Frozen

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Megan had only the barest grasp of the language – a legacy of the brief visits from Granny Pezzotti, her mother’s mother – but there was one word that leapt out at her: CARABINIERI. The Italian police.

  She asked the SOCO if she could remove the magazine from its bag. It was clear from the pictures inside that this was some sort of internal publication for members of the Italian police force. What was Franco Rossi doing with a copy of it? She looked at the date on the cover. It was published last year.

  ‘Any idea how long he’d been living here?’ Megan asked the SOCO.

  The woman looked up from the cardboard box of CDs she was carrying across the room. ‘At least five years – maybe longer. We found a pile of old council tax statements in the kitchen drawer.’

  Megan replaced the magazine in its bag. ‘Have you found an address book, diary, passport, anything like that?’

  ‘No. Whoever killed him made sure he didn’t leave anything like that around.’

  ‘And no-one’s reported him missing?’

  The woman shook her head.

  Megan stepped out of the room and made her way up the stairs. Crossing the landing she glanced into one of the bedrooms. She tensed when she saw the bed. It was the one in the Polaroid photograph. She realised she was probably in the exact spot the killer had stood when he took it.

  The SOCOs had not yet started on this room and Megan crossed from one duckboard to another, her eyes darting this way and that. The wallpaper looked as if it hadn’t been changed in thirty years. It was a brash, abstract design in orange, brown and yellow. She turned to the window and shuddered. There, at the end of the snow-covered garden, was the shed.

  The slanting rays of the setting sun lit up the door as she walked towards it. Amongst the jumble of tools on the workbench inside she could see an axe in a scenes-of-crime bag.

  How long had Maria Fellowes lain in that shed before Franco dumped her in the skip at BTV? If she was murdered on the night she disappeared, it would have been three days. Why had the body been hidden away like that? It certainly wasn’t consistent with the other murders.

  She began asking herself if there had been some ulterior motive. What would the killer have gained by telling Franco to wait three whole days before disposing of the body?

  ‘Doctor Rhys!’

  Megan turned to see the woman SOCO she had spoken to earlier leaning out of the back door of the house.

  ‘Something here you might be interested in.’

  Megan hurried back towards the house. ‘What is it?’ she said, following her into the kitchen.

  ‘This.’ The SOCO picked something bright and shiny from the table and put it into Megan’s gloved hand. It was a large, gold wedding ring. A man’s wedding ring.

  ‘We found it in one of the cupboards. Look inside.’

  Megan held it between her finger and thumb, angling it so that the inside of the gold band caught the light. Alongside the hallmark was an inscription. Robert and Helen, married 2.7.94, St. Stephen’s. As Megan stared at the graceful italic engraving her stomach began to churn.

  ‘It’s Rob Donalsen’s wedding ring,’ the SOCO said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Megan was unable to take her eyes off the names on the ring.

  ‘As sure as I can be,’ the woman replied. ‘I was at the wedding.’

  *

  It was getting dark as Megan drove away. She sped through the deserted streets of the red light district, feeling a sense of relief when she hit the wide road of post-war semis that led to less dangerous territory. Only superficially less dangerous, though, she thought grimly, as she turned a corner and pulled sharply to a halt outside Tina Jackson’s house.

  She needed time to think things out. The evidence against Rob Donalsen seemed overwhelming. From a dark corner of her mind, she could hear Leverton’s sneering voice. How could Rob Donalsen’s wedding ring have got into Franco Rossi’s house if he was not the killer? There had to be some explanation.

  Megan thought about the conversation she and Leverton had had with Samantha at Leamington police station. The girl had referred to Donalsen as ‘that dope head’. Had she seen him at Franco’s house buying cannabis? Could the ring have slipped off his finger then?

  No, Megan thought with a sinking feeling, it didn’t make sense. If Franco was supplying Donalsen with drugs, it would be ridiculous to believe he had any fear of being arrested for pimping. There would be no reason for him to have ferried girls like Natalie to different areas of the West Midlands to do their soliciting, as she knew he had done.

