Fate Worse Than Death (14 page)

The only visible injury on her face was a slight swelling on the lower lip. There was also one small bruise on the front of the throat, at the level of the larynx, consistent with her having been gripped by the neck.

The pathologist's estimate was that the girl had died between six and eight o'clock the previous evening, Tuesday 8 August. In his opinion she was already dead when she was placed in the bed.

At the post-mortem examination, conducted on the afternoon of Wednesday 9 August, no evidence was found of recent sexual intercourse or any form of sexual assault. The only marks on the body took the form of a narrow line of faded bruises across the girl's back at waist level. Her fingernails had been damaged in use, and scrapings from them yielded shreds of rope fibre.

At the time of her death the girl had been suffering from an acute respiratory infection.

Despite the evidence of bruising on her throat, she had not died by manual strangulation. The pathologist's finding was that the cause of death was reflex cardiac arrest – the sudden stoppage of the heart following pressure on the nerves and arteries of the neck.

The pressure had been minor; insufficient to asphyxiate the girl, and probably applied without the intention to kill. Sandra Websdell had died not by violence, but from shock. She had literally been frightened to death.

Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Quantrill, head of Breckham Market CID, looked with disfavour at Detective Inspector Tait. He respected the younger man's professional abilities, but that didn't mean he had to like him. Or that he had to welcome Tait's reappearance at the Horkey road cottage early on Wednesday afternoon.

‘You've no business to be in on this investigation, Martin,' he said. ‘It's nothing whatever to do with the regional crime squad.'

‘Ah, but I'm not here in my regional crime squad capacity,' said Tait blandly. ‘I found the body this morning, so I'm helping you with your enquiries. And because I'm staying in the village, I can provide you with the local information you're going to need.'

Quantrill snorted. ‘According to her statement, and to your own, it was Mrs Constance Schultz who found the body. And as she's an established resident, I've no doubt she knows a good deal more about the village than you do.'

‘Arguably. But this is her – my aunt's – cottage, and as her representative I'm entitled to remain here. If there's anything further you want to know from her, I'm the best person to do the asking.'

The Chief Inspector scowled. As if the blasted boy didn't have enough going for him, with his superior voice and his university degree and his guarantee of accelerated promotion! All Tait had to do was to keep his nose clean, and in a few months'time he'd also be a chief inspector. Another couple of years – perhaps less – and he, Quantrill, would be outranked. So much for the value of experience. So much for his own twenty-five years'hard slog as a detective …

And then there was his daughter Alison. That was another grievance he had against Martin Tait. There was something going on between the two of them, and Quantrill didn't like it. He suspected Tait of trifling with his daughter's affections. Only yesterday she'd called at home on her way back to Yarchester, seething with fury over something Martin had said or done when he took her flying. Damn his conceit … and damn his impudence for barging in on this enquiry expecting to run rings round the investigating officer! Quantrill tried to think of a reply that would cut Tait down to size, and was mortified that he couldn't.

The scene of crime team was still at work, concentrating their attention on the lobby, the stairs and the bedroom where the body had been found. They were handicapped by the fact that the cottage had been used by holidaymakers, and had not been cleaned between lets by a conscientious housewife. None of the doors had been dusted for months. There were so many latent fingerprints in the cottage that they had become superimposed and blurred.

Chief Inspector Quantrill summoned the investigating detectives to assemble in the gloomy sitting-room with the Gothic windows. ‘We've already got a start with this one,' he told them. ‘Miss Lloyd knows the background, and she –'

He looked up as Detective Inspector Tait entered the room, wiping fingerprinting ink off his fingers. ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,' Tait said. ‘Someone left a good dab on the front door, but I'm afraid it turns out to be mine. I held the door open for my aunt when we arrived this morning.' He smiled and sat down. Detective Constable Wigby stared at him aggressively.

Ian Wigby, a blond, beefy man in his mid-thirties, had been an opponent of Tait ever since the younger man had first arrived at Breckham Market as a detective sergeant, straight from police college and supremely confident of his own ability. ‘Sir!' protested Wigby, turning to the Chief Inspector, ‘since when has the regional crime squad been allowed to interfere at the start of an investigation?'

