by Rebecca Tope
Drew was hooked. ‘Jelly babies?’
‘That horrible sticky mess with wasps all over it, beside the body. Roma says it was once a bag of jelly babies. And that was what made her really sure that Justine had killed the kid – though I didn’t follow the logic, I must admit.’
‘The body was moved,’ Drew remembered. ‘That’s what Graham said. So somebody knew she was dead and tried to hide her.’
‘It still looks like Justine, doesn’t it.’
‘I don’t know.’ Drew heaved a sigh. ‘I still can’t quite see it.’
‘Nor me,’ Maggs admitted. ‘I like her, you know. She’s obviously a mess in lots of ways, but she doesn’t come across as guilty. I mean, if you’d done something like that, you’d have trouble living with yourself, wouldn’t you?’
‘Right,’ he nodded. ‘You’ve put your finger on it. That’s what’s been nagging at me. After all, we’ve seen what guilt does to people – that sunken look they get, when they think they should have done more for their husband or old mother.’
‘That worried frown when they think they’re going to be found out,’ she chimed in.
He laughed. ‘It wouldn’t cut any ice in a court of law, though. People would say we were mad.’
‘We probably are,’ she said, before another thought struck her. ‘You know who does look guilty?’
He gazed at her consideringly. ‘Sunken eyes? Worried frown. Hmm …’
‘Mr Renton!’ she crowed. ‘I only saw him for a minute, but he was the absolute picture of guilt.’
Drew began to shake his head. ‘No, not him. That wasn’t guilt; that was horror, grief … stuff like that. Poor bloke.’
‘No.’ Maggs slapped the table emphatically. ‘I’m telling you – it was guilt.’
The day swirled on, phone calls flying back and forth, people talking confusedly, asking unanswerable questions of each other. Everyone experienced frustration at not having the whole picture available to them, including DS Den Cooper.
‘Where’s Mr Millan?’ he asked Roma.
‘He’s having a few days on his own down on the coast. I can assure you he has nothing relevant to contribute to this business. He’s a lot better off out of it.’
‘And where is Penn Strabinski?’
Roma shrugged. ‘Nobody seems to have an answer to that.’
And where were the Rentons this morning? Den thought angrily, knowing Roma would have no answer to that one. ‘Although,’ Roma went on, after a brief pause. ‘I did get a message from her this morning. Or rather, Justine did.’
‘From Miss Strabinski?’
‘Penn. For God’s sake, call her Penn.’
He eyed her impatiently and waited for whatever was coming next. ‘I’m not sure I should tell you,’ she prevaricated. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to. But it does put Justine in a much better light.’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged.
‘Well, Penn phoned my sister – her mother – and asked her to tell Justine that she – Penn – is sorry for what she did and that she’d explain everything. A bit mysterious, but we assume it’s about the way she kidnapped Justine and left her in that place.’
‘The place she says she wouldn’t be able to find again?’ Den couldn’t resist adding.
Roma didn’t rise to the provocation. ‘Helen came over this morning, which was good of her. She could have phoned.’
‘She was just being nosy.’ Justine had come quietly into the room. ‘I suppose you’ve come to see me?’ she said to Den. Bennie Timms was on a chair beside the fireplace, leaving everything to Cooper.
‘The post-mortem report’s come through,’ he said. ‘It isn’t quite conclusive yet, but the initial suggestion is that the little girl died of a fall, or some sudden trauma of that sort.’
He and Justine stared at each other, each watching for clues to the other’s thoughts. ‘So she died quickly? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘So it seems. Of course we can’t possibly get the whole picture. But it seems unlikely that she suffered any pain.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Justine breathed, tension draining from her shoulders and hands. ‘I’ve had such terrible visions all night of how it might have been for her. She was such a sweet little thing. She had an awful life, really. We do treat children horribly, don’t we?’
‘Do we?’ Bennie Timms spoke from the fireplace. Everyone looked at her.
