A Trio of Murders: A Perfect Match, Redemption, Death of a Dancer

by Jill McGown

  Barry was using index cards for his speech; it was impossible to tell whether he was in the middle of it or nearly at the end; one could only hope it was the latter, as he had been speaking for over twenty minutes. He got a murmured laugh, and seemed to be winding up; Philip shifted slightly in his seat as his leg began to complain, and joined in the applause.

  Philip drank to the next hundred and fifty years, feeling a bit as though he had been there for the first hundred and fifty. He had drunk to everything; indeed, the speeches had been made easier on the ear by virtue of finishing off each glass of wine while the next one droned on. The young woman who kept refilling his glass was by now wearing a permanently worried expression. Philip smiled at her.

  The music struck up; a plague of grey blazers suddenly rose from the tables, and descended on the ladies, who tried to look surprised as they took to the floor.

  Philip watched as they danced; people who could move, some more elegantly than others, exactly as they chose, and he hated them all. He sighed, wishing Caroline was there, and turned to the other two men who remained at the table as they included him in the inconsequential conversation, but he was having some difficulty following what they were saying.

  The dance was over; the boys began to see their ladies back. Returned to the top table, Diana Hamlyn didn’t even sit down, but instead came back across the room towards him, almost, it seemed, pushing people out of her way in order to get there. The music began again, and his companions rose to dance with their returned ladies.

  He was alone at the table when Diana arrived.

  ‘Is this a frightful bore for you, Philip?’ She leaned over as she spoke, her face close to his.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘How’s the leg holding up?’ she asked, as her hand rested lightly on his good leg.

  The girl he had been seeing before the accident had come to the hospital when he lay paralysed, with no one able to say if the immobility was permanent or not. It had been the most casual of relationships; she had not unnaturally taken fright at the possibility of being cast in the rôle of paraplegic’s loyal girlfriend, and he hadn’t seen her again.

  But he hadn’t had fantasies about her, to whom he really had made love. And he didn’t have fantasies about Diana Hamlyn, whose hand really was pressing his thigh.

  She straightened up, slowly slipping her hand away. ‘Sorry I can’t stay,’ she said. ‘Duty calls.’

  And she made her way to the exit, just as Sam had done; Philip watched her go, swearing under his breath. Damn the woman. Damn her. She’d been using him as some sort of decoy. But he couldn’t even ask her to dance, never mind anything else, so what good would he be to her? He didn’t want her anyway.

  He wanted Caroline.

  ‘Isn’t Mr Waters coming back?’ asked the wife of the chairman of governors, whose name Treadwell was constitutionally incapable of remembering.

  ‘Er . . . no,’ he said, his eyes still on Diana as she left the Hall. ‘He did say that he wouldn’t be able to stay long,’ he said. ‘He had a previous appointment.’

  ‘What a pity,’ she said. ‘I had hoped to get the chance to talk to him.’

  Thank God you didn’t, Treadwell thought. He had scarcely been able to conceal his relief when Waters told him he wouldn’t be staying. When he had seen the jacket, the relief had been doubled; if that was the Statement, then the speech would probably be free of four-letter words and innuendo, which had proved to be the case.

  ‘But he and Caroline aren’t leaving until eleven,’ said Marcia, with the wide-eyed innocence that Treadwell, despite having been married to her for over thirty years, still wondered about. ‘Are they?’

  ‘Eleven?’ repeated Hamlyn, in a startled voice. ‘Then, why did he leave at half past nine?’

  ‘Just a misunderstanding, I expect,’ Treadwell said. He glared at his wife, who looked flustered.

  ‘Diana seems to have misunderstood, too,’ said Hamlyn. ‘She also left as soon as she had discharged her duties.’

  Treadwell smiled weakly. ‘I’m sure there’s an explanation,’ he said.

  ‘I think we all know the explanation,’ said Hamlyn.

  Treadwell wanted to die; he signalled frantically to the girl to bring more wine. Hemlock, for preference.

