Thanet shrugged. ‘Or whoever killed her unlocked it to get out.’
‘You think it might have been the husband, and she let him in herself?’
‘Early days, Mike. Early days. Let’s not start speculating too soon.’
‘In any case, it’s odd that Mrs Broxton didn’t think to check that the back door was locked, before ringing us, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s quite feasible that she was too shaken to be thinking clearly.’
On the galleried landing Thanet paused to look around. Above him massive honey-coloured oak beams lit to dramatic effect by strategically-placed spotlights rose in graceful curves, horizontals and diagonals. Below, the generously proportioned hall added a further dimension of light and space.
Lineham was concentrating on more mundane matters. ‘But she’s not stupid. In the circumstances you’d think her first thought would be to make sure the house was secure. After all, as she says, for all she knew the murderer could still have been around.’
Thanet shrugged. ‘You know as well as I do, Mike, that people don’t always think or act logically in situations of stress.’
They turned left as instructed along a broad corridor. More ancient beams straddled the ceiling and at one point they had to duck to pass beneath. Ahead of them, on the left, a door ajar indicated that they were approaching Henry’s room and Thanet glanced at Lineham and put a finger to his lips. Henry had had enough traumas for one evening.
The room which Perdita Master had so briefly occupied was pleasant and comfortable, with a green fitted carpet, cream-washed walls and sprigged floral curtains. Double doors on a fitted cupboard opened to reveal a neat washbasin built in to one half, hanging and shelf space for clothes in the other.
She had brought very little with her: toilet things, several changes of underwear, another pair of cord trousers, cream this time, a couple of blouses, a pair of flat shoes. The most interesting item was a sketchbook on the bedside table. It was relatively new, the first pages taken up by sketches of flowers, grasses and trees. The last ten or twelve were a different matter. One was full of quick studies of two children, a small boy and a baby – Henry and Alice? – the last two of more detailed portraits of a man, drawn from several different angles.
He showed them to Lineham.
‘Her husband?’ said Lineham.
Thanet shook his head. ‘I know Master. That’s not him.’
‘Perhaps Mrs Broxton will know who he is.’
They both stared at the sketches. The subject was in his late thirties or early forties, Thanet guessed, with straight hair worn rather too long for Thanet’s taste and a narrow, sensitive face. The eyes were deepset, depicted with a distant, somewhat contemplative expression, the mouth rather weak.
‘A lover?’ said Lineham.
‘Could be.’ Thanet was still looking at the drawings, admiring now the skill of the artist. ‘She was good, wasn’t she? I wonder if she was a professional.’
‘Mrs Broxton said Mrs Master was a trained nanny, before she got married.’
‘Before she got married. Exactly. I can’t quite see Giles Master allowing his wife to play nursemaid as a career.’
Lineham raised his eyebrows. ‘“Allowing”? Like that, was it?’
‘Perhaps I’m judging him too harshly. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself soon, no doubt.’ Thanet tapped the sketchbook. ‘If she wasn’t a professional she was a very gifted amateur. If the other drawings are of Henry and Alice, then as these come afterwards we can only assume she must have done them since she got here yesterday.’
He could imagine Perdita sitting propped up against those pillows, lamplight turning that mass of fair hair to spun gold, totally absorbed in her task and finding solace in it. He tried to put himself in her situation. The break-up of a marriage is always traumatic to both partners, regardless of which one is choosing to initiate it. Perdita would still have been shaken, emotionally bruised by the row with Giles and having so precipitately left her home. She was at a major turning point in her life, living in a kind of limbo. What more natural than in that state her thoughts would have turned to her lover, if she had one? He would have been her life-line to the future.
‘Mrs Broxton said that Mr Master was very jealous and possessive, sir. That Mrs Master had a “hell of a time” with him. If it was only on Saturday night that he discovered she had a lover …’
‘Quite.’
‘Looks as though this could turn out to be pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Mr Master next, then?’
‘Yes. Someone will have to break the news to him anyway. Looks as though in this case it had better be us.’ This was one task which, like every policeman, Thanet hated above all others. ‘Better take a look at her handbag before we go.’
On a demure little easy chair covered with the same sprigged material as the curtains lay a bulky brown leather shoulder bag. Lineham emptied its contents on to the bed and sat down beside them.
Thanet continued to study the drawings. He would know this face again when they met it. And if this were Perdita’s lover, here was a second person about to receive a crushing blow. Thanet wondered if the man were married, had a wife and family …
‘Doesn’t look as though there’s anything of any significance here, sir. Just the usual stuff.’ Lineham was putting things back into Perdita’s bag.
‘Right. Let’s go, then.’ Thanet tucked the sketchbook under his arm. If Vanessa Broxton was still around he wanted to show her the portraits. But in case she wasn’t, first of all …
Outside in the corridor he paused outside Henry’s room. Silence. With a gesture to Lineham to remain where he was Thanet pushed the door open a little wider and tiptoed in. A nightlight in the shape of a red-spotted mushroom with a rabbit perched on top illuminated the cot. Henry was sound asleep, flat on his back with arms outflung in the careless abandon of childhood. One glance was enough to tell Thanet that this was indeed the small boy in the sketches. Perdita had been very talented, there was no doubt about that.
