The Corpse's Tale (Trevor Joseph Detective series) (8 page)

Trevor sensed that Stephen George was being guarded. ‘She’d had sex the night she died.’

‘I read the pathologist’s report. She was a healthy attractive eighteen-year-old girl. What did you expect? A nun?’

‘Did you pick up on anyone she shouldn’t have been having an affair with?’

‘Like?’ Stephen challenged.

‘An older man, possibly married.’

Stephen’s face darkened. ‘Who have you been talking to?’   

‘As many people in the village as I can.’

‘And they’re out to blacken Anna Harris’s name when she can’t defend herself. That’s bloody rich. She was a sweet, kind girl.’

The ferocity of Stephen George’s outburst shocked Tr e v o r. ‘You loved her?’ he asked bluntly.

‘I loved her, Tyrone James loved her, Bob Evans loved her. Christ, even the vicar loved her. There wasn’t a man in the village who didn’t love her. But that doesn’t mean we slept with her. You’ve seen her photographs. She was beautiful. But what the photographs can’t show is her personality. One look from her could make you feel good about yourself. A smile and you’d be lost forever. She was Marilyn Monroe and Pollyanna rolled into one.’

‘Were you her lover?’ Trevor asked bluntly.

‘I wish,’ Stephen said warmly. ‘And you’ll probably get the same reply to that question from every man within a fifty-mile radius of Llan.’ He set his glass on the flagstone floor.

‘You have my word, this is off the record.’

‘Off the record?’ Stephen George repeated. ‘On the record we got the man who murdered her, Dai Helpful. I only wish that the powers that be had the sense to keep him locked up.’

‘She’d had sex that night. Someone has to know the identity of her lover.’

‘Dai Helpful raped her.’

‘The semen samples and pubic hair found on her body were never sent for analysis.’

‘We had a strong case. We didn’t need further evidence.’

Trevor almost said, “You do things very differently here”, but thought better of it. Stephen George was spoiling for a fight, without being pushed.

‘What did the women in the village think of Anna?’

‘They all adored her.’

‘Anna hadn’t confided the identity of her lover to any of them?’

‘If she had a lover other than any of the young boys she went out with, she didn’t tell anyone that I heard. Anna was busy studying. She lived for the moment and her ambition to be an actress. I used to see her sometimes being driven home from parties in various boys’ cars. There are a lot of wealthy people around here, and not just the landowners. The sort of people who give their sons a top of the range sports car and a Rolex for their eighteenth birthday. Anna was on everyone’s party list. She was a popular girl.’

‘So I gather.’ Trevor abandoned his glass of beer on the floor.

‘To go back to your earlier question, Anna was the sort of girl women loved as much as men. I don’t mean she was a lesbian. She was in the Angel that night with the women from the Dramatic Society. They’d had a girls only night to rehearse the dances and that should tell you something about her. She had a knack of turning everyone, no matter who or what they were, into a friend. In my opinion that’s what killed her. She never treated Dai Helpful any differently from anyone else. He put more store by her friendship than he should have. It’s my guess that he saw her with someone in the churchyard that night, spied on them, waited until her lover left and then axed her to death.’

‘So you admit she was with her lover in the churchyard that night?’

‘I admit nothing. I couldn’t prove it but I suspected there might have been someone with her before Dai Helpful turned up. If there was, I never found out who he was.’

‘Did you even try?’

‘It didn’t seem relevant at the time. Not with Dai Helpful’s fingerprints on the axe and Anna’s blood on his face. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Inspector. I have work to do.’

Trevor walked down the High Street wondering whether to return to Stephen George’s farm and ask him outright if he’d had an affair with Anna Harris. Then he saw the barmaid from the Angel, Lily Jenkins, leave the General Store with a box of fruit and vegetables. He ran and caught up with her.

‘If you’re going to the pub, could I carry that for you?’ he offered.

‘It’s not that heavy, Inspector,’ she said shyly.

