The Body of a Woman: A Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mystery (Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mysteries)

by Clare Curzon

  On this particular Saturday, due to a glitch in distant planning, each parent had understood that care of the boys fell to him- or her- self.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong week, silly cow!’ Jeffrey stormed, snatching at his wife’s diary. ‘Look! there’s jam or something sticking two pages together.’

  ‘Well, I’m all dressed up now,’ Madeleine retorted. ‘And I’d turned down a chance to have my sister across. Besides, you should’ve got here sooner. There’s barely time for a jaunt to the seaside now.’

  ‘So what? Whose fault is that? Not mine. You’re the one wasting time arguing.’ He glared at the boys. ‘Out in the car you two. We’re going down to Brighton.’

  ‘She said we could take grub to the Zoo,’ Patrick protested, scenting the occasion for an unholy row. ‘We’ve got pork pies and chocolate gateau ready waiting in the fridge.’

  ‘Brighton,’ his father threatened darkly.

  ‘Boys, you know you’d rather see the animals,’ their mother pleaded.

  Dunkie hesitated. Patrick jumped in. ‘Why can’t we go to Brighton today, stop here overnight and all do the Zoo picnic tomorrow? Dad can drive us.’

  ‘I don’t do picnics,’ Jeffrey said with scorn.

  Madeleine considered. ‘They do have restaurants there.’ If Jeffrey joined them she’d not have to pay. Flashing a bulging wallet was one of her husband’s less offensive habits. And the spare room had a bed made up if he needed it.

  Jeffrey hesitated. He was damned if he’d trail back home and admit to a wasted weekend. This way he could still use the new car, so he’d be seen to have won, sort of; and admittedly brats shared were brats halved in a manner of speaking. He could leave their management to their mother and tomorrow take a dander on his own, see what new tricks the blue-arsed monkeys were up to. He hadn’t been to the Zoo for donkeys’ years. Not since spending a weekend with that blondie who lived in a narrowboat on Regent’s Canal. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘But Brighton today, like I said, and we’ll eat properly both days, so you can bin the junk food.’

  The family was jockeying for seats in Jeffrey’s Mercedes as DS Rosemary Zyczynski turned into their drive on foot and made purposefully towards them.

  Madeleine squared her jaw, prepared to repel Seventh Day Adventists. ‘We’re just going out,’ she declared aggressively.

  Rosemary flourished her ID. ‘Sergeant Zyczynski, Thames Valley CID. If you live here I’d like a word, please, before you leave.’

  ‘She does,’ Jeffrey claimed harshly, scowling towards his wife. It was a cause of some rancour that over accommodation she’d come off better than himself because she had the boys to house.

  ‘We already belong to Neighbourhood Watch,’ Madeleine claimed primly. ‘And we don’t need any more Crime Prevention lectures.’

  ‘No lecture,’ Z promised. ‘Just one or two questions about your nextdoor neighbours. Do you know where I could get in touch with Professor Knightley? Nobody seems to be at home there just now.’

  ‘She’s usually there at weekends,’ Madeleine offered. ‘Don’t see much of him though. Tell you what: ask their cleaner. She lives in one of those tumbledown cottages towards the far end. Hetty Chadwick she’s called.’

  ‘Right,’ Zyczynski said. ‘Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ve really got to know them yet anyway.’

  ‘Dunkie has,’ Patrick said sneakily. ‘He’s got the hots for the girl there. Been inside the house too.’

  ‘You never told me,’ his mother accused.

  ‘I fixed her bike chain,’ Duncan admitted. ‘So she asked me in for a Pepsi. That’s all.’

  ‘Ah. So the Knightleys have children?’ Z probed.

  ‘Seems so,’ Madeleine sniffed. ‘I heard there’s an older boy too, but I’ve not set eyes on either of them yet. Hetty said he’s gone to America.’

  It sounded as though the cleaner was just the chatty sort needed. Z thanked them again and stood back for Piggott to sweep magnificently out of the drive.

  She extracted her own car from nextdoor and cruised down Acrefield Way. About two thirds along she saw a pair of flint and brick cottages tilting louchely towards each other in seventeenth century intimacy. On the grass strip in front of one and backed by a line of pink hollyhocks, a fleshy middle-aged woman was making the weekend peace hideous with an ancient hand-operated mower.

