Frozen Charlotte

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘You can’t think it’s got anything to do with us.’ The woman was sounding indignant but a little less pissed off. The drama had at least roused her from her boredom.

  ‘I’m sure it hasn’t,’ Alex said smoothly, ‘but we have to pursue enquiries. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Not sure I do, mate.’

  ‘Well,’ Alex said, ‘I’m proposing flying to Spain this weekend with another officer for the sole purpose of interviewing you and your husband. It would be a great shame for us to have a wasted journey.’

  There was a long sigh as though whatever he proposed she would find it tiresome. ‘We’ll be around ’ere most of Saturday. Got a few friends coming over in the evening. It’ll entertain them, I suppose, couple of coppers lurking.’

  She sounded so utterly uninterested in the whole process that Alex became irritated. He could have shaken this woman. Behind the discovery of the baby must surely lie some tragic story and she couldn’t have cared less? It made him angry and her next comment was no less infuriating.

  ‘You come if you want to, mate.’

  ‘Your husband – will he be there?’

  ‘Where else would he be? Nothing much to do this time of year except hang around here. The whole place is dead.’

  ‘Shall we say ten o’clock tomorrow – Saturday – morning then,’ Alex asked.

  ‘Bit bloody early, mate. Better make it midday.’ There was a throaty chuckle. ‘I just might be up by then. Hangover gone. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Right. Midday it is then, Mrs Godfrey. Thank you.’ She was hardly going to pick on his heavy sarcasm over the telephone but he felt all the better for it anyway.

  He put the phone down still feeling angry with the woman. It was only two p.m. and already he’d dealt with Alice Sedgewick, her daughter and this creature who could barely manage to be civil. All he needed now was…’

  Right on cue the phone rang and he was informed that Gregory Sedgewick was on the phone from Turkey.

  The voice didn’t even sound distant.

  ‘Inspector Randall?’

  Alex replied in the affirmative.

  ‘My father asked me to ring and speak to you about my mother’s involvement in this business.’ He managed to make the investigation sound both unnecessary and distasteful.

  Alex decided to flush him out. ‘So what’s your problem?’

  ‘I don’t know really.’ Gregory Sedgewick sounded vague, rather weak. Nothing like his father. ‘I just think Dad thought if we – me and my sister – harassed you enough you’d drop the case, leave Mum out of it. She’s had enough to put up with, poor old thing.’

  He sounded fond of his mother. More so than either Alice’s husband or her daughter. There was real affection in his voice. ‘She gets a bit upset, you know. Dad kind of bullies her – bamboozles her into doing all sorts of things.’ Randall’s ears pricked up. What sorts of things?

  ‘She’s not up to these sorts of games, you know.’

  Alex felt his neck tense up. ‘We don’t play games, Mr Sedgewick. An investigation into the death of this child will proceed whatever your father wants.’

  ‘Yeah. I thought that.’ Gregory didn’t sound too bothered either way. ‘It’s just that the old man – you know? He’s used to controlling things.’

  ‘I see. Where do you live – just for the record?’

  ‘Bit south of Istanbul.’

  ‘Have you lived there long?’

  ‘Six years. I work in a bank here. I don’t come over to the UK much. Me and the old man, you know. He’s none too happy about his only son being gay. Doesn’t mind too much if his daughter’s as butch as they make them. It’s just me, you know. But Mum comes over here once a year. She stays for a week or two with me and Harry, my partner. We all get on pretty well, you know. She’s not a bad old stick. A bit under the pater’s thumb, if you know what I mean. If Dad said she was to put her hand in boiling water I have the awful feeling…’He stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Babbling too much. Promised Dad I would ring and so I have. Done my duty now.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for the call,’ Alex said, wondering why on earth Gregory had really rung and why, in all that ‘babble’ he had the feeling that Gregory had said something of significance, pointed him in a new direction.

  However he had no time to ponder all this now. He picked up the phone and asked if PC Roberts was in the station. When he got hold of him he made his invitation.

