by J M Gregson
“She was not leading a life of which I approved. ‘If thy right hand scandalise thee, cut it off’. Tamsin knew the beliefs we lived by. I warned her. She chose to ignore me. I cut her off.” Again her lips set into that thin line of satisfaction at the staccato logic of her statements.
“I see. Do you know how your daughter was financing her lifestyle at the time of her death?”
“Should I?”
“Would it surprise you to know that we believe that at one point she was selling sexual favours to men to raise the money for her rent?”
The pale face twitched for the first time, but in anger at Lambert’s boldness rather than in any spasm of pain for her daughter. “It would not surprise me, because that is what she said she would be reduced to if I did not help her. I told her I was not open to threats of that or any other kind. The door was still open for her to come home if she renounced the devil and all his ways.”
And what a home, thought her interlocutors grimly. No wonder the daughter had not thought that an option. Lambert said, “We have to consider it might be one of the men who visited your daughter for sex who killed her on Wednesday night. I presume you are anxious that we should arrest the person who killed Tamsin?”
He expected outrage from her that the question should even be asked. He was disappointed. She said calmly, “Of course he must be caught. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is a vital part of our religion. I presume that it is central to any religion. We see many reforms as necessary in what passes for Christianity nowadays, but not to that commandment.” No mention of her daughter: no passionate declaration that her killer must be brought to justice; instead, Sarah Rennie had moved away from the particular case that should have been vital to her to enunciate a general principle of justice.
“Then perhaps you can tell us anything you know about men who may have been seeing her.”
“I know nothing. I wanted to know nothing. I told you, she had cut herself off from me by her conduct.”
“I see. And did your husband take the same view?”
“He is a Born Again Christian, as I am. He lives his life by the same beliefs as I, do. There was no room for compromise, for him as for me.”
“I see. Well, we shall need to speak to him, in due course. We shall see then if he knows any more about your daughter’s associates than you do.”
He had hoped to rile her, to ruffle this icy calm, this unremitting dismissal of all emotions. But she said calmly, with that hint of contempt for the ways of the world back in her voice, “You must do what you have to do. Arthur will not be able to help you.”
“That remains to be seen. It is surprising what people remember, in circumstances like these. Mrs Rennie, were you aware that your daughter was taking drugs?”
“I suspected it, when I saw her. She was already in danger of losing her job in the bookshop, and I knew from her eyes that she had been taking something. I am not so unversed in human behaviour as you might think, Superintendent Lambert. I was a nurse, until three years ago, when I determined to devote myself full-time to the service of the Lord.”
Lambert only just managed to prevent a shudder at the thought of the tender loving care patients might have expected from this moral Boadicea. “I see. Have you any ideas, then, about the source of her supply?”
“No. I warned her about the forces of evil. I did not care to know the details of them —not that Tamsin would have volunteered any information to me.”
Or to anyone else we’ve spoken to so far, thought Lambert glumly, picturing the very different faces of Jane King and young Tom Clarke. “By the time of her death, Tamsin was an addict, dependent upon a regular supply of heroin. It is possible that her death is in some way connected with this. We need to find out whatever we can about how Tamsin obtained and paid for her supplies of heroin. It is too late to protect her, but there will be many other young people at risk.”
“They make their own choice. They should know the difference between right and wrong and heed it. But I agree, the forces of evil should be opposed. I wish you luck in the war against them.”
Lambert was irritated enough to say, “Is there no room for weakness in your creed? People make mistakes; humanity is venal. People, especially young people, need help.”
“That is true enough. But if they are shown the paths of righteousness and choose not to follow them, there is no help that one can give. Arthur and I are the leaders of our little sect among the Born Again Christians. Tamsin’s harlotry was an abomination in the face of the Lord, a disgrace to us as leaders. We had no alternative but to cut her off.”
