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

by Clare Curzon

  Mott sighed, tossed in his mind whether to continue, but decided to return. The call to Scotland was long distance, and he’d rather it went direct on to Thames Valley’s bill. The expected conversation could be a lengthy one.

  Hadfield was awaiting his call with impatience and while Mott briefly outlined what had happened the man had difficulty keeping himself from shouting. The DI visualized him: tall, spare, tweedy and redfaced. He’d be the sort to ride roughshod over the police once he got within galloping distance.

  He too claimed to have no idea of Professor Knightley’s whereabouts, but quoted the son’s address in the US without hesitation. Then, ‘Chloe? She’ll still be at her Granny’s, won’t she?’

  ‘Would that be Mrs G. Knightley, sir?’

  ‘Are you being funny, young man?’

  Mott was at a loss why he should think that. ‘We have a Mrs G. Knightley in the family address book. An address in France, sir.’

  There was an apoplectic snort. ‘Thought you meant G for Granny. Yes, she lives in Nice. Invalid of some sort. Arthritis, I believe. Now I come to think of it her name is Gladys.’

  His mistake had made him slightly more amenable. On a quieter note he explained he would be travelling south by inter-city rail, leaving next morning. ‘We shall pick up my car in London and come direct to the house. I expect to meet you there. I’ll phone you on arrival at King’s Cross.’

  Mott consulted his watch and decided that even with the hour’s time difference he should contact the daughter in France at once. If he’d been in Nice on a balmy summer evening himself he wouldn’t have retired to bed yet.

  An elderly woman’s voice answered his ring and she spoke in passable French. Nevertheless there was no hiding the authoritarian sharpness of an upper-class Englishwoman.

  ‘Qui donc?’ she insisted loudly. Possibly the sharpness came from apprehension over deafness.

  ‘Detective-Inspector Angus Mott of Thames Valley Police, madam. I understand your granddaughter Chloe Knightley is staying with you at present?’

  ‘What’s that about Chloe?’

  ‘Is she there? I’d like to speak to her.’

  ‘How do I know you’re a policeman?’

  Dear, oh dear. Mott moaned silently, matching his mental expletives to present company, for all that she couldn’t hear them.

  He explained that she could ring Thames Valley Headquarters at Kidlington and they would verify his identity and present phone number. Then she could call him back and they could begin a proper conversation.

  ‘But what would Chloe have to do with a policeman?’ the old dear quavered. ‘You must realise, young man, that I am responsible for her while she is under my roof. The child is only fifteen, you know.’

  But I’ve no intention of seducing her, he wanted to bite back. However, in consideration of Chloë’s tender years perhaps it would be better to hold off, leaving it to Granny to break the news, or a sanitised version of it. If only she hadn’t chosen to retire abroad he could simply have off-loaded the chore by sending a sympathetic WPC round to see her.

  ‘Anyway, my granddaughter is not at home at present.’ That was precisely his problem. But now, of course, Granny meant her own home.

  ‘When she returns,’ Mott said slowly and distinctly, ‘would you kindly tell her that her stepmother has been involved in an accident. If she will return my call giving her flight number I will arrange for someone to meet her plane at Heathrow or Gatwick tomorrow and drive her home.’

  Shock had apparently done much for the old lady’s deafness or obduracy. This time she got the message in one, and Mott firmly detached himself from further babbled questions without divulging more precise details.

  He wasn’t happy about having understated the situation, but breaking news of a death wasn’t something to be done lightly over the wires, especially to strangers. The incident left him strangely aware of the old lady waiting alone for the unsuspecting child to return late from an evening out with friends.

  He wished he knew how Chloe had regarded her stepmother. If there was antagonism she might not respond by coming back. It was likely she would ring home and expect to speak with her father. Finding there was no reply she could assume he was at Leila’s bedside in some hospital casualty unit. Even then she might well wonder why the only contact made with her was through the police.

  Mott supposed he’d have to hang around indefinitely for some message from the girl.