‘It’s not that light, either, Lily.’ He took it from her. ‘What you said today in the bar about Dai Helpful, did you mean it?’

‘That he might not have killed Anna Harris? Yes, I meant it, Inspector.’

‘Any reason?’

‘The judge wouldn’t have set Dai Helpful free if he didn’t think there was a chance that he hadn’t killed Anna.’

‘No, he wouldn’t have.’ Trevor was disappointed that she hadn’t come up with something more concrete. ‘Do you remember Anna being murdered?’

‘I’ll never forget it, Inspector.’

‘But you were only ten at the time.’

‘My sister, Poppy, was the same age as Anna. They used to go everywhere together. Poppy’s a teacher now. She lives in London.’

‘Did she think that Dai Helpful killed Anna?’ Trevor persisted.

‘The police said he did. None of us questioned it at the time.’

He recalled what Stephen said about everyone in the village loving Anna. ‘You liked Anna?’

‘Everyone liked Anna, she was so full of life. But when it came to men…’ she fell silent.

‘What about Anna and men?’ he prompted.

Lily looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was close enough to hear what she was about to say. ‘Anna had lots of them. Any one she wanted. She even took Poppy’s boyfriend from her. My sister was furious. I was there when they quarrelled about it in our house. Anna refused to take Poppy seriously, she laughed. Then she said, “It’s all right, Poppy, I only borrowed him. You can have him back.” Of course my sister wouldn’t have him back. They were going to get engaged but they never did after that. Poppy still isn’t married.’

‘So Anna had lots of boyfriends?’

‘Dozens, Inspector Joseph. She used to meet one of them in the churchyard. That’s why Poppy and I weren’t surprised that she’d been found there.’

‘How do you know she used to meet someone in the churchyard?’ ‘Because she told us when we saw her rubbing the marks off the church notice board.’ ‘What marks?’  Trevor recalled what Rita James had said.

She stopped by the church notice board, took out her hanky and polished the corner of the glass. There must have been a spot of dirt there but that was the kind of girl she was. Do anything for anyone. And she did like the village to look nice.

‘Anna had one special boyfriend. She wouldn’t tell us who he was, only that he was rich and knew everything there was to know about sex. She said the boys in the sixth form college were children compared to him. And when he was free to see her, he used to write the time in a corner of the board with a soft eye- liner pencil she’d given him. If she could make it, she used to rub off the mark and then he’d know she’d be there. You had to look really close to see the numbers. She said he was the only man she could ever love. But not

enough to give up her place at Drama School.’   ‘And you never told Sergeant George any of this at the time?’ ‘He never asked, Inspector. Besides, everyone thought Dai Helpful killed Anna.’

C H A P T E R N I N E

T
REVOR WAS WATCHING THE
video of Anna’s funeral in the incident room when Peter and Sarah returned from visiting Anna’s mother. He glanced at his watch.

‘I was just about to go down to order dinner.’

‘Can you wait?’ Sarah’s eyes were shining.

‘He can wait if it’s going to get him back to his lady love sooner than he thinks.’ Peter set a box on the table.

Sarah saw Trevor looking at it. ‘The watch, sir. Anna’s mother gave it to us.’

‘It was in a box of Anna’s effects the police handed back to her family.’ Peter held up a bag. ‘Sarah also persuaded her to part with the dress. It’s still in the police evidence bag.’

‘Good work, Sarah.’ Trevor looked at the screen. Judy Oliver was standing next to Anna’s coffin, reciting a poem. She was dressed formally but there was something odd about her shoes. He made a note to think about it later, before switching off the TV.

‘I talked to Anna’s mother by myself, sir, as you suggested.’ Sarah took her own notebook from her handbag. She flipped it open. ‘She said that as far as she could make out none of Anna’s underclothes were missing. And she told Sergeant George that.’

‘Which is why the local police never issued a description of them,’ Collins said. ‘They didn’t know what they were looking for.’