Tait looked at him with disdain. ‘Oh, grow up, Wigby,' he said.

‘Mr Tait is on leave at the moment, so he has no regional crime squad status,' said Quantrill firmly. ‘He's here because of his local connections. He may be able to help us with information, but he won't be taking part in the investigation.'

‘Of course not,' said Tait, trying to sound as though it had never entered his head to do so.

‘Har-bloody-har,' muttered Wigby. Tait looked down his nose at him. Quantrill glared at the pair of them, and asked Hilary Lloyd to begin her briefing; thinking as he did so, and not for the first time, how glad he was to have her as his CID sergeant.

Not because she was a young woman and he found her attractive. Far from it. Douglas Quantrill didn't care for thin women, no matter with what straight-backed grace they held themselves, nor how good their bone structure was. And she wasn't all that young, anyway. He happened to know that she was nearly thirty-one.

No, Quantrill wasn't in the least attracted by her. He approved of her, that was all. She was extremely efficient at her job – inclined to be argumentative, but experienced, resourceful, thoroughly competent. An asset to his team. He had already read the report she'd made when Sandra Websdell first went missing, but now he listened intently – Hilary had an attractive voice, he had to admit that – as she went over the facts.

For the past four years Sandra Jane Websdell had worked in Saintsbury at a florist's shop, latterly as manageress. She had shared a flat in the town with a girl friend. Last April, on a weekend visit to her parents, she had met Desmond Flood. He had recently come to live in temporary accommodation in Fodderstone village. After their first meeting she had seen him frequently. They became engaged in June, and planned to marry at Saintsbury register office on Saturday 21 July.

Sandra had arranged with her parents'neighbour, Mrs Constance Schultz, to rent the cottage in the Horkey road from that date. Mrs Schultz lent Mrs Websdell a key to the cottage a week in advance, so that Sandra would have time to prepare it before the wedding.

On Saturday 14 July, Sandra had begun two weeks'leave from her job. She moved out of her flat, and went back until the wedding to her parents'home. Rather than unpack all her belongings there, she took two suitcases full of clothing straight to the cottage. She spent most of the next three days with her fiancé, either out and about or at the barn he rented as a studio.

On Wednesday morning 18 July, Sandra told her mother that she had things to do on her own at the cottage, and that she didn't know when she would be back. Mrs Websdell assumed that her daughter was talking about doing the cleaning. Sandra left Fodderstone Green just before 9 a.m. in her car, a green Ford Fiesta 950, registration number FNG 245R. She never returned.

‘She was twenty-two, so she had a right to disappear if she wanted to,' went on Sergeant Lloyd. ‘The Websdells were naturally concerned because it happened just three days before her wedding, and she'd given them no indication that she might not go through with it. But they stopped worrying as soon as they realized that the suitcases she'd left here had gone. They assumed she'd simply ducked out of getting married, and they weren't sorry about that. They didn't actually tell me so, but it was obvious that they weren't at all enthusiastic about their prospective son-in-law. Desmond Flood used to be the assistant art director of a London advertising agency. He now describes himself as a self-employed artist. He's lethargic, divorced, and fifty-one.'

‘A most unsuitable husband for a twenty-two-year-old,' pronounced Quantrill, reminded of his own daughter. He glanced with momentary approval at Martin Tait; come to think of it, there was no doubt that Alison could do worse. ‘But Flood himself told you, when you interviewed him after Sandra disappeared, that their relationship was happy?'

‘Very happy, so he said. And I wouldn't for a moment discount the possibility,' added Hilary, taking the opportunity to give Douglas Quantrill's old-fashioned prejudices a passing knock. ‘But I didn't believe him. I thought he was incapable of being happy himself, or of making anyone else happy.

