Dark Room

by Minette Walters

  He let her sit in silence for several minutes, relentlessly sweeping the chair arm and drawing on her cigarette. "What did the therapist do?" he prompted her finally.

  She looked at him in surprise, as if she thought he would have guessed. "He put a raw steak on my face while I was in a trance and then woke me. It smelled of blood and dead meat, and I thought it was Russell come back from the grave for his kiss. It was an awfully long time before I could eat something without being sick."

  "Good God!" He was genuinely shocked. "Who was this man?''

  She stared at him blankly for a moment. "I don't remember his name."

  "Where was his office?"

  But she couldn't remember that, either. "Somewhere in London," she told him.

  "Okay, it doesn't matter."

  "You don't believe me, do you?"

  "I've no reason not to."

  "How could I remember something so awful if it never happened?"

  He didn't say anything.

  "You think I've invented it," she accused him. "But why would I want to invent something that never happened?"

  Perhaps because nobody's ever been charged with Russell's murder, he thought, for her guilt seemed rooted in a far more powerful anguish than her very natural reluctance to kiss the mutilated face of her dying husband.

  Bodies Found in Ardingly Woods

  The remains of a man and a woman were discovered yesterday in Ardingly Woods in Hampshire. Cause of death has yet to be revealed but police are not ruling out foul play. "We are asking for help in trying to establish their identity," said a spokesman. "Death is believed to have taken place ten to twelve days ago, but no one matching their descriptions has been reported missing."

  The man is described as 6'1", medium build, aged between 30 and 40, with straight blond hair. He was wearing fawn cotton slacks, a checked shirt, and dark green ribbed sweater. The woman was 5'4", slim build, aged between 30 and 40, with short dark hair. She was wearing blue denim jeans and a navy blue T-shirt.

  Police admit to being puzzled as to how the bodies came there. "There are no reports of a car being abandoned in the area," said the spokesman, "and the woods are not on a bus route, We believe someone must have driven them there, and we are asking anyone who gave a lift to a couple answering these descriptions to come forward, ft is possible that they hitched a ride from outside the county."

  Police have not ruled out a suicide pact, although they are concerned that neither body carries any form of identification. "This is unusual,"' said the spokesman. "We would have expected to find a wallet or a handbag." The woods continue to be searched for fui-ther evidence.

  Mrs. Mary Hughes, 73, who discovered the bodies with Pepita, her Jack Russell, is recovering at home following a slight heart attack. She ran over a mile to the nearest telephone to alert police, and blames the attack on shock and overexertion. "I should have walked," she said. "I'm an old woman now and those bodies weren't going anywhere. There's no fool like an old fool."

  Wessex Post-24th June

  *6*

  FRIDAY, 24th JUNE, THE VICARAGE, LITTLETON MARY, WILTSHIRE-11:00 A.M.

  The Reverend Charles Harris watched from his study window as the white Rolls Royce-registration number KIN6-pulled in through the vicarage gates and parked by the front door. The number plate said it all. By the strategic placing of a yellow-headed screw to break the six and turn it into a G, the word KING screamed out from both ends of the ostentatious vehicle. Not for the first time, he wondered how Jinx had remained so apparently unaffected by her vulgar family, and not for the first time either, he berated himself for being uncharitable.

  His dismay grew when the chauffeur opened the back door and assisted Betty Kingsley out. Adam he might have coped with, but Betty was a different matter altogether, particularly when, as was clearly the case now, she had been hitting the bottle hard during the journey. With a sigh, he opened the door of his study and called to his wife. "Caroline, we have a visitor. Betty Kingsley has just driven in."

  His wife appeared in the kitchen doorway, a look of apprehension on her thin face. "I don't want to see her," she said. "I can't stand it, Charles. It was bad enough talking to her on the phone. She'll just start screaming at me again."

  "I don't think we have a choice."

  "Of course we do," she snapped, frayed nerves getting the better of her, "There's no law that says we have to answer the door. We can hardly be blamed because Leo preferred our daughter." The doorbell rang. "Just ignore it," she hissed at him. "I won't be harangued by a common fishwife in my own home."