  ‘Mrs Chadwick?’ Z called.

  ‘Aye. That’s me.’ She halted, resting muscular forearms on the machine’s cross-handle and surveyed the young woman smiling from the car’s open window. She looked a good prospect; with any luck they’d be a double-salaried couple, both out all day: little wear and tear on the house. Hetty’s slow gaze belied her mental cogs’ activity as she calculated what price she’d name for her services. Not that she’d finalise until she’d had a dekko at how the place was kept. Polished wood floors and priceless rugs would be a quid an hour more than wall-to-wall carpets.

  ‘I believe you know the Knightleys who’ve recently moved in along the road?’

  ‘I do for them, Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?’ Cautiously

  ‘Ah.’ The girl was getting out and coming round the car towards her, holding out a badge or something.

  ‘Who?’ she demanded suspiciously, and made Z repeat her ID.

  ‘Oh, perlice. Can’t think what you’d want with me, chuck, but you’d best come inside.’

  Z followed her into a small, brick-floored sitting-room crowded with oversized furniture. After the brilliant sunshine outside, the room seemed in almost total darkness. Mrs Chadwick steered her guest towards a cretonne-covered sofa that smelled faintly of scented washing powder. She was torn between disappointed hopes of fresh employment and a flutter of excitement at the promise of gossip. Police didn’t feature hugely in the village; certainly not the plainclothes variety.

  ‘Them Knightleys,’ she prompted. ‘There’s nowt wrong wi’ them, is there?’

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ Rosemary hedged. ‘I’ve been trying to contact them but no one seems to be at home’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t know where’d they’d be, miss. It’s Saturday after all.’

  ‘I wondered if they’d gone back to their old home to clear up. Do you know the address?’

  ‘No. Oh, wait a bit though. She did write me fro’ there before she moved in. Let’s see if I can put me hand on it.’

  Mrs Chadwick bustled into a back room where her solid heels rang out on stone flags. There followed a brisk pulling out of wooden drawers, clanging of enamel pans and a rustling of paper.

  ‘There, I knew I’d kept it.’ She came back in triumph. ‘Caversham, that’s where they were before. D’you wanta copy it down?’

  Z took her time transferring the address to her notebook. Then she looked up at the north-countrywoman, smiling. ‘I wouldn’t mind moving here myself. It’s a lovely village. I expect the Knightleys are delighted they’ve come.’

  ‘Well, it’s a nice house. I’ll grant them that much. Not that they’re ever in it. The professor, he’s barely spent a coupla nights there at a time, and the young people were off away almost as soon as they moved in. Of course Mrs K’s got a shop in Mardham so mostly she’s at home just evenings. All the same it seems a bit lonely like. For a youngish woman, I mean. Get to my time of life, you’re glad enough for some peace and quiet.’

  ‘I expect she’ll soon make new friends here.’

  A tremor animated the cleaner’s pudgy face and was gone in an instant. Her opening mouth snapped shut Ike a rat trap. Z waited but nothing was forthcoming. A pity, because she was sure the woman had almost let slip an indiscretion. Well, let it pass. It was a point to come back to on a later visit. Once the family had been informed of the death and the news spread, Hetty Chadwick might be more eager to volunteer information and claim some local fame.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ Z said, sliding her notebook into a shirt pocket. ‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your gardening.’

  As she belted herself into the car sh
e heard the horrendous clatter and shake of the old hand-mower restarting.

  Back at the Knightleys’ house she found Angus Mott talking into his mobile phone. ‘Right, sir,’ he said shortly and switched off.

  ‘The Boss has authorised a break-in. There’s a patrol car on its way.’

  He had picked on the glass-panelled kitchen door, expecting that, as with so many incautious householders, the key would be left inside in the lock.

  ‘The lock’s clear,’ Z warned, bending to peer through.

  He checked, and saw they were out of luck. ‘Right then, it’ll be the lavatory window for you.’

  Goody: so I can plunge into the open loo pan, Z reckoned. However, the two uniformed constables who drove up five minutes later were provided with an electric ram and proceeded to demolish the kitchen door’s lock.

