Strange Blood

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  There was nothing new on the taped message from Terry Bond. Delva felt a tinge of disappointment. Richard Ledbury’s bravura performance had come to nothing, then.

  She thought about him again when she was getting ready for the first bulletin. Staring into the mirror she dabbed foundation onto her cheeks, frowning at the puffiness under her eyes. Nightmares always had this effect on her. ‘Who are you trying to kid?’ she said to her reflection. What she had dreamed of doing with Richard Ledbury hardly counted as a nightmare.

  She searched through her make-up box for the brightest lipstick she could find. If she could draw attention to her mouth she might be able to get away with her baggy eyes. Des, the news editor, always watched the early bulletins and made a point of slagging off any newsreader whose appearance was less than perfect.

  By the time she had read her fourth bulletin she was ravenous. It was nearly nine-o’clock and the newsroom was beginning to come to life. Delva grabbed her bag and made for the door. Going for a fry-up was the only redeeming feature of the early shift. Normally she avoided the BTV canteen like the plague, but breakfast was the one dish they seemed to be able to get right.

  *

  ‘Delva!’ George Leith had finally broken his silence.

  Oh no, he wants to have breakfast with me, Delva thought as she glanced over her shoulder.

  But George merely grunted, ‘For you!’ and cocked his head at the telephone, stalking off in the opposite direction as she came towards him. She picked up the receiver, feeling her stomach rumble.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Delva Lobelo?’ It was a woman’s voice. There was something strange about it. Something slightly threatening. Delva was immediately on her guard.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’ She suspected it was one of the stable of cranks who regularly plagued the BTV newsreaders. But she didn’t recognise the voice.

  ‘I’ve got a story to sell.’ The voice took on an even harder edge. ‘It’s about that woman who was stabbed. Tessa. I know something about her. Something the police don’t know.’

  Delva took a deep breath and glanced around the newsroom. Des’s chair was still empty. She was going to have to deal with this herself. ‘Er, have you contacted the police incident room? I can give you the number if you like.’

  ‘No. I don’t want the police involved.’ The woman paused and Delva heard a crackle and a mumbling as if the receiver had been covered over. ‘Listen,’ the voice rang out clearly now, ‘Tessa and me go back a long way and I’ve got pictures to prove it. I’m offering you the story first ‘cos I’m a fan of BTV. If you want it, meet me at the café at Pendleton precinct at half past eleven. If you don’t show up I’ll sell it to the News of the World.’

  There was a click and then the dialling tone. Delva hit 1471 but was not in the least surprised to hear that the number had been witheld. She stood for a moment with the phone in her hand, wondering what to make of the bizarre call. She would tell Des about it when he arrived. He could decide whether to take it seriously. She doubted whether he would, but even if he did, she reasoned, they had until eleven-thirty to decide what to do. She walked resolutely towards the door. Whatever happened, she was not going to let it spoil her breakfast.

  *

  Megan and Patrick had said their goodbyes early. He had a train to catch and she had to go into the office to reorganise her lectures before driving to Wolverhampton.

  There was a pile of post in her pigeonhole and she dropped it on her desk, sifting through the envelopes in search of anything that might be urgent. Her hand froze when she spotted the insignia of the Vice-Chancellor of the university. She ripped the letter open and stared at the two short paragraphs summoning her to a meeting the following Monday.

  ‘Shit!’ She stuffed the letter into a drawer, away from prying eyes. This could mean only one thing. Someone had said something about Patrick. And she was in for a roasting.

  She glanced around her office. At the books she had written; the photos of all the lifers she had interviewed; the framed press cuttings of cases she had helped to solve. How could she have been so stupid? Risked all this for … what? Love? Yes, Patrick said he loved her. And she loved him. But that wouldn’t count for anything with the Vice-Chancellor. Would he believe her when she explained that the relationship had started only after Patrick had switched supervisors?

  The words ‘Head of the Department of Investigative Psychology, Heartland University’ jumped out from the notepaper in front of her. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that, technically, she had done nothing wrong. Nothing to be ashamed of.

