Turning Nasty (Anna McColl Mystery Series Book 4)

by Penny Kline

  ‘Tomorrow at four-thirty then. I finish work at four only some days they want us to stay on. If I say I’ve an appointment with the doctor… ’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  As soon as I put the phone down Heather buzzed me to say Bill Hazeldean was on the line. Not another blast of verbal abuse?

  ‘Anna?’ He cleared his throat several times, as though what he was going to say stuck in his throat. ‘Sorry. I mean sorry about the cough. One of the penalties of being a schoolteacher. Surrounded by germs all day long.’ He paused, breathing hard. ‘Look, I think I owe you an apology. Ian overheard part of my phone call to you last night. As far as I can remember it’s the first time he’s shouted at me, really let rip, since he was five years old.’

  I started to say it was all right, I understood, all the usual placatory remarks, but he interrupted.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, think I’m ungrateful, for the way you’ve been helping Ian. It’s just — well, it’s difficult for me. Maggie and I — it was over.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’ No point in suggesting, even tactfully, that the fact that he and Maggie had split up might make her death even harder to bear. ‘If you ever feel like talking give me a ring. In the meantime I’ll carry on seeing Ian until he feels he wants to stop.’ The temptation to ask him to elaborate on his parting remark about Terry Curtis the previous evening was overwhelming. But any mention of it and he would only laugh it off, brush it aside as something quite unjustified, said in the heat of the moment.

  ‘You see Ian sometimes gives the wrong impression,’ he said quietly. ‘Appears tougher, more self-sufficient, than he actually is. Really he’s a very sensitive boy, always has been. Like his mother. Nothing like me.’

  Along with all the other things on my mind I was worried about Imogen Nash. There was something about her swings of mood, the loud laughter, followed soon after by the slumped body and expressionless face that signals serious depression, that made me fear she could go to desperate lengths to gain Jon Turle’s attention. His anxiety that he might be accused of seducing another patient had led him to take a hard line with her, treating her phone calls and letters with cold exasperation instead of letting her down gently. It was reasonable to assume that Imogen’s decision to come to see me was simply a way of convincing Jon that their professional relationship was at an end and in a month or two it would be safe to have a full-blown affair. Now that her plan had failed to work out the way she hoped she was desperately unhappy, and Jon had passed the responsibility for her on to me.

  But a few doubts remained. Had Jon been honest with me, or was it just possible that Imogen’s version was the true story? He had led her on, given the impression he felt the same way that she did, then panicked when news leaked out about a previous affair with a client.

  Imogen had an appointment to see me at the end of the week. I tried to push her out of my mind but it was no use, four whole days was too long to wait, after work I would go round to her flat in Cotham, tell her about my conversation with Jon and try to get the whole wretched business out into the open. She would be angry, upset, could even threaten to do something stupid, but at least on her home ground she might be less defensive, more prepared to listen.

  As I passed the office on my way back from lunch Heather rushed out, with a half-eaten sausage roll in her hand, and told me Superintendent Fry had phoned and could I return his call as soon as possible. A new development in his search for the arsonist? Or had he been talking to his superior officer, fixing up an interview to provide me with the opportunity to explain how useful a psychologist could be to the local CID. Thanks to recent bad publicity I would have to put in a good deal of groundwork, convincing him that bullying suspects was not what I had in mind, that I was thinking more along the lines of advising how particular people were likely to react to different methods of interrogation.

  When I finally got through to Howard it was a bit of a letdown. He had nothing to tell me, apart from the fact that more burning rags had been stuffed through letter boxes, this time houses belonging to two Asian families.

  ‘In Bishopston?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact it happened not too far from where you work, in the early hours of the morning. No one was injured and there was very little damage to the properties, just a few scorch marks and a burnt rug. In one house the fire failed to take a hold, in the other a smoke alarm went off and the woman, who lives there with her three children, came downstairs and managed to put it out herself.’

