Epitaph: a gripping murder mystery

by Anita Waller

Rosie put the diary in her own bag, and moved across to the wardrobe. It was a large double wardrobe, and Rosie opened both doors at the same time. It was full.

  ‘My God, Shirley, where are you? You’ve taken nothing with you,’ Rosie groaned. She closed the wardrobe doors, had a further rapid look around, then went in the other rooms. Nothing. Downstairs it was the same. It was untidy, pots hadn’t been washed, and it was definitely lacking a woman’s touch. Shirley’s touch.

  15

  Adam and Seth Ledger looked quickly across at each other, then stood in unison. They didn’t think they were in trouble, but it was never good to be collected by Eva Peters and escorted to the headmaster’s office.

  ‘Don’t worry, boys,’ she whispered as they walked, one on each side of her, down the herringbone-floored corridor that gleamed in the bright sunshine. ‘You’re not in any trouble.’

  Neither of the boys spoke; it had been their mantra from day one that if they weren’t speaking to each other, they wouldn’t speak at all.

  They were surprised to see their father sitting with two women as they entered Norman Rodgers’ office.

  Still they didn’t speak, and Mrs Peters pointed to two chairs that had been set out for them. ‘Sit down, boys,’ she said, and they looked at each other before doing as requested.

  Seth was next to his father, but there was no contact, not even a hello from Mark to his sons.

  Norman Rodgers spoke first. ‘Seth, Adam, these two ladies are police officers. DCI Grace Stamford and DS Harriet Jameson. They would like to have a few words after your father has spoken with you.’

  Mark Ledger visibly took a deep breath. ‘I have two things to tell you, boys, and the first thing is that Aunty Melanie has died.’

  The twins turned to each other, Seth almost reached for Adam’s hand and thought better of it. Dad wouldn’t like it, he decided.

  ‘Does Uncle Patrick know?’ Seth asked.

  ‘Yes, of course he does. He’s upset, and he sends his love.’

  ‘Why?’ Adam asked, wanting to cry but knowing Dad wouldn’t like it. ‘Why has she died? She’s not old like our nan was.’

  Mark glanced at the two policewomen. ‘She was found in a stream, a deep stream.’

  They thought this fact through for a few seconds, then Adam spoke again. ‘She drowned? But she was a good swimmer. She taught us to swim.’

  DCI Stamford looked across at Mark, her eyebrows raised in query, and he nodded.

  ‘Adam, Seth, my name is Grace. I’m in charge of the case involving Melanie, and it isn’t as simple as you’re thinking. Aunty Melanie didn’t drown, she was strangled, and someone put her in the water.’

  ‘Strangled?’ Adam turned to his father. ‘Strangled? But why?’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Grace continued. ‘But we will find out. Our best people are out working on it right now, and as soon as we know anything we will come back here and let you know. We know she was an important person in your lives. But we have something else we’d like to talk to you about.’

  Grace gave a brief glance towards Mark, and he coughed to clear his throat. ‘It’s your mum, boys.’

  ‘She’s dead as well?’ There was a wail from Seth, and Adam did clutch at his hand this time, not caring what his father thought.

  ‘Is she?’ Adam demanded.

  ‘No, but we don’t know where she is. She’s been missing since last Wednesday night.’

  ‘But it’s Monday now.’ Seth spoke slowly, his face white. ‘Why have you waited all this time to tell us? We could have helped to look for her.’

  ‘Seth, we don’t know where to look. She hasn’t contacted you in any way, has she?’ Grace spoke gently to the worried child.

  ‘No, Dad won’t let us have mobile phones until our next birthday.’

  ‘But I understand you have iPads,’ Grace was quick to point out.

  The boys shrugged, not daring to admit that the iPads had been taken off them by boys two years older than them.

  ‘Seth, Adam,’ Grace said slowly. ‘It is important that you’re honest with me. Has your mother been in touch since last Wednesday night?’

  ‘No, we said she hadn’t, didn’t we?’ The stress was evident in Adam’s voice.

