by Fay Sampson
‘Daddy! Is it a murdered person?’ the younger girl asked.
‘I don’t know, love. I didn’t get a look at it. Don’t you worry. The police will look after it now. And the ambulance. They’ll take her to hospital and see if she’s all right.’
‘She?’ Hilary asked sharply.
‘Don’t ask me. But that’s what some of them who were nearer than us are saying.’
Hilary muscled her way through the crowd. She seized upon a woman of her own age. ‘Did you see what the trouble was? They’re saying it may have been a woman. Possibly dead. Is that true?’
The woman looked shaken. Lipstick showed incongruously bright pink on her pale face. ‘I’m rather afraid it may be. She was lying inside the Galilee – that’s the bit between the nave of the church and the Lady Chapel—’
‘I know!’ Hilary snapped. ‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘We were up by the chancel when someone screamed. We went running down the nave to see. And there she was. Well, I say she, but you can’t be sure these days, But from where we were standing, it looked like it. She was half-hidden in the corner between the steps and the wall. Quite a slight figure, really. Black leather jacket, white shirt, black leggings. Well, one of the staff, security guard or something, came running. He took one look at her, then ordered the rest of us back and phoned the police. After that, they moved everybody out to the gate. And now, well, as you can see, the emergency services are here in force.’
‘Would you say she was a young woman?’
‘I didn’t get a close look, of course, but yes, from her build, I had a feeling she was.’
Faces wheeled through Hilary’s mind. Amina’s blue eyes through the burka. Mel, edging away in the gift shop, looking scared. Even – her conscience smote her now – the insistent Eeyore-like face of Joan Townsend, as she pursued her story.
But Amina would have been wearing her burka.
‘Did she have bright blonde hair?’
‘As I say, we didn’t get right into the Galilee. But no, not as far as I could see. Why, is it someone you know?’
‘And a black leather jacket? Not a baggy brown cardigan?’
But Joan would have been wearing more than a cardigan on a wet day like this. A fear she had not expected was growing in Hilary’s heart.
She fought her way back to Veronica. ‘Not good news, I’m afraid. A young woman, by the sound of it. And by the signs, police and so on, I’d say she was probably dead.’
‘Amina!’
‘No burka. The woman I talked to, who was in the nave when they found her in the Galilee, didn’t think that she had blonde hair. That rules two of them out. And you say that Joan wasn’t answering her phone.’
‘Oh, no! Wouldn’t it be awful if it ended like this?’
‘She’s been pretty careless about the people she upset. I’ve given her short shrift in the past, but I’m beginning to have a bad feeling about this.’
‘Or was it more than that? Was she a better journalist than we gave her credit for? What if she’d found out who really was behind that bombing?’
‘I need to talk to a police officer. Like it or not, we may know more about what was going on than they do.’
TWENTY
It was no good sidling up to the gate and making a polite enquiry. Hilary summoned up her nerve and marched up to the entrance, past the sign that said ‘Abbey Closed’, with a show of greater boldness than she felt. One half of the great wooden doors had been shut. The tall young policeman barring the way stiffened to alertness as she approached. She saw the flicker of nervousness in his eyes. Good, she thought. If I remind him of one of his more formidable teachers, so much the better.
‘The abbey’s closed, madam.’
‘I can see that, you fool. It’s not the abbey I want to see. It’s the senior investigating officer inside.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t let any members of the public in.’
‘Let’s not beat about the bush. You have a young woman in there, probably dead. I may have vital information about who she is and why she died.’
The policeman’s eyes widened.
‘Are you sure? I mean, you can’t have seen the body. Not up close.’
The body. So Joan was dead. She had known it must be so, because of the size of the police presence. In spite of her reservations about the young woman, Hilary felt a sharp pang of compassion.
‘Are you going to let me talk to your superior officer, or do I have to report you for impeding a criminal investigation?’
The officer bent his head to speak into his radio. With a wary glance at Hilary and Veronica, he murmured, ‘Right-oh, sir.’ He lifted aside the plastic police tape that barred the entrance.
