Scaring Crows (21 page)

‘Oh – I don't think so.' Joanna fumbled along her desk top and found the BPAS leaflet. It was a forlorn hope and yet, stubbornly, she clung to it, this blind optimism, that somewhere, somehow, they would find Ruthie Summers both alive and innocent.

‘Let's tour some of the local nursing homes and hospitals.'

As usual Korpanski could read her mind. ‘You still think ...?'

And to him she could admit it. ‘I want to – very much.'

12.00 p.m.

Before they spent the afternoon trawling round the local nursing homes it seemed worth a visit to Ruthie Summers' doctor. He proved a friendly Chinese man with a wide smile, crooked teeth and amazingly accent-less English. His name was Peter Foo.

The receptionist ushered them into his surgery and he beamed a welcome. Joanna thought what a reassuring doctor he seemed. Surely Aaron, Jack and Ruth would all have confided in him.

It seemed not. ‘I've got all their notes out,' Doctor Foo said with one of his broad grins. ‘But I don't seem to have met them too often. I hadn't seen Jack for more than four years. And that was for something quite routine that can have had no bearing on the case at all.'

‘And Aaron?' Joanna asked cautiously.

‘I was in a difficult position here,' Doctor Foo glanced at his computer screen. ‘You see according to my records, I received a telephone call from Mr Aaron Summers' sister-in-law to say he was unwell. She wanted him to consult me.'

‘And?'

‘I did telephone Mr Summers,' the doctor said, but regretfully he was not willing to come to the surgery.' He smiled. ‘He had a very fatalistic view of life, death and disease. Common amongst farmers and country folk but hopelessly out of step with modern, interventionist medicine. In fact it seems unfortunate but I never did see him.'

‘You saw the results of the post mortem?'

The doctor nodded. ‘I did and I was not surprised. From what Miss Lockley had told me I guessed he had a malignancy somewhere. And to be honest, Inspector Piercy, I'm not so sure that his tumour would have been operable anyway. From the size of it he'd had it for quite a while, probably years. He may have taken the wisest decision. For all the wrong reasons, of course.'

Joanna moved to more sensitive ground. ‘And Ruth Summers?'

Immediately the doctor's manner changed. ‘I'm sorry,' he said awkwardly, ‘but I have spoken to the Medical Defence Union. While both Aaron and Jack Summers are dead and therefore
anything
I know
might
have a bearing on their murders, Ruth Summers is, as far as we know, still alive. I can't reveal any medical detail.'

‘She is a potential witness in a murder inquiry,' Joanna said sharply, ‘as well as being our prime suspect. She has not been seen
since
the murders. In fact up to now, no one we have questioned seems to have seen her in the last month. We're
very
anxious to find her. So anything, anything at all that might help us would be vital to the investigation.' She decided to cast the dice. ‘Doctor Foo,' she said earnestly, ‘I'm not interested in knowing
all
her medical details. I simply want to know one thing. Was she pregnant?'

The doctor's eyes flickered.

Joanna tried again. ‘Look,' she said, ‘if it'll help you I'll explain. If Ruth Summers was pregnant and she
was
seeking an abortion you just might hold the answer to her whereabouts. She
might
have seen something on Tuesday morning.'

The doctor sat still for a moment before picking up the telephone. ‘Let me just speak to the MDU again.' He covered the mouthpiece. ‘I'm sorry,' he said with a disarming smile, ‘I'm really
not
trying to obstruct you in your enquiries. I want to know who murdered two of my patients probably as much as you do. But this confidentiality thing – it's a minefield. I promise you.'

‘It's OK,' Joanna said.

The doctor spoke quickly into the telephone, explaining the circumstances concisely. Two minutes later he replaced the receiver. And his manner now was open and relaxed. ‘She never
actually
consulted me,' the doctor said. ‘That was part of the trouble. However I do have something logged here ...' He flicked the screen to another patient. This time Ruthie Summers, aged twenty-seven, address, Hardacre Farm. ‘Patients can drop urine samples off at the surgery for testing,' he said. ‘We send them to the path. lab. On June 16th Ruth Summers did in fact leave an early morning specimen of urine at the surgery, giving the date of her last period as May the first.'

