Midnight Murders (7 page)

‘As if you'd be able to,' Jimmy mocked. ‘I've yet to meet anyone these days who can tell a daffodil bulb from a bloody onion. Look at her,' he turned on the hapless female constable. ‘Just look at her, setting that rose down. You stupid woman, you haven't a bloody clue… '

‘See that man over there?' Peter pointed to Bill. ‘He's in charge.'

Jimmy Herne stormed off towards Bill. Soon, his indignant screeches could be heard all over the garden.

Peter looked at the rookie. The mound of earth had grown, but the lad's pace was slackening. ‘Change over,' he ordered.

‘Thanks, sir.' Chris climbed out of the hole, and passed a grubby hand over his forehead.

‘You were slowing up. I've no intention of spending the night here,' Peter commented.

Chris passed the shovel to Andrew Murphy. Murphy was a rarity on the force; a constable close to retiring age. He had joined the force before Peter and Trevor, and had neither sought nor received promotion, preferring the responsibility-free life of an ordinary constable to the hassle of command. Hanging his jacket on one of the posts supporting the canvas screen, he stepped into the hole. Peter crouched on his heels, watching while Murphy dug steadily downwards.

‘Anything?' Peter asked when Andrew stopped.

‘A bloody awful stench.' Murphy had taught not only Peter, but also Dan the ropes, and he didn't hold rank in the same awe as the rookies.

‘Proceed carefully.'

‘Too royal,' Murphy muttered. ‘Damn!'

Peter saw a seething whirl of maggots shoot off the edge of Murphy's spade. He reeled back as the stench hit him; the foul, sickly-sweet, unmistakable reek of death.

‘I've sliced the leg off a dog.' Murphy jumped out of the pit. ‘A great big bloody hairy dog. And there's… '

‘What?' Peter demanded as Murphy retched.

‘A suitcase. A bloody suitcase. It's filthy, the top's cracked, but it's still a bloody suitcase.'

Head high, apparently oblivious to the admiring glances of the police officers who had nothing better to do than eye the nurses walking up and down the drive, Carol Ashford headed for the staff car park. She opened the door of her green, open-topped sports car, tossed her handbag inside, started the engine and drove slowly down the drive to join the flow of traffic wending along the main thoroughfare through the suburbs. She turned right at the foot of the hill, left the mainstream that was heading out from the town centre and raced out along the coast road.

It had been a long hard shift, and occasionally, like now, she regretted specialising in geriatric nursing. There were some rewards, like early promotion; but today had brought more problems than usual, probably because the patients had been unsettled by the police activity. Her oldest female patient had whined repeatedly that she wanted to go home; not the one she had shared with her husband for fifty years, but her childhood home that had been bombed during the war. Mr Greenway was so fascinated by events in the garden he hadn't made any effort to recognise his son and daughter-in-law when they visited. And Mrs Adams had managed to escape from the ward four times in as many hours.

Not for the first time, Carol wondered what she, or any of her staff were accomplishing by keeping the old dears warm and fed, when most of them barely realised they were alive.

She turned off the road into the lane that led to the farmhouse she and her husband had bought and refurbished with money inherited from her parents-in-law. Slowing the car to a crawl, she listened to the birds and smelled the blossom on the trees. She turned a sharp corner behind a high wall and drove into a farmyard. An old barn, its grey stone walls cleaned and repointed, one wall replaced by glass, housed their indoor swimming pool. Behind the house they'd had a tennis court built within the walls of the old kitchen garden; and in front of her was the house itself, its arched windows handcrafted in hardwood, framing her William Morris print curtains.

The house was something she and her husband had dreamed of, never believing they'd be able to afford anything like it until they were into their fifties. But here she was, not yet thirty, the proud possessor of everything she'd ever wanted – including, and especially, her man.

