Slipknot (14 page)

At seven-thirty that evening, just as she was putting a chicken Caesar salad on the table, she heard a knock at the door and opened it to Alex Randall. ‘What a brilliant surprise,’ she said

He hesitated. ‘Sorry for coming unannounced,’ he said, looking oddly bashful. ‘But I was passing and…’

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘No – don’t worry, I love it when people drop by. Are you hungry by any chance? I’m just about to put tea on the table.’

‘Yes. It so happens I am. Ravenous.’

‘Then I’m glad I made a bit extra.’

He followed her into the kitchen where Agnetha and Sukey were already tucking in. Martha fished out another knife and fork from the drawer, introduced Alex to her daughter and the au pair who at least did stop eating for a second to say hello. Unlike Sukey.

‘Tuck in,’ Martha invited, handing him a plate and the bowl. ‘Truth is I haven’t really got used to Sam’s not being here and I invariably cook too much.’

‘His loss is my gain,’ he said. ‘Caesar salad’s my favourite. Particularly when it has both chicken and bacon in it and a nice, strong sauce.’

‘Mine too.’

‘Yeah,’ Sukey said grumpily. ‘We have it about twice a week.’

Alex turned towards her. ‘So what’s your favourite then?’

‘Lasagne with salad,’ Sukey said firmly.

‘And yours, Agnetha?’

‘I think poached salmon,’ Agnetha said. ‘The wild ones not the farmed ones.’

‘Can you taste the difference?’

‘Of course, Mr Randall.’

‘Hmm,’ he said dubiously.

They spent the meal eating voraciously (Alex had told the truth when he had claimed to be ravenous) and ragging each other good-humouredly. As soon as they had finished Martha left Agnetha and Sukey to fill the dishwasher and led Alex into Martin’s study. She didn’t want them hearing what he might have to say.

Alex settled down in the upholstered leather library chair. ‘This is comfortable,’ he said. ‘A real man’s chair.’

Martha nodded. ‘It was Martin’s favourite.’ She waited for the familiar stab of pain but this evening it did not come. She waited but it was gone. A memory only.

‘Would you like a whisky or something?’

He sighed. ‘Better not. I’m driving. Set a good example. Anyway I thought you’d want to know where I’ve got to with my investigations. The two prison officers are both on their days off,’ he said. ‘Back tomorrow. I thought I’d call round first thing in the morning. I could pop over to your office at lunchtime and let you know what they said.’ He looked around the room. ‘Was this Martin’s study?’

She nodded. ‘Sukey and I are going to revamp it,’ she said. ‘It’s
a much nicer room than my study which is an old dressing room – almost a corridor and a bit dark. This overlooks the garden and is really lovely all the year round. There are views out the back, straight into the woods. We’re going to do the whole lot, new furniture, new curtains, strip the walls, sand the floors.’

‘You’re moving on?’

She nodded. ‘It’s time, Alex. We all need to move on. Agnetha, Sukey, Sam and me too.’

‘So,’ he said, smiling. ‘That’s good. That’s what people should do in life. Move on. If they can.’ Something crossed his face and she thought to herself what an enigma he was. She knew so little about him. Almost nothing.

‘Now to the other business. The flowers. We’ve made enquiries at the florist’s. They’re from a woman, Martha.’

‘A woman?’ She couldn’t have been more astonished.

‘Yes. A woman. She paid in cash.’ His face broke into a smile. ‘You can take some consolation from the fact that you don’t come cheap. They cost forty five-pounds.’

She felt a snigger. ‘And now Mrs Palfreyman has them and according to Jericho is going to suspect him of having an extramarital.’ She mimicked Jericho’s Shropshire burr.

They both chuckled for a moment. Then Martha asked a leading question. ‘Did the florist give a description of her?’

‘Yes. Young, late twenties, early thirties, brown hair, slim build, pale complexion. Dressed in combat trousers and an olive green beaded jacket. Nicely spoken. No regional accent and the girl didn’t know her. Does it fit the description of anyone you know?’

Martha shook her head. ‘I can’t think of anyone specific. Which shop was it?’

‘The florist’s at Harlescott. The one opposite the bus station.’

Martha knew the place. It was avant-garde, fashionable, selling twigs and orange bulrushes, long blue feathery plants and terracotta pots. She’d ordered bouquets from there herself, tempted by the buckets of blooms which always stood outside, on the pavement, which was a convenient pull off point being wide enough for parking.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I simply don’t understand. The hints and suggestions must be all connected. The message is always the same – message for Martha.’ She could feel her face freeze. ‘It didn’t feel like a threat from a woman.’

