Death and the Maiden (19 page)

‘Yes—we've had the report on the post-mortem,' he answered. He thought for a moment and then said, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘She did die by drowning.'

The ambiguous phrasing was deliberate. He didn't want to conceal the truth from Jean Bloomfield—she'd hear it soon enough in the village tomorrow—but he couldn't bring himself to spell it out to her now. She'd be shocked and upset. She'd need to be comforted.

He indulged in a fleeting recurrence of fantasy: Jean in tears, in his arms. They'd agreed that a prolonged affair would be impossible, but surely they were entitled to a few moments alone together?

Only not now. He couldn't spare the time, or the energy. And since it would be cruel to break the news of the girl's murder and then leave Jean alone at her gate, it would be better not to tell her any more than she needed to know.

‘There'll have to be an inquest, of course,' he explained, ‘and the coroner will want to know when and where Mary was last seen alive, so I must find out how she got back from Breckham last night. I'm sending some men to Ashthorpe to make house-to-house enquiries.'

He was tempted, for a moment, to promise that the enquiry team would not visit her. The least he could do, for the woman he loved, was to protect her from routine police enquiries. But what a giveaway of his emotions that would be! Quantrill remembered Tait's sharp nose and the mocking curve of his lip as they had stood together on the doorstep of Jean's house. Having renounced an affair with her, Quantrill had no intention of giving his sergeant any hostages.

‘I'm afraid they'll have to come to you, as well,' he said. ‘We need to cover everybody, just for the record.'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘There's nothing I can tell your men, but I realise that they have to do their job. Look, drop me here on the edge of the green. I'd have liked to ask you in for a drink, but I know you're too busy.'

He stopped the car on the main road, near the war memorial. The sky had cleared. Moonlight bleached the grass and softened the granite of the memorial cross. Before he had time to get out of his seat and help her, she had unclipped her seat belt and opened her door.

‘Thank you for the lift,' she said. ‘And for your company.'

He felt that she was slipping away from him. He wanted to seize her hand again, just for a moment, but she was already out of the car.

‘Thank
you
,' he mumbled, quickly, inadequately. ‘Another time, perhaps—the drink, I mean …?'

‘Why not? Good night.'

He watched her walk away from him, her long dark skirt brushing the moon-white grass. He was sweating; his hands were trembling almost as much as hers had trembled, though for a different reason. Love, he thought ruefully, played havoc with a detective chief inspector's powers of concentration.

She entered her house and closed the door without looking back. Quantrill heaved himself out of the car and took three long, deep breaths of night air. Then he sighed, wiped his forehead with one of the large white handkerchiefs that Molly always laundered so immaculately, put Jean Bloomfield from his mind and turned the whole of his attention to the investigation of murder.

Chief Inspector Quantrill kept the briefing short.

‘According to the pathologist's report, death occurred some time between the hours of 5 am and 6 am. At this time of the year, of course, that means broad daylight. Apparently it was fine and sunny, so it's perfectly possible that she slept in her caravan and then went out for an early morning walk.

‘At the moment, though, we've no evidence whether she slept in her caravan or not. She was last seen alive, wearing the clothes in which the body was found, at approximately eight forty-five last night in Breckham Market.

‘We need to find out three things: how she got to Breckham from Ashthorpe; who she was with, or who she met, last night; and whether she was seen again in Ashthorpe before her death. Any additional information you can gather about a local boy-friend or admirer could be very valuable. Any questions?'

Quantrill left Sergeant Tait to allocate routes to the enquiry team and returned to Breckham Market. Dale Kenward had already been brought in for questioning. When the chief inspector entered the interview room, a uniformed constable stood up. Kenward, in an expensive suede jacket, remained slumped in his chair; but not, apparently, out of defiance. He looked shocked, absent from his body.

Quantrill sat down on the opposite side of the table. ‘I'm Chief Inspector Quantrill. I'm enquiring into the death of Mary Gedge.'

The young man stirred, and looked up. He was handsome, with a heavy head of dark wavy hair, and blue eyes under straight brows; he had left his upper lip unshaven, and had a fine silky growth on it. Beneath the dark moustache his lips were full and red, sensual.

‘You're Dale Kenward?'

