Deadly Practice

by Christine Green

  ‘I don't think anyone knew … except—’ I broke off but it was too late.

  ‘Except who?’ demanded Ros.

  ‘Except Jenny,’ I said reluctantly. ‘And her friend Teresa.’

  Ros opened her mouth and then closed it again. ‘Surely not, oh God I don't believe it. David wouldn't have killed them … he wouldn't …’ She tailed off, perhaps realizing that until a few hours ago she hadn't suspected him of adultery and now there grew the suspicion of murder.

  Tears filled her eyes and began to run down her cheeks. She wiped them away roughly with the back of her hand. ‘He must have loved her very much to commit murder,’ she said.

  ‘Don't jump to conclusions, Ros. I mean, did he have the opportunity? Where was he the night they both died?’

  She thought for several moments then said, ‘He'd been to London that day, a BMA meeting … or at least that's what he told me. I was half asleep when he came home. I told the police he was back by eleven thirty … that was what he told me. I'd been in bed an hour or so, it seemed about right. He could have done it, couldn't he?’

  ‘If he did, think about this, Ros. Why did he kill Jenny and Teresa? Was it to prevent them telling you? To save you pain?’

  ‘It's kind of you to say, Kate, but I don't think that entered his head. More likely he worried about losing his job at the practice. And of course we're still paying school fees …’

  Thinking of her children brought more tears and I felt relieved when we heard the sound of a car crunching up the drive and then loud knocking on the door.

  ‘I don't want to see anyone,’ said Ros firmly.

  ‘Shall I see who it is?’

  By the time I'd walked into the front sitting-room there was a repeated knock and a gruff male voice saying, ‘Open up please, it's the police.’

  As he'd said please I opened the door. Two men in plain clothes stood there, both in grey suits, both looking sombre and both complete strangers. The elder of the two stepped forward. He was large, with a pot belly and a thick-set face which matched his thick-set neck, but he had a friendly smile and lively blue eyes. ‘I'm DCI Hyton and this is DI Blackamore,’ he said, ‘we've come to see Mrs Thruxton. And you are?’

  ‘I'm Kate – the practice nurse. Mrs Thruxton is very upset at the moment, could I just warn her you're here?’

  ‘You go ahead, dear.’

  Poor Ros paled when I told her the police wanted to speak to her and she whispered, ‘You will stay, won't you? I don't want to be alone with them.’

  I nodded. I was only too relieved it was Dunsmore CID and not Hook and Roade.

  I wasn't quick enough in getting rid of the gin and the glasses and they gave us a faint look of surprise. Blackamore was a dead ringer for someone but it was only after a few minutes that I remembered who – a young Christopher Lee. He had the face of a man plagued by demons and doubts.

  Ros reluctantly gave permission for them to sit down. ‘We won't keep you long, Mrs Thruxton,’ said Hyton arranging his bulk on the rather narrow chairs, ‘really it was your husband we wanted to speak to.’

  ‘He's not here,’ said Ros giving them both a ‘don't argue with me' look.

  ‘Have you any idea where he is?’ asked Hyton patiently.

  ‘In hell as far as I'm concerned, Inspector.’

  ‘Which branch of hell would that be, Mrs Thruxton?’

  Ros sighed deeply. ‘He's with his mistress, the bitch, Helena Amroth. I really don't know where and I don't care.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hyton. ‘Could you tell me where he was yesterday evening?’

  At first I thought she wasn't going to answer but then she said quietly, ‘He had a phone call about ten, he said it was a patient. He left the house soon after and I presume he went to the Amroth woman.’

  ‘Had you had a row?’ Blackamore asked.

  ‘Of course we'd had a row, I don't always look like this. It was only last night I learnt of my husband's affair.’

  ‘And you haven't seen him since?’ Hyton queried with an apologetic smile.

  ‘No. I have not seen him since and I would prefer not to see him ever again.’

  There was silence then and I noticed that the two detectives had suddenly acquired very serious expressions. Ros noticed too.