‘Well there’s no law against sending flowers, you know. Perhaps you’re reading too much into it.’

‘But the other things, Alex?’

‘It wouldn’t count as stalking until they’ve crossed the line into intrusion.

‘It’s a matter of degree and it has to get quite oppressive before you can take out an injunction against them. The whole thing would be very public. And the idea of a threat coming from a woman would make you seem—’

She could imagine. ‘Either a dyke or a wimp who couldn’t cope with a bit of attention from a small, young, gentle female. She wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. And I’d get no sympathy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So that’s why you wanted to come here rather than in the office where Jericho’s ear seems to pick everything up.’

Again he nodded, his eyes fixed on hers and she felt helpless. ‘But the voices I heard. It wasn’t a woman. It just wasn’t. I know.’

‘But Martha, the flowers came from a woman. This seems a gentle, female message rather than overt, physical threats.’

‘But it is someone who bears a grudge against me?’

‘I don’t know. No – more like someone wanting you to see things from their point of view.’

‘But how can I when I can’t understand what it is that they’re trying to say?’

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘It’ll become bolder. In the end they will expose themselves. Otherwise there is no point to it.’

She exploded into laughter. ‘Well that I don’t relish, a young woman exposing herself.’

He laughed with her again. ‘I will ask the bobbies on the beat to keep an eye on the florist’s shop but if she’s any subtlety about her she won’t go there again but to one of the other florist’s. And that’s assuming she pursues the flowers theme. Next time it might be something else.’

Like a noose around a dead mouse’s neck?

Alex stood up and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Wait and see. That’s my advice. I don’t think you’re in any danger.’

And that, Martha thought, was the traditional trick of the stalker, to appear innocuous. They appear so right up until they are ready to strike.

Alex was as good as his word. The following morning, a little after eleven, he called round to Martha’s office with transcripts of the two prison officers’ statements.

Walton Pembroke’s first.

‘Callum Hughes arrived at Stoke Heath at a little after ten o’clock in the evening of the 6
^th
of September. He seemed quiet, a bit frightened, not aggressive. Doctor Delyth Fontaine
had seen him the evening before and pronounced him fit for detention. He’d been allocated cell 101 and seemed a bit nervous of his cellmate. We introduced them.’

Martha rejected the silly vision of a formal introduction, ‘Tyrone, this is…’ followed by a public school shaking of hands. More like the back treatment and a couple of grunts. Maybe, when the screws had left, a bit of eyeballing. And then the vicious kick to show Callum Hughes what he could expect if he did not toe the Tyrone-line.

She continued reading.
‘When we called in a few hours later, at eleven o’clock, he was a bit panicky and we allowed him out to walk along the passageway to reassure him. We took him back to his cell about ten minutes later. When we called in at twelve he was fast asleep, like a baby, and we left him. At six-thirty a.m. the next morning his cellmate pushed the panic button and we found him hanging. He’d used some computer wire and looped it round the side of the bed. We cut him down but he was well dead.’

There was nothing there. Martha met Alex’s eyes. Silently he handed her the other statement.

She started reading.

‘Callum Hughes arrived at Stoke Heath at a little after ten o’clock…’

In essence it was identical. Practically word for word.

Alex Randall was watching her, chewing his lip.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is a coincidence. At least no one can accuse them of telling different stories. Their perception of events that night correspond. Better than most witness statements.’

Silently he nodded, his dark eyes watching her with that
same faintly worried frown and she knew he was not one hundred per cent happy about this either. She tried to flush him out.

‘Do we suspect collusion?’

‘Could be,’ he said cautiously.

‘Did you talk to Tyrone Smith again?’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. He didn’t give anything more away.’

‘There’s something here,’ she said, her eyes drifting across the sheets of paper. ‘There’s something wrong.’

‘Are you playing policeman again, Martha?’

‘Could be,’ she said, equally cautiously. ‘Oh, come on, Alex,’ she appealed. ‘There
is
something odd here. For a start we have no satisfactory explanation of the bruising either on Callum’s chest or on his face.’

He lifted his eyebrows.

‘Something’s not right,’ she said, picking up the phone. ‘I’m going to talk to Mark again. I’m not happy, Alex. And until I feel we’ve reached the truth I will not release Callum’s body for burial.’

‘Well that’s your prerogative,’ he said. ‘But I hope you’re sure.’

This time it was she who queried his words. ‘Well, what I mean is, all along you’ve had some sympathy with this boy.’

‘I see him as a victim.’

