by Clare Curzon
Keying in ‘LEILA’ opened the system. The files on offer were headed ADDRESSES, BIRTHDAYS, DOMESTIC, EXPENSES, FAMILY, INVESTMENT, RECIPES; SHOP. Yeadings sat back and stared. Did this sum up the dead woman’s whole life?
So what had he expected? - other files labelled HOPES & FEARS; SECRETS; even LOVERS?
Mott would be putting some lowly nerd onto sifting all this information, but for now he could switch it off and return to what he was more familiar with. He started to replace bundles of paper in the roll-top desk in the order he had found them.
He hadn’t seen Z since she took selected items out to her car and locked them in the boot. That was some ten minutes ago. Now he called and she came in from the back garden. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘I thought I’d check. Nobody seems to have stuck a fork in the ground since the hot weather started. In fact it’s a bit neglected. Certainly nothing’s been buried there recently.’
‘And the cleaner?’
‘She was here all right. Leila let her in at 8.30 on Thursday morning. She’d overslept and was still in her night clothes.
She took a bath, dressed and went out about ten, telling Hetty to slam the door on leaving. She hasn’t a key of her own yet. Leila hadn’t returned when she left at 12.30.’
‘And she never saw Mrs Knightley or her car again after that?’
‘So she says.’
Yeadings cocked his head. ‘Is that a car now?’
Crossing the hall Z saw a taxi draw up beyond the gate. The girl who got out stared up at the constable guarding the open front door, and the vehicles drawn up alongside. The cab driver dropped her cases on the pavement and stared in his turn, barely checking as she handed over the money clutched ready in her hand.
It had to be Chloe. She had travelled alone, having somehow slipped past the escort Mott had laid on for her at Gatwick.
Superintendent Yeadings completed his paper-shuffling and closed Knightley’s desk. He listened to the murmur of voices as Z explained that her boss was waiting to meet her.
He went out into the hall and joined them. ‘Chloe, come in,’ he invited, nodding her into the study. He explained who he was. ‘We didn’t expect you quite so soon.’
She sat with a tote bag at her feet and a light raincoat over one arm, stiffly as if waiting for a train. Her freckled, heartshaped face was taut, framed by dark red hair that fell straight over her shoulder blades. She wore the teenage uniform of loose T-shirt, blue jeans and white trainers.
‘There was a vacant seat on an earlier flight to Heathrow, so I took that,’ she explained. She sounded almost aggressive.
‘How’s Leila?’
Her abruptness didn’t surprise either of them. Only twenty minutes after Mott had phoned the news to her grandmother, Chloë had called back asking the DC on duty for confirmation of her stepmother’s reported accident. He had given her this without details and she had demanded none.
It was as if she suspected Mott’s call was a hoax. Her voice, DC Silver had said, was tensely controlled. She looked the same now to Yeadings. He would have described her as petrified.
He approached her gently, Z seating herself in a corner behind him. ‘I’m very sorry indeed about your stepmother. I’m afraid that later I shall have to ask some questions which may sound insensitive, but you could help us in finding out quite what has happened.’
‘D’you mean why she ran off, or—’
Yeadings waited. When the girl didn’t come out with the alternative he risked being frank. There was a challenge in the way she stared at him, chin held high, that made him sure she detested evasions.
‘Or whether she could be a woman we found in Shotters Wood,’ he said gently.
Her breath came out in a barely suppressed hiss. ‘Why should she be? What would she be doing there? I thought you meant she’d run off and crashed her car. How badly hurt is she?’
‘I’m afraid she’s more than hurt, Chloë.’ The tone of his voice must surely save him from putting the whole truth into words just yet.
‘She’s dead! You mean she’s dead, don’t you? No! Leila, dead? She can’t be!’
Z went across to the child’s chair and reached out her arms but Chloë pushed her off. ‘Why does everyone lie to me? They just said that she was in an accident.’
‘Your grandmother wasn’t well enough to travel with you. We knew you’d be coming alone so we sent someone to meet you. Because you boarded an earlier flight it’s been left until now for you to get the full story.’
