Epitaph: a gripping murder mystery

by Anita Waller

  Shirley gave a huge sigh as she finished speaking, and picked up her cup of tea.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many police hours have gone into looking for you?’ Inexplicably, Grace felt angry with this woman.

  ‘I can imagine, but I also know how I felt, and continued to feel until last night when Rosie and Doris turned up here.’

  ‘Doris?’

  ‘Doris Lester. She’s the one who found me. Part owner of Connection, in Eyam.’

  ‘Rosie Steer employed Connection to find you?’

  ‘No, Doris is my late father’s wife, but it’s a bit complicated. And Doris didn’t use Connection to find me, she’s actually on holiday. Believe it or not, she used her brain.’

  Ouch. Grace felt it was a slight slur on her team. ‘I’ll need your new address, Mrs Ledger. You’ll be available here until Friday?’

  Shirley nodded. ‘I will. I’m going to ring Springbrook today, explain everything and tell them I’ll be picking my boys up Friday afternoon for the school holiday. I won’t be telling them they’re not going back there, I’ll do that when I’ve found a new school for them.’

  Harriet spoke to Trudy. ‘For the record, Ms Dawson, can you confirm that Mrs Ledger was here Thursday night and didn’t go out?’

  ‘I can,’ Trudy said. ‘She went to bed early as she has done every night except last night. Her car hasn’t moved, until she decided she had to go and get some money and clothes last night. She was driving out of the gates when her sister arrived.’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll prepare statements for both of you to sign, and then we won’t need to trouble you again. Not about this issue anyway.’ Grace hoped Shirley noticed the inherent threat. Grace too could make veiled comments.

  The Rainbow boasted Chinese and Cantonese cuisine to take away, and a manager with the exotic name of Ernie. When DC Sam Ellis queried it, Ernie said his mother was English and as a result he ended up with Ernest Chan for a name.

  Ernie took his time looking at the pretty face of Melanie Brookes and then confirmed that he believed she had been in his shop that night.

  Sam felt a tingling in his fingers, all too aware that this was the breakthrough they had been seeking. ‘Was she alone, or with someone?’

  Ernie thought for a moment. ‘She was alone in the shop. She spoke of going away the next day, and she couldn’t be bothered cooking. Yorkshire?’ He hesitated. ‘No, it was York. She said she was going to York.’

  The tingling increased. ‘So there was definitely nobody with her. She was on her own?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said she was alone in here, but somebody was waiting outside for her. And her order was for two lots of prawn balls, and one lot of chips. She said they would eat it as they walked home.’

  Sam was scribbling furiously in his notebook. ‘So they definitely didn’t come in a car. Thank you so much for this, Mr Chan… you’ve been really helpful.’

  ‘Ernie.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Ernie. Could you see if it was a man or a woman waiting for her?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t take any notice. They had their back to me. And apart from that, at night-time you can’t see much outside because the lights are on in here. I was only vaguely aware there was somebody standing there. Sorry I can’t help on that.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Somebody will be out to talk to you again, and get your statement, but I have to get this logged, get somebody out here.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Ernie said with a smile. ‘I’m always here. You want some chips?’

  Sam rang Grace as she was driving back from her visit to Shirley Ledger. He tried to contain his excitement as he passed on the information, then waited for a moment when Grace said she wanted to stop the car so she could consult her map.

  Harriet had heard the conversation and as soon as Grace pulled into the side of the road, she was handed the map.

  Grace ran her finger along the B road on which the takeaway was sited, following it in the general direction of the river. A small bridge carried the road over the river, a small bridge half a mile from Ernie’s shop.

  The DCI stared through the windscreen; she knew. She knew this was the most significant thing to surface, and would eventually give them their answers. And it had been done with brain work, no matter what bloody Shirley Ledger thought of their skills.

  ‘Boss,’ Harriet said. ‘If you follow that road beyond the bridge, it comes to one of those mini roundabouts. Turn right there and it’s only a couple of hundred yards to where Melanie lived.’

