by Peter Helton
‘It’s an awful lot to carry, too,’ Austin said. ‘Are we perhaps looking at more than one perp here?’
‘Please don’t say “perp”, Jane, when you mean “deranged killer”, it makes him sound like a bit of indigestion. You’ll be calling suspects “crims”, next. But yes, by all means let’s keep an open mind about that, though the MO has a touch of the insane about it, and that would suggest a single perpetrator. OK, we’re looking for the transport that was used, a car and a boat of some description. I want to know where he got the buoy and we need to find out where the radiator came from.’ There was a perfunctory knock at the door before a constable entered the room, holding a sheet of notepaper. ‘Yes, what is it?’ McLusky asked him.
‘We think we may have found the dead woman’s car, sir,’ the constable said.
McLusky took the note from his hand. ‘And what makes you think that?’
‘The car was abandoned in a lay-by on the A369. We found a sort of jacket inside that appears to match the dress she was wearing.’
‘A “sort of jacket”, Constable?’
‘Yes, you know what I mean’, the constable said, undaunted. ‘It’s part of a woman’s outfit but quite useless as a garment, really.’
There were giggles among the officers. ‘Yes, thanks, I can picture it.’ McLusky gulped down the cold coffee then picked up his radio and his jacket. ‘OK, you all know what to do, so do it. Jane? You and I are going to take a look at the motor.’
FIVE
‘The car is registered to a Barbara Steadman,’ said PC Weisz who had found the silver BMW abandoned in the lay-by and had guarded it ever since. He recognized one of the CID officers. It was that McLusky character he had come across the other night, only he looked less dishevelled now and didn’t smell of booze. But he could still do with a haircut. ‘Her date of birth fits with the age of the victim from the canal.’ A thin mizzle of rain was falling. McLusky turned up the collar on his jacket. The luxury car gleamed wetly beside the greening hedge. ‘That jacket on the passenger seat,’ Weisz was saying, ‘matches the dress of the victim.’
With gloved hands McLusky moved the driver’s backrest forward and back, had a thorough look at the inside without passing more than his hand and arm through the door. Crime scene technicians didn’t like anyone to so much as breathe inside a car that was a possible locus of a crime. The keys were in the ignition. He closed the door to keep the increasingly intense rain out. Crime scene investigators were just arriving, filling the area with more cars and vans. ‘She didn’t leave here of her own free will. No one moves too far from a car with the keys in the ignition, and she left her jacket.’ He turned back towards the car, took another look at the jacket through the wet car windows. ‘Not exactly equipped for all weathers, was she? I mean it’s strangely mild but not that mild. Unless she’s got gear in the boot.’ He looked about. It was a rural stretch of the Pill Road, already busy with afternoon traffic. ‘It’s a bit of a miracle the thing’s still here. Unless …’ McLusky bit his lip, and squinted sideways at the car.
‘Unless what?’ Austin asked.
‘Unless of course it isn’t still here.’
Austin scratched the tip of his nose. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Might not have happened here at all,’ McLusky said cheerfully. ‘The car could have been dumped here recently. If she was snatched from her car it may have happened here or it may have happened somewhere else entirely.’
‘Registered driver has a Bristol address, just outside Ham Green,’ said Austin. ‘That’s not far up the road.’
McLusky walked off and took out his packet of Extra Lights. ‘Let’s give the crime-scene techies some room.’ After a moment’s hesitation he put the cigarettes back in his pocket and took out a chocolate bar. He unwrapped it and offered Austin half. ‘Want some? It’s one of those twin things.’
Austin accepted the stick of chocolate-covered biscuit. ‘Chocolate? Since when?’
‘Helps me cut down on the fags. Her car is pointing in the direction of her home, which suggests she was on her way back from wherever she was. We’ll wait for the details to come through then pay her home a visit.’ He crunched the last bit of the chocolate bar and crumpled the wrapper into his pocket. ‘Not bad.’ He took out his cigarettes and lit one, despite the rain. He called across to the crime-scene technicians. ‘Anything good in the boot? Money, guns, illegal immigrants?’
