The Maggie Murders (18 page)

Colonel Redfern had not only been
Baker’s commanding officer in the Falklands, but had also been in command of
the marine under suspicion of the glassing incident last year. Although the
military police were in charge of the case, she’d been sent up there as a
civilian had been injured. The fact that the local had claimed to have been
glassed had instantly been laughed off by Redfern – he’d been quick to point
out the accused could more than easily have used his bare hands to defend
himself. In the end the case had gone nowhere and all charges had been dropped.
Eventually, the local police and the Red Caps had agreed to try and keep the
marines segregated in one pub and the local troublemakers in another to try and
limit the amount of damage to both the town’s and the marines’ reputations.

‘Good morning, Sergeant! ‘hailed
Colonel Redfern offering her a half salute.

She wasn’t sure if he meant the
salute as a compliment, or ironically.

He led her to his office, which
would have felt like any other admin block if it hadn’t been for the
distinguished looking man in green camouflage sitting opposite her. Pouring her
a remarkably good coffee, the Colonel outlined Calum Baker’s service record.

‘He was a good man. Popular with
the lads and brave. As you already know he had a distinguished service record.
Completed two tours of Northern Ireland. Absolutely terrible what happened to
him in the Falklands. Probably shouldn’t say it, but...’

‘Better off dead.’

‘For an active man like that…  I
know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I just don’t know how they survive an
injury like that. I know our medics are pretty terrific, but it can’t be the
same can it? Losing the ol’ todger like that…’

Perhaps fearing he’d overstepped
the mark, the Colonel made a show of hiding behind his coffee, as Jane tried to
suppress a giggle at the bizarre way he’d described the male anatomy.

‘The victim of the ‘83 murder was
a former war hero too. Do you think there could be any connection?’

‘Can’t say that I do. He was an
army man, wasn’t he? I mean he was in a totally different war and a totally
different service.’

‘It might seem daft, but was
there any suggestion Sgt Baker might have been gay?’

Colonel Redfern looked like he
was having trouble swallowing his coffee, before he spluttered with laughter.

‘Absolutely not! Firstly, there’s
no room for sausage jockeys in the military and secondly Sgt Baker was very
much into the ladies. Not the type of man you’d want to leave your wife alone
with for too long if you know what I mean. Not unless she was wearing a second pair
of knickers. In all honesty I think we were all a little surprised when he
settled down with Connie.’

‘Because he wasn’t the settling
down type?’ asked Jane as she struggled to suppress an image of a speculative
Mrs Redfern wearing just a marine beret and two pairs of knickers which had
mischievously popped into her head.

‘Partly that, but more because
she was a little out of his league.’

‘In the looks department?’

‘He had no trouble pulling good
looking women, no she was what we might have called posh totty. No offence
intended.’

‘None taken, ‘replied Jane,
taking a liberal dose of it.

‘If Connie had settled down with
one of the officers, then I could have believed it. She came from a good family
and had been privately educated, so it was a bit of a shock to find out she was
engaged to a sergeant.’

‘You knew her before?’ asked Jane
as she wondered whether the good colonel might have fancied his chances with
the alluring widow.

‘Sergeant Baker brought her along
to one or two of our social dos and we got chatting as you do.’

‘Did you get to know her
intimately?’

For the second time Colonel
Redfern found it difficult to get his coffee down, though this time he didn’t
look amused.

‘I’m a married man.’

‘It happens.’

‘Not to me.’

Jane wondered if his answer was a
little too off pat.

‘You’ve had problems with
homosexuality in the past though?’

The Colonel looked at her
askance. Jane feared for his remaining coffee.

‘I mean here at the base, as you
say, you are a married man,’ she clarified.

‘As you know, Sergeant, we do not
accept homosexuals into Her Majesty’s Royal Marines. It is against the
regulations.’

‘Alexander the Great was gay.’

‘He wasn’t a marine.’

‘What about the young boy who
killed himself here a few years ago?’

‘If you’re referring to Noel Graham
– that was a sad case involving a recruit’s personal difficulties in adjusting
to the pressures and strains of Commando training. We are after all training
for an elite service and some people cannot take it. Although we are of course
doing everything we can to ensure such tragedies do not repeat themselves.’

Jane recalled Prince Edward’s
aborted attempt to join the marines.

 ‘So you can think of no-one here
who had any reason to wish Sgt Baker harm?’

‘None at all. The only people I
ever knew who tried to kill him were the Argies at Bluff Cove and the
Republicans in South Armagh.’