‘But I don’t,’ he said. ‘I see him as a—’

She supplied the word. ‘Psycho?’

‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘not that but in the end he was a
killer and DreadNought was the victim. Hughes might have been a frightened youngster who lashed out through fright but in the end he was still a killer. Talk to Mark,’ he said, ‘by all means but I don’t think he’ll take you any further on in your quest. The boy was a killer. He struck a fatal wound. And in the end, even if Gough was a bully, he didn’t deserve that.’

‘No. I agree.’

‘Good.’ Randall smiled. ‘So at least we agree on something.’

She felt her face relax. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I think that in this case it’s simply that our perspectives lie in slightly different directions.’ She stood up. ‘And Alex, by the way, thank you for enquiring about the flowers. I do appreciate it.’

‘You feel better now?’

She nodded. ‘Much.’

She might feel better, she reflected, as she closed the door behind him, but she was twice as puzzled.

When Alex Randall had gone she picked up the telephone, reached Mark Sullivan’s voicemail and left a message asking him to telephone her office first thing in the morning. As she did so she crossed her fingers that for once he would be
stone-cold
sober to consider her questions in his best, most intelligent, most dispassionate, pathologist’s mind.

But Martha was not one to lie and wait, bleating like a tethered goat at the foot of a tree. Before she went to work on the following day she arranged for electric gates to be installed at the bottom of the drive and CCTV cameras to cover both front and back of the house. She rang the burglar alarm
company and asked them to come early to service the system. At the same time she rang and asked the farmer to check on all the fences.

This done, she felt a measure more secure.

And now she felt a prisoner in her own home.

She was at her desk a little after half past eight in the morning having spent a sleepless night, filled with uncomfortable dreams of boys fighting. For some reason she was imagining it all ways, simple schoolboy scuffles, young soldiers at war, boys on the football pitch. Sam, Callum, Roger Gough all morphing into one surprisingly threatening boy. At three a.m. she got up, made herself a cup of decaffeinated coffee and went back to bed to drink it, knees hunched up, a dressing gown over her shoulders. Something was bothering her, sneaking up from behind and then hiding when she turned so she couldn’t see it clearly – only the very hint of a glimpse of a shadow, some moving light which vanished when she tried to see it more clearly. Something was not right. But she didn’t have a clue what it was. And she was worried about Sam. He had seemed different when she’d seen him, distant and in her heart she knew he had moved on, without her mother’s circle.

She finally dropped off to sleep for what seemed like seconds and awoke to a cool, grey morning, damp with the moisture of autumn, and a thick mist which hung lazily over the ground, shrouding grass and driveway alike so the trees looked as though their trunks vanished into cotton wool.

It seemed an uninspiring morning. But one wish, at least,
was granted. At a quarter past nine her phone rang and Jericho put a breezy and sober Mark Sullivan through.

‘Martha. Morning. I got your message. What can I do for you?’

‘Mark, you’ll have to help me here. It’s about the Callum Hughes case.’

‘Thought it might be,’ he said, suddenly testy and guarded.

‘Alex has re-interviewed the two prison officers who were on duty the night he died.’

‘Yes?’

‘Their statements are identical – word for word. Suspicious in itself.’

‘Depends on your index of mistrust. Maybe that is what actually happened.’

She ignored the hint. ‘There’s no mention of any sort of fracas that would explain the bruising on Callum’s shoulder and the back of his chest. I’m really not happy to release the body for burial, Mark. The boy was young, vulnerable and in custody. He’d never made a suicide attempt before. The custodial system is therefore responsible and we have a duty to make sure that justice has been done. His mother wants a full enquiry. Can you help me here, Mark? Do you have any ideas how the bruising might have occurred?’

‘You’ve an explanation for the shin injury? That was the true assault. The others were just minor bangs.’

‘Oh yes. Callum’s little cell mate decided he’d put one on him – more or less to teach the critter a lesson as far as I can gather.’

Mark Sullivan gave a barely audible groan. ‘I guess that happens plenty along the line. But Martha I can’t always think
up an explanation for bruising on a body, particularly when I can’t be absolutely sure whether they were inflicted just before or even just after death occurred. He might have banged into the side of the bed as he was hanging or swung around in a death throe. All I can say, Martha, with certainty, is that this bruising was minor. It did not cause his death. He simply stopped breathing, due to the ligature round his neck. There were clear marks of asphyxiation. You saw the post-mortem findings yourself. The distribution of the lividity was exactly as I would have anticipated; the congestion and sub pleural petechiae in the brain and other major organs are also wholly consistent. There’s nothing that puts any doubt in my mind that this was death by a suicidal hanging.’