  ‘But the incidents back up your theory that the attack on Maggie Hazeldean was racially motivated?’

  ‘Seems very possible. Apparently a family from Sri Lanka lived in the house next to Dr Hazeldean’s. They moved out over a year ago, but their name’s still in the phone book.’

  ‘So that wraps things up?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He sounded tired, irritable. Adapting to living on his own again had hit him harder than he expected — or maybe it was just pressure of work. ‘I just thought you’d want to know about the new attacks,’ he said. ‘You seem to have connections with people in that area. If you hear anything that could be of help to us let me know. Oh, hang on, there was just one more thing.’

  There was always one more thing and he usually kept it until the moment before I rang off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You mentioned someone called Rod. Sergeant Whittle wondered if the name Rodney Johnson rang any bells? No one’s seen him for the last few months so we assumed he’d gone back to London. Not that he’s ever been charged with an actual offence but, well, put it this way: patient confidentiality’s all very well, but if someone’s got the wrong side of Rodney Johnson confidentiality’s a luxury they may prefer to forgo.’

  Imogen’s fiat was on the ground floor of a large house in Elmgrove Road. On the right of the heavy front door were four neatly printed cards in brass holders, one with its own bell, the others with arrows pointing to the side of the building. I rang the one marked ‘Nash/Bellinger’ and waited, standing close to the building, trying to keep out of the icy rain that was blowing straight at me and making my face feel stiff with cold.

  ‘Yes?’ A tall, dark girl in her early twenties stood in the doorway. The same one that I had seen at the car boot sale. She was dressed in black leggings and a baggy long-sleeved top. A row of bracelets jangled on her wrist and the silver hoops in her ears looked heavy enough to pull her lobes out of shape. She had an open purse in her hand and a bored, mildly exasperated expression on her face.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve lost the envelope, will this do?’ She held out two coins. ‘It’s all I’ve got on me at the moment.’

  I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. ‘I’m not collecting for anything. I wanted to talk to Imogen.’

  ‘What? Oh, sorry.’ She snapped the purse shut. ‘Imo’s out. You’re… ?’

  ‘Anna McColl. I don’t know if Imogen’s told you — ’

  ‘Oh.’ Her expression changed. ‘God, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t realize. Imo’s not here. Oh, God, I don’t know what to say. Look, it’s an awful cheek but would you mind awfully… ’ She stepped back, holding open the door, inviting me in. ‘I know we’ve never met but Imo’s told me about you. Are you sure you’ve got time? It won’t take very long.’

  Like so many houses in Bristol this one was large enough to accommodate two or three families but had once belonged to a single owner-occupier. A prosperous tea importer? A nineteenth-century wine merchant? In the mid-twentieth century it had been converted into self-contained flats. The entrances to the other floors were round the back, or perhaps it was like my place in Cliftonwood, with a cast-iron stairway up the side that doubled as a fire escape.

  Imogen’s flatmate led me into a large room to the right of the front door, with one window looking on to the road and another, smaller one with its view of the garden partially obscured by a large magnolia. The room was beautifully furnished, not at
all like my idea of a student flat, with five or six expensive-looking easy chairs, a thick fitted carpet and heavy blue velvet curtains.

  On one of the upholstered chairs a Mills & Boon lay face down, beside an open box of Maltesers. The girl glanced at the chair, gave a nervous laugh, then stuffed the book under a cushion. ‘What an idiot, thinking you were collecting for Christian Aid or something.’

  ‘You must be Rachel.’

  ‘Yes, that right, Imo’s mentioned me, then?’

  ‘Once or twice. Only that the two of you share a place.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked uneasy, as if she was regretting inviting me in. ‘Do sit down, if you’d like to. Usually I’m the one that’s out and Imo’s at home, watching television, or writing letters. I’ve never known anyone who wrote so many letters.’ She glanced at me, checking to see if her remark was something I would understand immediately. ‘You know about Jon? Yes, of course you must. The funny thing is, he’s nothing like the way Imo talks about him. It’s so absurd. She sees him as some kind of father-figure, someone who’s going to solve all her problems, make her feel safe.’

