Murder on the Heath: a suave murder mystery with a great twist

by Sabina Manea

  Coddington was now visibly irked. He had crossed his arms defensively, and a tiny drop of sweat was forming on his receding hairline. DS Trinh smiled solicitously and carried on recording the interview in her notebook.

  ‘All the records of Connections Counselling are going to be disclosed to the police, so you can either tell us now, or we can call you back for a follow-up later. Your choice.’

  Coddington shuffled uneasily in the chair and took a resigned breath. He wiped the fully formed bead of sweat from his forehead and began.

  ‘OK. Guess I’ve got no choice then. Me and my wife, we were seeing Alec for marriage counselling. It’s not against the law, is it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Why did you stop seeing Mr Penney? Were you not pleased with the service you were getting?’

  George Coddington pursed his lips and broke eye contact. Despite keeping his arms clamped to his torso, two large sweat patches were creeping slowly but surely into view.

  ‘We were fine, me and Chantelle. Didn’t need to see him anymore,’ he finally blurted out in a hoarse voice.

  DS Trinh closed her notebook and placed her pen gently on top, precisely in the middle. As she fixed George Coddington with her grave, almond-shaped brown eyes, he stared back blankly, like cornered prey. A small, triumphant smile formed on her lips, which made him shrink even further into his chair. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and measured.

  ‘Mr Coddington, your wife was having an affair, wasn’t she? With Alec Penney? And it hadn’t been the first time she’d strayed. That’s why you were seeing him in the first place.’

  DCI Carliss turned around to his colleague. ‘Mr Coddington?’

  George Coddington was already pale by nature, but DS Trinh’s intervention had turned him ashen. He wiped his mouth with a trembling hand and grimaced.

  ‘How do you know this? I mean, it’s not true. Who’s been spreading these malicious rumours?’

  ‘There’s no point denying it, Mr Coddington,’ DS Trinh replied coolly. ‘You see, my mother used to do your wife’s nails. That little Vietnamese nail bar on Kentish Town Road, two doors down from the pound shop. You know what us women are like. We share our darkest secrets with our hairdressers and manicurists. And that’s why you went to see Alec Penney that evening. You’d found out he was sleeping with your wife.’

  ‘Must have made you see red, paying him to sort out your marriage, and instead he’s bedding your missus,’ said Carliss, leaning back into his chair with a satisfied smirk.

  Coddington rolled up his fists and banged loudly on the table. ‘Enough! Yeah, she was shagging him, fucking bastard. I wish I’d smashed his head in. Lord, I was ready to do it that night. I’d had a couple for Dutch courage, and I was going to give him a piece of my mind. I got there and didn’t even have the guts to go into his room. After all that bitch has put me through, I still love her.’

  All the while, his face was contorted with rage and pain.

  ‘So what time did you get there, and what exactly happened? Tell us with as much detail as you can, even if you don’t think it’s very important,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Must have been quarter past seven, maybe a bit after. That bird was sat at her desk, banging on about me not having an appointment. I ignored her and went through. Didn’t want her eavesdropping so I shut the door, I remember that. I stood in the corridor outside Alec’s room and racked my brains about what to do. In the end, I wasn’t up to it. I couldn’t look him in the eye and ask him why he’d broken up my marriage. Bloody coward that I am.’

  The policeman watched him intently. The man looked broken. ‘Did you hear anything from Mr Penney’s room? Was anyone in there with him?’

  ‘No, not a peep. I must have hung around for five minutes, maybe ten, then I left. The girl was still at her desk.’

  The detectives looked at each other, satisfied their job was done.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Coddington, you’ve been very helpful. We’ll get in touch if we need to follow up with anything. Don’t bother, we’ll see ourselves out.’

  As they got into the car, Carliss shot an admiring glance in DS Trinh’s direction.

  ‘Well done. I’m impressed with your research and your initiative. You had him right where you wanted him. So, your mum heard it straight from Chantelle Coddington, did she? And how did you think to ask her about it?’

  Cam Trinh looked very pleased with herself.