  ‘Fancy a trip to Spain, Roberts?’

  NINE

  Saturday

  Gethin Roberts was feeling disgruntled.

  It wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. Having told Flora, his girlfriend, that he was off to Spain for the weekend on a trip (top secret) connected with the current investigation, and watching her eyes grow satisfyingly round, he was now sitting on a lumpy bed in a dingy room in a scabby pension that was more like a block of council flats. To cap it all it wasn’t even quiet. It was on a main road, right on a traffic island and there was no swimming pool, let alone the imagined bathing beauties, strutting their stuff in skimpy bikinis. And it wasn’t even hot. The girls around were all muffled up in coats, boots, scarves and woolly hats. They’d been held up for hours at the airport because of ice and fog and then, to top it all, when they had landed, his suitcase had burst open on the carousel, scattering hastily and carelessly packed clothes and he was sure people were making jibes about his dingy underwear in whispered Spanish. Not a good experience. PC Roberts decided there and then that next time he flew he would put a band around his suitcase. He and the inspector had had a very late and indigestible dinner of some tough meat and a bottle of Spanish wine between them. The wine had been the only thing that had lived up to expectations. Then Randall had told him the Godfrey’s house was four hours drive away and they would have to make an early start.

  Roberts was wondering what he had given his weekend up for, but then he remembered Flora’s wide-eyed excitement and pride. He could embellish the drama. He bit his tongue and commented only that it wasn’t quite how he’d expected it.

  Randall looked at him kindly. ‘Nothing ever is, Sonny Jim,’ he said, resting his hand for a moment on the young constable’s shoulder.

  There was only one way to describe chez Godfrey. Opulent. In a hired Seat Ibiza they drove up a winding road that was in places single track, meeting farmers on the way herding goats. The tinkle of bells would always remind them both of this expedition and recall their mixed feelings.

  Near the end of the road they were faced with huge gates and a plaque announcing El Hacienda . Very unoriginal. Randall glanced at Roberts whose mouth had dropped open as he took in the pink palace. ‘In your dreams, Roberts,’ he said kindly. ‘Or else a bit of luck with the lottery.’

  Gethin Roberts managed a half-hearted smile. ‘First I’ll have to do it, as they say.’

  ‘Quite,’ Alex said drily.

  There was an electronic voice receiver in the wall. Randall climbed out of the car, pressed the button and announced their arrival.

  He got the same bored voice that he’d met on the telephone and the gates swung open, lazily, as though they too had got the message, mañana .

  They circled round the front of the house which had the most amazing views right over mountains and valleys, rooftops and a small forest, all the way down to the sea, sparkling far off in the distance. Roberts’s mouth dropped open even wider. He was already practising the story he would relate to Flora, his ‘intended’, as his family called her. To him the word sounded just a bit sinister. But then he was a policeman.

  ‘Sir,’ he said urgently.

  A woman was descending a curved flight of steps – carefully – as she was wearing skyscraper heels and a floating dress of many colours even though it was decidedly chilly up here with an almost arctic breeze. Even from this distance they could both see that she was wearing lashings of make-up. Thick, dark, greasy brown foundation and a lot of black around her eyes. Curiously, instead of makin
g her appear youthful, this made her look like a very old woman. Something like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane . An ancient parody of herself. Yet judging from her figure and strong, shapely legs, neither man would have put her at much over forty.

  ‘Inspector Randall, I presume, and his sidekick?’ She had impossibly white teeth, and close up a face stretched taut, probably by a plastic surgeon. She was dangling a pink cigarette from her fingers. She was, both men decided, again mirroring each other’s thoughts, theatrical.

  Randall introduced themselves.

  ‘Oh cut the formalities and come in,’ she said with a weary sigh. ‘I’d guessed who you are. We don’t get many visitors this far out. And it’s freezing out here.’

