In Bitter Chill (10 page)

Nancy was in the smoking room and the nurse who pointed Rachel to her grandmother’s whereabouts whispered that Nancy was trying to cut down. This came as no surprise to Rachel, who’d noticed that Nancy’s lungs were finally beginning to show the strain. Although for a woman who wouldn’t see eighty-five again it might even be expected. The doctor who came to the Maytree nursing home had a soft spot for Nancy, recognising perhaps, in the still dyed brown hair and powdered face, a former beauty. Nancy’s cutting down of cigarettes amounted to missing out her two o’clock smoke, but with tea due at four, she was obviously having a quick one in front of a game of clock patience.

Rachel sat down and batted away the puffs of smoke with irritation. ‘You’ll kill yourself with that habit.’

Nancy smirked, enjoying the long-running joke between them. ‘I’m two minutes off finishing this,’ she said, nodding at the game, and Rachel sat back in her chair watching her grandmother neatly place the cards into piles.

Finally finished, Nancy crossed her hands over her stomach and regarded her. ‘So what’s new?’

Rachel snorted, and picking up a magazine from a side table started wafting it over her face. A shadow of concern passed over Nancy.

‘What’s the matter?’

With her grandmother staring at her, Rachel could feel her eyes beginning to fill. ‘They’ve found the body of a woman at Truscott Fields.’

‘A woman . . .’

‘Yes. Nothing to do with my case, apparently, but I haven’t been able to find out anything about it on the news. It just says a body.’

‘And just after Yvonne Jenkins killed herself.’ Nancy looked down at the cards and carefully gathered them into a single pile. ‘Do you think they’re connected? The two cases, I mean.’

Rachel felt her eyes begin to sting with the smoke. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I don’t even know who it is. I tried to ring Superintendent Llewellyn but he was out. They came to interview me, though. About Mrs Jenkins’s death.’

‘She lasted longer than your mother.’ Nancy’s tone was neutral but Rachel could detect a sliver of flint in the words.

‘I doubt she was happy, though. I think Mum was.’

Nancy nodded and inspected her long painted nails. ‘Like my own mum, she was. A realist. Took whatever life threw at her and got on with it.’

‘I’m like that too.’ Rachel could hear the plaintive note in her voice but was unable to stop it.

Nancy had lit another cigarette and was regarding her. ‘You’re a bit like them both, I suppose. But those two – thick as thieves they were. Just don’t get too much like them. It’s not too late.’

‘What do you mean, “too late”?’

‘She could never stand men could my mother. They were a pain in the arse as far as she was concerned and better off out of the way.’

‘She never remarried after . . .’

Nancy was snorting. ‘Buried him when I was twelve and it was good riddance as far as she was concerned.’

Rachel reached out to touch Nancy. ‘But you weren’t like that. You and Granddad. It was a love match.’

Nancy’s expression had softened. ‘But your mum went the way of her nan. I told her she should remarry. If not for her sake, then for yours. But she wasn’t having any of it. The look she gave me when I suggested it. You’re not like that, a man-hater, are you?’

‘Nan!’ Rachel was shocked. ‘Mum didn’t hate men. She just . . .’ Rachel came to a standstill.

Nancy was looking at her through the smoke. She reached over and patted Rachel’s arm. ‘It’s been a while since you brought a man with you on your visits. Don’t leave it too late, love. Look how happy Hughie and me were. I’ll never forget that barn dance.’

The story. Every family has one: an incident that’s revisited time and time again, passed down through generations, so that the past becomes familiar. And Nancy’s story was the barn dance. Rachel opened her mouth to interrupt, but Nancy was off, closing her eyes to better evoke the memories.

‘Mum had patched a dress for the do, her favourite dove grey number with little covered buttons running down the centre, bought from Marmets in Cardiff. It’d gone under the arms, but a bit of grey thread and the lining of my old school hat soon repaired the hole.’

‘Make do and mend.’ Rachel jumped at the voice behind her. It was Vivian, she with the glamorous 1950s name and the home-dyed ginger hair. She wheeled the tea trolley around five times a day and eked out the intervening hours by chatting to the residents. She made no move to go now.

Nancy carried on, unheeding. ‘We were sick of the winter. The war was never-ending although we were all excited that America was finally going to fight with us. It looked like, now, we might win it. We could still hear the German planes overheard on their way to the Manchester Ship Canal but they weren’t as bad the year before.’

