by Frank Smith
A burst of sound from Paget’s phone stopped her in mid-sentence. He was about to switch it off when he saw the text. Wordlessly, he held it out for Amanda to see the screen. It was from Grace, short and to the point.
We have a crime scene.
NINETEEN
‘Mind the rug,’ Grace warned as she guided Paget and Tregalles around the rolled-up rug to a spot in front of the fireplace. Both men were wearing disposable paper suits, headgear and footwear. ‘We still have much more work to do, but it looks as if you were right, Neil, and Justine did come back here, if she ever left. I believe this is where she died, so we thought it best that you see for yourself.’ She nodded to Kirkpatrick. ‘Window’s still covered, so I’ll get the lights if you’d like to spray the area again,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Mantelpiece first, then the tiles and floor.’
‘As you can see,’ said Grace a few minutes later when the lights were back on, ‘someone has gone to a lot of trouble to clean up the bloodstains on the mantelpiece, the hearth tiles and the floor, but the luminol spray makes the patterns quite clear. So, when we put what we’ve found here, together with the description of the wound in the back of Justine’s head, we think the blow to the front of her head caused her to fall back and hit her head on the corner of the marble mantelpiece. She then fell forward on to the rug. But certainly not this rug, because we think the original rug was soaked in blood to the degree that it bled through to leave a stain on the floor. Bleach has been used to try to get rid of the bloodstains, but it takes a lot more than that to get rid of blood completely, so the original rug was replaced with this one. They did quite a good cleaning job on the hearth tiles because they’re glazed, but they couldn’t get rid of the blood absorbed into the grout between the tiles. And I suspect the bedspread has been changed for the same reason. We haven’t found any blood on the bedclothes, but they will be going in for further examination, and we’ll be looking at all the other sheets in the house as well. Of course, we don’t know that it is Justine Delgado’s blood until we have the lab report,’ Grace continued, ‘but it’s certainly a reasonable assumption. We’ve also taken material from the U-bend under the basin in the bathroom. There wasn’t much, just a few hairs and a bit of sludge stuck to the bottom of the U, but if someone washed their hands there, the lab will probably find enough to work with. We’ll be making a mould of the corner of the mantelpiece, and once we have that, we can make a plaster cast, and see if it matches the shape of the wound in the back of Justine’s head.’
Tregalles was looking puzzled. ‘Bleach has a strong smell,’ he said, ‘but I don’t remember smelling it when we were in here the day Mrs Lorrimer reported Justine missing.’ He closed his eyes, trying to recall the scene. ‘I’m sure I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I mean, it would have been a dead giveaway, wouldn’t it? And Molly never said anything, either. As I remember, it smelled pretty much like it does now; maybe a bit stronger. A perfume of some sort.’
‘It’s lavender,’ Grace told him. ‘It’s quite faint now, but if it was introduced into the room just before you arrived, it would have been strong enough to cover the smell of two-day-old bleach followed by soap and water. There’s a bottle of lavender-scented spray in the bathroom. It’s been opened and partly used, but there are no prints on the bottle. Justine could have wiped it clean herself, of course, but I thought it worth mentioning, especially as I couldn’t detect any smell of lavender in her clothing in the wardrobe or in her underclothes in the drawers.’
‘We can ask her friend, Maria, if Justine liked lavender,’ Tregalles said.
Even Chief Superintendent Brock would find it hard to argue that this was the work of some stranger who had wandered in off the street, thought Paget as he looked around the room. ‘How long do you think it would take to clean up after Justine was killed?’ he asked.
Grace looked at Kirkpatrick. ‘Two, three hours, perhaps?’
‘More,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘unless they had a clean-up squad. This whole area between the bed and the fireplace has been scrubbed down. The girl’s prints are all over the rest of the room, together with a few as yet unidentified ones, which is pretty much what we would expect to find. But up at this end of the room, around the bed, we have no prints. Absolutely none. Everything has been wiped clean. This wasn’t done in haste; this was carried out methodically and carefully. They took their time.’
