by K Leitch
‘Well I don’t see why we can’t just move the venue to the village hall,’ Andrea was saying. ‘I mean we’ve got a perfectly good stage there and although I know it won’t have the beautiful gardens around it, I’m sure with a bit of imagination we can make it just as splendid.’
‘It’s just a question of availability,’ Reverend Sinclair put in nervously. He always felt a bit nervous when in the company of the imperious Mrs Binworthy, and didn’t relish the task of breaking it to her that the village hall was booked solid for most of June and half of July.
‘Oh yes,’ Hester Binworthy waved aside his concerns, ‘but I’m sure there must be date available for us Reverend,’ she said fixing him with a hard stare. ‘After all the good work that the W.I. does for the village…I’m sure exceptions can be made….’
Reverend Sinclair gulped, ‘Actually there is nothing in June and July is already half booked,’ he stammered.
‘What!’ exclaimed Mrs Binworthy, ‘nothing in June…well that’s just not acceptable Reverend, not acceptable at all,’ she finished with a tut and shook her head at the Reverend, who hung his head in shame.
‘Um… if I might,’ Helen put in tentatively, ‘I was wondering what you might think of putting it on at The Bull. I don’t mean inside the pub of course, but the gardens are lovely and they do have that raised area that might make a perfect stage…what do you think?’
There were a lot of murmurings as people digested this new idea, ‘It might work,’ Mrs Binworthy said at last. ‘But do you think the landlord would be alright with us doing it there?’
Helen smiled, ‘Oh I’m sure Duncan would be delighted to host such an exciting event, and if you think about it what could be a more fitting place to be performing the play where it was written forty years ago….’
‘Oh Helen I hadn’t thought of that,’ Andrea gushed, ‘Oh that will make it all the more special won’t it?’
Mrs Binworthy still had a few reservations, would having it in the pub attract the wrong sort of people? Was it a good idea to have certain members of the cast within such easy reach of alcohol?
But the rest of the group (especially the relieved Reverend) managed to talk her round to the idea. So it was decided, Helen was to ask Duncan and Maggie for permission and as soon as they had that they could begin to re-advertise at the new venue. The problem that they now faced was getting all the scenery and backdrops up from the boathouse and over to the pub, but after speaking to Duncan, who was very happy to have the play in his back garden, Helen managed to enlist the help of Gabe and Duncan himself to help with the move.
She decided to go up and get the easier bits of scenery herself that evening, she rang the house first to make sure it would be OK and spoke to Millicent who said she would be there and for Helen to come anytime.
Helen was feeling decidedly nervous about going back to the boathouse so she was really relieved to discover Carla wandering about the house when she arrived later.
‘Oh love, am I glad to see you,’ she said giving her a hug, ‘what are you doing here anyway?’
‘I just stopped off on my way to Westerham actually, I wanted to speak to David Wiseman on another matter that we’re looking into, but he’s out this evening so….’
‘Oh Carla I know you’re probably in a hurry but you wouldn’t wait with me would you, I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Helen pleaded, ‘I’ve got to pick up some of my stuff from the boathouse and I feel really nervous about going down there on my own….’
‘Don’t be silly love, of course I will,’ Carla said linking arms with her as they made their way through the gardens towards the boathouse.
‘These gardens always make me feel good,’ Helen said breathing in the evening scents of honeysuckle and Jasmine. ‘Mr Flood does such a good job at keeping it all so lovely….’
‘Must be a big job for one elderly man, doesn’t he have any help?’ Carla said looking round appreciatively.
‘Oh yes, there was one chap that I saw a lot of when we were here, big bloke. I always thought he looked a bit gormless but then I was told that he was deaf and dumb so I felt really awful. He was brother to that girl that Tracy didn’t like…we were talking about her the other night… you know the Librarian...’ she broke off suddenly and tutted looking over at one of the beds that sat beside the path. ‘Bloody hell, Imogen would go mad if she saw the state of that,’ she said pointing to the rose garden which looked like a herd of elephants had walked through it. ‘Those roses are her pride and joy, she went mad at one of the gardeners only the other day when she spotted her pruning them in the wrong way…look at it, looks like it’s been trampled on in places and some of the bushes have been pulled out, what on earth could have caused this?’
