by Joy Ellis
‘Forgive me for saying, but where exactly is this ‘village’ you keep mentioning?’
Nikki smiled and slowed down as a long-eared hare bounded out into lane ahead of her. ‘Ah, well, Cloud Fen Village is kind of scattered, and there’s not much of it anyway. It’s like so many of these outlying communities, the cottages are few and far between, the post office that doubled for the corner shop, was closed years ago, and all that’s left is the chapel, with a service every third Sunday in the month, and the Wild Goose.’ She watched as the hare dashed off into one of the great potato fields that edged the road. ‘Frankly, we are lucky to still have the pub, the way things are going.’
‘It is kind of yokel-ish, isn’t it?’
‘Careful, Town-Boy! You’re talking about the place where I was born!’
‘Sorry.’ Joseph hung his head in mock shame. ‘Do we go past your place?’
‘Cloud Cottage Farm? No, we turn off just before it. But you can see it from Martin’s. It’s only a short way back across the marsh.’
‘I wonder what will happen to the cottage?’
Nikki wondered too, but before she could answer her radio call sign blared out.
‘A silver Suzuki Grand Vitara 4x4 registered to Martin Durham has been found abandoned not far from the church, ma’am.’
‘Abandoned?’
‘Seems that way, ma’am. We’ve had reports of the same car being driven erratically a few minutes prior to Durham entering the church. One witness says it looked as though he were having some kind of seizure, contorted face and all that.’
Nikki slowed to negotiate a corner, then said ‘Okay, just get the car to the pound and secure it. I may need a SOCO to check it out for me. Thanks. Over and out.’ Nikki relayed what had been said to Joseph and for the next five minutes they drove in silence, until she pulled the car into Buckledyke Lane
‘Wow! What a place to live!’ exclaimed Joseph. Then added quickly, ‘And I mean that in a good, if somewhat remote, sort of way.’ He stared across the vast expanse of marshland, to the distant horizon that shimmered and sparkled like a strip of silver foil.
‘You should see it at sunrise,’ said Nikki softly. ‘My childhood bedroom looked in this direction, and my father told me I was truly blessed to wake to this sight every day. I never really appreciated it when I was five, but now I know he was right.’
‘The cottage looks very neat, guv. Are we going to have to force an entry?’
Nikki threw him a withering look. ‘This is a Cloud Fen, two up, two down cottage, Sergeant. We turn the handle and open the door. And if he’s actually locked it for some reason, the key will be under the door mat.’
‘You don’t lock your doors?’ asked Joseph in amazement.
She began to walk slowly up the path to the front door. ‘I do these days. But then a farmhouse may be considered fair game for rich pickings. Not that there are any, but the thieves wouldn’t know that until they got in. I think it’s being a copper, I feel it my duty to think about security.’
‘And the flak would be pretty heavy if your colleagues knew you went out and left the place wide open.’
‘There is that, of course.’ She arrived at the door, then veered off right along a narrow path and went around to the back. ‘No one uses front doors out here.’ She smiled. ‘If you’re going to tread mud in, do it in the kitchen, not the best room.’
She moved slowly across the backyard, then paused. She’d been in here so many times that she knew exactly what she would find even before she opened the door.
‘Shall I?’ asked Joseph. ‘This can’t be very pleasant for you.’
‘No, I’m fine. It just seems so odd, I’m having trouble getting my head around it.’
‘Maybe he will have left a note. That may explain things better.’
Nikki shrugged. Somehow she knew there would be no note. Just a mystery, and even if it never became a police matter, it would be one she would have to solve.
The door was unlocked.
‘Surely, if you were going to go out, never to come back, you’d lock the door?’ mused Joseph, half to himself.
‘Would it matter? If things meant so little, and you wanted to die, would you care?’
They stepped onto the quarry-tiled floor of the kitchen, and a feeling of warmth greeted them. Partly because the place was a little time warp of old country living, clean, fresh and welcoming, and partly because a heavy iron pot was simmering gently on the solid fuel stove.
