son.
The bad news is that I completely forgot about my stoma bag until I walked back to my car and noticed the smell before I felt the wet stain on my white shirt.
Sitting in my car, I rest my head on my hands on the steering wheel, wanting to cry. My eyes are dry, gritty, but no tears come. Stay positive, I say to myself. Not being able to cry is a good thing. I can drive home. Nobody else but me will have to endure the smell in the car. I could even nip into the toilets of a petrol station; however I would hate to go into an unhygienic public toilet like that.
A knock on the window startles me. There is an elderly man on the pavement next to my passenger window, waiting for me to open it. A ripple of bitter laughter forms somewhere inside me, wanting to escape, but it mixes with a sob half way. The sound that escapes from my throat comes out as a shriek like some animal in distress.
I hesitate, staring into the man’s face, imagining what his expression will be when I open the window. I can’t avoid him.
Thankfully there is a button to open the passenger window on my side of the car and I fumble with both buttons, opening the window on my side, letting the worst of the smell out first.
‘Is everything all right?’
I stare at his clean-shaven face. My jacket hides the stain on my shirt, but the smell is awfully pervasive. ‘Thank you. I was just leaving …’
‘It’s terrible.’ He shakes his head incredulously. ‘Were you … a friend?’
‘A friend?’ My mind has come to a halt. All I can think of is the torn stoma bag, which is still half-attached to my body, and what it will look like. However much I try, I fail to shift my thoughts elsewhere, to safer grounds.
The man sniffs. ‘A friend of Glenda Morris?’ His head motions towards the cordoned off area where the blue-and-white police tape shines in the sun, sluggishly moving in a gentle breeze.
‘No, I’m not a friend.’
‘You look like you’ve had quite a shock.’ He waits, considering his best option: retreat to his home, which appears to be second on the left to Glenda’s. The front door is open, a green plastic watering can sits on the threshold.
‘Can I use your bathroom?’
I don’t know which one of us is more shocked by my sudden outburst. I regret it instantly, inwardly cursing myself for not having thought before I spoke. The expression on my face, or a tone in my voice must have sounded desperate to him. Two bushy eyebrows rise above watery blue-grey eyes. Hair thin and rosy blonde, a suntanned freckled scalp.
‘Of course you can.’ He steps back and I meet his gaze. He knows.
Holding the front of my jacket together with one hand, I retrieve a small navy blue emergency case from the dashboard locker and get out of the car. The uniformed policeman at the park gate watches stony-faced when I follow Glenda Morris’s neighbour into his house as though I am a good friend or family member.
A sign next to his house, number 12, says that his house is called Sweet-Pea. Glancing over his shoulder, he chuckles, following my gaze. ‘My wife’s name: Petra Sweet.’
‘Nice touch.’
He nods, but looking like he’s regretting his rather hasty reaction to my request even more than I am. It suddenly seems to dawn on him that he’s just let into his house a complete stranger with unpleasant stains on his shirt. Or perhaps the close proximity of the police officers has reassured him a tad. Yet, it is a bit foolhardy of him to invite me in, for all he knows, I could be the man who murdered his neighbour.
‘Let me get you a clean towel.’
My hand reaches to the door handle. ‘Are you sure about this, Mr Sweet?’
‘Huntington. And yes, I’m sure.’
‘Perhaps you should be more careful who you invite into your house. Glenda Morris has …’
‘Don’t make me change my mind, sir.’ He moves towards the staircase with surprising speed and agility, gesturing to me to follow him.
Patiently I wait on the landing, staring at four doors, all ajar but not wide enough to see much inside. I hear him opening and closing cupboard doors and drawers. A glimpse of a guestroom with a single bed in the middle. Unmade. A small pile of bedclothes and a folded duvet. A suitcase with a leather address label next to it. He launches into the door opposite, opening onto a bathroom which is even more clean and shiny than my mother’s. Stainless steel handgrips surround the bathtub and the toilet, a plastic stool sits in the shower cubicle. Clutching a small pile of things against his chest, he lowers the lid of the toilet seat and places the things on top of it.
‘There you go,’ he says almost cheerfully. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea, shall I? Or would you rather have coffee?’