  22

  ‘Sam? Did you hear that? That road leads directly to Melanie’s home, but before you get there it crosses the river. A small bridge. We’re coming straight to you. Get as many as you can to that bridge, and we’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Is anybody at the bridge now?’

  Sam pulled out his list. ‘No, boss. Ian and Trevor are working their way towards it from the next bridge downstream, I’ll be the first one there.’

  ‘Then don’t let anybody do anything until we arrive. I’m getting a diver. The river is pretty deep there and we don’t want anybody going in who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Thanks, Sam, I’ll be there in a bit.’

  Grace and Harriet arrived at the same time as Ian Garwood and Trevor Mitchell, two young PCs newly attached to the murder team for the duration of the searches. Sam was already there, ready for instructions.

  Grace greeted them as she clambered down the bank and looked around. ‘I guess we’re too late for footprints, but looking at that bridge, its sides are quite low and Melanie Brookes could easily have been toppled over. There would have been no need to come down to the water. It’s a quiet road, perfect for committing the odd murder without being spotted.’ Grace glanced at her watch. ‘The divers will be here shortly, so can we make a start with the search? This has to be where she went in, it fits with where she bought that Chinese meal.’

  Harriet was on the road, cordoning off the bridge with crime scene tape; it was obviously going to be a long day, and somebody would have to work out some sort of diversion scheme to take locals the circuitous way home. It didn’t look as though they would get chance today to go and speak to Melanie’s employers – for the second day running it had been put on the back burner. Maybe…

  ‘Boss!’ Harriet leaned over the bridge, carefully trying not to touch it with any part of her. ‘Do you need me here?’

  Grace thought for a moment. ‘You thinking of covering the Global Systems interview?’

  ‘I am. I can’t imagine it taking long, they’re not exactly suspects, are they?’

  Grace laughed. ‘Pin it on them, it’ll save a lot of time. No, that’s fine, Harriet. You head off and do that, it doesn’t need the two of us here supervising this ramshackle lot.’ She threw the car keys up to the sergeant.

  ‘Ey,’ Sam protested. ‘Who found us this spot?’

  Harriet waved and headed off to the car, grinning at Sam’s disgruntled face.

  Global Systems (Newark) PLC was on a business park outside Newark, and from the outside it looked spectacular. Plenty of glass, outstanding signage, and pretty rose gardens surrounding the spotlessly clean car park. She pulled the squad car next to a Jaguar, and headed towards the door. She had to wait for permission to enter, then walked into a welcoming reception area. There she met Imogen North, or so it said on the badge pinned to her left breast.

  Imogen smiled gently, and in a practised smooth voice said, ‘Can I help you, officer?’ Her thick long brown hair framed a round face, and she removed her glasses as she spoke, revealing pale blue eyes. Her make-up was flawless, and Harriet regretted not even applying a touch of mascara.

  ‘I hope so.’ Harriet prayed her Yorkshire accent was having a good day. ‘I need to speak to whoever is at the top.’ This young girl intimidated her as a woman.

  ‘You’ll need our HR section, I expect.’

  ‘The very top. The peak of the mountain. Not the HR section.’

  The smile wavered. ‘
I’ll see who’s in.’

  She tapped away on her computer, and then sparkly Imogen resurfaced. ‘Mr Vickers asks that you give him five minutes and he’ll come down and get you. He’s on a conference call at the moment.’ She passed a visitor’s pass to Harriet.

  Harriet gave a brief nod, hung the pass around her neck and turned away to walk across to an armchair area. She helped herself to a glass of ice-cold water from the on tap machine, and sat. Mr Vickers must be Kevin Vickers, the man who had started the company ten years earlier, and who had orchestrated its amazing growth; the man she had investigated during the early hours while trying to comfort her itchy daughter.

  Harriet flicked through a magazine showing wonderfully designed homes with immaculate interiors, and thought of her own home, lived in, full of toys and wanting a bit of a dust and a quick hoover.

