‘There are some more in the wall cupboard near the sink,’ Virginia called helpfully, noticing his enthusiastic consumption, as Falconer handed her the photograph.
‘Do you know who this is?’ he asked. ‘Because I think I do, but I’d like to hear what you know first.’
‘She said it was her niece, when I asked her, but she said she’d never had anything to do with Shepford Stacey before and I recognised the school building in the photograph. I’d say it was taken in the playground. She also said that she had no children, but that didn’t ring true. Then, when she saw me looking at the photograph, I suppose she must have seen the recognition in my eyes. That’s when she went off to get the knife, and I twigged who it really was in the photograph.’
Falconer took over at this juncture. ‘It’s her daughter, Carole. Carole Nicholson, she was, and she was killed here in Shepford Stacey. I’ve just been told the whole story at the Baldwin household.’
‘She told me in the garden, but in not quite such comfortable circumstances,’ Virginia said, in a small, frightened voice, on the brink of tears but, with a stout hug from Richard, she pulled herself together and continued, ‘And Caroline – I suppose Course must have been her maiden name, because she told Harriet and me that she was a childless widow – never got over the loss. Oh, poor Harriet. She wouldn’t have harmed a soul!’
‘Did she tell you anything else while you were … together?’ he asked, before she could dissolve into tears.
‘She blamed both those women for what happened. She said that neither of them took any notice of her poor little girl, and that’s why she tried to make her way home, simply so that someone could kiss her knee better, and give her a hug. What an awful way for a child to lose its life – just because she needed a hug.’
Shock and emotion were now flooding Virginia’s mind and body, and she burst into inconsolable tears, her whole body wracked with weeping, and shaking uncontrollably. Richard put his arms back round her, but didn’t know what to say in the light of the fact that he might have lost her – again – at the hands of a killer. This was their second brush with murder, and his wife seemed to be becoming a magnet for such evil.
He knew he couldn’t wrap her in cotton wool, but he’d keep a closer eye on what she was doing in the future, and make sure he listened to every word she said, in case she was unwittingly putting herself at risk again, unlikely as this might seem amid the ordinary, everyday course of their lives.
Falconer drank his tea and made a face at Carmichael (who appeared to be trying to look down the waistband of his trousers in order to assess the damage to his crown jewels), to indicate that they ought to go. The sergeant tucked in the front of his shirt as unobtrusively as can a man of six-feet-five-and-a-half inches, although Richard was so concerned with his wife, that neither of them would have noticed even if he had mooned at them. Thus, Falconer and his superhero sidekick made their goodbyes, leaving the two alone together, to come to terms with the morning’s events.
But more was to follow, and when Falconer received a phone call informing them that the forces of law and order were moving in on Seth Borrowdale, and that he would be taken in for questioning within the hour, he shared this information with his partner with an unusual level of satisfaction. It was about time that the tide began to turn in favour of the police. Criminals had so many rights and processes to hide behind now, that the chances of a conviction in any one crime were almost as poor as the odds on a three-legged donkey entered in the Derby.
III
Caroline Course had been booked into custody in Market Darley, a lockable office serving as a holding cell, and a psychiatrist summoned to assess her mental condition. A few phone calls and a small amount of time on the computer revealed that the woman had spent the accumulation of years between her daughter’s death and now in and out of mental health units. Her stays had been sporadic at first, but with the desertion of her husband, she had become a more or less permanent resident, in one establishment after another, as these were closed down, and Care in the Community became Don’t Care in the Community.
She had absconded from a halfway house about ten days ago, but had been absent for half a day a couple of months before. Presumably this was when she had booked her little ‘holiday’ in Shepford Stacey, and decided that revenge was a dish better served stone-cold than not at all. Grief had robbed her of her wits and her ability to know right from wrong, and she had stated that she was just extracting the price for the women robbing her of her little girl, and all the intervening years that they had not shared together.
Falconer had a very long chat with the psychiatrist before she left the premises, not only extracting what information he could, but prolonging the interview because he wanted to continue to look at the person who bore this designated title.
She was tall and Nubian-like, her skin like polished mahogany, and her features almost European. Her hair was woven in cornrows close into her head, and short, and her eyes were like polished amber. In a low and almost impossibly seductive voice, she introduced herself as Hortense Dubois, then invited him to call her ‘Honey’, as everyone else did.
When she finally left, the inspector found himself making little buzzing noises, and wishing, ridiculously, that he were a bee.