‘Pair of green wellies,’ called the woman examining the boot. ‘Tartan rug, tiny torch.’ She twisted the little red thing. ‘Batteries flat.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s your lot.’
He turned back to Austin. ‘So, unless her coat was stolen then she drove that thing wearing a dress and matching jacket. Now that says to me she wasn’t on her way to do the shopping. Wherever she was going she didn’t expect to be walking anywhere. Garage to garage, perhaps.’ McLusky, shielding his cigarette from the rain under his cupped hand, gestured at the BMW, which was now surrounded by white-suited figures. ‘Assuming she was the one driving it, why would she stick it there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, look at it: it’s right at the entrance to the lay-by, there’s space for lots of cars. But the car’s right at the entrance.’
‘The lay-by was full? No. She was meeting someone? Someone who was already parked there, perhaps.’
‘Yes. Most likely.’ A raindrop squarely hit the end of his cigarette and extinguished it. McLusky let it drop unceremoniously and without comment.
‘Or she saw something else in the lay-by and went to have a look.’
‘Like what?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Or she stopped for the killer who was flagging her down.’ He accepted a sheet of notes from a constable. ‘Right, few more details. She was 49, married.’ He widened his eyes at Austin before continuing. ‘And her husband just this minute reported her missing. Lovely. He only just noticed he’d mislaid his wife. I think we should have an urgent word, don’t you?’
The large detached house west of Ham Green matched the price tag of the BMW yet managed to do so without ostentation. Solid, Victorian, partially clad with ivy.
‘Four bedrooms?’ McLusky let the Mazda crawl slowly up to the open gate of the tarmac drive.
‘More than that, I’m sure,’ Austin said. ‘Looks like someone’s at home, you can ask.’
McLusky stopped the car where it would block the drive, though the Range Rover standing in the slate-roofed car port would have no trouble escaping through the large gardens. At the porticoed front door McLusky pressed the brass doorbell. He thought he could hear a faint chime inside but no one came to answer. After rapping a few times on the door he stepped back out into the drive. The rain provided no more than a fine misting now but he felt damp and uncomfortable nevertheless. ‘Let’s have a look round the back.’ They peered in by the ground floor windows as they rounded the solid building.
‘Not short of a few bob,’ Austin commented. ‘Looks nice and comfy.’
The inspector stopped at a tall sash window, cupped his hands on the glass to look inside and gave it his appraisal. ‘Bit overstuffed perhaps but yes, looks comfy enough.’ McLusky, who owned six pieces of furniture if he counted the mattress on the floor he called his bed, rarely felt comfortable while awake. He briefly thought of Louise Rennie’s flat in Clifton. That had been comfortable yet at the same time full of light and air. He had concluded quite early that Louise needed a lot of space around her.
At the back of the house they found a large Victorian conservatory in need of repainting, a terrace and a garden that gently rose towards a stone wall behind a line of trees that separated it from the fields beyond. At the end of a stone-flagged path, halfway between house and trees, stood a wooden summerhouse. Smoke twirled thinly from a metal stovepipe. Behind a window shaded by the rustic porch McLusky thought he detected a slight movement. ‘In the Wendy house.’
As they walked towards it a bear
ded face appeared at the window, then the door opened and a man stepped on to the tiny porch. In his late fifties or early sixties, he was tall, with short, thin grey hair and a grey, angular beard. ‘Can I help you? Oh, police,’ he added when McLusky and Austin held their IDs aloft.
‘I’m DI McLusky, this is Sergeant Austin. Are you John Steadman, sir?’ The man nodded. ‘And you reported your wife missing?’
‘I did. About an hour ago. You got here quickly. I was led to believe the police would take ages to respond to a missing-persons call.’
‘Led to believe by whom?’ McLusky asked.
‘Well, you know. Just … general opinion. Yes, I am getting worried.’ He gestured behind him. ‘Do come in out of the rain, please.’