  ‘What's happened?’ she asked. ‘Why are you looking for him? He didn't murder Jenny and her friend. He liked Jenny. He might be a treacherous bastard but he isn't a murderer.’

  ‘We didn't say he was, Mrs Thruxton,’ said Hyton quietly. ‘His morals are no concern of ours but his welfare is.’

  ‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

  Hyton paused to loosen his tie slightly. ‘This afternoon we called on Geoffrey Martin at his home. We found him, but not alive. He'd been battered to death. The police doctor puts a preliminary time of death at between two and four a.m.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I found it hard to believe Geoff was dead. An out-of-sight sudden death doesn't cause quite the shock you expect. With no body to confront there was only my memory of Geoff being very much alive. It just didn't seem possible. I did wonder if he had put up much of a fight. Had he perhaps thought, at that moment of confrontation, that death was preferable to living without wife and child?

  Events seemed to crowd in on me. I needed time to sort out what was going on. David Thruxton had disappeared and was now the chief suspect with Charles Amroth jostling for the position. Inspectors Hyton and Blackamore had left soon after breaking the dramatic news. Ros, strangely, had become calmer after hearing of Geoff's death and decided to ring Sara Wheatly after all.

  I'd left the moment Sara had arrived; I knew the drinking would go on into the early hours and I'd already had a large gin and tonic.

  As I drove into Humberstones', Hubert appeared in the car park and practically attached himself to my hubcaps he was so keen to talk to me. The church clock struck seven and it began to rain.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he asked me before I'd even managed to lock my car. ‘The CID have been round, they want to talk to you, they're not happy, Hook said he would personally drum you out of Longborough if you weren't here when he came back.’

  ‘When's he coming back?’

  ‘He didn't say. And you had a phone call from Neil, he says, “Can you make it tomorrow instead?”’

  I had to admit I'd forgotten about my date with Neil and it hardly seemed important. My second client dying was far more relevant.

  By this time I was getting soaked so we ran in and Hubert insisted I came up to his flat.

  ‘You can have a bath if you want. I thought I'd get us a takeaway tonight – Indian or Chinese?’

  ‘I think the Chinese has gone bankrupt.’

  ‘Indian then.’

  Hubert rushed off, presumably before I changed my mind, and I started running the bath and then decided to go up to my boxroom for some fresh clothes. The phone rang while I searched: it was Neil. ‘I'm sorry about this evening, Kate, but, as I'm sure you know, Geoff Martin has been murdered. Initially they suspected my father but I think I've convinced them he didn't leave the house last night. Poor old Pa is in a bit of a state, as you can imagine.’

  ‘It must be awful for both of you,’ I said. ‘What's happening about the practice?’

  ‘Marcus and Ian will keep it going and Alan's going to get in a locum and some night relief.’

  Suddenly I remembered the bath. ‘I must go, Neil, I've got a bath running.’

  ‘I'm jealous,’ murmured Neil. ‘I'll see you tomorrow about eight at your place.’

  Luckily Hubert had an oversize bath and the water wasn't running down the stairs to meet me. I chose various luxurious foams, oils and body shampoos and added a bit of each to the bath water, then I lay back and tried to order the various events. Thinking in the bath is amazingly easy. So too is falling asleep and I had to force myself to concentrate.

  All my thoughts went back to that night when Jenny and Teresa drove off from the college
in Teresa's car. Jenny had rung Geoff and he'd turned down the invitation to go hunting Helena. What about Teresa, though? She couldn't have felt the strong desire for revenge that Jenny and Geoff experienced. Did Teresa in fact go her separate way that night? Where would she have gone? To her lover – where else? Did they have an argument? Did Teresa realize it was all getting out of hand and that she was being used as a pawn to get information out of Charles Amroth. How much did he know anyway? He was intelligent enough not to admit to the police he'd seen Teresa that night. Was the plan that Jenny should go off on her own and then return for Teresa? Why should Teresa even be in on the plan to mow down Helena? Because … she had a vested interest! Helena's death would free Charles to marry her …

  ‘Kate – you must be clean by now. Food's in the oven.’ Hubert's voice destroyed my chain of thought but I knew now I was getting somewhere. I had to talk to Charles and if necessary ‘come out' and tell him I was a PI. Not that I'd actually got a client any more but I reasoned that cracking this case would up my profile and more work might come flooding in – might!