He returned to the corridor. ‘The drawings are of Henry,’ he whispered to Lineham.
On the galleried landing they met Mrs Broxton’s doctor and WPC Barnes coming from the opposite direction. Presumably the Broxtons’ bedroom was on the first floor of the far oast.
‘Would it be possible to have a quick word with Mrs Broxton?’ said Thanet.
The doctor shook his head. ‘Sorry, she shouldn’t be disturbed again tonight. I’ve given her a sedative. Constable Barnes has kindly agreed to listen out for the children.’
Thanet gave a resigned nod. Too bad. Identification of the man in the sketches would have to wait until morning.
Downstairs Bentley had just returned from interviewing the neighbour.
‘Any luck?’ asked Thanet.
‘She’s a Mrs Barnes, sir. A widow. Says she was putting the cat out at about 8.30 this evening and heard some kind of commotion over here – someone hammering on the front door and a man shouting, she says. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but after a few minutes the shouting stopped. She went back indoors then and just happened to go upstairs.’ Bentley grinned. ‘The landing window overlooks the drive of this house, so I’d guess she went up deliberately, to see what was going on. Unfortunately, she’s got arthritis in both hips, so it took her some time to get there and by the time she did all she saw was a car driving away.’
‘Any description of the car?’
Bentley shook his head. ‘Nothing of any use. Big and dark in colour, that’s all. And it was too dark for her to see who was driving, or how many people were in it. One interesting point, though. She did say she was aware of an unusual number of cars around this evening. She noticed because it’s usually pretty quiet at night here.’
‘What did she mean by “around”? Did she mean driving past her house, or coming into the drive of this one?’
‘She couldn’t
be sure. Her sitting room is on the front corner nearest to the drive of the Oast, so it would have been difficult to tell.’
‘And what did she mean by an unusual number?’
Bentley shrugged. ‘She couldn’t be very specific. When I pressed her she said between four and six.’
‘Close together, or spaced out?’
‘Between the incident we spoke of and the time the police cars started arriving.’
‘Between 8.30 and, say, 10, then … Could mean anything or nothing.’
‘She said she’d wondered if there was one of those supper safaris – you know, when a group of people have the first course at one house, the main course at another and the dessert at a third. They tend to go in for that sort of thing around here, apparently.’
‘Remember to ask the men to check that, when you’re doing house-to-house enquiries in the morning.’ Thanet glanced at his watch. Ten past twelve. ‘It’s too late to start tonight. Lineham and I are going now to break the news to Mrs Master’s husband, and I’d like you to do the same with her stepfather.’
A shadow flitted across Bentley’s round, normally placid face. ‘Right, sir.’
Thanet left Lineham to check the number of the Harrows’ house and also the Masters’ address in the telephone directory, while he went to see how the forensic team was getting on in the kitchen.
Five minutes later they were on their way.
FOUR
Outside Thanet shrugged deeper into his overcoat and shoved his hands into his pockets. The temperature had dropped still further and the roofs of the cars were frosted over. The sky was thick with stars.
‘Shall we go in separate cars, sir?’ said Lineham.
‘Where does Master live?’
‘Nettleton.’
‘Ah.’
They knew Nettleton well, from a case they had worked on together some years ago. Carrie Birch had been an apparently innocuous middle-aged cleaning woman, whose body had been found crammed into an outside privy behind a cottage near where she lived. Nettleton was only a couple of miles from Melton and it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to get there at this time of night.
‘We’ll go together in yours and pick mine up on the way back.’
‘Right.’
Lineham sprayed de-icer on to his windscreen. ‘The Super isn’t going to like this, is he?’ he said as he got into the car.
‘You mean, because Mrs Broxton is involved? No. It could be tricky.’
Superintendent Draco, a fiery little Welshman, had arrived to take charge of Sturrenden sub-divisional headquarters a couple of years previously, full of zeal and enthusiasm to make his patch the best-policed area in the South of England. The ensuing period of change and adjustment had been painful for all concerned, but the results had been impressive: the record of arrests had gone up, morale had improved dramatically and although everyone grumbled about the demands Draco made upon time and energy he was universally accorded unqualified respect and even a grudging affection.
‘Come to think of it, though, it’s odd he hasn’t turned up tonight, don’t you think, sir?’
Draco liked to have his finger on the pulse of his division and the previous year had even gone through a period of turning up unexpectedly during the course of an investigation and sitting in on interviews with witnesses. Thanet had not enjoyed having the Superintendent breathing down his neck and had heaved a sigh of relief when Draco had turned the spotlight of his attention elsewhere. It was certainly unusual for him not to have been present for something as important as the start of a murder investigation, especially as the crime had been perpetrated at the Broxtons’ house. Draco prided himself on good relationships with other professions concerned with the maintenance of law and order.
There had been so much to take in this evening that Thanet had not noticed Draco’s absence until now. ‘Yes, you’re right, Mike. It is. Actually, I was thinking the other day … Don’t you think he’s been rather subdued, lately?’
‘Now you mention it, yes, I have. I wonder …’
‘What?’