The summerhouse was simply furnished. The Persian rugs on the floor were worn but genuine. There was a desk that held an old-fashioned doorstep of a laptop and a profusion of papers. In front of it a beaten-up leather chair. A rickety chaise longue at the other end. A small, pot-bellied stove sat in the centre of a tiled circle. The walls were lined with books, the chaise longue was stacked with them. There was a faint note of damp leaves but the strongest note was that of red wine, a half-empty glass by the side of the computer. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit cramped with all three of us in here,’ Steadman said.
‘It’s fine,’ said McLusky whose own office was less than half the size. ‘Mr Steadman, could you describe your wife, please?’
‘I did all that over the phone just an hour ago. I gave the officer a detailed description.’
‘I’m sure you did. Would you describe her again for me? I’d like to hear it for myself.’ Steadman repeated the description, quickly, and with a slight air of irritation. McLusky nodded sympathetically throughout. ‘What was your wife wearing when you last saw her?’
‘A red-and-gold dressing gown, as far as I recall.’
‘So you didn’t see her leave the house?’
‘No. I have no idea what she was wearing when she left the house.’
‘When did you first notice your wife was missing?’
‘Yesterday morning, really. I mean, she hadn’t come home by the time I went to bed the night before but when she wasn’t there in the morning either that’s when I realized.’
‘Realized what?’
‘That she was missing, Inspector.’
‘But you waited until today to report it.’
‘I know you don’t take it seriously for the first twenty-four hours anyway.’
‘I think you’ll find that we make decisions on an individual basis and we would have at least looked out for her car. A silver BMW, registration …’ McLusky read the index number from his notebook.
‘That’s right.’
‘Mr Steadman, yesterday the body of a woman was recovered from the Feeder canal. It was widely reported.’
‘I, er, I don’t follow the local news. I’m busy here with … wait, wait. Are you saying … you mean …’ He faltered, looking from one officer to the other.
‘We can’t be certain,’ McLusky said gently. ‘Did your wife wear a watch?’
‘Yes, a gold one.’
‘A Gucci watch?’
Steadman breathed in deeply and shrugged. ‘It could be. I really should know, I gave it to her. But I’m not sure of the make.’
‘We found your wife’s car in a lay-by a few miles south from here. There is a possibility that the body found in the canal is that of your missing wife. It would help us if you could come to see if you can identify the body. Or if you would like someone else to go, preferably a relative …’
Steadman turned away from them, reached for the glass of wine, drained it. He spoke without turning around, standing very straight. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll come. In the canal? But … if her car is nowhere near … I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do we yet. DS Austin will arrange for an area car to take you to the mortuary.’
Austin nodded and stepped outside to make the call.
‘When we came and rang the door bell earlier there was no answer.’
Steadman turned to face him. ‘Yes, there’s no one in the house. I can’t hear it back here. The bell. So I can work undisturbed. Cleaner, gardener and so on all have keys.’
‘But you had just reported your wife missing. Wouldn’t you be anxious for news?’
‘I did give them my mobile number.’ He indicated his phone on the desk.
McLusky fished the sheet of notes he’d been given earlier from his jacket and squinted at it. ‘So you did.’
‘You must understand, we have been living quite separate lives. I’m retired now and working on a book, so I spend whole days in here. My wife left sometime late afternoon on Saturday. I presumed she had gone for a drive.’
Control sent a car for Steadman; McLusky followed it a few car-lengths behind with Austin beside him. ‘What do you make of him, Jane?’
‘Shocked, but not overwhelmed. He wasn’t exactly screaming “Oh God, please not that”, but he’s quite … I don’t know. More surprised than anything. It takes people in different ways, of course.’
‘His wife worked for Western Energy, apparently.’
‘Not as a meter reader, I expect. And how come they didn’t miss her?’ Austin wondered.
‘She’d taken today off to make it a long weekend. Not due back at work till tomorrow, according to him.’
‘Let’s hope it is his wife, then,’ Austin said.
‘Yes, please. And if possible a radiator missing from their house. But in the absence of that I’ll settle for the body being that of Barbara Steadman.’
