River Deep

by Priscilla Masters

“It doesn’t look as if he’s our guy either. For one thing the timing’s all wrong and for another a man answering that description and giving that name was picked up hitchhiking along the A5 towards Oswestry on Monday night. The story he gave to the truck driver was that his van had been trapped by the floods and that he would pick it up when they had receded. In the meantime, he said, he would use his wife’s car.”

  “He gave the truck driver his name?”

  “Yes.”

  “So where did the truck driver drop him off?”

  “On the outskirts of Oswestry. He had a mobile phone and had rung his wife up to meet him at the dropdown point.”

  “So?” Her curiosity was killing her. “What does Mrs Haddonfield say?”

  “That she never heard from her husband after Monday lunchtime. That it wasn’t her he rang. That she was working, anyway, he’d known that, and that she wouldn’t have been able to get away. In fact she was working so late she’d stayed overnight on Sunday at the hotel where she works – particularly as the weather was so foul and she had an early start on the Monday morning.”

  “But the truck driver …?”

  “Confirms that Haddonfield telephoned his wife and asked her to pick him up.”

  “What does Mr Haddonfield’s phone supplier say?”

  “That his line was unused from midday Monday.”

  “So was it Haddonfield?”

  “The truck driver says so and we have the Hyundai van at the police compound.”

  “I don’t understand what connection this can possibly have with our case,” she said slowly. “The timing’s all wrong. Everything’s all wrong.”

  “I know that,” he said. “But you know it’s very hard for pathologists to be precise about time of death.”

  “I think within twelve hours on a relatively fresh corpse is not exactly precise,” she objected.

  He seemed annoyed. “Well – whatever – we’ve invited Mrs Haddonfield up to the mortuary for a viewing. Just in case.”

  “I’ll be very interested to know what happens.”

  Randall nodded and strode towards the waiting Panda car.

  It was four-thirty. Too late to return to the office but she didn’t want to go home either.

  Towards the town, lights were being switched on. Life was returning to normal now the waters were receding. The night would be cold. Already one or two stars were visible in the sky, over a pale, full moon. There would be no rain tonight. She headed towards the town.

  5

  It looked inviting with its bright lights and intriguing shops. She never had enjoyed shopping until she had moved to Shrewsbury. Randall was right. Here the illusion was of old-fashioned England. The town centre had its shopping malls, Pride Hill and the Darwin Centre (named after the great evolutionist) but it also had quirky, individual shops which sold jewellery from Cuba, food from the Mediterranean, wines from all over the world. There were old family businesses which had moved from generation to generation, hardly changing – except for computerising their sales. She felt a strange sense of security when she shopped here. It reminded her of going to Dublin or Belfast, Cardiff or Swansea with her parents when she had been small. Today she wanted to buy some ham, cheese and olives from Appleyards and a bottle of wine from Tanners so she wandered into Wyle Cop.

  She was thinking as she walked. Now it was Haddonfield who could be either victim or villain. How quickly a sheep can turn into a wolf. And if he was the dead man a wolf becomes a sheep again. It is only a matter of wearing the fleece.

  To her left the shops had obviously suffered from the river’s invasion. Already signs were up offering reductions on flood-damaged goods. But it was as she progressed towards the town that her eye was caught by a sign fixed crookedly to one window. “Drowned Stock”. Martha gave a little chuckle. Someone, it seemed, had a sense of humour. She had discovered the shop six months ago when it had first opened. Called merely Finton’s it was an antiques shop and the window had held one piece of furniture, a small, unpromising country-made oak dresser with a couple of Toby jugs on top, a disappointment when her passion was for paintings. She had peered through the window and seen more pieces of antique furniture and a few curios. Even so she had been tempted inside. The back of the shop was filled with the most eclectic collection of goods she had ever seen: copper warming pans, horse brasses, candlesticks, fire buckets, plenty of odds and ends with amongst them scattered genuine antiques. But it had not been the stock but its owner who had drawn her eye.

