Unnatural Wastage (29 page)

‘Where was the family living at the time?' asked DCI Leach.

‘Mrs Shilling isn't sure, but she seems to remember hearing her mention Hackney.'

‘Hackney – that's in East London.' Leach made a note. ‘That's a useful starting point for tracing her family.' He turned to DS Rathbone. ‘Get one of your team to send her details to the local police, Greg.'

‘Will do, sir.'

‘Presumably she was at school in the area. How come she ended up in Bristol?'

‘It seems she was desperate to get away from London to be out of the reach of her family, sir,' said Tim. ‘Her friend's parents had relatives in Bedminster – a Mr and Mrs Franklin – and they arranged for her to stay with them for a while. Happily they took to one another straight away – the Franklins had no children of their own and she filled a gap in their lives. They found a place for her at a local school and eventually they offered her a permanent home.'

‘As she was a minor they should have informed us, but I suppose she managed to persuade them not to,' Leach remarked. ‘How long did she live with them?'

‘Until she left school, sir.'

‘How old was she then?'

‘Just turned eighteen. It seems she was hoping to go to university but Mr Franklin, an engineer with a company making water treatment equipment, was unexpectedly moved to an overseas job and she was suddenly faced with the prospect of losing her home. The Franklins were very good to her; they helped her find somewhere to live and gave her some money. According to what she told Mrs Shilling she used to help with all the domestic chores and it was Mrs Franklin's idea that she should look for work as a cleaner and study part time to get some kind of qualification. We've checked a few local adult education colleges but we haven't come up with anything in that direction so far.'

‘She seems to have been very frank with Mrs Shilling,' Leach commented.

‘She was obviously pretty low when she applied for the job, sir, and was probably desperate for someone to confide in. Underneath her no-nonsense, businesslike manner, Mrs Shilling struck us as a very kind, sympathetic human being. She showed us the letter Mrs Franklin had written testifying to Aggie's honesty and reliability as a cleaner. It included the name of her doctor and a copy of her latest school report. Everything seems to be in order.'

‘She's registered with a doctor eh?' said Leach, his expression lightening for a moment. ‘That's good news. He should be able to help us with an ID.'

‘Sorry sir, no luck there I'm afraid,' said Mike. ‘She only saw a doctor once in all the time she lived with the Franklins and he died two years ago. No one else at the practice can even remember what she looked like.'

‘What about the Job Centre? Presumably she signed on when she was looking for work. Did she have a National Insurance number?'

‘Everything's in order, sir. She knew where her father kept her passport and somehow managed to get hold of it. She actually showed it to Mrs Shilling as proof of her ID.'

Leach nodded. ‘There was no passport in her flat and her handbag is missing so it's probably in that along with her purse and her mobile.'

‘Yes, it'd be a great help if that turned up,' Leach remarked. ‘You mentioned in a previous report that Aggie caught a bus from outside Holmwood to her next job. Did you check on that?'

‘I did, sir,' said Tim. ‘It's route four-oh-two. We've contacted the bus company and asked them to check if any of the drivers noticed a woman answering Aggie's description travelling on their bus around one thirty on Wednesday.'

Leach nodded. ‘Well, at least we have a clearer picture of Aggie's background, although I don't see that it does much to strengthen our case against Ellerman. Sukey and Vicky, let's hear from you.'

‘I'm afraid we aren't going to be of much help either, sir,' said Sukey. ‘We spoke to Ellerman's PA, a Mrs Nuttall. She confirmed that Ellerman left his office a little after eleven on Wednesday morning, saying he might not be back but to call him on his mobile if anything urgent cropped up. He didn't say where he was going, which didn't surprise her.'

‘She was careful not to say anything critical about him,' said Vicky. ‘However, she made it clear that the relationship between them is strictly a business one and that he neither volunteers, nor is she interested in, anything he does outside the office.'

‘You're saying she thought he might have had some sort of assignation?'

‘That was our impression, sir.'

‘He does fancy himself as a ladies' man,' Rathbone remarked with a hint of mockery.

‘So she knew nothing about this so-called project he was supposed to be working on?'

