The Crossing

by Christina James

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  TIM AND JULIET had gleaned as much as they could from the Cushing family. Before leaving, Tim asked them to stay indoors and not talk to the media. He said they shouldn’t get in touch with Bob and Ruby Grummett and, if the Grummetts contacted them, to let their family liaison officer (Ann Bridges, a policewoman from Boston) listen to the call. Peter Cushing didn’t argue.

  “If Philippa calls, don’t alarm her. If you think she’s on her own, try to persuade her to come back. If there’s evidence that someone else is with her, keep her talking as long as you can, so we can try to trace the call. And put the phone on speak so that WPC Bridges can hear.”

  Andy Carstairs had returned to Patti Gardner and remained with her while she worked. As far as Tim could tell, Peter Cushing had no inkling that human remains had been discovered in the old pigsty. That was how he wanted to keep it for the time being.

  He knew that he and Juliet would have to visit Patti before they went on to the Pilgrim Hospital. The prospect of having to view the remains of a dead baby unnerved him, even though he now knew that the corpse had been interred for so long nothing was left but bones and a few fragments of pathetically tiny garments. He trudged along a few paces behind Juliet, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat, his head bent against the vicious wind.

  He was surprised to find the two workmen were still there, sitting in the cab of their lorry. One of them swung open the door and jumped down to greet him as he approached.

  “Are you the boss? Is there any chance we can go home now, squire? My mate Tom’s still shook up and your detective says we can’t do no more work at the moment. We’re fucking frozen and Tom needs a hot drink.”

  “I’m sorry we’ve kept you here for so long. I’ll check with DC Carstairs, but I think it should be OK for you to leave now. You mustn’t tell anyone what you found here today, or talk to the Press at all. Is that understood?”

  “Sure, we’ve been told that already.”

  “Just wait here a bit longer, then. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He turned into the narrow path that breached the wrecked lodge house and its outbuildings. Juliet was standing outside the pigsty talking to Andy, who was flapping his arms and blowing on his fingers.

  “Hello, boss. Am I glad to see you. It’s fucking freezing here.”

  “That’s what the construction guy’s just said to me. I can’t remember his name, but . . .”

  “It’s Nick Peat. Mate’s called Tom Crosby.”

  “Why are they still hanging around? Did you ask them to stay?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know whether you’d want to interview them. And I thought you might be worried about them talking to the media.”

  “You’ve taken a statement, haven’t you? Did they say anything that struck you as being odd?”

  “No, it was straightforward. They started to move the floor covering and discovered some bones . . .”

  “Well, tell them they can go, then. I’ve asked them not to talk to the Press, but you might like to say it again. I take it you have their contact details?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better offer them counselling. Tom – I gather he’s the one who found the remains – isn’t looking too good. Recommend that he goes to hospital for a check-up, too. I don’t want that coming back to bite us later.”

  Tim turned to Juliet.

  “Have you spoken to Patti?”

  “Only to say hello. She’s in there packing up at the moment. She’ll be pleased you’re here.”

  Tim smiled wryly and involuntarily took a deep breath before going into the pigsty. Juliet saw, but pretended not to notice. Like Andy, she suspected that Tim and Patti had once been more than just colleagues. She’d observed awkwardness between them on several occasions.

  Patti was squatting on the floor sweeping dust into a plastic bag. She had stacked several other plastic bags neatly to one side of the gap on the floorboards. There was also a small cardboard box, little bigger than a shoe-box, which she’d placed beyond these. She must have heard Tim talking to Juliet and she reacted to his presence in her usual manner, concentrating for some seconds with furious intensity on the job in hand before looking up at him. Her hair had been pushed into the hood of her plastic suit, but one stray strand now fell across her forehead. She tried to sweep it away with the back of her latex-gloved wrist. The action struck Tim as both vulnerable and endearing. Mentally he pinched himself for giving way to sentimentality.