Joseph looked at Nikki and bit his lip. ‘I don’t think we are going to reason our way out of that one, do you, guv?’
She didn’t answer. Something had happened to Martin Durham, between the time that he had spoken to her, and his fateful trip to St Saviour’s Tower. Something devastating. ‘You take the ground floor, Joseph. I’ll check upstairs.’
‘Are you looking for anything in particular, guv?’
‘Just a good reason for a sane, happy man to top himself.’
‘Oh, simple then.’
Nikki climbed the stairs. She had only been to the upper floor once before. It must have been many years ago, because her daughter Hannah was still coming home on the school bus, and she’d been keeping an eye open for the familiar blue-and-white coach that stopped at the end of Buckledyke Lane. Martin had picked up some kind of bug, but had been too proud to ask for help. She had had a bad feeling that all was not well, and called in. Lucky she had. An hour later an ambulance was tearing towards Greenborough General with a blue light flashing.
The main bedroom was like the rest of the cottage. Well cared for, and although a little basic, with old wood floors and heavy, plain wooden furniture, it was clear that the man loved his tiny home. There was just one photograph on his bedside table. Two smiling women, arms around each other’s shoulders, one very much like him, and the other considerably younger, with a cheeky grin. Elizabeth and Janna.
Nikki picked it up, and shook her head. She’d better look for his address book and get Elizabeth’s number. Even if uniform had already traced her, Nikki knew her well enough to want to offer her condolences. She replaced the frame exactly where it had sat, and stared at the woman’s face. I have a feeling that you aren’t going to know any more about this than I do, she thought. This death was not planned.
‘Guv,’ Joseph called up the stairs. ‘There are an awful lot of prescription drugs in a cabinet down here. I think you should take a look at them.’
‘On my way.’ Nikki slid open the drawer in the bedside table. Neat lines of tablet boxes filled the space. ‘Oh shit!’ She closed the drawer and went to see what Joseph had found.
‘I’d say this guy was very ill, wouldn’t you, ma’am?’ Joseph was standing in a small shower room that Martin had obviously had built onto the back of the cottage, and was pointing to the interior of a large glass-fronted cabinet. Without even looking closely, Nikki knew that the stacks of boxes were from a pharmaceutical company.
‘Are they all legitimately his?’
‘The labels are all marked up Martin Durham.’
‘Then you’re right. He must have been very poorly. But he never said a thing.’
‘Which could explain a lot. Maybe he went into town for a hospital appointment, and got really bad news. News that he just couldn’t handle.’
Why couldn’t she believe that? It was a perfectly logical suggestion. ‘Check it out, Joseph. And go out to the car and get some evidence bags. We’ll need these.’ She pointed to the boxes. ‘Do any of the drugs mean anything to you?’
‘There are a lot of antibiotics, ma’am. Penicillin, Amoxicillin, but I’m afraid the others mean nothing.’ Joseph knelt down and studied them. ‘This man was clearly reliant on medication big-style.’
‘We’ll have to talk to his GP, and get his hospital notes released.’
Nikki watched Joseph go out, and looked around the familiar old sitting room. In the past, they’d sat around the open fire, drunk hot chocolate and played Scrabble, Martin, Hannah and
herself. Hannah had always liked him. She would be very sad if she knew what had happened, but Nikki would not be telling her. Her precious daughter was in a coma, and when Nikki talked to her, she told her only happy things.
‘Shall I bag them all, or one of each kind, ma’am?’ Joseph broke her reverie.
‘Bag them all. And there are more upstairs beside the bed, get them too. Was there any post, by the way?’
‘Nothing recent. A bit of junk mail and a bill or two.’
‘Bank statement?’
‘No, and his writing desk, unlike the door, is locked, and I couldn’t find a key.’
Nikki looked around. Had she ever seen Martin at the desk? Maybe. Where would he hide a key? Nikki looked inside a vase, moved a few books, then shook her head. ‘His sister may know, if not, I’m afraid we’ll have to force it open. Meanwhile, and until I’ve spoken to Elizabeth, I’m going to secure the cottage. We may have to get a team in to check it out, but your serious illness theory may close this case without further investigation.’
