Death Speaks Softly

by Anthea Fraser

  'Never mind. Nothing. You wouldn't understand.'

  'Bernard, dear, I don't think you're well. Won't you go and see the doctor? To please me? I'm sure there's something he—'

  'There's nothing wrong with me, Beryl, that can't be put right quite simply.'

  She tried to smile. 'Well, that's good news.' 'I hope you continue to think so,' he said.

  'Simon?' It was Iris's voice, and she sounded as though she'd been crying.

  'Hello, Iris.' He was in a state of shock himself. If he hadn't arranged to meet Arlette, if she'd done something entirely different with her day, would she still be alive? It didn't bear thinking about. His memory of her was so vivid, the colours of it so strong and undiminished, that his brain wouldn't accept she was dead.

  'Are you there, Simon?'

  'Sorry. Yes.'

  'I've—I've just seen it on TV.' 'I know. I feel awful, too.'

  'It isn't only that, though. Was she murdered, do you think?'

  'It's too soon to say.'

  'They said on the news there were suspicious circumstances, so I—'

  His voice sharpened. 'What is it, Iris? Is there something you haven't told us?'

  'She made me promise not to—swore me to secrecy.'

  'Arlette did?'

  'Yes. She said if I ever breathed a word—' 'For God's sake, Iris! What is it?'

  'Someone she used to meet. That no one knew about.' 'Who?'

  Iris gave a little sob. 'If I'd told you before, would it have stopped her being killed?'

  'How do I know, until you tell me?' He stopped, having pity on the weeping girl. 'I don't think so. It looks as though she died the day she disappeared.'

  'Oh.' She gave a relieved little hiccup.

  'Well, come on. Who was she meeting?'

  'I don't know if she met him on Tuesday,' Iris said cautiously.

  'Who was it?'

  'Mr Morgan. William and Olga's father, who she gave coaching to.'

  Simon let out his breath. 'Was she seeing him regularly?'

  'He brought her home every week. Only they didn't come straight home. I was up in my room once, drawing the curtains. It was dark, so it must have been March sometime. And I saw her get out of a car just down the road. A man got out too, and gave her a long kiss. I asked her about it after, and that's when she told me.'

  'Thanks, Iris. For letting me know.'

  'Will I get into trouble for not saying? A policeman came asking questions, but I didn't tell him because I'd promised not to.'

  'Never mind. We'll follow it up now.'

  'Mr Morgan won't know it was me who told you?'

  'No, I promise. Don't worry.'

  Reassured that she had done her duty, albeit belatedly, Iris put down the phone.

  It was ten o'clock, and Webb had gone back to Ledbetter's house after all, too weary to resist his pressing invitation. Arlette's body had been extensively photographed, examined by the police surgeon, the pathologist and the scene of crime officers, and finally wrapped in plastic and manoeuvred down the hill to the waiting hearse. Webb himself had accompanied it to the morgue. There, she'd been identified by her parents, and a post-mortem was arranged for the following morning. Now, sitting in the Ledbetters' pleasant sitting-room, the two men were relaxing at last.

  'We'll soon know if she was dead when she went over the edge,' Chris Ledbetter was saying. He was sitting in the corner of the sofa, his injured leg laid along it, and, the snack supper finished, a rare glass of brandy in his hand.

  Webb took a sip from his own glass. 'There was no other obvious cause. But if she died from the fall, did she fall, or was she pushed? Because what in hell was she doing way out there, when she was expecting to catch the one-whatever to Shillingham? She was hardly dressed for walking, in those sandals.'

  Janet Ledbetter came into the room, followed by her daughter carrying a fresh pot of coffee. Emma at seventeen was ravishing. Lucky she took after her father, Webb thought affectionately, for though he was fond of Janet, no one could call her good-looking. She had soft, mousy-coloured hair, a small, pinched face and a shy smile. An odd choice, perhaps, for someone as flamboyantly handsome as Chris. Cynics suggested he'd married her to avoid competition, but Webb knew that was untrue. Not only was Chris entirely lacking in vanity, but the Ledbetters were one of the happiest couples he knew, and he envied them for it.

  'You'll stay the night, of course, David,' Janet said matter-of-factly, pouring the coffee.

