Epitaph: a gripping murder mystery

by Anita Waller

  Grace hung up her jacket that looked like being a useless article for the rest of the day, and turned to her sergeant. ‘When did you do this thinking? Would that be during the time I sent you home to look after your daughter?’

  ‘Addie was in bed. Look…’ Harriet opened the book.

  ‘Can I sit down first?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, boss. This is winding me up. I’ve written down every name of everybody who could be a potential killer amongst the people we’ve already interviewed, and nobody did the deed.’

  ‘Really?’ Grace grinned at the enthusiasm pouring from Harriet.

  ‘Really. Every single person on this list has a rock-solid alibi.’

  Grace pulled the book towards her and took a couple of minutes to read Harriet’s copious notes. ‘Mmm. Mark Ledger doesn’t have an alibi.’

  ‘I know, but he does have two phones, one a landline and one the new mobile he had to go out and buy that day because he’d lost his on the way home when he was drunk. And the data from those phones shows that he was on them constantly on Thursday night, ringing Shirley, ringing Rosie, ringing Patrick, he even rang Melanie. That man was desperate to find his wife on Thursday night, and I’m not kidding myself it’s because he wanted her back, I think it was more that she had the utter gall to leave him, rather than him kicking her out. And most of the calls were made on the landline, which kind of ties him to his home.’

  ‘You don’t like him, then?’

  ‘No I bloody don’t, but I don’t like him for the murder either. I don’t think he’s got the balls to kill somebody. He uses threats, and issues orders, but deep down he’s a pathetic little man, a bully. I reckon he had Shirley properly under his thumb. Thank God she’s got out.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Grace conceded. ‘About Mark, I mean. I think you’ve got him spot on. But he’s got a brother, and that brother’s alibi for that night was that he was in bed.’

  ‘Exactly. He didn’t come up with something he’d set up, didn’t involve anyone else in his alibi, he simply said he had an early night because he wasn’t seeing Melanie, and they’d had a heavy night the night before. I spoke to Sam about how Patrick took the news, and he said there was no way Patrick was faking it, he was floored by it, deeply upset, couldn’t even tell Mark, simply wanted him to come over. It doesn’t sit right with me that he could have done it, and the lack of an alibi tells me he didn’t.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll take that. I’m going to see him later, so I’ll push his buttons, see what I can shake loose. You want to come? I’m going to see Imogen North also. She’s the eyes and ears of that business, being on reception, so I want to tweak her memory a bit, see if we can shake anything out of her. She goes to a café down the road from where she works, The Buttered Bun it’s called, so I said I’d meet her there at quarter past twelve. Her lunch break’s twelve till one.’

  ‘I will. But when I get back I’m straight on to this. One of these people killed Melanie Brookes, so somebody is lying.’

  Doris and Wendy had decided it wouldn’t be a clever idea to walk into Global Systems and start chatting to Imogen North, they had to attack this differently. Deducing that lunch breaks could be any time from noon onwards, they parked up outside Global Systems’ fenced compound at ten to twelve, and waited. The doors opened at twelve exactly and four laughing girls walked out. Doris and Wendy reviewed the photograph Doris had found on the company website depicting a smiling Imogen, double-checking that she wasn’t one of the four girls. One minute later, Imogen followed them, but stayed back.

  ‘She doesn’t want to be with them,’ Wendy remarked. ‘Wonder why?’

  ‘Meeting somebody, you reckon? Boyfriend, maybe.’

  ‘I don’t know, but it could make our job impossible if she is.’

  Doris started the car, and they drove slowly, watching Imogen’s journey down the road. They could see the four girls who had exited prior to their quarry, but they were some distance down the road. Imogen turned to her right and went into a shop.

  ‘It’s a café,’ Wendy said. ‘That’s a café noticeboard outside it.’

  Doris pulled into the side of the road, and they both got out; within a minute they were in the café and sitting at the next table to Imogen.

  The waitress took Imogen’s order, then moved to their table where they ordered ham salad sandwiches and coffee.