  Over chicken dupiaza, king prawn curry, onion bhajis, pilau rice and naan bread plus several cans of lager Hubert and I discussed the case.

  ‘I'm ever so confused,’ said Hubert.

  ‘It's a confusing case. Jenny was attacked but was still alive for a while, that points to the murderer being disturbed, or merely hurrying. Also, if she was on her own simply hanging about to watch Helena's comings and goings surely she would have got so bored she wouldn't have waited until nearly midnight?’

  ‘Maybe she went to see Charles as well?’ suggested Hubert.

  ‘Maybe she did just that. But they were killed at slightly different times. We know Jenny was attacked first but where was Teresa at the time? Unless of course there were two people involved. According to Roade's interpretation of the forensic report he seemed to think the strangling and the blow to the head were virtually simultaneous and neither victim put up much of a fight.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, they were taken by complete surprise.’

  ‘What about Jenny's last word?’ asked Hubert as he mopped up the last of his curry with some naan bread.

  ‘I can't really give that much credence. I mean it seems so strange that if she was capable of speech she didn't just say who did it.’

  Hubert shrugged. He was like me, lots of questions and supposition but no answers.

  He began clearing away and stacking the plates. ‘The thing is, Kate,’ he said, pointedly handing me a tea towel, ‘you already know where to find Charles Amroth and so do the police – you've got to find Helena because the CID must be near to finding her. They may already have done so.’

  ‘Hubert,’ I said, ‘you're dead clever.’

  He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘Better than being just dead, which seems to be on the increase around here.’

  ‘You're right about Helena. I've been thinking she really can't be far away. Ian Holland thought he saw her and David getting on the train, so if he didn't see them getting off, they went on past Longborough. If we check the stations further up the line, not more than fifty miles away, then we can see what we come up with.’

  ‘We?’ asked Hubert eagerly.

  Shortly after we'd washed up and cleared away we collapsed on to the sofa like two sumo wrestlers after a blow-out but we did manage to stir ourselves to scan a map of the railway system. There were three possible stops – Melton, Naresworth and Bendarrow.

  ‘What do you plan to do?’ asked Hubert. ‘Keep driving round each town until you find her?’

  ‘Of course not. I've a much more sophisticated method than that.’

  ‘Which is?’

  I paused. What the hell was I going to do? ‘I'll think on it, Hubert, after the coffee and mints.’

  ‘You'll be lucky,’ said Hubert. ‘You can make the coffee.’

  It was while the water was boiling I wondered where Helena was brewing her coffee. She had to live somewhere. It was likely she'd found a place to rent and it was also likely she had a job. Neil had said something about that … she'd begun a pharmacy course but never completed it. She could be working as a dispenser or as a chemist's assistant. Well, it was a long shot but worth trying.

  The following afternoon Hubert and I set out to the first town on our list. Melton surprised me by having a multi-storey car park, a cinema and a leisure centre. Compared with Longborough it was a veritable metropolis. There were at least four estate agents in the town, luckily all in the centre and all doing some letting work because actually selling houses had now become a rarefied occupation – similar to archeology or wild-boar hunting. ‘I'll go in alone,’ I said as we neared the first estate agents. ‘If you're with me, Hubert, I won't be able to lie with a straight face.’

  As I walked in I was conscious of the fact that Hubert was still peering through the window but I managed to ignore him as a young man rushed towards me.

  ‘Madam,’ said the young man smiling with a keenness I found unnerving, ‘can I assist you?’

  ‘I do hope so,’ I said. The salesman was about twenty and too young for his grey pin-stripe, the trousers of which lapped over the top of his shoes as if he'd recently shrunk. He wore a red tie, had the eyes of a religious zealot and the hair of someone who'd been reduced to his mother cutting it. Before I could speak again he was telling me how much cheaper it was to buy rather than to rent. I cut him short.