‘Through there, if you wouldn’t mind. He’s coming to meet you.’
It felt strange to be walking up the deserted ramp to the ticket office and museum, which should have been thronged with visitors.
Unlike the Chalice Well gift shop, after Hilary’s discovery of the bomb, the space here was empty. Two nervous-looking staff stood behind the ticket desk chatting in low voices. Of course, Hilary thought, the abbey had only just opened when they found the body. Hardly time for one of today’s visitors to have done the deed or to be a significant witness. Whatever had happened must have been done overnight.
She threw a reassuringly confident smile at the man and woman guarding the desk.
‘It’s OK. We’re on our way to see the officer in charge here.’
They were ushered through.
Among the wall displays and glass cabinets that told the abbey’s history, two uniformed officers in fluorescent jackets, one male, one female, were earnestly conferring. They looked up sharply as Hilary and Veronica approached, but Hilary turned sharply right out on to the west grass before the ruins.
Instead of tourists in colourful clothes, today the green lawns out of which the pillared arches rose were busy with dark-uniformed police. Heads bent, they were scouring the expanse of mown grass within and around the once magnificent Abbey church. Another man, dark-suited, but not in uniform, came striding towards them. To Hilary’s relief, it was Detective Inspector Fellows.
He stopped in evident surprise.
‘You again!’ But there was not the scornful condemnation that his detective sergeant would have shown.
‘Yes, we turn up like a couple of bad pennies, don’t we? But I’m glad it’s you. You already know about the Chalice Well thing, even if they’ve moved the bigger boys in for the High Street bomb.’
‘A big girl, as it happens. Detective Chief Superintendent Allenby. The constable at the gate said you had information. That you can identify the body.’
‘Can you? Was there any evidence on her?’
He studied them for a while in silence. ‘I think it’s better if I ask the questions. Just tell me who you think she is, and why.’
Hilary glanced at Veronica. She drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I know this may sound as if I’m trying to teach you your job, but there are three young women we’ve been particularly concerned about. Two of them you’ve met already. You interviewed them at the Chalice Well. The third one you may not know.’
‘But we think we can rule out the first two,’ Veronica went on. ‘We came to see your sergeant last night because we were worried that one of them, Amina Haddad, had gone missing. She may have upset Rupert Honeydew. I know he acts like a fool, but he’s an unstable character. We’ve seen a rather unpleasant side of him …’
‘Excuse me, Mrs Taylor, but I thought you said you’d ruled Miss Haddad out.’
‘Well, yes. She wears a full-length burka. You’d certainly have known if it was her.’
‘So?’
Veronica shot a nervous look at Hilary. ‘Then there was Mel Fenwick, from the Chalice Well gift shop. We thought she looked … frightened. We think she may be scared of Rupert Honeydew too. She was dancing in the streets with his crew.’
‘But you’ve also ruled her out.’
‘Sh
e has ash-blonde hair.’ Veronica looked enquiringly at the inspector.
‘Right.’ Inspector Fellows was giving nothing away.
‘So that leaves Joan Townsend.’ Hilary took over. ‘You may not have seen her, because she wasn’t at the Chalice Well when we found the bomb there, though she reported on it afterwards. But she’s got a major feature in one of the tabloids this morning. Pictures of Rupert Honeydew’s lot dancing in the streets at night in animal masks. The whole tenor of the article is accusing Honeydew of practising black magic, and linking it to the bomb in the High Street. He might take unkindly to that. And Veronica’s right. I’ve a feeling that underneath all the folklore flummery he can be a very dangerous man.’
‘And Joan’s not answering her phone this morning,’ Veronica put in.
‘This Joan Townsend. Can you describe her?’
Hilary thought. ‘Early twenties. Medium height. Rather lank brown hair. Not fat, but maybe carrying a little too much weight. Hard to tell. She inclines to sloppy clothes, like a baggy brown cardigan she seems particularly fond of. But it was raining last night. What was the girl you found wearing?’
