Wings over the Watcher

by Priscilla Masters

  He knew how he could approach it without being seen. He had done it before. It was not just Beatrice who could do this, take two, three steps, hiding from behind from a low slung branch, concealed by large leaves and dark shadows before waiting for a safe moment and advancing. Like the SAS or the Special Services. Watching. Stalking. Waiting for the right moment.

  He drew nearer, seeing them through the window. From the outside looking in.

  They were sitting at the table, drinking coffee. Feeling safe.

  His lip curled. How women loved to do this, waste time, gossiping, exchanging pleasantries and confidences, sharing flatteries which drew them nearer.

  He saw the WPC, neat in her dark uniform skirt, cross her legs, caught a glimpse of pale thigh above dark stocking and wondered. Did she love women too? The two of them certainly seemed to be hitting it off very nicely.

  He saw Corinne hold a tea-towel under the tap and dab her face with it. It must be throbbing. Good. He had no sympathy to waste for her.

  But time was marching forward and he had work to do. He must separate them. Even he could not deal with them both together.

  Joanna would punish herself afterwards, thinking that she had failed to protect both women.

  Until they are caught you have a killer on the loose, a person who has tasted blood. And like a man-eating lion, this memory has imprinted dangerously deep inside their brain.

  What has been done once can be done again. Second time around is easier.

  Inside The Firs WPC Bridget Anderton was refusing a fourth coffee with a laugh. “No thanks. No more coffee.” She giggled. “I’ll never get off the loo. Besides, I think coffee’s supposed to be bad for you, isn’t it?”

  Corinne gave the WPC a rueful laugh. “Everything’s bad for you in excess,” she said. “Sometimes I think doctors are absolute killjoys.”

  In the hallway outside the telephone rang.

  They looked at one another. Corinne stood up. “I’d better get it.”

  So she was gone. Only the WPC sat alone at the table, relaxed and off her guard. He took two steps forward and ducked behind a branch, still dripping with the recent rain. He was less than ten yards away from her and she couldn’t see him.

  “Who was it?”

  Corinne frowned. “No one was there,” she said. “I picked it up but no one spoke. I thought I heard someone breathing. Even some background noise but no one answered.”

  She had caught Bridget Anderton’s full attention.” What background noise?”

  Corinne considered. “Traffic,” she said, “I think.”

  “Did you dial 1471?”

  “Caller withheld their number.” Corinne looked only mildly concerned and sat down to consider. She had never really thought about Beatrice’s murder. Not the actual murder. There was no hint that another person could be in danger. In between the lines the papers had conveyed the opinion that it was a domestic crime. But now, in this very moment, alone with a WPC, in a large and rambling house, Corinne could sense that a killer was out there. And what had struck once could strike again.

  It suddenly seemed terribly important to learn. Who had killed Beatrice Pennington? Why had she died?

  She turned her attention back to the WPC. “Why are you here?”

  “To protect you.”

  “From whom?”

  But this, WPC Anderton could not answer.

  Back at the station the briefing was almost over. Paul Ruthin had stood up to go when Joanna called him back. “I want you to do something for me,” she said. “Dig the dirt up on Pete Angiotti. It’s no use your going into the PNC. I don’t believe there was a charge – not one that stuck anyway. Try here.” She gave him the name of the school. “Speak to whoever you can. I want to know how much of a danger this guy is.”

  Ruthin looked surprised but he took the paper and smiled. “Leave it with me,” he said.

  Joanna felt nothing but relief.

  Bridget Anderton picked up on the woman’s unease but she was an active, confident, fit policewoman. “Lock your door,” she advised. “You stay inside. I’m going to take a look around the garden.”

  She was making the mistake of believing she was not in danger, that no one could possibly wish her harm.

  She took her truncheon from her belt. Ready. Just in case.

  He grasped the knife in his hands and watched the policewoman step through the French windows, down onto the terrace, looking around her. He could feel her thoughts, searching him out. But he would find her. Not she him. He did not care what happened to him afterwards – as long as he got her.

  From the other side of the door Corinne turned the key, peering through the glass anxiously.

  He could almost swear they could both sense his nearness and his intent. It pleased him that they felt so threatened. In fact he was so pleased it was hard for him to resist rubbing his hands together. This stalking of prey brought the adrenaline to his system like no other action. He smiled.

  Policewomen are trained in self-defence. They are also trained to be observant. So when Bridget, from the corner of her eye, saw the changing light in the dark shadows of the trees she forced herself not to turn her head but tightened her grip on her truncheon, touched her pepper spray and moved forward, affecting a nonchalance which would have earned her a place in RADA.

  He stalked her quietly, moving two small steps to her one, keeping in the shade all the time.

  It was Corinne, peering through the window, who saw him and screamed.

  Outside Danny Hesketh-Brown’s car skidded to a halt.

  Threats quickly turn to farce.

  Hesketh-Brown charged through the trees.

  I have a knife. I am not afraid.