She parked next to the kitchen door. There was no sign of her husband's car, but she was used to being the first home. Although she would never have admitted it, she didn't like walking into the empty house because it was so isolated. If anything happened she could scream until her lungs burst, but no one would hear. Even the burglar alarms and the two guard dogs offered little comfort. Burglar alarms could be cut, and dogs poisoned. It happened; she read about it in the newspapers.

She walked through the back door into the porch they'd built to hold their boots, walking and working coats, and the dogs, before unlocking the kitchen door. The dogs greeted her enthusiastically and she let them into the main house. Warm air belched out into the fresh spring atmosphere. No matter what the weather, the kitchen was always warm, sometimes oppressively so. The Aga saw to that. There was a welcoming smell of food. She lifted the lid of the pot on the slow-burner. The chicken casserole she had prepared the night before was cooked to perfection. She opened the oven door and pushed the pot inside.

She whistled to the dogs and let them outside as soon as they had checked the house. It was the help's day for cleaning the brasses and oak cupboards. She could smell the polish. Dropping her handbag on to one of the cushioned bentwood rockers, she kicked off her shoes and padded barefoot around the ground floor, checking every room. The sitting room, more elegant than cosy with its hand-woven Brussels tapestries decorating the grey stone walls and its upholstered Parker Knoll chairs and sofas, was exquisite and untouched. The study, with its desks and book-lined walls, was dusty. It wouldn't be cleaned until Wednesday.

The dining room, cool and elegant with a massive period sideboard, striped upholstery, burnished silverware and a polished mahogany table that could seat twelve, yawned vacantly back at her. The den, with its media paraphernalia and pool table, was tidier than they'd left it. The litter of newspapers and circulars had been gathered up by the daily and returned to the magazine rack. And finally the morning room – the room she had claimed as her own, and furnished with pine bookcases, dressers, pretty chintz-covered sofas, and round occasional tables.

She stopped to pet her two Siamese cats, who divided their time between this room, the conservatory and the garden, before calling the dogs back in. Leaving them lying on the Persian rug in the galleried hall, she climbed the oak staircase her husband had bought from a builder who'd salvaged it from a mansion that had been demolished to make way for the marina.

She looked into the four spare bedrooms, each with its own en-suite. All were furnished in Victorian antiques. Their floorboards were polished, the rugs that covered them handmade Turkish. Although she could see into the bathrooms from the bedroom doors, she made a point of checking each unit before stepping into the master bedroom.

She sank down on the chaise-longue. The four-poster bed, handmade to her husband's specifications, was hung with lace curtains, and covered with a matching bedspread. In the corner opposite it was an antique roll-top desk and captain's chair. This one room alone had cost a fortune, but it had been worth every penny, she reflected as she opened the door to her dressing room.

She stripped off her uniform and underclothes and threw them, together with her stockings, into the linen bin that was emptied by their cleaner. Naked, she returned to the bedroom, and studied herself in the cheval mirror. Was that a pad of fat forming over her hips? She turned her back and twisted her head. She resolved to eat less and exercise more. Her husband abhorred anything less than perfect.

She touched her toes with the flat of her hands ten times, before walking into her bathroom. Her husband had his own mahogany-lined dressing room and bathroom, leading off the other side of the room. She turned on the taps of the huge Victorian bath, another product of her husband's expeditions to the salvage yard, and tossed a handful of bath salts into the water.

Humming a tuneless ditty, she pulled the pins from her long blonde hair. It swung to her waist, before she caught and rolled it up, pinning it securely on top of her head with a stick. Testing the water with her hand, she found it exactly as she liked it; stinging hot. Stepping in, she held her breath as the water burned her skin and turned it rosy pink. She submerged her body slowly, then, closing her eyes, she emptied her mind of thoughts, lay back and surrendered to the pleasure of the moment.

Without warning, the bathroom door flew open.

‘Tony?' She called out, fighting the terror that rose in her throat.

‘Were you expecting someone else?'

Her heartbeat quietened, she turned and smiled when she saw him standing in the doorway, his blue eyes and white-blond hair misted by steam.

‘I brought you a martini. I'd hand it to you if I could find you.'