  Doris smiled at Imogen, who smiled back. ‘Nice little coffee shop, isn’t it,’ Doris said.

  ‘Very nice. I come here most days.’

  ‘You live locally?’

  ‘Work. Just up the road.’

  ‘Really? I had a niece who worked up the road, at Global Systems. I used to meet her in here for a drink. We’ve come here today to raise a coffee to her, she recently passed away.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Imogen squealed. ‘You mean Melanie?’

  Doris nodded. ‘You knew her?’

  ‘I did. We were good friends. That’s awful… I’ll really miss her.’

  The waitress leaned in between the two tables, and delivered all three lunches. They thanked her and Doris, keen to keep the lines open, turned to Imogen once more.

  ‘Was there anybody at work who would have done this to her? She was such a lovely girl… I can’t imagine…’

  ‘Everybody loved Melanie,’ Imogen said, her voice serious. ‘If Mr Vickers would have left her alone, she would have been much happier. But he’s on his own now, because his wife’s walked out on him. Oh, I’m sorry, I know you’re grieving for your niece, and I didn’t want it to sound as though it was Mel’s fault that Mrs Vickers had left Mr Vickers. I’m sure it wasn’t. It was never serious between them, at least, not on her part.’

  Doris was saying a silent thank you for having been gifted with the office gossip when the door opened. She had the grace to blush. Caught in the act by the two people she would never have expected to walk in.

  ‘Miss North, Mrs Lester, Mrs Lucas,’ Grace said quietly. ‘Who would ever have expected to find all three of you together in here?’

  Doris and Wendy finished their sandwiches, drank their coffee and stood to leave. Grace Stamford and Harriet Jameson ordered their food, and deliberately refrained from speaking about anything important to Imogen until the two women had left. Doris and Wendy said goodbye, and went out, holding in the emotion until they were back at their car.

  ‘Oh my Lord. Think we’re in trouble?’ Wendy was doubled over with laughter.

  ‘What trouble? We know nothing. We simply called in there for a drink because our niece used to go there. Okay, she’s not our niece, but that’s a slip of the tongue. Can I say, Wendy Lucas, your face was a picture when they walked in.’

  ‘And yours wasn’t? Think we’ll have some explaining to do?’

  ‘I’m explaining nothing. I probably outrank her anyway. You don’t though. She might arrest you.’ Again Doris burst into laughter. ‘Want to call and see Shirley?’

  ‘Are we confessing to this?’

  ‘Why not. She’ll be impressed we know Imogen North, because I bet she doesn’t. Let’s go and buy her some flowers for a housewarming present. Let’s try being nice.’

  ‘You don’t like her, do you?’ Curiosity was etched on Wendy’s face.

  ‘I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to be anything like Rosie, but Rosie is like Harry, and so is Megan. I suspect Shirley is more like her mother.’

  Doris called in to a Tesco and bought an orchid, beautiful, a deep rose pink, deciding it would last longer than a bunch of flowers, and picked up a tub of Haribo sweets for the boys to share.

  Five minutes later they pulled up outside Shirley’s, and spotted the boys doing some work in the garden. Shirley was giving them instructions and they seemed to be laughing at her.

  Shirley waved at the two ladies as they got out of the car, and walked across to them. She kissed them both on their cheeks, and Doris handed her the orchid.

  ‘A housewarming gift from us,’ Doris said. ‘We hope you have many
happy years here.’

  Wendy handed over the tub of sweets. ‘And these are for the boys. Please don’t blame us when they become uncontrollable later.’

  Shirley looked at the sweets. ‘Do you have any idea what these do to kids?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Thanks. Boys, you have a gift,’ she called, and Adam and Seth walked over, happy to leave the gardening.

  ‘Oh, wow. Can we go in now, Mum?’

  ‘Do not empty that tub,’ Shirley said in warning. ‘They’re to last a week at least.’

