‘But he was listening to the music.’ Stella struggled to recall that evening.
‘That was me. For such a ghastly woman, Joy’s music was angelic, couldn’t resist it. And you had arrived so I couldn’t leave.’
‘But his hat was on the chair.’ Stella had an idea. ‘Did you move the plastic barriers?’
‘March left his hat and I had asked him to move the barriers. It would lead the police into thinking that the murderer would have passed Joy.’ Felicity didn’t appear to mind that she was soaked through. ‘All in all, I had March set up his own murder.
‘Clive saw me visit Northcote that night. I gave him some guff about being the pathologist on the scene. He seemed to swallow that, but over the years he began coming out with remarks apropos of nothing. Time was his to bide, he’d say. Truth will stop the pendulum. I tried to stop him coming to the Death Café, but could think of no good reason. When I saw Clive talking to you in the high street, I had to do something and fast. Joy told me Clive had instructed her to go to the police if anything happened to him, but the fool didn’t believe him so came to me instead.’ Felicity shouted over the raging turbulence. ‘You are not distracting me, Stella, I, too, can bide my time. You are a deserving listener for a story which, sadly, isn’t in my autobiography.’ Felicity yelled, ‘March was not supposed to come to the Death Café. That threw me.’
‘Northcote raped you. You know better than me that you’d get manslaughter,’ Stella yelled back.
‘It was my first time, I bled on his carpet. If they’d kept the carpet, they could now test it for DNA. That would be that. But since they had their man, they burnt it. I threatened to tell the police and Aleck laughed. I was dressed in black, my alter ego was Cat Woman. One must stand out from the herd. They’ll think you a common tart. Stella, when the other side doesn’t play fair, it’s idiotic to stick to the rules.’
‘That will be taken into account.’ Stella was clutching at straws, but the rage fuelling her terror was for Felicity. Something pinged in her brain. She jerked her head. Car wo my.
‘Keep still,’ Felicity yelled.
‘Cat woman.’ Stella gripped the railing. In the moonlight, the water might be liquid steel. ‘Roddy tried to tell me. It was you.’
‘Oh dear, Stella. Several steps behind. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,’ Felicity taunted her.
Stella didn’t believe in ghosts. That was Jack. But staring down at the spume, Stella felt the presence of George Cotton. She held his last moments as another piece of the jigsaw fell into place. As Felicity had said, too late.
‘George Cotton worked out that you killed Northcote. He came to see you.’
‘One step at a time, don’t tax your brain.’
‘Why did you kill him? He didn’t like Northcote any more than you did.’
‘Cotton was a police officer at heart. No murderer should get away with it even if the victim was a killer. He and his wife Agnes had never held with capital punishment. He wanted me to give myself up.’
‘You murdered three people to avoid being caught for murdering Northcote.’ Soon it would be four.
‘There you are again, like Joy, moralizing. Northcote knew he could thrust himself into me, button himself up and pour himself a Scotch. I put a stop to him – after me there were no more rapes. I killed the fatted calf. The golden goose. The man whose work had inspired me. I was his successor. Cotton, March, Clive were collateral.’
‘Did he mention Maple?’
‘Here we go. What about me? Maple was a silly cheap missy with aspirations way above her station. She did not come up.’ Felicity’s words were caught up and whipped around like hornets. ‘Maple Greenhill left her son at home during an air raid to cavort with Aleck Northcote. It’s the Maple Greenhills who paved the way for me. How could Northcote respect my sex with girls like her out to bleed him?’
‘He never promised to marry you. He didn’t pretend he liked you. He bought Maple gifts, he dated her.’ Stella was fighting for her own life. ‘If you don’t intend to stab me, stop doing that with knife.’ Never antagonize the enemy if you can’t escape. Stella ignored her father’s advice.
‘Stella Darnell, what a trouper. Perhaps we could have been friends.’ Felicity lowered the knife and rested her palms on the railing. ‘I remember being confounded by the splinters of bone, grey brain matter, blood. I expected Northcote to be greater than human. A god made of gold. Even after he’d raped me, laughed at me, discounted me, Northcote the pathologist was the point of my life. I didn’t understand how he could look like any other corpse.’