  She suspected that the motive behind this was petty jealousy. One of her colleagues – all of whom were male – wanted her out. Wanted her job. All of them were nice to her on the surface, of course. Not one had given her grounds for suspicion up to now. She grunted and rose to her feet. Striding down the corridor she knocked sharply at the last door on the left.

  Christopher Jessop looked up, startled, as she came through the door. His shaved head glistened in the sunshine and there was a hint of something in his large green eyes that reminded her of a guilty schoolboy caught smoking behind the bike sheds. Could he be the one?

  Five years older than Megan, Jessop was a recent addition to the department, having moved from Manchester at the start of this academic year. At his interview he had told her he’d been frustrated at the lack of opportunity for promotion at his old department.

  ‘Chris, I have to go to Wolverhampton in half an hour,’ she said. ‘It’s the woman who was stabbed last week.’

  He nodded. ‘Oh – lucky you!’

  Was he being sarcastic, she wondered? ‘Would you mind covering my lectures?’ She was asking nicely, although she didn’t have to. As his boss she was at liberty to give orders.

  ‘No problem.’ He gave her a broad smile. ‘Will it be okay if I give them some of the stuff I was planning to do later on this term?’

  ‘Of course, you go ahead,’ she smiled back, determined not to show any sign of the upset the Vice-Chancellor’s letter had caused her. ‘Remind me I’m doing your slots when they come up.’

  She turned on her heel, pulling the door shut behind her. As she made her way out of the building she couldn’t help picturing Jessop sitting in her desk. She was just going to have to fight her corner, the way she’d fought for everything she’d achieved in her career so far. And she was damned if she was going to let him or anyone else take it away from her.

  *

  ‘We had quite a few calls last night,’ Steve Foy said as he unlocked the door of the Ledburys’ house. ‘The usual nutters, of course, but one or two useful ones as well.’

  ‘What did they they say?’ Megan followed him along the hall, glancing at the photographs of babies and children lining the walls.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a better idea of Tessa’s movements on the morning she died.’ He walked into the kitchen, pulling out a chair for Megan before sitting down himself. ‘She went straight to Pendleton shopping precinct after she’d dropped the kids at school. The receptionist at the medical centre remembers her calling for a prescription. After that she went to the chemist’s and then to a newsagent to buy a birthday card. She can’t have been back home much before ten o’clock.’

  ‘What was the prescription for?’

  ‘Contraceptive pills. She’d been taking them since the youngest child was born.’

  ‘And is that what she got at the chemist’s?’

  Foy nodded.

  ‘How old is the youngest child?’

  ‘Three and a half. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Is he or she at full-time school or nursery?’

  ‘It’s a he. Henry. He’s in the nursery class of the primary school.’

  ‘Right,’ Megan nodded, ‘So he’s not there all day?’

  ‘No. She used to pick him up at 11.30.’ Foy folded his arms across his chest ‘She was due to pick him up the day she was murdered – that’s how the a
larm was raised.’

  Megan traced the pattern of the wood grain on the table with her finger. ‘Was the child looked after by anyone else?’

  ‘No.’ Foy had a puzzled look on his face. ‘D’you think that’s significant?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it explains why she had such a limited social life,’ Megan replied. ‘After dropping them off at school she’d have, what, just over two hours to herself before having to pick up the little one again?’

  Foy nodded.

  ‘No wonder she didn’t have time for much else apart from the church, then. You said her only close friends were from St Paul’s?’

  ‘Yes.’ Foy sniffed. ‘Even so, you’d expect her to be close to some of the other mums from the school, wouldn’t you? Or a neighbour?’

  ‘But she wasn’t.’ Megan frowned. ‘Bit of a loner, really, then?’

  Foy shrugged.

  ‘What about a computer? Was she one of those people who spend a lot of time in chatrooms?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Foy said. ‘There was no computer in the house and her husband said it had been taken away for repair a few weeks back.’