‘Follow my voice.'

He handed her an ice-cold champagne glass filled to the brim and decorated with an olive and stroked one of her exposed breasts teasing the nipple to a peak.

She sipped her martini and looked at him over the rim of her glass.

‘How about you get out of the bath?'

She rose from the water and he handed her a towel. She wrapped herself in it before stepping out. He took her martini and placed it together with his own on the windowsill.

‘The bed or the floor?' he asked.

‘The floor's wet.'

‘So are you.' He stripped the towel away and flung it aside, before pushing her down on to her back.

Carol was used to Tony's lovemaking. It was abrasive, devoid of gentleness and tenderness. When they made love during daylight hours, as they often did, he rarely even undressed. He never considered her or her enjoyment, only his own needs. But as she lay back, the knowledge that he took pleasure in her body was enough for her.

She loved Tony passionately, with every fibre of her being, although she was careful never to allow the depth of her obsession to show, lest he regard it as smothering. Sometimes she felt as though she existed only as an extension of his being. But, she had to be so much to him; wife, lover, friend – and child. For when the tests following her failure to conceive had revealed Tony's negative sperm count, he had been devastated. She knew how much it had hurt his fragile masculine ego. He had built everything, the house, his career, even their friends, around the life he had wanted to provide for his children. And she also knew that if she had proved infertile, he would have left her. She knew it, because he had told her so, bitterly and frequently, during that first uneasy year when they had struggled to come to terms with their misfortune.

He left her abruptly, and rose to his feet. He zipped his fly, picked up his martini and drained it. Trembling, her breasts, thighs and buttocks stinging with pain, she returned to the bath and began to soap herself.

‘As soon as I finish, we can eat. It's chicken casserole,' she ventured. Tony was often aggressive and always unpredictable after they'd had sex.

‘I'll eat right away.' He wasn't asking her permission, and she knew it. ‘I have to get back to the hospital.'

‘Must you?' She failed to keep the disappointment from her voice. Mondays were special; the one night of the week they kept for themselves, when neither of them attended any of the committee meetings or clubs they belonged to, or visited or entertained their wide circle of colleagues and friends.

‘The police are digging. They're searching for more bodies.'

‘More?' she echoed.

‘Let's hope they don't find any. One has brought me more trouble then I want to cope with. I may be late. Don't wait up.'

Every time he said those words, she had visions of a flat, a mistress – someone young and beautiful like Lyn Sullivan; but she knew better than to allow her suspicions to surface. Their inability to have children had driven enough of a wedge between them, without her voicing the insecurities that had begun to plague her since she had first detected another woman's perfume on his clothes.

Instead she forced herself to be charming, attractive, compliant and obliging. She knew that was the only way to hold Tony; to make him want her enough to return to her, no matter what escapades he indulged in.

She loved him enough to allow him free rein to hurt her. And she would continue to do so, no matter what it cost her, simply because life without him was unthinkable.

‘I'll be down as soon as I'm dressed, darling,' she called out. ‘Perhaps we can have coffee together?'

He didn't hear her. He had already left the house.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Peter Collins supervised the lifting of the liquid remains of the dog, which unfortunately for his team had, as Murphy'd observed, been a large and hairy one, from the pit and into a body shell. As soon as the dog was disposed of, Peter returned to the hole, where Murphy was digging out the suitcase, which had been buried beneath the dog.

It was twenty minutes before Murphy managed to scoop the case on to a canvas stretcher, and even then Peter wasn't satisfied the hole had been properly excavated. He checked out the crater himself, crumbling the earth between his fingers, before switching Chris Brooke and Andrew Murphy again, ordering Chris to dig down another three foot.

He heaved himself out of the pit, and stood on the lawn, brushing clumps of mud from his trousers and breathing in the clean, sweet-smelling evening air. There was intense activity around the other sites. As soon as the light had begun to fade, Bill had ordered portable lamps to be brought up, and they were dotted around the lawns, shining spotlights into the shadowy puddles shrouded behind the canvas screens and casting silver shadows over the lawns.