She spoke with real passion, and at last she had revealed emotion. It was her own pride in the image of herself that she had created which had been threatened by her daughter. Her anger stemmed from the damage the girl had threatened to the moral pinnacle her mother had built for herself.
Lambert said calmly, “Where were you on Wednesday night, Mrs Rennie?”
She stared back at him equally calmly. Her dark eyes registered the import of his question, but there was no fierce reaction to the idea that a mother should be asked to account for her own movements on the night of her daughter’s death. “I was in this house, Superintendent Lambert.”
“For the whole of the evening?”
“For the whole of the evening.”
“And is there anyone else who can confirm this for us?”
Perhaps there was the slightest hesitation before she answered. If there was, her eyes did not flicker, nor her expression alter. “My husband was here with me. For the whole of the evening.” There was the glimmer of an ironic smile on her repetition of the phrase.
But there was no passion: the only time she had revealed that was when she had spoken of her mission to spread the Word of the Lord, and of how her daughter had threatened that mission and her own place in it.
They wondered as they drove away from the stark modern house how far this clearly unbalanced woman would have gone in the defence of her image.
Nine
On Sunday evening, Sarah Rennie confronted her husband across the dinner table. “They’ll ask you where you were on Wednesday night, you know, Arthur.”
It was the first time they had spoken about her visit from the two senior CID men. He hadn’t broached the subject himself: he was finding it increasingly difficult to talk to Sarah about her dead daughter. He said, trying to sound as if it hardly mattered to him, “That must be when Tamsin was killed. They asked you to account for yourself at that time, did they?”
“Yes. They asked me about how we came to cut Tamsin off so completely and I told them about her ungodliness. It seemed straightforward enough to me. I expect it was to them, once I had explained.”
She was so sure of herself and her views that Arthur found it unnerving. He wished that she would occasionally show some sign of weakness or uncertainty in private. In the early days they had had conversations with each other, real exchanges of views and emotions. Now, though she supported him unswervingly in their public work, they never did. It was usually women who complained when the only real displays of personal emotion were in bed. Now, he felt himself willing her to follow up her wild and unrestrained coupling of the previous night with some tender and intimate words of recall, so that he could feel there was more between them than the raw cries of her orgasms.
Unnerved as usual by her certainty, he said awkwardly, “You were very certain that Tamsin was acting in a wicked way. You don’t think that might make the police think that you killed her, do you?”
“No. You and I saw how she was walking the ways prepared for her by Satan. I made the police see that too.”
“Yes. Well, I expect you did. Your conviction is one of the things which helps us to convince others, Sarah.” He put his hand on hers, pressed it gently, intertwined his fingers with hers. She gave him a quick smile, but he felt no answering pressure on his fingers. “So where did you tell them you were on Wednesday night?”
“I told them I was
here, for the whole of the evening.”
“And do you think they believed you?”
She looked at him, fond but slightly puzzled. She hadn’t really studied the policemen’s reactions to her answers very closely. It was a habit of hers, now, which Arthur knew, but she was scarcely conscious of herself. She was so used to proclaiming the self-evident truths of the Way of the Lord that she scarcely looked for reactions in her hearers. “Oh, yes, I think they believed me. They asked if anyone could confirm it, and I said you were here with me, for the whole of the evening.”
Arthur’s heart sang within him. Sarah didn’t seem to be troubled by untruths nowadays, once she was sure that the end warranted them. He hadn’t even needed to persuade her, to point out the wisdom of standing together against the forces of evil and suspicion in an ungodly world. The lie was hers now, not his.
All he would need to do would be to repeat it, in due course.
***
John Lambert had told the dead girl’s landlady, Jane King, how useful old ladies who spent their days observing the world from behind lace curtains could be to the police. At the time, he had not expected to find such a useful source of information in this case, but the diligent door-to-door enquiries by the uniformed police unearthed a watcher who was pure gold to the investigation.