‘They?’ said Paget.
Kirkpatrick and Grace both nodded. ‘Apart from everything that had to be dealt with here,’ Kirkpatrick said, ‘there’s the matter of getting rid of the original rug and bedspread, and getting the body out of the house, and then down to the river, so I can’t see one person doing all that by him or herself.’
‘Have they found anything of interest in the classroom at the end of the corridor?’ asked Paget as he and Tregalles made their way to the door.
‘The only personal things they’ve found so far belong to Michael,’ said Grace. ‘Books, toys, Braille computer, that sort of thing, but just about everything belonging to Justine has to do with her work – records of what she has done with Michael. Absolutely nothing about her personal life.’
‘If she actually had one,’ Kirkpatrick put in.
‘Oh, she had one,’ Tregalles assured him. ‘There’s nothing much more personal than getting pregnant.’
Before leaving the room, Paget used his phone to take several pictures of the rug and the bedspread. Then, with one last look round, he and Tregalles left the room. Divesting themselves, in the corridor, of the disposable suits, they stuffed them into the bin bag provided by SOCO.
‘Gloomy old place, this,’ Tregalles observed as they made their way to the head of the stairs. ‘I wouldn’t fancy spending my days up here with no one to talk to except a boy who can’t speak. It can’t have been much of a life.’
They reached the top of the stairs and were about to descend when Paget motioned for Tregalles to stop and be quiet. In the entrance hall below them, Julia Lorrimer and a dark-haired man were standing with their heads almost touching as they talked. He was a big, solid-looking man, and he was speaking quietly, but Paget sensed an intensity in the words that made him curious. But what intrigued him even more was when the man slipped his hand around Julia’s back and drew her to him for a brief moment before she pushed him gently but firmly away. The man walked to the door, then paused before opening it. ‘You will let me know if anything changes, won’t you?’ he said.
‘Of course I will, Jim,’ she said briskly. ‘And do stop worrying. I’ll talk to Stephen when he gets back. Promise. Now, for heaven’s sake, go!’
‘Try to catch him and find out who he is and what he’s doing here,’ Paget said to Tregalles as they started down the stairs, ‘but don’t let on that we saw him with Mrs Lorrimer.’ He raised his voice. ‘Ah, there you are, Mrs Lorrimer,’ he called as she was about to leave the hall. ‘I wonder if I might have a word.’
Julia Lorrimer started to shake her head even before Paget had finished telling her that Justine Delgado had been killed in her own room.
‘That can’t be,’ she stated flatly. ‘I was in the kitchen, so I didn’t actually see her leave the house, but she spoke to me before she left, and I heard her go out. And Sebastian saw her leave as well.’
‘Nevertheless, there is more than sufficient physical evidence to suggest that Justine died in her room,’ said Paget, ‘and since you and your son, Sebastian, were, as far as we know, the only two adults in the house at the time, I need to ask you some questions.’ He glanced around the hall. ‘Perhaps somewhere more private?’
Julia Lorrimer eyed him coldly for a long moment, then looked down the corridor leading to the kitchen at the far end. The door was open, and they could hear the sound of someone moving around. ‘I think the veranda might be best,’ she said, moving towards the door, ‘but I don’t know what I can tell you.’
There were rattan chairs with colourful cushions on the veranda, but Julia chose
to stand at the rail. Although the sky was clear, the veranda was in shadow, and there was a chill in the air, but Julia didn’t seem to mind. She turned to rest her back against one of the pillars and said, ‘Well, Chief Inspector?’
‘When you first reported Justine missing, you said that you and Mr Lorrimer had been into Justine’s room on Easter Monday to see if you could find anything that might tell you where she’d gone. Do you recall what time that was, and whether this rug was on the floor then?’ He brought up a picture of the rug on the screen of his phone and showed it to her.
