by Ann Granger
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.
‘Still sure you don’t want to tell me what you’ve done?’ he asked, more gently.
‘Absolutely sure.’
He heaved a sigh. ‘Well, take care, old girl.’
‘I’m not your old girl,’ she huffed. ‘But thanks, anyway, Hal.’
‘You called my place last night,’ Ian Carter said, when Jess appeared in his office that morning. ‘I checked the list of missed calls and recognised your number. It was too late to call you back. Was it urgent?’
‘No, not at all,’ Jess replied evasively, ‘and it was daft of me to call. I remembered too late that you’d gone to see Monica. You’d mentioned that was your plan when we left the office. I should have remembered. Anyway, it was nothing. I’d been talking to Tom, and he was a bit trying. He insists on taking the blame for Sally Grove’s accident, which is nonsense. I think he’s on the right track and someone did overhear his conversation with her at the library and realised that she’d been taking snaps in those woods at the time of the murder, but neither he nor she could have known that at the time. Tom certainly couldn’t have prevented what happened. But he’s got it fixed in his mind that he could have. I think it’s that head-cold thing he’s been suffering from. It’s interfering with his command of logic. I’m going to call the hospital in a minute and see if I can talk to Sally today. We need to, as soon as possible.’
‘I thought Palmer was getting over his cold? If he wants to wallow in some sort of mea culpa fixation, let him. He’ll get over it,’ Carter said unsympathetically.
‘I think he’s fallen in love – well, just a bit.’
‘Oh, has he? Well, good luck to him with that!’ was the sharp retort.
‘Everything OK with Monica?’ Jess asked, eyeing him. He looked out of sorts and was fiddling irritably with papers on his desk.
He looked up. ‘What? Oh, yes, well . . . to be honest, no. Monica is fine, nothing wrong with her. But when I got there I found Sophie sitting in a chair, looking smug.’
‘Oh? You weren’t expecting her, were you?’
‘No, I wasn’t. Well, I knew she had plans to come over from France. She spun me a yarn about the house they’ve let out and unsatisfactory tenants. I should have known there would be more to it than that.’
‘Is she – and her husband – are they coming back to the UK?’ Jess asked. Mentally, she was crossing her fingers and hoping that wasn’t the case. Anything to do with his former wife unsettled Ian. Better to have her at some distance.
‘No, they’re staying in France but . . .’ Carter drew a deep breath. ‘Apparently, she and Rodney are to be proud parents. She’s expecting a baby,’ he added.
‘Oh, I see. How do you think Millie will take that?’ And how are you feeling about it? she wanted to ask, but couldn’t.
‘No idea. Sophie is going up to see her later today to break the news.’
‘She might like the idea of a little brother or sister?’ Jess suggested.
‘She might, but I’m worried Millie will feel – well, side-lined. She’s been dumped in that boarding school, where she seems perfectly happy, I admit. But her mother’s gone off to France. I’m here. It’s going to be hard for her. Anyway, as soon as Sophie’s gone back to France I’ll go to see Millie and have a chat with her.’
‘I wish I could help,’ Jess told him. She immediately wished she hadn’t said that.
But she was relieved to see him smile. ‘Thanks. Join me in having a drink somewhere tonight, after work? Unless you’re seeing Palmer again, of course.’
‘Tom can stew in his own juice for a bit. Of course I’ll come for a drink. But I’d better go and ring the hospital now.’
The ward sister met Jess in the corridor and examined her ID with care. ‘You’re not going to stay too long, are you, Inspector Campbell? I’ll be honest. The doctor is not too happy about you talking to the patient so soon after she’s regained consciousness. It isn’t good for her, for one thing, and, in addition, anything she says may be – well, her memory will be hazy, let’s say. So it won’t be any use firing questions at her. And what she does tell you might be muddled, and even quite wrong. She may just fall asleep on you.’
‘I won’t stay long,’ Jess promised. ‘And I’ll remember all you’ve said.’
‘Very well,’ agreed the sister briskly. ‘You can have ten minutes, and then I’ll be back to show you out.’