  But he was an old-fashioned man with old-fashioned manners. He shook his head in gentle admonishment and crossed the hall to open the front door. "Hello, Betty," he said kindly. She stank of gin, and her lipstick was smeared at one corner. There was something infinitely sad, he thought, about the worn face covered in makeup and the plump body squeezed into a girlish dress. Growing old would always be something to fear because drink had addled whatever wisdom she had, and now there was nothing left to make her interesting.

  She pushed past him belligerently to confront Caroline, bumping into a walnut card table as she did so and slopping water from the vase of flowers onto the polished surface. "It's your slut of a daughter drove Jinx to kill herself, not me or her daddy," she grunted, jabbing her finger at the other woman. "She'd never need to kill herself because of us. You've got me that riled, Mrs. High-and-bloody-Mighty. You think you can say what you like about me and mine, when the truth is it's your precious Meg deserves the blame."

  Caroline Harris glanced helplessly towards her husband. This is your fault, said her expression, so do something about it, but he gave an unhappy shrug and left her to fight the battle alone. "I really can't see the point of discussing this," she said in a voice that was pitched too high. "Far too much dirt has been peddled already."

  "Yes, well, Meg always said you were a tight-arsed bitch who'd rather see everything swept under the carpet than have it aired in public." Betty clutched at the table with a meaty fist and affected a classy accent. " 'Oh, I say, I can't see the point of discussing this.' " She took a deep breath. "But you fucking well discuss it when it suits you. 'Now, now, Betty, don't go blaming Meg for your own failings. Jinx needs a mother to talk to.' " She slammed the table and set the vase rocking alarmingly. "Well, she's got a bloody mother. Me."

  "But probably not the one she wants," said Caroline icily. "You were very offensive over the telephone, Betty. You called us murderers before you even knew if Jinx was dead. What did you expect me to do? Agree with you? Charles and I barely had time to digest the news that Leo had left Jinx for Meg before you were on the phone screaming abuse. It's been a terrible shock for all of us."

  "Where's the apology? The apology's what I'm after, Mrs., or perhaps you're too grand for that?" Tears welled in the heavily mascaraed eyes. "You know what's being said? The wedding's off because Sir Anthony Wallader wouldn't have his son marry a Kingsley. And why? Because we're too bloody common." She gulped her tears. "But there's only one rotten apple in the barrel and I've a mind to make that public. Your Meg, who couldn't keep her knickers on if she was paid."

  Caroline Harris's lips thinned to an unattractive horseshoe, but before she could say anything, the vicar intervened. He placed a hand on Betty Kingsley's arm and drew her round to face him. "Is this true, Betty?" He smiled apologetically. "We know so little, you see. Only what Meg told us over the phone and, in all conscience, that wasn't very much. Just that Leo preferred her to Jinx and they were leaving for a holiday in France."

  The woman's thick lips worked aggressively. "Why should me and the boys take the blame for your daughter's screwing?" she slurred drunkenly. "Adam says we've ruined Jinx's chances with our goings-on, but I can't see it myself. Leo's a right bastard- like his father-but we did nothing to upset the applecart." She took a deep breath. "Not our fault," she resumed after a moment. "Meg's jealous, always has been. Sets out to bed anyone Jinx likes. Common is as common does. Bedde
d Russell, in case you didn't know."

  Charles turned a shocked face towards his wife but Caroline looked away and refused to meet his eyes. "I didn't know," he said. "I'm sorry."

  HO FORENSIC LAB, HAMPSHIRE-11:30 A.M.

  Dr. Robert Clarke, the Home Office pathologist, took pity on the three policemen and herded them out of the laboratory and into his office, peeling off his gloves and mask as he did so. "Not a pretty sight," he agreed, opening his window to allow in the sweeter-smelling air of the busy road outside, "but sealing both caboodles in body bags and spraying with Nuvanstykil is the only way to kill the maggots off and make what's left presentable enough to examine. Coffee?" he suggested.

  The three men swallowed convulsively, and wondered how he could consider taking anything into his mouth after what they had glimpsed going on inside the bags. The stench of putrefaction still lined their throats, as it had done since yesterday when they had stood beside the ditch and stared in gagging repulsion at the pulsating white mass seething turbulently amongst the pieces of clothing and decomposing body parts that lay there. They shook their heads vigorously.