‘Anna’s mother admitted that Anna rarely wore underclothes in summer in the evening. She also said she had never seen the watch before the police showed it to her.’ Sarah turned over the page. ‘She was certain no one in the family had given it to Anna. She’d celebrated her eighteenth birthday two months before she was killed, but her mother can’t recall seeing a watch like it among the presents. She couldn’t say for definite that it wasn’t A n n a ’s because her daughter had a lot of jewellery. She said,’ Sarah referred to her notes, ‘“Boys were always giving Anna jewellery. She put the boxes in the top drawer of her dressing table.”’

‘Didn’t she know the watch was valuable?’ Trevor asked.

‘The only value Mrs Harris puts on Anna’s possessions is sentimental, sir. It was painful to listen to her talking about her daughter – and her husband. As she said, one day she was running a successful antiques business with a loving husband, beautiful daughter and comfortable home. The next she was burying her daughter and days later her husband. He took an overdose of sleeping pills after Anna’s funeral. She couldn’t bear to return to the village, so she sold the business and her home.’

‘Then Anna never wore the watch in front of her parents.’ Trevor felt that his theory of a married lover had just gained strength.

‘When Mrs Harris moved, she boxed up Anna’s things. She couldn’t bear to throw them away so she put them in her spare bedroom. She took me up there and we went through them together. We found an empty jewellery box with an oval indentation.’

‘It fits the watch?’

‘It could do, sir. I thought you might want to send the watch to be checked out for DNA so I didn’t handle it. I left it in the police evidence bag, as I did with the dress.’

‘Excellent, Sarah. You have the makings of a first class detective,’ Trevor complimented.

‘There’s a name on the box. Evan Evans and Jones. It’s a local high class jeweller’s.’

‘Where are they based?’ Trevor asked.

‘Llandeilo.’

‘You and Peter can go there first thing tomorrow.’ Trevor stopped talking when he heard a footstep outside. There was a knock at the door.

‘Inspector Joseph?’

‘Please come in, Mrs James.’

‘Mike – Sergeant Thomas – is downstairs. He asked me to let you know. And I was wondering if you’re coming down for dinner. The specials are swordfish and boar steaks. We’re running out of both fast.’

‘We’re coming, Mrs James.’ Trevor pocketed his notebook.

‘I take it we can’t trust this local copper further than we can see him,’ Peter said.

‘I don’t know,’ Trevor said cautiously. ‘He certainly knows the village and the people but he might be protective of his forc e ’s history.’

‘Is he straight?’

‘That’s the question everyone wants to ask e v e ry copper, Sergeant Collins.’ Sarah Merchant, like all the officers in their station, knew just how often Peter Collins “bent” the rules to get results.

‘Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and take him at face value,’ Trevor said.

‘But we don’t discuss any of our findings with him?’

‘That goes without saying, Collins.’

Mrs James had meant it when she’d told them the kitchen was in danger of running out of specials. The dining room was packed with local people. Trevor saw ex-Sergeant George sitting at a table with the retired farmer Bob Jones. Tony Oliver was with Angela George and another man who Trevor assumed was the geography teacher Angela was about to m a r ry. There was no sign of Judy Oliver. Gareth Morris the newsagent was with Tom the baker and two women Trevor took to be their wives.

Mike Thomas was waiting for them at the bar. Trevor introduced Peter and Sarah.

After they had shaken hands, Mike said, ‘I asked Rita to set us up a table in the back bar. There’s no one in there and there won’t be until the dominoes club arrives at half past nine. One pint and three games are the social highlight of the week for some of the OAPs around here.’

They followed him into a room containing four tables and sixteen chairs. As Mike had said, it was deserted.

‘I can’t stay long,’ Mike warned. ‘I’ve put in my order for boar steak, chips and salad. If you’re into unusual starters I recommend the laver bread and oatmeal wrapped in bacon.’

‘Seaweed.’ Peter made a face.