He went on talking, quietly on a level tone, giving her time to face the unbelievable.
But Chloë was suspicious of him. ‘Who else is here? Janey? Uncle Charles?’
‘You’ll see them soon. They’ve been touring in Scotland. We hoped they would arrive before you.’
The child closed her eyes and was silent a long moment. Yeadings was appalled by her stiff self-control. When she looked at him again it was with something like loathing in her eyes.
‘You - you aren’t going to make me see -? Identify her, I mean.’
‘That won’t be necessary. Once we trace your father he will be able to do that.’
‘You mean you don’t know where he is? He’ll be in Reading somewhere. Have you tried asking at the University? Someone must know where he’s holed up.’
The bitterness in her voice was unexpected. Nor was “holed up” quite the expression of a respectful daughter. She had a stepmother whom she’d suspected of “running off’. So where did her loyalties lie? If any.
‘We’re still making inquiries. Nobody seems to have seen him for a few days. We shall be advertising for him to come forward.’
She closed her eyes again the better to take this in. ‘He’s gone missing? But you haven’t called me home for that. They simply said Leila had been in an accident. Now you say she’s dead. But you don’t think he’s dead too. Or do you?’
Trying so hard to make sense of it, she stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. ‘You really do believe it’s Leila you’ve found. What makes you think that?’
‘We’re going by photographs in the house here. And we’ve examined records of dental work she had done in Mardham.’
The girl leaned forward in her chair, hands gripping the seat to either side of her tensed thighs. She looked transfixed.
He gave her a moment to absorb the clinical detail. A grown woman might have burst out with ‘Oh, my God!’ but not this disciplined child. Perhaps over-disciplined? She was doubting and testing every new fact. Yeadings felt for her; and there remained so much more for her to face.
‘But Leila’s really fit. There’s nothing wrong with her.
Granny said - an accident. How could she have an accident in Shotters Wood? There’s no road through. People don’t even ride horses there. Who was with her?’
‘We don’t know.’ He could answer only the last question. And then there was no avoiding the full brutal truth. ‘It wasn’t an accident, Chloe, and she wasn’t unwell.’
He watched her work out the truth on the level of logic. An intelligent girl, she arrived there by herself: not a natural death and not an accident, so what else remained?
‘Chloë, I have to tell you. It appears that someone attacked her. That is why we’re so concerned, and why we need you to help us find out everything we can.’
But still she wouldn’t believe. She had gone stubbornly into denial.
‘No!’ she ground out. ‘No, not Leila! Nobody could do that!’
Rosemary Zyczynski moved again towards her but the girl sprang up. ‘Don’t touch me! Leave me alone.’
Out in the hall there were voices. Z walked past her and went to see who had arrived. It was a sallow-faced young woman from Social Services accompanied by a great bear of a middle-aged man. She introduced him as her senior officer.
‘We can probably do with both of you,’ Z assured them as he seemed to hang back. ‘Chloë is through there with Superintendent Yeadings. She’s only just learned it was m
urder, so you’ll find she’s in shock. I’ll make some tea for us all.’
‘You haven’t been questioning her?’ the woman demanded sharply.
Her companion beat Z to the denial. ‘Don’t worry. Mike Yeadings knows better than that. We’ll give him a couple more minutes with her before we interrupt.’
When Z took in the tray with four cups and a tumbler of lemonade from the fridge she found Chloe sitting straight-backed and pale under her freckles, listening to the Boss. ‘Visitors?’ he asked, looking round.
Z nodded. ‘Social Services.’
‘I won’t see anybody,’ the girl said fiercely.
‘We are obliged to have someone here,’ Yeadings said calmly, ‘to represent your family.’
‘I’ll wait for Uncle Charles. And Janey. They’re written into Leila’s will, in loco parentis in case anything happened.’ The Latin came out in a brittle, adult voice. She was trying so hard to command reality.
‘They should be arriving in London at any time now.’