  "No thanks, Bob," said Detective Superintendent Frank Cheever, wiping his lips with a handkerchief. He was older than the other two policemen, a fine-boned, rather studious-looking man with gray hair and pale blue eyes which he fixed unnervingly on the person he was talking to. He was something of a dandy and caused much amusement amongst his officers over what they considered his fetish for silk. He wore silk bow ties, tucked matching silk handkerchiefs into his jacket breast pocket, and kept his expensive silk socks at permanent stretch by the use of sock suspenders. Rumor had it that he also wore silk underwear "But don't mind us," he murmured, looking unhappily at the empty coffee mug on the desk. "You go ahead."

  "I will." The doctor stuck his head round the door, waved the mug in the air, and asked his secretary to bring him a black coffee. "It takes the taste away," he said insensitively as he settled himself behind his desk and waved them towards some empty chairs, "Now, let's see what we've got." He consulted some typed notes in front of him. "I won't bore you with the life history of Calliphora erythrocephalus, which is the bluebottle we're dealing with here, but in essence the time lapse in warm weather between the laying of the eggs and the pupal stage is some ten to eleven days. We found no pupa cases, and the larvae at the time of the discovery were on the way to being mature third-stage maggots, which would suggest the eggs were laid some eight or nine days before." He tapped a calendar. "Yesterday was the twenty-third, so we're looking at the fourteenth or fifteenth as likely dates for laying. Add another day or two for Calliphora erythrocephalus to find the bodies, and my estimate for when death occurred would be the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth, with Monday the thirteenth as my first choice." He beamed at his secretary, who came in with his coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits. "Sure you won't join me, gentlemen?"

  They became visibly paler. It occurred to Detective Inspector Maddocks, a tall heavyset man in his mid-forties with a permanent scowl on his face, that Bob Clarke was doing this on purpose, a kind of trial of strength between the hard man of pathology and the hard men of CID. He'd always suspected the little bugger-Clarke was a miserable five feet six inches-of having a chip on his shoulder. Now he was sure. God, how he loathed arrogant little men! There was a horrible similarity between this cocky little scientist and the math teacher who was the cause of his pending third divorce.

  "All right, Jenny. Thank you." Clarke dunked a biscuit into the cup and munched on it with pleasure. "Their hands and feet were tied, as you know, so we've got two people quite unable to defend themselves. Cause of death was ferocious bludgeoning with a blunt instrument." He pushed some X-ray photographs in Superintendent Cheever's direction with the flick of a finger. "We took these before we put them in the bath. You see how both skulls have been fractured in several places. This one, in particular, shows a clear rounded depression in the woman's parietal bone. A long-handled club or sledgehammer would be my bet, certainly something very substantial. Notice the break in the man's right clavicle, which would imply a missed shot"-he made a downward swing with his hand-"possibly glanced off the side of his head and landed with the force of a two-ton truck on the poor wretch's shoulder." He shook his head. "What we're looking at is two people on their knees with hands tied behind their backs and a maniac using them for target practice with something very heavy indeed. I think we can assume the first blows were delivered from behind because those are downward sweeps, and the blows that shattered the jaws and cheekbones were done after the bodies had toppled onto their sides. Imagine our maniac holding his hammer like a golf club and driving at both faces when they were on the ground. That should give you a good idea of what probably occurred."

  Cheever dabbed at his lips again as he examined the photographs. "Where do you think it happened? In the ditch itself, or at the top of the bank?"

  "My guess would be on the bank. The sort of blows I envisage would have been harder to achieve in a confined space. No, I see him killing them at the top of the slope, then pushing the bodies over. It's not very pleasant to dwell on"-he dunked another biscuit in his coffee-"but the golf-swing blows may have been his method of driving the corpses into a roll. Not that it would have worked very well," he said thoughtfully. "He'd have had to lay them out straight and give them a heave around their middles to really get them going."

  "What about those slide marks we found five yards down?"

  Bob Clarke sorted out another photograph. "Very interesting," he said. "Clearly made with a thin, hard heel. See here, quite deeply scored as if the wearer was sliding on one side with the heel digging in as a brake. But it's no more than an inch wide, so I'd suggest it was a woman's shoe."

  "The female corpse was wearing running shoes," said Chee-ver.