Julia peered at it, then shot him a quizzical look. ‘Yes, it was,’ she said, ‘and it’s funny you should mention it, because it’s not the original rug, and I was surprised to see that Justine had changed it. Not that she didn’t have every right to do so, of course. I told her at the very beginning that, if she needed anything in the way of furniture for her room, she was welcome to take what she wanted from the storage room up there, so I suppose she must have swapped it with the one she had. As for the time I went into her room, I thought Justine had overslept – she was usually up by six thirty – so when she hadn’t appeared by eight, I went up and knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, I poked my head inside. When I saw that her bed hadn’t been slept in, I called Stephen, and we looked around to see if there was anything that might tell us where she had gone. We were worried about her, because she’s always been so good in letting us know if she was going to be late, or if plans had changed, and she’d never stayed out overnight before.’
‘You say Justine must have swapped rugs,’ said Paget. ‘Do you have any idea what happened to the original rug? We will be searching the house and grounds, of course, but I thought you might know? According to what we’ve been told, Justine was a very responsible person, so it seems unlikely that she would have thrown it away without talking to you first.’
Julia shook her head emphatically. ‘It’s not as if that old rug was worth anything,’ she said, ‘but you’re quite right: Justine wouldn’t do that without asking me … unless, of course, she spoke to Stephen about it and he forgot to mention it. That’s probably it. I can ask him if you think it’s important, although, to be honest, I don’t see what it is you’re driving at.’
Ignoring the implied question, Paget said, ‘Apart from Easter Monday, when was the last time you were in Justine’s room?’
Frowning, Julia shook her head slowly. ‘I really can’t remember,’ she said. ‘Sometime last year, I suppose. It wasn’t long after she came to us.’
‘Really?’ said Paget. ‘Surely there must have been other times?’
Julia smiled and shook her head. ‘I don’t think you quite understand the arrangement, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘Once we had satisfied ourselves that Justine was the right nanny and teacher for Michael, we quite literally gave her the run of the south wing up there. The other bedrooms are never used, so she was free to treat everything on that floor as her own. Which she did, and I was grateful for it, because it relieved me from having to bother with it. Betty – that’s Betty Jacobs, our daily – can’t climb stairs, so I look after our bedrooms and everything in the north wing, and I was quite happy to leave the rest to Justine. In addition to looking after Michael’s needs, she did whatever housekeeping was necessary, including the usual dusting, hoovering, the washing and ironing of her own and Michael’s clothes, sheets, pillowcases and things like that. She was well paid, but we felt it was money well spent, and she was grateful because she was sending money back to Manila to help pay for her grandfather’s care there. We had access to the classroom and Michael’s room, of course, and we could go up there whenever we wished to discuss Michael’s progress and see how he was getting along. But Justine’s room was her own, so we had no reason to be in there.’
‘So you have no idea when that rug was changed, or what happened to the original one, Mrs Lorrimer?’
‘I thought I had made that clear,’ she said, clearly annoyed by the question. ‘And I don’t understand what is so important about an old rug?’
‘It’s just that I’m having a problem matching what you are telling me with the evidence in Justine’s room,’ said Paget. ‘You see, bloodstains were found in various parts of the room, including an area on the floor under the rug. Yet there were no stains on the rug itself, which suggests that the rug and, quite possibly, the bedspread were changed after Justine was killed. And if that’s the case, then Justine must have been in her room when you went up to wake Michael on Sunday morning. Are you quite sure you didn’t see or hear anything that may not have meant anything at the time, but might be of significance now?’
Julia shook her head. ‘It’s simply not possible,’ she declared. ‘I don’t care what your evidence says, it has to be wrong. And if you are suggesting that I had something to do with Justine’s death, you are also wrong.’
Julia Lorrimer pulled the cardigan draped around her shoulders closer to her as if suddenly cold. Shaking her head as if confused or bewildered, she moved away from the veranda rail and sat down in one of the chairs. Paget moved another chair into position and sat down to face her.