  “DI Yates,” she said archly. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. As you know, Philippa Grummett has disappeared. I had to interview her friends up the road.”

  “She lived here, didn’t she? I mean, in the lodge house.”

  “Yes, she’s one of the two daughters.”

  “Do you think her disappearance is connected with this?” She pointed at the cardboard box.

  “I don’t know what to think at the moment. Possibly not directly connected, but the Grummett family is strange. I’m convinced they’re doing something illegal, but – with the exception of Philippa – they’re not very bright. Is that the . . . are the bones you found in there?”

  “Yes. I took as many photographs as I could before I removed them. I think the skeleton’s intact. It’s certainly that of a child. Not newborn, but I’d guess less than a year old. Do you want to see it?”

  “No,” said Tim. “It’s best disturbed as little as possible. I assume you’ll carry out some tests on it?” He sensed that Patti understood his reluctance to inspect the remains.

  “Yes.” She indicated the plastic bags. “And on the fragments of clothing. There are some scraps of wool from a garment that’s mostly rotted away, but there’s still enough to analyse. And there’s part of an item in synthetic material – it may have been a dress – that has survived rather better.”

  Tim blenched.

  “What are you likely to be able to find out?”

  “The sex and approximate age of the child. About how long the remains have been buried here. Whether it lived in this area or somewhere else. I could also match its DNA to that of parents and siblings, if we knew who they were.”

  “What about cause of death?”

  “Unlikely. I’d only be able to do that if it’d been murdered and even then it would have to have been in a certain way – trauma to the skull, for example. But I can see no evidence of deliberate damage of that kind.”

  “It must have been murdered, though, don’t you think? Otherwise, why not give it a proper funeral?”

  Patti smiled.

  “I’d agree with you, if the bones had been found in a city. But there are still some deeply-held social taboos and superstitions in rural areas like this. For example, illegitimacy is still regarded as a disgrace by some local people, particularly if they follow one of the more evangelical brands of religion.”

  “Well, at least one crime has been committed. The death can’t have been registered properly and, from what you’re saying, possibly not the birth, either.”

  “Correct. I’m just telling you that even if you discover who concealed the body of a baby here, you’ll probably find it difficult to make a murder charge stick.”

  “Thanks for the warning. You said that you could identify the parents of the child if you had their DNA. What about the Grummetts?”

  “If the date of their tenancy of the lodge house precedes or coincides with the likely date the corpse of the child was buried, I’d say you’d be bound to want to start with them. Unless they confess upfront, of course.”

  Suddenly preoccupied with something he’d just remembered, Tim didn’t reply. In his mind he was going over Ruby Grummett’s statement after the accident. He had no doubt they’d deny all knowledge of the remains in the pigsty. If they did, Bob would have quite
a lot more explaining to do.

  “Thanks, Patti. I’ll put a police guard on the pigsty for now, in case you want to come back. It’ll stop ghouls from visiting, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  TIM AND JULIET’S journey to the hospital had taken place in silence. Tim’s mood was unusually sombre. Juliet knew he was distressed by the dead baby, but she wondered if he’d also been disturbed by meeting Patti Gardner. Patti seemed to withdraw ever more into her shell these days. Each time Juliet met her, her figure was more angular and her tongue sharper than on the previous occasion. Juliet didn’t suspect Tim of hankering after a renewal of whatever intimacies he and Patti might once have shared, but she wondered if he felt guilty about the colourlessly austere way in which Patti apparently now lived her life. She sympathised with Patti: she could so easily have fallen into a similar two-dimensional existence herself. She thought again of the evening she’d spent with Louise and her spirits lifted. Louise would probably be at the hospital now. Juliet smiled to herself before glancing sideways at Tim, hoping he hadn’t noticed. She needn’t have worried: he was staring straight ahead, his jaw set, his expression stern, gripping the wheel of his car so tightly his knuckles were white. Only when they’d turned into the hospital gate did he break out of his dark reverie.