  A genuine gypsy. Complete with long, wild hair, hooped earrings, a gold stud in his nose, dark, dark eyes with a fearsome expression, a tie-dyed red sweatshirt and grubby black jeans. He had looked villainous yet intriguing. She had not spoken to him then but had suspected he had a sense of humour. The Drowned Stock notice was proof of this. As she pushed open the door she felt forced to admire his attempt at humour. The floods must have caused him quite a headache – particularly now – only a few months after he had opened his doors.

  So she walked in and squelched across a seagrass floor, avoiding the two huge dryers which blasted boiling air into the room. He was arguing with a short, plump, bespectacled man holding a clipboard. Neither took any notice of her browsing.

  “Look – you can see for yourself, you toad. The whole lot wants replacing.”

  The little man murmured something which the shop owner obviously didn’t appreciate. He eyeballed him back. Martha would have backed down at such strong opposition but the presumed insurance investigator must have met this degree of threat before.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Cley. But company policy says…”

  “You can stick your company policy right up your …”

  “I have explained.” The insurance investigator picked up his bag and dropped the clipboard inside. He made one last ditch attempt at reason, conciliation. “It doesn’t help, you know, Mr Cley, being aggressive.”

  Finton took one step forward. “Oh? Look – I don’t care what you say. I’ve paid my premiums and I specifically checked that I was covered for full flood damage.”

  More murmurings from the suited man.

  It only earned him Finton’s eyeballs again. “Arse around with me, mate, and you’ll have your head stuck up your own. You can check with your company if you like but I warn you I’ll be exposing you to the Shropshire Star if I don’t get the answer I want within twenty-four hours. You and your company’ll be splashed right across the front page. No one – not even genuinely safe house owners – will touch you with a very long barge pole. You’ll be dead. Worse. You’ll be out of a job. Like I will be,” he added quietly, almost an aside. The suited man moved away, produced a camera and a tape measure and went about his business. Then the shop owner acknowledged her presence. “Hello again.” He gave a disarming grin. Beautiful teeth. “I have seen you before, haven’t I? I don’t forget faces. At least, not ones I don’t want to forget.”

  He had a beautiful voice too. But he was scruffy. Tall and thin, aged about thirty, with unruly hair and a silver ring on his finger. He was attractive enough to have landed a part in any film, but only as a gypsy, a pirate, or some other villain. He should have looked a complete ruffian. But the teeth and his voice saved him and identified him at the same time. Public schoolboy, masquerading as a villain. She smiled at him and he smiled back and held out his hand. “Finton,” he said. “Finton Cley. Owner of this establishment.”

  Martha felt herself blush. “Martha Gunn,” she said.

  “You are joking?”

  It was not the response she’d expected. “No. It really is my name.”

  “And you don’t …?”

  Now he was being rude. This was beyond the pale. “I don’t anything,” she said coldly. “I called in on the off-chance that …”

  “Not to gloat, I hope. You look too nice for that.” He tossed a scowl over into the corner. The insurance man didn’t appear to notice. “Help pick over the drowning pieces?” he said hopefully, “Give me a hand salva
ging my future?”

  “I don’t know if there’s anything …”

  “Do you want to browse?” His eyes were flickering across to the insurance investigator’s scrutiny of fungus growing in the corner. Even to her untrained eye it looked more than a week old. “Yes,” he called across. That’s what happens when the flood waters recede and the weather’s warm. All this seagrass’ll have to be torn up.”

  The insurance investigator murmured something unintelligible and Finton turned his attention back to her. “So what is it? Browse or the personal attention?”

  Her eyes picked out a dark painting dangling from one of the beams. He followed her gaze. “Yes – nice, isn’t it?”

  She laughed, putting the faux pas behind her. “Antique shop owners always say that – praise the would-be purchaser’s taste.”

  This time he blushed. “Well,” he said gruffly. “What else would we say? Laugh because you homed in on the worst object in the entire place?”

  “Is it?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Look – I don’t really see anything.”

  He lost interest in her. “OK. Fine. Do call again. Goodbye.”