  No, dammit. He’d done enough. He’d arrange for the reply to be held over for him until the next morning. And Scotland was nearer than the Riviera, wasn’t it? By the time the child arrived it could be left to the uncle - step-greatuncle, or whatever - to tell her the full story of Leila Knightley’s killing and the professor’s disappearance. Much better for it to come from someone she knew.

  With that settled, Mott felt in need of tender loving care himself and dialled Paula’s London flat. But his fiancée too, it seemed, was out on the tiles and not expected back until the early hours. ‘Some kind of party?’ he asked with a twitch of envy.

  ‘I’ll say!’ her flatmate laughed. ‘It’s a hen night. One of her colleagues is getting hitched next Saturday. That’s allowing a whole week for them to recover before the big day, so I guess tonight’s going to get wild.’

  ‘You’re not going yourself?’

  ‘No; they’re all lawyers and I don’t really fit in. Still, I have grabbed the contract for catering and floral decorations on the big day. We intend giving them the works.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ he said lamely. ‘Tell Paula I called, will you? Her turn to ring next.’

  He wished now he hadn’t bothered, but he had needed to hear Paula’s voice. He’d have treated her to a comic version of the Granny conversation and been rewarded with that low, throaty chuckle that was only one of the wonderful things about her.

  What wasn’t wonderful was that she still hung on in London. That and the way their own wedding plans had twice been put on hold already, without renewing a date; all because of her bloody work at those bloody moneymaking Chambers.

  Saturday had not proved entirely satisfactory for the Piggott family either. While the parents bickered and quibbled in the front seats, the boys had curled up in the rear, in their sock soles for comfort.

  Duncan was endeavouring to track their route with an out-of-date map which utterly failed to recognise motorways, while Patrick systematically fired at him from close quarters with a spud gun until all the ammunition was exhausted. Tiny plugs of slightly mildewed King Edward potatoes littered the dove grey carpet or adhered to the other boy’s clothes and hair, contributing an odour of musty rottenness to the air-conditioned interior.

  When Madeleine rebelled and demanded a rear window opened it struck Patrick as mildly amusing to drop one of his brother’s white trainers out on the passing roadway. Its absence was only noticed as they drew up on Brighton seafront and the family was evicted by Piggott père, his patience already sorely tried by Madeleine’s vacuous prattle.

  ‘That would account for the pong,’ Patrick observed brightly. ‘Dunkie’s feet, I mean.’

  ‘I had both on when I started out,’ Duncan maintained doggedly.

  ‘He just wouldn’t know. He’s a dope!’ Patrick jeered.

  ‘Well you can’t hobble along on a sock,’ snapped his mother. ‘It’ll be all holes before you’ve gone a couple of yards.’

  So Duncan sat down on the kerb to remove the remaining trainer and both socks, wriggling his toes contentedly at the unexpected freedom.

  Doubtless because of his bare feet Madeleine decided that she and the boys should repair to the beach and paddle; which wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been a good stretch of sand and plenty of slimy rock pools for Patrick to ensure his brother fell into. The tide, however, was high and the pebbles extremely hard to sit on. They could all have had deck chairs but Madeleine was convinced that the scruffy young people who hired them out were bent on a rip-off. Rather than risk that and
an enforced shouting match, she opted to suffer, but not in silence.

  Patrick and Duncan, themselves suffering withdrawal symptoms from their addictive slot-machine games, made a nuisance of themselves until she suggested they find their father. Which they did to his annoyance while chatting up two bright-eyed young women who had braved his favourite pub in their bikinis. Their presence caused him to overplay the role of indulgent father when Patrick whistled from the doorway with his hand held out for subsistence.

  The family met up for a lunch of fish and chips in a crowded restaurant where Madeleine smugly reckoned that Jeffrey paid six times what it would have cost her to provide it fresh at home. After double portions of banana split and knickerbocker glory respectively Duncan and Patrick were persuaded that the tide was now far enough out for them to sample the sands.

  But Brighton could offer none of the Beach Boy element they were accustomed to on TV. There wasn’t a surfboard in sight, the waves being pathetic little ripples and all the sun-worshippers wrinklies or toddlers.

