In Bitter Chill (17 page)

Charles Needham rocked on his heels. ‘Mair Price. I’m not likely to forget her in a hurry. There’s a woman you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.’

Rachel smiled genuinely this time. She’d heard that Mair had been a tartar. Well, good for her.

‘Have you heard anything more about the murder up at Truscott Woods? I wondered if the police were keeping you informed.’

The smile left Rachel’s face. ‘Nothing. And I don’t think it’s anything to do with me.’

‘I don’t think so either,’ said Charles robustly. ‘Bugger all to do with you, in fact.’

‘What makes you say that?’ She looked over at Richard who was clearly furious with the interruption.

‘The woman came to see me the week before she died. Barking mad, she was. Asking me all about my parents.’

‘Mrs Lander, you mean? You saw her the week she died?’

‘Could hardly help it, could I? Walked up to my front door, banged on it and asked what role my parents had with the old Bampton hospital.’

‘What did she mean?’

Charles Needham rocked on his heels. ‘No idea. She wasn’t making much sense to me.’

‘And had they been involved in the hospital?’

‘How the hell should I know? My mother had her finger in every pie going, so if she was on some hospital committee I wouldn’t be surprised. But what the hell it had to do with me, I don’t know.’

‘Were you born there?’

A furtive look came into the man’s face. ‘None of your business, you nosy bitch.’

‘Now, you look here . . .’ Richard had risen and Charles stepped back in surprise, blinking at the man who matched him for height and bulk.

‘Come on, Charles, you’ve got a pint waiting for you here,’ shouted one of his friends from the bar.

Hitching up his trousers, Charles Needham walked back to join the group.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ Rachel felt sick, as she often did when things turned nasty. Richard had sat down and looked angry.

‘I think we should go. I need to get back to the office.’

Rachel stood and picked up her coat. As she shrugged it on she glanced over to the bar where Charles Needham was talking to his friends, gesticulating expansively as he told his story. Something or other about a dog who had gone down a foxhole. And all the time, his eyes were on her.

Bampton’s main church stood on the top of the hill overlooking the town. As neither of Sadler’s parents was religious, it wasn’t a place he was familiar with, although he had attended a handful of weddings and christenings there over the years. This was his first funeral in the building. The church’s spacious interior, a throwback to the days when people regularly attended church, made a mockery of the handful of people who had turned up to attend Yvonne Jenkins’s funeral.

Why have a church service at all?
thought Sadler. Who had made the decision when surely a plain graveside ceremony would have been sufficient? Perhaps it was the officious-looking priest whose monotone intonation was making the interminable service seem even longer. Connie was sitting next to him, shivering. Her gaze was fixed on two women who occupied the second pew from the front. Both were tall and dressed in black.

The service ended and a small, stooping woman was the first to follow the priest as he led the congregation out of the church and into the attached graveyard. The church had been cold but was nothing compared to the biting wind that met them as they left the porch. The crowns of the yew trees that ringed the perimeter of the churchyard bent in an arc towards them, their pungent aroma scenting even this wintry day.

‘Jesus,’ he heard Connie mutter. One of the mourners turned to them with a frown.

Sadler was discomfited. He had assumed that after the funeral, the cortège would be heading towards the large cemetery on the outskirts of Bampton and had parked his car to ensure that he could get away quickly. He hadn’t anticipated attending the burial as well.

He pulled on her sleeve. ‘We don’t need to go to the grave, do we? Let’s get back.’

She looked freezing but shook her head. ‘I want to watch those two.’ She nodded at the women who were making their way towards the newly dug grave.

‘Who’s the old woman who sat at the front?’ he asked.

‘A neighbour. She’s mad as a hatter. Don’t get into a conversation with her.’ Connie’s eyes were still on the other women.

‘And those two? The women you’re staring at.’

Connie glanced at him out of the side of her eyes and smirked. ‘The one on the left, the manly looking one, is Dorothy Cable. She’s the organiser of Penny Lander’s book club. She never mentioned that she knew Yvonne Jenkins, though.’

‘And the other?’

‘Bridget Lander. Penny’s sister-in-law.’

They had reached the grave. Bridget, sensing their scrutiny, was now, in turn, watching them. Her gaze was neutral but direct. She kept her eyes on them as the coffin was lowered into the grave.

After a final prayer, the mourners began to drift off. Sadler was desperate to get into the warmth of the car but took the lead from Connie, who remained watching the two women. Bridget Lander came across to them.

‘I always hate funerals. You get to my age and their frequency increases considerably.’

‘Did you know Yvonne Jenkins?’ Connie was clearly in no mood for niceties.

‘Not as such. We saw her around town, of course. And everyone knew who she was. But I didn’t know her personally.’

