He must have sensed her feelings because he looked up with a trace of sympathy in his eyes.
‘Never did have a strong stomach, did you, Jo?’
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak one word.
He touched the corpse’s thick, dark hair. ‘I take it this will be your missing suspect?’
‘Almost certainly.’ She was amazed at the steadiness of her voice.
‘Well, she didn’t die last Tuesday morning.’
‘When?’
‘Round about a month ago. There are ...’ Apologetically he prodded at the heaving mass of grubs.
‘So I see.’
He was touching the hands, paying particular attention to the nails. And there was a grimness in his face she had never seen before.
She felt a sudden panic. ‘Matthew?’
He was calm. ‘It’s all right. I was a bit concerned she might have been bricked up still alive.’ He was smiling now. ‘But panic over. Nothing under the fingernails. What I think must have happened was the arm escaped as rigor mortis wore off.’
‘Thank God,’ she breathed. ‘So what did she die of?’
‘I hate guesswork, Jo, and there’s nothing too obvious besides the state of the body, but I’d lay a bet that whoever murdered this little lady came back later to finish the job. Put it like this. Someone really had it in for this family.’
‘Murder?’
‘She didn’t brick herself in there.’
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday, July 11th, 8 a.m.
‘I don’t know why post mortems are always so early in the morning. And on a Saturday too.’ Joanna was grumbling as Sergeant Barraclough laced her into an attendant’s gown. Barra grinned. He knew her complaints were an attempt to hide her nervousness at a post mortem. He had watched her through too many before, green faced, staring at anywhere but the body. For himself he was proud of his wooden detachment from the proceedings. He coped by concentrating on efficient collection of specimens.
They were all tense as the mortuary attendant unzipped the body bag and released a powerful scent of fly spray.
Even Matthew made a face as he began his superficial examination. ‘Not a pretty sight, Jo. It’s possible large portions of the brain might have been destroyed by the larvae.’ His eyes moved along the corpse. ‘Although the abdominal organs seem in a reasonable state surprisingly.’ His green eyes were almost luminous. ‘It’s even possible we might have a problem determining the cause of death.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, as I said last night she didn’t brick herself up in there,’ Matthew commented drily. ‘And considering what happened to the rest of her family I’m tempted to make a connection between the deaths. Aren’t you?’
‘Just wait a minute.’ Joanna stopped him. All night she had not slept but had pondered this one point. ‘Only Aaron or Jack would have been in a position to build that wall. They’d hardly have stood by and watched a complete stranger breezeblock Ruthie in at the back of their larder, would they? So if Ruthie was murdered it was either her father or her brother who did it. And the other must have colluded with them in concealing her body.’
Matthew said nothing but his eyes were gleaming as he continued the preliminary examination. It was a few minutes before he spoke. ‘So were they murdered as a result of Ruthie’s death?’
She glanced at the scalpel poised in his hand. ‘I suppose it depends what she died of.’
But already her mind was working it out. Jack had been unpredictable. Jack had been mentally deranged. He had been violent on more than one occasion. What if he had lashed out at his sister?
Matthew was still busy recording his observations. ‘Large portion of the brain completely destroyed. Cranium undamaged and complete.’ He gave Joanna a meaningful glance. ‘That knocks off my favourite cause of violent death, a head injury.’ His hands moved deftly through the soft tissue. ‘In fact I’m not too optimistic I will be able to ascertain a cause of death.’
‘Just do your best,’ Joanna muttered from the far end. Over the years she thought she had grown used to the precise nature of Matthew’s work, of the butcher’s shop scene of a corpse laid open to yield its secrets. No one knew better than she that it could be disgusting, horrible, gory. As a police officer she had a healthy regard for the truths that could be exposed when he wielded his scalpel. But this degradation of life was today particularly disgusting to her because of the idealized picture she had held of the farmer’s daughter, a young woman who collected eggs from the henhouse, someone who sang as she led the cows into the parlour for milking, someone who had cared for her brother. But the image had been cruelly shattered. So she stood at the far end of the mortuary, beneath the air exchange while Matthew delved in Ruth Summers’ abdomen, handling organs.