  They adopted solemn faces and ran.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Shirley asked, holding the orchid and admiring it. ‘This is stunning, thank you so much.’

  They walked into the kitchen, surprised to see how much everything had changed since their last visit. It looked like a normal kitchen, and Shirley told them to check out the lounge.

  They walked back into the kitchen as she placed drinks on the table. ‘It looks wonderful,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Rosie and Dan helped. I’d kind of run out of steam, but they took over and as a result it looks like this.’ She waved a hand encompassing the whole house. ‘I feel so settled. I went to see Mrs Hill this morning to sort out how to pay her, and we’ve reached an agreement that when I have some money from my divorce, I will be buying this. It’s perfect for me, and the school for the boys is a five-minute bus journey away.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Doris said. ‘And the boys like it?’

  ‘They love it. I heard them arguing about something this morning, and I let them get on with it. That would never have been allowed with Mark in the vicinity. They weren’t allowed to be children.’

  Doris and Wendy sat at the table, and Shirley placed a biscuit barrel in front of them. ‘Please, help yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think we could eat even a biscuit.’ Wendy laughed. ‘Would you like to know what we’ve been up to this morning? Would you really like to know how one of Doris’s plans went crazily wrong, and gave us such a laugh like we haven’t had in years?’

  29

  Grace watched the two women turn left outside the café, and she put down her cup.

  ‘We can speak now, Imogen. Did those two ladies say why they were here?’

  ‘Yes, they said they were aunts of Melanie Brookes. They’re not press, are they?’ Her eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘No, don’t worry. One of them is a family member, kind of. Did you say anything at all to them?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, we only said it was a nice coffee shop.’

  Satisfied, Grace relaxed. It seemed that inadvertently she and Harriet had arrived at the right time. ‘Okay, we have a couple of questions for you about telephone calls. During the afternoon prior to Melanie’s death you told us you rang her to see if she needed anything for her York presentation. Did you ring her on her mobile?’

  ‘I always ring her on her mobile, it’s the automatic number keyed into my machine. Although I have her landline number, I would have had to look it up.’

  ‘And you rang her before four?’

  ‘I did. I get busy with mail between four and five so I try to get everything done by four that’s routine stuff. I leave every day at five to five because I drop any mail off at the post office before I go home.’

  ‘So what happens with the switchboard?’

  ‘It’s put on to automatic. All incoming calls go direct to the answering service, and if anyone is still working and needs to ring out, they dial nine to get a line, followed by the number. It’s only admin staff who leave at five, there’s always people still there when I leave.’

  ‘This includes Mr Vickers?’

  ‘Definitely. He’s there after me every night.’

  ‘So to confirm, you made a mobile number call to Melanie Brookes just before four o’clock, and that was the last time you spoke to her?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘So if a call was made to Melanie after five it would have to be made by someone still in the building who dialled nine first.’

  ‘Yes. My switchboard does keep a list of which extension dialled which number though. I don’t bother checking it, it’s usually people ringing home to say they’re on their way, but as you can imagine, working for Global Systems, everything works super efficiently, everything’s monitored, and I can even print out the call log for that night if you happened to need it.’ She gave a long slow wink to Grace, who burst out laughing.

  ‘And my next question was going to be can you print the call log for us.’

  Grace put the car into gear and set off for headquarters, where Harriet, she knew, was itching to get on and crack an alibi. ‘She was no dumbo, was she? Her train of thought led her straight to what she knew we would want. Massive gossip though, and that’s not ideal in a receptionist. Still, when Kevin Vickers realises she’s telling all and sundry his business, he’ll get rid of her and legitimately. She’ll have learned a valuable lesson when she gets her next job.’

  They had driven Imogen back to work and collected the printout. Kevin Vickers hadn’t been happy to see them, but Grace had applied some charm and asked him about the phone call, made after five on the evening of Melanie’s death.

  He had spluttered a little, said it was only a couple of minutes, and they had discussed her presentation, and agreed on a Monday morning meeting for feedback.

