by Joan Smith
Ghilardi’s hand hovered over it. ‘I don’t mind showing you, but they aren’t very pleasant.’
Loretta took a deep breath. ‘I’d still like to see them,’ she told him, though she wasn’t sure why.
Ghilardi opened the folder again and slid out a number of garishly coloured ten-by-eights. He looked through them quickly, selected one and passed it across the table.
The photograph had been taken at a little distance from a maroon Ford Sierra, showing its off-side front wheel in the air and the bonnet crumpled against the gnarled trunk of a tree. Loretta could see where the car had slewed off the track, leaving a trail of destruction through the undergrowth before the actual collision. A figure was visible in the driver’s seat, its head slumped back against the head-rest. Loretta shivered and returned the picture to Ghilardi.
He had another one ready. Loretta saw that it had been taken through the window of the driver’s door. Sandra’s right eye was open, staring upwards at an odd angle because of the way her head had been thrown back. Her skin was deathly white, and there was a large, livid bruise on her right cheek.
‘Have you – I’d like to see the cut the pathologist was talking about,’ she said bravely, giving the photograph back.
Ghilardi flipped through them again. ‘That’s it,’ he said in a neutral voice, putting a print down on the table and pointing to a laceration below Sandra’s left eye.
Loretta stared at the inch-long wound, trying to ignore the other cuts and the streaks of blood on Sandra’s face. She had a horrible feeling that the open, sightless eyes were watching something, and she pushed the picture away.
‘Amazing – that he could tell so much from that,’ she said in a strangled voice.
Ghilardi put the photographs away. ‘You’re not all right, are you?’ he demanded. ‘Julie!’
The waitress came eagerly, then backed off as she saw Loretta’s face. ‘Is she –’
‘She’ll be all right. Can you bring us another cup of tea? Black, is that right?’
Loretta nodded.
‘A black tea and a black coffee. Hang on, Julie.’ His hand rested lightly on the waitress’s arm. ‘You should have something to eat, Loretta.’
She shook her head, surprised by his use of her name. She managed a weak smile, and the waitress disappeared behind the counter.
‘I told you they were grim,’ Ghilardi said accusingly, clasping his hands together on top of the folder as if to keep the horror at bay.
‘It’s all right – I wanted to see. . .’ Her misery was suddenly replaced by anger. ‘You won’t leave it like this, will you? You can’t.’ She fixed her eyes on his, desperate to get his promise that he wouldn’t drop the case.
‘My hands are tied,’ he began. ‘Look, are you willing to make a statement? That would help.’
‘I haven’t told you much. Of course.’
‘It’s a start. And I’ll see what I can get from the Met – though, as I say – Thanks.’
Their drinks had arrived and Loretta stirred a heaped spoonful of sugar into hers. She disliked very sweet tea, but she was feeling slightly faint: hypoglycaemia, she told herself, trying to forget the photographs.
‘Better?’ Ghilardi watched as she sipped from the cup.
Loretta nodded.
‘Can you come back to the nick with me? I might as well take your statement now.’
‘My car’s there, anyway. I’ll just drink this.’
‘Take your time. You’ve had a shock.’
‘I suppose you get used to it. Bodies, I mean.’
Ghilardi pulled a face. ‘It’s the worst part of the job. Children are – that’s what really gets me.’ He lifted his cup and drank some of his coffee. ‘Julie – can we have the bill over here?’
The waitress tore a sheet of paper from the pad she kept in the pocket of her apron. Loretta tried to read it as she put it on the table in front of Ghilardi but he waved her away.
‘It’s not going to break the bank. Best sandwiches in town,’ he said, smiling up at Julie as he took three pound coins out of a small leather purse and handed them to her. ‘Keep the change. When she’s collected enough she’s going to take me for a night on the town, aren’t you?’ he asked the waitress teasingly. She blushed and went to answer a summons from an elderly couple on the far side of the room.
‘Ready?’ he asked Loretta.
She finished her tea and got up. Ghilardi was already pulling on the heavy overcoat he had brought with him from the police station, and he did up the buttons while she put on her fake fur.
‘Great coat,’ he remarked, leading the way to the door. He opened it and stood back for her.