‘Now look, Chief Inspector,’ she said carefully, ‘I am as keen to find out who did this to Justine as you are, but I find the implication that she was killed in her room, while I was in the house, not only ridiculous but impossible. As I told you when I reported her missing, Justine left the house around twenty minutes to eight. I went up to get Michael a few minutes after that – maybe ten minutes to eight. I was up there for about ten minutes or so helping Michael get washed and dressed, then we went downstairs. Sebastian can verify that, because he was coming up from the gym when we were going down. I gave Michael his breakfast, then took him over to Tilly’s about eight thirty or quarter to nine – I’m not sure exactly, but Tilly will probably remember. I came back to change and get ready for church before Stephen arrived. Sebastian came downstairs just as I got back, so I told him he’d have to get his own breakfast, but he said he was going to meet Jim Bradley for breakfast before going off into the country somewhere. He left and I did a quick tidy-up in the kitchen before going up to get changed. Stephen arrived, and we left shortly afterwards for church. So, if you’re looking at me as a suspect, I’m afraid you’ll have to think again, Chief Inspector, because there simply wasn’t time.’
Julia placed both hands on the arm of the chair as if about to rise.
‘Just one question before you go,’ said Paget. ‘How long were you out of the house that morning?’
Julia thought for a moment. ‘We left here about ten minutes to ten, and it must have been close to twelve thirty by the time we got back here.’ Julia glanced at her watch and got to her feet. ‘And that, I’m afraid, is all the time I can spare,’ she concluded. ‘With Stephen away trying to get Michael settled, and all that’s going on in the house, Sebastian has been doing his best to cope with things in the office, but much of what we do here is new to him, so I need to be there.’
‘In that case, I’ll come with you,’ Paget said, falling in step beside her, ‘because I need to talk to your son as well. And since both you and Mr Lorrimer were in Justine’s room on Easter Monday, I’ll need you both to come down to Charter Lane to give statements, and we can take your fingerprints and DNA swabs for elimination purposes at the same time. Tomorrow will be soon enough.’
‘We can use Jim’s office,’ Sebastian Mills said as he led the way into a vacant office and closed the door. ‘He just left and I don’t expect he’ll be back today.’
‘Jim …?’ Paget queried. ‘Was that the man I saw leaving a few minutes ago. Tall, sturdy-looking chap, dark hair, middle-aged?’
‘Jim Bradley,’ Sebastian said. ‘I think he started out as Stephen’s campaign manager, originally, but he can turn his hand to anything – fundraising, programme arranger, speech writer, you name it.’
Sebastian stood to one side and waved Paget towards the desk. ‘I suppose, if I’m to be interrogated,’ he sa
id flippantly, ‘then you should have the chair behind the desk and I should take the suspect’s chair on this side. Isn’t that how it works, Chief Inspector?’
‘Do you consider yourself a suspect?’ asked Paget as he sat down behind the desk.
Sebastian settled comfortably into one of the chairs and stretched his long legs out in front of him. ‘According to my mother, we both are, although I think you could be making a mistake if you’ve dismissed Michael as a suspect. He can be pretty violent at times, you know.’
Paget eyed Sebastian dispassionately for a long moment. ‘Suspect or not,’ he said coldly, ‘the last thing I need when investigating the brutal murder of a young woman is snide and flippant remarks. Any more of them and we will continue this conversation in Charter Lane under caution. Is that clear, Mr Mills?’
Sebastian made a face. ‘I didn’t mean …’ he began truculently, then changed his tone when he saw the expression on Paget’s face. ‘Sorry. It’s just that I’m a bit nervous about all this. Not that I’ve got anything to hide,’ he added quickly. ‘It’s just the idea of being interviewed about what I was doing when Justine was, well …’ He took a deep breath and straightened himself up. ‘What do you want to know?’
In fact, Sebastian didn’t have much to tell. He stuck to his story of seeing Justine from his bedroom window as she went through the gate, but could add no details beyond those he had given to Molly Forsythe. He said he’d spent about half an hour in the gym, then corrected himself, saying it was probably more like twenty minutes because he had a bit of a hangover from drinking in the pub the night before. After showering, he said he got dressed, then left the house a few minutes before nine. ‘And that’s it,’ he concluded. ‘I was out all day and didn’t get back till late Sunday evening.’