‘No, sir,' said Sukey, ‘but he did return to the office at about four, saying he needed to pick up some papers he'd left behind as he wanted to read them during the evening. We asked her if he seemed at all agitated, but she said he appeared perfectly normal.'

Leach thumped his desk with his fist in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration. ‘Either the man's completely without human feelings or . . . I hate to admit this, but I'm beginning to wonder if he's telling the truth after all. The girl's history has made me think . . . supposing her brothers had managed to track her down . . . found out where she lived and been lying in wait for her when she got home. Or maybe they'd been shadowing her, found an opportunity to grab her . . . bundle her into a car . . . she'd probably have put up a struggle and they accidentally strangled her while attempting to subdue her. We can't be a hundred per cent sure that she never left Sycamore Park the day she went missing . . . not even the nosiest of neighbours spot everything.'

‘Surely, sir, someone would have noticed a couple of young men of Middle Eastern appearance hanging around near Aggie's flat?' said Rathbone.

‘They could have found the route she regularly took home and chosen the time and place carefully, Greg. Get your team to find out everything they can relevant to Aggie's regular movements.'

‘Will do, sir.'

‘Meanwhile,' Leach went on, ‘there's some stuff from Ellerman's flat to go through. The techies have hacked into his laptop, so you'll have to trawl through everything on there. You might find something to help us get into his head.'

‘You think he might keep a diary, sir?' said Mike.

‘That's for you to find out. Uniformed also brought out a carved wooden box that was tucked away at the back of a cupboard. It looks Indian – probably another bit of kitsch that his wife insisted on buying. They think there's something inside it but they haven't been able to open it. There must be a secret catch somewhere – one of you should be able to find it.' Leach made a few notes and closed his folder. ‘Right, that's it for now.'

‘I'
ve seen these things before,' said Vicky as she examined the elaborately carved wooden box that Rathbone handed over.

‘So see if you can get into it,' he said curtly.

‘I'll do my best, Sarge.' He gave a dismissive grunt and strode over to the drinks machine. ‘I do believe this case is getting him down; he seems to be on an even shorter fuse than usual,' Vicky commented with a nod in his direction. ‘I have a feeling,' she went on, turning her attention back to the box, ‘that you have to slide this bit one way . . . or maybe the other . . . no, perhaps it's this bit . . . ah, that's it . . . and then press something . . . voilà!' There was a faint click as the lid sprang open. ‘Right, what have we here?'

‘A bunch of dried rosemary,' said Sukey, peering over Vicky's shoulder. ‘For remembrance,' she said softly. ‘What else?'

‘Picture postcards,' Vicky lifted out the items while she spoke and passed them one by one to Sukey. ‘The Colosseum . . . the Eiffel Tower . . . the Brandenburg Gate. Nothing written on them except dates so I suppose she bought them as keepsakes in places they'd been to.'

‘Quite a few photographs, all of the two of them,' Sukey remarked. ‘They're sitting on an elephant in this one.' She turned the picture over. ‘She's written “The two of us on a howdah in India – the best holiday ever”.'

‘And to think that awful man made her abort their baby and they both died,' said Vicky. ‘I wonder he can sleep at night.'

‘He's kept all these mementoes of her, so he must have loved her in spite of everything.' Sukey felt a constriction in her throat as she put the photos to one side. ‘What next?'

‘Theatre programmes,' said Vicky as she unfolded them. ‘They saw
The Merchant of Venice
at Stratford and
The Applecart
in London. She's written “My birthday treat” on one and “Our anniversary – exactly a month since our first date” on the other. A few admission tickets to art galleries and so on. And the last thing is this.' She took out a small, leather-bound volume. ‘It's a diary.'

‘Is it hers?'

‘I suppose it must be.' Vicky handed it to Sukey. ‘You look through it. I don't want to . . . I'm beginning to feel . . . intrusive.'