Loretta felt a welcome blast of cold air on her face and realized how warm it had been inside the café. She turned up the collar of her coat and stepped gladly out into the street.
Chapter 8
‘Sorry it took so long’, said Ghilardi, coming back into the bleak interview room where Loretta had been reading for at least three-quarters of an hour. She had begun to think he had forgotten her.
‘If you could just sign here, and here.’
He placed two typewritten sheets on the table. Loretta put down her book, a detective story by Nicholas Blake, and cast her eyes rapidly over the pages.
‘Seems all right,’ she said, taking Ghilardi’s pen and signing her name at the bottom of the first sheet. ‘And here?’
She returned the pen. ‘What happens now?’
Ghilardi picked up the novel and read the blurb on the back cover without comment. ‘Depends what we get from the Met,’ he said, not looking at her. He seemed subdued, and Loretta wondered if it was the effect of being back in the police station.
‘You off to London now?’ He had opened the book and was studying it closely. ‘This any good?’
Loretta hesitated, then decided to answer his first question. ‘Well, I was wondering – I thought I might go and have a look at Hardimans Deep.’ The idea had come to her during Ghilardi’s lengthy absence; it was probably her only opportunity, since she had no plans for a second visit to Lymington.
Ghilardi looked surprised and glanced at his watch. ‘You’d better get a move on – it’ll be dark soon. D’you know how to get there?’
‘No.’ Loretta shook her head.
‘Oh, yes, you said. Tell you what, I’ll draw you a map.’ He sat down on the other side of the small table and started making a sketch on a blank statement form. ‘It’s only about three miles,’ he remarked, pausing to think with his pen in mid-air, ‘but it’s not the easiest place to get to.’
Loretta watched in silence for a moment. Then a thought occurred to her: ‘Gosh, what if Tom Neil’s there? It might be a bit awkward –’
‘You could always ring first,’ Ghilardi suggested, not looking up. ‘You got the number?’
‘Yes. Could I –’ She looked round the room for a phone but couldn’t see one. Of course, they wouldn’t put them in interview rooms; she remembered that suspects were allowed only one telephone call, and sometimes not even that. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it from a call box. Oh – thanks.’ She took the map from Ghilardi.
‘I won’t try to explain it,’ he said, getting up and straightening the jacket of his suit. ‘I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.’ He moved towards the door.
‘I’m sure. . . Well, thanks for the tea.’ Loretta felt as if she’d been drinking it all day, but at least it had given her something to do while Ghilardi was getting her statement typed. ‘What shall I do with –’ She gestured to the empty cup and saucer.
‘Oh, leave it.’ Ghilardi sounded preoccupied. He grasped the door handle, then turned back to Loretta. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ he said abruptly. ‘The boss may think this case is finished, but –’
‘What? You mean you’ve spoken to him already?’ Loretta stared at the detective in dismay. So that was the reason for the lack of animation she’d noticed since he returned five minutes ago.
‘Only i
n the corridor. Bit tactless of me, really,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll try again after you’ve gone – he may change his mind when he sees this.’ He held up the typed sheets. ‘Anyway, that’s my worry. . . Look, I’m quite serious about you being careful. God knows what happened that night, but I don’t like to think of another woman there on her own in the dark – you’d better give me that map back.’
Loretta placed her hand protectively on the catch of her shoulder-bag. Til be all right. I can’t just – somebody’s got to do something, and if you’re not allowed to. . .’
‘It’ll be all right,’ he insisted. ‘I caught him at a bad moment, that’s all. There’s been a development on that murder, the one I was telling you about. Her bag’s been handed in and he wants more house-to-house inquiries. . . Come on, you won’t find anything, there’s just a couple of houses – we’ve been over the place with a fine-tooth comb.’
Loretta stood her ground. ‘I’m over twenty-one you know,’ she said coolly, keeping her hand on the flap of her bag. She was slightly irritated by Ghilardi’s manner, but realized it was better not to show it. Silently, though, she couldn’t help reflecting that she was seven or eight years older than the detective, which made his protectiveness absurdly misplaced. It was a consequence of having so few women in the police force, she supposed – their absence fostered these ridiculous notions of chivalry. . .