  ‘It’s an odd time to have an appointment,’ laughed the bloody woman who wouldn’t let the subject of Sam Waters go. ‘Whenever it’s for. Still, artists are supposed to be unconventional.’

  ‘Mr Waters is certainly that,’ said Hamlyn. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Barry?’

  The new bottle arrived. ‘More wine?’ Treadwell asked, his voice a shade desperate. But any hopes he had of the subject having been dropped were dashed.

  ‘You’d think the man would have more of an idea of dress sense, if he’s meant to be an artist,’ said the bloody woman’s husband.

  ‘I think,’ said Robert Hamlyn quietly, ‘that that was Sam’s idea of a joke, rather than his idea of dress sense.’

  ‘A joke?’

  Treadwell smiled broadly. ‘As your wife says,’ he laughed, ‘artists are supposed to be unconventional.’ He poured more wine for himself.

  ‘I don’t really see the point, if it was a joke.’

  ‘We’re the point,’ said Hamlyn.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We never see ourselves, do we?’ He smiled. ‘As others see us,’ he added.

  Treadwell watched with dismay as his guests’ faces grew slightly pink.

  ‘Here we are,’ Hamlyn went on, in the quiet voice that carried as far as it had to, after years of lectures and talks. ‘Here we are, sitting up straight in our best bibs and tuckers, and there’s Sam, doing exactly what he pleases.’ He paused, and looked straight at Treadwell. ‘With my wife,’ he added.

  Treadwell’s glass froze at his lips. He had expected trouble from Waters; he had anticipated it, told him in no uncertain manner that his fixed-term contract had not been agreed by him, and did not have to be renewed. It would never have occurred to him that Hamlyn, who lived for the most part in a world composed entirely of logic and mathematics, would be the nigger in the woodpile. Almost automatically, he told himself that he mustn’t use that expression any more. The fly in the ointment, then. Presumably there were no pressure groups for fly rights yet. Why now, for God’s sake? Why now? Why here?

  ‘You’re worrying these good people,’ he said, trying to laugh, sounding hysterical, he knew he sounded hysterical. ‘They’ll think you mean it.’

  ‘You mean I’m worrying you,’ said Hamlyn, still smiling.

  Treadwell shot a look at Marcia, who looked like she always did. Polite, a little apprehensive, not understanding what was going on, and quite unaware that she had caused it all.

  It was just then that he saw Philip Newby get up and move quickly through the dancers to the doors.

  ‘Do you want coffee?’ Lloyd asked, his voice as surly as he could make it, given the deliberately non-contentious nature of the question.

  They were in Lloyd’s flat, surfacing from yet another row; Judy shook her head, not turning to look at him, and opened the window a little to watch the rain pouring down, leaving a slippery film on everything, as it battered away at the piles of snow. It had come suddenly, unpredicted by the weathermen. Hopefully, it was at least signalling the end of winter.

  She had looked at her watch, apparently. Not, she would have thought, the most inflammatory of gestures, but it had sparked off the quick temper to which she doubted if she would ever become accustomed. Michael was at a colleague’s stag party, and wasn’t going to be home until the early hours. But it was well after midnight, and, bearing in mind her Cinderella status, she had looked at her watch.

  And she was getting no better at holding her own during such hostilities; the cutting remarks and wild accusations perhaps stung a little less than they used to, but not much.

  The question had broken the ten minutes of silence which had followed the angry words; it was, Judy knew from e
xperience, the prelude to a more reasoned statement of grievances, to which she was supposed to reply in equally reasonable tones, until Lloyd made some feeble joke that they would both pretend was funny.

  She let the cold air cool the cheeks that had grown hot with indignation as the hurtful words had been hurled at her; she had no weapon to match Lloyd’s tongue, and he knew it. Afterwards – after the silence and the peaceful negotiations, which Judy hated even more than the row, after the pipe of peace had been smoked – he would blame his Welshness, and try to make her laugh at the English reserve which stopped her giving as good as she got.

  She closed the window and braced herself for the unnecessary but obligatory discussion of their situation; when Lloyd didn’t speak, she turned to look at him. He stood up, and held out his arms.

