Embroidering Shrouds (15 page)

‘Now sit here on the floor', he ordered, ‘and I'll take all the tension out of your neck.' Which he did, his long fingers probing the muscles until they finally relaxed.

She leaned back against him. ‘Busy day for you too?'

‘Not so nice. The pile-up on the M6 yesterday.

Whole family. Multiple injuries.' He paused, then added tentatively, ‘Jo.'

She was instantly alert. She knew that tone in his voice.

‘Eloise will be here in a day or two,' he said. ‘I suppose it's too much to hope you'll eventually become friends …'

She leaned back into his forearms. ‘Don't suppose anything, Matt,' she said. ‘Eloise will be here. That's all.' Only to herself would she pose the question, how would they weather it? And the usual answer – stormily.

They went to bed half an hour later. Despite the traumas of his day Matthew slept well. But she did not. She was often like this during an investigation, her mind restlessly probing the darkest corners of the case. Before she and Matthew had lived together insomnia had not mattered, she could pad around the house making endless cups of tea, working things through, alone. Now she had Matthew to consider. She did not want to disturb him. She did try to sleep, or if not to sleep to induce that trance-like state which allowed her brain to consider the case from all angles, but it was hard. She found herself rejecting the idea that any of the old women involved in the case might be deliberately lying. But, she argued with herself, why should they be exempted from normal, human weaknesses because they were old, and like the very young we find ourselves blessing them with clichéd, idealized characters?

Yet they could be worse. Nan Lawrence had done more than lie; it was almost certainly she who had orchestrated the vicious assault on her one-time friend.

Florence Price was almost certainly a liar; she'd spent the gas money on other things and lied to gain public sympathy. Someone would pay – had paid – her gas bill. She'd gambled and had won – so far. Jane Vernon had deceived but for different reasons. But as she lay motionless in bed Joanna acknowledged that this was only half of the story, the other part was even more obscure. Why on earth had Cecily Marlowe protected the villain who assaulted her? What did she have to gain? Or was she simply shielding him through fear of further attacks? Had he threatened her so successfully? But Nan Lawrence was dead now. Surely she had nothing to fear?

Joanna sneaked another look at Matthew; he was curled in the foetal position, his back towards her. He moved his legs slightly, muttered something unintelligible and gave a little snore; he was in deep sleep. Her restlessness would only disturb him.

She rose as gently as she could, threw a towelling dressing gown on, knotting the cord around her waist and throwing her hair out of her eyes, then she tiptoed downstairs and brewed up a cup of tea. She had an idea, an old idiosyncrasy from when she was a child, disturbed from sleep by her parents' noisy rowing. Taking the tea with her she sat, cross-legged, in front of her cabinet of china figures. She never had liked dolls as a child, preferring instead her aunt's collection of Victorian Staffordshire pottery. More real than dolls, they had always meant something to her. Knowing this, when the aunt had died, she had bequeathed Joanna the entire collection, more than forty figures. Joanna still loved them. She had used them before as a focus to aid concentration when a case was more a puzzle than a certainty.

It was hard to say what the attraction of the figures was, certainly there was something simple, unpretentious, naive almost, that simultaneously inspired and reassured her. Perhaps it was the sense of permanence hanging over from that most powerful and stable of periods – Victorian England. Whatever it was, she could see in the pieces so much more than crude clay figures. She could see the entire spectrum of personality: good, evil, simplicity, complexity, naivety, deceit. She turned the key and opened the glass-fronted cabinet, and as had happened many times before her fingers selected a piece that seemed to bear some relevance to her current case, an old lady sitting on a rocking chair, the lettering beneath describing it –
Old Age.
How very appropriate. She studied it closer. Quite cleverly the potters had portrayed the archetypal old woman: grey-haired, bent-backed, wearing glasses. It could have been any old lady – Nan Lawrence or Cecily Marlowe, Florence Price or Emily Whittaker. Joanna frowned. That had been their mistake from the beginning of the investigation. They had lumped all the old ladies – all the cases – together, when they weren't the same at all. Each crime was individual as were the women themselves.