Joseph nodded, but unenthusiastically. ‘You’re not convinced are you?’
Nikki puffed out her cheeks and shook her head. ‘It may have a bearing on it, but no matter how bad the news that he received was . . .’ Like Yvonne, she was thinking about the children. ‘. . .he simply could not have done it in the way that he did.’
‘But he did do it, ma’am.’
‘Yes, he did, Joseph, and we have to find out why.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Sorry, but it all looks pretty straightforward to me, Nikki.’ Superintendent Rick Bainbridge leant back in his chair and stared at her. ‘He must have been so doped up that he didn’t realise there were people already up on the viewing platform. If he were out of his head he may not have even seen them.’
‘He saw them alright, sir. WPC Collins has given me the statements that she collected. Everyone said he appeared terrified of something, and one little lad said that Martin “was afraid of them, especially the tour guide, when he held his hand out to him to help him.”’
The superintendent shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know what to deduce from that comment, if anything. The poor little kid was probably traumatised. And it must have happened so quickly, it’s a wonder anyone had time to take note of anything.’
‘Actually the witnesses were unusually consistent in their statements, sir,’ said Nikki testily. ‘And I would not disregard what the boy said. Children can be very perceptive.’
Rick Bainbridge threw her a worried look. ‘I think maybe you’re a bit too close to this, Inspector. If it needs investigation, and I hope for our budget’s sake that it doesn’t; I’ll give it to one of the other teams.’
‘I’m fine, honestly, Super.’ Nikki tried to keep her voice neutral, even though she was anxious not to lose the investigation. ‘And there’s little we can do until the tox screen comes back. I’ll just check out the usual avenues while we wait. There may have been money worries, or some personal issues that, along with the heavy medication, just triggered something. The coroner is going to want everything we can get together for the inquest.’
‘Okay. Stick with it for now, but don’t forget, people aren’t always what they seem. He may have been a good neighbour, but just how well did you really know him? Don’t forget, you’d been living in the town for almost a year before you went back to Cloud Fen. Things change. People change.’
Nikki nodded. ‘You’re right, sir. And don’t worry, I’ll check everything as I would any other suspicious death, I won’t get phobic over it.’ She threw him what she hoped was a sincere smile and said. ‘Maybe I’m just sensitive to this because of those statistics you’ve got me working on.’
It was the super’s turn agree. ‘Ah, yes. At best they don’t make easy reading, then this happens to a friend. It’s understandable. Just don’t look for things that aren’t there.’
‘Of course not, sir. So, if that’s all?’
‘Yes, yes, go. I have to get back to the damned auditor anyway. Just keep me up to speed, Inspector.’
Outside the door, Nikki heaved a sigh of relief. She would have to tread warily and endeavour to hold her tongue a little more. Her gut instinct screamed that something was horribly wrong about Martin Durham’s death. Something so wrong, that she couldn’t even bring herself to say the word suicide. Whatever, she would get to the bottom of it, and the easiest route was to keep the investigation closely under her control.
* * *
Joseph looked up as the boss came back into the CID room. ‘How did it go, guv?’
The DI raised her eyebrows. ‘In professional terms, Sergeant, I nearly screwed up.’ She flopped into a chair. ‘He reckons I’m too close. I only just managed to convince him to leave it with me, but I’m going to play things closer to my chest in future.’
Joseph nodded. ‘Well, you’ve just had a call from Elizabeth Durham. She is devastated, but she wants to talk to you. I said we’d call on her first thing tomorrow morning, if that’s okay?’
‘Absolutely. Did you get the full address?’
Joseph glanced at his notebook. ‘Yes, ma’am. Monk’s Lodge. I’ve got directions.’
‘Good. We’ll go immediately after the morning briefing.’
‘So what can I do now?’ asked Joseph.
‘I’ve got some paperwork that won’t wait another day, so perhaps you would ring Martin’s GP and go have a word with her? I’m pretty sure he saw Dr Helen Latimer. Her practice covers most of Cloud Fen. Her surgery is in Church Gate. The number is in the book.’