‘One of us has to.' Sukey took the diary and opened it at the first page. ‘Yes, according to this it belonged to Julie Ellerman, which means she obviously considered herself as good as married to him.' She turned over the pages. ‘She seems to have started it about the time she met Marcus . . . or at least when they began the relationship. There's an awful lot about him . . . once or twice she refers to him as “darling Marc” . . . and goes on about how wonderful he is. Poor girl, she was obviously besotted . . . little did she know what was coming to her.' Sukey read through a few more pages without comment. ‘Hang on a minute,' she said suddenly. ‘This looks interesting.' She held the diary out to Vicky, who took it with some reluctance. ‘Read that.'

‘Jay drove me to The Laburnums today to measure up for curtains,' Vicky read aloud. ‘He's got a lovely new car – an Audi – and he's so proud of it. He's such a dear and he thinks the world of me, in fact he once asked me to marry him. He got quite upset when I told him about Marc. In fact he said some quite nasty things about him. When I told him how happy my darling makes me he kept saying I hadn't known him long enough to be sure. Of course I'm sure, I said, the first time I met Marc I just knew he was the only one for me. Poor old Jay gave up after that, just said he'd always be there for me if I needed him.' Vicky handed the diary back to Sukey. ‘It's hardly surprising that Jay – whoever he is – fancied her. From the pictures of her she was quite a dish.'

‘She'd have been a lot better off with him; he sounds a really nice guy,' Sukey commented, turning over a few more pages. ‘She then goes on at some length about how lovely it was of Gramps to let her and Marcus live in the house.'

‘Gramps – that must be the old boy you went to see.'

‘That's right – Mr Armitage. He didn't have a good word to say about Marcus Ellerman either. Hang on a minute; I've just remembered something. There was this lady who lives across the way from The Laburnums.' Sukey trawled through her memory. ‘She's a Mrs Parr, a music teacher. She mentioned seeing a couple turn up at The Laburnums one day before the Ellermans moved in. She was sure the woman was Julie, but the man with her looked a lot older than Ellerman so it couldn't have been him. He was driving what she described as “an expensive-looking car” and she thought it was red but she couldn't say what make it was.'

‘So perhaps it was this man she refers to as Jay,' said Vicky thoughtfully. ‘That could be short for Jason.'

‘Or Jacob or James,' Sukey suggested. ‘There's a man called Jared living in the same block as Ellerman . . . but it can't be him; he's far too young. I've just had a thought; I wonder if she told darling Marcus about this other man who wanted to marry her. Maybe he would know who he is. If we could track him down he might know something we could pin on Ellerman.'

‘You mean something to link him with Fenella Tremaine . . . something to suggest a motive for killing her?'

‘It's possible, don't you think?'

‘But even if Ellerman does know who Jay is he's hardly likely to incriminate himself by telling us,' Vicky objected, ‘and if Jay does know something, why hasn't he come forward?'

‘Good question, but I think DCI Leach should know about this.' Sukey was flicking through the remaining pages of the diary as she spoke. When she came to the last entry she caught her breath.

‘What is it? Vicky asked.

‘She wrote, “I can't believe it. Marc doesn't want the baby. He says he couldn't live with a squalling brat in the house and if I don't get rid of it he'll move out. Gramps says he'd look after me and the baby and find somewhere for us to live, but I can't face life without Marc so I've decided to do as he says.” Well, that confirms what old Mr Armitage told me.' Sukey closed the diary and replaced it in the box with the other items. ‘I'm pretty sure the Sarge will be interested in this.'

Vicky shrugged. ‘If you say so, but I'm still not convinced that it helps us. We already know what happened to her.'

‘I'm inclined to agree with Vicky,' Rathbone commented after reading the entries in the diary that Sukey pointed out to him, ‘but I'll show it to DCI Leach anyway.'

‘This is definitely worth following up,' said Leach after reading the relevant passages for himself. ‘This man, Jay, might, as you are obviously hoping, hold a key piece of info that will help us pin the Tremaine murder on Ellerman – and consequently provide a strong motive for Aggie's murder as well. On the other hand, he may know something that could clear Ellerman altogether, which would be frustrating but it's a possibility we have to face. He hasn't been released from custody yet, so question him again and see what he has to say about it.'