‘I was born nine months to the day after the last bomb fell on Matlock,’ said Vivian. They both ignored her.

‘I was on the dance floor, such as it was, with Hughie swinging me round and round. Mum gave me hell afterwards. She said my skirt showed more thigh than she thought proper.’

Rachel knew the story inside out. Her great-grandmother Mair had sewn in some silk panels, offcuts from the parachute material produced at the mill where she worked, and it had added volume to the skirt. As Nancy danced it lifted slightly, showing off her bare legs and causing outrage. Or perhaps not. Nancy liked to embroider a story and surely, in the general scheme of things, the fear of invasion and the loss of young men to the war, Mair would have turned a blind eye to a flash of leg.

‘We’d talked of nothing else all over Christmas. Waiting for the barn dance being organised by the Needhams. The vicar had been cross, saying we should concentrate on Christmas first. But we were so excited. Mrs Needham had organised a raffle and the first prize was a leg of lamb. But no one wanted that. We all wanted second, which was a pair of silk stockings.’

‘I bet you looked lovely, stockings or not,’ cut in Vivian. ‘Do you want a cuppa, love, too?’ she asked Rachel as she handed Nancy her milky tea. Rachel shook her head.

‘I wasn’t bad,’ admitted Nancy, ‘even though I say it myself. It was the start of me and Hughie courting properly.’

‘And Mair liked Hughie,’ said Rachel. 
‘
You’ve always said that she had a soft spot for him.
’

Nancy narrowed her eyes, taking a final draw on the cigarette. ‘It didn’t start off well, through. She threw a fit that evening; I can remember it like yesterday. One minute I was dancing and the next, she was dragging me off home. Hughie was left standing there like a lemon.’

Rachel frowned. She’d heard this part too, although for the first time it held a jarring note. Mair had grown up on a farm. She must have known about the birds and the bees. Surely Nancy flashing her leg wouldn’t have been enough to send even the uppity Mair into such a rage.

‘What? She came onto the dance floor and just grabbed you. Are you sure something hadn’t happened?’

‘Nothing! I was frogmarched out of there like I’d been caught with my knickers down.’

Rachel could hear Vivian snorting with laughter behind her.

‘And it was right in front of the Needhams and all their friends too. There they were feeding their kids nasty cake that someone had managed to concoct using powdered egg. And they’re all watching me as I’m being dragged outside by Mum, who didn’t even look at them or say goodbye. When she had it on her, there was nothing you could do.’ Nancy shook her head as if to rid herself of the unwanted humiliation. ‘But it was the start of me and Hughie. He was always perfectly polite to Mum but would take no nonsense from her. And that’s what you need. Find someone like your granddad and don’t become a man-hater like my mum.’

Rachel, swallowing her incredulity, took her Nan’s hand in her own. ‘This whole business with Mrs Jenkins has been stressing me out. It’s just so strange and it’s made me think again about 1978 and what happened then.’

She looked at Nancy, wondering if she would be prepared to discuss those days again, but she had picked up the pack of cards and was arranging them once more in a circle.

‘These things are best forgotten.’

‘Sadler! I’ve got something.’

Even though the mobile reception was poor, Connie could hear Sadler moving papers around on his desk. It was a continual ritual for him. He would leave his office as neat as a pin and come back to an assortment of files and reports left in a heap on his desk by a variety of station personnel. He never said anything, as far as she was aware, but nothing would get done until the tidying had been completed. So, now, she had only half his attention.

‘I’m having a good look at the files at the moment. When Rachel Jones was found in Truscott Woods she didn’t have any shoes and socks on. The police, I think, suspected some sexual connotation and tried to keep it quiet, but it was in all the newspaper reports at the time. It leaked out and the press got hold of it.’

‘I vaguely remember.’ Sadler sounded distracted. ‘I thought we’d ruled out a sexual motive.’

‘That’s not what I’m trying to say. The thing is the shoes and one of the socks were subsequently found on the track leading from the woods that Rachel had run up to reach the Bampton Road. But the other sock was never found, so police presumably thought it had been left in the kidnapper’s car.’

She had his full attention. ‘And?’

‘When I went up in the attic the afternoon that Yvonne Jenkins was found in the hotel, there were two tea chests there. Inside one, I found a child’s sock crumpled.’

‘From what I understand, Yvonne Jenkins had an obsessive personality. It’s no surprise she kept items of her missing child’s clothes.’