Joanna peered closely at the figure. So which one was this really? Nan Lawrence, of course. The old lady was knitting as Nan had incessantly stitched away at her tapestry, a church cloth, according to Christian. Joanna fingered the figure. Pottery, soft as soap, lifeless and cold. It was not the most attractive piece in her collection –
Old Age
– a dull subject, drably painted in grey and brown with none of the splashing blues or reds, none of the daring of Dick Turpin, highwayman, none of the adventure of Will Watch, smuggler, or the romance of Nell Gwynne, king's mistress. It was merely a quiet portrayal of old age, an old woman sitting peacefully, rocking in her chair as Nan Lawrence had done until –

‘Jo.' Matthew was standing in the doorway, naked to the waist, black pyjama trousers, bare feet, tousled blond hair catching the light. ‘Jo,' he said again, ‘can't you sleep?'

She shook her head.

He moved closer and drew her to him. ‘Is it Eloise?'

She smiled. How typical that Matthew should believe her inability to sleep was due to the thing he was responsible for when she was investigating a murder.

She held up the figure to him. ‘No,' she said. ‘For once it isn't Eloise.'

‘Good.' He pushed her hair away from her face and kissed her gently. ‘By the way, I almost forgot, she'd have killed me. There was a message on the answerphone. Caro's coming up tomorrow – today.'

‘Oh?'

‘Doing something on rural crime, a series of articles that's been commissioned by
Country Life,
comparison stuff, I suppose.'

‘
Country Life?
She's doing well, coming up in the world. I only hope the little worm wriggling on the end of the line isn't this particular case. I have a feeling there are about to be some hefty twists before we have any idea who killed Nan Lawrence.'

He was halfway up the stairs before he picked up on her statement. ‘I thought it was just a bludgeoning by a couple of over-enthusiastic, thug burglars.'

‘I wish,' she said. ‘But I think there's a bit more to it than that.'

‘Come back to bed', he said, ‘and sleep, Jo. Sleep without dreaming.'

‘If only.'

6.45 a.m. Thursday, October 29th

Lydia's hand wandered towards the antimony box again and found another photograph: a plump young woman with her hand trustingly linked to another's, a young man with fair hair, staring, strained and anxious into the camera. She smiled at the picture and brushed it with her fingertips, recalling long ago days when she had touched his face in a similar fashion.

‘David,' she said. ‘Oh, David.'

One glance at Mike's set face told her his domestic situation was unchanged. They reached her office before he exploded. ‘She is a vicious old –'

‘M-i-ike.' His face was thunderous. It brought it home to her that soon it would be her turn to have an unwelcome guest.

‘Hide like a friggin' rhino,' he continued. ‘You'd think she'd have the nous to realize she's outstayed her welcome.'

Joanna shrugged.

A little of the mischievous Mike peeped out. ‘Kids found a couple of snails in the garden yesterday,' he said. ‘Popped them in the old dingo's bed.'

She joined him laughing. ‘I think it would take a bit more than that to rid me of Eloise.'

He gave her a hard look. ‘You shouldn't cast yourself in the role of wicked stepmother, Jo. It doesn't suit you.'

‘It isn't me doing the role selection.'

‘When's she coming?'

‘Tomorrow or Saturday.' She knew Matthew had been deliberately vague as to her arrival.

Then she remembered Caro. ‘Oh, and a friend of mine's coming up from London. You remember Caro, the journalist?'

‘I remember her, skinny thing with sharp features.'

‘You could call her that. Does she intimidate you?'

‘Not her particularly, I'm just wary of all journalists. By the way, Jo,' Mike's eyes were gleaming as he scanned a note lying on top of her desk, ‘Craig Elland was let out of prison on July second.'

She grinned back at him. ‘Good.' She stood up. ‘So, let's get round there and wake him up.'

Two cars were standing outside the semi on Blackshaw Moor. A Peugeot 205, red, like Joanna's own but a year younger. The other was far more flashy, a gold Vauxhall Tigra, last year's registration. It looked like Craig was home.

Out of habit Joanna checked the tax disc on the Tigra. In date, everything in order. Maybe Craig Elland had learned his lesson, or he was being careful.