Water slapped over the boards. Foam spewing through the teeth of the weir appeared phosphorescent. Stella pictured Jack. Don’t think about Jack. It had been Felicity who mentioned legacy at the Death Café. Stella’s legacy would be the manner of her death. This felt more terrible than death itself.
‘… saw Northcote speak at UCL in my first year, his rich brown voice, his sheer brilliance, my heart soared, as if he spoke only to me.’ Felicity was back with her story with Stella nothing but her captive listener. ‘After he… after… I went upstairs and drew a bath. After that, I made sure to clean where I touched – this was 1963, like I said, no DNA, but there was fingerprinting, blood types, hair samples. I was a brilliant young pathologist, I made no mistakes. Not like Northcote. I agreed with Cotton, leaving his lighter at Maple Greenhill’s murder scene was basic.’
‘Your clothes must have been bloodstained.’
‘I burnt them in his stove. I took a shirt from his wardrobe, laundered and starched, it smelled of him. When I left, I took the poker – never leave the police a weapon.’
‘What if you had been searched?’
‘As Northcote told me, the police ignore the least likely suspect. They still do. That woman they had on the murders of March and Clive never as much as considered me.’ Felicity spoke as if the murders were nothing to do with her. ‘I booked into the Tudor House Hotel, it’s not far—’
‘I know where it is.’ Stella had cleaned there.
‘After breakfast I went across to Cloisters House to get my autograph. Only to display profound shock when the police officer outside informed me Northcote had been murdered. I sobbed, real tears, I cried for the professional who was my personal deity. Just then Professor Max Watkins, Home Office pathologist, came out of the house. He remembered my intelligent questions at his lectures and autopsies.
‘“Young lady, career-defining cases come rarely, come with me and keep your wits about you.”’
‘I watched him cut and bottle Northcote. I agreed Northcote was bludgeoned with a blunt instrument – not quite blunt, I tentatively proffered – could those indentations on his skull indicate some kind of pattern, could Northcote have been attacked with a fire-iron? “Clever child,” Watkins said. He invited me to motor back to town in a Daimler that “Poor old Northcote himself flogged to me when he got his Rolls.” When Giles Northcote was charged, Watkins was cheerful. “Zeus kills Cronos, the old make way for the young.” As I held the jar containing Northcote’s liver to the light, I blew him a kiss.’
‘Giles Northcote was innocent.’ Stella’s throat was on fire from shouting above the deafening sound. They were ankle-deep in water. Did Felicity plan to die with her?
‘Don’t spoil it, Stella.’ Distracted by water swirling at their feet, Felicity snapped into the present. ‘I’m seventy-four with an international reputation, I speak at international conferences, as Northcote once inspired me, so I guide the young. I won’t be felled by armchair detectives like you and Andrea who have something to prove to their fathers.’
‘My father is dead.’ Stella was telling herself as much as Felicity.
‘Police will be swarming around the abbey, Forensics will be all over Joy. I watched your man friend sneaking about in dear Andrea’s room from across the street. I called the house and left a message with one of Gladys’s greasy lodgers. Soon smoked Mr Harmon out, I can tell you. What a shame he can’t come to
your rescue, Stella, but all the roads into Tewkesbury are cut off by floodwater. As pathologist on call, they’ll be ringing me.’
‘You have retired. They won’t be calling you. Ever.’ Stella lost it. She had in fact nothing to lose.
‘…how sorry I will be when I’m told the river has claimed you. I shall treat you with care. My report will state water in your lungs indicates you were alive when you went in. Northcote taught me the corpse is a narrative, my bible. Your bloated cadaver will tell your story. The police will assemble facts and make five. Joy attacked you, and in self-defence you killed her. At Fletcher’s old mill, with only the moonlight to show you the way, you slipped and tumbled into the rushing waters.’
‘You won’t get away with it.’ Not every ending was happy. Felicity was plausible. Respected. Jack and the others thought Joy was their killer. She would get away with it.
‘Stella.’ Jack’s voice. Wishful thinking was skewing reality. Jack was stuck on a road outside Tewkesbury with Andrea – harmless grumpy Andrea. Jack would be annoying her with how he loved Stella…
Rain etched silver lines across the lamplight on St Mary’s Lane. The moon was out. Something floated downstream. A dead sheep, sodden and bloated, was pale in the thin light. Stella saw herself.
‘Stella.’
Felicity turned.