  ‘So –’ Megan looked at her notes. ‘On the morning she died she picked up her packets of pills from the chemists. Anything else?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What about the birthday card you mentioned?’ Megan asked. ‘Any idea who it was for?’

  ‘Her eldest daughter. She was eight on Saturday.’

  ‘God, those poor kids!’ Megan glanced around the kitchen. One wall was covered with bright paintings and collages, obviously brought home from school. She looked away. This was going to be even more harrowing than she had imagined. She was going to have to do a better job of detaching her emotions if she was to be of any help at all in this inquiry.

  ‘Can I start with the garden?’ The chair scraped loudly as she stood up. ‘I want to see how he might have got in.’

  Foy led her out through the conservatory. ‘As you can see,’ he said, following the yellow gravel pathway through the flower beds, ‘it’s completely enclosed.’

  Megan glanced at the high wood-panelled fence that surrounded the garden. The Ledburys had obviously taken a lot of trouble to conceal its prison-like starkness with climbing plants and fast-growing evergreens. There were no established trees, though. Nothing that would support a man’s weight. The houses were too new for that.

  ‘The SOCOs found some rope fibres on that post.’ Foy pointed to a section of the fence halfway down the garden. ‘There’s an alley on the other side separating it from the house next door. Looks like he climbed up and dropped straight over the side.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the neighbours have spotted him?’ Megan shaded her eyes and peered upwards. ‘Their bedroom window looks right over this garden.’

  ‘House is empty.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Megan scanned the garden. ‘Any footprints?’

  ‘A toe section of a pair of bog-standard Hi-Tech trainers where he landed. Not enough to work out the size.’

  ‘What about the fibres?’

  Foy shrugged. ‘We’re still waiting for them to be analysed, but the SOCOs weren’t very optimistic.’

  Megan walked back towards the conservatory. ‘So how did he get into the house? Was this door unlocked?’

  ‘Well, it was when our lot arrived,’ he said. ‘According to Richard, Tessa spent a lot of time in the garden. With that fence she probably didn’t bother too much about securing the back of the house.’

  Megan stepped back into the conservatory. ‘What’s this part of the estate like, Steve? I know some areas are a bit rough, but I got the impression this cul-de-sac was more upmarket.’

  ‘Well I suppose it is still one of the better addresses, yes,’ Foy said. ‘There are a few Asian families in the road but they’re everywhere in Wolverhampton, now aren’t they?’

  Megan stopped in her tracks. ‘You what?’ she said, fixing him with an icy stare.

  ‘Er … I … I mean they…’ Foy blinked at her in confusion.

  ‘I was born in India, Steve,’ she cut in with measured scorn. ‘My grandmother was Asian.’

  ‘I … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … I didn’t realise…’ His grovelling was cut short by the warble of his mobile phone. Turning away, he retreated to the far end of the garden.

  *

  Megan was in the conservatory examining the Ledburys’ wedding photo when he came back. She heard his footsteps on the gravel but she didn’t look up.

  ‘That was the incident room,’ he said. ‘Tessa Ledbury made a phone call a few minutes before she died.’

  Megan spun round, her mind switching up a gear. ‘Who to?’

  ‘The couple from the church I was telling you about – Bob and Jenny Spelman. They were members of a Bible study group Tessa held here on Tuesdays. Kate O’Leary’s just been talking to the husband.’

  ‘And?’ Megan’s mind was racing.

  ‘He says Tessa called at quarter past ten on Thursday morning. He was out but he got back a few minutes later. He dialled 1471 and tried to ring her back but there was no reply.’

  ‘How come you’ve only just found this out?’

  ‘He and his wife went away for the Bank Holiday. They left on Thursday afternoon and they only got back this morning. They didn’t know Tessa was dead until they saw it on the TV news.’

  ‘And this Bob Spelman,’ Megan frowned, ‘does he check out?’

  ‘You mean could he be in the frame?’

  Megan nodded. ‘For all we know he could have phoned his own number from here to give himself an alibi.’