  ‘This is crazy,’ he said, hugging her. ‘I want you to live with me, and all I can do is fight with you.’

  It was far from all he could do. The rows blew over, and he had every right to feel frustrated and angry as the weeks went by. But she couldn’t explain to Lloyd why she hadn’t made the break. Michael’s dependence on her, unsuspected and unsought, was a factor that Lloyd didn’t know came into it, and to tell him would seem more like a betrayal of Michael than her infidelity ever had.

  ‘Are you having second thoughts about leaving him?’ he asked.

  ‘No!’ She pulled back to look at him. ‘He just won’t accept that it’s all over. We’ve got separate rooms, Lloyd, I told you.’

  It was an unnecessary denial of one of his angry suggestions, and he pulled her close to him again. ‘I didn’t mean any of that,’ he said. ‘But you can’t leave him in stages, Judy.’ His lips touched her cheek. ‘Hoping he won’t notice.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘Do you ever take time off?’ she asked.

  He gave a little laugh. ‘Sixteen years ago it was Barbara you didn’t want to hurt,’ he said. ‘But someone is going to get hurt.’

  She had known Lloyd since she was twenty years old; she had loved him since she was twenty years old. But he had been married to Barbara then, with two young children. So – as a direct result – she had married Michael, with whom she had had an easy relationship for years. Marriage had put an end to that. Her path had crossed Lloyd’s again two years ago, when she and Michael had come to live in Stansfield.

  Thus began what was supposed to have been a no-strings-attached relationship with Lloyd, except that there were strings attached, and always had been. They had just pretended that they couldn’t see them, until they pulled so tightly that it hurt, and even she had to admit to their presence.

  With that admission, and the spoken acknowledgement of it, had come a flood of relief, and love, and guilt, laced with a generous measure of panic. But the panic was over; now she truly didn’t want to hurt Michael. So she was hurting Lloyd instead.

  ‘You,’ she said miserably. ‘I know I’m hurting you. Because you’ll put up with it.’

  He smiled. ‘You’d better go,’ he said, kissing her gently.

  Judy looked at her watch again, but this time she took it from her wrist, and slipped it into Lloyd’s pocket.

  ‘Sure?’ he asked. ‘It’s even later now.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said, as the phone rang.

  Lloyd picked it up with a shrug of apology to her, then listened, his face growing grave. He sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  She was going somewhere now, she thought, as they went out to their cars. Hers coughed and spluttered like a sixty-a-day smoker, and she had to abandon it and go in Lloyd’s. They were going, as fast as they could in the non-stop rain, to what Lloyd had described as ‘that school of yours’. He seemed to hold her personally responsible for the rape and murder which had apparently taken place there.

  They arrived to find what seemed like half of the county constabulary there already; squad cars, doors open, radios crackling messages, were parked in the wonderfully eccentric fashion known only to squad-car drivers. Lloyd pulled up beside the pitch-dark playing-field, where the knot of onlookers suggested that they would find the body.

  ‘Get rid of them,’ Lloyd muttered, as he got out of the car.

  Judy sometimes wished he wouldn’t make allowances, but on the whole she was glad that he did. It helped a little if she could get into her stride before she had to look at the victim.

  She got out, and prepared to go into the routine of telling them that there was nothing to see; this time it was entirely true. Portable lighting equipment was on its way, but for the moment there was only the light from the building, and it lit the onlookers, not the scene of the incident. But the crowd, mostly boys, wasn’t sightseeing. It was quiet, and still, shocked by the news. The boys spoke to her of someone they had liked, someone who had meant a great deal to each of them. She caught a glimpse of the one she had spoken to about the thefts, but she couldn’t remember his name. Coatless, he stood shivering in the rain, and in the aftermath of tragedy he looked like the schoolboy he was. Not the elegant man-about-town; an awkward schoolboy, all wrists and ankles. Another blinked furiously as he told her that he would have run away when he was eleven if it hadn’t been for her. None of them could help with what had happened; they only knew what they had been told, and what they had overheard. She moved them away, and watched them go, moving off slowly, looking back over their shoulders at the dismal, rainsoaked scene. They were still boys, still children. They were sad, not angry.