‘We make them fit our own selfish ways. They’re at the mercy of our crazy beliefs or money-grubbing values.’ Justine glared briefly at her mother as she spoke. ‘They’re completely at our mercy. It’s disgusting. I’m never going to have any more, that’s for sure.’
‘Any more?’ Bennie murmured.
‘My little girl died,’ Justine said aggressively, as if expecting not to be believed. ‘She was three, as well. I’m sure you knew that – it must be somewhere in your records.’
‘You’re not in our records,’ said Den. ‘You haven’t ever committed a crime, as far as we know. But your father did say …’
Justine smiled, her expression a complex tangle of exasperation and triumph. ‘He would,’ she said. Carlos had taken himself off in his dirty white car for a visit to a barber, directed by Roma who showed no inclination to offer him any of her own facilities.
Den drew himself up and hardened his heart. ‘Miss Pereira, I do have to put it to you that you were present at the death of Georgia Renton and that you deliberately concealed the fact of her death by placing her body in the ditch where it was subsequently found. It is an offence to knowingly conceal a death. Do you have anything to say?’
‘Are you accusing me? Charging me?’ She frowned at him. ‘Or just trying to get me to admit something in front of witnesses?’ Her composure surprised him and he kept his eyes on her, saying nothing further.
‘I promise you,’ she went on, ‘I was not there when she died. I can tell you absolutely nothing about what happened. But it does seem obvious to me that my cousin Penn must have known something about it.’ She frowned more deeply. ‘I think we’ll find that Penn holds the answer to the whole thing, if we could just find her.’
Den looked at Roma, who had drifted over to the window, her back to the room. ‘Mrs Millan? Have you any idea as to where your niece might be?’
‘Not really,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Neither does her mother. Are you going to arrest Justine?’
‘No, we’re not going to arrest her at present, but the investigation will continue. There’ll be a further forensic examination at the farm and some more interviews.’ He addressed Justine. Would you be good enough to stay here for a few more days, or inform us of your movements if you leave?’
Justine nodded. ‘You should find Penn,’ she advised him.
‘We’ll do our best,’ he agreed, with another glance at Roma.
Karen took Roma’s phone call to the Peaceful Repose office, since Drew and Maggs were both at the top of the burial ground and out of earshot. After five rings it automatically switched through to the house.
‘Is Drew there?’ Roma demanded.
‘I could call him. It’d take a couple of minutes.’ She hesitated. ‘I think he’s doing some measuring.’
‘Don’t bother him then. He can phone me back. I’ve got another commission for him, if he’s interested.’
Karen didn’t find it hard to guess. ‘You want him to look for Penn,’ she said.
‘Clever girl! That’s exactly it. I’m probably going to sound barmy, but I’ve a hunch I know where she is.’
‘So why not go and see for yourself?’
There was a silence at the other end. ‘Can we just say I prefer not to?’ Roma eventually said. ‘There are at least two rather good reasons, but I can’t really explain them at the moment.’ Justine might be listening, Karen guessed.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him and he can phone you back for more details.’
‘And if he wants to take that young partner of his, I’d be more
than happy,’ Roma added. ‘That girl’s a real asset, isn’t she?’
It had been a while since Karen felt jealous of Maggs, Even now, it wasn’t exactly jealousy she assured herself. More a slightly wistful might have been. ‘She’s a marvel,’ she said flatly.
Drew wasn’t sure how he felt about this latest twist in his involvement in Roma’s life. He kept coming up against the fact of Penn being Karen’s cousin, when his strong inclination was just to drop the whole thing now that Georgia had been found. It had all turned very sour, with no comfortable outcome any longer possible. Penn had forfeited his loyalty by disappearing the way she did, leaving everyone to run around like headless chickens. Or, more accurately, stunned zombies. The full implications of the little girl’s fate still hadn’t really been absorbed. Drew hadn’t heard any more news of the child’s parents, but he assumed they were deep in grief and recriminations. He was intrigued by Justine and hoped she hadn’t been responsible for Georgia’s death. He was uneasy about Karen’s disposition, which could take a downturn at any moment. But here she was now, urging him to maintain his involvement and return Roma’s phone call as quickly as possible.