‘Coffee would be lovely, but ...’
‘I hope you’ll find everything you need,’ he interrupts hastily. ‘If not, give us a shout.’
I feel numb and humble, and it doesn’t get much better when he disappears, his footsteps fading on the staircase. I find a brand new, white long-sleeved shirt still in its cellophane wrapping, along with some empty plastic bags and a white vest under two folded towels that smell, unsurprisingly, of sweet peas.
My eyes are still misted up when I meet him in the kitchen fifteen minutes later. The tablecloth covering a small square table matches the cushions on two wooden chairs. Two mugs, one china with red roses has milky tea, the other with black coffee, is a robust dark blue with wording saying ‘I am the man in the house’.
‘Do you take milk and sugar?’ he asks.
‘No, thanks.’
He sighs heavily, as if all the tension is now finding a release valve.
‘Thank you,’ I say simply.
He shrugs, not looking at me but staring out of the window. His back garden has a wrought-iron fence at the end, offering a clear view of the path in the park where the white tent is now deserted except for an officer standing guard outside next to the tape cordoning off the area.
‘Did you see anything, Mr Huntington?’
‘Sadly, no. I wish I had. I wish I could have helped her, before … Or at least help the police to catch whoever has done this to her.’
He doesn’t ask what happened. Perhaps he has seen the corpse. Or the door-to-door officers have already enlightened him. Or he just dreads knowing the details, trying to cope with the death of his neighbour first.
‘How well did you know Glenda?’
‘From when they moved in. Her and David. He died six months after I lost my Pea.’
Which must have formed a strong bond.
‘We look after each other,’ he continues, as silent tears negotiate the creases on his wrinkled cheeks. ‘We’re going on a coach trip to Scarborough at the end of this month.’ He can’t speak in the past tense yet. ‘She’s always been healthy, you know, never showed any signs of heart problems.’
If he saw her lying half-hidden in the bushes, he clearly didn’t notice the plastic bag around her head. Just as well.
‘There will be a post mortem,’ I say slowly. ‘It’s too early to say if it really was a heart attack.’
‘That’s what we heard.’ Spreading his hands, he looks down at them, turning a gold wedding ring with trembling fingers.
The fridge next to him resumes a humming noise. A wooden-framed group photo
on top of it shows him, laughing proudly, surrounded by two pairs of adults in their early forties and five children. The youngest is a baby anxiously staring at the camera, the others are three boys under the age of ten, and an older girl with a wide smile exposing braces to straighten her front teeth.
‘Your family?’
A warm smile crosses his face. ‘My son has two girls, my daughter three boys.’
‘What about Glenda?’
‘She has … had two sons.’
‘Two?’
He nods, unaware of my surprise. ‘Oscar and Hugo.’ A hand clasps over his mouth. ‘I’ll have to let them know, won’t I? Or will the police do that?’
‘It is one of their tasks, but there’s nothing to stop you contacting them, Mr Huntington.’ I hesitate, ‘Do you know Hugo at all?’
‘I’ve only seen him once. Must have been a couple of months ago. Yes, I remember. My son’s little one was just a week or so old. May Bank Holiday. We posed for the photo, which was a Father’s day present.’
‘Did Glenda say anything about him?’
‘Not much. She loved him, but I don’t think their relationship was very good.’
‘Was he close to his brother that you know of?’
He shakes his head warily. ‘Oscar lives in Australia. I must have his address somewhere.’ He smiles sadly. ‘I don't know about Hugo but I’m sure the police will find him.’
‘We already have. Hugo is dead, Mr Huntington.’
34
People who are tempted to follow their instincts and act on the spur of the moment are never prepared. That is what happens to me when I hesitate before climbing the narrow concrete staircase to my flat. Behind me, my car makes a clicking sound as the engine cools down rapidly. A dog barks in the distance and a humming sound high in the sky, announces that the last plane from London is due to land at Newquay Airport. A footstep crushes a small stone on the slate path that borders the residential parking area. Instinctively. I turn. Nobody. Or is there a sharp intake of breath?
What every body is saying: DI Tregunna Cornish Crime novel Page 23