‘I’m on to it, ma’am.’
* * *
Helen Latimer confirmed that she was Martin’s doctor and she reluctantly consented to see him before her four p.m. surgery began, as long as he could get there in time. He checked his watch, quickly calculated how long their earlier trip to Cloud Fen had taken, and decided it should give him at least twenty minutes with the GP. Just enough time if he got a move on. As he grabbed his jacket and car keys and hurried from the office, Joseph felt a surge of what he could only call happiness. The case might be a sad one, but it felt so good to back at work again.
The traffic out of the town was sluggish, although Joseph knew that once he reached the roads that led to the marshes the congestion would disappear.
But right now, he was stationary. Not something that his tight timetable had allowed for. As he tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel and waited for his lane to start moving again, he caught sight of a group of men running along the curb. From their clothes, he thought they might be land workers, and they were trying to cross the busy road by dodging in and out of the slow moving vehicles. Several of them were laughing and shouting in an Eastern European language. Suddenly one of them ran around his car, then leaned across and slapped his palm loudly against the windscreen, then stared through it.
Joseph automatically recoiled at seeing a man’s eyes only inches away from his own. Then he almost leapt backwards in his seat, his heart hammering in his chest.
He released his belt, swung around and tried to see where the man had gone, but he was already on the far pavement and hurrying away.
Joseph threw open the door of the car, stood up and stared after the retreating figure, but in seconds the man had disappeared.
A horn sounded loudly behind him, and he flopped back behind the wheel and put the car into gear. As he moved forward he decided that he had to have been mistaken. Apparently everyone has a double, and he’d just had the misfortune to see one.
As the lights changed and the road opened up again, he decided he had totally overreacted. The man had been running around with a pack of foreigners, ergo he was also a foreigner. So that settled it. How stupid could you get?
He indicated off the main road and headed for the marshes. A long straight drove-road extended out ahead of him for as far as the eye could see. He put his foot down, and as the car surged forward, he felt as if he had taken back control of himself. He even manage
d a small laugh at his own stupidity. What on earth would a man who he had last seen in another continent twelve years ago, be doing playing chicken in Greenborough High Road? It was unthinkable, and plain idiotic. He slowed the car as he approached a hump-back bridge over a water way, and tried to get his mind back to the late Martin Durham.
The boss was convinced there was something not right about the manner of Durham’s death, and even though he had unearthed that cache of prescription drugs in Knot Cottage, Joseph was starting to believe that she might be right.
When he finally arrived at the small converted bungalow that served as a surgery, Joseph had forgotten about his earlier case of mistaken identity, and his focus was fully back on the job in hand.
If Dr Helen Latimer had sounded brusque on the phone, her manner softened considerably when she met Joseph in person.
‘I’m so sorry, Sergeant. The news came as something of a shock. I’m afraid I may have sounded rather short. It wasn’t intentional.’ She smiled at him apologetically. ‘Can I get you a coffee, or a tea?’
Joseph accepted the offer, and looked around the consulting room as Latimer went to organise the drinks. It was like being in someone’s sitting room. No modern medical equipment, nothing other than a desk, a computer, two chairs and an examination couch. There were no nasty posters either; the ones that show reddish-brown muscles stretched over skeletons, or eyeballs protruding from bony skulls. Dr Latimer seemed to prefer watercolours of the Cornish coast, and studies of black Labradors.
On that basis alone, Joseph decided that he’d quite like her to be his GP.
The doctor passed him a mug of coffee and sat down. He decided she must be in her late thirties, early forties, but was a strikingly good-looking woman, with shoulder-length, wavy chestnut hair and deep brown eyes. Her skin had a rich olive tint that made him think she may have some Mediterranean origins.
He took his time and carefully explained everything they knew about the incident, and when he had finished, Helen Latimer shook her head emphatically and said, ‘No way! Absolutely no way in a million years! I know Martin, and yes he did have medical problems, but his illness was managed and his drug regime well maintained.’ She held out her hands, palms up, and said, ‘I don’t understand.’