This one, however, was male. As WDC Curtis, who was sent to interview him, became swiftly aware. Di Curtis was twenty-three, blonde, healthy, with a Junoesque figure, and well versed in the martial arts. Many a Saturday-night thug had underestimated Di’s strength and skills, and paid the penalty. She was delighted with her transfer to CID three months ago and determined to make a success of it. Dispatched to the Georgian house in Rosamund Street almost opposite the one where the ill-fated Tamsin Rennie had lived, with instructions to glean all possible information from a source who was anxious to help them, Di scented a chance to make a name for herself. She would be patient and thorough, taking all the time necessary to add significantly to the so far distressingly sparse information accruing on the computer about the dead girl and her associates.
She had expected the man to be older. Somehow you automatically assumed that people in wheelchairs would be either seriously handicapped or seriously decrepit. This man didn’t seem to be either, as he would shortly confirm. He ran his eyes appreciatively up and down her figure, approving the shapely calves, the skirt which revealed enough leg to stimulate his imagination, the slim waist, and the ample breasts beneath the light green sweater.
His head moved backwards and forwards as it reviewed his visitor’s curves, tracing an invisible arabesque of her figure in the air of the spacious room. Only when he had surveyed her contours and approved them did he come back to her face and look into her wary blue eyes with a wide, unmistakably lascivious smile.
“Better than a sweaty sergeant with big boots!” he said. He appeared to think this an excellent opening gambit.
You learned to assess people’s ages when you worked in the police. Di had found that difficult when she joined in her late teens, tending to put anyone between forty and seventy at around the same age, but she was better at it now. She put this man in his late thirties, reasonably attractive, well-nourished and healthy of face, despite his wheelchair. She said, “It must be awkward for you. Being on the first floor, I mean.”
“Oh, the wheelchair, you mean? That’s not permanent, m’dear. Compound fracture of the fibula, you see. Healing up nicely, they say, but it takes time. Road accident. Passenger in a car driven by my wife. Well, ex-wife. Cow.” He spoke the last word without any real rancour, as if he was stating a fact, without sullying his credentials as a feminist. “It’s only temporary, the wheelchair, and it’s just the leg that’s damaged. Everything else below the waist is in excellent working order, as they say!” He leered horribly. Di had a feeling that he was proud of his leer, for the simple but mistaken reason that he probably considered it an impish grin.
“I’m sure it is, Mr?”
“Parker. Bert Parker. You can call me Bert.” He thrust forth his hand, clasped her smaller white one between two strong paws, began a journey up her forearm with his fingers before it was forcibly withdrawn.
“Mr Parker,” she said firmly. “Not one of the Nosey Parkers, I suppose?” The joke was out before she knew what she was saying, an attempt to mitigate the brusqueness with which she had removed her arm, and she instantly regretted her familiarity. For though with a name like his it could scarcely be the first time he had met such a sally, he cackled inordinately, enjoying the intimacy of humour, believing it must surely mean that this pneumatic vision fancied him.
“Very good, that. Very good indeed. Do sit down, Inspector.”
“Detective Constable,” she said firmly, trying not to smile at this clumsy attempt at flattery. “DC Curtis. Here to take a statement from you.” She opened her notebook and sat down on the upright chair five feet in front of him, then realised too late that it afforded him a splendid view of her knees and thighs from his position in the wheelchair. He slumped a little lower in his chair, smiling seraphically. She wondered if she should take him on at his own game, crossing her knees with a careless flash of white gusset, a vision which would surely be more than he could handle.
But she was not that kind of girl. Her mother had told her that she was not.
Di got up and walked over to the larger window of the two in the wall facing the street. This was a quiet bywater of Hereford, though not far from the Cathedral and the town centre. The window commanded an excellent view of the houses opposite and of the steps descending to the door of 17a Rosamund Street, the basement flat where Tamsin Rennie had lived. “I believe you saw certain things from this window which may prove to be of use to us in what is now a murder investigation, Mr Parker.”