  'Oh no, I—' Webb began. Then stopped. The thought of the fifty-minute drive through the dark countryside was not inviting, and he was bone tired, despite his hillside sleep. 'Well, if you're sure it's no trouble,' he ended lamely.

  'None whatever. The bed's been aired all week, in the hope you might stop over.'

  'That's good of you. In that case, may I give Ken Jackson a ring?'

  Jackson's voice vibrated down the wire. 'Where are you, Guv? I've been trying to get you ever since the news broke. Too bad about the girl.'

  'Yes. I'm still at SB, Ken—staying over with DI Ledbetter. Have a look on my desk in the morning, and bring over anything of interest.'

  'Will do.' Jackson paused, then his voice quickened. 'I've some news myself, and all—good news, this time. The twins made their appearance at three o'clock. How about that? Spot on time, clever little blighters!'

  'That's great, Ken! Congratulations! Millie OK?'

  'Fine, now, and pleased as punch. Boy and girl again, so we're still even-stevens. Tessa and Tim, we're calling them. Guv—it's hardly the time to ask, but Millie made me promise. How would you feel about being Tim's godfather?'

  Webb's eyes bored into the patterned wallpaper, a welter of emotions buffeting him. He said quietly, 'I should be honoured, Ken. Thank you.'

  'That's great! We'll give him David as his second name. Millie'll be so pleased.'

  'Give her my love—and I'll see you in the morning.' Webb put the phone down and stood for a moment with his hand resting on it before he turned back to the room. His thoughts were a jumble and too philosophical for comfort. One girl dies, another is born. Something like that. But he was more touched than he cared to admit by the Jacksons' request.

  'Do I gather the baby's arrived?' Chris asked, as he went back to his chair.

  'Both of them! A boy and a girl.' He raised his glass. 'So let's drink to them—to Tessa, and to Timothy David, my godson!'

  CHAPTER 8

  Jackson said, 'I've a message for you from Simon. The landlady's daughter's been on again. Says she saw Morgan and Arlette necking when he took her home.'

  'Ah! I thought those hooded eyes concealed something. But why the hell didn't she tell you?'

  'She'd promised Arlette.'Jackson grinned as Webb raised his eyes to the heavens. 'Come on, Guv, you were young once. Remember when promises meant something?'

  'Spare me the philosophy, Ken. We'd better get on to the bowls club he talked about. Check what time he gets there on Mondays and how long he stays. Then phone his wife and find out where he works. We'll call round as soon as the PM's finished. I'm on my way there now.'

  'Hope your breakfast stays down!'

  'So do I.'

  Jackson joined Happy Hopkins in the main office. 'I must say,' grumbled the Steeple Bayliss sergeant, 'your governor has a strange way of relaxing. Does he often find bodies on his afternoon off?'

  'Makes a habit of it,'Jackson answered with a grin. 'The old principle of think of something else and you'll find what you're looking for.'

  Hopkins grunted. 'You heard we had a weirdo with us yesterday?'

  'No? What kind of weirdo?'

  'Oh, a real screwball. Insisted he knew where the girl was —said she was holed up in a farmhouse at Popplewell. According to HQ he'd a good record, so we had to go chasing off with him—me and your governor and half a dozen of the boys.'

  'Get away! Well, at least it'd give you a laugh.'

  'Except,' said Happy morosely, 'that the laugh was on us. There was a girl there
right enough—the other one we've been looking for.'

  'You mean he was right? She was at the place he said?'

  'Yep. He described the house to a T, and the room where she was—even that she'd a bruise on her face. Make you sick, wouldn't it? We look for one girl for ten days, and a nutcase finds her for us. Then your governor stumbles over the other on his afternoon off. I reckon I'm wasting my time here.'

  'But how did he know? Did he explain?'

  'Swung a stone over a map, the DI said. Gives me the willies to think about it. Anyway, my lad, you were well out of it, believe me. What did you get up to on your free day? Trip over any bodies?'

  'No, I became a father again. Twice over.'

  'Well, congratulations and all that, but rather you than me. Think of it—double the nappies and double the burps! I've three kids myself, but at least we had them one at a time!'