  As the door pinged behind her she wondered whether Alex Randall and his team had called into Finton’s Antiques as part of their investigation.

  She continued up the hill towards the town, passing the Lion & Pheasant. Part pub, part small, cosy, private hotel, her mind flicked back to the puzzle of who lay on Mark Sullivan’s mortuary slab. There seemed no way it could be Haddonfield but if he wasn’t dead where was he? And if the body was Haddonfield’s how on earth had he magicked himself from Oswestry back to Shrewsbury, a distance of thirteen miles. Too far to walk. If he had returned why had he pursued the double journey? Had he forgotten something? Important? How had he returned? To his death? And what about the anomaly over the phone calls? And the timing? Martha shook her head. She didn’t envy Alex Randall unravelling this one.

  She reached the top of the steep hill, continued along the High Street and made her purchases in Appleyards, breathing in the scent of freshly milled coffee as she chose ham, olives, French cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. She called into Tanners wine shop on the way back down the hill and dawdled over the selection, finally picking a New Zealand Shiraz from the bin. She loved the place and its atmosphere of Georgian elegance. The best wine shop she’d ever been to. And that included London and the famed Fortnum & Mason’s. She felt released, free as she walked back down the hill, but as she reached the English Bridge her mobile phone rang. It was Mark Sullivan. She could barely hear him over the roar of the water still threatening. She was vaguely surprised to hear his voice. He didn’t usually approach her direct but dealt with Jericho who then passed details on to her. Besides – she had not been aware that Mark Sullivan knew her mobile phone number.

  “Where are you?”

  “Believe it or not, on the English Bridge. I can just make out Marine Terrace.”

  Sullivan gave a huge chuckle. “Not turning private investigator, are you, Martha?”

  “Absolutely not.” She defended herself, “I was calling in at the deli and couldn’t resist a rummage through Tanners’ wine bins.”

  “Don’t make me thirsty.”

  “Did you want something?”

  “It’ll keep.”

  “Why don’t you pop over later, Mark,” she said impulsively. “I’ve bags of food and some very interesting wine.”

  “How interesting?”

  “New Zealand Shiraz.”

  “All right. Nine?”

  “Fine.”

  It was only after she had pressed the End Call button that she realised she hadn’t told him where she lived.

  The house was quiet and dark when she returned. Sam was at rugby practice and Sukey and Agnetha were huddled together on the sofa watching Abba the Movie. Even Bobby barely raised his head from his paws as she walked in. By the light of the TV she could see that Sukey was sucking her thumb. She left them together and started preparing an evening meal.

  When Martin had been alive she had begun this formality of eating well and together in the evening. The twins had been small then but they had still sat around, like a family should.

  Now the twins were bigger – and particularly with Sam’s necessary calorific intake – she had continued with the tradition. She and Agnetha often shared a bottle of wine and the meal usually stretched into the evening.

  It was an oasis of contentment.

  6

  At tea the talk was all of Sam’s football, and Martha forgot about the complications of work. Life seemed so much more important than death. Sam’s face was still flushed with effort and pleasure as he tried to affect modesty, failing miserably when he described how he’d scored the winning goal and was the hero of the entire school. Martha felt a warm glow from a secret, maternal source. By eight o’clock she’d heard a breakdown of the entire match four times over from starter’s whistle to triumphant, shoulders-high march back from the playing fields. The hero was flopped on his bed, worn out with being the Beckham of Shrewsbury School. Sukey had retired to Agnetha’s room, doubtless to try on clothes, shampoo their hair in Borne Blonde shampoo, play records and swap Scandinavian pop star stories. Martha had time to herself to shower and change into black snug-fitting trousers and a cream sweater.

  At nine Mark Sullivan arrived, fidgety on the doorstep, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, holding out a bottle of wine loosely wrapped in pink tissue paper and looking uncomfortable. She tried to put him at his ease by greeting him warmly. “Hello. Come in.” As she closed the door behind him she commented, “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

  He tapped them. “Contact lenses, usually, but after wearing them all day my eyes get tired.”