‘Then why are you here?’ Connie’s tone remained polite but determined.

Bridget directed her answer to Sadler. ‘She died at around the same time as Penny. We’re not going to be able to bury her for a while yet. It seemed important that we marked their deaths somehow.’

‘You think the two deaths are connected?’ asked Connie. The woman ignored her.

‘Did either Penny or your brother know Yvonne Jenkins?’ Sadler was merely curious but her reaction was a surprise.

‘My brother? What’s he got to do with it.’ Sadler sensed that she was angry and he couldn’t understand why. Underneath her pale skin, a few red blotches appeared, working their way up her neck.

‘It was just a question.’

His mild tone mollified her slightly. She stepped away from them.

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

She walked away from them, her rigid body giving little away.

‘She didn’t like it when you mentioned her brother,’ Connie noted.

‘No.’ He pulled out his phone from his pocket and switched it back on, waiting to see who’d been trying to contact him while he was at the funeral. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Me? I’ll go back to the station and see what’s happening there. What about you?’

‘I need to talk to Rachel about what Roger Saxton told me.’

‘You think it’ll be a surprise?’

‘I’m not sure. She’s a difficult person to read.’ He turned to her. ‘It was good work on your part, matching up all those certificates. I hope you didn’t mind me following it up.’

She gave him a look and turned away. ‘I’ll be off, then.’ And then smiled.

He was forgiven. After checking for messages, Sadler scrolled down his phone and retrieved the number Rachel Jones gave to him at their first meeting.

‘Could we get together for a quick update? Nothing formal. Perhaps we could meet in a cafe?’

The connection was bad and her reply muffled. At first Sadler thought that he had misheard her. ‘Sorry. Can you repeat that?’

Her voice was clearer this time. ‘How do you feel about meeting at Truscott Fields?’

Sadler felt a jolt of shock. ‘You want to go back to Truscott Fields?’

She sounded defensive. ‘I was there this week but I met someone I know and didn’t spend as much time there as I’d intended. I’d like to go back. The only thing is I’m in Bampton without the car. It’ll take me about twenty minutes on foot. Shall I meet you in the car park – we can go for a walk.’

Sadler was momentarily stunned. Here was a woman whom Llewellyn was asking to be treated with kid gloves and she was suggesting that a meeting with a police officer took place at the scene of not only her kidnapping but that of a recent, possibly connected, murder. Sadler thought that it was about time that he revised his opinion of Rachel Jones.

‘Fine. Twenty minutes it is.’

Connie walked down Bampton High Street and glanced at a shop window which had a display of pans and other kitchen equipment artfully arranged. The funeral had left her exhausted and she had plenty to think about. But window shopping relied on nothing more than unseeing eyes, safe in the knowledge that she couldn’t afford much anyway. Her new flat had a modern kitchen. Not gleaming chrome or anything flash, but modern enough for Connie’s assortment of plates and saucepans that she’d collected over the years to be woefully out of place. She needed to treat herself to some new stuff on her next payday, although the price of the ‘iodised aluminium’ saucepan set in the window made her wince. She became aware of steps behind her; sounds which she suddenly knew were keeping in time with hers and stopping when she did. She carried on walking briskly and then stopped suddenly in front of a building society. A man with curly black hair careered into her. She looked up at him.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

He looked both shocked and disapproving at Connie’s language.

‘You following me?’ she demanded, and now the man’s face flushed a red hue. He was a blusher like her. Good. But his powers of recovery seemed to be better.

‘DC Childs? I’m Nick Oates from the
Daily Mirror
. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about the case that you’re currently working on. The murder of Penny Lander. Can you give me an update on your progress?’

She turned away from him and started walking quickly down the street. ‘You know the score. There’s another press conference scheduled for tomorrow. You’ll get an update then.’

‘But you’re not telling us anything that we don’t already know. You know how it is – we’re one step in front of you. Can’t you give me something else?’

Now she stopped and faced him. ‘Yes, I do know how it is and you do too. I can’t give you anything because my boss would have me served up on a platter if I did. You know what the score is. We’ve even had a directive from the Home Office. All the way from London up to us in Derbyshire. Stop those flirtatious drinks with journalists and keep your mouths shut about current investigations. So you can stop following me down the street for a start. I’m not going to be able to tell you anything.’

He carried on walking next to her. ‘Do you think I’m flirting with you, then?’

Connie sighed and stopped in her tracks. ‘Look . . .’

‘Do you know that Penny Lander had said she was scared of someone in the weeks leading up to her death?’

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘She told the next-door neighbour. Number fourteen. Alan Barnett was cutting his hedge and he saw Penny Lander come out of the house and jump out of her skin when she saw him. They’d lived next door to each other for years and she said something along the lines of “my nerves are on edge”.’