  So how had Samantha known Donalsen took dope then? Perhaps it was common knowledge to the women on the beat. After all, she reasoned, Eileen Bunce seemed to have known all about his liaisons with prostitutes. Word probably travelled fast.

  Megan started up the engine, a look of determination on her face. What if someone had planted that ring in Franco’s house? What if the real killer had decided to set Rob Donalsen up? He was separated, so there was a good chance he’d discarded the wedding ring. She had to find out who could have got hold of it.

  Megan pulled over a couple of times to look at her street map. Leverton had been driving when they went to Helen Donalsen’s house and it wasn’t in an area of Birmingham she knew.

  In the end, it was the snowman that told her she was in the right road. The woolly cap on its head had shifted to a jaunty angle and someone had stuffed a beer can in its pebble mouth.

  The dappled light of Helen Donalsen’s Christmas tree shone through the curtained window of her front room, but there was no reply when Megan rang the bell. She waited on the doorstep for a couple of minutes and then got back into the car, wondering what to do.

  It was pointless hanging around. Helen had probably gone to spend Christmas Eve somewhere else, leaving the lights on to deter burglars. Megan wished she had the woman’s telephone number. She tried directory enquiries but it was unlisted. Bloody typical, she thought. Reaching into her bag, she fished out a pen and notebook.

  She worded the note carefully, saying simply that she needed to speak to Helen urgently and giving the telephone number of Ceri’s house and the cottage at Borth as well as her mobile number.

  She pushed it through the letter box, ringing the bell one last time as she did so. No reply. She sighed, watching her breath swirl smokily in the cold night air. There was nothing more she could do. Not tonight anyway. She shivered. Not from the cold, but from the thought of him. Nameless, faceless and deadly. He could be cruising the streets at this moment, looking for another victim.

  As she drove away, she grated the gearbox and swore loudly. She flicked on the radio in a half-hearted attempt to ease her frustration. Slade were belting out the chorus of Merry Christmas Everybody. ‘Merry Christmas,’ Megan muttered under her breath. ‘Merry bloody Christmas!’

  *

  ‘Auntie Megan! Look what Father Christmas brought me!’ Emily’s little body landed on the bed with a thump. Through bleary eyes, Megan could see a Barbie doll with improbably long red hair waving about a few inches from her face. It made her think of Eileen Bunce and in the few seconds it took to wake up properly, she found herself speculating what the woman might have looked like when she was young.

  ‘Come on! Wake up!’ Emily was tugging her arm. ‘I want you to open your presents.’

  Megan had never felt less like a celebration. She went through the motions, willing the phone to ring. Ceri and Neil both had hangovers and Gareth, her brother, arrived for lunch looking as if he’d also had one too many the night before. They all slumped in front of the TV when the meal was over. Emily had fallen asleep over her Christmas pudding and Joe was in his cot upstairs.

  Megan stared at the screen, not watching. Unable to concentrate on anything other than the identity of AB. She thought about Rob Donalsen and wondered what kind of Christmas he was having. There had been nothing on the news, so presumably he hadn’t been charged yet. Perhaps Leverton had decided to wait until the DNA results
came through. With the weight of evidence against the man, Leverton would have no trouble persuading a magistrate to extend the length of the time Donalsen could be held in custody.

  Megan thought about the forensic evidence. If Donalsen was innocent, that DNA test would clear him of any involvement with the murders of Natalie and Tina; the real killer must know that. And if he was simply out to frame Donalsen for the murder of Maria Fellowes, he would have to have known that Donalsen’s blood group was the same as his own, wouldn’t he?

  Was that really likely, Megan asked herself?

  She stared at the twisting tinsel on Ceri’s Christmas tree. No, she thought, he didn’t need to know Donalsen’s blood group. That was why Maria’s body had been kept in the shed for all that time. The killer didn’t want the police to get hold of it until all the semen traces had decayed. That would muddy the waters enough to make Maria’s death look like a copycat killing. All AB needed was to know that Donalsen was seen having sex with Maria the night she disappeared. The sergeant would get a life sentence for Maria’s murder, even if the other deaths couldn’t be pinned on him. It was the ultimate fantasy for a man with a vehement hatred of the police; making a cop take the rap for a murder he didn’t commit.