  Pete Angiotti turned to face him. Hesketh-Brown pulled him into an arm-lock. “Well,” he said. “What have we here?”

  “Any reason why I shouldn’t be in my own garden?”

  “We told you to keep away.”

  Angiotti took in the scene very quickly. Two police officers. He was outnumbered.

  “Prove it,” he challenged. “Prove any of it.”

  Bridget Anderton held out her hand. “Give me that,” she said. Angiotti lunged at her and Bridget fell, gasping.

  It is always the worst decision. Whether to apprehend your felon or help a colleague.

  Corinne Angiotti was at Bridget’s side, mobile in hand, dialling 999 and holding her hand over the wound in Bridget’s chest. The policewoman’s eyes rolled. Hesketh-Brown snapped the Quikuffs on and knelt on Pete Angiotti, the caution snarling from his lips and sounding a threat.

  Within minutes the garden was swarming with blue lights and men in uniform. An ambulance man snapped an oxygen mask on the WPC’s face.

  “Her lung is pierced,” Corinne said calmly. “She’ll need surgery.”

  Her husband gave her a look of pure venom and said nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Joanna took the questioning, she and Mike working together as they had now over the years.

  As they approached the interview room, she warned Korpanski. “No outbursts, Mike,” she said. “Make no assumptions.”

  His eyes blackened. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Just that,” she said quietly. “We’re not there yet.”

  Korpanski almost exploded. “What more does he have to do, Jo? He virtually killed Bridget. If Hesketh-Brown hadn’t arrived in the nick of time you would have had a double murder on your hands.”

  “It still doesn’t prove that he killed Beatrice Pennington.”

  Angiotti looked calm. Hands on table, eyes giving her a hard stare. “I was only in the garden,” he said. “It’s my garden. I can’t understand why your police officer grabbed me the way he did.”

  “You had a knife,” Joanna said.

  Angiotti gave her a hard stare.

  She didn’t understand. “You knew we were watching her. You knew you wouldn’t get away with it. We were waiting for you.”

  Angiotti
continued to stare at her and suddenly she understood how deep his hatred was. Yes – he had known he wouldn’t get away with it. In fact he had had no intention of escaping because he would have turned the knife on himself. Oddly enough this earned him some respect from her.

  “Bitch,” Angiotti snarled.

  She was still struggling to comprehend. “Why? When she’d done nothing?”

  Angiotti’s face was a mask. “Because,” he said and folded his arms.

  Korpanski’s face was like thunder. Joanna knew he was dying to punch Pete Angiotti right on the nose. She shot him a warning glance.

  She put her arms flat on the table. “You do understand we’re investigating a murder,” don’t you?”

  It was meant to ruffle the doctor’s husband. “You can’t pin anything on me,” he said.

  Joanna merely lifted her eyebrows. “A serious assault on a police officer? You call that nothing?”

  The knock at the door was a welcome diversion. Even better that it was Paul Ruthin.

  “I think you’ll be interested, Ma’am.”

  Joanna moved outside, closed the door behind her and kept a watchful eye on Korpanski.

  “Go on,” she prompted.

  “Pete Angiotti left under a cloud,” the PC said. “He was accused of assaulting a thirteen-year-old girl.”

  “Accused? Give me the circumstances.”

  “She’d been kept behind for bad behaviour. Her mother had signed a detention slip and the girl was there until five o’clock. It was November and very dark. When her mother picked her up the girl said Angiotti had ‘roughed her up’.”

  Joanna gave a deep sigh. “The girl could easily have made the allegation through spite – or just wanting to get her own back. I take it the allegations were later dropped?”

  “There were full investigations.”

  “And?”

  “There are two schools of thought,” Ruthin said, looking troubled. “Some thought Angiotti was a bit of a slime-ball. Others believed there was something behind the allegations. The investigations unearthed nothing concrete and Angiotti was reinstated. Not before there was a hoohah right through the school. It divided everyone.”

  “Anything more?”

  “Nothing concrete.”

  “Any rumours?” She glanced anxiously through the porthole window.

  Again Ruthin shook his head.

  “It’s just that I can’t see the connection.”

  “Except one thing. The girl claimed that at one point Angiotti put his hands around her neck.”

  “Really?”

  “She said he lost his temper with her when she cheeked him.”

  “Now that is interesting.”

  She re-entered the room. Korpanski was studiously watching Angiotti, dislike making his eyes shine.

  Angiotti was staring away from the Detective Sergeant, into the corner. His eyes flickered over her.

  “Well then, Pete,” she said. “We’ve heard a little story about you.”

  “I hope it was entertaining,” he responded sulkily.

  “An allegation that you tried to strangle a thirteen-year-old girl in your old school?”

  “It wasn’t true.”

  “So let’s get the real truth, Pete. You assaulted your wife and you knifed Bridget Anderton. It was attempted murder.”

  “No it wasn’t.”

  Joanna was close to losing her temper. “I don’t care what you bloody well call it. I call it attempted murder and that will be the charge we bring before the Crown Prosecution Service.”