‘I suppose I can’t actually stop you.’ Ghilardi’s voice interrupted her reverie, and she looked at him in surprise. There was a genuine note of anxiety in his tone, and his forehead had creased into a worried frown.
‘Heavens, anyone would think I was Little Red Riding Hood setting off to meet the big bad wolf,’ she joked, trying to quell an answering sensation of nervousness. ‘All I’m going to do is – is look.’
‘OK, but. . .’ Ghilardi tailed off, still frowning. ‘Promise me you won’t get out of the car?’
‘What on earth – oh, all right.’ She could do what she liked when she got there, Loretta thought, crossing her fingers in her coat pocket. She moved towards the door, expecting Ghilardi to open it now that the matter was settled, but he remained in the same position.
‘One more thing.’ He was looking slightly embarrassed. ‘If you do – if you notice anything – you will get in touch?’
‘Of course,’ Loretta said impatiently, beginning to feel she’d never get out of Lymington police station. ‘Shall we. . .’ She gestured towards the door.
‘Oh, right.’ He jerked it open and Loretta hurried into the anonymous, cream-painted corridor.
She heard Ghilardi close and lock the door, then he caught up with her and, to her astonishment, placed his hand under her left elbow. Loretta moved instinctively away, and at that moment a door opened at the end of the corridor. A burly man with thinning sandy hair came towards them, slowing as he took in Loretta’s presence.
‘Watcha, Del’, he said with a sly grin, looking from the detective to Loretta and back again.
‘Steve.’ Ghilardi gave him a cool nod and ushered Loretta past.
She reached the heavy door to the reception area first, pulling it open and anchoring it with her foot. When she turned to take her leave of Ghilardi, she saw over his shoulder that the big man was still hovering in the corridor, an expression on his face she didn’t much care for.
‘Thanks very much, Dr Lawson,’ Ghilardi said loudly, putting up his hand to take the weight of the door from her. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ He placed his shoulder in front of the door and held out his right hand.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, taking it briefly, and was surprised to see him incline his head very slightly backwards and raise his eyes to the ceiling. It suddenly occurred to her that he might not get on with his colleagues in CID; if he wasn’t her idea of a policeman, it seemed equally likely that he wasn’t theirs, either. She gave him a smile of genuine warmth, stepped backwards in the direction of the main door, then turned and went out of the police station.
Inside her car, Loretta unfolded Ghilardi’s map and pored over it. After a while she gave up trying to make out the route in the rapidly gathering shadows and turned on the interior light. A moment’s study was enough to confirm that Ghilardi’s directions were rather complicated, and Loretta thought it a fair bet that she’d get lost. Only the first bit sounded easy – she was to follow signs for the Isle of Wight ferry. She turned off the light, started the engine, and drove out of the police station car park.
Before long she came to a roundabout she recognized from her journey round the town that morning, and was relieved to see a sign for the ferry. A moment later she spotted a telephone kiosk and remembered her intention of ringing Shore House to make sure Tom Neil hadn’t stopped off there on his way home. She parked the car in a side street, walked back to the phone and dialled the number nervously. If Neil answered, what was she to say? It seemed cowardly just to put the phone down, but on the other hand –
The ringing tone went on and on, and Loretta was thankful that the problem hadn’t arisen. She left the phone box and went back to her car, glancing at Ghilardi’s directions again before continuing her journey. Soon she was driving across a causeway, the first indication she’d had all day that Lymington was remotely near the sea. Dozens of masts rose in prickly formation on one side of the car, while the wind ruffled dark water, gun-metal grey, on the other. The absence of other human beings from an area which in summer would be bustling with life was unsettling, and Loretta was glad when she reached the far side.
She turned right, following Ghilardi’s instructions, and drove past the small ferry terminal. Within a couple of minutes she had left the town behind and was in a country lane flanked by high hedges. She mentally ticked off one of Ghilardi’s landmarks on her left, the illuminated sign of the Fairlawn Hotel, and thought she must be about halfway by now. The hedges soon gave way to unfenced moorland, and Loretta hurriedly switched on her headlights. The road here was rutted and patched, badly in need of resurfacing, and she found it impossible to circumvent every single pot-hole. It was uncomfortable driving, and she was hardly aware of the uneven scrubland to either side. There were few houses and no signs of wildlife, not even the occasional New Forest pony. Loretta wondered where they went in winter.