  Mrs Peters stood. ‘I’ll go and get the two iPads and you can see for yourself because there’s maybe something the boys have missed.’

  ‘No!’ they said in unison.

  ‘What’s wrong? Adam? Seth?’ DS Harriet Jameson spoke for the first time, but she was damned if she was going to let this crowd of vultures descend on two terrified eleven-year-olds.

  They both turned towards the friendly voice. ‘We haven’t got them now,’ Seth whispered.

  ‘They took them.’ His brother qualified his statement.

  ‘Who took them?’

  Seth dropped his head, so Adam spoke. ‘Carl Dewhurst, and I think the other one is called George Ireland. They’re in year nine. But you can’t take them off them, they’ll hammer us he said.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Carl Dewhurst.’

  For the second time, Norman Rodgers spoke. ‘Mrs Peters, please go and collect these iPads, then place Messrs Ireland and Dewhurst in separate isolation rooms until I can deal with them.’ He then turned to Adam and Seth as Mrs Peters disappeared out of the door. ‘Adam, Seth, you will have nothing to fear from these two. This isn’t their first disciplinary hearing, but it will be their last. You should have come to me when it first happened, and if ever anything else happens I expect you to knock on Mrs Peters’ door, and she’ll sort everything out. Did these boys hurt you?’

  The twins nodded, and Mark half stood.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Ledger. I’m not the headmaster you had here; if I say something will be done, it will be. How did they hurt you?’ he asked, turning back to the boys.

  ‘Twisted our arms up our back until we handed the tablets over,’ Seth said. ‘It really hurt.’

  ‘We’ll get our tech team to check the iPads,’ Grace said, ‘and then they’ll be returned to you. If your mother has tried to contact you via the tablet, they will have deleted it, but we can always find it again. Thank you for being so brave, and now Mr Rodgers knows what’s going on, I’m sure he will put things right. We don’t really want to have to give these two year-nine boys a criminal record, but if things aren’t handled properly, that’s what will happen.’

  Rodgers recognised her words as the threat that they were, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  With Carl Dewhurst and George Ireland deposited in separate rooms, feeling slightly worried that they couldn’t talk their way out of it this time, Mrs Peters hurried back to the headmaster’s office, clutching the two iPads.

  She handed them to Rodgers, who photographed them and passed them over to Grace.

  ‘I’m sure you can do more with these than I could ever hope to do,’ he said with a smile.

  Adam watched what was happening with some indifference. His mother was missing, his aunty Melanie was dead, and these idiots were wittering on about missing iPads. And he knew without a shadow of doubt that they would pay for snitching on George and Carl; there were a lot of other kids in year nine, friends of the two boys.

  He became aware Grace was speaking to them only when Seth gave him a nudge.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said can you remember the names of any of your mum’s friends? Anybody she would be likely to visit?’ Grace gave him a gentle smile of encouragement.

  ‘She doesn’t have friends, only Aunty Rosie and Aunty Melanie. She has to stay in the house.’

  ‘Why?’ Grace saw Mark shuffle uncomfortably as she asked the question.

  Seth and Adam looked at each other, then Seth spoke. ‘Dad doesn’t like her to go out. She only ever goes to Aunty Rosie’s house.’

  Grace turned to face Mark. ‘Mr Ledger?’

  ‘That’s a load of rubbish. I don’t stop your mother going anywhere, as you know, boys. Stop telling lies.’

/>   ‘Rosie Steer has confirmed this situation, I believe. Is there some reason you don’t allow your wife to have friends?’ Grace’s lips were firmly set, and she stared at him.

  ‘She’s not well,’ he mumbled. ‘I protect her.’

  ‘Why is she not well? Would her doctor say the same thing, or don’t you allow her to go to the doctor either?’

  ‘Of course she can go to the doctor.’ Mark’s face was suffused with blood, and he looked extremely angry. ‘I don’t stop her doing anything.’

  Grace saw the look that passed between the twins, and she decided to drop the questioning of their father for now. She would have him down at the police station for the next round. The boys were suffering enough without having to watch their father dragged over the coals.