  Sun and air, however, wrought their customary effect and by the time Madeleine decreed it was time to go home everyone was sluggish and bad-tempered. The three slept for the best part of the journey back. Jeffrey, sitting on an uncomfortable quantity of canned beer, suffered alone the barely moving queue of traffic on the motorway, which came to a dead halt for a mile each side of Heathrow.

  On finally reaching Acrefield Way they dispersed to all corners of the house, made separate raids on the fridge and went early to bed. With a minimum of surliness Jeffrey accepted the single bed in the spare room and, although she had rather wondered, Madeleine’s night was undisturbed.

  Taken all round, Saturday’s experience did not augur well for a second day of family togetherness.

  Chapter 11

  On Sunday Yeadings’ team gathered outside his office at a little before 9am. They could tell he had arrived early by the established aroma of Mocha coffee in the corridor.

  ‘Did the prelim path report come?’ Z asked Mott.

  ‘Yes. I hear he’s got copies for us. We’d better give him a few minutes for a read-through.’

  But Yeadings was aware of them waiting and opened the door. ‘Get seated and let’s tackle this together. As you know, death was by strangulation with a ligature.’

  He nodded towards the coffeemaker. ‘There’s enough there for a first round. Fill your mugs. Then let’s consider what Littlejohn’s discovered.’

  They all studied the sheets provided.

  ‘No sexual interference with the body before or after death,’ Beaumont commented, skimming through quickly.

  ‘Not “the body”,’ Yeadings murmured with distaste. ‘From now on we’ll use the name Leila Knightley, accepting the evidence of family photographs found at the house. You’ll see there’s also positive identification through dental records. We’re lucky that Littlejohn has already accessed them on his old-boy network. It being a country practice the dentist lives in the flat over the surgery and didn’t mind paper-shuffling on a Saturday night.’

  ‘Right.’ Mott was scanning the report. ‘She was in good health prior to the incident, and not pregnant. It’s pretty detailed about chafing of skin at wrists and ankles, but he’s being chary about any length of time for her being tied up.’

  ‘The marks must depend on how much she struggled,’ Z said. ‘There appears to have been an early attempt to break free, then a period while the skin lesions dried. Then a second burst of struggling, more frenzied than the first, which burst them open again.’

  ‘Only at the wrists,’ Beaumont pointed out. ‘After that first stage the ankles seem to have been released. Does that mean rape was intended, even if not carried out?’

  ‘Or she was made to walk somewhere,’ Mott warned. ‘Like the fingernails, we don’t know much yet about the scrapings taken from under her toenails and between the toes. They have to be further analysed. But, although there were no obvious traces of woodland floor, this report does mention microscopic threads of fibre. They could have come from struggling against a blanket thrown over her in a car, but I think it’s more likely she picked them up from walking barefoot indoors on a carpet.’

  ‘Her ankles were still loose when she was discovered,’ Yeadings reminded them, ‘and we’re assuming she was carried into Shotters Wood. If so, why not elsewhere? What reason can you see for making her walk on carpet?’

  ‘She was too heavy for the first person involved, but someone stronger disposed of the body when they’d got it to the wood?’ Beaumont suggested.

  ‘She was alive at one point and dead at the other,’ Z said sombrely.

  Eyes closed, Yeadings was visualising aloud. ‘She is indoors somewhere. Her mouth is taped so she can’t cry out. Her hands are secured behind her back, and she is being led, not carried.’

  He was clearly seeing her while he described this. ‘I rather think—’

  They waited, curious to see where the vision was taking him.

  ‘Yes,’ he decided, ‘there were other party-goers in the vicinity who mustn’t see her being abducted. Even at night you’d not want to risk carrying off a grown woman over your shoulder or in a sack. It’s so much more reasonable to help her out to a car - on her own two feet. We know she’s masked, and if she stumbles it’s easily accounted for - a little over-indulgence: because even the nicest people can find they’ve drunk more than is good for them. If anyone saw - and with luck no one would - it would hardly seem significant, especially among sophisticates. They would perhaps smile and look away. No vulgar rubbernecking.’

