Past Tense (19 page)

Detective Constable Crosby had visibly relaxed as soon as Sloan left the office. In theory he should have been drawing up a written list of what had happened in the case, setting out in neat parallel columns the movements of all the various participants. It was a theory in which he was well versed. What he wasn't so skilled at was the practice.

He had to remember, of course, that those he was writing about weren't to be called suspects, this being deemed politically incorrect at this stage of the investigation. Actually he wasn't absolutely sure which investigation he was supposed to be concentrating on at the moment.

He sighed and reluctantly started at the top of the page, as instructed, with the possible – no, probable – encounter between Lucy Lansdown and Josephine Short in the hospital over at Calleford when Lucy, the deceased, that is…he stopped and chewed the end of his pencil and reconsidered this. They were both deceased, weren't they? Lucy Lansdown and Josephine Short, a nurse and a patient, who might have – could possibly have – met when the nurse was still in training. If they had known each other then, this fact was something that mattered now. He was sure about that.

Then there seemed to have been a gap of three years in which nothing at all of any particular significance had happened – at least nothing that he, Crosby, knew about. He had a shot at writing the word ‘hiatus' but soon gave up and wrote ‘the death of Josephine Eleanor Short' down instead, now able to put ‘from Natural Causes' after that. Somehow that fact had made the case even more confusing.

He searched his memory for something else he had been taught to consider. ‘Events triggered by the death' – that was it. He gave this due consideration and a moment later wrote down ‘funeral'. After a minute or two he crossed this out and wrote down ‘return of Joseph Short from abroad'. ‘Abroad' he considered a better word than Lasserta since he didn't know where that was exactly.

Then he crossed out the word ‘funeral' once more and put down the break-in at the Berebury Nursing Home since that had happened sometime during the night before the funeral. The matron had seemed pretty sure about that. Someone looking for something. The rings perhaps. Perhaps not. He didn't know.

He next put down on his list the return of William Wakefield from South America. According to both his wife and the man himself, that hadn't been triggered by Josephine Short's death because he hadn't been intending to come home. Or had he? That wife of his would have let her husband's nearest workstation know for sure by email, even if she or they hadn't been able to get in touch with him. And had that really been the reason why he had come home? And why hadn't he come straight home the night he arrived in London?

Then he wrote down ‘the funeral' again, this time more firmly.

What had happened after the funeral was easier to get in the right order. The wake at the Almstone Towers after the funeral – to which Lucy Lansdown hadn't gone. Why she had gone to the funeral in the first place was still a mystery. So was the reason why she hadn't put her name on one of those dinky little attendance cards the undertaker had been so pleased to hand over to Janet Wakefield afterwards. She hadn't done so, they knew now, because all the women who had been there and had filled in a card had been systematically eliminated from all police enquiries. He liked the phrase and wrote down that all the male attendees had been eliminated from their enquiries, too. Even that old schoolmaster, Sebastian Worthington, from out Kinnisport way, had been adamant that he hadn't ever set eyes on the girl with the auburn hair before the funeral.

Now, where was he? Crosby stared down at his notebook. Ah, yes. And then the very same night of the funeral the girl had been killed. Odd, that. And why she had been killed was an even greater mystery than why she had gone to the funeral. A worried brother in the North, even now making his way to Calleshire, hadn't been able to throw any light on this over the telephone. That there had been a love affair that had been broken off a couple of years ago at least, he knew, but in the way of brothers he was sure she'd got over that. In any event, he didn't know that she hadn't, since she had never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve. Perhaps the two events weren't connected. Perhaps they were.

Both William Wakefield and Joe Short could in theory have slipped out of their respective hotels and met her at the bridge at Berebury, and Matthew Steele's movements were customarily so fluid he could have been anywhere and done anything without his mother or anyone else knowing.

And after that? After Lucy Lansdown's body had been found, that is.