  Kevin Vickers, immaculately dressed in a smart grey suit and sporting a royal blue tie, appeared in front of her. Harriet stood, placing the magazine on the small table.

  ‘Is your home like that?’ he asked with a smile. His brown eyes locked on to her face and she knew this man was a first-class flirt. He certainly had the looks to match the personality.

  ‘I wish.’ Harriet held out her warrant card. ‘DS Harriet Jameson. I’d like a quick word please, sir.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll get us some coffee when we reach my office.’

  He led her towards a lift, and they went up to the third floor.

  Vickers’ secretary produced the coffee, and Harriet moved away from the window with the not-so-spectacular views of the car park to take her place opposite Kevin Vickers.

  ‘Melanie Brookes,’ he said. ‘One of our brightest stars. I can’t begin to tell you how much we’re going to miss her.’

  Harriet waited for a few seconds, then inclined her head in acknowledgement of his words. ‘I need to ask you where you were on Thursday evening, Mr Vickers.’

  ‘You suspect me?’

  ‘I suspect everybody.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked a little nonplussed, as if unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘Hang on…’ He stopped. ‘Give me a minute while I get my brain into gear. I deal with computer systems, not real brains. I was…’ Again the pause. ‘I wasn’t anywhere. I left here around seven and went home. I was there until coming into work on Friday. I was alone, my wife and children stayed at her mother’s.’

  ‘So you have no alibi.’ Harriet made a note in her notebook, then lifted her head to look at him. ‘Tell me about Melanie. Did nobody contact you on Friday to say she hadn’t turned up in York?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. Alarm bells would have rung immediately, because she’s never missed a conference or a promotion of any sort during the time she’s worked for me. She booked Thursday morning off because her and that boyfriend of hers had been out to some function or other the night before, but worked Thursday afternoon from home on her slide show presentation. I spoke to her about five on Thursday to make sure she had everything she needed, and she was fine. Said she was leaving early for York, train about seven I think she said, and I wished her good luck. That was it. Until DCI Stamford rang on Sunday to give me the news, I had no idea anything wasn’t as it should be.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Mel? Beautiful. Inside and out.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘An amazing woman, she deserved somebody better than Patrick Ledger. She was earning so much more than him, and we believed he was with her for her money.’

  ‘But you said she was beautiful. Why would he be with her for any other reason?’

  ‘He used to gamble, big. He had debts. Now he doesn’t have debts. Logic says he got the money to clear what he owed from Melanie.’

  ‘In my book that’s fine, if she loved him.’

  ‘If.’

  ‘You don’t think she did? Or was it that you didn’t want her to love him?’

  ‘What are you inferring, DS Jameson?’

  ‘I’m inferring nothing. I’m asking. Did you have feelings for Melanie Brookes?’ Harriet felt a shiver run down her spine. Suddenly this whole case was widening, and she knew she had to handle it carefully. His words were sending mixed messages.

  ‘She was a much-valued employee, and we’ve lost her.’ His tone had become icy. He picked up his coffee cup and drank deeply. Harriet left hers where it was, on his desk. She wasn’t going to lose the momentum for the sake of a drink of coffee.

  ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I’m a happily married man, DS Jameson. I have feelings only for my wife and children, and as I said, I resent the inference.’

  ‘That’s okay, then,’ Harriet said, deliberately making her tone flippant. ‘Will your wife corroborate that?’

  ‘Of course she will. Have we finished, DS Jameson?’

  ‘For the moment. We will probably need you to come into the station to make a statement, but I’ll be in touch to let you know more about that.’

  Harriet stood, and walked towards the door. Kevin Vickers remained seated at his desk, and she hid the smile as she left him. One rattled boss. Why?

  The secretary escorted Harriet to the lift, and she exited into the immaculate reception area, still guarded by Imogen. Harriet handed over her visitor pass, and turned to walk away.

  ‘You’ve left something, DS Jameson,’ Imogen said, her voice pitched low. Harriet turned and looked back. There was a small piece of paper on the reception desk.