‘Yes.' His voice was strained, his eyes dull. ‘I can't tell you anything about her death,' he added thickly. ‘My mother says that you think she killed herself because of me, but it's not true, I swear it isn't.'

‘And how do you know that?' asked Quantrill quietly. ‘Were you there when she died?'

Kenward sat slowly upright. His eyes seemed to focus on the chief inspector for the first time. ‘No!' he protested. His cheeks began to redden. ‘No, of course I wasn't! I tell you I don't know anything about her death. It's just … incomprehensible.'

‘Well, then.' Quantrill sat back, pulled open the drawer of the table and found a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. He pushed them across to Kenward, who hesitated before lighting a cigarette with shaking hands and puffing at it inexpertly. He was right-handed.

‘Let's talk about Mary's life instead,' said Quantrill kindly. ‘You were friends?'

‘Yes. Well, that is—until a few weeks ago.'

‘And then you quarrelled? What about?'

He went sullen. ‘I'd rather not say.'

‘A lovers'quarrel, perhaps?'

Kenward looked up, his eyes hot with anger. ‘We were
not
lovers. We were in love, yes, but not lovers. There
is
a difference, you know.'

Quantrill acknowledged it. ‘You and Mary were in love until a few weeks ago, and then you quarrelled. Does that mean that you stopped loving her?'

Kenward stared down at his cigarette. ‘No,' he said. The word was barely audible.

‘You'd have liked to make up the quarrel?'

‘Yes.'

‘You tried to make up the quarrel?' The boy was silent. ‘Come on,' said Quantrill, ‘I need an answer. What did you do—ring her? Call at her house? Write to her?'

‘Wrote,' Kenward muttered.

‘And did Mary reply?'

He shook his head.

Quantrill lit a cigar for himself. ‘When did you last see Mary?' he asked conversationally.

Kenward stirred in his chair and puffed and shrugged. ‘At the end of last term,' he said.

‘Did you see her yesterday?'

‘No! I told you, I haven't seen her since the end of last term.'

‘What were you doing last night?' Kenward's hand stiffened in the act of tapping his cigarette over the ashtray. ‘When, last night?' he temporised.

Quantrill sat forward in his chair. The constable turned over a page of his notebook and held his pen poised. ‘Last night,' said Quantrill distinctly, ‘between eight forty-five and six o'clock this morning.'

Kenward screwed his cigarette into the ashtray, shredding a good inch of tobacco. ‘I was bird-watching,' he said defiantly. ‘In Lillington woods.'

‘Alone?'

The boy tugged at his moustache. ‘With my friend Colin Andrews,' he said.

Quantrill made no comment. He stared hard at Kenward, who moistened his lips and looked away. Presently the chief inspector said, ‘You wanted to marry Mary Gedge, I believe?'

Kenward's blue eyes darkened with misery, but his voice was still defiant: ‘Is there anything wrong with that?'

‘A bit premature, perhaps?' Quantrill suggested. ‘As you've said, you weren't lovers. There wasn't the—the usual reason for a hasty marriage.'

Kenward looked at him with disdain. ‘I didn't want a hasty marriage. I wanted to marry Mary because I loved her—but I don't suppose you'd understand that.'

‘Oh yes, I understand it. You loved Mary so much that you wanted to be with her all the time. I know exactly how you felt. It's only natural.' Quantrill got up from his chair and stood looking down at the boy. ‘But I don't see that marriage would have achieved that, do you? Your mother told me that you're going to Manchester university. Mary was going to Cambridge. Were you intending to give up Manchester to be with her? Or did you expect her to give up Cambridge to be with you?'

Kenward shrugged. ‘We couldn't have got married right away,' he admitted. ‘But we could have been engaged.'

‘For three years! Is that what you wanted Mary to do, to promise that she'd marry you in three years'time? No wonder she fell out with you! Everyone tells me that she was looking forward to Cambridge because she wanted to spread her wings a bit, meet new people, make new friends. Of course she didn't want to be tied to a local boy-friend. An attractive girl like Mary would have had no difficulty—'

Quantrill stopped speaking. He looked down at Dale Kenward's bowed head. ‘That was it, then, was it?' he continued softly. ‘You wanted to get engaged because you were worried about the competition—you were afraid that she'd fall in love with another man?'