  ‘Boys, I can release you from school a little early if you would like that. We’re only a week away from the end of term.’ Norman Rodgers watched the twins’ faces carefully. What he saw told him what he would hear.

  ‘No, we’re okay at school, thank you, Mr Rodgers.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s fine also, but if you need to talk, or simply want to know if there’s any information on your mum, please do come and find me. You can go back to your classes now.’

  The two boys stood and Grace and Harriet said goodbye to them. Mark didn’t attempt to give them a hug or a kiss, merely said, ‘Be good, lads.’

  The twins didn’t go back to class. Mrs Peters took them to the dining hall, got them a drink and a cake, and sat and talked to them for a while. Eventually they smiled, and she asked them what they wanted to do.

  ‘Can we read?’ Seth asked.

  ‘Good idea,’ Adam agreed. ‘We’d like to go to our dorm and read, if that’s okay?’

  ‘I think we can let you do that,’ she said with a smile. ‘I want to stress to both of you that if you get any comeback at all from what you’ve told us this afternoon, you’re to go straight to any teacher, or myself and Mr Rodgers. The other teachers will be told what’s happening and what’s happened to you two, and they’ll know immediately what to do if this bullying continues. Do you both understand?’

  They nodded, not sure what to say.

  ‘And let’s pray they find your mum before much longer. I’m sure you could both use a hug from her right now.’

  ‘What will happen if nobody finds Mum?’ There was a hint of fear in Adam’s question.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they will,’ Mrs Peters said, trying desperately to inject a note of jocularity into her answer.

  ‘Nobody has so far,’ Seth joined in. ‘Will we have to go home to Dad? On his own?’

  It was achingly obvious to her that these children most definitely did not want to go back to a motherless house. ‘Look, boys, there’s still a week before school closes for the break, I’m sure your mum will turn up before then, because she knows school holiday dates.’

  Seth actually stamped his foot, and Adam looked at him a little shocked. ‘I’m not going home to him. If Mum’s not there, I’m going to Aunty Rosie’s, she’ll look after us. And she’ll help us find our mum.’

  Eva Peters felt helpless. ‘Come on, let’s take a drink up to your dorm, and you can have a free afternoon. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but I’m sure those lovely police ladies are working hard to find your mum, and to find who killed your aunty.’

  16

  Both iPads had a story to tell but it was a short one. Neither Carl nor George had deleted the information that a Messenger call had been missed from Shirley Ledger; in fact, they had deleted nothing, not even the pornographic pictures downloaded by both of them.

  The tech department took the tablets apart trying to find some clue as to the whereabouts of the missing woman, but nothing was evident. Shirley Ledger had tried to contact her sons on the evening she had disappeared, but to no avail.

  Seth and Adam returned to classes and it was clear that something had been said to their classmates. They were invited to join in any activities the others were doing, and suddenly their peers were speaking to them. One of the boys, Freddie Holland, explained to his form master that they hadn’t left out anyone from their games, they all thought that the twins only wanted to hang around with each other.

  Carl Dewhurst and George Ireland were permanently excluded and sent home to explain to irate parents how they had acquired brand new iPads without actually paying for them, and other year nine pupils breathed a sigh of relief that they no longer needed to pay protection money to the two ex-pupils of Springbrook School for Boys.

  Doris pulled the laptop towards her, and typed swiftly. She had sent the vehicle registration number of the Ka to a colleague and asked if ANPR cameras could help with any information. His response had been swift. The car had been tracked leaving Hucknall on the night Shirley had disappeared. It had headed towards Nottingham but had then vanished. There was no confirmation of who was driving it.

  She gave a deep sigh.

  ‘No luck?’ Wendy placed a cup of coffee down on the table by the side of her friend.

  ‘No, but it was a bit of a long shot. I’m going to start on hotels and bed and breakfast places today, but I’m really starting to feel uneasy about this. It’s obvious those two lads were her entire life, but according to Rosie she hasn’t tried to contact either them or the school.’