  ‘You’ve met him?’

  ‘Only once. He came round when Imo was ill. I mean, not ill exactly. She was in a bit of a state.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘When? Oh, not long ago. It was a Sunday. I remember telling her she shouldn’t phone him on a Sunday, but she’d managed to get his home number and… ’ She kept running her fingers through the curls on the top of her head. ‘The thing is, with Imo everything has to look all right, on the surface I mean. If she was fat she’d be one of those big jolly people. Only she’s not fat, or jolly. She keeps going as long as she possibly can, then she sort of collapses.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ I was becoming increasingly worried.

  ‘Oh, she’s all right, I think. She goes swimming on Wednesdays, for the exercise. Twenty lengths, there and back. She’s terrified of putting on weight. Have you met her parents? No, of course you haven’t. Her father’s a consultant — ear, nose and throat — and her mother works for an MP. They’re both terribly smart, especially her mother. She’s one of those tall, thin people with the kind of face that stays looking young for ever.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yes, sorry. You must be wondering what on earth… You see Imo and I both went to the same boarding school. Sometimes I stayed with her in the holidays. Her parents were never there so we could do whatever we liked which seemed fantastic at the time. It was so different from my family. I’ve got two brothers and a younger sister and my parents are fairly strict. I mean my mother would never have let us go round London on our own when we were only twelve.’

  ‘So you’ve known Imogen quite a long time.’

  ‘Oh, ages.’ Rachel moved away from her place by the mantelpiece and sat on the arm of a chair. ‘Actually she’s always been moody. No, I don’t mean bad-tempered. Up and down. Wildly happy or totally miserable. Her father’s really horrible to her. He wants her to be an accountant or a solicitor, or something, only she doesn’t think she’s up to it. That’s why she went to see Jon Turle.’

  ‘And you’re worried about her.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know. Lately she’s been different. Quiet, sort of silent. Sometimes I hear her crying in the night but when I ask her what’s wrong she won’t talk about it, just seems — well, I know it sounds funny but she looks really scared.’

  ‘Scared? Not just unhappy. You think she’s frightened of something?’

  She nodded, then turned away.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t really like talking about Imogen behind her back. No, I didn’t mean… ’ I lifted my hand to indicate there was no way I was criticizing her. ‘Only I am quite concerned about her. Did she and Jon see a lot of each other? I mean, did they go out in the evenings? Were they… ’

  ‘Lovers?’ Rachel spoke the word as if it was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. ‘I thought you knew. It’s all a fantasy. In Imo’s head.’

  ‘How can you be so certain?’

  ‘What?’ She picked up a heavy glass paperweight, lying on the coffee table in front of her. It had something inside it that looked like a giant mosquito. ‘Oh, I’m certain all right. When Imo first went to see him she didn’t even like him very much. Then she started saying how amazing he was, how he could see inside her brain.’ She sighed. ‘To tell you the truth I got a bit bored listening to her raving on about him. I mean people always fall in love with their therapists, don’t they? It’s part of the treatment.’

  ‘Is that what you told her?’

  She nodded. ‘More or less. I didn’t want her to think he felt the same way as she did. Sometimes if you really fancy someone you can’t help thinking they fancy you too. You don’t think she’d take an overdose or something?’

  ‘Is that what you’re afraid might happen?’ She stared at me, alarmed that I had failed to give her the reassurance she had wanted. ‘God, isn’t there something we can do? I mean, you could have her put in hospital, couldn’t you, if the worst came to the worst? I phoned Jon Turle once but he doesn’t want to know. In the beginning I really thought he was going to help, then there were all those rumours about him — and then that woman died in a fire.’ ‘What woman?’ I knew what was coming next but I wanted to hear about it from Rachel.