‘Anything?' Peter asked Dan as he walked towards him.

‘Other than loose earth no, and we've gone down five foot.'

‘The Super?'

‘Same as here; the deeper they dig, the softer the earth.'

A whistle blew. Dan and Peter ran towards the site, as Bill's bald head emerged from behind a screen.

‘Phone Patrick,' Bill shouted.

Dan pulled out his mobile.

‘Another body?' Peter asked.

‘Call off the late meeting and reschedule it for tomorrow. Supervise Dan's site as well as your own for the moment.' Bill disappeared back behind the screen. Peter heard him shout at the hapless constable who was still in the hole.

‘Out, before you do any more damage. Leave it for the pathologist, boy.'

Peter recalled the times that he and Trevor had taken Bill's flak. Before he had time to take a second step, another whistle blew. He whirled to the right and saw a young constable surface from behind the canvas screens that shrouded Dan's site, green-faced and retching. Once again the ghostly twilight and perfume of the tree blossoms were overwhelmed by the pervasive, sickly-sweet stench of death.

‘Patrick's on his way.' Dan returned his mobile to his pocket.

‘I hope he brings a nightcap with him. Something tells me we're going to see in the dawn on this one.' Peter pulled two cigars from his pocket and offered Dan one.

Spencer Jordan saw the lights and the commotion in the hospital grounds from the kitchen window of his self-contained flat as he was preparing his evening meal. The flat was on the third-floor of a halfway house, and had been nicknamed “the penthouse” by the patients who lived in bed-sits on the floors below.

Pronounced fit to return to the community, after two years as an in-patient in psychiatric wards in America and Britain, and six months in a halfway house attached to Compton Castle, the thought of returning to “normality” had terrified Spencer. Harry Goldman had suggested he apply for the post of art therapist at Compton Castle, and when he had been given the job Spencer had volunteered to take over his predecessor's role as warden of one of the halfway units. Wary of his recent illness, the Trust had turned him down citing as a reason his workload as an art therapist.

Harry Goldman had intervened again, and the Trust compromised. Spencer was given the post of assistant warden, which carried a rent-free flat, in return for two nights “sleep in” duty when he was required to supervise the residents and ensure that none of them stayed out later than midnight. Not that any of them ever tried. Recovering from phobias and depressions, their problem was being persuaded to relinquish the security of their unit for more than ten minutes, not getting them to return to it afterwards.

Although officially on duty only two nights a week, staff shortages frequently stretched the two nights to four and sometimes even six. Spencer didn't mind; he, like the residents he supervised, rarely went out in the evenings. He knew no one in the town other than the staff and patients, and there was nowhere he wanted to go. Art exhibitions, the theatre, and even the cinema conjured up painful memories he preferred to keep submerged.

Spencer's family and social life had ended in America; not even Harry Goldman could persuade him otherwise. Most evenings he returned to the soulless utility-furnished flat, to sit in an uncomfortable, institution armchair, and stare at his bare walls. The hospital authority had provided him with prints, but he had taken them down. He doubted he'd ever produce his own art again, but he remained enough of an artist to reject bad art when he saw it.

He made himself a salad, and broke a few ounces of the same goat's cheese he had used in his sandwiches into the lettuce, cucumber, grapes, peppers and tomatoes. Taking it and a bottle of mineral water, he went into the living room and switched on the television. He watched the news that catalogued the current series of global human disasters. The starving in Africa, abused orphans in the Balkans, finally ending with a series of photographs of the victims of a shoot-out between gangs in an American city; the mention of America, and the film of a city street with its familiar shop signs, hit too close to home. He changed channels and ate his salad to the accompaniment of a forty-year-old Hollywood musical.

