An Unhallowed Grave (15 page)

"She must have said what she'd been doing before she came to Stokeworthy."

"I really can't remember. She had office skills but I think she'd been looking after an ageing relative, something like that. Sorry I can't be more help."

"Did she ever talk about her life before she came here?"

"No ... no, come to think of it, she didn't."

"You asked for references, I take it?"

"I must have done." He held up a hand as if he'd just had an idea. "It might be in the files. If you'll bear with me ... Dr. Jenkins disappeared into a back office where the practice paperwork had been neatly filed away by the dead woman. Her death could well throw the system into chaos, something the good doctor was only just beginning to realise. He returned holding what looked like a letter. "There was this. A reference from a Rev. Geoffrey Willington up near Bromsgrove. He said she'd done some work for him and he'd found her efficient, pleasant and helpful. As I recall she gave me his address and I wrote to him ... one can't be too careful if one doesn't know somebody."

"Of course. Do you mind if we keep this, Doctor?"

"Help yourself." The doctor sat in his swivel chair, looking suddenly lost. "Oh dear, the patients will start to arrive in ten minutes." He looked up at Wesley in desperation. "I suppose my wife could fill in until I find someone. I'll have to ring her. This is all such a shock. She was hanged, you say?"

"Strangled, then hanged from the yew tree in the churchyard," said Gerry Heffernan brutally. "Not a nice death."

The doctor, now lost for words, shook his head. The two policemen exchanged looks. It was time to leave the amiable medical man contemplating mortality. They thanked him and politely took their leave.

"Tell you what, Wcs," said Gerry as they left, passing the first of Stokeworthy's sick and wounded to turn up in the waiting room, "I wouldn't mind a word with this Rev. Willington. Where did he live again?"

"Bromsgrove, sir."

"Ever been to Bromsgrove, Wcs?"

"Can't say I have."

"Well, they say travel broadens the mind," the inspector said cryptically as they walked back to the village hall.

Coffee was incidental: Pam had found that out in the first ten minutes. Most of the women at Charlotte's coffee morning (Pam never discovered her surname) came from the well-heeled end of Tradmouth. The only other woman not sporting designer labels was a quiet, dark-haired librarian called Anne. She and Pam instinctively teamed up, each one recognising a likely kindred spirit. Anne's baby, Laura, wore, like Michael, an outfit that had been reduced in Mothercare's last sale; the other babies were colour fully kitted out by more exclusive establishments. Financial standing begins to be displayed at a very early age.

Pam and Anne were only starting to get to know each other -exchanging backgrounds and details of work to be returned to when their maternity leave had run its course when Charlotte announced that the morning's entertainment would begin. A woman called Hattie, who owned Tradmouth's most exclusive designer boutique, held out a videotape in her beautifully manicured hand, saying that they should all see how idle and unreliable girls were nowadays. She'd sacked the girl, she said, as soon as she'd seen the tape and replaced her with an Austrian au pair who was lovely apart from a slight personal hygiene problem.

It wasn't until the tape had been running five minutes, accompanied by giggles and whispered shhh's from the small audience, that Pam understood the significance of Hattie's words. The tape showed a young girl who didn't look more than seventeen, sitting in a sumptuous lounge, her feet up on a gilded coffee table, reading a magazine. In the background a toddler scampered round the long, expensively draped curtains, playing a solitary game of hide-and-seek. The young woman was ignoring him, and the child's assaults on the curtains became steadily more violent. The child began to whine, then shout, but the girl merely threw out an unfocused "Shut up' and returned to her magazine. Hattie then leaped forward to wind the video on, assuring the audience that "It gets worse'.

The tape began again. This time the scene had changed to a large and luxurious kitchen, with units that Pam estimated would have cost her a full year's salary ... at least. The young woman was there again, this time spooning some glutinous substance into the mouth of a young baby sitting in a high chair. The toddler was once more clamouring for attention and knocked the spoon out of her hand. The girl responded by giving the child a sharp slap across the face, his shocked cries setting off his baby brother. The two bawled in harmony for half a minute before the girl, having had enough, left the room. Once alone, the toddler picked up the food-caked spoon from the floor and climbed up onto the kitchen table, from where he fed his brother inexpertly but with a touching display of sibling concern. Then the tape ran out.