‘Maybe they’re back. I’ll ring them.’ She went across to the phone on her father’s desk, turned away, took a deep breath, and while she began to dial Z let in the two social workers. They gave their names to Yeadings as Ms Maggie Martyn and George Claydon.
The double brrr of the dialling tone continued, clear to all in the room, until an amplified male voice took over, inviting a message to be left. ‘Oh no!’ Chloë cried, almost despairing. ‘Why is nobody there? Uncle Charles, it’s me. I need you. I need you, right now. Please, speak to me!’
Painful to witness as Yeadings found it, he had to leave her a free rein. That way she might feel she had some influence over events. And then, thank God, at last she broke down, standing there abandoned, still fiercely clutching the receiver while dry sobs racked her.
He went across and gently took it from her stiff fingers. ‘They’ll come. I know they’re on their way.’
I hope to God they do, Z told herself. Such wholesale desertion was unbearable.
Chloë refused the drink. ‘I’d be sick,’ she said shortly, exhausted by sobbing.
‘Can you tell us who your doctor is?’ Maggie Martyn asked.
‘I don’t need a doctor. We haven’t registered with one yet. We’ve only been here a few weeks.’
‘Is there someone from where you were before?’
‘Caversham,’ the girl said almost contemptuously. ‘And no there isn’t. I’ll wait till Uncle Charles and Janey come.’
Z looked meaningfully at Yeadings. Chloe needed to rest before they spoke to her further, but she couldn’t be left alone. ‘How about your nextdoor neighbours?’ Z asked, mainly to cover the Boss’s voice as he spoke quietly into his mobile phone across the room.
‘The Piggotts. I don’t know them.’ She seemed determined now to insist on isolation. Then impulsively, ‘Look, I have to phone Gran. She’ll be expecting me to. Only I don’t know how to … explain.’ Her head twisted in horror from side to side.
‘Can I help?’ Z offered.
‘Would you?’ It sounded breathless.
‘Give me her number and tell me what you want her to know.’
Chloe looked baffled. ‘Just that I’m here, I suppose. I’ve arrived. And thanks for having me.’
Less truculent, Yeadings noticed. This was progress of a kind, habitual good manners surfacing through the nightmare. But shock had prevented her seeing that some explanation was due. Mrs Knightley senior would demand to know what kind of accident Leila had suffered.
‘You can leave it with me. I’ll explain everything,’ Z told the girl. ‘What if she insists on coming over?’
‘She won’t. Gran doesn’t go anywhere now, she’s so arthritic. Don’t tell her - please don’t say there’s nobody here.’ At last there was a faint note of panic in her voice. ‘I - I think if you don’t mind I’ll go and lie down. Is that all right?’
‘Of course.’ Yeadings looked pointedly at the social workers. ‘Rosemary, help Chloe up with her luggage, will you?’
Z followed her. ‘Smart room,’ she commented as the girl wearily dropped her jeans and kicked her trainers under the bed. She turned back the bedcover and Chloe slid in, turning her back on the world.
‘Thanks’ hollowly, and still polite, the ingrained civility functioning at surface level whatever churned beneath.
Z drew the curtains to block out the brilliant midsummer light. She left Chloe lying flat and staring frozen-faced at the far wall.
‘This is appalling,’ the male social worker had burst out as the door shut behind them. ‘It’s absolutely essential to locate the father at once. She must have personal support.’
Yeadings caught the flicker in the woman’s eyes and saw she shared his misgivings. ‘We’re hopeful he’s not involved in the murder,’ he said quietly. ‘Either as a further victim or the killer. Chloë hasn’t asked for him and she assumed at first that her stepmother had ’run off’. We may find the marriage was far from a happy one.’
‘That’s all she needs at a time like this,’ wheezed George Claydon. ‘A dysfunctional family background.’
Charles Hadfield made his call to the house on his cellular phone. A background noise of slamming car doors and distant shouting reached Z - the typical scrimmage for taxis at a major railway station. Hadfield gave his estimated time of arrival as 1.20pm.
Z handed the receiver to the Boss who identified himself and added that Chloë had already arrived from France and was resting in her room.