The curtains were drawn around the bed. Sister twitched one aside to reveal a very pale young woman with dark, curly hair propped up on the adjustable backrest. Her eyes were closed and Jess feared she was asleep now and that there would little chance the ward sister would let her wait.
But the patient’s eyelids flickered and opened. Her eyes surveyed them with a faint expression of puzzlement.
‘How are you feeling, Sally?’ asked the nurse, stooping over her.
The patient’s expression cleared, and she whispered, ‘Still got a bit of a headache, but it could be worse.’ She had a large dressing pad taped to her forehead and her left arm was in a sling. She managed a weak smile.
Jess was pleased to see the smile; Sister less so.
‘Mm, well, this is Inspector Campbell, and she wants a quick word. I’ve told her it will have to be very quick. If you don’t feel you’re up to it, say so.’
‘I can come back later,’ Jess put in, hoping Sally would not ask this.
‘It’s OK,’ said Sally. ‘Only I’m afraid I might not make much sense. Frankly, I don’t remember very much.’
The nurse departed, after a meaningful look at the visitor. Jess pulled the curtain back into place so that she was closeted with the patient in privacy. She drew up a chair to the bedside and invited, ‘Please call me Jess. I don’t want to bother you, Sally. I understand you won’t recall much about the accident. But it’s not that I want to ask you about just now.’
Sally looked perplexed.
Jess hurried on. ‘I’m wondering how much you remember about something that happened earlier, several days ago, in Crooked Man Woods.’
The patient’s brow began to crinkle in thought, but then she said, ‘Ouch!’
‘I really am very sorry, Sally,’ Jess apologised. ‘It’s not nice of me to trouble you at this moment, but I do need all the help I can get in this case we’re investigating.’
‘That poor man who was shot in the woods?’
Jess couldn’t disguise her relief. ‘You do remember that?’
‘I remember hearing about it. I didn’t see anything. Or, if I did, I’ve forgotten. Sorry.’ Sally paused, before going on, uncertainly, ‘I think someone told me about it, or perhaps I knew before but the man I met at the library started talking about it. I belong to a group of artists. We’re all amateurs, of course. We specialise in country subjects. We’re showing our work at the library in Weston.’
‘That man at the library was called Tom Palmer.’
‘Tom, yes.’ Sally’s expression brightened. ‘We were putting up our display pictures and I was arguing with someone, only I can’t remember who it was right now.’ She frowned again, and winced. ‘It was probably Gordon Ferris. Gordon’s our organiser. He founded the group, and he does tend to take charge. Anyway, Tom came up and started talking about my work, because I’d painted some trees in Crooked Man Woods and he recognised them.’
Sally leaned back on her pillows and closed her eyes. Jess’s conscience pricked her, and she asked gently, ‘Would you like me to come back later?’
‘No, stay. I’m just trying to get my thoughts together. It takes me a while. I hope this gets better. I don’t want to be going around in a fog for the rest of my life.’
‘It will get better.’ Jess paused. ‘Do you remember seeing anything unusual in the woods that morning?’
‘No – that is, not seeing, no.’
‘How about hearing anything strange?’
Sally’s eyes opened wide, suddenly alert. ‘It was all strange!’ she said energetically
. ‘I was scared, and I’m not usually scared out in the woods on my own.’
‘What scared you?’
‘I could hear things. Someone was there. But I didn’t see whoever it was.’
Jess tried another tack. ‘When you arrived there, you chained up your bicycle in the car park.’
‘Ye–es, I suppose I did. I always do.’
‘Did you see a black Range Rover parked there?’
‘No – no, I didn’t.’
‘How sure are you, given you’re not feeling a hundred per cent right now?’
‘It wasn’t there,’ said Sally. ‘There was nothing else there. The car park was empty. It was early. I do remember I was pleased, because people walk into shot, you know.’
As if on cue, on the far side of the curtain there came the rattle of a trolley being pushed into the ward and a voice asked if someone wanted tea or coffee.
Jess hurried on. ‘Speaking of another kind of shot, one from a gun, did you hear one?’