‘You misunderstand me, Mark. I’m not questioning the mode of Callum’s death. I merely want some explanation of the bruising – apart from that around the neck.’

Sullivan gave a doubtful, ‘Hmm. I don’t have your need for such detailed explanations,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m concerned the bruises were caused by something blunt and probably happened a little while before his death so it could be anything. Even your little friend, Tyrone.’

‘I can’t think why he would have confessed to a more serious injury and deny a couple of thumps.’

‘Perhaps his feeble brain thought if he confessed to two assaults it would indicate a more sustained attack which in turn might have been the key that unlocked Callum Hughes’s suicide-wish which would have implicated Tyrone Smith even further. He might even have thought it could lead to a charge. It’s even possible he could have shoved Hughes hard and not even considered it an assault so felt he had nothing to confess
to. Come on, Martha’, he said, suddenly impatient, ‘you know what these young thugs are like. Illogical to say the least.’

‘Yes.’

But according to everyone, even to Smith, he had been knocked out by his sleeping tablet.

This time it was Martha who wanted to groan. How could you progress with a case when you believed everyone could be lying?

The prison officers?

Both of them?

One covering for the other?

She couldn’t rule it out. Her instinct was that between them Pembroke and Stevie Matthews had roughed the boy up – just a little. And if that were so she would say something when she wound up the inquest. Something about a culture of bullying inevitably leading to tragedy. It would be expected that she would make some comment about better supervision for young offenders.

She ended the conversation with the pathologist and put the phone down.

There was something else that seemed untidy when she would have preferred something a bit neater.

Although Shelley Hughes and her son had been close, the boy had ended his life without leaving any sort of note to her. There had been no final farewell to his mother. No reassurance that he was all right.

She found it hard to work that morning.

It was the morning she had set aside to fill in her annual audit figures for the National Statistics, a chore that she usually found interesting, looking at the epidemiology of disease throughout North Shropshire and comparing it with other parts of the country.

She worked for an hour or more, accepted a coffee from Jericho and bent her head back over the figures.

It made grim reading. She sighed, sat back from her desk, glanced at her watch. It was still only twelve o’clock and she’d finished her morning’s work. And now she felt restless and fidgety. She needed to do something. On impulse she lifted her mobile phone from her bag and dialled her best friend’s number.

‘Miranda,’ she said when it was answered. ‘What are you doing for lunch?’

Her friend’s voice was muffled and she could hear traffic in the background.

‘Just going into the hairdresser’s, my dear, but I’ll be free in an hour. And in answer to your question nothing and I’m already starving.’

They arranged to meet at one at The Peach Tree, a modernistic restaurant opposite the old Abbey, which served the best lunches in Shrewsbury.

She still had an hour to kill, so she turned her attention to the revamp of Martin’s room. He had had an eye for good, antique furniture and in his study there was a walnut secretaire, early Victorian, full of leather bound legal books, which Martin had treasured. She’d decided to keep the books in case either Sam or Sukey wanted to head for the Bar but she
didn’t want the furniture. She’d never liked it. The trouble was it was probably worth quite a bit of money. Martin had acquired it soon after they’d bought their first house, at a country house sale in Gloucestershire and it was heavy and very good quality. In the room was also a pair of leather upholstered library chairs, early nineteenth century, which were also worth something and a William IV rosewood library table which she’d also never liked, quite unfairly, on account of it having bulbous legs.

Martha had considered putting them in the local saleroom but when she had made enquiries she had learned that on top of the purchase price there was a buyer’s premium, which held values down. Perhaps, she thought, it would be easier if she invited a local dealer round to value them. Then, if the price was right, she could sell them to him and he could transport them away.

It seemed too easy a solution.

She parked outside the Abbey, walked past Gay Meadow, sad now that the football ground, which had been in the same place since 1910, was to move. There was something exciting about having it on the edge of the town; it involved all the townsfolk. She wondered if the atmosphere would be lost when the football ground was more remote. She smiled at a recollection an old man had told her. In its early days the football ground had not been enclosed and the River Severn, being nearby, received many a ball. So Fred Davies, in his coracle, was entrusted with its retrieval and the resumption of the game. Wisely a fence was finally erected around it and the game was no longer halted by Fred’s slow paddle in his coracle. It might have been sensible but from then something
of the essence of this old town’s history was lost for ever. The river had its naughty side too, flooding the pitch whenever it rose and putting paid to any match. Perhaps it was better the ground was moved.