  "Yes. She couldn't have made marks like this, and neither could our male corpse. His heels are a good four inches wide. They weren't done all that recently, either-you can see where the grass has started to sprout again in places-so the chances are, there was either a woman present while the murder took place or someone else, who didn't report it, found the bodies before your old lady did."

  "If that's true," said Cheever pensively, "then it's conceivable they may be our wallet thief. The logical assumption is that the murderer removed anything that could identify them, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that someone else did the business." He glanced towards his colleagues. "What do you think?"

  Gareth Maddocks gave a noncommittal shrug, his narrowed eyes, sunk in folds of thick flesh, watching the pathologist's biscuit-dunking routine with disgust. "You said it meant a woman might have been present during the murder," he reminded him. "Does that mean a woman could have delivered blows like this, or was she there only as a witness to a man delivering them?"

  Apparently oblivious of the other man's distaste, Clarke rubbed biscuit crumbs from his fingers and started in on his coffee. "Assuming she had two people, incapacitated, on their knees in front of her and assuming a sledge or club hammer with a reasonable length handle, then any woman with the strength to swing the thing several times could inflict this sort of damage. But it's an unlikely modus operandi for a woman acting alone."

  "Not impossible, though?"

  "Nothing's impossible, but frankly, statistics and psychology are against you. It was a very physical crime, requiring energy and extreme savagery, neither of which are typical of female murderers. That's not to say there aren't some extremely savage and dangerous women about, but in my experience, they prefer to conduct their murders within the four walls of a house, using a pillow over the face, poison, guns and knives even. I'd plump for a man or men, if I were you, with the possibility of a woman in tow who witnessed the whole event. It really is a pity there's been so little rain recently. A nice piece of soggy ground, and I could have told you how many people were there, what they weighed and probably how tall they were." He paused briefly. "Of course you realize there'll have be
en a great deal of blood, and that's a brute to clean off, as you know. Your killer will probably have left bloodstains in the car he drove away in. I certainly feel those are areas worth concentrating on."

  "Tell us about the victims," said Frank Cheever. "We've got height, build, and coloring. Anything else? What do their clothes say?"

  "Ah, well, Jerry's having a field day with them." Clarke pulled out another set of notes. "It'll be a while before he can give you a full analysis, but this is what he's come up with so far. These people weren't poor, quite the reverse in fact-Jerry says look at the wealthier end of the market. The woman first. Not much help from the jeans, which are stone-washed, men's Levi 501s, but the T-shirt is American, made by a company called Arizona, and imported into this country by the Birmingham-based Interwear. Preliminary talks with them indicate that these T-shirts retail at fifty-five pounds from only ten stores throughout the country, all of which are centered in either London, Birmingham, or Glasgow. We're expecting a faxed list this afternoon, and Jerry will send it through to you as soon as it arrives, with precise details of the size, color code, and style that she was wearing." He followed the notes with his finger. "Her running shoes are a Nike brand, retailing at eighty-five pounds, and her underwear, again not too helpful, is top-of-the-range Marks and Spencers. The point is, nothing that she was wearing was what you or I would call cheap, considering all her clothes are of the casual type.

  "Now, the man. He's the better bet, by a long chalk. The pullover is dark green, army-style with leather-patched elbows, designed by Capability Brown and retailing only through Harrods at a price of one hundred and three pounds." He smiled at Frank Cheever's grunt of excitement. "That's only the beginning, my friend. The shirt is a casual green-brown check from Hilditch and Keys in Jermyn Street, retailing at eighty-five pounds. Trousers by Capability Brown again, one hundred percent lined cotton, with pleated front and button detail, color described as taupe, and retailing out of Harrods for two hundred and fifty pounds. Socks by Marks and Spencers, shoes probably purchased in Italy because Jerry has no record of an importer who deals in that particular brand, but he's working on it. His best advice is that our chap has an account with Harrods and probably one with Hilditch and Keys as well. He has located some interesting fibers on both sets of garments which he believes are from the same carpet, probably a thick-pile, off-white Chinese rug, and some hairs which he suggests tentatively are cat hairs, but give him a few more days and he claims he'll be able to describe the room these two were in before they were taken to Ardingly Woods."