‘Is that it? My own nerves are constantly on edge, it doesn’t mean that I’m scared of anyone.’

‘If you’d let me finish. Are all policewomen like you?’

‘Detective. I’m a—’

‘Anyway. She went back into the house muttering something along the lines of “it’s not you I’m scared of”.’

Connie did some rapid thinking. Barnett should have told this to the uniforms who’d questioned the neighbours following Penny Lander’s death. Either it’d been missed or this clever journo had wheedled it out of a man who’d been intending to keep quiet about things. ‘That it?’

‘How much do you want? Were you aware of her being scared of someone?’

‘Jesus. She was strangled twice. I’d be scared of someone if I thought that fate was coming my way. You’ve got nothing for me.’

‘Strangled twice? What do you mean?’

Shit. He was in the right profession. Furious with herself, she pulled her handbag closer to her and made to walk off. The journalist reached out and laid a hand on her sleeve.

‘
Look, can you give me anything? You know what it’s like. Anything would be better than nothing. What do you mean when you say she was strangled twice? How’s that possible?’

Connie thought about all the people she had interviewed and how little she had discovered. They were concentrating on the murder of Penny Lander when what she really wanted to do was dig right down into the past. But there was little time and precious public funds needed to be accounted for down to the last penny. She looked at the man. He was about her age. Good looking, if a bit drippy. Probably well educated and now dumbing down while working on the tabloid. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

He looked surprised. ‘Nick. Nick Oates. Look, I know—’

‘Never mind about that. Is there somewhere we can talk? Maybe you can help me but you tell no one about this, OK?’

‘There’s no point giving me information if I can’t use it.’ She could hear it now. That public-school accent she came across now and then. Sadler didn’t have it. She knew his background was far, far wealthier than hers. But he had a neutral accent to match his measured way of speaking. Perhaps he had worked at it. But this man standing in front of her, Nick, with his scruffy jumper and clipped vowels, might have been wearing his old school tie because he was so clearly from a different class to her.

‘What I tell you, you can use to
infer
,’ she laid stress on the word, ‘the direction of the investigation. You’ll get no hard facts from me. I like my job and I intend to keep it. But I can’t do everything and I’m interested in the past. In the old case.’

‘So you are linking the two.’ He was excited now and his curly hair flopped about as he shook his head. ‘You think the two cases are connected.’

‘Three,’ she corrected him. ‘Look, is there somewhere we can go that’s private but not compromising, if you see what I mean?’

He looked across the road. ‘What about the cinema?’

Sadler waited at the entrance to Truscott Fields, glancing occasionally in the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of Rachel Jones. She finally came into view, her tall, stocky figure loping down the path towards his car. What must she be thinking? As a young girl, she’d run barefoot in the opposite direction, towards the road. But her gait was confident in the mirror. Sadler opened the car door and got out to meet her approach. Rachel’s dark hair was hidden under a hat and she was stylishly dressed with jeans tucked into long boots teamed with a black felt jacket.

‘It’s not changed at all.’

‘Here?’ Sadler looked around him. ‘No, I suppose you’re right. It’s always looked the same to me. I came once or twice as a boy.’

‘Before or after the kidnapping?’

‘Almost certainly before. I don’t remember coming here after the event. It’s funny,’ Sadler turned and started walking towards the woods and she followed him ‘. . . but I was talking to my sister about the kidnapping recently. We all have our different memories of that time and, if you put them all together, you would get about five different scenarios, any of which may or may not be correct.’

They had reached the entrance of the woods and Sadler made a ‘shall we or shan’t we’ gesture. With an incline of her head, Rachel assented and they entered. They walked in silence as the path, at first welcoming and commodious, narrowed and thickets of long spikes shot up from the ground making walking treacherous. When it got so that they could only walk in single file, Sadler stopped.

‘Rachel, I need to ask you something about your father.’

‘My father?’ She turned and stared at him in surprise. ‘He died before I was born.’

‘Did your mother ever talk about him?’

Rachel seemed lost for words. ‘What’s all this about? Of course she talked about him. Not much and especially after the kidnapping hardly at all. But she did talk about him sometimes.’

‘What did she say about him?’

‘That he was young when they met and she got pregnant just before they were married. And then before I was born he died.’ She stared at him, angry. ‘You’re not trying to pin this on him, are you? He’s definitely dead. I’ve got a copy of the death certificate. He died in 1970 of pneumonia.’

Sadler laid a placating hand on her arm. He saw her flinch. ‘I’m trying to tie up some loose ends.’

‘Well, there’s nothing loose about my father’s life. He was born, got married and died. In genealogical terms it’s the bare bones of our life.’ She started to walk away, still angry, further into the woods. ‘None of my family were responsible for my kidnapping.’