  ‘I remembered mum saying that she hears all sorts from clients – their life stories, in most cases. It’s like free therapy, isn’t it? A sympathetic ear and a mouth that won’t blab. I thought it’s worth a shot. I asked her if she knew Chantelle, seeing how the Coddingtons live five minutes away from the salon. I assumed a gangster’s moll wouldn’t be seen dead without her nails done.’

  ‘Well, DS Trinh, I think you’ve earned yourself a large coffee. I hear Selfridges is alright, if that suits you?’

  ‘I can manage that, boss.’ Cam smiled in anticipation.

  Chapter 19

  Max Penney’s address in Camden Town was a square, unremarkable nineteenth-century semi on Lewis Street, the kind of property that had recently become desirable despite its obvious limitations. This particular one didn’t look like it had been touched in years – the pastel blue paint on the cracked brickwork was peeling, lending it a desolate, neglected air.

  ‘Bit of a change from Mayfair, eh, Guv?’ remarked DS Trinh, newly invigorated by a triple shot coffee and a delicious salt beef sandwich on the ground floor of a certain upmarket department store on Oxford Street.

  ‘Yes, this Mr Penney isn’t exactly living it up, unlike his brother.’

  The inspector narrowly avoided a pile of pink binbags that had been unceremoniously dumped on the street corner. The stench emanating from them was unbearable – pink meant nappies, and unless you called the council to arrange a special collection, they’d be there for the foreseeable future.

  They rang the doorbell, unsure whether or not it was in working order, and waited. As the door opened, DCI Carliss found himself face to face with a carbon copy of the man they had found dead on the kitchenette floor in Well Walk.

  ‘Ah, Mr Penney. Detective Chief Inspector Carliss and Detective Sergeant Trinh of the Metropolitan Police. May we come in?’

  The man was dressed in scruffs – baggy grey tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that had seen better days. His hair was all messed up, and he hadn’t shaved for a few days. He had either been exercising or he was a slob, and the two detectives were about to find out.

  Inside, the house was an absolute tip. It didn’t help that the front door opened directly into the sitting room, with no hallway to act as a buffer. Every single inch of the evidently cheap, flat-pack furniture was covered in sheets of paper, some typed, some covered in wild scribbles. In the middle of the room was a lopsided desk weighed down by a computer and more paper. DCI Carliss looked at Max Penney, expecting an explanation for the chaos.

  ‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess. I’ve taken some work home with me. Today’s supposed to be my day off, but I’ve got something to finish up.’

  Max Penney spoke breathlessly, as if he’d been running a marathon. He was shifting from one leg to the other, like a child that needed the toilet, while managing to tap the floor furiously with his foot at the same time.

  ‘I can see you’re busy, so we won’t keep you long. We just wanted to go through the events of the evening when your brother was found at his offices. Routine, you see,’ said the inspector. ‘What is it you do, Mr Penney?’

  ‘I’m a psychiatrist. I used to work with Alec, actually, but recently I’ve gone back to practice.’ Max’s reply was rather more euphoric than imparting such unremarkable information would require. ‘Apologies, please sit.’

  He gestured to two chairs next to the desk that he proceeded to clear, throwing the reams of paper carelessly on the floor. As the detectives sat down gingerly, he remained standing, hands on hips, as if he was about to present an exer
cise class. Carliss and Trinh didn’t have to open their mouths before Max Penney launched into a loud, rambling monologue.

  ‘Me and Alec, we set up the business together. We’re twins, born three minutes apart. I’m the oldest, by three minutes, you see.’ He grinned broadly, gesticulating as he spoke. ‘And a good business it was too. We had a lot of well-to-do clients, and they liked the full service – you could buy yourself a lot more time than you got on the NHS, not that the kind of people who came to see us would even consider anything but private. We were there to listen for as long as they wanted to talk. And we were good at listening. We made a great team.’

  He paused to catch his breath. His heart must have been racing, for the speed at which the words were tumbling out.

  ‘Why did you leave Connections Counselling, Mr Penney?’