Kenward lifted his head. Tears had begun to gather on his thick dark eyelashes. ‘How could I trust her to choose the right friends?' he gulped. ‘You know what it's like at Cambridge—far more men than women. I was afraid it would go to her head. She was so lovely, and so
unaware
. She'd have been picked up by some older man, she'd have been used and then just pushed aside. I couldn't bear the thought of it. So I decided that if we were engaged, it would keep the others away.'

The chief inspector nodded slowly. He looked hard at the desperate, immature face, trying to gauge what extremity Dale Kenward's love for Mary Gedge might have driven him to. ‘But Mary wouldn't agree to marry you …' he said. ‘I can understand how you must have felt. So what happened last night, Dale? You and Mary met, and discussed it? And you decided that if you couldn't have her, no one else would? Is that what happened?'

Dale Kenward looked up, frowning. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I don't know what you're talking about,' he said.

The chief inspector loomed over him. ‘I think you do,' he said heavily. ‘Let's stop pretending, Dale. Where were you last night?'

‘Bird watching.' But he said it without much conviction.

‘And who with?'

‘Colin Andrews.'

‘Don't lie to me, boy. You told your mother that you were going out with Colin, but we've checked. He was with another friend until ten-thirty, when he went home to bed. So where were you last night?'

Kenward pulled agitatedly at the hairs of his moustache. ‘All right, I wasn't bird watching. But I wasn't with Mary—I didn't see her.'

Quantrill stared at him with hard green eyes. ‘Did you kill Mary Gedge?' he asked.

Kenward's jaw dropped. ‘
Kill
her? For God's sake—what are you telling me? You mean she was—?'

‘Murdered,' Quantrill confirmed. ‘The girl you wanted to marry, the girl who didn't want to marry you, was deliberately held under water until she drowned. So I'll repeat my question: did you kill Mary Gedge?'

Dale Kenward's face had paled to a dirty grey. His mouth opened and closed again. He began to rise, put out his hand blindly towards the table for support, missed it and collapsed in a heap of dark hair and brown suede at the chief inspector's feet.

Quantrill went out into the corridor. A fair-haired, uniformed, early-thirtyish policewoman was approaching briskly, and she gave a conspiratorial grin as she saw him.

‘I was just coming to have a word, sir.
Councillor
Kenward's at the desk, and rather anxious to speak to you.'

Quantrill pulled a lugubrious face. ‘That's all we need … His son's just fainted in there.'

The policewoman raised an elegantly shaped pair of eyebrows. She had a solid chin but attractive brown eyes, and she knew how to make the most of them. ‘From guilt?' she asked.

‘I wish I knew. Can you get him a glass of water, Patsy? We don't want Councillor Kenward accusing us of police brutality—oh lord, too late!'

A short square sandy man was steaming angrily down the corridor, while the desk sergeant hovered and gestured ineffectually in his wake. ‘Inspector Quantrill,' the man boomed, ‘I demand to see my boy.'

Quantrill blocked the passage. ‘Chief Inspector now, sir,' he said pleasantly. ‘Your son is helping us with our enquiries.'

Councillor Kenward inflated the hand-stitched lapels of his checked suit. His cheeks were a strong mottled red, and his breath smelled of whisky; if the man became too obnoxious, Quantrill reflected, he could always have him followed and done for driving with excess alcohol in his blood.

Kenward senior snorted his contempt. ‘You haven't any right to bring the boy here behind my back,' he asserted.

‘Your son is eighteen years of age, sir,' Quantrill pointed out, ‘and he came here voluntarily.'

‘And he's going voluntarily an'all.' He raised his volume. ‘Dale! Where are you?'

A groan came from the interview room. Quantrill beat Councillor Kenward to the door by a nose, but was too late to prevent him from seeing a large constable thrusting Dale's head between his knees.

For a few moments the small room was in an uproar. The councillor jumped and bellowed with rage, demanding his solicitor, invoking the chief constable and the
Daily Mirror
, threatening instant dismissals from the police force. Wpc Patsy Hopkins, returning with a glass of water, exercised her eyebrows at Quantrill; she found the DCI considerably more attractive and agreeable than his uniformed counterpart.