Carla didn’t answer; she just stood and looked at the garden for a moment. Then she pulled out her mobile and called Frank.
‘Frank I need you to get Dorothy over to Brampton Hall ASAP. I may be wrong but I think I know where Imogen is.’
Three hours later, the body of Imogen Wiseman was found buried under her prize roses, wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. Her throat had been cut and she had a huge black dildo inserted into her rectum.
CHAPTER 64 - CARLA
Carla still hadn’t made it over to Hope Lodge to speak to Agnes Cray, but she had called the home and spoken to a nurse who had let her know that Agnes did indeed live there. Without giving too much away, Carla had explained that there was a chance that Agnes could be in danger and that they needed to keep an eye on her. She intended to go and see her later in the day, but first she had gathered her team together in the incident room to fill them in on the finding of Imogen’s body.
The white board now had more images on it, Jonas Silco’s skeleton was at the top along with Albie Wiseman, Imogen’s picture had been added this morning, and Brenda Marsh was up there too, although Carla couldn’t yet see any connection with her murder and the other victims, but just the fact that she was connected to the Wiseman family meant that they had to put her up there.
Frank wasn’t in attendance this morning, he’d at last found out which bank the safety deposit box key that had been found in Brenda Marsh’s house was from and had gone to check it out.
Carla now added the pictures of Missy Gattoré and Una Flannery that they had found at the Sheenan’s House and the letter that Jacob Gattoré had received.
‘Ok,’ Carla said when everyone had settled down, ‘as you probably all know by now the body of Imogen Wiseman was found last night. She’d been buried in one of the flower beds so that could mean that whoever killed her was familiar with the gardens and felt comfortable disposing of her body there. It also means that all but one person on this list is now dead. Our prime suspects are Rebecca and John Sheenan, John Sheenan had occasionally worked as a gardener for the Wisemans so he would have known his way around. Unfortunately they have both now disappeared. I can’t stress enough how important it is that we find them, I have had some copies printed of the photograph we found at their house and I want them taken door to door. We will cover the commercial centres in Redbank as well, Sam if you could take Sheila with you and walk through the Whitford shopping centre in Redbank, talking to as many people as you can.
I am making appeal to the press later today; we have to stop these two. They seem to be on some sort of vigilante mission, trying to get some sort of justice for what ever happened at that hotel all those years ago.
Agnes Cray now lives at some care home for the elderly…um,’ Carla searched through then papers in front of her, ‘Hope Lodge, it’s in Westerham, which is in Kent, from what the nurse at the care home said, it looks like she has quite advanced dementia. Anyhow, I will be getting over there as soon as I can later today, I believe her to be safe at the moment, I spoke to a nurse from the home earlier and told her to keep an eye on her.’
‘If we are so sure that this Agnes Cray is their next victim why don’t we just wait for them to make their move and catch them at it?’ Midge said.
‘Yeh, well I did think of that,’ Carla said running her hands through her hair, ‘and I will be putting a surveillance team near the home as soon as I’ve checked it out,’ she paused as she chose her words. ‘But we have to be so careful, of course it would be great if Rebecca and John Sheenan did turn up at the home, but I’m not about to put an elderly lady’s life at risk just so we can catch them… having said that, we need to watch her like a hawk and the first whiff of anyone sniffing around we close in. The one thing that we’ve got on our side at the moment is the fact that they don’t know that we’ve seen their list, they will be feeling pretty confident that they can get to Agnes and I want to keep it that way, so no talking to anyone outside this room about this ok?’
Carla spent the next hour or so assigning various people to various jobs and then she went through to her office to organise some plain clothes officers to keep an eye on Hope Lodge.
Frank bustled in excitedly a few minutes later; he had with him a sheaf of papers and letters which he put on the desk in front of Carla.
‘Talk about hitting the jackpot,’ he said excitedly.