  The post-mortem, as Webb had suspected, showed that Arlette died as a result of her fall, and most probably on the day she disappeared. Their first priority, therefore, was to discover who she was on her way to meet when she saw Peter Campbell. Nigel Morgan was as good a place as any to start. Jackson had learned he was a partner in a firm of estate agents, with premises down on Riverside overlooking the water.

  After the sunshine of the last week, the weather was cooler and dull, and the River Darrant gleamed like metal under the grey sky. Morgan was expecting them, and led them through the front office festooned with photographs of desirable properties, to his private room at the back. His skin had an unhealthy sheen and he was smoking in quick, nervous puffs.

  'I don't mind telling you, Chief Inspector, it's been a great shock to us,' he said, before Webb could speak. 'The children in particular are most upset. I mean, she was with us as usual on the Monday, and then, the next day—' He stopped, took out a handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. 'Do you know how it happened?'

  'Her neck was broken,' Webb said baldly.

  'Poor girl. What a tragic accident.'

  'If it was an accident. We have to discover how and why she went out there, and whether she was alone when she fell.'

  Morgan stared at him, his eyes dilating. 'You're not suggesting somebody killed her?'

  'We're treating it with suspicion till we learn different. Now, Mr Morgan, I don't think you've been quite honest with us. You knew Arlette better than you led us to believe, isn't that so?'

  Morgan stared at him for a moment. Then he put his head in his hands. The cigarette, jammed between his fingers, released its tenuous spiral to coil about his head like a smoky halo.

  'For a start,' Webb went on when he didn't speak, 'you left home on Mondays at eight p.m., to run Arlette home. Yet you never arrived at the bowls club before nine. Can you explain that?'

  'I didn't say I went straight there.'

  'But nor did you take Miss Picard straight home.'

  'Maybe not, but there's nothing sinister about it. We went for something to eat.'

  Webb was taken aback. 'Something to eat?'

  'That's right. The Kings have their meal at seven, which meant by the time Arlette got home, her supper'd dried up in the oven. So we started dropping in somewhere on the way back.'

  'Where did you take her?'

  'Oh, round and about.'

  'Where you wouldn't meet anyone you knew?'

  Morgan flushed. 'She enjoyed Chinese food, so we tried different restaurants on the outskirts of town. I didn't eat myself—my wife and I had our meal during the coaching session—but I'd have a glass of wine and some coffee. And we'd talk. To be frank, I found her fascinating. She was so young and full of enthusiasm, it was a tonic just being with her. There really was no harm in it.'

  'But it didn't stay that innocent, did it?' Webb said implacably.

  Morgan straightened. 'What the devil do you mean?' 'Mr Morgan, you were seen embracing the girl.' 'By whom?' He was still blustering, but there was panic in his eyes.

  'Does it matter? You don't deny it, do you?'

  'I might have kissed her good night. It meant no more than shaking hands.'

  Webb raised an eyebrow, making no direct reply. 'Did you see her on Tuesday morning?'

  'No, of course I didn't. My God, you don't think I pushed her over?'

  'Where were you on Tuesday, between ten-thirty and two o'clock?'

  'Here, of course.' 'All the time?'

  'As far as I remember.' He pulled a desk diary towards him, and Webb saw that his hand was shaking. 'Oh yes, I did slip out for a while, to inspect a couple of houses.'

  'At what time?'

  'One at ten-thirty, the other an hour later. Then I went to lunch, and was back here at two.' 'Where were these houses?'

  'The first was in Pemberton Crescent and the other in Larchfield Road. They were both fairly large, so I allowed plenty of time.'

  'The name of the owners?'

  Morgan told him, and Jackson noted them down.

  'Were you having an affair with Miss Picard, Mr Morgan?'

  A dull flush stained the man's face and neck. 'No, I was not.'

  'You weren't frank with us before, sir. It would be as well if you were this time.'

  'Damn you, I was not. The odd kiss and cuddle, yes, but nothing more.'

  'When was the last time you saw her?'

  'Monday night, as I told you. We went to the Willow Gardens and I ran her home afterwards. Which reminds me, have you finished with the car yet? I'm having to borrow my wife's and it's most inconvenient.'

  'We'll get it back to you as soon as we can.'