  “Could you text Ricky MacFadyen and ask him if he’d like to meet us outside? We may not be able to find anywhere private to talk to him in there.”

  Juliet tapped away nimbly at her smartphone. Ricky replied almost as soon as she’d sent the message.

  “That was quick!” Tim managed a bleak smile.

  “He just says ‘yes’.”

  “Admirably laconic, but we’ll probably have to text him again to ask where.”

  However, when they drove into the car park Ricky was already at the entrance, anxiously waiting for them. Tim halted and gestured to him to get into the back of the car.

  “There’s a parking space over there, near the path,” said Ricky. “God, am I glad to see you.”

  “Everyone seems to be pleased to see me today, with the possible exception of Superintendent Thornton,” said Tim drily. “To what do I owe your particular joy at my arrival?”

  “It’s the Grummetts,” said Ricky. “They’re doing my head in. They seem upset the girl’s gone missing, but they don’t appear to be worried about her, if that makes any sense. I know it sounds stupid. And I can’t make them out – any of them. I can’t decide whether they’re really obtuse or just using the appearance of being thick to cover something up.”

  “When you say ‘any of them’, what do you mean? Who’s there, exactly – apart from Ruby Grummett, I mean?”

  “Ruby was alone when I arrived. I told the duty nurse why I was there and he said I should wait until the husband came before I told her about Philippa. Apparently her mental state still isn’t good after the accident. He showed up quite quickly. At first, I saw him without her. He was unhelpful, aggressive. He said that he’d told you Ruby wasn’t to be interviewed about the accident without her solicitor present. I said it wasn’t about the accident and explained to him that no-one knew where Philippa was. He was gobsmacked by this, but in a strange way, as if he was afraid of something. I don’t mean afraid something bad had happened to Philippa, but afraid for himself. But I might have imagined it, I suppose. I asked him if Philippa had got in touch with him since yesterday and he said she hadn’t. I said we should ask Ruby if Philippa had called her, perhaps to ask how she was, and he said she wouldn’t have. He seemed sure of that, as if the idea was inconceivable. I asked if Philippa could have phoned her sister and again he said quite flatly that she wouldn’t have. I said I’d need to see the sister even so and he agreed to call her. It took half an hour for the sister to arrive. Her name’s Kayleigh. I said we should tell Ruby and Kayleigh about Philippa’s disappearance at the same time and he agreed to this as well, but then he left me in the waiting room while he went to see Ruby. He said she’d get upset if he didn’t go to her straight away.”

  “So you let him see her on his own first?” Tim hoped he sounded as annoyed as he felt.

  “He said he wouldn’t tell her about Philippa,” said Ricky feebly.

  “If I’d been you . . .”

  “Ricky couldn’t really have done anything else, Tim,” said Juliet quietly. “In the eyes of the world, the Grummetts are now double victims: first they’ve suffered the loss of their home and Ruby’s been mentally damaged by an accident that has yet to be proved her fault; now they’ve lost their younger daughter. Whatever we may think, at the moment we have no reason to treat them like suspects.”

  Tim sighed.

  “I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry, Ricky – I’m not having a good day. Carry on with your story. What happened when Kayleigh Grummett turned up?”

  “She didn’t come on her own. Her uncle and aunt were with her. God, that woman smells awful. Kayleigh’s staying with them, apparently. They live at Spalding Common and she works in Boston, but she’s got herself signed off sick. She hardly spoke, actually. Uncle Ivan did most of the talking. I asked both Ruby and Kayleigh if Philippa had been in touch with them and Kayleigh looked at me as if I was mad. The uncle said that no-one had phoned his house recently except Bob, to report on Ruby. I asked Kayleigh if she had a mobile. She said she did, but Philippa didn’t know the number. Very strange. I asked her if she knew where Philippa might have gone and Uncle Ivan intervened again to say that the sisters weren’t close.”