  ‘Sorry, I must have dropped it,’ she said with a smile at Imogen, whose unease was reflected in her eyes and the set of her lips.

  Harriet tucked the piece of paper into her pocket, and walked away from Global Systems wondering what the hell was going on.

  Harriet didn’t look at the note until she had driven some distance away from the car park. She pulled into a layby and sat still for a moment. That hadn’t been a pleasant hour or so, and she felt as uneasy as Imogen had looked.

  Harriet recovered the note from her pocket and smoothed it open.

  DS Jameson, Melanie had an affair with Kevin Vickers. She finished with him about two months ago but he wouldn’t leave her alone. If you need more information please ring me after six tonight when I will be home. My number is 05880 321405. Imogen

  Harriet reread the words, tucked the piece of paper inside her notebook, and put the car into gear. She needed to tell the boss about all of this, about her own feelings that Kevin Vickers was holding something back, and about a girl called Imogen who was too scared to speak out.

  The bridge and the riverbank seemed alive with uniformed and non-uniform police. Two divers were in the water, but so far had found nothing. The men and women scouring the riverbank had come up with a hoard of goodies that would need testing. In a small area they had found four empty soft drink cans, and more telling was a tray containing the remains of a Chinese meal. This had been carefully bagged for forensic analysis, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that this was the spot where Melanie Brookes had met her death before being tipped over the bridge wall into the fast-flowing river.

  Grace and Harriet were huddled in close conversation, filling each other in on their activities while they had been apart.

  ‘There’s only one meal container?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Unfortunately yes. It seems we have a tech-savvy killer to contend with. I’ll place every bet in the book that this was Melanie’s meal. So what’s this Kevin Vickers like?’

  ‘I thought he was okay for the first five minutes, a genuine employer devastated he had lost an employee in such horrible circumstances. By the time I left I felt he was acting, and he said last Thursday his wife and kids were at her mother’s. Why? It wasn’t a school holiday last Friday. It seems strange. He didn’t offer any explanation, and it was starting to appear to me that we needed to get him in an interview room, and get his answers down on tape.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more. We’ll organise it for tomorrow, send a squad car to collect him from work, I think. That’ll give h
is staff something to think about. Okay, the divers are moving further downstream now, it seems, so let’s hope the bag drifted along with the body. We’ve found nothing yet that says it belonged to her. You get off home, Harriet, and I’ll ring this Imogen tonight.’

  Harriet shook her head. ‘I think she’ll open up to me, boss. She might clam up when she realises it’s not me. I’ll go home, give the husband a break,’ she said with a smile, ‘and I’ll ring Imogen from home tonight.’

  23

  Harriet rang the number on the slip of paper, and Imogen answered within a couple of seconds.

  ‘Hi, Imogen, it’s DS Jameson. I’m at home, not at work, so you may hear some disturbance. I have a little one.’ She gave a slight laugh, hoping Imogen would feel at ease.

  ‘Thank you for ringing. I wanted to make sure you knew the facts about Melanie. I’m not going to slag her off, I liked Mel a lot, and she taught me quite a bit. She had a strange lifestyle, but that was her, and I’m sure he won’t have told you anything.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘The big boss, Kevin Vickers. He… he… pursued her. I think that’s the best way of explaining it. He wanted her and he was going to have her. So he did. She was ambivalent about it. It’s only sex, she said. But it wasn’t only sex for him, he proper fell for her. They were a secret item for about four months, then she got fed up and moved on. She found Mark Ledger.’

  Harriet was carefully writing down Imogen’s words, but she suddenly stopped. ‘Mark? Don’t you mean Patrick?’

  ‘No, Patrick was her steady, the man she would probably have ended up marrying, maybe even having his children. But then along came Mark. She really fell for him, said the sex was the best she’d ever had, and I think she was changing. She was starting to realise that you don’t need to sleep around, you can get everything with one man. It didn’t bother her that Mark was married, she planned on him getting a divorce. Everything was easy to Mel.’