  ‘How are we with the timing on this?’ Mott queried. ‘She was found shortly before 11.48 on Friday night, and rigor hadn’t begun to set in. We need to find the last person to see her on Friday evening. The previous day Hetty Chadwick would have cleaned at her house. Z, you’d better see her again. Also find out where Leila Knightley went on both days and who saw her.’

  Z was turning back pages in her notebook. ‘I looked through the fridge and freezer at Knollhurst,’ she said. ‘There was some salmon in its original dated wrapping. She - or another - went shopping at Tesco on the first. That was Thursday, the day before she was killed. It looked like stocking up for the weekend. Did anyone come across the till receipt? It should have on it the time of day she went through the check-out.’

  Mott nodded. ‘If not, and she wrote a cheque or used her Club Card, we can get the information from the store’s computers. But try the house first. Her receipt could be in the paper bin for recycling. And Beaumont, I want you to -’ Mott was interrupted by his pager, pulled it from a pocket, read it and grunted. ‘The Knightleys’ daughter is booked for a flight due in at Gatwick about noon.’

  ‘Right,’ Yeadings approved. ‘Angus, I’d like you to meet the daughter off her plane yourself and escort her home. With a WPC, of course. And I’ll take over at the house. It could be useful if I familiarise myself with the territory. So I’ll follow you across there, Z. We can have another look around before the daughter cramps our style.’

  He busied himself with a file on his desk, to avoid the DI’s pointed stare. ‘It’s important to get the child’s angle on the marriage,’ he claimed, ‘before she thinks to clam up.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Beaumont handle a teenager better?’

  ‘Possibly, though he’s not so used to girls. Comfort her. Act the big brother. Besides, you’re allocating Beaumont elsewhere. It leaves me idle. When Z has talked to Hetty Chadwick again we’ll have another look at the house, then you can take the girl there and settle her in. By that time her great-uncle should have arrived from Scotland.’

  ‘And me, Guv?’ Beaumont reminded Mott hopefully.

  ‘Hang in at the Shotters Wood end. They haven’t finished their fingertip search, and you’ll need to check on what’s already turned up. So breathe down Forensics’ necks. Also tell them I want every detail they can get out of those fibres. House carpet, car rugs, whatever.’

  Yeadings began to cle
ar his desktop. ‘I think that’s all for the moment. I needn’t stress how important the first forty-eight hours are in a murder investigation. This is the point where we mustn’t overlook any detail however apparently trivial. So good hunting.’

  He turned to Z. ‘We’ll take separate cars. Lead the way and I’ll follow.’

  At the house they found blue-and-white police tape closing off the driveway, with a constable stolidly repelling a handful of local sightseers. A brief mention on television news had left ‘the body of a woman’ anonymous; but closeness to Mardham, and the obvious scene-of-crime preparations, had sent tongues wildly wagging.

  They gained entry from the rear, using a key for the newly fitted lock. Already, by mid-morning, the house had an overheated staleness.

  ‘Better get doors and windows open,’ Yeadings advised. ‘Today’s likely to be another scorcher.’

  While Z walked down to the little flint and brick cottage to question the cleaner he made a leisurely tour of all the rooms, beginning upstairs, and then installed himself in the study, systematically emptying everything with latex-gloved hands from the old-fashioned roll-top desk. With the cat away this particular mouse had free access. The paperwork included credit card slips, insurance receipts, a batch of old cheque stubs bundled together in an elastic band, bank statements, various receipts from a builder-decorator, several unpaid bills, photocopies of the house deeds and a heap of unsorted correspondence and notices concerning its purchase.

  Nothing remarkable there to justify a superintendent taking over a DC’s routine duties. Yeadings might have found more excitement in accumulated paperwork on his own desk back at base. Presumably more sophisticated information would be filed in the computer against the adjoining wall. Unfortunately, Yeadings found, access was denied for want of a password.

  But weren’t all children computer wizards these days? Hopefully Yeadings entered ‘CHLOE’ but without result. So the girl was restricted to her own machine in her bedroom. How about her stepmother?