  ‘Some lecturer from the university. She was quite young, only in her thirties, and apparently it wasn’t an accident, someone deliberately — ’

  ‘How did it affect Imogen? She’s reading English, isn’t she? The woman who died was in another department altogether.’ Rachel responded as though I had accused her of speaking out of turn. ‘Look, I’m only going on what Imo told me. Someone said Jon and this woman were having an affair. Imo overheard some students talking about it.’

  ‘After the fire?’

  She nodded again. ‘No, I’m not sure. It could’ve been before. Imo was out when it happened, we both were, so we didn’t hear about it until the following day. Well, we wouldn’t have done anyway, I suppose, unless it was on the radio or something, only I usually get back quite late and go straight to bed.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Imogen — you said she’d gone out that evening. Oh, the two of you were together, were you?’

  ‘No. I mean… ’ Colour was seeping up her neck. ‘Oh, God, you don’t think… No, you couldn’t. Imogen would never do a thing like that.’

  *

  Owen had promised to come round at seven. There was no message on the answering machine, and when it reached a quarter to eight and there was still no sign of him I began to think he must have muddled up the day. I could hardly blame him. It would have been better to stick to seeing each other the same evenings each week, but I was the one who had vetoed this suggestion. Why? To hang on to the feeling that I was in control of the relationship? What kind of a relationship was it if each meeting had to be arranged, almost like a first date?

  I heard his key in the lock and surprised myself when a warm sensation of relief ran through my body. No arguments or recriminations. No interrogation about why he was so late and hadn’t even bothered to phone. When I greeted him he raised his eyebrows in mock amazement, then pulled free and held me at arm’s length.

  ‘Bill Hazeldean’s in hospital,’ he said, putting his hand up to smooth back my hair. ‘He was knocked off his bike up near Durdham Down. I think it’s serious.’

  ‘When? When did it happen?’ What difference did it make when the accident had taken place? But you have to start somewhere.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He strolled into the bedroom, threw his coat on a chair and sat down to take off his shoes. ‘About six, as far as I could gather. Apparently he’s taken up cycling, as a way of relaxing after a day at school.’

  ‘It’s starting to get dark by then. In any case, I’d have thought he’d be quite tired enough by the time he gets home. He’s not in intensive care, is he? It’s not that bad? What’s
happened to Ian?’

  ‘Terry and Grace offered to have him sleep at their house but he said he preferred to stay where he was.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘Grace is going round to make sure he’s all right. If you like you could ring Terry later, find out what the doctors said.’

  He was trying to dissuade me from visiting the house in Henbury. He was probably right. Better to let Grace sort things out. My job was to help Ian come to terms with the death of his mother, not turn myself into a substitute parent the first time something else in his life went wrong.

  Owen was lying on the bed. One of his toenails poked through a hole in his sock. He closed his eyes, reaching out an arm to pull me down beside him. ‘Look, there’s nothing we can do just now. Grace’ll know you’re worried. She’ll phone after she’s been to see Ian. She’s got your number.’ I struggled free of his grasp. ‘Terry told you about the accident, did he? Where were you? If it only happened at six — ’

  ‘I met him in the library. He was searching for a couple of students he’d asked round for a meal, wanted to put them off in case he had to go to the hospital. After that we went for a quick drink. That’s why I was late. He seemed a bit shaken up.’

  ‘Were there head injuries?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. If he has any sense he’d have been wearing a crash helmet. Look, I know these things are supposed to take away your appetite but I’m starving. Any possibility of something to eat?’

  I stood up and moved towards the door. ‘Bill phoned me earlier on, I think it was about five-forty. I thought he was ringing from school but he must have been at home, preparing to go out on his bike. Oh, God, he’s not going to die?’

  Owen sat up, swinging his legs to the floor. ‘Look, I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘But what did the hospital say?’

  He shrugged. ‘You know what they’re like, giving out ambiguous, euphemistic statements, making the relatives feel worse than if they’d never asked.’