  She scanned the beautiful view with something approaching loathing. Then turning around as she ascended the steps again, she said, ‘I absolutely don’t have a clue what you hope to achieve by coming here. Still, I suppose it’s a bit more entertaining for me than the usual Saturday morning cocktail party. And you’ve got a free weekend in the Costa del Sol. Though where the bloody sol is I don’t know. It appears to have buggered off for the entire winter.’ Again they both got the impression that however beautiful El Hacienda was Mrs Godfrey disliked it. No. Hated it.

  Randall tried to flush her out a little. ‘It’s a lovely place, Mrs Godfrey.’

  She turned around and gave Alex Randall a film star smile. ‘Petula. Please.’ She was quite an actress, swiftly replacing the apathy for a perfectly charming hostess.

  Petula pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and led them into a conservatory which was jungle-hot and made full use of the view which spread out before them in a panoramic picture. The room was long and narrow and contained an assortment of cane furniture and a large, cream, leather sofa against the back wall. There were various brightly coloured canvases of modern art but the real star of the show was the view outside, of classical Spain.

  Petula reclined across the sofa, legs stretched out in front of her, and waved a hand vaguely. ‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘Anywhere.’

  Both men sat down opposite her, reluctantly facing the modern art rather than the picture through the glass wall.

  ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘I don’t know how much you know,’ Alex began, ‘but the body of a child was found in the loft in number 41, The Mount, the house you occupied until five years ago. It had apparently been there for some time. The present owners deny any knowledge of it.’ He looked at her questioningly, waiting for confirmation.

  Petula had obviously decided to play this scene archly. ‘And you think I put it there, inspector? You think I buried dead babies up in the loft of my old house?’

  She had made it sound silly enough to match her burst of harsh, mocking laughter.

  ‘A dead baby,’ Alex said unsmiling. ‘One male child, newly born. Now can you help us?’

  ‘Of course I bloody can’t.’ Petula’s face was pink with anger. ‘What do you think I am?’

  ‘Do you have any children?’

  Petula looked away. ‘I haven’t, as a matter of fact. Not blessed – or looking at my friends’ nasty little blighters perhaps cursed would be a more appropriate word – with them.’

  ‘And Mr Godfrey?’

  ‘Vince and I have been together since he was seventeen years old and he walked into my dad’s hardware shop to buy some screws,’ she said with a cackle. ‘ He hasn’t got any kids either. Even Vincey boy wasn’t up to infidelity when he was seventeen.’

  There was a bitterness in both her face and her voice which escaped neither of the police officers.

  ‘You lived in the house for…?’

  ‘Almost four years,’ Petula said, guarded now as though the joke had gone. Dried up.

  ‘We bought the house off an old biddy,’ she continued. ‘Stripped it down, did the whole place up. Made a nice job of it.’

  ‘Did you do any work in the loft?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Vince about that.’

  ‘Where is your husband?’

  ‘Playing golf,’ she said. ‘It’s all right for the blokes here. They get to play golf practically every day. It’s different for the women. Unless they join the golf boys, which isn’t quite my cup of tea. Too damned hearty and horrible clothes.’

  Randall smiled for the first time at the vision of Petula in peaked cap and checked plus fours.

  ‘We women just get bored. And drunk,’ she added in a sad challenge.

  Alex shifted in his seat, the cane making a painful squeak. ‘What time will your husband be back?’

  ‘In an hour or so. Don’t worry, inspector. He knows you’re coming.’

  She treated them to another film star smile. ‘Well?’ Her glance drifted across to Gethin Roberts who flushed and said nothing.

  ‘Drink,’ she ordered, wafting long, horrendously manicured nails that reminded Alex of harpies, towards a half-empty wine bottle. ‘Well?’ she said again, suddenly defensive. ‘There isn’t a lot else to do out here. Especially when the weather’s this foul.’ There was deep resentment in her voice. ‘What do you want to drink?’ Without waiting for their answer she said, ‘I suppose you want a coffee. On duty and all that.’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  ‘Graciela,’ she screamed.

  ‘ Si .’

  ‘Come here, you lazy cow.’ A young Spanish girl, plainly dressed in a loose-fitting black dress and flat shoes scurried into the room.