‘Well, Louise said she saw Mrs Draco in town the other day and she didn’t look at all well. Louise wondered if we’d heard anything. I meant to ask you.’
‘No, I haven’t heard a word. But if she is ill, it would explain a lot.’
Thanet would never forget the first time he had met Angharad Draco. Shortly after Draco’s arrival in Sturrenden the Thanets had been invited to a Rotary dinner and during the preceding reception Joan had nudged him.
‘Who is that?’ she’d whispered.
Following the direction of her nod Thanet had beheld one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. Tall and willowy, with a cloud of gleaming copper-gold hair and flawless complexion, the woman Joan had indicated was surrounded by a crowd of admiring males. She was in her early thirties, he guessed, and her lovely body in its simple floor-length sheath dress of sea-green silk would have had any sculptor reaching for his tools.
‘No idea. Good grief – look!’
The group of men around the woman had shifted slightly, revealing the shorter man who stood beside her, smiling up at her. As the Thanets watched she put a proprietorial hand through his arm and returned his smile.
‘Draco,’ breathed Thanet. ‘Surely that’s not his wife.’
But it was. Later in the evening the Thanets had been introduced to her by a Draco whose uxorious smile held a distinct tinge of amusement; he was clearly used to the effect Angharad had upon others, and to the politely concealed disbelief that he should have won such a prize. It had been obvious then that he adored her and that his feelings were reciprocated.
Thanet had eventually come to understand that in fact the Dracos complemented each other: she needed his ebullience and volatility as much as he needed her cool, calm reserve. They had no children and apparently did not feel the lack of them; in such a mutually exclusive relationship any third person would perhaps have been superfluous.
Now, if Angharad were ill, if there were something seriously wrong with her … How would Draco bear it? Thanet remembered Doc Mallard’s long years of near-disintegration, and shivered inwardly.
‘I’ll ask Louise to keep her ear to the ground,’ said Lineham.
His wife was a trained nurse and had many friends in the medical profession, having worked for some years as a Sister at Sturrenden General Hospital.
‘How is Louise, by the way? I haven’t seen her for ages.’
Lineham did not reply immediately. Thanet thought that this was because they were approaching a T-junction, but after slowing down, waiting for a car to pass and turning left, Lineham still said nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t heard?
Thanet glanced at him. It was dark, of course, but even so the dim illumination from the dashboard was sufficient to reveal the grim expression on Lineham’s face. Thanet revised his opinion. The sergeant had heard, and either he didn’t want to reply or he didn’t know what to say. In either case Thanet had no intention of repeating the question.
But Lineham, it seemed, had merely been considering his answer. ‘To be honest, sir, I think she’s a bit confused.’
This was unexpected. Louise was a very decisive sort of person, with positive views on pretty well everything and a black and white outlook on life which Thanet would personally have found very difficult to live with. ‘Oh?’ he said, warily. Dare he ask what about? Was Lineham expecting him to?
Thanet decided to follow one of his own rules: when in doubt say nothing. If Lineham wanted to pursue the matter, he would. But if so, he would have to make up his mind quickly. Another half a mile or so and they would be in Nettleton. Having been brought up in this area Thanet knew most of the roads around Sturrenden. He knew, for instance, that the camber was wrong on the next bend ahead, that if Lineham didn’t slow down a little the car might well drift across the centre line …
Lineham slowed down.
‘About going back to work, that is.’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Thanet, cautiously. He knew from his own experience what a minefield the question of working wives could be.
‘Well, you know how keen she’s always been, to get back to work when both the children are at school, how difficult she’s found it to adjust to staying at home, while they were small?’
‘Yes.’ Only last year Louise’s restlessness had almost resulted in Lineham leaving the force; unable to find a satisfying outlet for her own energies she had for a while tried instead to persuade her husband to strike out in a new direction. Fortunately Lineham had found the strength to resist and on Thanet’s advice had, instead, persuaded Louise to find a part-time job for the few hours a week when Mandy, their youngest, had been at playgroup.
‘Well, as you know, Mandy will be starting school at Easter and I thought Louise would be over the moon at getting back into nursing, but no, now she’s saying she’s been out of the profession too long, that she’s lost touch with all the latest developments in medicine, that she wouldn’t be able to cope …’
‘But surely there are refresher courses, for people in her position?’
‘That’s what I say to her. But I don’t know … I think the truth is, she’s lost confidence in herself.’
‘That’s not unusual. In fact, I understand it’s quite common for women who’ve been at home for a few years to feel like that. Joan did, herself.’
‘Did she?’ said Lineham eagerly. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Oh yes, she certainly did. Look, if it would be any help, I’m sure Joan would have a chat with her.’
‘Would she?’ Lineham’s tone was still eager, but it changed as he said doubtfully, ‘I’m not sure that Louise would be too pleased if she thought I’d been talking to you about it. Unless Joan could bring the subject up casually, without her knowing …’
‘I’m sure she could. She’s pretty good at that sort of thing.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Lineham was silent for a few moments, then said, ‘D’you think you could ask her, then? If the situation arises, that is, when she could do it tactfully?’
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