‘I’m not sure that’s information I want to reveal.’
‘We were talking to people outside,’ Veronica told him. ‘Someone mentioned a black leather jacket, a white shirt and black leggings. I haven’t seen Joan in those, but of course we don’t know the full extent of her wardrobe.’
‘I think I can put your minds at rest. Your description of Miss Townsend doesn’t fit the woman we found.’
A small sigh escaped Hilary. She had not liked the young journalist, but she was more relieved than she had expected to find that she wasn’t dead. Still, she reminded herself, another young woman was. Could it really be someone unrelated to the catastrophic events of this week?
‘And no, the victim doesn’t have blonde hair and there was no burka. Just as you say: white shirt, black leggings, black leather jacket and blue and gold sandals. I’m afraid, ladies, you’ve had a wasted journey. But thank you for your help.’ A tired but polite smile creased his face. He turned to go.
But Veronica shot out a hand and caught his arm.
‘Say that again! What was she wearing on her feet?’
‘Blue and gold sandals. Didn’t you tell me you’d heard that outside?’
‘Not the sandals. Hilary, don’t you remember?’
‘No.’ Hilary returned Veronica’s excited stare blankly.
‘That’s what Amina was wearing under her burka. That’s all we could see of her. Just her eyes and her feet. Rather stylish sandals, with alternate straps of blue and gold leather. I remember thinking how strange it was to cover herself up completely with the burka, to stop men having lascivious thoughts, and then to show such pretty footwear. Oh, what am I saying? That means … she’s dead. Oh, poor Amina!’
Detective Inspector Fellows’s face had taken on a grimmer expression.
‘Would you mind? Mrs Masters, Mrs Taylor, could I ask you to follow me?’
Hilary’s mind was a turmoil of thoughts as they walked across the wet grass. Amina dead. She had grown unaccountably fond of the unseen girl under the burka, with her Birmingham accent and her forthright defence of her chosen lifestyle. It was a more genuine pain than she had felt when she believed it was Joan who had died. Yet she couldn’t resist a little crow of triumph that she and Veronica had actually solved a mystery which might have baffled the police for days. She slapped the thought away.
The walls of the nave and chancel had mostly been flattened when the abbey was sacked at the Reformation. Only two portions of the east end stood tall. But the Galilee at the west end was much better preserved. It was here that DI Fellows was leading them.
The Galilee, the outer porch where the unbaptized could listen to the first part of the communion service in the church. Appropriate, somehow, that the Muslim Amina had been found here. Or was it? As an adult convert, she might well have been baptized a Christian as a baby.
They were through the archway into the roofless stone-flagged space. There were two figures in the north-east corner. A wide flight of steps led up to the nave, but did not quite meet the northern wall. In the narrow space it left was a woman in white overalls, whom Hilary took to be a forensic medic. And Detective Sergeant Petersen. It was a small pleasure to Hilary even now to see the startled glare on the woman’s face.
And something else. An inert form in black and white, lying in that shadowed gap.
At their approach, DS Petersen swiftly drew a green plastic cover over the body and stood to face them. The woman in overalls got to her feet and stood back.
‘Just a detail, Olive.’ DI Fellows lifted the sheet to uncover the victim’s feet.
Hilary stared down at them. Such small neat feet, the toenails painted a frosty pink. And the sandals, straps of blue and gold leather arranged diagonally across the instep. She had to confess that she had never noticed Amina’s feet, only those surprisingly blue eyes through the slit in the burka.
But Veronica gave a little cry of distress. ‘It’s her! They’re the same. I’d recognize those sandals anywhere. Oh, poor Amina!’
‘How did she die?’ Hilary asked gruffly.
The detective inspector shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Masters, Mrs Taylor. I think you know I can’t tell you that.’
Hilary was secretly glad that he had not lifted more than the foot of the sheet to show them the rest of the body and Amina’s face.