‘And?'

‘It tested positive,' the doctor said reluctantly. Joanna leant back in her chair. So her hunch had been right. Ruthie Summers
had
been pregnant. This opened up an array of possibilities. Suicide, an abortion, an escape from the claustrophobia of the farm. And it didn't need an ‘A' level in Biology to point out that for Ruthie Summers to be expecting a baby there had to have been a love affair. So not quite the chaste dairy maid.

She addressed the doctor. ‘Then what happened?'

‘We informed her of the test result by telephone and made her an appointment for the ante-natal clinic the following week.'

‘And?'

‘She didn't turn up.'

‘So then what did you do?'

The doctor sighed. ‘I rang the farm,' he said, ‘but I only ever spoke to either Aaron or Jack. They always said Ruthie was out. And ...'

‘Because of confidentiality you couldn't tell them what you were ringing about.'

The doctor shrugged. ‘That's right.'

‘But what did you think happened to her?'

The doctor gave a rueful smile. ‘I didn't think,' he said. ‘That's the trouble. I have four thousand patients on my list with only one part-timer to help me. I daresay the midwives will have chased her up. They would normally even call at her home but I really didn't have time to do anything more. I'm sorry.'

There was something defensive in his manner. The pleasant Doctor Foo was worrying about his neck on the line. Litigation, a neglected pregnancy. Joanna leant forward. ‘Tell me, Doctor,' she said and placed the leaflet on the desk, ‘if Ruth Summers had decided to opt for a termination by the BPAS what would happen?'

‘The patient has the absolute right to privacy.'

‘Even from her own GP?'

The doctor nodded.

They called in at a pub for lunch, sitting outside on wooden benches.

Joanna waited until they were settled with a drink and a plate of sandwiches. ‘I think we've found her,' she said.

‘Don't be too confident.'

‘No, I really think she's in one of the nursing homes run by the BPAS. In fact we'll check the first one this afternoon and get some of the uniformed lads to ring the local hospitals, just in case something happened and she was admitted.'

‘But they've already put out a missing persons quest.'

‘She could have used a different name.'

Their first port of call was to a converted Victorian house, pronouncing ‘The Elms Private Nursing Home' picked out in black lettering on a white painted board.

They took the car up a drive that was darkened by bending pine trees, and welcomingly cool in the shade. The house was large, bay-windowed and somehow quite forbidding. Joanna sat, mesmerized, in the driving seat, full of hidden fears and old memories. Once, only once, she had thought she must come to a place just like this, to rid herself of what she had
imagined
she carried, something she had thought of as a hostile, unwelcome foreign body. The prospect of a child had been awful, frightening. For a few days she had worried. And yet it had been nothing. Nothing but worry and guilt, a temporary upset, the doctor had called it. It was only now that she realized the baby she had
thought
she carried would have been Matthew's much longed for child. A consolation for the intermittent loss of Eloise. Eloise ... Suddenly weary and depressed she wondered how he was getting on with her.

Had Ruthie Summers faced such a prospect too? Had she come here, with her suitcase, to dispose of just such a problem?

The answer hit her like a thunderbolt. Surely not. If Ruthie Summers had been pregnant by Shackleton there would have been no need for an abortion. He was a free man, wasn't he? He loved her? So he would have married her. But if it had been Mothershaw's child she had carried?

She rang the bell and spoke to a neatly uniformed matron who also produced the confidentiality plea. Joanna pointed out that there was a possibility that Ruthie Summers was a vital witness to a double murder. And confidentiality melted, like chocolate on a hot day.

Nevertheless The Elms drew a blank as did all of the five other nursing homes used by the BPAS so the journey back to the farm was subdued. Joanna
knew
there was a significance about Ruthie Summers' pregnancy but for the life of her she didn't know what it was. It infuriated her and at the same time frustrated her. Mercifully Mike was silent until they reached the outskirts of the town.

‘Mike,' she said suddenly. ‘Look. We can't find Ruthie. But we could have a go at speaking to the father of her child.'

