A Wreath for my Sister (16 page)

Tom frowned, then exploded into laughter. ‘Honestly, Jo, you're like a maiden aunt. I can't keep anything from you.'

‘What is it?' she asked curiously.

‘Oh ... Nothing very much. Only – Caro has agreed to come on holiday with me next month.'

‘Oh, Tom,' she said. ‘I'm so happy for you.' And she kissed his cheek.

‘It's such a small step,' he said. ‘Three weeks. Not exactly a lifetime.'

‘It's a giant step for you, though,' she said soberly.

But entering her own cottage she felt a sudden quick surge of jealousy. No three-week holidays for her. At least – not with Matthew. And she kicked her shoes off so hard they bounced against the opposite wall.

‘Damn,' she said, and felt evil.

She and Tom were best friends. She should feel happy for him. Not envious. And just to punish herself for being mean-spirited she turned the shower thermostat down to just above cool and forced her body to stay there for more than five minutes. But when she came out she felt a warm glow. Virtue and the relief of escaping the chilling gush. She wrapped a thick white towel around her and poured herself a glass of cold white wine from the fridge. She drank it thoughtfully. It was always the quiet minutes like these that she treasured. She switched the CD player on to some Mozart flute and harp music, closed her eyes and dreamed. It was what her mother used to call quality time.

It was her stomach rumbling that brought her back to the present. She dressed in blue silk shirt and black trousers, pulled on some boots, sprayed herself with Ombre Rose, loving the strange, exotic smell of a spice market. She brushed her hair and creamed her skin. Applied mascara and a smear of lipstick. The nice thing about dinner with Tom was that he was far more absorbed in his culinary skills – or lack of them – than he was interested in his guest's appearance. And she knew from experience that if she questioned him tomorrow he would have no idea what she had worn.

She poured herself another half-glass of wine and by the time she turned up for the second time that evening on Tom's doorstep her mood had lightened.

Tom was an intriguing cook. Cooking relaxed him. He loved making weird concoctions, treating the kitchen as he would a chemist's laboratory suitable for experiments. He would always start off the same way – the way most cooks do – with a recipe book, a shopping list of ingredients, equipment. But that was where the similarity ended. He would then prowl the kitchen, grabbing bits and pieces, herbs and spices, throwing them in and treating himself to frequent tastings. He could never repeat a recipe. And sometimes Joanna was glad. There had been some memorable failures. Chicken when mixed with garlic, rice, lemons, olive oil and too many chillis had been mouth-burningly delicious. But fillet steak with nuts, digestive biscuits, tomatoes and breadcrumbs had been very difficult to swallow.

Still, at least he looked the part.

She pulled the cork from the bottle.

‘It smells brilliant,' she said. ‘And I'm starving.'

Tom observed her with a serious expression. He lifted the lids from the steaming saucepans.

She knew she was expected to gaze reverently inside.

It looked like pork in a creamy sauce. She sat down and waited.

‘I've suddenly lost confidence.' He gave a twisted smile. ‘I don't know what it'll taste like.'

‘That's never stopped you before.'

He made a face, leaned across the table to poke a knife into the asparagus.

She picked up her wine glass. ‘Well, the wine's fine,' she laughed.

He gave a sudden, mischievous grin. ‘One way to get a drink,' he said. He ladled food on to plates and they sat down to eat.

She took a mouthful of the creamy meat. There was too much pepper in it.

He watched her. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘I think sometimes when I'm tasting I forget to stir it first. Then I put more seasoning in and ...'

‘It's all right,' she said. ‘Now tell me. Where are you going on this holiday?'

He leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘Bali,' he said. ‘Three weeks for the price of two. Leave your wallet behind. Food, drinks and watersports all free.'

‘Lucky you,' she said and held up her glass. ‘Let's drink to romance in the sun.'

He took a sip, then set his glass down on the table. ‘What about you?'

‘Nothing doing,' she said as lightly as she could manage. ‘Matthew seems happily ensconced with wife – and daughter. I'm – on my own.' She stopped, took another sip of wine. ‘Oh, I forgot. Wife now sending anonymous letters, just to add a touch of spice.'