‘But it matches the one that was found on Rachel Jones.’ Connie lifted up the evidence bag and dangled it in front of her mobile as if willing Sadler to see it. ‘I’ve retrieved the original sock from the evidence box in 1978 – don’t say anything, you did say I could go and have a look if I wanted – and it matches the one I found in Yvonne Jenkins’s attic.’

Sadler had started shuffling papers again. ‘You sure about this?’

‘They look identical. They have a row of flowers running down each side. I’m going to send it to the lab to be analysed to make sure they’re a match. You OK with that?’

‘I think we have to check. And if they are proved to be a pair – you’re suggesting that Yvonne Jenkins must have played a role in the kidnapping of 1978?’

No
, thought Connie.
No, no, no
.

‘I think one “no” would suffice, Con. I do understand the meaning of the word.’

Damn, she had said it out loud.

‘It’s not right. That sock being there. Something really strange has gone on. Everything in that tea chest was neatly folded and that sock had been shoved down the side. As an afterthought or an addition.’

‘It doesn’t rule out her involvement in the kidnapping, though, does it? The rest of the clothes belong to her daughter. This sock, if it’s a match, will belong to Rachel, so why should it be given the same care as Sophie’s clothes?’

‘Yes, but why is it in the same chest in the first place?’

Connie could hear a chair creak. The morning tidy was clearly over. ‘Let’s mull it over. Call me if you have anything else. Do you know where Palmer is? He’s not on leave yet, is he?’

‘Not till next week. But I’ve no idea where he is. Sorry.’

Connie cut the connection and eyed the mouldy carton that she had removed from the file storage. She had chosen a different one from the evidence box where she had discovered Rachel’s sock. The number of boxes inside the storage facility had felt like a setback, but what she wanted really was a feel of the participants in the 1978 investigation. Who they’d investigated and why. Opening the box, a whiff of stagnant decay assailed her nostrils and she jerked her head back, causing her neck to crick alarmingly. The buff beige folders had been assembled carefully, written in small handwriting which looked like a relic from another era, full of loops and swirls. She mentally noted the colour of the files. Perhaps beige was for interviewees. She picked up the first one that came to hand, entitled ‘Interview with Peter Jenkins’. Leaning back, Connie rested against one of the kitchen units and started to read.

Peter Jenkins didn’t appear to have left his home for a grand sexual passion or for an adventurous middle age. Another motive must have compelled him to start afresh with a new woman. His job as a lecturer at Bampton technical college had brought him into contact with a secretary called Margaret, a divorcee with two young children. Reading between the lines, he obviously had a ‘type’ because Margaret sounded like a clone of Yvonne Jenkins – slim and well dressed. He had left his wife to set up home with Margaret and, at the time of the interview, both of her children were calling him dad. He claimed to have had no contact with his daughter since the day he had left the family home the previous year, a fact that he seemed to offer without justification. Connie could just remember when divorce had been a source of shame and fathers had just disappeared. Thank God times had changed now, she thought.

Connie flicked through the file. On the day of the girls’ kidnapping, Peter Jenkins had apparently been lecturing in front of a class for most of the morning. A number of students had been interviewed, had backed up his alibi and he had been immediately removed as a suspect from the enquiry. The car he had driven to work was the family’s pea green Austin Allegro. And Rachel in her statement had been adamant that the car had either been white or a very pale colour.

Margaret, Peter Jenkins’s soon-to-be wife, had also been investigated, and although she couldn’t find a witness to confirm that she had been in the house all morning, the fact that she couldn’t drive, nor did she have access to a car other than his, meant that she too had been eliminated.

Connie put the file down with a frown. Sadler was right, really. The coppers then had done a pretty good job. She wouldn’t have done anything differently. They’d interviewed two obvious suspects, checked their alibis and then eliminated them from the enquiry. It was funny that both Yvonne and Margaret Jenkins were from a generation of women who never learned to drive, but again this was the 1970s and entirely plausible. And then there was the question of motive. Why would either of them want to kidnap Sophie when presumably Peter Jenkins could have had access through legal custody if he had so wanted?

Connie riffled through the box of interviews but could find nothing to indicate whether they’d attempted to confirm the death of Rachel Jones’s father sometime in 1970. There was certainly no file under the name of Paul Saxton. Perhaps Mary Jones had readily produced a death certificate and it had been left at that? It should be easy enough to check on the work computer when she got back to the office.