  ‘What if she’s told the place where she’s staying that she doesn’t want anybody to know she’s there? And she doesn’t even need to have used her own name.’

  Again Doris sighed. ‘I know, but I have to do this. What if she has used her own name? We could miss her by not checking.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘You can take half the list, if you want. There’s no other way to do this but getting on the phone and asking if she’s there. Give me half an hour to find as many as I can, and then we’ll make a start.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll go and put a stew in the slow cooker, because after this lot neither of us will feel like cooking tonight. I’ll leave you to it.’ She walked across the room to where her bag was by the side of the armchair, and delved around inside it to find her phone.

  She placed it on the table, and handed Doris a box of Ferrero Rocher. ‘Will these help?’ she said with a grin.

  ‘Might do,’ Doris said, and picked up the box. ‘Twenty-four,’ she mused. ‘That’s a hefty size box.’

  ‘Certainly is,’ Wendy agreed. ‘Might last us an hour.’

  Wendy stood at the island in the kitchen and chopped the carrots before tipping them on top of the meat in the slow cooker. Onions, celery, potatoes and other bits of leftovers from the fridge followed, and eventually she was happy that she had made enough to feed the entire village of Bradwell. She switched it on and went out into the garden. It was cool, but the sun was starting to burn off the early morning mist.

  The bench at the end of the garden looked welcoming, so she made her way towards it, careful to let none of her coffee spill down her. Belle jumped up beside her and they sat patiently waiting for the growing warmth of the sun to reach them. The headache she had woken with had worsened, so she swallowed two tablets, and stroked the cat’s smooth fur.

  She had come to love the cottage, and could understand why Doris had immediately offered the full asking price for it when it came on the market, even if the previous owner had been a killer! The money she had spent on it since buying it had been money well spent, and it was truly a comfortable haven now. Wendy knew this would stay in her memory as one of her best holidays ever, despite it taking a sudden turn in a different direction after she’d just met Lord Byron.

  In fact, she decided, to honour the great man, she would learn one of his poems. One of his smaller poems.

  And then the sun broke through and she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth on her face. Belle pawed at her skirt, then climbed on to her lap, and the two of them sat contentedly, and relaxed.

  Doris leaned back, then picked up the list and counted the number of places where Shir
ley could possibly have taken refuge. Thirty-five. She carefully tore the page, leaving twenty on one sheet and fifteen on the other, then went in search of Wendy. The two of them, cat and friend, looked extremely comfortable. Belle didn’t move, ignoring the fact that Wendy was giving Doris a small wave.

  ‘Shall we make a start on these now?’ Doris asked, and handed the smaller list to Wendy.

  ‘Is this it?’

  ‘It’s almost half of it. If you finish before me, check where I am on my list, and carry on. Be prepared for them to say data protection says they can’t tell you. There’s no real argument against that.’

  ‘Look, Doris Lester, I spend most of my life on the telephone lying to people, telling them their taxi is seconds away when in reality their driver has just dropped off a customer on the other side of Sheffield, so don’t think I need advice on how to con people, because I don’t.’ She laughed loudly. ‘I’m looking forward to doing this. No snippy little receptionist is going to get the better of me.’

  ‘I’ll make us a drink, and we’ll get cracking. I’m not convinced we’re going to have much success but it’s worth a shot. If this fails I’ve got other things I can try, but…’

  ‘But they might fall a bit short on the legality side? God, I’m so in awe of you, Doris Lester. Can you teach me how to spy on Downing Street?’

  ‘Downing Street? Why on earth would you want to hack that set-up?’

  ‘I don’t like her. Theresa May. Maybe I can hack into their system and get her out. I would do a better job. I’d get rid of this Brexit rigmarole for starters.’

  Doris laughed. ‘How long have you been a member of the Conservative party, because it’s sort of a requisite for becoming prime minister. And I rather think that if you get rid of Mrs May, her replacement will be a lot less palatable.’

  ‘Okay, I’m not, and never likely to be a member. Wouldn’t it be fun to hack into it though, and send the country into turmoil.’