Tom blinked. ‘What? Surely you're not serious?'

‘Yes, I am. To be honest,' she said, ‘I only ever felt sorry for Jane. But Eloise, Matthew's daughter. She's the manipulative one. She's clever. I still think after their holiday – I think Matthew would have left. But Eloise is the sort of child who can act. So she fell into the part of a baby. Then her father couldn't leave.'

‘No, he couldn't,' he said, nodding. ‘Not Matthew.'

They were both silent for a moment, then Joanna gave a snort.

‘Please, Tom,' she said, ‘can we change the subject?'

He nodded. ‘All right. How's your murder case going?'

‘Slowly but surely,' she said, toying with her food.

‘Do you have any idea who did her yet?'

She shook her head. ‘Not really. But we're working on it.'

‘The papers say the police were interviewing the ex-husband.'

She laughed at that. ‘Did they?' She took another forkful of the peppered pork, chewed it and washed it down with a mouthful of wine. ‘We've interviewed lots of people, including the ex-husband,' she admitted. ‘But bear in mind something like sixty per cent of murders are done by the next of kin. Sam Finnigan seemed like a good place to start. Especially as he'd already been in front of the beak with a charge of ABH against his now-deceased wife.'

‘Mmmm.' Tom was considering. ‘And what about her most recent boyfriend?'

She sighed. ‘The trouble with that is – who
was
Sharon Priest's most recent boyfriend? Paul Agnew says they split up when she was pregnant with Ryan. Somewhere along the line, somebody made her pregnant. We think it might have been a married lover – according to friends Sharon was having an affair with a married man.' She stopped and thought for a minute. ‘The trouble is no one seems to know anything about him, except that he was married. Oh ... I nearly forgot ... married and rich.' She put her wine glass down.

‘So where do your investigations take you next?'

‘Macclesfield tomorrow, checking statements on Sunday, then on Monday we'll call in at Blyton's.'

‘Blyton's?'

‘She was a cleaner there. Mike and I are going to interview a few of her work mates. She'd put an ad in the lonely hearts column in the
Evening Standard,
and it's possible she might have talked about it at work.' She gave a snort. ‘It was so corny, Tom – Prince Charming for a Cinderella in red. Honestly, I ask you.'

Tom frowned. ‘And I thought women were so liberated these days – bringing up families on their own, divorcing, kicking out the boyfriends they'd got fed up with ...'

‘You may think that,' Joanna said, ‘and for some this is true. But for many others what they really want is Prince Charming to come and sweep them off their feet.' She stopped. ‘But he never does. All they get is a series of unsuitable boyfriends.' Tom shot her a swift glance and she hurried on. ‘Someone from this area answered that advert. But although she only put a box number the person who answered it used her name. He replied “Dear Sharon.” And he knew other things about her, too.'

‘Spooky.'

‘The worrying thing's that we've found six or seven letters from the same source – from the man we believe she met at the pub the night she was murdered. They come from a ...' Words almost failed her. ‘He's a deviant,' she said, ‘a nutcase. And he's almost certainly killed before. A girl from Macclesfield.'

‘So that's why you're going to Macclesfield. I did wonder.'

She met his eyes. ‘And there may be more.' A sudden burst of anger shot through her. ‘How can Sharon have been so naive she didn't recognize him as a danger? Why did she arrange to meet him? Unless ...'

‘Unless what?'

A new idea was taking shape. ‘Unless she suspected what he was and wanted to go.'

‘Why on earth ...?'

Her voice was low. ‘Unless her perversions matched his.'

She drank deeply, then made a face. ‘Then there are the usual loose ends guaranteed to drive any self-respecting detective wild. We still haven't found her other shoe. She was only wearing one when we found her body. We've scoured the moors. It just isn't there.' She stopped. ‘We just wonder – it's a long shot, I know – but we just wonder whether it's still in the killer's car or somewhere near where she was killed. We live in hope,' she said. ‘And as usual the wire cable she was killed with is proving annoyingly elusive to track down.'