  She was angry.

  Her husband had found her, almost falling over her in the darkness as he had crossed the playing-field from the Great Hall to the junior dormitory. The ambulancemen who had been called had treated him for shock; there was nothing they or anyone else could do for his wife.

  The ambulance had had to leave almost as soon as it had arrived, to pick up the injured from a crash on the treacherous road. It had happened close enough to the school for the mournful sound of a jammed car horn to reach them, and Lloyd had sent someone to investigate. Now half the men were out at the accident, coping with something which had taken and continued to take more lives than all the murderers there had ever been.

  But deliberate destruction was still much harder to take. Lloyd watched as at last they set up the lights, which had taken an hour to arrive because of the road diversion, and another hour to fix up. By torchlight, they had cordoned off the playing-field. Now, in the steady rain, they ran ribbon along either side of the tarmac path, and round the area where the attack had taken place. No murder weapon was immediately to hand; they would have to start searching at first light. So much time was wasted in winter, waiting for the sun to come up. The cold, relentless rain was washing away evidence, and the killer was getting further and further from their reach.

  The lights went on, illuminating the little patch of playing-field like day; Freddie looked round the small lit area for anything that might give them a clue to her attacker, but there was nothing. He shook his head, and crouched down beside the young woman’s body, under the canvas that sheltered it from the rain; it seemed an uncomfortable position for his tall frame, but he wouldn’t move until he’d finished, for fear of disturbing some minute piece of evidence. He had done what he could when he arrived, two hours ago. Now he could really begin his work. His thin face looked pinched and cold as he drew a quick sketch of the area, and dictated initial thoughts and findings to his assistant, a slight frown furrowing his brow. The girl wrote with blue hands, stopping now and then to rub them together.

  Even with the lights, they could see nothing in the immediate area that could have inflicted the injuries. Slowly, Lloyd moved back towards the body, under the makeshift shelter. It had been bad enough by torchlight.

  ‘Several blows to the head,’ Freddie was saying, as the girl wrote. ‘Non-manual. Our old friend the blunt instrument.’ He peered closely at the body. ‘An attempt, possibly successful, at strangulation,’ he said. ‘Bare legs and feet, no shoes. No underpants. No coat. One, two – t
wo buttons missing from dress at front. Brassiere torn. Injuries to—’

  ‘Sex murders,’ Lloyd said bitterly, like the obscenity they were.

  ‘Don’t knock them, Lloyd,’ said Freddie cheerfully. ‘Chances are I can learn a lot more from a sex murder than from any other kind.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, then,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m sure Mrs Hamlyn was pleased about that, if nothing else.’

  Freddie looked the part, all right. All tall thin seriousness, until you became aware that his looks disguised a genuine, even engaging enjoyment of his work. But Lloyd couldn’t share his appreciation of rape as an aid to detection.

  The photographer arrived, and began setting up, as Lloyd heard another car arrive; its headlamps lit up the gentle slope from the gates as it joined the other cars. He looked out from the bright light into the wet, cold darkness, taking a moment to make out the chief superintendent’s figure.

  ‘Morning, Lloyd.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Chief Superintendent Allison was twelve years younger than Lloyd, which had illogically irked Lloyd when he first arrived. His grudging admission that at least Allison was better than his predecessor had given way in the end to a slightly less grudging respect for the man’s ability. And he wasn’t all that much taller than Lloyd, which gave him several merit points.

  Together, they sorted out what was being done, what could and would be done. There was someone on the gates, checking cars in and out; that would continue until the living-in member of staff who was missing had either come back, been accounted for or placed firmly on the suspect-list. Judy had spoken to the gathering in the Great Hall, and was currently taking statements from anyone with anything to say.

  Allison would be addressing the school at assembly next day. There were other women at the school, small children and young boys; neither the police nor the school could take chances with their safety. The evening assemblies would be suspended until further notice to avoid the necessity of the younger boys walking round after dark.