  Vickers said nothing about his suggestion to meet Melanie in York at her hotel, and Mel’s definite no to that idea. He watched as the two women left his office, mental darts directed at their backs. Crossing to the window, he timed how long it took to get from his office to their car, and knew they had stopped to talk to bloody Imogen North. Somebody was feeding them information; they hadn’t come up with the printout idea on their own, he guessed. The stupid bitch had to go when this inconvenience was all over and done with.

  Grace put on her jacket to make her look more official, collected Sam Ellis for the trip to reinterview Patrick Ledger, and headed for her car. She felt enough time had lapsed since the first interview for him to have got over the initial shock, but she wasn’t prepared to see how ill he looked. His weight had dropped, and he apologised for wearing joggers, saying his trousers and jeans kept slipping down. He could tie his joggers in place.

  ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to turn up on your doorstep like this, Patrick, but our initial interview was kept really brief. And obviously in the intervening time we have collected new information. We need to give this to you, and we need to hear your thoughts now that some time has passed.’

  Sam Ellis was impressed. Grace had softened; she didn’t come across as the most caring of DCIs, although she did appear as the most efficient. He knew what information she had to share with Patrick, and he guessed it was why she was mollifying her approach.

  ‘Sam, can you make us all a cuppa, and then we’ll chat, please?’ The young DC stood to go into the kitchen.

  ‘The milk’s fresh,’ Patrick said. ‘Mark brought it yesterday, said he was fed up with black coffee.’

  ‘You saw Mark yesterday? Did he make you aware that Shirley’s been found, and she has the boys safely with her?’

  ‘He did. I told him he’d lose everything by being such a dick with her, but to be truthful, I don’t think he’s that bothered. He’s going to fight having to give her any money for her half share of the house, but he’s living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks he’ll get away with that. He’s not even mentioned Adam and Seth, and they’re lovely kids. I hope Shirley lets me still see them, they’re my nephews after all.’

  ‘I think Shirley is taking the stance that the boys will decide. She said she’s not going to make them see their father, they must choose, and that is the way it will be for all their lives. They understand. I’m sure they’ll choose to see their uncle.’ She smiled. ‘How is Mark?’

  ‘A mess, if I’m being honest. As big a mess as me. The difference is I’m a mess inside, he’s a mess on the outside. He’s wearing jogger
s because he’s nothing else to wear, not because his trousers and jeans are falling down. He asked me how to use the washing machine yesterday. The iron will completely fox him.’

  As if on cue, the washing machine kicked on to the spin cycle and Grace laughed. ‘You clearly know how to use it.’

  ‘It’s an experiment,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’ve chucked four pairs of jeans and a couple of T-shirts in on a boil wash and I’m hoping between that and the tumble dryer they’ll shrink. I wasn’t joking when I said they’re falling down.’

  Sam passed around the cups of tea, and joined the other two at the table. They had gravitated automatically to the kitchen; it had been where they were when Sam had told him of the discovery of Melanie’s body.

  Grace sipped at her drink, preparing herself. ‘We’re calling in on Mark after we leave here, we have a few questions for him. When he came yesterday, what did he tell you?’

  ‘Not much. I think he was hoping I’d heard from Shirley, that I would know where she was, but I haven’t. I don’t believe she’ll contact me, she knows what’s happened with Mel, and she probably thinks I’d tell Mark. I wouldn’t. I’ve watched her change over the years, and I know it’s down to Mark. I love my brother, DCI Stamford, but I don’t like him very much.’

  Grace took a deep breath. ‘Okay, we have information for you that we know will come as a shock, but I need to tell you before it becomes common knowledge when we find Melanie’s killer. And we will. Mark Ledger was having an affair with Melanie.’

  Grace waited for a reaction, and got one. Patrick burst out laughing. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t do that. Melanie wouldn’t either.’

  ‘Patrick, listen to me for a moment. I wouldn’t be coming here saying that to you if it wasn’t categorically the truth. Her affair at the moment was with Mark, but there have been others.’