  She led him into the kitchen. There was the wine to open, the Tanner’s New Zealand bottle winning over Sullivan’s claret. He watched her remove the cork without offering to help and they walked into the sitting room, he carrying the tray holding the cheeseboard and olives, she bearing the opened wine and two glasses. He glanced around the room with frank curiosity but without comment, waiting for her to sit down first. They sipped their drinks slowly and made small-talk about the town and the floods. A couple of times he pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes as though he really was tired. He waited until they had both eaten, she perched on the big, soft sofa with her feet tucked underneath her, and he on the adjacent chair, before he moved the conversation back to the case. “I didn’t really come down here to talk about the town and the floods. I promised Alex I’d let you know we still haven’t identified John Doe,” he said.

  “I did wonder.” She wriggled her feet around. “Just that Haddonfield was seen on Monday whereas you seemed pretty sure our man died on Sunday?”

  “Our man had died about thirty-six hours before we saw him,” he said. “Rigor mortis had almost completely worn off and besides – there was the evidence of our good friend, Calliphora. Her maggots were well-fattened.”

  “Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “So has Haddonfield turned up, then?”

  “Couldn’t tell you, Martha.” He stretched out, relaxed, his arms folded behind his head, the glasses off and his eyes half closed. She could almost have thought he was about to drop off to sleep. He looked longer, younger, different. “Once Mrs Haddonfield had taken a peep at our corpse and said it wasn’t her husband she was whisked away by the efficient Detective Inspector Randall.” He smiled lazily. “And my brief acquaintance with the lady was at an end. I’ve never known a case like it. To believe, twice, that you have the right man only to have the wife swear otherwise. Two women in the mortuary in as many days. Not good for a poor old pathologist like myself.” Whatever he said, he didn’t look too troubled.

  She drank her wine thoughtfully and set it down on a cork coaster on the coffee table. “So Alex still has a missing person as well as an unidentified corpse.”

  Mark savoured his mouthful of wine then smirked. �
��As well as a case of assault.”

  “What?”

  “I heard through one of the junior officers on the case that Mrs Humphreys broke her husband’s nose right outside Monkmoor cop shop while he was placed nicely in front of the CCTV camera. It was almost rehearsed.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t believe it. And is the errant husband going to press charges?”

  “Well,” Sullivan said with a sharp twinkle in his eye. “I don’t think he would have done but in spite of all the first aid the officers could administer, the offending protuberance swelled up considerably and his looks were apparently much diminished. I don’t rate his chances with Sheelagh any more.”

  “What you mean is,” she said wickedly, “that Sheelagh the Sheila didn’t find him quite so attractive.”

  “Quite,” Sullivan said. “What a very adventurous life some men lead. Makes me feel quite …” And suddenly the tired look was back, haunting him. He fell silent. Deeply silent and she watched him thoughtfully as the torpor sunk his eyes. He set his glass down on the other side of the table as though he was too tired even to hold it.

  “Mark,” she began tentatively. “You do understand, don’t you. We can’t hold an inquest until I know who he is.”

  “I think I’d come round to that conclusion myself.” He was sitting and staring at the ruby wine glass. She’d switched on the standard lamps around the room so the light was soft and flattering. But it made his face look even more hollow.

  “What I find hard to believe is that no one’s come forward to identify our John Doe. He didn’t look the sort of man who would not be missed. He was well-dressed and relatively young. He didn’t look like a down-and-out but someone with a job – with a family. People like that don’t just drop through the black holes of society. Men like that simply don’t just go missing, Mark. And yet. His pockets were empty. There was nothing to tell who he was. No ID. No mobile phone. No wallet. The police have scoured the house for anything that might tell them who he is. I know forensic evidence will have been lost in the floods but this is bizarre. What was he doing there? Where’s the murder weapon?” She wriggled her feet again. “It’s as though part of the puzzle is not knowing who our corpse is. Once we know his name we’ll know his killer’s name.” She drank some more of the wine. “Or am I being fanciful?”