  “It won’t stick,” he said.

  Joanna gave a deep sigh. “We’ll see,” she said. “And now the murder charge. Where were you on the morning of Wednesday June the 23rd?”

  “At school,” he said, “teaching.”

  “Your wife tells us that around the time that Beatrice Pennington went missing you were in the town, near the library.”

  Angiotti stared straight ahead and something inside Joanna went cold. She would not like to be Corinne at this moment.

  “You understand we’ll be searching your house, your car, for forensic evidence?”

  “You can search where you like, Inspector,” Angiotti said truculently. “You won’t find anything. I didn’t do it.”

  Joanna’s head was feeling muzzy. She felt confused because too many thoughts were flying through her head. She excused herself and left Korpanski to conduct the interview. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to think.

  She found Dawn Critchlow working in the main office and asked to see the statements again.

  Once inside her office she closed the door behind her and read through each statement very carefully then sat, alone, thinking. She sat down at her desk, trying out her new theory to see if it fitted all the facts.

  Fact one: Beatrice had appeared to bolt when Corinne Angiotti had tried to speak to her when she should have welcomed contact with the object of her love.

  Fact two: Pennington’s words, “What have they done to you?”

  Fact three: Beatrice’s flashy dress, guaranteed to be noticed, almost drawing attention to herself.

  Fact four: she had worn a cycling helmet for that last, fateful journey which was also out of character.

  Fact five: the fact that both husbands had been aware of the existence of the letters and therefore the relationship between the two women.

  And gradually a picture began to emerge.

  She felt herself smile. So that had been it.

  It fitted.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She called Korpanski from the interview room. He looked irritated.

  “I was just getting somewhere,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Just listen to me for a minute, Mike. Not here. Let’s go somewhere more private.”

  She could feel his resentment heating her back as he followed her along the corridor towards their office. “OK.” She closed the door behind them and sat down opposite him.

  He waited, irritation all over his face.

  “I’ll ask you the same questions I’ve been asking myself. Then I’ll give you the answers.”

  “OK.”

  “Why was Beatrice wearing such a flashy dress that morning when she usually cycled in more practical clothes?”

  He regarded her steadily. “Possibly because she had an assignation.”

  “Why was she wearing a cycling helmet when she didn’t normally?”

  “Safety?”

  “And in the statements they say she was wearing sunglasses?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Why did she bolt when Corinne Angiotti tried to approach her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe because…OK.”

  “Why did Pennington say what have they done to you?”

  He shook his head.

  Again he shrugged, confused.

  “I’ll tell you why. Because the woman who cycled in the flowered dress into the library that morning wasn’t Beatrice. She was already dead.”

  “So who was it?”

  “Arthur Pennington.”

  “That’s not possible. One he was at work at the time when we know she was on her bike and two nobody could possibly mistake him for his wife. For a start she was plumper.”

  “He could have worn something bulky underneath the dress.”

  “But?”

  “Who looks at a cyclist? Particularly one in a helmet and sunglasses. People simply saw a woman on Beatrice’s bike wearing a flowery dress.”

  Korpanski smothered a smile. “I don’t think Arthur Pennington could have thought up such an idea.”

  “Not even fuelled by the fury with his wife?”

  Korpanski’s eyes were fixed on hers.

  “He knew about the letters and like the pedantic, unimaginative, unforgiving man he is he couldn’t hack it. He strangled her over breakfast that morning and left her body at home. He went to work to create his alibi then drove back. He dressed himself in his wife’s d
ress to make sure people remembered him when we started asking questions. He isn’t stupid. He would have known the way our minds work and that he would be prime suspect. He cycled in, assuming the other librarians would already be at work. He was just locking up the bike when horror of horrors Corinne Angiotti drives passed and tries to attract his attention by sounding her horn and manoeuvring in the road. By the time she’s pulled up he’s already bolted; my guess is to the area behind the iron staircase which is dark and unvisited. There he pulls off the dress, rolls his trouser legs down, takes off the helmet and glasses, probably bundling it into a carrier bag. Then he goes back to work.”

  Korpanski leaned right back in his chair. “It won’t wash, Jo. How did he get out of his office without the secretary seeing him? She’s like a guard dog.”

  “The fire door, Mike. He slipped out of the fire door, probably told his secretary not to disturb him – a tricky bit of work or something.”

  Korpanski sat up. “And evidence?”

  “We’ve got the bike,” she said. “Let’s look for DNA, a hair from his leg, prints on the handlebars. We get the cycling helmet – well – I bet you we find some of his hair. And then we already have Beatrice’s fashion statement. Unless he’s a cross-dresser his skin cells or hair shouldn’t be inside.”

  He stroked his chin. “And the murder scene?”

  “We’ve probably already got evidence. We’re just waiting for the results on his car to be matched.”

  Korpanski shook his head. “It could work,” he said. Then he smiled. “But the thought of Pennington wobbling along on his bike, dressed in his wife’s clothes. Well,” he said, “it doesn’t bear thinking about.”