Torchlight, the strobing lamps of squad cars and ambulances. Armed police were on the gantry below the old mill. Stella made out Janet at the other end of the bridge. And Jack.
‘Keep back.’ Felicity again pressed the cartilage knife to her neck. This time not the flat of the blade.
‘I can say it was Joy who killed Northcote,’ Stella shouted at Felicity. ‘That you saved me.’
‘How will you lie to your chap? Isn’t honesty important to you?’ Felicity appeared interested. Stella felt a flicker of hope.
‘I lie to Jack all the time.’ Don’t plead. ‘I’ll say Joy was blackmailing you.’
‘Clever, it could work.’ Felicity spoke into her ear. Stella felt more scared of her now that she was being pliant.
‘I’ll say you found me on the bridge and stopped me from falling in.’
‘Perfect.’ Felicity’s laugh was high, strange. ‘Ah, Stella, I almost feel sorry for you. You underestimate me and, as Aleck found out, people do that at their peril.’
A scream, louder than the water pounding below, rent the air.
‘Jack.’ Stella felt thuds, heard shouts. She was inches from the black river.
‘I’ve got you, darling.’ Stella felt Jack around her. Then she was on a stretcher. Jack held her hand. Voices, faces. Stella touched her neck, it was wet. She was dying.
‘Not a mark on you, popsicle.’ Lucie’s face swam into focus. ‘Before she jumped, she let you go.’
‘She jumped?’
‘The rescue launch is out. A budget-breaking wild goose chase. Ask me, Felicitatus does not intend to be rescued.’
Cat woman.
Stella imagined Felicity slinking out of the water and running nimbly up the bank. Then she passed out.
Epilogue
Christmas Eve
Jackie
‘Shall I be mother?’ Bev waved at the array of teapots on the table and at a murmur of assent, poured Earl Grey, bog-standard and gunpowder tea (Lucie) into a cluster of Tewkesbury Abbey mugs.
Eight minutes past ten. Christmas Eve morning. The Clean Slate Detectives, as Bev named them, had been first into the Abbey Gardens tearoom where, as Jack had noted, everything began. A large stuffed hen was wedged between Stanley’s jaws as he lay on Stella’s lap. He had claimed Jack’s present to Stella for his own.
Passing round cakes, doughnut for Lucie, chocolate brownies for Bev and Jack, Jackie opted for a Portuguese tart, but couldn’t persuade Stella to share. Jackie’s second family was reunited, for the first time in months she could relax. When she’d come to Tewkesbury the night before, Stella had told her she was coming home and would start work after Christmas. Clean Slate would rise from the ashes.
‘It began in December 1940 in the middle of the Blitz,’ Stella said. ‘Aleck Northcote strangled Maple Greenhill.’ She raised her mug. ‘To Maple, dead long ago, never forgotten.’
‘Cleo says William is changing his name back to Greenhill. Andrea’s sacked Zack for embezzlement.’ Bev had been on the phone to Cleo Greenhill as they all walked to the tearoom. ‘Andrea’s scanning a virtual tour for Maple’s Motors. Cliff is going into rehab. When he’s out, Cleo is encouraging him to start an archaeology course and leave the showroom. Cleo has asked Andrea to be co-director. Maple’s granddaughter kind of fits with Vernon’s dream of Maple’s son joining. Cleo and Andrea are the dream team.’
‘At least that’s one good outcome from this sorry tale.’ Lucie sighed. ‘This chain of murders could not have a happy ending. Maple Greenhill’s own dream proved to be a nightmare, Julia Northcote failed to send her husband to the gallows, Roddy March’s parents lost their only child. Clive at least had a fitting end.’
‘Is there such a thing as a fitting end?’ Jack wondered.
‘I want to die in my sleep and know nothing about it,’ Beverly declared.
‘OK for you, but a tragedy for the rest of us,’ Lucie said. ‘Me, I expect there’s a few who want me to shuffle off the mortal coil. My winged idiot of an editor for one. What a hash he made of saying how pleased he was that I’m coming back to work.’
‘Joy will never play the Grove organ again,’ Stella said.
‘My heart breaks,’ Beverly snapped. ‘Joy-less was a first-class nasty person.’
‘She loved playing in the abbey.’ Stella did feel sorry for Joy. Unhappiness had made her nasty. It hadn’t made Stella all that nice.