He glanced across at her. ‘So who are we talking about?' he demanded. ‘Neil Rowan, Shackleton, or ...' she knew he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, ‘are we talking about that sculptor fellow, the one you're so fond of visiting on your own early in the morning when I daresay he's still in his pyjamas.'

Joanna burst out laughing. This was the old Mike. The jealous Mike, the Mike whose loyalty guarded her like the Dogs of Fo outside Chinese Temples. This Mike she knew. Well.

‘Actually,' she said, still giggling, ‘he wears a rather fetching grey towelling dressing-gown.'

Mike growled.

‘Anyway, I didn't mean Mothershaw. I was thinking of Shackleton. I think we should call round and speak to him. Who knows,' she said, ‘we might get lucky. There's just a chance he's been hiding Ruthie Summers there all along.'

Mike grunted but turned the car around and they headed towards the Southern end of town, to the rows of terraced mill workers' cottages and Victory Street.

It was a diminutive place, barely bigger than a dolls' house, one of a row of five. Shackleton's was the centre one, the height of the bedroom window scarcely six inches above Korpanski's head.

They banged on the door and Shackleton himself pulled it open, staring confusedly at the two police officers. ‘I only spoke to you this morning,' he said. ‘Has something happened? Have you found Ruthie?'

‘We'd like to have a look round your house.'

Shackleton grasped the point quickly. ‘You mean you think Ruthie's here? You've got to be joking. She wouldn't have come here.'

Joanna eyed him steadily.

Shackleton ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. ‘If she was here I'd have told you. There's nothing I'd like more than to see her. But there's no one here but myself and my mother. We live alone.' He looked sharply at Joanna then Mike. ‘Why here?'

‘Because there are so few places she
could
be. She hardly knew anyone. And we know you were fond of her.'

‘I
am
fond of her,' Shackleton said with simplicity. ‘But if she had done that to her father and her brother I wouldn't have hidden her because she wouldn't be the Ruthie I knew.'

And the honesty in his eyes forced Joanna to acknowledge that he was telling the truth.

Mike was shuffling impatiently. She could read his thoughts. Why weren't they getting on with it?

But Shackleton stood his ground. ‘Have you got a warrant?'

‘We can easily get one,' Joanna said wearily. Confidentiality, warrants. She was sick of red tape.

Shackleton eventually gave a brief nod. ‘All right,' he said. ‘But don't say too much to my mother.' He jerked his head backwards, into the house. ‘She's old. She isn't very well and I haven't said too much to her about ...' A spasm temporarily twisted his features. ‘She was fond of Ruthie.'

‘We'll be as delicate as a pair of courting butterflies.' Joanna gave Mike a sharp glance, but his face was impassive.

Shackleton shrank back against the wall and Mike strode past.

It was a tiny house with no room to swing a cat. A diminutive living room cramped by a bulky three-piece suite and a table folded against the wall. Kitchen through a glass door, bathroom added on beyond that, a lean-to with a flat roof and mint green bathroom suite.

There was no place downstairs they could have hidden Ruthie Summers.

Narrow stairs, dark. At the top two doors. One stood open – Shackleton's room. Bed covers thrown back. Hot, stuffy. Overalls on the bed, small wardrobe, chest of drawers. Nothing underneath except a pair of boots and a thick layer of dust.

The other room.

The door was shut. Joanna knocked, opened it slowly.

Dim inside. A hump on top of the bed. She must be lying down in the afternoon heat. She caught her breath.
Ruthie?

No. Strands of white hair across the pillow.

‘Mrs Shackleton?'

The old lady sat up slowly. An ancient woman with a creased face who eyed Mike with malevolence. ‘Who are you?' Then she called out. ‘David ... David.'

She pulled a cardigan tightly around her shoulders as Shackleton entered the room. ‘It's all right, Mother.' He sat down on the bed and soothed her. ‘It's all right. They're friends of mine.'

The old lady was staring trustingly up at his face as Shackleton gently explained.

‘You remember I said Ruthie was missing and there had been an accident up at Hardacre?'

Joanna winced.
An accident?

The old lady nodded dumbly, tears rolling down her cheeks.