The phone on Sadler’s desk rang and Scott, the pathologist’s young assistant, came on the line.

‘DI Sadler? Doctor Shields has just finished the post-mortem. He asked if you would call in to see him.’

Sadler put down the report he had been reading. ‘Anything urgent?’

Scott’s voice dropped a fraction. ‘You know how it is. Everything’s urgent. But yes, I think you should come sooner rather than later.’

‘I thought Connie was the detective of choice these days. What have I done to deserve the honour?’

There was a pause. ‘I don’t think it is what
you’ve
done but rather what someone else did.’

‘Right. I’m on my way down.’

Sadler passed Palmer on the way out of the station and his visage was a one of pure misery. Sadler thought about asking him what the problem was, but considering that his wedding was taking place soon, it was probably marriage related. And that was something he knew nothing about and didn’t particularly want to get involved in.

Snow was starting to fall again in Bampton and, combined with gusty winds, descended in swirls in front of the car windscreen as Sadler drove to the hospital, far more carefully than Palmer would have done. As he pulled into St Crispin’s and parked outside the prefabricated building where Bill Shields carried out his post-mortems, he placed his police pass carefully so that the hospital’s parking attendants could see it. After he was buzzed in, Bill waved him into his office and leaned over to switch on the kettle. Sadler was surprised at how long it had been since he had sat inside that small room. For years they had taken tea and discussed the results of the pathologist’s work, but since Connie had joined the team he hadn’t once set foot inside the building. Connie and the pathologist had, in layman’s terms, ‘hit it off’, although what the genial but slightly grumpy doctor had found in common with the spiky and very grumpy Connie Childs eluded Sadler.

When he had been handed a large mug of steaming tea the pathologist started.

‘Toxicology results are back from the lab on Yvonne Jenkins. Nothing other than the large amount of diazepam and vodka that she used for the overdose. Not that I was expecting anything else but I thought you’d want to know. I’ve reported the results to the coroner and I expect him to release the body for burial fairly soon.’

‘So it looks like suicide?’

‘She died of an excess of diazepam in her body which, combined with the alcohol, proved fatal. She went to sleep and never woke up. It’s not a drug I like particularly. Nasty reputation. People die accidentally, but in this case it looks like it was deliberate.’

Sadler drank his tea and winced. ‘Jesus, Bill, I’d forgotten you like it strong.’

The pathologist grinned. ‘It’s not just coffee that you can make strong, Sadler. This tea’s just like my mother used to make. Coats your innards orange.’

‘Well, you would know.’ Sadler put his cup to one side. ‘So you’ve got me all the way down here and now you’re being coy. What did you find out about Penny Lander?’

‘Penny Lander. Well, that turned out to be an interesting PM. The body, as you know, wasn’t in a bad state. The covering of leaves and snow to some extent mitigated exposure to the elements. As I said to you
in situ
, there was clear evidence of a ligature around the victim’s neck. A thin but strong rope. My best guess is a guy-rope. Any of the camping shops around here would sell them for tents. It’s gone off to the lab for analysis.’

‘So she was strangled?’

‘The rope caused compression of the carotid arteries which resulted in a lack of blood to the brain.’

‘And this was the cause of death?’

‘Exactly. However, I haven’t got you down here to tell you that. What I saw at the scene, and was confirmed during my examination, was evidence of manual strangulation as well.’

‘You mean . . .’

‘There were finger marks around the victim’s neck, consistent with what I’d expect from throttling.’

Sadler massaged his temples. ‘So Penny Lander was throttled first?’

‘Which caused a compression of her airways – I can see from the damage to the larynx. She would have suffered what we call “air hunger”, a frightening sensation of lack of breath.’

‘The damage to the larynx wasn’t because of the rope?’

‘Well, of course the rope caused damage too, but this was on top of the initial injuries caused by the hands of the attacker.’

‘So Penny Lander was overpowered through manual strangulation and then the rope was used to kill her. You sure it was that way round?’

Bill Shields shot him a look. ‘I’m sure. Do you want me to go over—’

Sadler raised his hands. ‘Sorry.’

The pathologist looked mollified. Connie clearly could handle Bill better than he could.

‘So that’s why I called you down here. I’ve got evidence of two types of strangulation: manual and ligature. The first to overpower the victim and the second to kill.’

The pathologist took a sip of his tea.

‘I think I’m basically looking at my first case where the victim was strangled twice.’