Marion Elland opened the door looking older and more weary than before. ‘What have you come back for? It's early. We're hardly up.'

Both Mike and Joanna knew she was perfectly aware of why they had returned. Her eyes were already drifting towards the staircase. Young Craig, it appeared, must still be in bed, snatching some beauty sleep.

‘You'd better come in,' she said, moving quickly into the sitting room and closing the door behind her. A man of about fifty was sitting on the sofa, reading the paper. He stood up as they entered. ‘Hello,' he said guardedly. ‘I'm Ralph Elland. What seems to be the problem?'

Joanna introduced herself and Mike and watched Mr Elland Senior's face darken. He and his wife both wore the same tired, world-weary air. Life with their son at home must be hard. Joanna addressed Marion Elland who was wiping reddened, soapy hands on her apron. ‘As you already know, we're investigating the murder of Nan Lawrence.'

Marion gave a swift, despairing glance at her husband as though pleading with him to reassure her. Joanna could almost guess her thoughts word for word.
No, not this too. Not murder. Not of someone so old, so defenceless.
Fights outside a nightclub were one thing. This was another.

It was time to winkle out the truth. ‘Mrs Elland,' Joanna said quietly, ‘did you have a key to Spite Hall?' Marion looked struck, her face crumpled, and suddenly she seemed twenty years older. And Joanna knew she had already faced this fact herself.

‘Ralph.' She appealed to her husband.

‘Of course she has a key,' Elland said brusquely. ‘She has to get in whether the old bat's there or not.'

‘And where do you keep it?'

Again Marion looked at her husband to supply the answer.

‘In her purse.'

‘Which is?'

This time Marion Elland looked around the room, homed in on a shabby black handbag and nodded. ‘You want me to ...?' She picked it up and fished around the bottom until she found a worn leather purse, opened it and handed a Yale key threaded with blue embroidery silk to Joanna. ‘This is it,' she said.

Joanna knew Mike's thoughts would echo her own. The key would be useless for fingerprints, there was not enough of a flat surface. ‘You always keep it in your bag?'

Marion Elland nodded warily.

‘And you leave the bag lying around the house?'

Again a weary, wary nod. She had been here before. In her worst nightmares.

‘Did you take this handbag to church with you on Sunday morning?'

‘No,' almost a whisper, ‘another one.'

He could have removed it at any time after it had last been used and returned it at his leisure. She would not have needed to use it, by the time she might have inserted it into the lock of Spite Hall Nan Lawrence had been long dead and her attentions as home help replaced by scene-of-crime officers. She would probably not have checked whether it was still in there and to acknowledge that she would focus suspicion on this household.

‘We'd like to speak to your son.'

‘He's in bed asleep.' Again a swift, worried glance at her husband.

No such delicacy from him. Ralph Elland strode towards the door, flung it open. They heard his heavy tread on the stairs, the sound of voices, angry voices, arguing.

More steps returning and the door was flung open. Mike was big but Craig Elland almost dwarfed him. Mike's muscles were formed by hours at the gym, pumping iron. Craig's bulk was the result of food, plenty of it, almost certainly supplemented as Cumberbatch had observed with liberal helpings of anabolic steroids. He stood more than six feet high, shaven head, huge arms decorated with tattooed snakes along their entire length. He was dressed in judo pyjamas, crumpled white with a black belt, and he was glaring at them.

Joanna gave him a wide smile which he returned with suspicion. ‘Craig Elland?'

‘Cops,' he said disgustedly, ‘smell ‘em a mile off.' Mike was treated to a jutting chin and clenched fists. Joanna to a hard, appraising stare.

‘That's right, Craig. We are “cops”. And I think you've had a bit of experience of our profession.'

‘I'm clean now.'

Joanna smiled to herself. They all were. She recalled a visit to a prison years ago and the officer turning to her, smiling. ‘This here is the only place in the world where no one's done anything they shouldn't and everyone's a hundred per cent innocent.' Of course Craig was clean now. As clean as a skunk sprayed with perfume.

‘What's this about anyway?'

‘We're investigating the murder of Nan Lawrence.' Joanna was slotting pieces together in her mind.