  ‘I'm a contact tracer,’ I said, flashing him a quick glance at my UKCC card. He looked puzzled. ‘I find people who … may have picked up a nasty disease. They have to be warned, you see …’ I let that sink in and he gazed around the office as though looking for someone more senior. There were two women typing, with heads down.

  I described Helena, saying I'd heard she was renting in the area and wondered if they had anyone of that description on their rental register.

  ‘Short or long lease?’

  I shook my head. ‘I've no idea, but she could have been renting for some time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two or three years.’

  ‘She'd know she'd got a disease by now, wouldn't she?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Then I added in a low serious voice, ‘It does depend on the disease.’

  He began checking. I explained she could be under an assumed name, I guessed she may have changed her name to Helen even called herself Mrs Thruxton. Ledgers and files and account books were gone through but there was no joy.

  It was five thirty by the time all four estate agents had been fruitlessly visited. Hubert was fed up with wandering about and wanted to go home.

  ‘Just one more town,’ I wheedled. ‘It's still light and they could be open late.’

  I drove on to Naresworth which was a much smaller place. There were two estate agents; one had closed. Hubert by now had grown sullen. ‘This is ridiculous, Kate. I want to get back. I'm on the bleep tonight.’

  Hubert was often ‘on the bleep' for night-time deaths, especially those in nursing homes. I began to get disheartened. ‘Just this last one, Hubert, it doesn't close till seven.’

  Before he could argue I had rushed into the office of Telling and Bellman and the one sales negotiator, glad of something to do, sat me down and began checking his computer. Hubert kept walking past the window, pretending to be interested in the house details displayed there.

  As the salesman, whose name was Darrel, pronounced Darrel, continued to search on the computer I became more and more dispirited. Helena could be using any name, and of course false references.

  ‘You do take up references?’ I asked Darrel.

  Darrel smiled. He was a man of long parts: long legs, long hands and long eyelashes. He wore his dark hair in a pony-tail, but best of all, he really was worried about this woman with the unnamed disease who it seemed could be contaminating one of his properties.

  ‘Don't you worry, Miss Kinsella, we'll find her. This is serious, isn't it?’
<
br />   ‘It certainly is – a matter of life or death. Could you check your clients' references?’

  ‘It'll take time but I'll get there and if she's with Telling and Bellman I'll find out.’

  I murmured my thanks, told him he was wonderful and that mankind itself would be grateful. He smiled, as if knowing that all along.

  About half an hour later, with Hubert pressing his face against the window and telling me to hurry up, Darrel said, ‘Hey, what's this? There's a reference from a doctor in Dunsmore for a lady called Miss Helen Chadwick …’

  ‘That's her!’ I cried out. ‘It must be.’

  Darrel read out the reference which stated Doctor David Thruxton had known Miss Helen Chadwick for many years and she was honest, reliable, et cetera.

  ‘Bit funny he didn't know she had a disease – being her doctor.’

  ‘Doctors these days,’ I said with a sage nodding of my head.

  ‘It's quite isolated, stone, a barn conversion. One bedroom, sitting-room, kitchen, bathroom, central heating – not bad for the price …’ Darrel went on in full flow but I was already on my way to the door and blowing him kisses and telling him I'd be sure to recommend him to all my friends.

  Hubert knew by my face I thought I'd found her. We looked Lyrestone up on the map. Five miles away, that was all. It was eight thirty by now and still supposed to be light but clouds had gathered and it was beginning to rain. Just a measly trickle at first but after a mile or so it came down vertically and I had to drive cautiously along narrow one-car roads with sudden twists and turns which deserved the description ‘Godforsaken'. Fields and the odd farm here or there were all we saw, then suddenly we were in the village and through it and searching for Firs Barn.

  I drove on for about two miles but there was still no sign of, or to, Firs Barn Cottage. Swearing and cursing and with Hubert shh … shh … and tut-tutting in my ear I stopped abruptly at a gated field and started back towards the village. And then I saw it, a turning, as narrow as a footpath, with a sign.