Spencer had finished his meal and cleared up by six-thirty. The evening stretched ahead of him, an empty void to be filled – with what? He flicked through the evening paper he bought for its television page, and studied the available options. A documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the third episode of a detective series he'd never seen, an American sit com, a film he'd enjoyed the first time around – and hated the fifth. He switched off the television and went to the window. Night had fallen, dusky, velvet-hued, but lights shone blindingly in the hospital grounds, casting eerie shadows over the white-clad figures scurrying between the lawns and the police cars.

An ambulance had driven on the lawn and parked next to one of the canvas screens. Two men walked around to its back doors, and began to unload body-bags and shells. Spencer drew his curtains and paced uneasily from the small living room to the tiny kitchen, the box-sized bedroom, the bathroom, and back.

He stared at the cheap, veneered sideboard and fought the urge to open its doors. He knew he wasn't strong enough to look at its contents – not yet. If he opened them, he'd suffer, a few moments – moments of what? Not happiness, that was too a strong word, and afterwards there'd be so much pain…

The temptation proved too strong. He wrenched open the door, and removed a box of photograph albums. Fingering the scars that radiated from his glass eye, he sat at the table and gently took the top album into his hands. He opened it and stared at the first page. A wedding group outside a registry office in London. Himself, smiling broadly, wearing an outrageous scarlet silk suit, navy-blue shirt, and red and purple tie; his arm wrapped around Danielle, four months pregnant, in bright-green and blue cotton voile.

The reception... friends... he could taste the wine and strawberries, hear the toast;
LONG LIFE AND HAPPINESS!

The house in California – a naked, fat, pink gurgling baby in his arms – then in Danielle's. More friends, gallery openings, another baby – and another – he slammed the album shut. Blinded by unshed tears, he stumbled to the sideboard and returned it to the shelf.

He sat with his back to the sideboard, but after a moment's hesitation, opened the drinks compartment. He wasn't on duty. It didn't matter what state he got himself into. He took out a full whisky bottle, unscrewed the top and filled a tumbler. He drank half of it without bothering to go into the kitchen to fetch ice. Holding the glass in one hand and the bottle by the neck in the other, he returned to his chair and switched on the television again. He'd watch the film for the sixth time. It was easier to cope with what he knew – than to face the past – the future – or worse of all – the present.

* * *

Bill, Dan and Peter were leaning against the bonnet of a police car, talking, when Patrick surfaced from the last pit, and walked wearily towards them. Peter had the inevitable cigar in hand, Dan was chewing peppermints and Bill was amusing himself by shouting at any rookie foolhardy enough to stray within his sight.

‘I've done what I can here. They're all in body bags and shells. I'll continue in the lab in the morning.' O'Kelly tore off his rubber gloves.

‘It is morning,' Peter said.

Patrick glared at him. ‘Not until after I've slept.'

‘Appreciate you coming out, Patrick.' Bill helped himself to one of the cigars that protruded from Peter's pocket.

‘I'll tell you what I can be sure of; but keep the questions until after the PMs.'

‘You've got it.' Dan yawned as the hospital clock struck four.

‘They're both female and young; one in an advanced stage of decomposition, the other skeletal, with a few rags of organs attached. Both have soil in the mouths, nose and as far as I can make out, air passages.'

‘Buried alive?' Bill asked.

‘I should be able to answer that tomorrow. Both were brunette, one had long hair, the other short.'

‘We found a suitcase and two handbags buried beneath the dog,' Peter said. ‘They're bagged, and in the ambulance.'

‘Will you take a look at the dog, as well?' Bill asked. ‘As a favour.'

‘As a favour, I'll take a quick look before I send it on with the suitcase to the police lab. But don't make a habit of it,' Patrick moved towards his car. ‘See you in a couple of hours.'

‘Let's clear this place,' Bill ordered.

Peter looked over to the blocks housing the patients. Apart from the ward office and the bathroom windows, the building was in darkness. He imagined Trevor curled up warm and comfortable in his bed. ‘Lucky sod!' he swore as he stared at the battlefield of trenches and mounds that had been lawns and flowerbeds.