‘I need you to tell me everything you know about Amina Haddad. How you came to know her, anything you’ve learned about her. We’ll need a formal identification, of course. That will mean tracing her relatives. But I’m inclined to believe you’ve got it right.’
They were walking across the grass in the slackening drizzle in the direction of the open-air café.
‘There would have been no point in showing us her face,’ Hilary said. ‘We never saw it.’
‘So I understand.’
Suddenly the ground heaved up in front of Hilary. She felt the world tilting. She was falling.
When she came to, she was being supported by the strong grip of DI Fellows under one elbow and Veronica’s lighter hold on the other.
‘Put your head down between your knees,’ the DI said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have prepared you better. I thought if you only saw her feet …’
‘Idiot!’ Hilary murmured, more to herself than him. ‘I never faint.’
‘We’ll get you sitting down with the proverbial cup of strong sweet tea.’
‘Make that coffee.’
They helped her across to one of the few sheltered tables of the café. As at the ticket office, the young man behind the counter stood looking disconsolate and scared. A solitary policeman stood guard.
Soon the promised cup of coffee was steaming in front of Hilary. She tried not to mind that it was heavily sugared. Her face felt strange, as though the skin was stretched too tightly across the bones. Only as the hot liquid coursed through her chilled body did she begin to relax.
‘Sorry about that. I wouldn’t have thought I’d make such a fool of myself over a dead body. I hardly knew the girl.’
The detective inspector’s eyebrows twitched. ‘I wouldn’t say that. It was a short acquaintance, admittedly. But you cared enough about her to find out where she was staying, to take yourselves round there to warn her of what you perceived to be a danger, and then to report her disappearance to the police. Not to mention barging your way in here past my constable this morning.’
‘One tries to do the right thing.’
‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am. We could have wasted days trying to find out who she was.’
Hilary was aware of a choking sound behind her. She turned her head to find Detective Sergeant Petersen glaring daggers.
It was the first cheering sight Hilary had seen for some time.
‘What gets me,’ Veronica said, ‘is that she wasn’t wearing her burka. Did the killer remove it af
ter he murdered her, to hinder the identification? I mean, in most places, a burka is a form of concealing identity, but in Amina’s case, she seems to have been the only woman in Glastonbury wearing one. If it hadn’t been for her sandals … Or is there any possibility that she went out without it, because she didn’t want anyone to know who she was? Nobody’s seen her without it, not even her landlady.’
‘Mmm. That’s an interesting question.’ The fingers of the detective inspector’s right hand played a passage of music on the table top in the way that Hilary remembered. ‘Removing her burka as a means of disguise.’ He straightened up briskly. ‘Now, ladies, if you wouldn’t mind, I need everything you can tell me about her, from the top. Olive?’
Detective Sergeant Petersen sat down beside him and opened her notebook with an affronted flounce.
‘That reminds me,’ Hilary said suddenly. ‘I take it you didn’t find a handbag or wallet, or anything like that, or you’d have known who she was. But did you find her notebook? She never seemed to go anywhere without it, and she was scribbling down everything she saw.’
DI Fellows turned to his sergeant.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She had nothing with her. Just that bit of Glastonbury Thorn clutched in her hand.’
The detective inspector drew in a sharp breath. Hilary guessed he had not meant to tell them that.
‘It’s all right,’ she said swiftly. ‘If you don’t want that to be public knowledge, we can keep our mouths shut.’
DS Petersen scowled at her from under the dripping roof.
‘I’d be grateful for that. It’s the sort of thing the papers could turn into a sensational story. Murder over Holy Thorn.’
‘You don’t have to tell me. Coming on top of Joan Townsend’s piece about black magic practices at midnight. It would confirm everything the general public believes about Glastonbury.’
‘But the Thorn’s good,’ Veronica said. ‘Flowering at Easter and Christmas. It’s a sign of divine life. All the same, it has to mean something else here, doesn’t it? Whether she picked it herself or somebody put it into her hand after she died.’