She slowed as she came to a fork in the road, realizing it was too dark to read the old-fashioned signpost which glimmered in the dusk without getting out of the car. Instead she signalled right from memory, pausing before the turn to make a perfunctory check for other traffic, and set off down a narrow lane. It was fortunate that she was driving slowly, for almost immediately she spotted another, narrower lane going off to the right and brought the car to a halt to check her map. There was no sign on it of this second fork, and Loretta hesitated, wondering if Ghilardi had deliberately left it off or had simply forgotten its existence. She decided that the former explanation was the more likely and continued her cautious journey, peering through the windscreen for the gateway which marked the beginning of the drive to Shore House. After about half a mile she noticed a change in the light ahead, a silvery glow which made her think of the sea, and was filled with doubt about the route she had taken. She kept going, more and more convinced she was on the wrong road but unable to turn round, and eventually came to a gateway beyond which she could make out an expanse of mud sloping down to water.
Loretta stared for a moment at this lonely scene, then sighed and got out of the car. There was a noticeboard planted in the mud beyond one of the gateposts and she went to read it, discovering that the land on which she was standing was a wildfowl sanctuary, and that fearful penalties existed for anyone who disturbed its inhabitants. Walking a few paces forward, she was impressed by the lovely and desolate nature of the place, by a profound silence interrupted only by the murmuring of the sea and the plaintive cries of gulls. She could see land on the far side of the water, an uneven band of darkness between the lighter tones of the sea and the sky, but its dense mass betrayed few signs of human habitation.<
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Loretta shivered, suddenly remembering Ghilardi’s joke about the Neils’ neighbour, Mr Sanders, and his business connections. It had seemed far-fetched at the time, but now it struck her that this isolated stretch of coast was a perfect dropping-off point for something – not necessarily drugs. Sounds and pictures came unbidden into her head: velvety darkness, the soft plash of oars, men’s muffled voices. . .
Loretta exhaled sharply, cross with herself, and thrust her hands deep into her pockets. It was all nonsense, the product of hunger and an over-active imagination. Apart from the inherent improbability of the scene she had just conjured up, there had been bright moonlight on New Year’s Eve, not velvety darkness; she hadn’t even got her facts right. She turned abruptly and headed back to the car, stamping on the ground in front of the gateway to see if it would take the weight of the Panda. It seemed firm enough, and in any case there was nowhere else to turn the car. She got in, switched on the engine and inched forward, aware of a flicker of anxiety as she left the pitted surface of the road. To her relief the car rolled smoothly forward, showing no tendency to sink into the mud; she swung it to the right, reversed, and drove back into the lane.
She was soon back at the second fork, the one which wasn’t marked on her map. She turned left, and had driven perhaps a couple of hundred yards when she spotted a gateway on her right. A crooked, handwritten sign bore the words ‘Shore House. Spinners Cottage. Private’. She was in the right place. Loretta signalled and turned into the drive, which was little more than a mud track. It stretched ahead for quite a distance, running between fields, before disappearing into a low belt of trees. The engine whined and Loretta moved down a gear, hoping the suspension would be able to cope with the uneven ground. Her anxiety returned as she bumped towards the dark mass of the wood, wishing she had listened to Ghilardi; this was no place for a woman on her own. It occurred to her that she might feel better – or at least less conspicuous – without lights, and she flicked a switch on the dashboard and plunged the road ahead into darkness. The sensation of blindness was so alarming that she immediately turned them back on, regaining her composure just before the car entered the trees. She was on a narrow, twisting track flanked by wooden posts which might or might not have a strand of wire stretched between them – it was simply too dark to see. Loretta drove carefully, craning her head forward; even so she almost missed a sharp bend to the left. There was a pale glow ahead which grew in size until she reached the last of the trees and came out on to a patch of moorland. Her headlights picked out a gate and she drew up in front of it, a collection of outbuildings on her left. A dark shape loomed against the sky on the other side of the car: Mr Sanders’s house, which Ghilardi had said was the nearer of the two dwellings. She could see no lights, no parked cars, and breathed a sigh of relief.