Crosby frowned prodigiously. After that – or perhaps even the night before – some person or persons unknown had desecrated the old lady's grave and removed three rings from the body. If they were the same person or persons who had just murdered Lucy Lansdown and thrown her body into the river, then they had been working to a very tight timetable indeed. And they'd have been pretty tired by morning. Especially if they'd been busy breaking into the Berebury Nursing Home the night before. Crosby gave a yawn himself at the very idea.

Then, he decided, things had gone remarkably quiet. True, Joe Short had had his passport stolen, which was why he had gone to London, but he didn't think that particular event came into his schedule. Matthew Steele had gone missing, which Crosby was quite sure did. And both the Wakefields had left their home today and nobody knew where they had gone or why.

Then there was the question of motive. Nobody had come up with one for the killing of Lucy Lansdown yet, and the only motive he could attribute to William Wakefield was gain – and that was only if he were to kill Joe Short, which he didn't seem to have attempted to do. Joe Short didn't seem to have any motive for murdering anyone and Matthew Steele's motive led directly to pound signs.

It was all too difficult and Crosby gave up and went in search of a cup of tea.

*   *   *

There were parts of the police station in Berebury that the public saw and there were parts that they didn't. There were parts that the civilian staff worked in and never went beyond. There were, too, parts in the custody suite that those apprehended did see, albeit unwillingly. The part to which Detective Inspector Sloan had just been summoned was one not usually seen by anyone save those working from it. Lined with wet suits, it was the quarters of the underwater men.

‘We got it, Inspector,' said one of them as Sloan entered. Even now he was unpeeling himself from his black rubber casing. ‘It was a bit downstream of the bridge. Stuck in the mud. The bridge makes for little eddies there and it hadn't been carried far.'

‘Good,' said Sloan, adding swiftly, ‘was it open or closed?'

The frogman pointed to a bench on which lay a very wet black handbag. ‘Closed.'

Feeling slightly foolish as he always did when he put them on, Sloan eased his hands into a pair of rubber gloves before he touched the handbag. It was still closed, a zip running all along the top.

‘I reckon nothing can have spilt out,' said the frogman, peering over Sloan's shoulder at it.

‘So do I,' said Sloan, ‘which is quite important.'

The frogman moved away a little to give himself a shake very reminiscent of that of a long-haired dog coming in out of the rain. Meanwhile Sloan gently drew the zip back and opened up the handbag. Water had scarcely penetrated the leather and the contents were dry enough for him to make a careful examination of them. He methodically extracted all the items one by one and laid them out in a line along the bench.

‘Pen, mobile phone, petty cash, handkerchief, pair of scissors,' enumerated the frogman, coming back to the bench a little drier. ‘What did she want scissors for?'

‘She was a nurse,' said Sloan as if that explained it.

The frogman shrugged and went back to listing everything aloud. ‘Four ten-pound notes and one twenty. They're not well paid, are they? Hand mirror, comb, safety pin…I thought they'd gone out with the ark.'

‘It's called being prepared,' said Sloan absently. ‘But it's what
isn't
there that matters.'

‘What's that, then?' The frogman was standing beside Sloan in his underclothes and socks now.

‘The key of her front door,' said Sloan. ‘It wasn't in her pocket.'

The frogman grimaced. ‘No chance of our finding that, Inspector. Not in all that mud. Not if it went in separately.'

Detective Inspector Sloan straightened up from the bench on which the wet handbag lay. ‘The key won't have gone in there. Not then and not there, anyway. He wouldn't have gone back to the river.' The question of gender didn't arise in his mind at all now. ‘Too dangerous.'

Sloan headed for the nearest telephone and rang the SOCO in charge of the team who had searched Lucy Lansdown's house. ‘I want you to go back there again,' he said, ‘and look for any further evidence that someone else has been in there.' He looked down at his own hands. ‘Especially someone wearing gloves,' he sighed and added under his breath, ‘just like we did.'

‘This other entry, Inspector, we're talking about,' the SOCO said, ‘would that have been before or after you went over the house?'