  Max Penney looked at DCI Carliss as if he had just clocked that he had company. There was a definite pause hanging in the air before his answer was eked out. ‘We just grew apart, I guess. I wanted to get back to my day job. I missed my patients. Nothing bad happened,’ he said guardedly.

  Carliss and Trinh exchanged a small disbelieving look.

  ‘You went to see your brother the evening he died. Why was that?’

  ‘Just to have a chat about the handover. I’d only been gone a couple of weeks, and there were a few patients – sorry, clients – that I thought needed to be followed up. Some of the people that come to see us just want a shoulder to cry on, but others have genuine mental issues. You need to be careful how you handle the latter, seeing that Alec isn’t – wasn’t – a psychiatrist, so he couldn’t prescribe or anything.’ Max Penney was pacing up and down the room, seemingly tidying his paperwork but in reality just moving it about senselessly.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened when you got there? What time you arrived, when you left, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Sure. I got there at seven. Said hi to Elsa and went straight in to see Alec. We chatted for about ten minutes or so, and then I left.’

  ‘And how did he seem? Was he well in himself? Anything troubling him?’

  ‘No, not that I could tell. He was fine.’ Max Penney blinked, and his eyes were glazed over, as if he were looking straight through the detectives.

  ‘Anything out of the ordinary in his study?’

  ‘No. Everything was like it’s always been.’

  The DCI scratched his chin. ‘OK, Mr Penney, thank you for your time. We’ll catch up with you later if we need anything else.’

  When they had got sufficiently far away from the house not to be heard, Cam Trinh broke the silence.

  ‘What an oddball, eh, boss?’

  ‘Yes, I’m not sure what his game is. Something definitely off about the man, but I can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘Really jumpy, wasn’t he? All that pacing around, like the Duracell bunny.’

  ‘Think he’s got something to hide?’

  ‘Maybe. We’ve only got his word as to what they talked about. Why would he leave a successful line of work to slave away in the state sector, unless he had a fall-out with his brother?’

  ‘There’s definitely more to this than meets the eye. It sure feels like we’re wading through thick mud once again with this case.’

  Chapter 20

  Despite its being a weekday, the Red Lion was buzzing. Becky could barely keep up with pouring the pints. Leila, the landlady, was hiding in her lair, not that she could do anything beyond drinking the bar dry and scaring the customers. She was notoriously unreliable, all sweetness one moment and raving mad the next. In her defence, she had some mitigating circumstances. Escaping from a particularly brutal Middle Eastern regime in the 1980s couldn’t have been a barrel of laughs, and the price she must have paid to get across the border didn’t bear thinking about.

  Fresh off the train from Grantham and keen to forget, Lucia had dumped her overnight bag under the bar stool and was sipping a well-earned glass of perfectly chilled Burgundy. DCI Carliss sat next to her with his usual pint of best bitter. As the inspector filled her in about what had happened in her absence, Lucia listened intently, a web of jumbled thoughts darting through her mind that she was struggling to make sense of. Some things were becoming clearer, and some were even more opaque than before.

  ‘So, let’s run through the whole evening again,’ she said. ‘Will Sherriff is the first to leave at five. Amanda Penney arrives at ten past six, argues with Alec in his study and leaves at six thirty-five. Roberta Musgrave arrives at six forty-five, argues with Alec through the study door, goes in, hears him in the kitchenette telling her to go away. She leaves at seven. As she’s leaving, Max Penney rocks up, goes into Alec’s study, talks to him, and leaves at ten past seven. Then George Coddington arrives at twenty past seven, paces around outside the study but changes his mind and leaves. Elsa Whittle leaves at seven thirty without seeing Alec. You realise all this palaver can only mean one thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carliss replied, sounding very chuffed with himself. ‘The last person to see Alec alive was Max. So it’s either Coddington or the Elsa girl that did him in.’

  Lucia rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘Yes, OK, if you take the simplistic view.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that? I know you like your murders woolly, but sometimes the right answer is the one staring right at you.’

  ‘I think it’s a bit more complicated than it looks. Let me phrase it another way. When was the last time Alec was seen alive by more than one person?’ Lucia asked.

  Carliss thought hard for a moment.

  ‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘When she left, Elsa didn’t see him. Before that, Coddington didn’t see him either. Max saw him. And before that, Roberta heard him but didn’t see him. So that leaves Amanda. When she arrived, Alec came out to greet her – so both she and Elsa saw him. What does this mean?’

  ‘Unless Amanda and Elsa are both lying, or even colluding, between six ten and six thirty-five was when Alec was last reliably seen alive.’

  ‘But that’s assuming Max Penney was lying when he said he spoke to Alec.’

  ‘I’m not assuming anything. I just think it’s worth paying him another visit, just to make sure we haven’t missed anything.’ A theory was starting to form, but she couldn’t be sure until she had seen the man herself.

  ‘OK, if you say so, boss,’ Carliss said, sighing in resignation and downing the remnants of his pint.

  As they sat at the bar engrossed in conversation, Lucia became aware that she was being stared at. As she turned around, to her horror, she saw Will looking straight at her from one of the tables by the window. He smiled and gave her a suggestive wink. She looked away as fast as she could, but not fast enough. The DCI had witnessed the whole exchange and was now fixing her with a quizzical look. She raised her hand to order another round of drinks when the policeman’s phone rang aggressively.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Can’t even have an evening off,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, Mrs Musgrave. What can I do for you?’ He listened for a good few minutes before pitching in. ‘Sure. Are you able to come to the station first thing tomorrow, say nine o’clock? Perfect. See you there.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Lucia was intrigued.

  ‘Odd. That was Roberta Musgrave. Said she’s at Alec Penney’s offices and she’s remembered something he said to her the evening he died. She doesn’t want to talk about it on the phone. I thought I heard her mention a bath, but I can’t be certain – she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.’

  Lucia looked at her watch – it was gone seven. ‘I wonder what she’s doing loitering around there at this hour.’

  * * *

  Later that evening, back at home in her flat, Lucia’s phone rang unexpectedly. It was Carliss.

  ‘Lucky we didn’t get too pissed. Roberta Musgrave’s just been found dead on the Heath. Stabbed. I’ll meet you there.’

  Chapter 21

  It was nearly eleven at night. A couple of old-fashioned streetlight
s glimmered pitifully just beyond the last house on the Vale of Health before it met East Heath Street. The flashing beacons of the two emergency vehicles, one police, one ambulance, bounced off the quiet terrace like erratic disco lights. A few residents had tentatively crept out of their front doors, only to be firmly ushered back in by the dutiful PCs. A small overgrown path leading onto Hampstead Heath had been cordoned off and covered with a forensic tent that disguised the horror of the scene. The body had been found by an elderly man taking out his dog for the final outing of the day.

  Lucia and Carliss stood in the middle of the road, now blocked off from any passing traffic. They’d both had their respective shots of caffeine in a frantic attempt to sober up for what was looking like a long night ahead. Mercifully, it was dry, though bitterly cold, and the wind cut like a sharp knife through their overcoats.

  ‘I’m surprised I’m still on my feet,’ said Lucia as she shivered through the numerous layers she had piled on before rushing out to jump into her boss’s car. Hypothermia and adrenaline wouldn’t have been a good mix. ‘It’s a bloodbath in there,’ she added.

  ‘Stabbed at least five times, though no murder weapon as yet, and nothing else visible to give us a clue about what kind of twisted animal did this.’

  Carliss had spoken to the woman only hours earlier, and she had sounded very much alive. How had it come to this, Lucia wondered.

  ‘Why was she dressed in gym kit? Fancy being out exercising at this time of night,’ said the policeman.

  ‘It’s not that unusual. Especially if she was stressed from whatever it was that she wanted to talk to you about.’

  The inspector didn’t strike Lucia as a man who looked kindly on exercise-related activities, not because he was unfit or out of shape, but simply because she couldn’t picture him in anything but his ratty chinos and jumper.

  DC Harding approached the two, rubbing his hands to warm them up.

  ‘Bad luck, Guv. Mugging gone wrong, that’s where my money is. Practically next to her house too. You never know around here, all these dark corners, no CCTV. Perfect place to get attacked.’