  ‘Stay outside,’ Mott ordered them. ‘One of you go round to the front. Z, you’re to cover the ground floor. I’ll look upstairs.’

  On the threshold they listened for the noises of the house, identifying the refrigerator’s hum and the more distant dragging tick of a longcase clock. There was a smell of newness and freshly painted woodwork. Despite the anti-burglar device on the house’s outer wall no alarm had shrieked out at them. Mott made for the cupboard under the staircase and confirmed that the system had not been turned on. So was someone waiting inside, monitoring their movements?

  Z acted on Mott’s nod as he stood ready by the stairs. She moved through the empty kitchen into the square hall and slid into the first open doorway. There was no one in the large, green and gold dining-room. Two long windows overlooked the side garden and the drive. White-painted wooden shutters framed them both, matching smaller ones that covered the serving hatch to the kitchen. The inner wall between was covered with shelving and glazed cupboards stacked with an immense amount of good china and glassware. The long mahogany dining-table had eight chairs set close, leaving little space for anyone to hide underneath, even a child.

  The next door off the hall was closed but not locked. Z turned the cut-glass knob and eased the door open. There was a lingering scent of stale tobacco. Whether it came partly from the well-worn leather furniture or the stacks of books that lined three of the walls she couldn’t tell, but it struck her as old-fashioned, a man’s room belonging to an age that had been strictly a male world. The wallpaper, where it was revealed, was a peppery colour patterned with pictures of game birds, and clearly hadn’t been changed for decades. Perhaps the books, together with their oak shelving, some of it glass-fronted, had been installed first before any part of the house was redecorated.

  There would be time later, she promised herself, to see what the books were about. Between the windows stood an old roll-top desk with a key-ring hanging from the lock. This should contain correspondence and banking details. Z left that for Mott to go through and moved back into the hall.

  Unlike the other rooms which sported pale, polished floor-boards, the hall was chequer-tiled in ivory and black marble. The front vestibule door was glass-panelled with an art deco design of pink water lilies and long-legged birds. When the outer south-facing door was left open sunshine would stream through and stain the floor with the warm colours of the glass.

  Z stole across and stood in the last doorway, on the far side of the curving staircase. The drawing-room was immense, stretching the full depth of the house. And was unoccupied, as elsewhere. Fluted, cream-painted columns framed an impressive fireplace and overmantel. Another matching pair framed each of the four tall windows opposite, and she guessed they served to support dividing walls of the rooms above.

  At the far end glass doors stood open and led to the domed conservatory into which they had peered from outside. Only in there was there any sign of interrupted domestic life, with the trestle table covered in household junk and a tray with an empty mug that appeared to have held coffee. Beside it a blue checked apron was thrown down. Under the table stood a bucket half full of soapy water, now cold, with a pair of yellow rubber gloves balanced on the rim.

  A ‘nice house’ Hetty Chadwick had called it. It was all of that, once home to an Edwardian family of some substance. And the Knightleys couldn’t be short of cash either, with the way house prices had soared of late in Thames Valley.

  She heard Mott’s footsteps on the stairs and went out to meet him in the hall. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘No sign of anyone here either. Hetty Chadwick comes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Someone seems to have abandoned washing china and gewgaws in the conservatory though. She could probably tell us who that would be, and when.’

  ‘If Knightley doesn’t put in an appearance I’ll be ordering a full search,’ Mott said. ‘What we need is a diary or address book.’ He was scowling. ‘It begins to look bad for the professor.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Zyczynski agreed sombrely. ‘One way or the other.’

  Chapter 10

  When the team met up again to compare notes Beaumont flourished the Caversham address already obtained from the computer via the Volvo’s registration. Z had little fresh to offer the team beyond her suspicion that short though the Knightleys’ stay in the village, there could already be a whiff of gossip. She described the cleaner’s suddenly buttoned lips at mention of Leila making new friends. ‘Not that she didn’t need some,’ Z granted, ‘seeing that the rest of the family appears to be missing.’

  ‘Missing since when though?’ Beaumont demanded. ‘And who drove who away?’

  ‘Who, whom,’ Yeadings corrected as if to himself. He rubbed his temples ruefully. ‘I’d never deny village gossip has its uses, but a lot of it can be pure supposition. Facts often get a colourful twist. However, you’d do well, Z, to keep in touch with this Hetty Chadwick.’