‘The first organist in the country to be blackballed for blackmail. There’s her legacy right there.’ Lucie scribbled the phrase in her notebook.
‘Gladys Wren is exonerated,’ Jack said.
‘I’m pleased for her.’ Beverly sounded heartfelt. ‘She never did anyone any harm. She didn’t even murder the man who had abused her for years. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. I don’t blame Felicity that she did.’
‘Can I join you?’ Janet was detective-smart in a black suit, white shirt and mac with the collar up.
‘Please do.’ Jackie pulled out a chair when no one spoke and made everyone shuffle round.
‘I went to Gladys Wren’s boarding house; she said you were here. I want to apologize, Stella, I should have listened. Lucie, you too,’ Janet added with, Jackie guessed, monumental effort. Lucie had been the bane of what was now the Met Police’s Central West division for too many decades. ‘I got it wrong.’
‘Not the first— ouch.’ Lucie winced when Jackie kicked her ankle.
‘There’ll be an enquiry, from which I’ll emerge stinking of horse-shit.’ Janet sat forward, her hands between her knees.
‘You followed the evidence,’ Stella said. ‘Like you – and me – were taught. If I’d been the SIO I’d have got it wrong too. I only realized Felicity was the murderer when she had a knife at my throat.’
‘I’d have solved it.’ Lucie was not gracious in victory. ‘All I lacked were the resources of a county constabulary.’
‘We have retrieved Felicity’s body from the Avon. It was caught in reeds miles downstream.’
Lucie was cutting her doughnut in half. Jam dripping, she passed one piece to Stella. Jackie knew it was Lucie acknowledging that, cold-blooded killer though Felicity had been, Stella would mourn her. Felicity’s life had been ruined by Northcote. A kind of murder.
‘The irony is,’ Janet accepted a mug of tea from Jackie, ‘Roddy March’s laptop and notebook along with his wallet were in a safe in Felicity’s basement mortuary. Not that the notebook would have led us to the killer. The only person he had a good word to say about was you, Stella. He thought you, observant with the makings of a forensic cleaner as well as “not a bad looker”.’
‘I don’t know how he could t
hink any of that,’ Stella snapped.
‘The only time the guy had it right, I’d say, except he missed out first-rate detective.’ Janet shot her a smile. ‘We finally found his podcast files in a cloud under the pseudonym, Charles Foster Kane, as in Citizen Kane. March outlined the rest of the series and revealed the name of Northcote’s killer. It wouldn’t have helped any of us, the dill-brain pointed the finger at Joy Turton. He reckoned Joy was jealous of Gladys having, as she supposed, an affair with Northcote and to deprive Gladys of him, killed him. He was both right and wrong. Joy didn’t take her jealousy out on Northcote, but on blackmailing poor Gladys, who became a handy source of income.’
‘Joy made sublime music.’ Stella made no sense of that. All that made sense to her now was that she loved all the people sitting around the ‘séance’ table in the teashop.
‘Just think,’ Janet sipped her tea, ‘Dame Professor Felicity Branscombe could have gone to her grave with her reputation as a top pathologist whose evidence put violent murderers where they belonged intact. We might never have known she’d murdered Northcote and Cotton. Because yes, Cotton had worked out Felicity killed Northcote. A detective, haunted by the man who had got away with murder, he’d gone to an exhibition of pathologist artefacts. It included the copy of Northcote’s autobiography signed for Felicity which her ego had propelled her to contribute. Cotton must have made sense of “To the Girl in the Headlines”, the housekeeper’s alibi for Northcote’s murder. It’s on record that Felicity had been in Tewkesbury that night. The book was evidence she’d met Northcote.’
‘March got the wrong woman.’ Lucie tapped Stella’s plate, urging her to eat the doughnut. Jackie was euphoric when Stella took a bite. They had their Stella back.
‘Gladys Wren refuses to charge Joy Turton with blackmail,’ Janet said. ‘Claims she’s destroyed Joy’s letters. Joy is selling her cottage so that she can pay back every penny she extorted from Gladys.’
‘Good.’ Beverly was hot on justice.
‘That’s the beauty beneath the ugliness.’ Stella wiped her mouth with a napkin.
The Distant Dead Page 33