Peter didn't reach the flat he called home until dawn had lightened the sky from deep rich navy to cold steel grey. He locked his car and walked up a short, red-tiled path to the front door of a five-storey Edwardian building. Originally a middle-class home for family and servants, it now housed six flats and four bed-sits. The flat he'd chosen for its view and its proximity to the town centre, was on the third-floor.

He turned the key and stepped into the original hall. Its spaciousness was the only thing that hadn't changed. Unconcerned with period authenticity the landlord had replaced the mahogany panelled staircase and ornate, mouldering plasterwork with functional modern substitutes.

Peter took the stairs two at a time and opened the door to his flat. He walked straight into a well-proportioned, high-ceilinged living room. The bedroom and bathroom were minute. The kitchen was built into what had once been a fairly large airing cupboard, and it had an air-vent instead of a window. But he forgave the flat its failings for the one handsome room.

He walked across the brown Berber carpet to the window, opened it and stepped on to a fire-escape that overlooked the beach. He left the window open went into the kitchen, ground a handful of coffee beans, and made himself a pot of coffee. His stomach told him he was hungry. There was half a loaf of mouldy wholemeal bread in his breadbin. He opened his fridge. A six-pack of beer, a tub of low-fat spread, a carton of long-life milk, two eggs and a stale corner of cheese. The freezer compartment held a lasagne ready meal for one, a pizza, half a pack of sausages, but no bread. He had more luck in the cupboard where he discovered a packet of Melba toasts of uncertain age.

He scrambled the eggs and layered low-fat spread on the toasts. When the meal was ready, he filled a tray and carried it, and a cushion from an easy chair on to the fire-escape. He leaned on the safety railings, dangling his legs in space while he ate, staring at the sun rising over the sea and listening to the waves and the cries of the gulls scavenging along the shoreline.

The chill in the air carried an antiseptic property that cleansed away the cloying stench of death that had fouled the night. He tried not to think of what had to be done; the identification of the victims, the tracking down of a murderer – and Trevor Joseph to wrench back into the world of the living. A perfect spring day was about to begin, and all he wanted was his bed.

He finished his meal without tasting it, threw the cushion back on to the chair, carried the tray into the kitchen, dumped the dirty dishes in the sink for his daily, and went into his bedroom. His clothes were caked with mud. He stripped them off, flung them into the linen basket and crawled beneath the duvet in his underpants. He looked at his alarm, debated whether to set it or not, and decided against making the effort. Bill or Dan would want him soon enough. Two minutes later all that could be heard was his rhythmic breathing as he slept the heavy dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted.

‘Trevor.' Lyn Sullivan knocked on his door before opening it. ‘It's your turn to lay the table.' She took a cup of tea from the auxiliary and set it on his bedside table, before moving on down the corridor.

Trevor leaned on his elbow and sipped the tea. His head ached from the sleeping pills he had taken. When the cup was empty he stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, took off his pyjamas and climbed into the shower. The morning-after of drugs was deadlier than alcohol, he decided, as he held his head under the cool jet for two full minutes. On impulse he washed his hair. He discovered that it was longer than he'd ever worn it. Could he do what Spencer had suggested; take another step outside today? How long before he'd make it as far as the front gate? And how long before he went into town to have his hair cut?

He rinsed the lather from his body and hair, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stepped back into his bedroom. He looked at the threadbare tracksuit top that lay on the chair where he had dumped his clothes the night before. He thrust it and his faded trousers into his dirty linen bag. He opened the wardrobe door and flicked through the clothes Peter had brought from his flat. Two pairs of jeans, as faded as the trousers, but even more threadbare. A hand-knitted woollen jumper his mother had sent him last Christmas which had gone drastically out of shape after he'd taken it to the launderette. An anorak that stubbornly remained grubby no matter how often he flung it into a washing-machine, and a couple of white shirts. He settled on a white shirt and a pair of jeans. The jeans sagged three inches too large for his waist. He looked for a belt, and found one in a bag of underclothes and socks Peter had brought that he'd never bothered to open.