‘I think I might have done. There was a kind of small explosion just as I arrived, as I was getting off my bike. I don’t know if it was a gun. There’s some sort of shooting range nearby, and you do hear bangs from time to time.’ Sally paused again.
Jess waited, taking a worried look at her watch. Any moment now, the ward sister would be back, or another nurse, and the trolley was on the move again. Whatever else they were keen on in that hospital, privacy wasn’t high on the list, thought Jess irritably. She persevered.
‘This bang or explosion, it might have come from the clay-pigeon-shooting place?’
Sally raised her undamaged right arm and pointed towards the wall to her right. ‘No, that’s over there.’ She moved her arm across her chest to point to the left. ‘Whatever I heard came from way over there, the other side of the woods.’
‘You mean the shot, the explosion, came from the wrong direction for the clay-pigeon range?’
‘Yes. Birds flew up, a whole flock of them, into the sky about the woods. I suppose it could have been a bird-scarer going off in one of the fields beyond the woods.’
‘At this time of year?’ Jess objected.
Sally looked momentarily confused. ‘No, of course it wouldn’t have been a bird-scarer. I’m muddled.’
‘It’s all right,’ Jess reassured her hastily. ‘What happened after that, when you were taking the photographs in the woods? Did you see or hear anything?’
Sally grew animated. ‘I did, but I don’t know what it was. I thought I was alone, but I wasn’t. I kept feeling someone was there, watching me. It got worse because someone started moaning and breathing very heavily.’
‘Where?’ Jess asked eagerly.
‘I don’t know where. Somewhere in the trees, or beyond, on one of paths.’ Sally paused again and added, ‘And after that, there was a car.’
‘You saw it? How would that get into the woods? Walkers have to leave their cars in the car park, don’t they?’
‘I didn’t see it, I heard it. I remember now. The driver couldn’t get into the woods from the car park, as you say, because there’s a fence and a gate. But there is a way in from the far side. There’s a short access road for the forestry workers.’
‘How soon after hearing the moaning, as you call it, did you hear the car?’
‘Oh, quite a bit later, after I’d taken some shots. I took a lot, snapping away, because I was so jittery. I kept swinging round to see if there was anyone there. Because of that, the shots I took weren’t very good. I sort of thought that if there was someone, and that person saw I was making a record, he’d keep away. And I’m really sorry, but I can’t concentrate any more now.’
The curtain was jerked aside and the captain of the tea trolley appeared. ‘Tea or coffee, dear?’ she asked Sally.
‘I don’t really—’ began Sally.
‘You got to keep your fluids up, dear!’
‘Oh, well, tea then, please.’
‘Biscuit?’ A round tin was rattled under their noses. ‘What about you?’ the woman enquired of Jess.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Jess told her, willing the trolley to move on. The last precious minutes were slipping away – and here, looming up behind the trolley, was the familiar form of the ward sister.
‘Time to go!’ she said firmly to Jess.
‘Yes, of course.’ Jess got obediently to her feet. ‘Thank you for talking to me, Sally, and I hope you feel much better soon. I would like to see all the photos you took that day in the woods some time.’
‘Phone . . .’ muttered Sally indicating the bedside cabinet.
‘That’s enough, dear,’ said the ward sister.
‘Jess can take my phone – I’ll open it up for her.’ Sally was still pointing at the bedside cabinet.
Jess moved quickly around the bed and opened the little cabinet, watched mistrustfully by the ward sister.
‘All the photos I took that morning are on it. Mostly rubbish.’ In Sally’s hand, a picture of a group of trees suddenly appeared on the smartphone. She held it out to Jess. ‘There you are. You can check it out . . . I need to go to sleep now, sorry.’ She closed her eyes.
‘I’m not sure I should let you take her phone,’ said the ward sister anxiously to Jess. ‘She isn’t really compos mentis, as you can tell.’
‘I’ll give you a receipt and I’ll see she gets it back as soon as possible,’ Jess urged. ‘This is a police investigation. Not just into Sally’s accident, you know, but into a murder.’
The ward sister’s expression would have turned a weaker mortal to stone. ‘Is she a vital witness?’