"See what I mean?" said Hattie, indignant. "If I'd known the way she treated them I'd have got rid of her ages ago. Thank goodness Chloe told me about the video surveillance." She looked at another expensively dressed woman with studied gratitude.

"How did you arrange it?" Pam's curiosity gave her the courage to speak.

"A place in Morbay. They specialise in surveillance. They planted four hidden cameras around the house ... ever so tiny. Marvellous, really. Lets you know exactly what's going on when you're not there ... at a price, of course."

"Of course." Pam wondered what other sorts of surveillance were available, and whether the police were aware of this service. Maybe she would mention it to Wesley. "Is it legal?" Was her next question.

"As far as I know. It's your own house, isn't it? An Englishman's home, and all that. Why? You're not married to a policeman, are you?" She laughed at the thought.

"As a matter of fact I am." Something in Hattie's tone had made her hackles rise.

"So we'll have to watch what we say, will we?" Hattie looked round at the others for support.

It was at that moment that Michael began to cry, and for once Pam was grateful to her son for causing a disturbance. "I should get him home. He's ready for his sleep." She didn't feel comfortable: she wanted to get out of that room and its cloying atmosphere, a heady mixture of well-powdered babies and expensive perfumes.

"I must go too. I'll walk back with you." It was Anne who spoke. Pam shot her a grateful look. Anne, by happy chance, lived just three roads away from the Petersons. Ten minutes later, the babies safely installed in their prams, the two women strolled back up the steep streets to the top of the town.

"Have you got anyone to look after Laura when you go back to work?"

"I'm back already part time. My eldest's just started school, so my child minder taking Laura. She's a lovely lady ... very motherly. Only lives on Victoria Road. What about you?"

"I haven't started looking seriously yet. I suppose I should. I've been putting it off. Has your child minder got any vacancies?"

"Not that I know of... but I'll ask for you."

"Thanks. What did you think of the coffee morning?"

"I went to quite a few coffee mornings when I had my eldest and I used to enjoy them: I made some good friends. But that lot..."

"I know what you mean. What about that video?"

"I know." Anne turned to look at her. "Is your husband really a policeman?"

"Yes. A detective sergeant. Why?"

"I thought you were just saying it to wind that Hattie up. Fancy coming back for lunch? Nothing fancy ... just a sandwich."

"That'd be great."

Pam walked with her new-found friend back through the narrow streets, their prams two abreast. But somehow and she wouldn't admit this to Anne, not on such a short acquaintance -she couldn't get the sad images on the video out of her mind. She looked down at Michael, now sleeping innocently. Something, she told herself, would have to be done.

The first person Wesley Peterson encountered on his return to the incident room was Rachel. She was waiting impatiently for Steve Carstairs to finish a suggestive conversation with WPC Trish

Walton, who was perched on the edge of a desk showing a considerable amount of black-stockinged l
eg.

"How did you get on with the doctor?" she asked Wesley.

Wesley smiled. "Same story. Pauline Brent was a nice lady with no enemies."

"She had one ... and he killed her," said Rachel simply.

"Are we sure it was a he? On the other hand I can't see a woman setting up that hanging, can you?"

Rachel shook her head. She hated to admit, especially when Steve Carstairs was in the vicinity, that there was anything a man could do which a woman couldn't. But the sheer strength required to haul a body about would be beyond the average woman. "Unless she had help, of course," she said as Steve appeared round the corner, shooting a resentful look at Wesley. "We're off to see Charles Stoke-Brown, the artist over at the old mill. I think that painting on the mantelpiece at the Sweetings' house is one of his. I recognised the style."

Wesley looked impressed. "I didn't know you were interested in art." Their eyes met and she smiled shyly.

"Come on," snapped Steve, impatient to be away.

Rachel said nothing more but walked out of the village hall behind Steve, turning to give Wesley a small smile of farewell.