‘You don’t think the IRA could be
operating down here?’ speculated Jane.

‘The base is a high profile
target and we’ve had one or two scares over the years, but I don’t think your
murders have anything to do with the Republicans. Bombings and shootings are
their style, not setting fire to former soldiers’ homes. They also tend to
admit their responsibility for their actions; it reinforces the terror, so I
don’t think this has anything to do with his time in Ulster.’

‘Could it be the work of an IRA
sympathiser?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought there
were too many of those operating as sleepers in the depths of Devon!’ laughed
Redfern, ‘and why would that be linked to the killing of a regular soldier who
fought in World War 2?’

The Colonel placed his cup down
in a way which indicated he at least regarded the interview as at an end.
Feeling there was nothing further to be gained in needling him any further,
Jane allowed him to escort her off the base.

Jane had a feeling Spilsbury’s
reactions would mirror Colonel Redfern’s as she drove out of the camp. If the
victims had both been former marines, or if they had both served in Northern
Ireland she might have had a link. If Baker had been a closet homosexual, then
there might be something in running with a series of homophobic hate crimes, but
sadly that had been a hare which had refused to run. The only thing which linked
the crimes was the so called ‘Maggie Murders’ connection which had been Christmas
come early for a media preparing for the summer hiatus of the silly season.

Could the killer be doing it out
of admiration for Thatcher, or was it a protest against Thatcher? And yet the
murders had had no political messages attached to them and no letters or
telephone calls had been made to the papers; other than the usual crank calls.
Well she presumed they were hoaxes – the only ones they had followed up
successfully had led to further dead ends. If there was a political message
behind these murders, then it was a very subtle one, she reflected.

Jane had finally managed to
arrange a meeting with Catherine Sullivan; she noted that the woman still
preferred to keep her married name, even though Spilsbury had told her that the
husband had initiated divorce proceedings.

They met in what had once been
the family home, a pleasant three bedroom terraced house between Marple Hill
and Exeter Road. Having taken the car to avoid the possibility of further
disappointments, Jane was still left ruing her visits to this address as she
tried in vain to avoid the over friendly moggy which had ambushed her in the
hallway. Inwardly cursing that she had had her slacks returned from the dry
cleaners only yesterday, she followed her host into the front room.

Jane noticed that the wedding
photographs were still displayed on the mantelpiece and that Mrs Sullivan (for
now) still wore her ring. The only other decorations in the simply furnished
sitting room were a picture of the Pope over the mantelpiece and an image of
the Sacred Heart above an étagère which displayed some crudely mended china
figurines. She settled herself down onto the sofa of a stained three piece
suite and took the mug of tepid tea being pressed into her hand.

She assessed the woman in front
of her. Catherine Sullivan was still in her twenties, but looked as if she
could be pushing forty. This probably had more to do with the way in which she
was dressed, in a frumpy pair of jeans and baggy jumper. She hadn’t lost the
weight from her cruelly shortened pregnancy and her face showed the lines of a
woman who would never recover from the harrowing loss of her baby.

‘I may have to stir some painful
memories,’ began Jane.

‘If it’s about that bitch, then
I’d rather not talk about it.‘

The bitterness of Catherine’s
reply still carried a trace of southern Ireland.

‘I’m sorry, but as I explained in
my call– we are investigating two murders.’

‘Well, it’s a real pity you’re
not investigating three!’

Catherine sank into the chair
opposite and picked at a thread on her moulting top.

‘Your ex-husband…’

‘My husband – we are still
married,’ flashed back Catherine holding up her ring finger, ‘and if those
lawyers try and divorce us, we’ll still be married in the eyes of God!’

 ‘Andrew Sullivan…’

Yet Jane was again interrupted by
another passionate outburst from across the room.

‘And the third murder you should
be investigating is that of our child!’

The memory of the child which she
had lost soon after discovering her husband’s affair proved too much for any composure
Catherine may have been trying to convey as her grief welled up to the surface.

If this was for show then the
woman deserved an Oscar, thought Jane. Dropping all pretence of formality and
only wanting to give some sisterly comfort, she reached out for the hand of the
weeping woman, only to see her snatch it away and retreat further into herself.
Rooting through her handbag, Jane eventually found a Kleenex which she was able
to press into Catherine’s trembling hand.

She waited until she appeared
somewhat less distraught.

‘I have to ask this. You made
some threats towards Constance Baker in 1983. Did you mean her actual harm?’