‘It sounded as if she didn’t want Justine to know what’s happening,’ she said briskly. ‘So if she’s funny on the phone, that’ll be why.’
‘Couldn’t she just have told you the whole thing?’ he grumbled. ‘Save all this messing about.’
‘Don’t be silly – she needs to speak to you. She doesn’t know if you’ll do it. I think we really should try to find Penn, if my opinion counts for anything. She started all this; it’s irresponsible of her to just go off and leave everybody else to pick up the pieces.’
Drew wholeheartedly agreed with that, at least. He supposed he could give up a Saturday to do what he could to bring the whole sorry business to a conclusion, if that was possible. It seemed too much to hope that Penn would just calmly explain to both Drew and the police exactly what had happened to Georgia, and when and how and why, but nothing would happen without her. The glaring problem was that Roma should disclose what she guessed about Penn’s whereabouts to the police, and not to a totally unwarranted local undertaker. It would not sit at all well with Cooper and his team when they inevitably found out that their investigations had been deliberately obstructed.
Roma was indeed circumspect when he phoned. ‘Is Justine listening?’ he asked. ‘Karen thought you might not want her to know what you’re proposing.’
‘It’s not that. I just don’t want you to jump to any premature conclusions. Approach with an open mind. I truly don’t know where Penn is, but I do have a strong hunch. I could be making a stupid mistake.’
‘Do I get my petrol paid?’ he joked.
‘Only if it turns out to be a wild goose chase. If not, you get the satisfaction of solving another case. Drew Slocombe, amateur detective, can add another notch to his notebook.’
‘Ha, ha,’ he said.
He noted down the few hints she could give as to where she wanted him to go, and agreed to set out early next morning with Maggs.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything to report,’ he promised.
Maggs was puzzled but willing. ‘Why doesn’t she go herself?’ she asked.
‘Karen wondered the same thing. It’s delicate, apparently. But all we have to do is find the Elmcroft Hotel in Bournemouth, walk in and ask for Penn Strabinski. Simple as that.’
‘What if she’s using a different name? What if she sees us and does a runner? Wouldn’t it be better to stake the place out and wait for her to show herself? She’s not likely to stay stuck in some dreary seaside hotel all day, is she?’
‘Maybe we could go and have lunch there. It’s probably open to non-residents.’
Maggs pulled a face. ‘She might be having fish and chips on the seafront and we’d have wasted all that time and money. We’d better wait till we get there and decide then.’
‘You’re right,’ he agreed, feeling suddenly cheerful. ‘At least it sounds fairly easy to find.’
* * *
Putting the phone down, Roma closed her eyes and remained very still for a full minute. However you looked at it, she admitted, she had interfered. She had broken a confidence and that felt like a violent thing to have done. Worse than that, she would have to wait for several hours before she knew the outcome of her action. Waiting, for Roma, was very like being in hell. She would have to find some compelling distraction to pass the time.
From habit, her thoughts turned to the bees. All the honey had been taken off, the hives were clean and in good order; there was little danger of swarming and little hope of a new swarm turning up out of a clear blue sky, so late in the year. But seeing as how she was in an interfering sort of mood, she decided on a close inspection of the frames anyway. The weather was not ideal – a heaviness in the air that tended to make the bees tetchy – but that didn’t worry her.
But before she could climb into her protective all-in-one suit, the phone rang. ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Millan? You don’t know me, but my friend saw the card you put up in the Pitcombe village shop. About bees? I’ve been at my wits’ end, trying to find somebody to take ours away. They were my husband’s, you see, and he died last month. I don’t have any idea what to do with them.’
‘Wasn’t he in a club? Haven’t you got any beekeeping friends to help you?’ Roma was incredulous. Normally people turned up in their own version of a swarm when they heard of a colony going begging.