Wesley returned to his desk and began to sort through the pile of paperwork witness and house-to-house statements, pathology and forensic reports. He was looking for something anything -that would refocus his mind on the death of Pauline Brent. Overnight several reports had come in of Lee Telford being sighted in the area. He had been seen in a nightclub in Morbay, a chip shop in Neston and aboard a yacht in Tradmouth harbour. The boy on the yacht later proved to be the owner's son, and the other sightings were inconclusive as the boys in question had disappeared before the uniformed officers turned up. As was normal in a missing-person case, there was a lot of activity that was leading nowhere.

Rachel and Steve found Charles Stoke-Brown in his studio wearing a paint-stained shirt, his grey hair tied back in a neat ponytail. He greeted Rachel with a charming smile but ignored Steve, who hovered in the background like a surly dog, growling the occasional question.

The artist confirmed that a small picture had indeed been stolen on Friday night. He gave a description of the oil painting which matched exactly the one that graced the Sweetings' mantelpiece. Gaz Sweeting had some more questions to answer.

They were about to leave when the artist touched Rachel gently on the shoulder. "Do you know, yours is just the face I've been looking for ... to paint. It wouldn't take long ... just a couple of hours. Say you'll think about it."

Rachel, for once lost for words, nodded. Charles Stoke-Brown gave her a dazzling smile. She found it difficult to maintain an expression of professional detachment ... but she just about managed it.

As they took their leave, however, Rachel noticed that an uneasiness, a subdued quietness, was clouding Stoke-Brown's charming amiability. Something was worrying him. She had a feeling that there was more to the matter than the simple theft of money and a small painting.

Gaz was in. His mother opened the door grudgingly, wearing a thin cheap satin dressing gown. Her son, she said, was still in bed. He didn't work ... couldn't get a job there was nothing round here for a lad of his age. He had been on some youth training scheme, she explained, but hadn't worked since. "There's nothing he fancies," she stated indignantly. Rachel made no comment but wondered where the money for the drugs came from.

As Mrs. Sweeting disappeared upstairs to wake her son, Rachel told Steve she proposed to take him back to Tradmouth for questioning. "If they broke into Stoke-Brown's studio," she explained, 'it might not be their first burglary. I think we might get a result here."

Steve flexed his shoulders. Action at last. This is what he had joined the force for.

Half an hour later they were sitting in an interview room at Tradmouth police station. Rachel, to Steve's annoyance, had summoned Wesley over from Stokeworthy to conduct the interview with her. Steve had said nothing, but Rachel could tell what he was thinking. He returned to Stokeworthy, keeping a lookout for the two young girls who seemed to be showing such an interest in his charms.

Wesley and Rachel sat next to each other in the green-painted interview room, Gaz sitting opposite with the bored-looking duty solicitor, a tall, pale man in his late twenties who looked as if he'd rather be elsewhere.

"We know where this picture came from." Wesley produced the small painting, now shrouded in plastic as it had become a piece of evidence. "You broke into one of the studios at the old mill on Friday night, didn't you?"

"It weren't my idea ... it was Lee. He said he knew the bloke -the painter was out. He said it'd be easy."

"And was it?"

Gaz nodded.

"How did Lee know this bloke was out?"

"Dunno. He never said."

"What did you take?"

"Some cash ... about forty quid. This painting. It was small, see, and I thought my mum'd like it."

Even the worst villains, thought Rachel philosophically as she listened, were reputedly good to their mothers. "Anything else?" she asked.

Gaz looked sheepish, as if making a decision of an embarrassing nature. After a few seconds' silence he spoke. "There were some photographs. They were in a drawer near the money. They were of this woman with no clothes on."

"And you took them?"

"Yeah ... just for a laugh."

"Where are they now?"

"Lee had them."

"Did you recognise the woman?"

"Oh yeah. It was the one who was murdered ... it was Pauline Brent."

An hour later Gerry Heffernan stood at the door of Charles Stoke-Brown's studio, the bag containing the small painting clutched in his large hand. He looked at Wesley triumphantly. They were getting somewhere at last. The artist was quick to answer the door. He stood aside meekly to allow them in, almost as though he had been expecting them. Wesley looked around the studio, noticing the painted coat of arms that hung on the far wall. He had seen it somewhere before but he couldn't, for the moment, remember where.