‘They’re in good condition,’ he was muttering. ‘Surprisingly so, considering. But then ...’ He was muttering to himself. ‘I suppose the warm air whistling through the air brick must have dried the body. Mummified it to some extent.’ He used his shoulder to scratch an ear, push his hair away from his face. His gloved hands were never used – sacred objects – smeared with death and decay. He was working methodically, according to the text book, using classic post-mortem techniques, a rigid set of manoeuvres learnt over the years with a few deft procedures of his own, silently slicing through tissue with his scalpel.
And all Joanna could think of, at the far end, feeling the fresh, clean air blow across her face, was this vision she had clung to, the girl, pretty, slim, dark and small, singing as she herded the cows in for their milking. That girl and this object could not be one and the same person.
Matthew was getting more excited. ‘This,’ he was saying, ‘is really interesting. I can’t believe it.’
Reluctantly she watched him finger something. ‘The deeper pelvic organs are really in quite good nick.’ Suddenly he gave an exclamation and bent forwards. The police recognized the signs and moved closer with him. They forgot their repugnance at the procedure in their eagerness to know something. At last he looked up. ‘Did you know your girl was pregnant?’
She nodded. ‘But people don’t die of...’
Matthew was holding up a small, tomato object, held between two sets of forceps. ‘They do if it lodges inside their fallopian tubes. Your girl,’ he said triumphantly, ‘died of natural causes.’
‘Natural causes?’ She stared at the piece of tissue held between the pincer grip of the forceps.
‘Natural causes? You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure all right. I’ve done a few too many corpses in this state to miss this particular diagnosis. She died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and I’m prepared to stand up in court and swear that under oath. There is absolutely no sign of trauma. She would have died suddenly and in great pain but no one murdered her.’ He gave one of his twisted smiles. ‘Unless you want to count the foetus.’
Joanna couldn’t help staring at the cherry tomato object and shook her head thoughtfully. ‘Or the man who made her pregnant,’ she said.
Barraclough turned to object. ‘But the murders?’ Matthew shrugged and dropped the object into a formalin pot while she was left floundering with the medical facts and the circumstances that had led to their discovery of the girl’s body. She knew she must delve a little deeper. ‘Matthew, please, in words of one syllable or less, explain so we understand exactly what happened. What was the sequence of events?’ And because her head was reeling with the terrible fact that Ruthie’s corpse had been bricked up and no one had confessed that she was dead, somehow the rest of her family had been slaughtered. Why? What could possibly be the reason, the connection?
Like a flash it burst through her brain.
It had to be revenge.
‘OK. I’ll explain.’ For a moment Matthew turned his back on the body to address the police officers. ‘Ruth Summers became pregnant. But instead of the little embryo lodging against the wall of her womb it got stuck in the fallopian tubes. Wha
t happens then is that the embryo grows so big...’ His fingers moved towards the ball of tissue, no bigger than a golf ball. ‘The poor girl gets ill with abdominal cramps which get steadily worse until she goes to a doctor who with a bit of luck makes the correct diagnosis and pops her into hospital where they excise both tube and baby.’
‘Only in this case she didn’t,’ Joanna inserted drily.
Matthew misunderstood her. ‘Oh I don’t think many doctors would miss this diagnosis,’ he said. ‘It’s real medical student stuff.’
Joanna shook her head. ‘Ruthie Summers never visited her doctor about this pregnancy. She merely sent a urine sample off which came back as positive. He knew she was pregnant but she didn’t consult him.’
Matthew’s answer was a deep sigh. ‘I see.’
There was a small three-legged stool in the corner of the mortuary. In her early days Joanna had spent many post mortems sitting on this stool, her head firmly rammed between her knees, the mortuary attendant keeping a watchful eye on her. She sank down on it now.