  “What about Ruby?”

  “She was just hunched up at the top of the bed, staring at everyone with her little black eyes. Bob had obviously spilt the beans about Philippa. Ruby didn’t register any surprise when I said the girl was missing. She didn’t say anything at all and I didn’t push her. I was afraid of provoking some kind of outburst.”

  “I suppose that was wise,” said Tim. “She’s thrown a wobbly once already. Put on, most likely, but even if the hospital staff think so, their first duty will be to look after her. Where are all the Grummetts now?”

  “Still up there. I asked them to wait until you got here. I know you want to speak to them about the child’s skeleton.”

  “They don’t have any inkling about that, do they?”

  “No. I don’t see how they could have, unless Peter Cushing told them.”

  “He doesn’t know. And I’ve asked him not to contact them. He won’t, either – he doesn’t seem at all anxious to speak to them.”

  “I think we should go in,” said Juliet. “Nothing we’ve done so far can make them stay if they don’t want to. I think Ivan Grummett could do a lot of damage if he talks to the Press about them being shabbily treated – not to mention the lawyer they seem to have hired.”

  “You’re right,” said Tim. “And the lawyer’s bound to show up sooner or later. We need to talk to them before he gets involved and puts a brake on everything.”

  When Tim, Juliet and Ricky entered Ruby Grummett’s ward, the four other members of the Grummett family were still huddled around her bed. Tim thought they made an incongruous group. Ruby was lying back on her pillows saying nothing to Bob, who was stroking her hand and whispering to her. Her small black eyes were sharply focused, however, and she spotted Tim first. Elsie was sitting opposite Bob on the other side of the bed chattering inconsequentially to Ruby, who appeared to be ignoring her. Ivan was prodding Bob to attract his attention, but either Bob hadn’t noticed or he’d chosen not to. Kayleigh was engrossed in carrying out some activity on her mobile phone.

  Ruby sat up when the three police officers approached. All the others except Kayleigh registered and turned to look.

  “Mrs Grummett,” said Tim. “I’m sorry about your daughter, but please rest assured we are doing everything in our power to find her. I’d be grateful if you’d let me check on just one thing, since DC MacFadyen didn’t have the opportunity. I’m sure you would
have mentioned it if it had been the case, but she hasn’t tried to contact you, has she?”

  Uncle Ivan jumped in immediately.

  “She wouldn’t have done that. Little madam, she is. Thinks we’re not good enough for her.”

  “Now, Ivan . . .” Elsie began weakly.

  “Shut up, woman.”

  “Mr Grummett, I must ask you to let your sister-in-law speak for herself.”

  “No, she hasn’t been in touch with me,” said Ruby dully.

  “Thank you.” There was a slight pause while Tim thought how best to put what he had to say next. He was aware of four pairs of hostile Grummett eyes scrutinising him intensely. Kayleigh put down her phone and stared as well, emulating the others.

  Tim cleared his throat.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” he said, “and I do understand that you’ve had an unbelievably tough time already this week, but there is something else I need to say to you – to Bob and Ruby, anyway.” He turned to them. “It’s a sensitive matter. You may want us to speak in private.”

  “Send us away, you mean?” said Ivan belligerently. “We’re family and we stick together. Whatever you’ve got to say, Bob wants us here, don’t you, Bob?”

  Bob Grummett nodded obediently.

  “Mrs Grummett?” said Tim, looking at Ruby.

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t mind them staying if they don’t want to go.”

  Bob had moved closer to Ruby and clasped her hand in his. It made it easier for Tim to observe how both of them reacted to his next sentence.

  “I’m sorry to have to inform you that we have discovered the remains of an infant at the site of your home, in one of the outbuildings.”

  Bob looked alarmed. Ruby just stared him out.

  “Do you have any knowledge of how they might have got there, or the identity of the child?”

  “Of course they don’t . . .” Ivan Grummett began.