She took another draught of wine. ‘And it all matches this other rape and murder which took place in Macclesfield eighteen months ago.'

Tom looked interested. ‘Really?'

She nodded. ‘Another young single mother,' she said. ‘Do you remember Stacey Farmer?'

Tom nodded.

‘Same sort of set-up, really, advert in the local rag, wanting and promising the usual – sex and adventure. And she got it. Turned up raped and strangled on the edge of Macclesfield Forest. I'll speak to Matthew tomorrow to see if the DNA samples match, but I bet they do.'

Tom had a habit of saying least while he was thinking most, so although she knew he had listened to her every word he said nothing, but regarded her with intelligent eyes.

‘The problem with DNA testing is,' she said. ‘You can match like with like. But you can't screen the whole population. So we have to catch our sparrow first.' She stopped talking and set her knife and fork back on the plate. ‘Well,' she said. ‘That was quite – interesting.'

‘Have I impressed you with my superb domesticity?' He glanced at the half-full plates. ‘Oh well,' he said. ‘Never mind.'

A nasty shock awaited her when Joanne approached her front door later that evening. There was a huge, bright red splatter over her front door. For one frozen moment she thought it was blood. Then she moved closer and smelt the paint. It was still wet. She stood and stared at it with one thought running through her mind.

‘Jane.'

She awoke early and watched the sun, pale and cool, stream in through the bedroom window. She sat up, wrapped her arms around her knees and thought.

She couldn't mention Jane's spiteful attacks to Matthew. It would seem too much like telling tales from school. But she wanted her to stop and leave her alone. No more letters. No more tins of paint. No more Matthew.

So what
did
she really want? Marriage ... children ... home ... She didn't care either way about marriage; children she had something approaching dislike for and she already had a home. She glanced around the bedroom with its discreet but pretty wallpaper and antique pine furniture. She was happy here.

So what was missing?

She stared out of the window at a blue tit pecking at the windowframe. Yes, what
was
she missing?

She had always thought, from early childhood, that study of the criminal mind, apprehension of felons ... that it would all be enough. Her joy in detective novels had always been in the last chapter – the just deserts bit. But in the real world how many criminals did get their comeuppance? And how many innocent people were the ones to suffer? Perhaps that accounted for the lack of fulfilment she sometimes felt. It was true that her idealism had evaporated, but she had been warned that it would. She'd been told as a young rookie: ‘Forget justice, Piercy. Being a copper is nothing to do with that. It's a matter of working the system.' But the compromises, the injustice of the entire adversarial system, made her unhappy. Break one of the countless rigid rules of PACE and the villains would go free. No matter who knew they were guilty.

Her pottery figures downstairs had all been apprehended within the law, sentenced by it.

A chill gripped her momentarily. Rob her of her faith in the work she did and what was left? Answer: very little.

What could she do about it?

She didn't know. She threw off the bedclothes. Perhaps something was missing from everybody's life.

It seemed natural to work the weeks through during a murder investigation. And as Joanna dressed again in a skirt and sweater on that Saturday morning she knew that even if she had taken the day off her mind would have stayed with the still figure on the moors. Like a Staffordshire bull terrier her grip would be maintained to the end.

But Korpanski was a family man and his wife resented the lonely weekends left with their children. She glowered at Joanna as she answered her knock.

‘Mike,' she shouted back into the house.

Korpanski's face was flushed as he passed her. It didn't take a clairvoyant to know they'd been rowing again.

Joanna waited in the car while Mike gave his wife a peck on the cheek. He climbed in and slammed the door. She was tempted to comment. They could be on the verge of a significant discovery.

He should have felt stimulated, excited – not guilty at abandoning his family. This was his job. Not for the first time she had no regrets about being single. Too many police marriages crashed against the rocks of long hours, unpredictable appearances, and sudden and prolonged disappearances.

The road to Macclesfield was quiet and the sun spilt across the fields to light the dew. It was such a contrast to last week's snow that it made Sharon's murder seem a long, long time ago.