When the sheet that covered the body’s face was drawn back by the mortuary assistant on the other side of the viewing window the detectives’ eyes were on John Steadman. His nostrils flared, his eyes widened, his mouth fell open. He stepped closer to the glass. ‘How did she die?’
‘For the record: can you identify the body as that of your wife?’
‘Yes. That’s … Babs.’ He enunciated the name as if saying it for the first time. Or for the last. He swallowed hard. ‘How?’
Austin nodded at the assistant to cover the face. ‘There’s an office we can use,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk in there.’
Steadman accepted a cup of sweet tea. The details of the case had been withheld and McLusky was determined to keep as much of it from Steadman for as long as he could. Husbands were always the most likely perpetrators in a woman’s violent death. Looking at him now, McLusky tried to visualise the tall, almost gangly man bundle up his wife, drive her to the canal, row her out towards the lock. McLusky noticed that apart from his hair and trimmed beard his eyes, too, were grey, making him think of a timber wolf. Did wolves have grey eyes?
‘And she was murdered? Someone drowned her? My wife was a strong swimmer. How do you drown someone?’
‘Do you know of anyone who might have wanted your wife dead? Any enemies? Disputes? Rows?’
‘No one is liked by everybody, Inspector, but we don’t all get … drowned.’
‘How was your relationship with your wife? Would you say it was a happy marriage?
‘It was a normal marriage.’
‘You mentioned you were leading quite separate lives. Could you elaborate on that?’
‘I thought that was self-explanatory.’
‘Indulge us. It will help us get a clearer picture.’
‘We took separate ways, quite a while ago. We no longer shared many interests. Or friends, even. Expectations.’
‘Expectations of what?’ McLusky asked.
‘I’m retired, as you know. I simply wanted to concentrate on my writing now.’
‘In your Wendy house.’
‘In my writing shed, yes.’
‘Your wife disapproved, somehow?’
‘No, not disapproved. Let us say that she found the prospect less than exciting. Writing is not a spectator sport.’
McLusky watched Steadman’s dry, manicured hands, resting quietly in the man’s lap. ‘And
what would your wife have found more exciting, Mr Steadman?’
‘Scraping dog shit off her shoes.’ He gave McLusky a sour smile. ‘Almost anything, Inspector.’ He made as if to drain his tea, then changed his mind and set down the cup. ‘I want to go home now. If that’s all right.’
‘Of course. Just one more question. Where were you on Saturday, between, let’s say midnight and six in the morning on the Sunday?’
‘Is that when it happened? I was at home. Asleep. And no, there’s no one to confirm that.’
The area car was still waiting. Outside the mortuary entrance they watched him being driven off. ‘Did he do it?’ Austin asked.
‘There’s a lot of resentment there. We’ll obviously have to go back and interview him properly when we know more about both of them. Would you put money on him?’
‘A fiver each way. He wants a quiet life. There are no children. Much quieter without her around. Plus it would explain why the car was found so close to the house.’
‘Would it?’
‘Would if they were in the car together.’
‘Let’s see,’ said McLusky. He half-closed his eyes. ‘He uses her car so he can leave it somewhere away from the house to make it look like she was attacked by a stranger. He ties her up, sticks her in a boat, rows her into the middle of the canal. Tells her he’s had it up to here, gives her the heave-ho, dunks her like a teabag, waits for the bubbles to stop, then drives back. He abandons the car away from the house but close enough to walk home.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Stranger things happen at sea.’ McLusky sniffed at a wrapped Mars bar as though it were a fine cigar, then peeled off the waxy paper.
‘Careful,’ warned Austin. ‘Before you know it you’ll be on twenty a day.’
The head office of Western Energy occupied a five storey building by the river; forbidding plate glass from the outside, efficient luxury on the inside. Security was tight. The man at the front desk had asked him to wear his visitor’s pass visibly at all times. ‘During last week’s protests we had a couple of environmental activists sneak into the building and they got nearly all the way to the top floor. So if security see anyone without a pass they’re likely to pounce on you.’