  But the weather had screwed things up, Megan reflected. The sub-zero temperatures had preserved Donalsen’s semen and the killer’s. What was Leverton going to do if the DNA analysis proved that only one of those AB samples came from Donalsen?

  *

  Gareth was first up on Boxing Day. He’d had so much to drink that Ceri and Megan had refused to let him drive home, so he’d had to get up at seven to get to Manchester for nine.

  ‘He must be the only person I know who’s got to go to work on Boxing Day.’ Megan sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Serves him right,’ said Ceri as they started a brunch of turkey sandwiches. ‘He told me he was meeting up with you at the cottage for New Year – don’t let him drag you off to the pub for any of his marathon sessions, will you?’

  ‘I probably won’t be there.’

  ‘Oh. Been invited to a party in Birmingham or something?’

  ‘No. It’s the case. I’m still going to go to the cottage – I promised myself and there’s bugger all I can do now that Leverton’s stopped talking to me – but I’ll probably come back tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘What time are you off?’

  ‘About one o’clock, I think,’ Megan said. ‘I want to be there before it gets dark.’

  ‘What about food? There won’t be anything open. I’ll pack a few things for you to take with you – there’s enough in the fridge to feed an army.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Megan looked at her sister. She seemed happier than she had for ages, but Megan wasn’t totally convinced by the bright smile. ‘Look, are you sure you’re going to be all right?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ceri’s eyes were still smiling as she returned Megan’s gaze.

  ‘It’s just that I was wondering if things are working out okay with Neil.’

  ‘We’re fine, honestly. He’s really trying to give me a good Christmas. Look what he gave me this morning.’

  She delved under the polo neck of her sweater, pulling out a fine gold choker chain with something dangling from it. Megan’s heart missed a beat.

  ‘Oh, that’s pretty,’ she faltered. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think it’s a Tudor Rose. Neil said he got it from a gift shop at the art gallery. He left it on the pillow and I found it when I woke up. He said it was an extra surprise present to make up for the way he’d been acting over the past few months.’

  ‘Very romantic!’ Megan said, relaxing again. For one awful moment she had thought the pendant dangling from her sister’s neck was a shamrock.

  *

  As soon as Megan stepped into the cottage she remembered the logs. She had meant to buy some at a petrol station in Wolverhampton but it had slipped her mind. She looked at the clock. There might be somewhere open in Aberystwyth if she was quick.

  There was hardly any traffic about as she drove back through the country lanes. She passed a few cars when she hit the trunk road leading into Aberystwyth, but the town itself was deserted. By comparison the petrol station was a hive of activity. Families on their way home after the festivities were queuing to fill up.

  Megan bought a sack of logs and loaded them into the boot. Then, on a whim, she drove to Saint Michael’s church. It was a fine, clear evening and the sun was just sinking into the sea. She stood in the car park gazing out towards the horizon. The water was turning blood red where the sun touched it. In half an hour it would be dark. She turned towards the church door. Strange to think that she hadn’t been inside since her wedding day.

  Going in was like exorcising a ghost. It was as if the intervening years had never existed; everything was exactly as it had been the last time she saw it.

  Walking up to one of the side chapels she noticed an inscription on its ornately carved door. It was slightly ajar, splitting the sentence in half, and she stood for a moment working out what it said: ‘So he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.’

  She realised almost immediately that it referred to the war dead, whose names adorned a stone tablet in the chapel. But it made her think of the dead women she had left behind in Birmingham: Donna and Natalie, Tina and Maria. She whispered their names into the thick, silent air.

  She wandered across to the Lady Chapel on the other side of the altar. A bible rested on a wooden lectern. It was open at Psalm 139, and as she scanned the copperplate script she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end: ‘You knew my soul and my bones were not hidden from you when I was formed in secret and woven in the depths of the earth … look well lest there be any wickedness in me.’