Carla looked up at him with a puzzled expression for a moment and then her face cleared. ‘Oh is this what you found in the safety deposit box?’ she picked up one of the letters and started reading. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said a moment later, ‘these are all pretty explicit, oh my God, it’s David…these are letters from David, I thought they must be from Albie, phew… no wonder he didn’t want anyone finding them….good grief,’ she gasped picking up a photo from the pile of papers, ‘is that even possible…crikey, she was a bit of a goer wasn’t she… banging body for her age though…wow, no wonder he’s a hit with the ladies, that’s huge!’ she continued as she flicked through the photos. ‘Well I can see why he wouldn’t want these to be seen, imagine having an affair with you own father’s girlfriend, I mean that’s not going to go down well with quite a few people is it? His mother to name just one, not to mention his wife… but to kill for them?’ she finished looking at Frank questioningly.
‘People have killed for less Carla, but as it happens that’s not all my dear Detective Inspector,’ Frank said smugly; he pulled out a few papers that looked like spreadsheets and handed them to Carla.
‘Wow,’ she said after looking them over for a while. ‘Holy shit, he was embezzling hundreds of thousands from his father as well as fucking his mistress, what a fucking bastard, well, well, well, we’d better have word with Mr David Wiseman Frank, bring him in.’
Frank went off with a spring in his step to do just that. Carla then put in an appearance at the press conference where she appealed for the public’s help to try and find John and Rebecca Sheenan. Dusk was falling by the time she set off to Westerham…it was going to be another long day, she’d been up at six this morning, goodness knows what time she’d get home tonight…Carla grimaced to herself, James was not going to be happy.
Westerham was a small town set in the glorious Kent countryside. Its main high street was flanked on either side by a mixture of beautiful old, very exclusive, shops that sold all sorts of fine goods from antiques to brightly coloured kitchenware and trendy cafés and restaurants which looked very inviting with their soft lighting and their optimistic outside tables set under awnings and huddled round tall outdoor heaters. The main road gave way to countryside again as you passed out of the town; Hope Lodge was situated on Hever Lane, a tiny turning off the main road, which wasn’t very well lit and Carla would have missed it if not for her sat-nav.
Halfway along the single lane track were the signs for Hope Lodge and soon Carla was driving up the tree-lined driveway that led to an impressive old building. Jacobean in style, the house stood in amongst the trees, it had a huge doorway that led into an equally impressive hall with an enormous chandelier hanging from its high ceiling.
There didn’t appear to be anyone about inside, and it was incredibly quiet. Carla’s footsteps echoed around her as she went into the small office which was off to the side of the hall. There was a bell on the desk, she rang it.
A few moments later a uniformed nurse appeared and asked how she could help.
Carla showed the nurse her badge and explained that she was here to see Agnes Cray.
‘Oh Agnes,’ the nurse (whose name badge declared her to be Nurse Alice Tenby) replied with a smile before turning to a computer screen, she clicked a few buttons and then turned back to Carla. ‘She should be in the dining room at this time, although we are running a bit late today. The hairdresser comes in on a Wednesday you see and sometimes it messes up our routines.’ She looked back at the screen before adding, ‘I think they’ll all be finished by now though so they should be having dinner…um if you go through the double doors and along the corridor, it’s at the end, you can’t miss it.’
‘Thank you,’ Carla said, ‘um, can you tell me if she’s had any unusual visitors lately, anyone that you’ve not seen before?’
‘Apart from you, you mean,’ the nurse Tenby said with a smile. ‘Sorry, I wouldn’t know, you’d have to ask the nurse that deals with her ward…um that’s Anna, Anna Lei, but I’m afraid she’s gone home already, her shift finished twenty minutes ago. You could try Michelle, she’s taken over for the night shift, she might know.’
Carla thanked her and headed off towards the dining room. The doors on either side of the long corridor were all open and Carla glanced into each room as she passed. The rooms were all pretty much identical it seemed, each contained eight or nine armchairs all set out in sociable groups, so that the residents could see and speak to each other. Most of the chairs were set with their backs to the door though, so all Carla could see of the residents as she looked in were the tops of their heads all with freshly curled and coloured hair.