‘Of course I bloody did. She took
everything I had. He wouldn’t even go back to me after being with her. Not even
after I lost our baby! Who wouldn’t want a whore like that to burn in Hell?’

Jane felt herself agreeing with
the sentiments.

‘Did you ever try to harm her, or
her family?’

‘Every day I pray she suffers for
her sins!’

‘But did you actually try to
physically harm her, or her family?’

Catherine paused.

‘No.’

The reluctance with which she
spoke this convinced Jane of its veracity.

‘Would you have tried to harm her
husband?’

‘That poor, wee cripple? Why on
earth would I want to harm him? He suffered almost as much as me thanks to that
Jezebel!’

‘Well someone did. As you
probably know he burned to death in a fire on the night of the election.’

Catherine looked genuinely
shocked at the news.

Jane wondered if it was news of
the murder, news of the election, or news of both which had bypassed the
shattered shell of humanity in front of her? Discreetly pouring her unwanted
tea into a pot containing a withered looking spider plant, she went through the
motions of checking Catherine Sullivan’s alibi.

‘Can you tell me where you were that
night?’

‘I was here.’

‘Can anyone verify that?’

She thought for a moment.

‘The cat.’

****

Finally finding the episode of
‘Miss Marple’  on the cassette his son had marked ‘Match of the Day’ and
spooling past the highlights of a West Ham game still recorded on the opening
of the tape, Spilsbury loosened his belt, belched, asked a needless pardon from
his dozing wife and poured himself another glass of cider. Well, when in Rome…

Why did some people make their
lives so complicated? Nearly forty years of marriage with Felicity hadn’t led
to any of the complicated entanglements he’d come across in the current case.
Lots of former and still serving colleagues had had affairs or become divorced,
but he was proud that Brian and Felicity had bucked that trend. Now they’d
decided between the South West and Spain, they’d use the money they’d made on
their house in Chelmsford to take a well-deserved retirement. Both their
children had successfully begun families of their own and neither child had
hated him for too long. His bowel movements had been more regular of late and
England had won the Ashes in Australia. Hopefully decades of armchair cricket, visiting
grandchildren and days spent exploring terra incognita in the Daimler he’d
promised himself on retirement were laid up in store for them.

He watched what looked like more
pictures of Devonian scenery flicker past on screen. Perhaps the episode had
been filmed down here? Christie herself had lived only an hour or so away from
Exmouth in South Devon. He was almost sure he’d been motoring across where this
was filmed only yesterday. The only detail which nagged him about these
expensively mounted costume dramas was how bloody perfect they were. His own
memories of the fifties, when he’d still been a bobby on the beat, were of a
whole mixture of styles.  Even in the Coronation Year not everything had looked
like it was fresh out of 1953. Pre-War and Post-War had existed side by side.

Even though the bungalow they
were renting had probably been put up in the late 50s, he’d be hard pushed to
tell from an internal shot of it. The pine bathroom décor was most definitely
from the 70s and the three piece suite they’d brought with them had been bought
for their Silver Wedding. His own tastes in popular music were stuck firmly in
the 50s and 60s and he had never been one to keep regularly up to date with the
fashions. Felicity’s look might do her best to mirror the 80s, yet his suits
and ties reflected the mid-70s. If he was lucky his look might be due a
comeback in another couple of decades.

 Not that he felt he had decades
left. Although he felt no guilt for breaking Sullivan’s nose and quite a lot of
satisfaction, Sullivan had had the gall to made a complaint and whilst
Spilsbury knew that it was unlikely to lead anywhere, he was beginning to think
he should take his retirement sooner rather than later. Deniability of any
wrong-doing was one thing, deniability when you were getting nowhere in a high
profile murder case quite another.  And times were changing; the high flying
graduates who had never really beaten the streets were beginning to take over.
The ones who knew how to work those funny little computers and could quote
criminology statistics. People like Jane Hawkins. She might be wrong about this
one, but he’d bet she’d get there in the end.

The chocolate box village on the
screen brought further tempting thoughts to mind. They’d seen a pretty little
cottage in the South Hams whilst on one of their Sunday drives and their casual
enquiry had led to a viewing, which had led to an offer which had been
accepted. They could move in before Christmas. He could be putting his feet up
for good by the end of the year.