  It made her think of babies, psychologically damaged babies: Ted Bundy left in a nursing home for months while his teenage mother decided what to do with him; Ian Brady left alone in a Glasgow tenement while his mother went to work. Embryonic souls starved of love, stunted forever.

  Is that what had happened to AB? For the umpteenth time she tried to picture him. She took the Christmas card out of her bag. Was he the one who’d sent it? She stared at the scribbled message, shuddering at the thought of this monster creeping around her house. First the shells, then the window, the maggots and then the card. Each one more unnerving, less explicable than the last. Was this an extension of his game with the police? Playing her like a cat with a mouse, trying to scare her to death before moving in for the kill?

  She hurried back to the car. It was getting dark. At the cottage she lit a fire and sat on the hearthrug eating turkey in curry sauce. Outside she could hear the waves thudding against the sea wall. It was a comforting sound. She had always felt very secure in her grandmother’s house.

  *

  The sound of the waves drowned out the car engine in the street outside. The driver paused for a moment, peering at Megan’s front door before pulling out and driving to the place where the houses ran out.

  He drove onto a windswept caravan site. There were no lights. No people. He began walking along the narrow road that led back to the village.

  Chapter 16

  Megan couldn’t sleep. Running through endless possibilities in her mind, she tried to work out how AB could have known about Rob Donalsen having sex with Maria.

  She felt very uneasy about Eileen Bunce’s role in Donalsen’s arrest. It was hard to believe that the woman’s decision to go to the police was motivated by concern for the fate of a fellow prostitute. In Megan’s experience the camaraderie between sex workers was an invention of the media. Real life on the streets was simply not like that. It was every woman for herself.

  So had the killer paid Eileen to spill the beans?

  She sat bolt upright in bed. What about Eileen’s punter? The one that made her get out of the car when they got to Prole Street. Had AB seen Eileen soliciting a few yards along the road from Maria, picked her up and used her as hi
s witness?

  Megan shivered and pulled the duvet up round her shoulders. She tried to focus on the killer’s behaviour, imagining what would have gone through his mind if he had indeed seen Donalsen picking up Maria. Donalsen had been in an unmarked squad car. He was a plain clothes officer. How had the killer known who he was? And what had made him so sure that Donalsen was not simply arresting Maria?

  She had a feeling that the killer must know rather a lot about Donalsen. Enough to make a snap decision to use the man to his own advantage. He would have to have known that Donalsen’s liaison with Maria was not just a one-off, but the latest in a string of misdemeanours with women he was supposed to be policing.

  Who would have that kind of knowledge? Prostitutes and their pimps? Other police officers? Someone close to a member of the force?

  Megan thought of Helen Donalsen. It had been two days since she pushed that note through the woman’s door. The more Megan thought about it, the more convinced she became that Helen held the key to the killer’s identity. She would surely know who could have got hold of Rob’s wedding ring. And who hated him enough to want to set him up for murder.

  By 7.30 Megan was on the beach. It wasn’t really light, but there was a faint yellow tinge over the sea. She walked along the shore, listening to the gulls screeching as they swooped over the waves.

  Swirls of mist drifted in from the sea, giving the weathered backs of the houses an other-worldly air. Some were shut up for the winter, but here and there a light twinkled. Megan gazed out to sea, watching a shoal of tiny clouds turn pink with the coming of the sun. She turned and hurried home. She had made up her mind to phone BTV. There was just a chance that Helen Donalsen would be at work today. And if not, Megan would find out from her colleagues where she had gone for Christmas.

  As she hung up her coat in the hall she noticed a copy of the Birmingham Post lying on the table. It looked slightly yellow and Megan picked it up, noticing the date on the front page. It was six weeks old. She caught sight of a small photo of her own face smiling from beneath the masthead. ‘Profile of a Profiler’ the text beside it read. It was an article that had appeared while she was away at a conference. Gareth must have left it for her last time he was at the cottage. Funny that she hadn’t noticed it last night.