IV
Removing a prisoner’s shoe-laces, neck-tie or scarf, and belt – in fact anything with which harm can be done to the person, isn’t really as thorough as it seems. Hanging oneself is only one option. Another is to bang one’s head against a wall as often and as hard as one can. This may only result in unconsciousness and stitches, but a lucky ‘wham’ might cause a fracture of the skull, and might end a life quite effectively.
Caroline Course was a resourceful woman, cunning in her madness, and would never have considered this last option, it being (a) painful, (b) messy and (c) not very likely to succeed. She had thought of something much more sure-fire and original, and intended to see it through to her eventual extinction. It was nothing lingering and painful, such as a hunger strike – quite the opposite really, and something that no one would think she needed to be protected from, for they would never guess that someone would attempt to take their own life in such a way.
Carole was dead – had been dead for many years – and she had managed to take the lives of the two women she felt responsible for her loss. The car driver, she did not even consider. How could he help it if, in a narrow street on a foggy day, a small girl darted out in front of his vehicle? He had not been going fast, and his vehicle was merely the instrument of her death, not the root of it.
She was checked at thirty minute intervals, due to her mental state, but she was acting calmly and rationally, merely sitting in the room serving as her cell. This room had once been the office of the previous business in the building, and conveniently had a re-enforced door, and a thick safety glass window with integral wire mesh, thus making half-hourly checks easier to accomplish, in complete safety, for the officer concerned.
She was checked when her evening meal was brought to her, the custody officer signalling through the glass panel that she was to move to the back of the room, while he placed her food on the floor just inside the door, telling her, as he set it down, that she could collect it when the door was relocked.
The re-enforced door to the room made the room almost completely soundproof, as indicated by the custody officer having to mime moving away from the door to deliver her food. This was a real advantage as far as her plan was concerned, and she moved into a corner where she could not be seen from the door. There was the noise of a sharp intake of breath, followed by a short choking sound, then a fit of coughing.
In the corridor outside the room there was absolute silence. The sequence of sounds was repeated inside the room, and Caroline summoned her courage yet again. This was not an easy way to voluntarily take one’s life, and she had known it wouldn’t be easy, but with half hourly checks, had still had plenty of time, and plenty of ammunition left on her plate. T
he inhalation sound was repeated, but the sound of choking went on for longer, with no hint of a cough. Slowly the choking noises died away, and movement from the body on the floor gradually ceased, a lifeless silence now filling the dreary little space.
The next check revealed a worrying scenario to Sergeant Constable. (Don’t mention his name to him, as a smack in the mouth often offends.) The woman was stretched out on the floor where she had fallen forward in her last choking seconds, and was now visible through the window, her tray near the left side wall, the food only slightly disturbed, and her body appeared to be utterly still and without life.
Calling for immediate help, as this could be a ruse to ‘jump’ him, and effect an attempt at escape, he unlocked the door when Bob Bryant arrived (yes, you’ve guessed it – he’s still desk sergeant), and the two of them entered cautiously. Bryant knelt down beside the stricken form and felt for a pulse, while Constable checked the tray.
‘Get a doctor,’ said Bryant, in a voice that also confirmed that there was no rush.
‘She can’t be dead. She was fine when I was here, just half an hour ago.’ Constable seemed quite indignant at losing a prisoner on his watch. ‘What was it, do you think? Heart attack?’
Bob Bryant got to his feet slowly, his face a mask of disbelief. ‘She’s only gone and choked to death, hasn’t she? And we’ll never know now whether it was intentional, or a tragic accident.’
Having recovered a little from the initial shock, Constable added callously, ‘Well, they did say she was as mad as a vestful of ferrets. You pays yer money and yer takes your chance; that’s what I say, anyway,’ after which meaningless drivel, he went off to summon someone medical who could certify that life was extinct.
V
In the insect world, wasps attack bees, and the same can be said for the human world. If Falconer had harboured, for a few mad seconds, a desire to be a bee, then Superintendent ‘Jelly’ Chivers was definitely a wasp, and his words stung Falconer with the expected venom.
‘Well now, I hope you don’t have any ambitions to join the Canadian Mounties, Inspector.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Because a Mountie always gets his man, doesn’t he, Falconer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And, gender aside, where’s your man, Inspector? She’s dead, isn’t she, Inspector?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘She managed to commit suicide using a plate of sausage and chips, didn’t she, Inspector?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Falconer’s face was now as red as a stoplight.
‘You fumbled it, didn’t you Inspector?’
‘Yes, sir.’ (Even if this was unfair, there was no other answer.)