She crossed the English Bridge and started to walk up Wyle Cop. Just before she reached the Period House Shop she peered through the window into the small antiques shop she’d first noticed a year ago. As she’d hoped Finton Cley was in there, on his own, sitting on a settle, smoking what looked like a Sherlock Holmes meerschaum pipe. She pushed the door open. He grinned at her, unsurprised.

‘Martha Gunn,’ he said, in a mocking tone. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I think I might have some stuff to sell.’

‘Think?’ he queried, ‘Stuff? What does it depend on and what is it?’

‘I’m redecorating my husband’s study. I have a few pieces.’

‘Ye-es?’ He blew out a waft of smoke.

‘A library table.’

‘Wood?’ he asked without taking the pipe out of his mouth.

‘I think it’s rosewood. Probably William the Fourth.’

‘Know how much you want for it?’

‘I’ve an idea,’ she said.

‘Anything else?’

‘A double-heighted secretaire. Walnut. Victorian, with a glazed front. The leather inside is original and in nice condition. I don’t think it was used much as a secretaire.’

‘They never were,’ he mumbled, removing the pipe from his mouth now and studying it closely before putting it back in his mouth. ‘Awkward things. They don’t look right closed and
there’s something clumsy about them open. The drawer looks too big. Mistake of a piece, I always think. Still. Always worth a look. Anything else, Martha Gunn?’

Why did he always smile when he spoke her name? As though he knew something that she did not. It intrigued her and annoyed her in equal quantities.

She’d deliberately saved the best till last. ‘Two leather upholstered armchairs. I’m pretty sure they’re earlier. Regency. Chippendale – or at least one of his disciples. I think they’re what you call Cuban mahogany. They’re very heavy and on brass casters and the wood is dark with a distinctive shade of red.’

He gave out a whistle. ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘They sound nice. When can I take a look?’

‘Whenever.’

‘Tomorrow evening?’

‘Fine.’

She gave him directions to the White House and he promised to come at six.

She just had time to nip up to Appleyards and buy some olives stuffed with garlic to set out before supper. And then was tempted by a display of French cheeses which reminded her of long ago camping holidays with Martin and the then tiny twins, picnics of French sticks and cheese with tomatoes followed by
pain au chocolat
which they had devoured greedily, leaving only crumbs in the grass. She gave a sudden smile at the thought of Martin, hiking, with one twin on his back, knowing she was a mirror image.

She walked quickly back down Wyle Cop with its precarious-looking black and white Tudor buildings, Henry
Tudor House – where Henry VII had stayed the night before his fight with Richard III at Bosworth field – and the Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury’s old coaching inn. In such an ancient town it is impossible not to feel that every step you take you are treading on history.

Miranda was already seated when she arrived at The Peach Tree. It looked bright and pretty in the autumn sunshine and she had chosen a seat right in the window, overlooking the Abbey, still with its ragged wall marking the spot where the cloisters had been – until Henry VIII had sacked the monasteries, dispersed the monks and demolished their quarters.

Miranda’s hair was looking immaculate which reminded Martha it was time she ran the gauntlet of another visit to her hairdresser, Vernon Grubb. Miranda had glossy, blonde hair which she had always worn in a Sixties bob, just reaching the chin. It had gone in and out of fashion but wisely Miranda had never altered it: not colour (suspiciously), not length, not style, always with a swept aside half-fringe. It suited her. Martha could not imagine her with any other hairstyle. Sometimes she tried – and gave up.

Her friend half-rose and kissed her cheek. Miranda had been a medical student friend of hers, had attended her wedding – as she had attended hers. They had been close for what seemed like for ever. Miranda had worked in Public Health, had two children, seemed idyllically happy married to Steven. And then a year ago, at the age of thirty-five, she had found herself pregnant again. Through the Alpha Feta protein test it had been discovered that the child had Down’s syndrome. And then slowly, Miranda’s seemingly enviable and
perfect life had begun to unravel. She and Steven had quarrelled bitterly. She had wanted a termination while he had objected, not even through religious belief and, privately, Martha had thought it was simply that he disbelieved the evidence. He could not accept that any child of his could possibly carry a defect. The rest, as they say, was history. Miranda had had the termination, Steven had left her and, embittered, had tried to brainwash the two children that their mother had murdered their baby sister. It had been a cruel thing to do and looking at her friend’s face Martha thought that she seemed to look older than her thirty-six years in spite of the slim figure, the tight jeans, black high-heeled leather boots, skilful make-up and glamorous hair. The artistic clothes had the effect of drawing attention to her friend’s strain.