  ‘Make our guests some coffee and you can get me another bloody bottle of wine.’

  The girl scuttled out again.

  ‘Next question?’ she snapped.

  ‘Did anyone come to the house who was pregnant?’

  Petula frowned. ‘What a stupid question,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember that. Possibly. Possibly not. I really haven’t got a clue. I take it the baby wasn’t premature or something?’

  ‘No. It was full term.’

  ‘So I would have noticed a bump, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I would have thought so.’

  ‘I mean you can’t hide a bump that bloody big, can you?’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  ‘Who lived with you in the house?’

  Petula rolled her eyes. ‘It gets worse, don’t it? Just me and my old man, sunshine.’

  ‘So just the two of you,’ Alex asked carefully.

  ‘We had a bit of help in the house. Can’t expect me to do the scrubbing and such like.’

  ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Enough to make sure the everyday things were completed.’

  ‘What sort of help?’ Alex repeated.

  ‘A couple of maids. They never stay long. Greedy little things. Want money for nothing and then bugger off when they’re bored.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘A daily, a gardener. You know – the usual.’

  ‘The maids?’ Alex questioned delicately.

  ‘None of them was pregnant. I’d soon have got shot of them if they were. What use would a pregnant maid be,’ she chortled.

  There was no answer to that but Alex persisted with the subject.

  ‘What country were they from?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So how did you acquire them?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ she said dismissively. ‘Probably through an agency.’

  Alex held up a finger as though to make absolutely sure he had the facts so far clear in his mind. ‘So as far as you know you are unable to help me establish the identity of the dead child.’

  Petula stubbed her cigarette out in her wine glass. ‘Correct,’ she said.

  They were distracted by a man in his forties in light coloured trousers and a pale sweater walking into the room. He looked jaunty and bent down to kiss Petula. ‘Hello, ducky,’ he said before extending a hand first to Alex and then to Roberts. ‘I assume you’re the two policemen from Shrewsbury.’

  Alex nodd
ed.

  ‘Rum business. Well, I don’t know how I can help you.’ He waved a decanter around. ‘Drink anyone?’

  His wife sighed. ‘Not whisky, Vince.’ She glanced around her. ‘Where’s that bloody girl?’

  She gave a loud annoyed sigh and addressed her husband. ‘Nice game, dear?’ There was something a little more than weary in her tone which told them all, including Vince, that she didn’t give a monkey’s rear end whether he had had a nice game or had knocked the ball to the bottom of a pond and not bothered to retrieve it. There was both resentment and a certain reproof in her voice.

  Vince Godfrey poured himself a whisky, and flung himself down in one of the cane chairs. It too creaked a little in protestation as though it was a living entity and resented his weight.

  ‘Now then,’ he said cheerily, leaning back and crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I understand from your wife that you did some extensive refurbishment of the house in Shrewsbury?’

  ‘That’s right. Made a lovely job of the place though I understand from various mutual friends that they’ve done it up all over again. Hah.’

  ‘Yes. You refurbished the entire house?’

  ‘Top to bottom.’

  ‘It’s more the top than the bottom that we’re interested in.’

  ‘The bedrooms?’

  ‘No. To put it bluntly the hot water tank where we found the infant’s body was in the loft. It had been boxed in. Did you do that, Mr Godfrey?’

  ‘I might have done. I can’t really remember. We did a lot of electrics up there, trailing wires and such but I can’t think we would have bothered to box in a hot water tank. I mean, you’re not going to have an airing cupboard all the way up there, are you? Accessible only by an extending loft ladder. And all cylinders these days are encased in foam so they’re pretty well insulated. Can’t you tell by the age of the wood that was used?’

  ‘Not conclusively,’ Alex said.

  ‘Well,’ Vince Godfrey said, draining his glass. ‘Pet and I don’t know anything about it. Can’t help you there, inspector.’ He spoke the words politely but firmly. As far as the Godfreys were concerned they had nothing to add.