A groan from his stomach made
Spilsbury go to the bathroom before Miss Marple could reveal all. He knew when
it was likely to be a bad one and this had the makings of a whole roll job -
thankfully, Felicity was still asleep. This was another reason why he felt he
should go, as he felt The Maggie Murders (as he was reluctantly beginning to
think of the case) had all the makings of another Ripper enquiry. That one had
dragged on for years until the Yorkshire police had finally struck lucky; if
their killer intended to go on as long as Thatcher, then it could be forever
until it got solved! Someone else could have the glory of getting a result; all
it was giving him was stress. He sat down heavily on the pine toilet seat and
began mentally composing his resignation letter, as he waited for his bowels to
move.

****

Jane found Sergeant Baker’s
funeral to be very different from that of George Kellow’s.  As she sat at the
back of the crematorium, Jane decided that her fragile relationship with the
Church of England might need to be worked on. The last time she had been in a
Church before Kellow’s funeral had been for her brother-in-law’s wedding in
’81. It had been around the same time as the Royal Wedding and she’d felt
equally cynical about both ceremonies.

The fact that Tim’s elder brother
had married his secretary might have accounted for her less than kindly
feelings towards their domestic affair; Fiona was the type of woman she most
certainly would have vetoed as secretarial material if Tim had ever decided to
go back to work. On the few occasions they’d met before the wedding Fiona’s
necklines had seemed to plunge ever lower, just as her hem lines became ever
higher. She had always been spilling out of a series of very tight dresses,
whilst making a very public show of her affections for Alastair. Given that she
was also a good twenty years younger than Alastair, she had labelled Fiona as
Alastair’s mid-life crisis.

The fact that Fiona and Alistair
were still married certainly surprised her.

It had certainly been a contrast
with their wedding. She’d been prepared for a quiet registry office affair in
Plymouth, but Tim’s parents had become the reason that she’d found herself
returning to the parish church where she’d been christened and baptised for
almost the first time since leaving school. At least they’d managed to eschew
the marquee, band and cast of thousands Alistair and Fiona had invited to their
wedding, as their guest list had been limited to family and a few close
friends. Fiona had apparently said the same, although her close friends seemed
to consist of half the fox hunting fraternity of Gloucestershire.

In the end she’d been glad of the
Church setting, not that it had inspired her to become a regular celebrant at
St Giles’. She had though been willing to have their children Christened and
had even made the occasional visit to their local church with them at Christmas
time. Well what was Christmas without a carol service?

Looking around Exeter’s
crematorium she found it bleak and uninspiring. There was a functionality about
it which made her very glad she was a hatches, matches and despatches type of
believer.

The only splashes of colour which
relieved the dark and cavernous building were the dress uniforms of former
comrades in arms who had come to pay their last respects. Most of the marines
present seemed to have escaped the Falklands with less serious injuries than
Baker, although at least one man was in a wheelchair and in talking with
another veteran outside, her eyes were irresistibly drawn to the scars
disfiguring one side of his face.

The elegy focused very much on
his military service, although there was also a fair bit about the love and
support his wife had given him in the years after the Falklands. She wondered
how many of the people there would have known about the Bakers’ more unusual
ways of conducting their sexual relationship after he was emasculated? Yet this
was not something to bring up at a funeral, sex was something which brought
forth and sustained life and therefore deemed an inappropriate association when
considering death.

She wondered why the man hadn’t
believed; hadn’t he even wanted a show of religion at the end of his life even
if he had lived without God for most of it? She’d once heard that there were no
atheists on the battlefield, but had his cruel injuries in the Falklands campaign
destroyed his belief in a just and living God? She reflected on the irony that
once again his body would be burnt. The wooden coffin draped in the Union Flag
and with his beret and medals displayed proudly on top, would be consumed by
the third and final fire to ravage his body.

Unless of course the Sergeant
found himself in a hell created by a god who took Spilsbury’s Old Testament
attitude about the sanctity of sexual relationships in marriage? And yet she
felt any man who had died twice in this life should be given a chance of
finding a lasting peace. Despite the lack of prayers in the service, she
silently prayed for the dead man. As a woman who was not in the habit of
regular communication with the Divine, she added prayers for her family and
children too – even managing to include Alistair and Fiona in her
all-encompassing hopes for the future.

Looking at Connie, who was being
supported at the funeral by her father, Jane was amazed by how stunning she
looked in her widow’s weeds; although the black dress she wore so elegantly
rather gave the lie to the description ‘weeds’, she bet it had cost more than
one of her mortgage payments. Given that Connie was the living centre of
attention, it was no surprise that most of the men were looking at her,
notwithstanding the circumstances her stunning figure and raven hair just cried
out to be admired.