‘No, no. He was too ill for that. But he loved the bees. The thing is, the neighbour’s little boy got stung yesterday and they’ve been saying some very nasty things. So in desperation I wrapped a blanket round them last night so they can’t get out. Now I don’t know what to do. My friend Irene came round to help and she remembered seeing your card. We were waiting on the doorstep of the shop this afternoon waiting for it to open after lunch, so we could get your number. Oh, do you think you can do something?’
Roma didn’t hesitate. ‘Give me your address,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll come right away.’
Transporting bees wasn’t as dangerous as it sounded, but it did have to be done properly. It should be done around twilight, or slightly later. But Roma was not inclined to wait, especially as the poor bees were already wrapped up and likely to suffocate if left much longer. Grabbing another thick blanket of her own, some rope, a thick wad of foam rubber and her suit and veil, she left the house without bothering to explain to Justine where she was going. She merely shouted up the stairs that she would be out for a while.
* * *
The woman met her at the gate of her house, hands worriedly clasped together. ‘Can you manage?’ she bleated. ‘Will you need any help?’
‘Well …’ Roma paused. She wouldn’t be able to lift a full hive into the back of her car without assistance. ‘I’ll need someone to help me lift them.’
‘I’ll do that,’ the woman said, as if it was obvious. ‘I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t know what to do with them – and they seem to cause such a lot of trouble.’
‘Have you taken off any of this summer’s honey?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I haven’t touched them since Teddy died at the end of June. He’d been ill for a month or more, so nothing’s been done to them in all that time.’
Roma felt a thrill at the prospect of a great quantity of honey just waiting for her, as well as real concern for the consequent weight of the hive.
From the bundled shape of it, she couldn’t be sure of the type. ‘Is it a National or a WBC?’ she asked. The response was a blank stare. ‘What colour is it? The hive, I mean.’
‘Oh. Sort of brown. It’s not one of those that looks like a clapboard house.’ Roma considered this before understanding the analogy. A WBC hive comprised an inner set of boxes, one on top of another, with a casing of ‘lifts’ sitting in tiers, their lower edges slightly fluted. A WBC hive was almost always white. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a National. Much less compli
cated to transport.’
Wearing the suit, and advising the woman to see if she could find one for herself, Roma delicately pulled back one edge of the enveloping blanket to locate the bees’ entrance. If she could work quickly, very few of them would notice what was happening and escape through the briefly unobstructed opening. She pushed a strip of foam rubber into the orifice and pulled the blanket down again.
Then she rearranged the covering, tying it tightly with rope, hoping there was still enough air getting in to keep the bees alive.
The woman came back wearing a peculiar assortment of gabardine overall, battered bee bonnet and gardening gloves. ‘This is what Teddy used to wear,’ she announced. ‘He hardly ever got stung.’
‘That’s fine,’ Roma approved. ‘They won’t get out now, anyway. Do you want your blanket back when I’ve finished?’
‘Not really.’
‘We’d better be quick. They haven’t got much air. I hope you’re strong.’ She hadn’t been able to get her car closer than about thirty feet, the hive being in a far corner of a small back garden. Neighbouring houses clustered on all sides and Roma could see why there’d been difficulties. In a busy summer there’d be twenty thousand bees coming and going all day long. Nobody could fail to notice that much activity.
The hive, when they lifted it, was disappointingly light.
‘You’re sure there are bees in here, are you?’ Roma demanded.
‘Oh yes. Definitely.’
‘It doesn’t feel as if they’ve been working very well. Never mind – I’ll see what’s what when I get them home.’ The fleeting thought that she might be introducing a diseased colony into her own apiary was firmly dismissed. She wasn’t going to abandon the project now.
They carried the bulky bundle awkwardly between them, walking crabwise. The car’s hatchback was open and waiting, and they gingerly tilted their burden to get it in. Roma knew it was possible – she’d chosen the car with this very procedure in mind – but it was a tight fit. The relief was palpable when they had it securely wedged in.