Carla chuckled to herself. ‘Talk about fifty shades of grey,’ she thought. At last she spotted what must be the dining room. Same chairs and hairdos, but a large table set out with hard chairs and the generic smell of some sort of hot meal, set it apart from the other rooms.
There were a couple of auxiliary nurses in blue uniforms handing out cups of tea, some were playing cards or just sitting and chatting to the elderly patients. One of them, a huge black woman, looked up when Carla walked in and came over to her with a wide smile, showing amazingly white teeth.
Carla showed her warrant card once again and asked to speak with Agnes Cray.
‘Oh…um yes, I don’t think she’s here at the moment darling,’ said the nurse whose badge proclaimed her name to be Titty. ‘Let me just go and check where she is, I won’t be a moment sweetheart, why don’t you just sit yourself down and have a cup of tea while you wait,’ she said before bustling out of the room.
Carla thanked her and went and poured herself a cup of tea. Her presence seemed to go completely unnoticed by most of the old ladies, who were concentrating hard on eating their dinners without losing their false teeth. One of them though, a tiny woman with the face of a startled sparrow and a newly coloured blue rinse, peered hard at Carla and then beckoned her over furiously.
Carla smiled at her and went over to see what she wanted, the little woman didn’t return Carla’s smile however, but glared angrily up at her. ‘Why haven’t you brought me my magazine?’ she asked Carla crossly. ‘You promised me Edith, I told you I wanted that knitting pattern, you’re just a liar!’ she finished loudly and pointing an accusing finger at Carla.
‘Um…I..’ Carla stuttered completely out of her depth.
‘Mary Anne!’ Titty bustled over, ‘Leave this lady alone, she isn’t Edith and she doesn’t have your magazine, look your magazine’s right there in your lap where it always is,’ she finished, sharing an exasperated look with Carla.
Mary Anne muttered something rude under her breath and threw Carla a resentful look before turning her attention back to her dinner.
‘I’m sorry about that Inspector,’ Titty said apologetically.
Carla shook her head. ‘Oh please don’t be,’ she said
laughing. ‘Any luck finding where Agnes is?’
Titty raised her eyebrows, ‘Well I think you might have had a wasted journey darling,’ she said rolling her eyes. ‘Agnes isn’t here, her cousins arranged to take her out with them this afternoon apparently. We’re expecting her back soon though; we don’t encourage visitors to keep our residents out too late.’
Carla couldn’t believe it, ‘You mean to say even after I phoned specifically to warn you to keep a special eye on Mrs Cray you let her be taken out of the building?’ she said incredulously. ‘Where have they gone, do you know? It is important that I find her, I cannot stress this enough, Mrs Cray may be in serious danger,’ she went on angrily, ‘Do you have the names of these cousins? Did they leave a contact number with you?’
Titty looked puzzled, ‘Oh look ma’am I’m sorry,’ she said holding up her hands, ‘I don’t know anything about a phone call or anything. You’d better speak to Michelle, darling, she spoke to them before they took her out; she’s in the reading room just down the hall.’
Carla raced back down the corridor until she found a room that had a whole wall of bookcases. A white uniformed nurse was talking to a group of residents; Carla went over to her and asked about Agnes.
The nurse nodded, ‘Oh I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about Inspector, they are regular visitors after all and her cousins. They arranged with Anna to take her out for a walk today if the weather was fine. Such a sweet couple… they’ve been so attentive to her since they found out where she was.’ Her brow furrowed as a thought occurred to her and she looked at her watch, ‘Actually they really should have been back by now….’ she muttered.
‘And these are people that you know relatives?’ Carla pressed her. ‘How long have they been visiting Agnes?’
‘Oh a few weeks now,’ Michelle said, ‘they were looking into their family history I think, that’s what they said. You know, trying to find their ancestors that sort of thing, and they traced Agnes to here. But they’ve really been attentive to her…really kind, you know.’ She leaned in towards Carla and lowered her voice, ‘Actually when they first turned up I was a bit suspicious of them, just because they are such an odd looking pair…he’s a deaf mute and …’ Michelle pursed her lips her frown returning, ‘um…I think I might give them a call actually, they really should have got her back by now….’