‘Superintendent? Good, good.’ Yeadings’ rank gratified the man, as it should. Maybe he was familiar with police matters and knew that normally a sergeant or DI was the most he’d be meeting initially.
In for a penny, in for a pound, Yeadings told himself, replacing the receiver. Since he’d been more or less caught out abandoning his desk, he’d carry on and meet the main characters. Certainly until Mott managed to get back from Gatwick. Not that there was any hurry to inform him that Chloë had slipped through his net. When Uncle Charles put in an appearance would be soon enough for Z to ring the DI and call him in.
Chapter 12
The social workers having left, promising to keep in touch, Yeadings and Rosemary Zyczynski were examining the main bedroom when they heard the Hadfield pair arrive. While Z slid shut the doors of Knightley’s wardrobe her boss went to the head of the stairs and watched the dead woman’s uncle blunder through the open front door and head for the dining-room. There followed a chink of glass on glass and the man’s throat clearing.
A smaller, oddly dressed woman followed quietly, sighted Yeadings on the shadowed gallery, stopped short and stood looking up at him. He went down. Despite her cool stare the grey eyes were red-rimmed. She was mourning the dead woman. ‘Superintendent Yeadings?’
‘Yes. Chloë is resting. She’ll be relieved you’re here. She needs someone she can trust.’
The corners of the woman’s mouth quivered. ‘Doesn’t she think much of the police then?’
‘Not yet.’
She nodded, as if his reply had pleased her. ‘So her father’s still not available? We decided, if that was so, we’d move in. I had the luggage stacked outside in case you’re examining the house.’
‘We shall be sealing the main bedroom and study. Beyond that, I think we’ve seen all we need for the moment. When you feel ready I should like to ask you a few questions about the family.’
He was aware of her looking past him and then Charles Hadfield came up behind, a whisky tumbler in one hand. ‘Has Knightley not shown up yet?’ he demanded.
Yeadings turned and took him in: tall and heavily built but leaning on a hand-cut blackthorn. He had a large, squarish head with close-cropped white hair, strong features and startlingly blue eyes made more so by contrast with his ruddy cheeks. Pale skin above the eyes showed a red indentation made by a tight hat brim. The cream panama, pushed to the back of his head, made Yeadings think of a cricket umpire.
‘We’re still looking for the Profess
or,’ he said.
‘I see. So how can I help?’
‘By suggesting where else we should look. And particularly by telling us anything you know about your niece that could explain what she got herself caught up in.’
‘Caught up in,’ the man repeated. ‘So you don’t think this is a random killing? There’s method in it?’
Which was precisely what Yeadings did feel in his bones, but he’d no explanation for it as yet. ‘We have to cover every possibility, keep an open mind.’
‘Yes, yes.’ He sounded impatient at the cliché. ‘Leila was nobody’s fool, Superintendent. Yet I always felt …’
‘Yes?’
‘ …there was something of the innocent about her. Not that I’m that good a judge of women. Been deceived by them too often. You’d best ask Janey what she was really like. They seemed to have an understanding. If you want me I’ll be in the garden.’ At which he abruptly raised his hand with the stick to draw the panama back over his eyes, and limped off in the direction of the kitchen.
Their voices had reached Chloe who had been barely asleep. She came out on the landing and gave a sharp cry, ‘Janey!’ Then she was flying down, barefoot, with a cotton robe still undone, and was hugging the little woman in the long bunchy skirt.
Over the girl’s head Yeadings nodded towards the drawing-room. ‘I’ll give you a while together,’ he offered. Janey met his eyes briefly, her face screwed with distress, then the two moved off, their arms round each other.
It was a risk. He knew he could miss something vital passing between them. But this was no time to put on pressure.
He sat down on the third stair, resting elbows on knees, and was conscious of Z upstairs moving from the main bedroom into another. He guessed it was the one that Chloe had just come from. Good move on Z’s part. The child might have left something significant open to view. He went outside and ordered the constable on guard to fit a seal to the room Leila had presumably shared with her husband.