‘Well, no. That is to say, I can’t say for sure. Her memory comes and goes. But the phone might have something of use on it.’
‘Because,’ said the nurse, ‘it is very inconvenient when the police decide to put a guard on a patient. This is a busy hospital, and a police officer sitting outside a ward is most certainly in the way!’
Jess saw an opening. ‘If there’s nothing on the phone, that won’t be necessary.’
Outmanoeuvred, the nurse conceded with poor grace.
Later, she and Ian Carter drove out into a darkening countryside to a small pub offering food and consoled themselves with calorie-laden fish and chips.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Jess said, ‘but I don’t eat fried food too much – or I try not to. So I reckon I can indulge for once. It’s comfort food, I know, but that’s what I feel I need just now!’
‘Likewise,’ said Carter briefly.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to be tactless. You’re still worrying about Millie and her mother.’
‘I’m not worrying about Sophie. I am, of course, worried about Millie. Sophie will do as she wants; she always did. No doubt Rodney will prove an excellent father. He seems to be good at everything he turns his hand to. But I’m not going to talk about that this evening. By the way, how is that brother of yours? Is he still in one of the world’s danger spots, dispensing medical aid?’
‘Simon? Yes, he is. But he’s coming back for some leave next month.’ Jess paused, and added, ‘We’re always relieved when we actually see him. It’s never certain. Things are really bad where he is at the moment.’
‘I understand,’ he said sympathetically. ‘How is your mother coping with it all?’
‘Amazingly well, considering. She’s always been very supportive of Simon.’
‘And of you?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, up to a point. She says she doesn’t understand me.’ Jess managed a wry grin.
‘She doesn’t understand why you chose a career in the police?’
‘She’s never understood it, but she does now accept it’s my decision. What she’d really like are grandchildren. The way things are, Simon isn’t going to be settling down any time soon.’
‘And you?’ Ian asked, lifting his glass of wine to his lips.
‘I’ve no plans,’ Jess said firmly.
After that, they both concentrated on eating and, when co
nversation started up again, it was, inevitably, about work.
‘Perhaps,’ said Jess optimistically, ‘Dave Nugent, our very own computer whizz, will magic up something from those photos Sally took.’ She paused. ‘I was asked at the hospital if Sally was a vital witness. The nurse was concerned we might put an officer on watch at the door of the ward. The hospital finds that an inconvenience. I said it would not be necessary. But perhaps, in view of what the farmer, Biddle, told Phil, we should consider it? Someone knocked her off her bike deliberately and was searching her for something, presumably this phone, as she lay in the ditch. That person doesn’t know I’ve removed Sally’s phone from the ward.’
‘A hit and run on a quiet country road in darkness is one thing,’ Carter said. ‘It’s a cowardly act, even if driven by desperation. Marching boldly into a busy hospital, where anyone might see and remember you, is another matter. I don’t think our killer has that kind of courage.’
But Carter, for once, was wrong. One of the many things about hospital routine to have changed over the years is the time allowed for visiting patients, now much more generous than in years gone by. One thing unchanged is serving the last meal of the day at an early hour. So, by six-thirty, dinner had come and gone, and now the dimly lit corridors and wards saw a continual to and fro of outsiders visiting relatives and friends.
No one took any notice of a slim figure in jeans and a leather jacket, with a black woollen beanie pulled down over their ears. It was cold outside, and any number of visitors wore such headgear. The visitor glanced into one or two wards before reaching the one where Sally was.
Sally had fallen asleep again. It had taken the last of her energy to stay awake for supper. Her unconsciousness suited the visitor just fine. A hand reached out, the curtains glided along the rails surrounding the bed and made it into an individual private cubicle. Quickly, the visitor looked in the bedside cabinet, examining anything that might contain something small and flat, like a mobile phone. But there was nothing.
The visitor hesitated, looking down at the sleeping Sally. In the chair, on the other side of the bed, an extra pillow had been left. The visitor circled the bed, reached out and picked up the pillow. Sally stirred. The visitor froze, pillow gripped in both hands. Sally drifted back into slumber. The visitor, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out with the pillow.