‘Are you all right, Jo?’ Matthew glanced across.
She nodded. She had sat here today not because she was feeling faint but because she badly needed to think.
Ruthie may have died of natural causes but Joanna still had a double murder to solve. No one would call shotgun blasts to the chest natural causes and now she had lost her chief suspect the field lay wide open except that Ruthie’s death must be a pointer like a spinning bottle towards her father and brother’s killer.
And yet part of her felt nothing but relief that Ruthie was innocent so she repeated the phrase to herself.
‘Not Ruthie.’
But if not Ruthie, who? If the murders were nothing to do with Ruthie then who?
And slowly the facts began to untangle themselves. Ruthie Summers’ child had a father. What if he had wondered where she was? What if he had come to Hardacre to challenge her father and brother? What if he had grown suspicious at the evasive response and believed they were keeping her from him. Then what if he had jumped to the same conclusion that she initially had?
That Ruthie had quarrelled with her brother. Her brother had struck her, killing her. What if he then had killed Aaron and Jack through frustration or revenge?
Early on Tuesday morning at around six o’clock he had called one last time at Hardacre Farm in search for Ruthie. Maybe they had told him the truth, or part of it, that she was dead. Perhaps Aaron had even confided his suspicion to him. Perhaps the gun had initially been meant to force them to reveal her whereabouts and when they had told him what they had understood to be the truth – that Ruthie had died from natural causes – he had not believed them. So he had fired. Only without the benefit of Matthew’s skill they had all been wrong. Ruthie had not been murdered. She had died of natural causes. But neither Aaron nor Jack could have known that or they would not have hidden her. Probably Aaron had suspected Jack of a crime while Jack had merely failed to understand – anything. Again the vision of the poor, bemused face, staring down at the bloodstained hands swam through Joanna’s mind.
So she watched Matthew drop the samples into the formalin pots with an awful feeling of waste. It had all been so unnecessary. Too murders through a misconception. Literally. And now to trap the killer she knew there was something else she must ask.
It was connected with Ruthie’s child. Or more precisely, with Ruthie’s child’s father.
‘Matthew,’ she began.
He looked up, fine tweezers held in his hand like a pen. ‘Yes?’
‘The uummm.’
He smiled, his face warm, open, friendly. Her heart did a quick flip.
Her eyes moved from his face to the tomato-like object in the formalin pot. ‘The baby is in there?’
He nodded. ‘Well – an embryo. Not really a baby.’ It was medical pedantry.
‘Could a test give us the paternity of the child?’
‘DNA profiling, you mean?’
She nodded, hardly daring to hope. This one break, this one, vital answer would surely tell them everything.
‘Yes, in a couple of weeks.’
She breathed.
But as usual Matthew had a proviso. ‘As long as we have a sample from the father to compare it with. Preferably blood.’
Her glance travelled along the floor towards the ante room where the fridges were. And as usual Matthew read her thoughts.
‘Yes we do have blood samples from both the deceased. But.’
‘Let’s start with the family,’ she said baldly, concealing her anxiety. That Ruthie’s baby was the result of incest? It was a possibility that could not be ignored. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
Their job done the SOCO team were dispersing already, leaving her alone with Matthew.
‘How are you enjoying your break with Eloise?’ she asked diffidently.
He turned, his eyes narrowing as he read her thoughts. He knew just how much she longed to be rid of the girl. ‘Very much.’
She gave a curt nod and excused herself to drive back to the Incident Room.
‘The question is, Mike, where do we start?’
10.30 a.m.
The assembled team showed their shock plainly when she gave them the results of the post mortem. She watched the puzzlement creep across their faces.
‘I trust you’ll realize this does, in some ways, make our job a little easier. We do know more. We know that Ruthie Summers was already dead at the time of the shootings. So she’s off our suspect list. And she was not a murder victim as were the rest of her family.’ She smiled.
‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ DC Alan King had been seconded from Birmingham, a bright, shrewd officer with wiry, brown hair and an optimistic nature. Joanna would like to keep him here, in Leek, permanently. ‘What’s the connection?’
‘We don’t know. We don’t even know there is one. But three sudden deaths in one family in a couple of months. Korpanski and I don’t believe in coincidence. So let’s think about it.’ She perched herself on a chair and the waiting officers relaxed. ‘What about this? Ruthie Summers finds herself pregnant. She tells her lover. And then she disappears. Lover comes sniffing around the farm. No sign of his darling. Asks brother, or father, who deny any knowledge. Lover comes back, threatens them. They still deny all knowledge. Lover shoots.’
The officers were all staring at her. ‘Well at least it gives us a motive,’ she said savagely. ‘And it connects what we already know. It fits the facts.’
Strangely enough it was Mike who, frowning, spoke first. ‘Revenge? You think the killings were done as revenge for the suspected murder of Ruthie Summers?’
She kept her eyes trained steadily on him as she nodded.
Timmis’ slow, Moorlands voice piped up from the back. ‘Why did they wall her up?’
For this she had no logical answer. ‘We may never know.’ She glanced helplessly at Mike. ‘I can only surmise that her brother alone was present when she died and that the father assumed he had killed her. Otherwise the only reason I can think of was that just maybe they knew she was pregnant and felt some social stigma.’
But she knew this was wrong. Two rough farmers would not have recognized a six to eight week pregnancy. Would Ruthie have told them?
Something else was tugging at her memory.
Hannah Lockley had told her, Aaron Summers had had a fear of hospitals, blaming them for much of his suffering. So what if Aaron had felt guilt because his daughter had been in obvious pain and he had dissuaded her from seeking medical help. Was it possible that his guilt might have led to the concealment of his daughter’s body? Or was the dark hint of incest the true reason why it had been necessary for Ruthie’s pregnancy to be concealed? She visualized Aaron’s emaciated corpse and Jack’s stolid face and mentally shook her head. That was not the answer.
She turned back to face the officers. ‘So let’s run through the list of Ruthie’s potential lovers.’ On the blackboard she boldly wrote four names.
Dave Shackleton
Titus Mothershaw
Neil Rowan
Lewis Stone.
‘You don’t need me to tell you that Dave Shackleton is the tanker driver, a long-standing friend of the family. He admits he fancied Ruthie although he denies having a relationship with her. It was he who found the bodies.’ She paused, reading the name through twice before adding her own thoughts. ‘I suppose one of the things that points in his favour is that both Aaron and Jack were familiar enough with him to invite him into their home without worrying. Also he would have known that the gun habitually stood in the front porch and had the opportunity to load it.’
She turned back to the board and read out the second name reluctantly.
‘Titus Mothershaw is a sculptor who rented property from the Summers. We have no evidence of his ever having had a relationship with Ruthie although he admits they were friends. And he quite openly says he handled the shotgun.’
Again there was something there. Something she was not quite comfortable with. It was connected with the Tree Man statue, the malevolence hidden in Jack Summers’ face. It was a pointer to the murders but like a blank signpost Joanna could not read where it was directing her.
Mothershaw had seen something in the Summers family that she had missed. The point was would he share it with her if she asked? Somehow she doubted it. It was something he felt he had to conceal. Why? It was possible that he was not even consciously aware of it himself. But Joanna knew it was something he had picked up from one of them. Perhaps his artist’s instincts made him susceptible to hidden character. Or maybe as he had carved Jack’s face he had seen something. What? She sighed, became aware of the watching faces and moved on.
‘Neil Rowan owns a neighbouring farm where Ruthie Summers cleaned. He must have been one of the few men she had much contact with.’ She recalled Arabella Rowan’s words accusing her husband.
Scaring Crows Page 19