‘Before,' said Detective Inspector Sloan. That was something he was sure about now. In his book someone had removed Lucy Lansdown's key from her handbag before casting it in the river. And used it in all probability to get inside her house that same night.

‘Though what he was looking for,' he said to Crosby as he arrived in his office a little later, ‘I do not know. What everyone is looking for is a complete mystery to me.'

‘Perhaps,' suggested the constable indifferently, ‘they're all looking for different things.' He looked out through the window towards the police car park. ‘Are you ready to go home now, sir? It's getting late.'

‘Not while there's work to be done, Crosby, and there is.'

 

Sudden summonses – day and night – were part and parcel of the daily workings of funeral directors and usually gave rise to no surprises beyond what was expected in the everyday undertaking line of business. In the ordinary way this occasioned no more than a funeral conducted with decent expedition and the sympathetic handling of all concerned. More often than not, even warring, highly dysfunctional families succumbed to a skilled and orderly decision-making process that resolved such important matters as where and when the ceremony would be held and by whom conducted. The more delicate decisions such as who should pay tribute and whether children should be brought to the service were wisely left to the relatives to fight about.

Today was different.

‘You there, Tod?' Charlie Morton was sitting in his office when Tod got back from burying a nonagenarian over at the village of Larking. He sounded disgruntled.

‘Yes, Dad.'

‘I want a word.' In his own domain Charlie Morton could be as autocratic as Superintendent Leeyes.

‘Won't be a tick. I'm just changing.'

‘Now!' The paterfamilias touch was well to the fore. ‘This minute.'

Tod stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves, his black frock coat dangling over his arm. ‘What's up?'

‘Those rings that have gone missing from Damory Regis…'

‘I know, Dad. Awful, isn't it? I still can't—'

‘It's more than awful,' interrupted the old man sternly.

Tod advanced into the office. ‘It can't be—'

Charlie Morton said soberly, ‘Oh, yes it is. I've had the police round here again.'

Tod said, ‘About someone trying to break in here?'

‘Not about someone trying to break in here,' thundered the old man. ‘About us.'

‘Us?' Tod sounded bewildered. ‘What about us?'

‘Those three rings,' he glowered at his son, ‘they think we took them.'

‘What!' Tod flushed a bright red.

‘The police think we had them away on our toes.'

‘Never!'

‘Well, what else are they to think?' the old man demanded grumpily. ‘It has been known in the trade. You can't say it hasn't.'

‘I suppose,' said Tod slowly, ‘you can't blame them for checking. It's their job to check everything out.'

‘And I've had Chris Sloan, who I've known, man and boy, all his life, coming round here questioning me. Me, an honest businessman with a good name for over forty years!' Charlie Morton thumped the table. ‘It's an outrage, that's what it is. And to make matters worse he had that daft boy he calls his assistant with him.'

‘Crosby,' said Tod dully.

‘He was supposed to be writing down my answers. Did we keep the rings in the safe?' He sniffed. ‘What do we need a safe for here? Do they think somebody's going to steal the stock? And what about our burglar alarm, they wanted to know. Our burglar alarm,' he repeated richly. ‘What good do they think that would do? Wake the dead?'

Tod stood stock-still and silent in the middle of the room while his father continued his diatribe. ‘Then they asked how could we be sure somebody else in the firm didn't pull them off the poor old lady's fingers just before we screwed the coffin down? And how could we be absolutely certain no one here unscrewed it again after that? Asking us that. Us. Morton's. The very idea!'

‘But, Dad—'

‘Especially when Bert and Fred and all the others have worked here since they were lads and I had to stop them waving at their friends from the hearse first time out.'

‘Calm down, Dad. Calm down and take it easy.'

‘Someone did try to get in,' insisted Morton
père
, unappeased. ‘The police saw those marks outside. You showed them to them, didn't you?'

‘I suppose anyone could have made them,' said Tod unhappily, realising now where the police were coming from on this.