‘So I went to Saintsbury and talked to Sandra's former flatmate. She said that Sandra had wanted to marry Desmond because she thought he was very handsome and lonely and needed someone to look after him. But as the date of the wedding approached, Sandra admitted to her friend that she was afraid she was making a terrible mistake. When I pressed Desmond Flood, though, he insisted that she'd said nothing to him about changing her mind.'

‘He would say that, wouldn't he, if he'd got something to hide?' DC Wigby, bored and fidgety, wanted some action. ‘It looks to me a perfectly straightforward case. The man's first marriage had broken up, he'd lost his job, and he couldn't face the thought of losing Sandra Websdell. When she told him she wasn't going to marry him, he abducted her, and she died in the course of a bit of rough and tumble. Why don't we just bring the man in?'

‘We will, when we find him,' said Quantrill. ‘According to the elderly couple he rents his studio from, Flood left early yesterday afternoon saying that he was going to Saintsbury and that he might stay away overnight. We've since found out that he travelled on the 2.30 bus from Horkey, and got off at Saintsbury bus station. What he's been doing since then, we don't know. I've alerted the Saintsbury division, and as soon as this briefing's over, Ian, you'd better get down there and try to trace him.'

‘Will do,' said Wigby with relish, studying the photograph and description that Sergeant Lloyd passed to him. Making enquiries on his own initiative in Saintsbury, where Greene King brewed a very drinkable Abbot Ale, was just the kind of job he liked. He certainly hadn't fancied tramping from house to house in the village in this heat, still less searching the fly-ridden forest.

‘The bus journey to Saintsbury must be very inconvenient for anyone from Fodderstone, if Horkey's the nearest stop,' commented James Bedford. He was a fresh-faced, eager detective constable who often had difficulty in convincing members of the public that he was old enough to be a real policeman. ‘Do you think, sir, that Flood went by bus in order to set up an alibi for himself, and then sneaked back some other way?'

‘Perhaps so,' agreed Quantrill. ‘But don't read too much into Flood's use of public transport – apparently he sold his car soon after he came to live in Fodderstone. And don't take DC Wigby's guesswork as gospel, either. Yes, Flood's the natural suspect; but there are other possibilities. Sandra Websdell was an attractive girl, and no doubt she had other admirers. Someone might have abducted her just before her wedding – not knowing that she was thinking of calling it off – because he didn't want her to marry Desmond Flood.'

‘It wasn't her previous boyfriend,' said Hilary Lloyd. ‘I've already eliminated him. They split up at the beginning of the year, and he's now working in Saudi Arabia. According to her girlfriend, Sandra hadn't mentioned any other men in particular. She certainly hadn't mentioned anyone who lives in Fodderstone. But perhaps there was someone who'd had a long-term yearning for her – for example, someone who couldn't approach her openly because he was married. Or possibly someone who was even less suitable for her than Desmond Flood, and hadn't approached her before because he wasn't prepared to risk being rejected.'

Wigby looked up from the cigarette he was lighting. ‘A local weirdo?' he asked.

‘Not necessarily one you'd notice,' said Hilary. ‘But he must have held her captive because he wanted something from her that he couldn't – or wouldn't – take by force. And he'd have to have a weird streak to imagine that he could ever win her over, if the only way he could keep her was by tying her up with a rope round her waist.'

The Chief Inspector outlined his tactics.

He wanted house-to-house enquiries made in Fodderstone and Fodderstone Green, principally to establish whether anyone had seen Sandra after she left home on the morning she disappeared, but also for the purpose of finding out who were her likely admirers. In addition, he wanted all empty buildings, sheds and barns in the village to be thoroughly searched.

‘We're looking for several things. First, traces of occupation. Secondly, the rope that was used to tie her. Then the two missing suitcases – Sergeant Lloyd will give you their description. We know what clothes the girl was wearing when she disappeared, and they're not the ones she was wearing when she was found, so she must have had access to the suitcases during her captivity.

‘We also want to find the key to this cottage. The door was locked when the owner came here this morning, so the girl's captor must have locked it behind him after he brought back her body. It's possible that he then threw away the key. The garden's already been searched, and I want the search extended to the fields round the garden, and also the roadside verges.