  'So where does that leave us?' Jackson asked, as they walked back to their car.

  'God knows. He's a shifty-looking bloke, for all his posh accent. I sure as hell wouldn't buy any houses from him. He could have pushed her over—in a fit of frustration, say, if she wouldn't play ball. Check with the house-owners that he called at the times he said.' Webb ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. 'The devil of it is, if she was killed simply by being pushed over the edge, it wouldn't have needed much strength. A girl could have done it.'

  'Specially if she was jealous, like they said in the pub?'

  'It's a possibility. Jane, wasn't it? "I thought she'd kill Arlette when she went off with Mike." Perhaps she did, Ken. Add her name to the list, and the gang Arlette went round with. Happy's already interviewed them, but with a possible murder on our hands, we'll have to follow it up. And there are still two more lecturers to see, Baker and Lennard. As soon as the inquest's over, we'll get back up there.'

  They spent a routine and unproductive afternoon interviewing for themselves the tutors and postgraduates who had been Arlette's friends. Mike, Steve, Alan and Charlie, whose names had figured in several statements, were not the offhand, unconcerned group Hopkins had depicted, but, faced with Arlette's death, subdued and anxious to help. The young lecturers, too, regretted their previous attitude.

  'I was pretty fed-up with her,' Philip Baker admitted. 'I thought she was playing hooky. She'd supposedly had some upset the previous week, which meant reshuffling her classes, and this time she'd not even bothered to phone. But I never dreamt she'd come to any harm.'

  No, neither he nor Mark Lennard had known her well.

  'Ever seen her in the company of other tutors or lecturers?'

  'Only in the bar or the departmental coffee-room.'

  They could be lying, but Webb didn't think so. 'I hear she caused some jealousy up here. Any girl you can think of who might have had it in for her?'

  Mark Lennard stared at him in horror. 'Not to the extent of killing her. Surely you don't think that?'

  'At the moment we don't know that anyone killed her, Dr Lennard. But if they did, it could have been on the spur of the moment, and regretted immediately afterwards. We wouldn't necessarily be looking for a hardened criminal.'

  But the two men weren't prepared to give any names which might be considered suspect. Which left "Jane", and having declared his interest, Webb felt it wise to elicit her surname elsewhere. />
  By the time they'd done so it was after five-thirty, and they found her in the bar. She was a pert twenty-three-year-old in shirt and jeans, perched on a stool and, unlike the men, neither apologetic nor beset with guilt. There were several other people about, but she declined Webb's offer to go somewhere private.

  'Nothing to hide, have I?' she said defiantly.

  Webb tried to ignore his interested audience. 'I hear you weren't too friendly with Arlette Picard?'

  'Can you blame me? Went off with my fella, didn't she?'

  Jane answered frankly. 'Naturally I wasn't chuffed. Who would be? Doesn't mean I pushed her off any cliff, though. .Did someone think I might have? What bloody cheek!'

  'Who was your—er—fellow?' Webb inquired.

  'Mike Partridge. I know him from home and we've been going out since we were sixteen, which made it worse.'

  Partridge hadn't mentioned Jane. 'And Arlette went round with him?'

  'Only till she'd got him hooked, then he became just one of her gang. And I'm damn sure he didn't get what he was after—that wasn't how she played it. Jam tomorrow but never jam today. Bloody serves him right.'

  'Did any of the other girls feel as you do?'

  'God, yes. We'd have a right moan over our cocoa. But it wasn't serious, copper. I mean, OK, we'd have liked to see her taken down a peg, but not this way.'

  Which was how they had to leave it.

  Claire pushed open the gate of her daughter's house and glanced into the pram in the garden. It was empty. Sarah came to the door, the baby under one arm.

  'Hello, Mum, come in. I'm just getting Katy's tea.'

  Claire circumvented the packing cases in the tiny hall. 'Are you beginning to get sorted out?'

  Sarah laughed. 'Not so that you'd notice. The dining-room's still full of junk, and Paul can't get the car in the garage. Have you time for a cuppa?'

  'I'd love one. Let me take Katy while you get it.' She sat down at the kitchen table, her grand-daughter on her knee. 'I only came for a chat, really. I've been feeling so depressed all day.'