“I do hope so! I’d love to be of use to you, m’dear!”
The voice came unexpectedly from her side; the wheelchair having arrived with surprising speed and silence. At the same moment, an arm encircled her hips, fingers stroked exploringly around the top of her thigh, where in Bert Parker’s fevered imagination there would have been a suspender. A broken leg had clearly not dimmed his optimism.
Di Curtis slipped from the embracing arm as adroitly as it had encircled her. She had no fear; she was used to rejecting younger and more powerful advances than Nosey Parker’s. But she did have a dilemma. This aging Lothario had committed no offence to bring her here: he was a private citizen, helping the police of his own accord. If she sent him into a fit of the sulks with a vigorous rebuff, he might refuse to help with the investigation. A refusal might not be public-spirited, but there would be nothing illegal about it.
They didn’t tell you anything about this sort of problem on the training courses. And she dearly wanted to take back some useful information to the Murder Room. It was the first time she had been attached to the team of Superintendent John Lambert, a local CID legend who was held in appropriate awe by newly recruited DCs. She would have to retain the upper hand with Bert Parker — and as pleasantly as possible.
“How long have you been in your wheelchair, Mr Parker?”
“Over three months, now. They had to reset the bugger, you see. Bloody boring it is, too, stuck in here all day with nothing to watch but the telly and the street outside.”
“So you’ve seen most of what’s been happening in the street during that time?”
“Most of it, yes. Well, nearly all of it, if I’m honest, during the daylight hours. I’ve been glad it’s been summer, in that respect — bit more goes on during the evenings. And life’s been a bit of a drag. Until now, that is!” He made a swift grab again on the last phrase, proving that his upper limbs at least were unimpaired by his lack of exercise, but this time she was ready and avoided him with a matador’s agility and grace.
“As you know, we’re particularly interested in any comings and goings from the basement flat at number seventeen.”
“That’s what the uniformed bloke told me. Sai
d it might be important and the CID would be along. But I didn’t expect anything as luscious as you, Sergeant Curtis.” He tried his impish grin again; Di took the leer as a warning of further action and watched his hands with interest.
“It’s Detective Constable Curtis, Mr Parker. Tell me first of all what you saw of the dead girl, Tamsin Rennie.”
“Not a lot. Wouldn’t have minded seeing a lot more. Bit of all right she was, though she always seemed to go out in tatty jeans. Bit pale and slender, too, for my taste, not pink and healthy like you. I prefer my girls—”
“Was there a regular pattern to her comings and goings?”
He stopped, disappointed, with his hands in the air. They had begun to sketch an outline of his ideal woman, so that they flapped a little, like pheasants that had been shot, before they dropped heavily back into his lap. “Not really. She seemed to go out most nights, but not at any regular time. Didn’t see her much during the day. Saw other people coming to see her, though. Lucky buggers!”
“Tamsin Rennie wasn’t so lucky, was she?” Di determined to cool his ardour with the formality of her questioning. “Now, it’s important that you give me the fullest possible description of the people you saw going in and out of that basement flat, particularly any regular visitors. Do you think you can do that?”
“For you, m’dear, I can do anything.” He made another swift grab, but she was ready for him now; she caught him by the wrist and returned the hand whence it had come. He sighed and said slowly, “There was a young lad. He was much the most frequent, recently. He stayed overnight, quite often.” He brightened visibly. “Here, you don’t fancy coming back here for a bit of overnight surveillance, do you? I’ve got a lovely big double—”
“Would this be the young man?” Di produced her copy of the picture of Tom Clarke and held it in front of him, taking care to keep just clear of those octopus arms.
Parker studied the young profile staring upwards so fixedly and said, “That’s him all right! Poofy-looking young sod in that picture, isn’t he? But I reckon he was giving her one on a regular basis!” His hopeful gaze travelled up the length of Di Curtis’ long legs in her dark green skirt.