‘And this isn’t the first guilty party you have failed to deliver to the justice system, is it, Falconer?’
‘No, sir.’
‘In fact you’ve got a rather poor record where that’s concerned, haven’t you, Inspector?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And saved the British taxpayer quite a bit of money along the way, haven’t you, Falconer?’
‘Yes, sir.’ This answer was given with a certain amount of surprise.
‘Well done, Inspector.’ The wasp suddenly withdrew its sting. ‘And tell that young shaver Carmichael well done from me, too. I know he was slightly injured in the course of duty, so tell him if he’d like Dr Christmas to have a look at things, I’ll arrange it myself.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Carmichael would probably rather die than expose his ‘Little Davey’ to someone who would no doubt have a good laugh about it with his police colleagues.
‘Dismissed, Inspector.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
As Falconer returned to his own makeshift office, he made a few quiet buzzing noises, and smiled to himself. ‘And is there honey still for tea?’ he enquired in a barely audible voice, his smile broadening slightly. Life wasn’t too bad at all at the moment, he thought, for the first time in months.
Epilogue
On the cusp of summer
I
Site of refurbished police station.
DCI Falconer and DS Carmichael stood and surveyed the broad expanses of white walls and ceiling. The windows that would now be of the opening variety, instead of that well-known type of window, ‘I shouldn’t bother, it’s all painted up’, from which they had suffered before. The flooring was of hard-wearing tiles, the skirting-boards and doors, newly painted.
A little judicious knocking-through had produced an acceptably large room, now labelled the CID suite, which boasted fancy see-through boards for them to assemble cases on, instead of the clapped-out old whiteboards they had struggled with before.
The final-fix electricity was nearly completed, the furniture would be moved in at the end of the following week, and then they would move back into their ‘made-over’ and extended premises.
Falconer took a good look round, wandering through what had been a dingy and warren-like workplace, with a plethora of over-small offices and scuffed and dark paintwork. It was unrecognisable, and he gave a little whistle of approval.
Carmichael was also taking it all in; forming his own judgement on what difference this might make on the standard of policing in the area.
‘So, what do you think, sir? It’s all bright and shiny and new. Do you think we’ll be any happier here?’
‘I think the impression the make-over will have on most of the members of the public who visit us will be a good one. If they enter a building that looks well cared for and smart, they will assume that those who work here will provide a shiny, bright and new service for them. No doubt they’ll think it makes us appear smarter and more efficient.
‘Then there’ll be those who will curl their lip, and ask what the point is in making those tiny rural stations now only open during office hours, cut and rearrange staffing levels, if a load of money was going to be squandered – and they will use the word squandered – on a complete refit and a knock through to the old, empty offices next door? They weren’t just donated to the force, those offices: they had to be paid for by someone, and that someone is, as usual, Joe Public, via the funding for the police force, so they’ll have a point.’
‘But it’ll still just be us, sir. The same people as before, with a few additions from those other stations. It’s not as if we’ll be different people because we’ve got posh offices.’
‘Precisely, Carmichael! Just like you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, neither should you judge the efficiency or dedication of the police by the newness or trendiness of their offices. A police force is people, not buildings.’
‘So, no change really then, sir?’
‘No change, Carmichael.’
II
Market Darley High Street
A wicked little wind blew erratically down the road, swirling small pieces of litter into little eddies, and making airborne, for a few seconds, empty crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers.
The nomadic, dispossessed individuals outside the temporary police station pulled up their collars or put up their hoods against the sudden spiteful chill of the little gusts, aimlessly kicking at discarded soft drink cans and empty cigarette packets in a desultory way.
Inside the building, a number of boxes were being distributed, so that the staff could begin the packing of non-essential records and equipment, ready for the move, and there was a low buzz of excited conversation at the thought of what surroundings lay ahead of them.
‘I wonder what my new reception desk will look like,’ contemplating his new ‘station’ in the new station. ‘It should be a lot less battered than the old one – all new and shiny, I hope.’
‘It’ll be a desk, Bob. It doesn’t really matter what it looks like, does it?’ asked PC Green.
‘It does to me.’
‘Will it make you work any better, then?’
‘Course it will. Stands to reason, don’t it?’
‘Bollocks, Bob! You can put lipstick on a Rottweiler, but
it doesn’t change its character, just because it looks different, does it?’ Merv persisted.
‘So, you’ve met the wife have you?’
This was Bob’s last word on the subject.
THE END
Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Page 19