  ‘Well, obviously we’ll be sending someone to interview him properly,’ Foy said. ‘Evidently he’s a driving instructor and he says he was out giving a lesson when Tessa phoned, so it shouldn’t be difficult to check.’

  ‘Well, if he’s telling the truth it’s looking even more likely that she was followed back from the shopping precinct, isn’t it?’ Megan looked at Foy, who returned her gaze with one of polite anticipation. He was obviously trying to make up for his racist faux pas.

  ‘You say she wouldn’t have been home much before ten,’ she went on, ‘and this Spelman chap says she was dead by, what, half-past?’

  ‘About a quarter to eleven, he says. He’s not certain exactly what time but we can find out from BT.’

  ‘Well I think it’s too much of a coincidence that she was killed so soon after arriving home.’ Megan replaced the photograph she had been holding and looked at her watch. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I think you’d better show me the rest of the house.’

  The master bedroom was the only room in the house that bore witness to the brutality enacted five days earlier. The double bed had been stripped and the mattress taken away for analysis. There were spatters and smears of dried blood on the pale pink carpet and the top drawer of a chest of drawers had been pulled out. Various items of underwear protruded from it as if someone had been searching for something in a hurry.

  ‘Is that where the tights came from?’ Megan asked, remembering the makeshift hairband in the crime scene photographs.

  ‘Yes. He didn’t touch anything else, though. Didn’t take anything, I mean.’

  ‘No souvenirs?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Hmm, that could be significant.’

  Foy looked at her.

  ‘Well, if it was a stranger killing there’s a good chance he’d be trophy-taker,’ she explained. ‘Killers like that sometimes fuel their fantasies with something belonging to their victims.’

  Foy shrugged. ‘So no trophies means it’s someone she knew?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Steve.’ Megan frowned. ‘I’m just trying to weigh up all the possibilities. So, come on, talk me through it.’

  ‘Well,’ he began, ‘She had to have been in the bedroom when he attacked her. There are no bloodstains or signs of a struggle anywhere else in the house. She was probably making the bed or something and he crept up behind her.
There were hardly any defence wounds, so he must have overpowered her and got her down on the bed before she had time to react.’

  ‘What about her clothes?’ Megan asked. ‘In the photographs she was naked.’

  ‘He took her clothes off after he’d killed her,’ Foy said. ‘There was a blouse, jeans, knickers and a bra on the floor beside the bed and they were all bloodstained. The blouse and the bra were cut to ribbons.’

  ‘That has to be significant,’ Megan said. ‘Why would he bother taking her clothes off after the event if it was a straightforward crime of passion? It must have been part of the horrific effect he wanted to create.’ She glanced around the room. ‘What about shoes?’

  ‘She wasn’t wearing any, I don’t think,’ Foy replied. ‘There’s a rack of them downstairs by the front door. She probably took them off when she got in and went upstairs barefoot.’

  ‘Well, we need to know which pair she was wearing that morning. I want to know exactly what she looked like when she was out.’ Megan thought for a minute, staring at the bloodstains on the carpet. ‘How do you reckon he got out of the house without leaving blood anywhere else.’

  ‘Ah, well, when I said there was no blood in the rest of the house I should have mentioned that there was a trace on the bathroom door handle,’ Foy said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  In the bathroom Foy pointed out how the killer could have cleaned himself up under the shower without leaving any forensic evidence of his own identity behind. Megan glanced around the small, immaculately-decorated room. The colour of the soap and the toilet paper matched the paintwork and the shell stencil on the walls was echoed on the laundry basket, the toothbrush holder and even the pedal bin.

  ‘Presumably the towels have been taken away by the SOCOs,’ Megan said.

  Foy glanced at the notes in the folder he was carrying. ‘A towel was taken away, yes.’

  ‘Just one?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’ He read from the inventory: ‘One blue hand towel with shell motif.’

  Megan flipped open the laundry basket. ‘Were there any towels in here?’