  Getting in touch with the dead woman’s husband was another matter. A phone call to the old address was answered by the new owner. He had never, he assured Mott stiffly, so much as set eyes on Mr Knightley, all business over the house purchase having been conducted through their respective agents and solicitors.

  ‘Another try with the University?’ Beaumont suggested. His phone enquiry - having been passed along a chain of porters, groundsmen and indoor domestic staff to an overworked and underpaid Reader in Biochemistry who was working there weekends on a paper he hoped to publish - drew an equal blank. It began to look as though the husband could be pencilled in as their prime suspect. Unless he’d shared a similar fate to Leila’s.

  ‘If he blew his lid and did his missus in, he’s likely by now to have topped himself too. A familiar pattern for domestic murders,’ Beaumont reminded them smugly. ‘All we need do is wait, and body number two will turn up of itself.’

  ‘So where are the children?’ Yeadings asked heavily. ‘Did he ensure they were both out of harm’s way first? If so, that implies premeditation. How far ahead do you think this murder was planned?’

  ‘A matter of days, perhaps weeks,’ Z suggested. ‘The party or whatever would take some arranging; invitations to be sent out, or tickets printed if it was open to the public.’

  ‘You’re assuming the occasion was vital to the planning,’ Beaumont complained. ‘It didn’t have to be that way. Something the woman said or did that evening could have been the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Sudden rage on the way, say, and hubby whips a cord round her neck, bingo! Then he panics, dumps her in the wood, returns home to collect his clothes, money and passport. Exit panicky academic. He could be anywhere on the continent by now, thanks to Eurostar.’

  ‘In which case we’ll trace him through his car,’ Yeadings assured them. ‘I’ve pulled its licence number out of the computer. It’s being circulated, ports and airports informed. But your sudden-attack scenario doesn’t account for Leila Knightley’s hands and ankles being bound. She wouldn’t have sat quietly in the car while he got out and came round to do that. However, whether the husband’s our suspect or not we have to find him. Until then the body’s not officially identified.’

  ‘Ex
cept by yourself,’ Beaumont said barely audibly. Into the ensuing silence he dropped a subdued, ‘Sir.’

  ‘That was bloody unnecessary,’ Mott snapped when they were again outside Yeadings’ office.

  ‘But you’ll admit the Boss feels personally involved?’

  ‘No more than anyone would be who’d met the victim earlier.’

  ‘You saw the body as found, Guv. I only saw shots of it. She looked a pretty hot number in that getup. Even if …’

  ‘Oh, stow it, Beaumont,’ Z cut in sharply. ‘We’re none of us icicles. We might even feel sorry to see you on the slab.’

  ‘Go home you two,’ Mott sighed. ‘Nothing’ll drop in our laps today, so get some rest. I’ll see you at nine tomorrow to discuss Littlejohn’s report. And you can thank your stars that he’s seen fit to work through the weekend.’

  In their empty office Mott found a message from Reading Area on his desk. Enquiries among ex-neighbours in Caversham had come up with the addresses of the Knightleys’ lawyer and of an uncle of the dead woman, a Londoner who lived in Pimlico.

  The former was an Edgar Gross, traced through particulars of the house sale. When interviewed by a Reading DC he had been quite shocked but was unable to suggest the professor’s current whereabouts.

  A message concerning the uncle, Charles Hadfield, was passed to the Met. The reply, received two hours later, informed Mott that Mr Hadfield was away on holiday. Neighbours who were keyholders for his London home could say nothing more specific than that he was touring in Scotland with his housekeeper. When (or if) he phoned in he would be told to contact DI Mott at a Thames Valley Police number.

  ‘Meanwhile we don’t sit on our butts,’ Mott muttered to himself. There was another Knightley listed in the address book he had turned up in the study desk at Knollhurst. She lived in France: a Mrs G. Knightley with an address in Nice. Z could pick up on that tomorrow.

  He switched off the lights, collected his car and was more than halfway home when he was buzzed by Area. A Charles Hadfield had just contacted his neighbour and been advised to get in touch with DI Mott. He had immediately rung in demanding to speak to him, and had sounded more than a little upset at having to leave his number.